Gordon Gekko

One way to make an intercontinental flight a bit more bearable is to indulge yourself with the abundance of movies available. All that is asked is to push the button and relax. The latter being a bit of a problem when traveling in 'cattle class' obviously. Unless you're one of the tiny people or 'lengthily challenged' is the correct word I belief. It was thus that I stumbled on 'The Wolff of Wall Street' with Leonardo DiCaprio playing an outstanding role. Now, I have seen Michael Douglas playing Gordon Gekko in 'Wall Street' some years before and therefor couldn't help thinking it was all a flash back. After all, DiCaprio's physique is much better than Douglas's. I suspect that the release dates have been mixed up somewhere in the process. Having digested the entire movie, all three hours of it, I thought 'really?' The financial world can't be that twisted, can it? Mwoahh, maybe Hollywood overdid it a tiny bit but things are not operating as one would expect. And I have evidence to prove it too.

Before actually boarding a plane to cross the pond to Canada I tried to open an account with a bank in Vancouver. BMO seemed a good choice as an online opportunity was provided to the potential customer, me. After jumping through all the hoops which were held up for me in the process, I got to the final one. You know, the one that is normally set ablaze in the circus. It was only then that I was kindly asked to go to the local branch in Vancouver to activate my newly created account. Idiots. What's the point of opening an account online then ehh?  However, I had a fall back. Members of my family had moved to Canada in the early 1950's and being good Catholics I was now blessed with a whole bunch of cousins. One cousin's husband was so kind to open an account for me to transfer funds into. All done and dusted then. 

Not quite. Although I like Russians in general, I  don't feel like sponsoring them. I thus carried out three 'penny tests', to assure me of the fact that my funds would not end up in Mr. Putin's pockets. So much for the harmonization of global financial transactions. BMO and ING were obviously not on speaking terms. I was badly disappointed, to say the least.

Unlike the Netherlands where there are only a few mostly state owned banks, Canada has a wide array of banks to which you can entrust your money. Well, entrust is a bit to much I'm afraid. They're not sinkholes in which your money can disappear never to be found again but that's about it. Like in the Netherlands, banks think primarily about making money themselves. I would say start the presses, but the banks think it is better to rig the 'Libor interest rate' or to rip off pour home-owners that knock on the door to get a mortgage. Customers are aliens to bankers, something from a fairytale. Nothing much has changed since the financial crisis is my conclusion. But do we have to put up with all this? I think not. 

I have worked out an idea that will help us get rid of bankers. Why don't we convert to 'barter exchange?' The principle of it is really easy too. For instance I knit you a sweater from my own hear and in exchange for this you can slaughter the pig that I have raised. I can't stand the sight of blood anyway. Or, in exchange for you shoveling the snow of my driveway I will flock your off-spring when they misbehave. There you have it. No money changes hands. No banker would be able to get his foot in the door, not even when trained by Jehovah Witnesses. And they are good...