The Student Room Group

Why do people criticise Bankers?

I'm not a banker nor due do I have any affiliations with Bankers.

Mainstream media seems to have a field day criticising the bankers who earn over £100k, have houses in prestige boroughs and drive nice cars. To normal people they are demi-g-ds who are selfish, corrupt and do not deserve the money, and it's this view I can't help but challenge.

Most Bankers (especially aspiring) work hard their entire educational lives through school and then university, literally grinding for as much internships as possible. When an IBD eventually hires the individual they may work an average of 18 hours a day as an analyst, and even at a senior level more or less. The work is often daunting and for many of them social life's are practically impossible. Often they may even help to make the ordinary person richer by acquiring funds for all types of businesses which in turn will create large economic growth.

After all this I can't see why people detest bankers. Even from a leftist perspective the value of their labour i.e. qualifications, work hours etc = validate the wages they receive. Unfortunately having to quote DM 4 bankers have committed suicide this week alone.

Am I the only one that thinks this?

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Reply 1
People who harbor contempt for the banking profession just don't understand what bankers do for us. In its' pure form, banking is an industry which allows one to leverage the value of their potential. Without banking our professional value would be limited to our actual net worth.

Would you rather set your financial limitations on your realized success or your potential to succeed?
Reply 2
Because they control the nation's money supply. When you control that you have some serious power and influence. Just look at the Rothschild banking empire, Goldman Sachs, the FedRes, JP Morgan. They rule the world.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 3
Original post by Martyn*
Because they control the nation's money supply. When you control that you have some serious power and influence. Just look at the Rothschild banking empire, Goldman Sachs, the FedRes, JP Morgan. They rule the world.


I'm not talking about CEOs but normal workers.
Reply 4
Original post by Acidy
I'm not talking about CEOs but normal workers.

You mean people at the booths? I've never heard of anyone bashing them before.
Reply 5
Because the public own the banks, or some of them. They got bailed out by the public so that they didn't collapse due to their own careless lending/borrowing.

Then they go and give massive bonuses to their top tiers for essentialy messing everything up.
Reply 6
People detest bankers because of their greed which was a major cause of the banking crisis. Having massively high interest rates to entice people, selling debts to other banks, enticing people to take out loans and to use credit cards. It all came crashing down when people could no longer pay back their debts. It was of course also the public's own greed that was also integral to the credit crunch, but people generally blame the bankers for encouraging their customer's greed in the name of satisfying their own greed. And while the public only lost money, the bankers walked away with nice bonuses.
Reply 7
because they are jealous
Because, the way the public sees it, bankers profited from a culture of deception which resulted in six years of global misery, and continue to do so.
Original post by Acidy
I'm not a banker nor due do I have any affiliations with Bankers.

Mainstream media seems to have a field day criticising the bankers who earn over £100k, have houses in prestige boroughs and drive nice cars. To normal people they are demi-g-ds who are selfish, corrupt and do not deserve the money, and it's this view I can't help but challenge.

Most Bankers (especially aspiring) work hard their entire educational lives through school and then university, literally grinding for as much internships as possible. When an IBD eventually hires the individual they may work an average of 18 hours a day as an analyst, and even at a senior level more or less. The work is often daunting and for many of them social life's are practically impossible. Often they may even help to make the ordinary person richer by acquiring funds for all types of businesses which in turn will create large economic growth.

After all this I can't see why people detest bankers. Even from a leftist perspective the value of their labour i.e. qualifications, work hours etc = validate the wages they receive. Unfortunately having to quote DM 4 bankers have committed suicide this week alone.

Am I the only one that thinks this?


I completely agree with you. People hate them because the media only show the 'good side'. For example, a CEO with his bonus and a nice car. And the media have scape-goated the whole banking industry as causing the crash as some kind of trading floor maniac gambling machine. Most people don't even realise that most business doesn't even involve any of that. And securitisation, which caused the crash is actually a very small division relatively speaking to the whole entire bank.

They never show the guys who have no social lives, sacrificed their whole educational careers/younger years, pulling multiple all-nighters, multiple illnesses/mental illness caused by excess stress/exhaustion and so most people have no idea what the job entails.

An MD told me at the investment banks, only 1 in 200 will last more than eight years.

