Commentary
As the old saw goes, a banker is someone who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and then wants it back as soon as the first drops of rain fall. Hostility toward money lenders goes way back. In the Middle Ages in Europe, to deposit your money with one was unlawful, “even as it would be unlawful to deposit one’s sword with a madman, a maiden with a libertine, or food with a glutton.”
Loans may no longer be against the law, but bankers have been, and still are, convenient villains in popular culture.
In the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” for example, old man Henry Potter mocked George Bailey’s just-deceased father by remarking that “ideals without common sense can ruin this town.” And he said of George issuing a loan to his friend Ernie, Bedford Falls’s cabby, “You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money.”…