The age of usuryThe age of usury
Due to some blunder, some monstrous breach of faith — I'm not accusing anyone, not yet! — a report from the sturdy financial mind of Mr Stan Wallis has been released in Canberra without the customary endorsement of my office.
Mr Wallis and I are grown men, and since I detest fuss, I won't be demanding an inquiry this time, but I will be setting the record straight. Do I agree with Mr Wallis' report or not? Or more is the matter — do I care?
Well, Mr snotty-nosed Wallis, I'll have you know that I do care. What happens within the Australian banking and finance community concerns me a great deal.
I am a regular visitor to the ATM on the corner of Albert and Bage streets.
See if I'm not right. I, David J. Riley — pin number: ******* — rely on those financial encounters and the EFTPOS machine, checkout 4, at the local Coles New World supermarket. My life depends on those transactions, Mr Wallis. (Fat lot you care!) So why didn't you ask for my thoughts on banking?
Obviously, I'm not shifting a large amount of cash each week through these electronic machines, but by the end of it — when I'm down below my last $20 — I'd like to be able to make a withdrawal without having to spend $5 of it. Will further deregulation help me out there?
No. Not one of Mr Wallis' 115 recommendations addresses this question. The profane purpose of his report is the liberation of the finance sector from cants, superstitions, shibboleths and unclean financial creeds. There can thus be no such thing as a dynamic banking and finance establishment which is partisan to matters of mundane folly such as my own weekly problems with banking hardware.
What's more, tucked away in the Wallis report is a section that affects me greatly. No longer, says he, should fees and charges be controlled.
Excuse me!
Theirs! It's mine, I tell you — every dollar of it. Instead of storing it under my mattress, I let them have it for a time. That's all. I'm sharing what little wealth I have, but do they share theirs?
I'm perfectly serious about this. Don't laugh.
It's a poor state of affairs when such a suggestion is treated with derision. Yes, it's a fine sentiment and far more attractive to a person such as myself than anything in Wallis' report, which takes as its basic assumption that intolerably vulgar notion that banking should be more lucrative for more corporate players.
Dave Riley
E-mail: dhell@ozemail.com.au