The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor by Ron Chernow

The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor by Ron Chernow

1

Then I prophesy the death of the banker, I fear that instead of provoking
weeping and lamentations, the news will be greeted by the heartless reader
with a sigh of relief and loud, prolonged hosannas. For is there any creature
on God's green earth so unloved as a banker? We envision him in
stereotypical form as a grim, humorless man in late middle age with iron-

gray hair, wire-rimmed spectacles, and a costive disposition. Of somber
mien, with a permanent scowl on his face, he wears the dark,
monochromatic suits of a small-town funeral director. In this historical
caricature, he seems a born misanthrope who delights in saying no and
rebuffing frivolous, unworthy enterprises. He maintains constant vigilance
against the fuzzy claims and inflated numbers put forward by mischievous
debtors whose principal object in life—or so he is firmly convinced—is to
defraud him and bankrupt his institution.
If the banker, traditionally, took this jaundiced view of human nature, it was
because his assigned function in the financial cosmos was to ration scarce

credit. Dispensing something rare and precious, he was perpetually on the
defensive and had to be far
more adept at spurning prospective borrowers than gratifying their fond
wishes. But money has now become a banal commodity, available
everywhere at the touch of a button or the flick of a computer switch.
Money is, -literally, everywhere. Automated teller machines line the streets,
shopping malls, and airports, as if they were vending machines selling soda,
candy, or cigarettes. Retired baseball players hawk home-equity loans in
television commercials and solicitations for new credit cards come
cascading in with each day's mail. (Even sinners who have filed for
personal bankruptcy are instantly absolved by the financial priesthood and
tenderly welcomed back into the fold.) We inhabit an age of superabundant
credit and its purveyors, as with any other product manufactured in surplus,
must advertise heavily to stimulate demand and soak up existing supply.
In this essay, I plan to meditate upon the metamorphosis of the banker in the
twentieth century, from the Spartan age of limited capital to our own
hedonistic age of bountiful cash. Tm going to consider, in particular, the
rise and fall of the great banking dynasties, the financial overlords of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and carry the story through to the
unexpected triumph of the small mutual-fund investor, the implausible
tycoon of the late twentieth century. When I talk of "The Death of the
Banker," the reader shouldn't picture the sallow, overworked teller at the
corner bank, the one accustomed to moving in slow motion when he's in a
rush, but rather someone more likely to sport red suspenders and Gucci
loafers and waggle thick Cuban cigars. Yes, I'm referring to those people
who take home obnoxious salaries, whose Christmas bonuses dwarf not just
our annual salary, but our entire net worth, and who sometimes seem
immune from normal human misery. These bankers scarcely seem crucified
by recent financial developments. So how can I possibly suggest that this
charmed breed, the darlings of the business media, belong to an endangered
species? Don't we live in an age

The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor by Ron Chernow