How do we make our banks serve the common good without endangering our prosperity?
How do we make our banks serve the common good without endangering our prosperity?
The financial crisis of 2007/08, generated largely by the massive greed of a few, continues to cause declining quality of life for millions in the UK and elsewhere. This dilemma will look at what caused it and what should be done to avoid another financial crisis? Is our political system able to deal with it? How do we ensure that the structure of our financial system serves the common good rather than a wealthy elite? We will also demystify money by investigating what exactly money is and how is it created; what derivatives and hedge funds are; what are banks, what are they for and how do banks make profits?
Lead academic: Professor Richard Seaford
Anchor academic: Gary Abrahams
Taster session
Date: 1 November
Time: 16:30 - 18:00
Location: Forum Auditorium
Description: This session will consider the financial crisis of 2007/08, generated largely by the massive greed of a few, and why it continues to cause declining quality of life for millions in the UK and elsewhere. This session starts to explore what caused the crisis and what should be done to avoid another? Is our political system able to deal with it? How do we ensure that the structure of our financial system serves the common good rather than a wealthy elite? We hope to educate students as to the cause of the crisis, what can be learnt from it and to enthuse students in setting up a University Inquiry into ‘Banks and the Common Good’.
In addition to the speakers noted below, students choosing this challenge will be exposed to other leading practitioners working in the City as well as to get a chance to question the current member of Parliament for Exeter, Ben Bradshaw.
Sign up: If you miss this session you can view it on ELE.
If you wish to pick this dilemma sign up through My Career Zone from 5th November.
Lydia Prieg, The New Economics Foundation
Prior to joining The New Economics Foundation in 2010, Lydia worked in banking: on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs, selling interest-rate-derivatives to UK banks, building societies, asset managers and pension funds. She now specialises in financial reform, with a particular focus on banks and the capital markets.
Lydia is undertaking research into a wide-range of challenging and somewhat controversial issues, including the too-big-to-fail problem, taxation of the financial sector, the sovereign debt crisis, regulation of derivatives and capital flows, reform of the credit rating industry, private investment in developing countries, tax avoidance and evasion, and competition problems.
Richard Seaford
Richard is professor of Ancient Greek literature at the University of Exeter. Among his many published works is a book, Money and the Early Greek Mind, which gives an account of the causes and consequences of the invention of money. Richard has an abiding interest in uncovering the relationship - in ancient Greece as well as in our own society - between how people think and the kind of society in which they live; this has led him to propose that undergraduate students should have the opportunity to enquire into the role of banking in contemporary society as one theme for Grand Challenges 2013.
Gary Abrahams
Gary is a research fellow in the business school. Prior to joining the University Gary worked as a managing director on the debt trading floor of one of the large bulge bracket investment banks and was right at the heart of the banking crisis. At the University Gary teaches the credit crisis, its causes, the lessons and who was to blame. Gary will draw on his own personal experiences as a banker during this challenge to enthuse students.
