John Lanchester on banks in the LRB

There is nothing new in this, but the number of shady episodes that Lanchester reminds us of, and the quality of his writing, makes it well worth a read.

7 replies on “John Lanchester on banks in the LRB”

Good read. Thanks.

The banks “treated their customers purely as an extractive resource.” …..puts government and taxpayer into my mind. Democracy has been badly damaged. The “common good” is no longer a central priority of government.

fyi from Occupied Greece

Tough Talks in Athens: Greece Expects a Second Debt Haircut

Greece is expecting a second debt haircut from its European creditors following the German election, the country’s economy minister said on Tuesday. First, though, Athens must prove that it has done enough to receive the next tranche of badly needed bailout money.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/bailout-talks-in-athens-as-greece-says-it-expects-more-debt-relief-a-908959.html#ref=nl-international

God help us. Can it really get any worse? And who the hell was pleading that if we (citizen taxpayers) failed to save these crooks, our sky would fall in? That the world financial order would collapse? It might well have indeed. But at least these crooked institutions would be gone. Creative destruction? Depends I suppose.

Thanks for the reference. See also a Michael Lewis piece (about the Lanchester book) in NY Rev of Books: March 7th 2013.

Has the website locked today?

i can see Kevin O’Rourke’s recent post on ~ ‘Why we need Economic History’, but only that, there are no other options, neither to comment on it or anything else. i only got to here by clicking on his name, and then going to his next most recent article. There must be a bug in the system somewhere?…

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