Gosling's Grouse: Time to disband the cosy club

GOSLING'S GROUSE

Back in the 1980s, people outside the City criticised the financial sector for its old boys' network.

You had to have gone to the right school or come from the right part of town to get anywhere in the markets, unless you were happy to stay on the trading floors of the open outcry exchanges around the world. Then along came Thatcher, the Big Bang, and the start of electronic trading, – and suddenly a meritocracy started to break out. If you were smart enough, or smooth enough, you could get on. Thirty years on, the biggest criticism of markets is that of greed – too much money earned by too few for doing too little, and we are left with a global debt crisis. Most of us who work in fi...