"When did you first notice that you had become quietly wealthy?"

[Carl Remick]

There is a quarter-page advertisement for private banking services in the
current NY Observer that has certain, er, resonance in light of recent
events.  The headline reads:  "When did you first notice that you had become
quietly wealthy?"  Sustaining that unctuous tone (characteristic of private
banking pitches) the copy begins:  "Chances are, you've looked at your
portfolio recently and the rewards of investing over time have made
themselves abundantly clear.  Now is a good time to think about preserving
your wealth, even as you continue to enjoy it."

The ad was run by none other than The Bank of New York.

Today's NY Times supplies useful context for that ad:

"In the eight years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Bank of New
York has emerged as the undisputed leader in providing an essential
behind-the-scenes payment service linking Russia's economy with the West. It
is a high-volume business in which thousands of international transactions
are handled in a sequence of payments involving Russian and foreign banks.

"Now, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation examines the bank's records for
possible money laundering, specialists question whether the huge flow of
money -- nearly $4 billion a day -- made the bank less vigilant than it
should have been about the background of its customers and the sources of
their money.

"'They turned into a huge supermarket,' said Andrei Melnichenko, the
director of MDM Bank, which was a Bank of New York customer until he had a
dispute with the bank. 'If you have many clients and you want to have good
relations, you don't have time enough to control all of it and there is a
risk of error.'"

Errors such as getting caught.

Carl
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <../attachments/19990923/0b4c3cdb/attachment.htm>