I came face to face with the real banking problem a month ago when speaking in Oxford to an audience of undergraduates. ‘Well, I suppose one good thing about the last three years is that you won’t now all be applying to work in banks,’ I joked. It seems I was wrong. At these words, about half the people in the audience stared sheepishly into their laps.
I can’t say I blame them. Of my own college contemporaries, leaving aside one or two barristers and a brilliant technology entrepreneur, I think it would be accurate to say that every single person who went to work in banking wound up earning more than every single person who did not.
This can’t be good. It is more than just a question of inequality (any competitive or innovative business sector will produce some insanely rich people): instead it suggests a large-scale distortion where the economy is rigged in favour of one area of activity.
A rigged economy is perceived differently to an unequal one — a distinction people on the right often fail to make.
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