Gstaad
Elie de Rothschild, who died a couple of weeks ago while on a shooting trip in Austria aged 90, once told me the story of a young Arab kebab seller who always parked his stand across from la Banque Rothschild on rue Lafitte. The Arab was asked for a loan by an acquaintance of his. ‘Look here,’ he told the man, ‘I have a deal with the bank across the street. I will not lend money and the Rothschilds will not sell kebabs.’ End of story, as they say.
I thought of Elie, with whom I used to play polo, when the you-know-what hit the fan last week. Bankers should act like bankers, and not kebab salesmen. The latter try to sell to anyone within hearing distance. In the good old days, bankers lent money to those who could repay.
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