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There is so much I could have written about recently with the meltdown of Wall Street and the massive bailout about to be delivered by the taxpayers. But it is a struggle to beat up on bankers who have made it clear in conversations that their ethical mission is the pursuit of profits for the bank and not to do what is ethical for the customer.

When faced with logic and a corporate culture like that, the Wall Street bankers should be receiving a national medal instead of outrage and disdain. At least I’m sure some of them think so.

“Why are you mad at us. You wanted the economy stimulated and let us self-regulate. How can you be angry we did what you wanted?”

Bailing out Wall Street will not fix this problem as long as the accepted norm is to put profits before everything else in the financial services industry. No, it will only be a matter of time before abuses in the pursuit of profits will undermine financial stability again.

Over in the article “The Right Thing: The Financial Company You Keep” an excellent point is made,

“It’s dishonest for an institution to advertise `We’re here for you’ when really you’re nothing but an asset that can be bought and sold,” says John Waggoner, author of Bailout: What the Rescue of Bear Stearns and the Credit Crisis Mean for Your Investments. “Expecting kindness from your mortgage lender is like expecting kindness from a soft-shell crab.”

The banker image used to be of a local businessman you could trust, but what of the modern banker. Sure we still have local bankers that care because they live in the communities they serve but the largest banks seem to put little effort in restoring a culture of ethics into banking or financial services.

I’m left pondering if it is even possible for a bank to act ethically in the interest of the customer and the bank or are we not left with a legacy that it is more appropriate to field strip a consumer from their money and bad on them if they actually trusted the bank.