The recruitment process is more daunting and exhausting than most people's actual jobs.

It is worth noting though that following that intern dying, a lot of banks have introduced new policies to allow bankers to have at least one day off. However, this is awfully flawed because all that happens is rather than working 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. You're now working 18 hours a day Sunday-Friday with Saturday off. Nonetheless, any banker will tell you it's not the hours that kill you but the unpredictability of those hours.

Just reading across this forum, I can tell that almost everyone has no understanding whatsoever of what a banker has to go through or what the purpose is of them or what they do. Politicians and the media play on the lack of understanding and ignorance.

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(edited 10 years ago)
One more thing, the issue with bonuses at RBS at the moment is very difficult.

You have a situation where the bank is going to make a massive loss: £8 billion with a large chunk of that loss being caused by legal fees/other issues caused by people who no longer work for the bank.

So, the logic is that you don't pay bonuses?

But what people miss is that banks are huge with so many divisions. So a banker in division X who has generated £50 million this year is not going to sit there and say 'Oh, I understand. The bank as a whole made a massive loss caused by someone else. I won't take my bonus even though I exceeded expectations'. The banker will expect a bonus for the revenue he has generated because that's the tradition - you get a share of the profits. It's not the fault of bankers if they have proper incentive models. Other companies and industries can choose to pay their employees a share of the profits they generate, they just don't. Anyway, my point is, the guys who caused the loss will not get paid a bonus, the only guys who will get a bonus are those that generated revenue. They are not going to sit there and not take their bonus because a pile of legal fees caused by someone else caused the bank to make a loss overall when their division was extremely profitable. Why? Banking is an extremely fluid industry and people do jump from bank to bank like there is no tomorrow. RBS have a major retention problem at the moment when you have other banks offering higher pay and the prospect of not being slagged off by the public and other bankers because you work for the **** bank which everyone thinks is finished. Other institutions are just dying to clear up and eat up that market share and take bankers and their clients towards them.

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(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 11
Bankers enslave countries with debt. This is a crime imo we need an Islamic banking system. Wait not even that a Christian banking system just anything to replace our current one.
I'd say the media is quite moderate in its criticism tbh. They tend to limit it to stuff like saying bonuses are too high for 'failing' bankers and that's about it. But I'd say what a lot of people don't like is that it's seen to be a hugely lucrative industry based on what people see as deception and or exploitation.

From a historical point of view, this is pretty typical; there are hardly any historical societies in which public opinion of bankers/money-lenders wasn't a negative one.
Reply 13
Original post by matt_g96
because they are jealous


You might like to know that money is not the main life goal of some people.
Jealousy, most probably. I would find it rather quite flattering.
Reply 15
Original post by Kontraband
just anything to replace our current one.


P2P banking?
Reply 16
Original post by Pegasus2
You might like to know that money is not the main life goal of some people.


it may not be the main goal, but it is extremely difficult to not have obtaining money as a priority in life. obviously some people won't be driven by money, but everyone wants it.
Original post by matt_g96
it may not be the main goal, but it is extremely difficult to not have obtaining money as a priority in life. obviously some people won't be driven by money, but everyone wants it.


Money isn't necessarily the main goal of bankers either. Some just enjoy it and are passionate about what they do, especially the seniors - the money is just a bonus. They like the achievement and challenges it brings.

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There is absolutely no evidence at all that bankers have ever helped anybody other than themselves become "richer".
Original post by Old_Simon
There is absolutely no evidence at all that bankers have ever helped anybody other than themselves become "richer".


Lolz, what about all that taxation? I guess that didn't help anybody, how silly of me. I guess all that extra consumption didn't create a load of jobs either.

I also guess all that providing financing, retail functions, liquidity, raising capital on the markets for companies and facilitating M&A deals, investing pensions creating jobs and helping the economy grow didn't help anyone either.

Sure, securitisation and one class of product (CDO) screwed the economy up but don't tarnish all bankers under this brush as actually very few relatively speaking worked in that division, and let's face it, securitisation is hardly booming at the moment. Also, let's be honest, bankers were hardly the only ones responsible (see credit rating agencies, politicians, central bank, regulators, investors and individuals). A lot of banks and regulators were misguided by credit rating agencies with regard to the risk a bank actually held.

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