[ExI] Banks (was Re: Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil))

[Adrian Tymes]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:24 PM, The Avantguardian
<avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> In a day and age when everyone is having to deal with the prospect of losing their jobs to automation, aren't bankers at all worried? I mean other than the right to ownership, which software doesn't have but that corporations do, what exactly do bankers *do* that a machine can't do better? I for one almost always use my bank's ATM. Does the CEO of my bank do any more for me than that ATM machine? I mean other than give himself fat bonuses for screwing up the economy?

Bank CEOs' pay is - or, at least, is widely perceived to be - not
connected to the value they give, but instead to the amount of
assets their organization controls.

Said CEOs would gladly replace their entire teller staff with ATMs
if they could.  Opening accounts, making cashiers' checks, and
other such services are currently done manually, but in theory
they could be done by ATMs.  (Yes, some people prefer dealing
with a human face, so tellers are retained to get those peoples'
money invested in the banks.)

Where banks make their money - and where the CEOs are mainly
interested - is in loans.  If you could replace the entire loan making
process with software (or as much of it as possible), then you might
possibly start threatening the CEOs - though they have been trying
this on their own.  (Indeed, some banks tried replacing a certain part
of the process that legally can't - yet - be replaced by machines.
This is the "robo-signing" scandal.)