In "Should bishops run the banks?", Robert Peston tells us that recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who does have a relevant background in business, has recently argued that not only financial solutions, but an ethical response, including further state support prior to the splitting up of a major bank, is needed to properly solve "the UK's economic malaise" (2013, Ethical Argument sect.) by giving due weight to the social and moral aspects of the banking crisis.
The business section is not something I normally look at very closely, but the words bishops and banks in the title on the homepage got my interest: I was expecting some juicy scandal about the Vatican Bank again. My expectations were disappointed when I saw the photo not of the new pope but of the head of the Anglican Church - a much smaller and poorer version of Christians than the Catholics. But since I was there, I read it, and Archbishop Welby does make some sensible points. I really can't judge the financial soundness of his idea about breaking up excessively large banks, but I do agree with his insistence that banks and other financial institutions be held morally accountable, or at least that the people who manage them, the decision makers, be held to account not just financially and legally for those decisions, but also morally.
In the banking crisis that got everyone's attention a few years ago, and when a couple of large banks did fail, and as the banking and financial system in Cyprus is now failing, I was constantly changing my mind about whether or not the banks should get help from governments. On the one hand, I thought, as I'm sure many tax payers did, that the banks did not deserve any such help; on the other hand, if they failed, that might harm a lot of people a lot more, with disastrous social consequences. In the end, I decided that although they did not deserve it, the banks should be supported, but that strong laws should be written, perhaps in a constitution, to prevent any such help in future. I think part of the moral problem that led to, or at least contributed to, the seriousness of the problem was that the bankers taking absurd risks expected help from the government if they needed it because their decisions turned out to be bad. Had they known for sure that the governments would not help them, they might not have gambled so recklessly.
In fact, I think exactly the same about thinks like government support for rice farmers and others: propping up failing industries with tax payers' money only encourages deeper disasters. And the plain seen facts would seem to suggest, for example, that no Thai government has ever done anything to really help Thai farmers, who have remained far too poor for decades, despite a fortune in Thai tax money going into the pockets of someone. And perhaps I should stop here before I get even more controversial.
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References
Peston, R. (2013, April 23). Should bishops run the banks? BBC News Business. Retrieved April 24, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22260952
In this blog post, I've used italics for three different reasons.
ReplyDeleteWhere have I used italics and what is the reason for each use?
I have also used "quotation marks" for two different reasons. Where are " " used, and what are the reasons?
If you found some of the questions analysing a blog post a little difficult, especially question 3, the really important one, you might find looking at another example or two helpful.
ReplyDeleteThis post and the other three I've written in the last couple of days all follow exactly the same organization: the pattern or structure of all of these blog posts on BBC News stories is the same. They all have the same parts, doing the same things, although the number of paragraphs differs in one part.