Seeking insider angles on the stockmarket slide, I've been trawling for London-based bankers who blog. I found London Banker, who produced a learned post on Lehman Brothers last Friday and hasn't blogged since. Hello from Hackney, London Banker. You OK? His blog's name is inspired by Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market, in which the author fears for a pillar of society:
The name "London Banker" had especially a charmed value. He was supposed to represent, and often did represent, a certain union of pecuniary sagacity and educated refinement which was scarcely to be found in any other part of society. In a time when the trading classes were much ruder than they now are, many private bankers possessed variety of knowledge and a delicacy of attainment which would even now be very rare.
Such a position is indeed singularly favourable. The calling is hereditary; the credit of the bank descends from father to son: this inherited wealth soon brings inherited refinement. Banking is a watchful, but not a laborious trade. A banker, even in large business, can feel pretty sure that all his transactions are sound, and yet have much spare mind. A certain part of his time, and a considerable part of his thoughts, he can readily devote to other pursuits. And a London banker can also have the most intellectual society in the world if he chooses it. There has probably very rarely ever been so happy a position as that of a London private banker; and never perhaps a happier.
These lines were published in 1873. Discuss.
