>>Yeah....MUCH MUCH more....making your original point rather marginal.
Marginal? Is that a banking joke? ;-) My intended original point was that if bankers believe that the plural of anecdote is data as you suggested, perhaps that's a case of QED. FWIW, banks in this part of the world had almost no exposure to subprime but still were affected and relied on taxpayer support. The behavior put the whole system in jeopardy and the savior of the day was the US government. We can't allow the bankers to forget/ignore/deny that as they fight to get things back to "normal". Personally I agree 100% with commentators who say that there is no benefit for society in any of these "efficiency" schemes so why do we allow them? It is after all our banking system set up for our trade and other purposes, not a vehicle for a few to suck value with nothing useful in return.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
