The banking systems of the world need reform. They are so busy trying to make money they forget what they are there for: serving businesses and persons. They keep going bust because they are too greedy, and businesses suffer.
So we say, and sadly there is more than a little grain of truth in it.
The purpose of banks, financiers has become that of making a profit, no longer a helper of trade and business. The business of finance should be to make society work well by making businesses work well.
The American system, the European system and the Chinese system – all very different but displaying some kind of troublesome behavior all of them, again and again. Some banks are even going bust.
Americans have made bad investments, especially in housing and also created products where risks seemed to disappear. The Federal Reserve system is extraordinary as it is doubtful who really controls it. So reform must come.
European banks are now becoming scared and are stopping credit to weak nations – having wrongly assessed risks in many areas.
Chinese banks are controlled by the state and are building their own economy by exporting, leaving the exchange rate low, holding back welfare, building reserves, hurting businesses elsewhere.
In the process of all this banks have failed to make it easy for society to run their daily lives and their little businesses. They have also been very intent on making transaction or agent profit, moving money all over in search of profits. They did not do it for us.
The value creation in society should be the main consideration of banks, not banking or financial profit.
So our financial systems must be rebuilt with a new purpose that is social foremost, fully transparent, having to go broke when need be, small enough to fail, adaptable to the situation, with much less interconnectivity than now.
A bright future is coming up – with changed banks.
