I've nothing to add regarding Colebatch's assistance, patience, indulgence of the curious re: all things North Asia.

But the attacks on bankers or his points are . . . hilarious.

Bankers only facilitate the "creators of wealth" ? Really. Tell that to a smart kid/entrepreneur in Pakistan or Russia. They're effectively locked out of "the game" because they can't access capital and when they can . . . it's often from abroad. Somebody in northern California's Silicon Valley - it's pretty easy. At some point "the idea" and "the money to fund it" are rather "chicken and egg" debates.

The "old boys network" ? If one's watched alot of 30's movies, say, 'It's a Wonderful Life" so such - sure. But the days of JP Morgan strutting down or being called down to the White House or 10 Downing are LONG OVER. Today, a man sits inside of an organization because he could deliver numbers (revenue & profit). The "old boys network" was blown up in the US in the early 80's by deregulation and mergers.

Now . . . on the other hand, the percentage of global output due to financial services in the past decade has tripled from 4% to 12%. That seems rather unlikely without a bit of "gaming".

The capital markets USED to be about raising cash for new investments or expanding product lines or productivity. Clearly, with any view into them . . . that's no longer the focus.

Where do bankers fall into it ? Well, there's "bankers" and there's bankers. Retail bankers ? Commercial bankers ? Investment bankers ? There's a trajectory there, mathematically, from arithmetic to . . . stochastic calculus.

A historical view of (retail) bank profits neatly tracks GDP. That tends not to make retail bankers look too clever but also serves to clear them of all the ranting charges. As Walter says . . . central bankers set monetary policy (interest rates) and the outflows of lending start there. (Another reason that banks are currently reluctant to lend is that they're holding lots of "assets", like mortgages on homes which are NOT worth the valuation of the mortgages . . . as that problem has worsened it endangers a banks capitol reserve ratios - welcome to a nasty deflationary spiral - all a result of an asset bubble a la Japan of the 80's.)

In the last 30 years the game has been a bit more complicated by China's rise and the prolific US T-bill buying of south, southeast and north Asia. Holding ALOT of someone else's debt doesn't have much value, per se. That purchased debt permitted the west to have large current account deficits by exporting jobs and importing finished goods.

This led to the classic investment bubble under whose "pop" we now live. The "cash" flowed to the East, the debt west. Those currency accumulations in the east came back to the west looking for better returns than US T-bills. THAT is the crux of the bubble - relatively fixed numbers of assets and a large increase in the amount of cash chasing them - asset bubble. (We've seen one of these, in one form or another about every 75 years since the Tulip Craze. 75 years must be enough time for the old men to die out and not be around to warn the "kids" that . . . we've seen this movie before.)

What did retail bankers have to do with this ? Almost NOTHING. They were well downstream and simply responding to regulatory and macro-economic forces.

Commercial bankers ? Similarly free of direct implication.

Investment bankers . . . that's more interesting. Small in size (Goldman Sachs makes a large fraction of the profit of HSBC but has 1/10th the number of employees) but very large in impact and reach. Investment bankers were smart enough to react to the changing conditions very fast. If some prefer the word "manipulate", so be it.

It's clear since the de-regulation of banks in the US which started with Reagan the old rules and perspectives changed. The monetization of everything (at least in the US, but coming to a country near you, soon) makes a profit the key goal (consider US health care - not the wellness of it's clients but the profit of it's service providers . . .). The idea, nay holy grail, of "shareholder value" has subsumed all else.

Does that need reform ? Depends if you think the current system creates wealth or manipulates it and whether that matters. In the 21st century 40% of Ivy League graduates moved on to Wall St jobs. Is that the fault of bankers or is it a deeper societal issue ?

But you can't overlook the rise of Asia's cash infusions (too much savings) or the West's profligate spending. You can't blame a banker for either.

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Orange, it's the new black.