The Onion has spoken up on the banking crisis. Without stepping on the joke too much, this ain’t how it is. There would appear to be six or so different standards for loaning money, and one of them is not that your local banker cares about you. Actual loan policy includes: your credit rating is high (which says about as much about you as the SAT measures intelligence), or you are on the list of the kinds of people that the bank’s predatory practices are aimed to go after that week. Or, you have so much money that you don’t need it. In any event, here is a visit to The Onion‘s paracosm; their fantasy world where bank officers has to call his mother because the loan applicant’s plan to open a stationery shop is so touching. Were it so.
2 thoughts on “And in banking news”
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Shanna was on the phone with me the other night, describing these huge banks as corpses. They are holding companies that have no actual product, no values, no purpose except to serve their own ends, which they apparently do terribly. I have accounts at two different banks that were bought by Bank of America – Fleet (the old Norstar) and Wa-Mu (one company I was happy to see get swallowed; even some of their customer service representatives I’ve talked are rank assholes). For its part, Bank of America makes banking between out of state branches harder than crossing the Canadian border with an assault rifle. Forget about the executive bathroom at BOA that cost more than five times the annual Planet Waves budget, and the waste basket that cost more than a weekly edition. Notably, these are the least of their problems.
Now, what to do about this scam is another story.
It so happened that early this morning, my memory was flashing back to a tiny little stationary store with wooden counters, the smell of copying paper, creaking wood floors, an elderly owner and a very cute young assistant. This was in Europe, 40 years go, and I don’t think I ever thought of this store since that time.
The banking thing is so much huger than anyone can imagine.