They were called public enemies. They were strung up in effigy during protests in London and New York. Their behavior spurred an outcry that changed the politics of the West.
Bankers on both sides of the Atlantic were blasted for the sins that triggered the financial crash of 2008 and the recession and scandals that followed. It seemed like the vitriol would never stop. Until now.
Practitioners of what George Soros called the “alchemy of finance” appear to be out of the dock. U.S. President Donald Trump has surrounded himself with at least five former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers and pledged to unshackle the industry. In France, there’s a good chance Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker, will be elected president. And across Europe, leaders are vying to lure banks as Britain prepares to quit the European Union.
Attitudes are shifting as time passes and fresh concerns move to the fore, said Rita Kottasz, the co-author of two recent studies on consumer perceptions of the U.K. financial industry.
“Rather than being angry with bankers, people are focusing more generally on the divide in wealth,” said Kottasz, a senior lecturer in international business strategy and marketing at Kingston University in London. “So many things have happened on that front -- Brexit, the discussion of globalization, immigration, and nationalism. Those things are now of much more concern to individuals than the banks.”
Profit Motive
As bank-bashing subsides -- nine years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. -- there may be a push to slow down or unwind rules designed to curb the financial world’s excesses.
Even the French, who so distrust the profit motive they practice what economist Thomas Piketty calls “capitalism without capitalists,” are coming around. Back when Francois Hollande was running for president in 2012, the Socialist leader described the financial industry as his “true adversary.” By contrast, Macron, a former Economy Minister under Hollande, has owned his tenure at Rothschild & Co., a 200-year-old investment house.
“I’ve spent four years of my professional life there, of which I am very proud,” he said at a campaign stop this month. “I’ve learned a lot from it. It spares me from talking nonsense like others do on the economy and world order, and my country’s rules of business.”
Polls show Macron, 39, running neck-and-neck with right-wing nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting in April, and winning a May runoff.