Dear Readers,
We live in tumultuous times. The COVID pandemic is still taking its toll in countries around the world, senseless wars brought on by unfeeling governments rage on, and inflation is destroying whatever sense of financial normalcy economies had been able to achieve. Stories abound of people whose lives are quite literally being irrevocably destroyed.
One such story comes out of recent developments within the Chinese banking system, where half a dozen rural banks have seemingly gone under and have denied their depositors’ ability to access their own funds. A tough real estate market seems partly to blame, coupled with possible corruption within the ranks of the banks’ shareholders. But whatever the underlying cause, the true victims are those people whose life savings have been stolen from them with little hope of getting them back unscathed.
Banking isn’t supposed to be like that. The purpose of banks is to protect our funds and help us grow them if we choose to open ourselves up to a bit of risk. Instead, banking itself is a risk and people are hardly rewarded at all even in cases where their funds don’t inexplicably go missing.
