Are banks evil? Yes, say the Reds!

Some great stuff went down in the Comments section of the Herald On Sunday a few weekends ago.

But aside from one readers' foulness, CEO of the New Zealand Banker’s Association Kirk Hope’s response to Matt McCarten’s piece of two weeks ago caught my eye.

McCarten’s Out of Leftfield took aim a banks for being thieves and crooks and suit-wearing, coin-gobbling fleecers. He stopped short of calling all bankers Jewish money-lenders.

Either way, it was typical, whitewashed, coma-inducing rhetoric from the Left.

Although Mr. Hope’s reply missed the point that New Zealand, although not flawless, was protected by regulation, his defence of the retail banking sector is superb and necessary to educate the boring Leftists.

Just like the Glass-Steagall act in the US divided up retail banking from the more risky investment banking (the amoral mechanics of which brought on the economic crisis we now live under), commentators and journalists would do well to separate out the two forms in their arguments.

To berate banks willy-nilly and label their directors as ‘fat cats’ is bland and boring criticism that can be reneged easily by people like Kirk Hope.

McCarten believes the “banking system around the world is in a state of crisis that is almost bringing capitalism to its knees,” and yet despite a few scandals, investment arms of major US banks are still allowing massive bonuses, and corporations are influencing the democratic process like never before.

One only need look at the SuperPAC format that will see Barack Obama amass close to $1bn for his ‘war chest’.

Or perhaps when McCarten goes to write his next column, he will use pen and paper rather than the laptop or PC that modern capitalism has produced and allowed him to use.

Further, he believes that the housing crisis and subsequent sub-prime mortgage debacle was a “crime” when in fact, it simply wasn’t. The inability to hold certain members of society to account for preying on the poor is large part of the injustice that is giving energy and motion to protest groups the world over.

The death knell of capitalism? Probably not.

On a more personal note, and a sign of McCarten’s inanity, he goes after the “expensive suits” running the “megabanks”. As a man who wears a jacket and tie to work almost every day, I ask him this – what on earth has that got to do with anything?

Until somebody on the Left finally chirps up with some practical ideas and solutions to the economic crisis (are you listening Cunliffe?), then it will be complaints like this one til Kingdom Come.