ANZ bankers kneel to carbon God, betray Australian farmers, miners — “don’t deserve a banking licence”

How to incense whole industries ANZ style The ANZ bankers declared this week that they are really in the business of saving the Earth, even if Australians didn’t vote for it. They declared some law abiding businesses were unworthy of their loans, and thousands of Australians in the steel industry, farming, and manufacturing are livid. The bank is now telling its customers that interest payments are not enough, and those with 50% or more of their operations in coal must diversify. They may well diversify right out of ANZ — a boycott is being discussed. And for shareholders this preening would seem like a dumb way to lose customers. But in Australia it’s worse than that. The right to earn interest by loaning money they mostly don’t have (by creating paper currency from thin air) is a glorious gift bestowed on them by an Australian banking license. It’s a perpetual money making machine, granted by a government group called APRA. ANZ is one of The Big Four Banks in Australia. It is supposed to provide an essential service, and in return APRA protects it by using the power of the state to run any new competitors off the ranch and […]