"The RBS corporate report is like that. (So are their slogans: ‘Make it
happen.’ Make what happen? A £100 billion tab for the taxpayer?) The
section on corporate citizenship at the beginning is particularly good
value. The firm is involved in plans to increase general levels of
financial education. ‘When people have been educated about money and
how to work with financial services firms they are more likely to make
the right decisions and to avoid difficulties.’ That’s true, but you
can also just rob post offices. ‘RBS is a responsible company. We carry
out rigorous research so that we can be confident we know the issues
that are most important to our stakeholders and we take practical steps
to respond to what they tell us. Then occasionally, we blow all that
shit off, fire up some crystal meth, and throw money around with such
crazed abandon that it helps destroy the public finances of the world’s
fifth biggest economy.’ See if you can guess which of those sentences
is not in the report."
The 28 May London Review of Books has a long, entertaining and informative piece about RBS and the banking crisis by John Lanchester, from which the extract above is taken.
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