Der gute Mensch von Bonn

The general uselessness of banks had, of course, been noted long before the current financial crisis:

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Mark Twain

One German bank employee recently decided it would be a good idea for her bank to actually meet people's needs, rather than leaving them to get wet. Of course, she was punished, to encourage the others:

Just when you'd heard about enough about the halfhearted non-apology from Goldman Sachs Chair Lloyd Blankfein and the attempts by Wall Street and big banks to quash new reforms that might save us from the recklessness that could lead to yet another meltdown, here comes the story of a banker to be thankful for.

Of course, instead of a big bonus, she got a 22-month suspended sentence for her deeds.

The 62-year-old branch head of a German bank admitted to using the bank accounts of wealthy customers to float struggling ones so that they didn't have to pay exorbitant overdraft fees. The unnamed woman was likened by her lawyer to the title character in the 1939 Bertolt Brecht play Mother Courage and Her Children...

Thanks to the Buzzflash blog for that one. Justice has now been seen to done. According to Spiegel Online:

The woman has now joined the ranks of the poor she once tried to protect. She is living in a small apartment with her ailing mother. The bulk of her meager early retirement pension is being withheld to cover her €1.1 million debt to the bank.

and to the victors, the spoils:

According to the Office for National Statistics, the sum paid in bonuses to UK bankers in the first five months of this year – during a belt-tightening era – was £7.6 billion.

That last quote was from those well-known lefty class warriors at the Telegraph. Further comment is, I think, superfluous.