No Love for Bankers in America

Banking: The Most Disliked Institution in America

What do Americans hate most? In theory, knowing this country, one would have to say, “the government.” But the [economic] crisis has changed everything. And now the banks have managed to square the circle; that is, annoy people more than the government. This is according to a poll by the Pew Research Center, the most prestigious public opinion firm in the U.S.

It sounds convincing — above all, because the poll was taken on the day when Americans hate the government most of all, the eve of April 15, the final due date for filing tax returns. And also because it came out before the latest Wall Street scandal, involving the sale by Goldman Sachs of assets it knew were going to fall in value. (Goldman was not an isolated case: Among the banks that have been investigated are the English bank Barclays, the German Deutsche Bank, the Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse, and the American banks Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.)

But that’s the way it goes: 69 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of banks. This is just four points higher than the Executive and Legislative branches of government, tied at 65 percent. In third place, just one point behind the government, are the big corporations, with a 64 percent negative opinion.

These numbers give more political capital to Barack Obama, who is committed to reforming regulation of the U.S. financial system. In contrast to health care reform, where Obama just wanted some kind of reform to show the voters and never pressured Congress in favor of one option or another (as long as the system got changed, apparently), the White House is in up to their eyeballs in financial reform. And with the unpopularity of the banks, Obama has a great target.

Beyond the specific case of the banks, the Pew poll confirms the old theory that “crises are bad for society.” And for values. For example, they spread the idea that personal success depends more on luck than on work. And, linked to that, they reduce trust in government. In general, they reduce trust in everything: in government, in the private sector, in oneself and in others. It is even worse when, as in Spain or the U.S., the crises always follow speculative bubbles in which getting rich is the easiest thing in the world. This is the bipolar economy in which we live: the economy of boom and bust, as they say here.

And the worst moment in this cycle tends to happen during the economic recovery, as is now occurring in the U.S., because this is when businesses make money (Citigroup: $3.269 billion in the first quarter; Google: $1.443 billion; and today we will hear the results of Apple [$3.07 billion] and Goldman Sachs [$3.46 billion]). But this means nothing to the man on the street. In the U.S., for example, corporate profits are breaking records. But, per capita incomes are falling.

Maybe this explains the wave of nihilism in the supposed land of opportunity. Americans are pissed at everything and everyone. For now, the only institutions that are exempt from this existential pessimism are universities, churches, small businesses and, surprisingly, technology companies, which enjoy 68 percent of the public’s support. Maybe this is because the sector is beginning to hire on a massive scale.