Finance’s Crisis of Legitimacy

The recent departure of Robert Diamond from Barclays marks a watershed: the big showdowns between democracy and big bankers are still to come – both in the US and in continental Europe. On the surface, the banks remain powerful, yet their legitimacy continues to crumble.

WASHINGTON, DC – The recent departure of Robert Diamond from Barclays marks a watershed. To be sure, CEOs of major banks have been forced out before. Chuck Prince lost his job at Citigroup over excessive risk-taking in the run-up to the financial crisis of 2008, and, more recently, Oswald Grübel of UBS was pushed out for failing to prevent unauthorized trading to the tune of $2.3 billion.

But Diamond was a banker supposedly at the top of his game. Barclays, it was claimed, had come through the 2008-2009 crisis without benefiting from government support. And, while his bank had been found in violation of various rules recently, including on products sold to consumers and on how it reported interest rates, Diamond had managed to distance himself from the damage.

Press reports indicate that regulators were willing to give Diamond a free pass – right up to the moment when a serious political backlash took hold. Diamond started to fight back, pointing an accusatory finger at the Bank of England. At that point, he had to go.

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