Northern Lack of Trust

Chris at Americablog has a bit of a rant about the shindig Northern Trust threw recently here in LA. I felt compelled to respond, and then decided the comment was good enough to post here (SUCH modesty!) :)

First, let me say that, in general, I'm disgusted by the performance of most of the major banks, before and after the 'collapse'. Banks like Citi, and some (most?) of the investment banks need to be reamed, nationalized, broken up and sold off. And, I think NT showed pretty poor judgment in hosting their event.

With that said, two points: At no point in all of this, did NT request TARP funds. They are one of the (many) banks that had funds thrust on them by Paulson in his misguided attempt to spread the panic around and conceal from the market which banks were the bad apples in the barrel so that they wouldn't get nuked in the market. NT has its problems (mostly stemming from being a conservative institution (which saved its bacon in the previous market insanity) catering to the wealthy (which has caused most of its PR and legal problems over the years), but wasting money has never been one of them. This kind of event has always been one of the PR costs of running a 'trust' tyoe bank (gotta wow the richie riches to get them in the door and keep them there).

The second point is that an event like is wildly stimulative (altho somewhat localized). NT spent a fortune on this providing (or at least temporarily maintaining) a wide variety of jobs (hoteliers, service personnel, caterers, limo drivers dont count for stimulus purposes?!?!) and pumping a lot of money into a variety of businesses for gifts, hotel rooms, airfare, etc.....

The whole slamming people for spending money on things (as opposed to say, Citi's purchasing stadium naming rights) strikes me as shortsighted and hypocritical. Congress is trying to save the banks AND stimulate the economy. We dont object to Citi, BofA, or Wells Fargo running TV ads; events like this cost a lot less than a TV ad campaign and are proportionally much more important to banks like NT. This isnt about paying obscene bonuses or redecorating the Titanic as Thain was doing.... this about attracting and keeping BIG customers.

It strikes me that the griping is mostly about jealousy/envy. Trust me, I'm broke and wish I had been there and partaken. But I do understand why they do events like this, and it doesnt bother me a bit. At least not quite as much as the two-headed shouts of SPEND! STIMULATE! on the one hand, and DONT SPEND MONEY YOU RICH BASTARDS! on the other.

Just sayin.... :)

My first self reflective quote! :) Probably my last, but hey!