The Bankers' If Poem by Will Gosh

If you can keep your bonus when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can complicate financial dealing
So that no-one on earth knows what you do;
If you can take the hard earned cash of others
And lend it with little chance of any return
And account for such bad loans as assets,
And walk away with millions in your pockets.

If you can dream-and see yourself as master;
If you can think of others…but keep yourself the aim,
If you can turn the world economy to disaster,
And make yourself wealthy just the same.
If you could learn the profession of a teacher,
And do that in just half a year;
Then teach our children mathematics
And be a role model of grown-up ethics.

If you can take a banks’ shareholder value
And gamble it on one speculative merger,
And sign it off without the diligence due,
And lose, but never accept it was your error:
If you can ruin a multitude of pensions
And destroy the economies of many nations,
And be saved by tax payers’ billions,
But still walk away with wealth untold.

If you can talk with ministers and directors,
Or sit on boards-and never be in common touch,
If you think your pay should be that of a hundred others,
If money counts with you, and so very much:
If you can stuff a balance sheet full
Of toxic assets that have value to none,
Yours is the City and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll make a banker, my son!