“The destruction of the British building society movement – or much of it – in the two decades after the late 1980s … was one of the great acts of economic vandalism in modern times. And the commercial banks largely abandoned locally based relationship banking in the decade before the recent financial crisis. There is now no institutional structure in place to offer countercyclical lending, particularly small and medium sized businesses, in place of the banks.”

— Vince Cable

Comments on demutualisation of Building Societies http://www.libdemvoice.org/vince-cable-centre-forum-speec-29033.html, 18 June 2012. <br class="br">2012

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Vince Cable16

British Liberal Democrat politician 1943

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“The banks—hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis—that many of the banks created—are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

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“I find odd the view that a Government institution is better placed to evaluate "the technical and financial viability" of a project than a commercial bank. It may well be that our banks are deficient in the kind of expertize required for assessing projects but then what we should be doing is encouraging banks to acquire such expertize or to make use of outside, commercial, expertize. I do not believe in any case that a Government machine can provide a reliable judgement on such matters, an opinion the banking members of the committee appear to have shared, for they have prudently refused to commit themselves to accepting its advice. I myself tend to mistrust the judgement of anyone not involved in the actual process of risktaking.”

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John Kenneth Galbraith book The Culture of Contentment

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