Matt Stoller found this corporate PR video extolling the virtues of working in banking. A classic example of the Upton Sinclair saying, “It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Some striking elements:
1. Notice how wonderfully diverse this group is
2. One of the speakers mentions how he helped people in 2008, which of course by implication means that that is true of the industry overall. Perhaps we can coin the expression “Pyrrhic aid” based on this clip: “One more like this and we are utterly undone.”
Now in fact the people in this segment look to be low level, front line retail bankers. And all may indeed be entirely blameless. But that is an accurate picture of this field. You have to stick to low level staffers to find individuals with clean hands.
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Seriously lame video.
Banks are not in business to “help customers”. They are in business to help screw them out of as much money as possible.
Sad but true.
which speaks to my longtime definition of “capitalism”:
screw as many as you can for as much as you can for as long as you can.
Mind if I look under the hood?
ourfinancialfuture.com has a blind domain registration that doesn’t let you see who is behind the organization.
The website was launched by another organization, The Partnership for a Secure Financial Future. The phone number on the website (202) 589-1927 is used by at least two other organizations, one of which, Agents4Change.com, has ties to BIPAC. Greg Lowman is listed as using the same phone number on a BIPAC flyer in 2011. Richard Fawal of The Financial Services Roundtable (fsround.org) used the same telephone number in an Executive Summary Bulletin.
Who is The Financial Services Roundtable?
The top executives are from Allstate, Wells Fargo, and RBS.
Here’s the bio for the CEO, former Congressman Steve Bartlett
Mr. Bartlett has had a major impact on legislation, including Gramm-Leach-Bliley, E-SIGN, the 2001-2003 Tax Cuts, the Fact Act (FCRA), Class Action Reform, consumer bankruptcy reform, regulatory reform and TARP.
History
Google Steve Bartlett. You won’t be disappointed. For instance, in The Nation…
Good work.
+1
We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.”
– Bill Clinton, USA Today on 3/11/93
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years… It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
– David Rockefeller, Bilderberg Meeting, June 1991 Baden, Germany
Clinton has been disastrous but I challenge the authenticity of your quotes.
The quote by Clinton is cut off.
“can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles,” President Bill Clinton championed the federal “assault weapon” (AW) and “large” ammunition magazine ban, and signed it into law on Sept. 13, 1994
The second is disputed.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Rockefeller
If i may be audacious for just a moment, I would like to offer my own
antidote du jour…
Mojo Nixon performing his insta-classic, “I Hate Banks”.
Check it out…
googled..bugs bunny and banks..
http://youtu.be/DCFIAidTeV8
Somehow this brings to mind another ad campaign, “It’s a Man’s Life in the British Dental Association.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6tAW7bbnAU
This looks like the new micro-finance campaign for what’s left of America.
These folks are the exemplar of T.S. Elliot’s Hollow men. They run the systems, they follow rules, the don’t care about right or wrong only following the system, conforming to the IT system requirements, they pass the background check and then cavalierly hose you in so many ways–audit the small business man, deny benefits, and conduct job interview which are mini inquisitions–why did you take 4.5 years to graduate, why were you late on amex in 2003, I see you have a gap in employment, rules is rules. But hey, the hollow men are all diverse now–we now have hollow women, and gay hollow people. now thats progress
I had rather be in the drug and narcotics business than be affiliated with financial mafia who gives the Capone Chicago mafia a bad name.
Nothing but a din of thieves at best.
Bartlett is a low life ass kissing pos. These are his good traits.
“I’m proud of working for an insurance company as front line employee because I get to interact with their customers”.
Seriously? You’re happy to interact with people to give them bogus reasons of why they will not receive compensations? Being a front line employee for an insurance company must be one of the worse jobs ever (likely not in terms of salary though), with the policy these companies have apparently of fighting you all the way for any claim above a certain amount, you must get screamed at for many hours every day…
“Financialization” of the economic system. We no longer make anything, we charge fees for various financial “products”.