Bankers

When I had just finished school I had the following conversation with a banker. He said to me,

- You borrowed the money, you should pay it back.
- Why?
- You promised.
- I promised to pay it back if that's how it happens.
- What do you mean?
- You don't give back a gun you borrowed from a man who has gone crazy. There are more important things in life than paying what you owe.
- More important in your personal life. It doesn't concern us. You have a business relation with us.
- But your personal life concerns me. I let you make me a loan to make you happy. Banking is what you wanted to do in life, and I helped you do it. I treated you like a friend. But you want to treat me like an enemy.
- We want you to pay back our money.

- It wouldn't be good for you.

- We can't loan money if no one pays us back.
- Plenty of people will pay you back. Other bankers will pay you back. They are already your enemies, your only relation to them is money. You cooperate with them and they with you only because it helps to make money. But I am your friend. I know it doesn't help you to give you money. Money is the tool of cooperation, not the end. (Silence.) So now if you're my friend, another loan....