Commentary: Voters Versus Bankers

Judging by the film and book, "Thank You for Smoking," it is tough work being a PR manager at a tobacco company, especially at the peak of an anti-tobacco campaign. But the role of main villain of the global economy, as the Davos forum has definitively shown, has now passed to the global finance industry. Public relations at major banks is now also very tough work.

Bankers have traditionally been important guests at the international economic forum in Davos, bearers of authority and knowledge about the future world economy, but now they are now hardly to be seen or heard from. Many simply declined to attend, and those who did agree to appear found they had to justify themselves.

It is much worse outside the forum. The current attitude toward the financial industry held by media and experts quoted in the media is even worse than toward the tobacco industry, according to data from Media Tenor, which has been tracking evaluative judgements in 100 media outlets around the world.

Public and corporate factions that normally fight each other have been uniting against the bankers. The coalition for overseeing stock trading that has just been created in the United States brings together members of the energy market, the aviation industry, agriculturalists and car manufacturers.

It is this public climate that is compelling politicians to lay into the banks and so prompting reform of the financial sector, that — if it is approved by the U.S. parliament — may become global.
 

The author is editor of the Commentary section