Latest Bill

Is it the business world’s morals that are in recession?

In the old days people built up businesses. Andrew Carnegie built an empire and then gave all the money away to start the library movement all over the world. Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer, Liberty’s and John Lewis all became big. They were family firms – people took pride in building up a company from nothing and making it recognised. When the bosses had actually started the business, they had the interest of the company and usually the interests of the workforce at heart. That’s the way it should be, anyway. Then along came the Stock Exchange and people could sell their companies to venture capitalists and the like (actually, I don’t like). Normally they didn’t have the interests of the company or the workforce as the first thing on their agenda. Item one was usually the fast buck.

So where do we go from here? I’m not anti-capitalist – I can’t think of an example of a liberal anti-capitalist state. I can see lots of supposedly anti-capitalist states where there’s not much freedom. Fancy being gay in Cuba? Or a woman in Iran? Or an artist in China?

When many of our big businesses are run by managers on huge salaries aiming for the fast buck rather than the old family days of investment and slow and steady growth and having your heart in that business – that’s why capitalism is in trouble.

“Greed isn’t good. We need to have a little bit of morality”

So to go back to where I started, we need to care about our banks and our businesses. To mis-quote Gordon Gekko, greed isn’t good. We need to have a little bit of morality.

Money, money, money
I put my money in the bank, you put your money in the bank, somebody in York puts their money in the bank or in Aberystwyth or increasingly now in Valencia or Amaretto (is that a place?!) and do you know what? All this money then gets shipped to one square mile of London. Now if you were sitting there with all this cash in a hat in front of you like the luckiest busker on earth, it must be quite tempting to think you could just take a handful of it. You might think, if you’re moral, you deserve it, or if you’re immoral you might just think, ‘I’ll take it’. Either way it comes down to the same thing.

In the old days you had banks in your community where you knew the manager and the money was essentially safe and used by the community. If you wanted a loan to grow your business or build a garage that’s what the money was used for. Now it’s used to gamble on the price of steel in 2020 or the prospects of the nextcrazyidea.com (I just thought that might be a website so had to check. That says a lot, doesn’t it?)

Anyone who’s at the top of an organisation that has millions of pounds in front of them can probably find a very good reason why they should be paid millions for being a custodian or an administrator. I’m writing this in a room with a friend and she just told me she would probably find a good moral reason. So would I.

So remember those bankers in front of the parliamentary select committee who had good moral reasons. I forgive them and I forgive her and actually if the truth be told I’d probably have to forgive myself. Wouldn’t you? The simple truth is this: instead of sending all that money to the square mile in London, send it all to my house! Seriously, we need a moral alternative to the Stock Exchange. Suggestions? Comment@thelatest.co.uk

Bill’s Shorts

American Poll Shock
The big poll this week was a survey carried out for the news agency Reuters which found that 22 per cent of Americans believe the world will end in their lifetime, and ten per cent think the apocalypse is coming this year. Now I was trying to think of a joke about this but thinking about it, you’ve just read it!

Next week’s poll: how many Americans think the world is flat and Jesus is American and Barack Obama is related to Osama Barack!

Two thousand years of male domination ended in 20 minutes
To do my arduous job of writing three or four hundred words every week to entertain you, I obviously have to stay hugely fit, so I’ve been going to the gym a bit. Or rather, I haven’t lately, because Pal offered to get me very fit very fast, so took me to a combat class where she could relieve herself of all frustration by releasing her aggression. There were about 20 women there; I should have seen that they were all rubbing their hands with glee when I walked in. “Hey, a man! Let’s beat the hell out of him for every evil ever done by every man!” After 20 minutes
I had to retire unable to walk and haven’t been able to for another month since. I could almost hear the laughter from the lounge.

My country estate…
I’ve spoken before about my traumatic school days, how I was too clever from a very young age and therefore went from my council prefab to the poshest school in Somerset. I was a bit of a fish out of water, with all my friends being the sons of aristos. My school-friend, alias Roger Fitzwilliam-Wright, said to me, “Bill, you must come up and see our estate one of these weekends,” to which I replied, “you must come up and see mine.”