Fidelity Fiduciary Banks
Lauren Burdette
The tea party ended as G20 protests turned violent in London on Wednesday. Thousands of protesters, angry that police blocked their planned route for safety reasons, broke the windows of an RBS branch near the Bank of England and chanted for the end of capitalism. Like most things in life, these protests can be related back to a Disney movie, in this instance Mary Poppins. In case you wondered where our stereotype of bankers came from, it’s here.
The oldest guy in the song, Mr. Dawes, the Chairman of the Bank, tries to convince Michael to invest his tuppence (which, by the way, actually still exists) with the bank. According to Dawes, “if you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank, safe and sound, soon that tuppence, safely invested in the bank, will compound,” and will be “prudently, fruitfully, frugally invested.” Clearly Bernie Madoff skipped this Disney classic.
This is the basic belief people have in bankers and investors—that men and women who earned MBAs will do more intelligent, responsible things with patrons’ money than the patrons themselves. Generally, I’d say this is a pretty reasonable assumption, which is why it is SUCH a big deal when investors mishandle money. At this point, “mishandle” is a euphemism—embezzle, steal and chuck out are more commonly used by the people in the streets. Trust in financial institutions is vital for the functioning of society, and right now the only profession held in lower esteem than “banker” is “CNBC financial analyst.”
Restoring this trust is the biggest challenge facing the world leaders in the G20 summit. I have no idea if they will achieve anything at this conference from a financial perspective, but they must emerge from the summit with a plan for how to keep people’s faith in global financial institutions. Otherwise we might all just take our money to feed the birds—tuppence a bag.
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