![\"\"](\"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/the_worship_of_mammon.jpg\" "\\"The")
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From Hamlet:<\/p>\n
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
\nFor loan oft loses both itself and friend,
\nAnd borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe delightful Theodore Dalrymple also knows why we are in this financial mess; read it all Here<\/a><\/p>\n
This anecdotal extract mirrors my experience with bankers exactly:<\/p>\n
Shortly after I opened an account there, forty years ago, I received a letter from the manager drawing my attention with some asperity to the fact that my account was almost $5 dollars overdrawn, and that he trusted that I would soon rectify the situation by the end of the week. Forty years later, when I was again overdrawn, I received a telephone call from the manager \u2013 the bank\u2019s motto being \u2018Don\u2019t call us, we\u2019ll call you\u2019 \u2013 asking to see me. Indeed, the manager said he would come to my house.<\/p>\n
Gosh, I thought, now I\u2019m in trouble. When he arrived, I told him that I was about to pay the amount by which I was overdrawn into my account. He looked extremely crestfallen.
\n\u2018You mean you don\u2019t want to borrow more?\u2019 he said. \u2018I\u2019ve come here to offer you more.\u2019 A wasted journey, obviously.<\/p>\nA short time later, I went to my bank to borrow money to buy a house while I sold another. Within five minutes I was offered a sum the like of which I had never previously handled, and in excess of anything I needed. While it was smaller than my total nominal assets, as I enumerated them, the bank made absolutely no effort to verify that I was indeed the owner of these assets.<\/p>\n
With a large loan outstanding, I continued to receive, about every month or so, offers of a further loan of $50,000, no questions asked and mine for the borrowing by mere telephone call, just in case there were any little extras or extravagances I happened to feel like treating myself to (but apply now, before next month\u2019s offer of precisely the same thing!). The principal example given of the little extras or extravagances to which I might want to treat myself was the holiday of a lifetime.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Hamlet: Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. The delightful Theodore Dalrymple also knows why we are in this financial mess; read it all … Continue reading