Denninger asks the correct questions again, as always, even if he is constantly abrasive in tone.
How does he do it and not suffer a blood pressure of infinity-over-275?
Well, anyway, this news brought my friend Billy The Banker to mind. He's now retired, happily, after working for the same county-seat bank for fifty years. High school diploma plus banking courses offered over the years. He advanced from junior teller to president. When all the chaos was going on in 2008, OS asked him what he thought, and he scratched his head and said, 'I don't know what to think, I've never seen anything like it. Our board of directors always wanted to make sure we had a strong equity base, and enough earnings to take care of the employees and pay a little dividend to the shareholders. That's what we did, concentrated on building the equity of the bank. It worked. I don't understand these other people at all.'
OS does know one thing: Had Billy behaved like the execs at BOA, his bank would have failed, and he'd be living out his retirement years in the state pen about thirty miles west of his present modest comfortable home.
Billy lived and worked in a context of reward for good behavior, and legal and moral culpability for bad behavior. His bank made money, his shareholders made money, the county is growing at a stable pace, and he's enjoying visiting his grandkids.
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