Business Through Literature and Film. Home Reading Guide. Part 1. Level C1 – C2

PA RT 1. A RT H U R H A I LY “T H E M O N E YC H A N G E R S” 15Other times I’ve borrowed money from a bank I felt embarrassed. This time I didn’t because the face in front of me on the screen was impersonal. The owner of it a disembodied male whose name I didn’t know was miles away.“Seventeen miles, to be exact,” Alex had said. ‘The bank officer you were talking with is in a control room of our downtown Headquarters Tower. From there he, and others, can contact any branch bank equipped with closed-circuit TV.”Ms. Peacock considered. “How fast, really, is banking changing?”“Technologically, we’re developing more swiftly than aerospace. What you’re seeing here is the most important development since introduction of the checking account and, within ten years or less, most banking will be done this way.” “Will there still be some human tellers?”“For a while, but the breed will disappear quickly. Quite soon, the notion of having an individual count out cash by hand, then pass it over a counter will be antediluvian as outmoded as the old-fashioned grocer who used to weigh out sugar, peas, and butter, then put them into paper bags himself.” “It’s all rather sad,” Ms. Peacock said. “Progress often is.”Afterwards I asked a dozen people at random how they liked the new money shops. Without exception they were enthusiastic.Judging by the large numbers using them, the view is widespread and their popularity, Mr. Vandervoort told me, is helping a current savings drive…Whether the money shops were helping the saving drive, or vice versa, was never entirely clear. What did become clear was that FMA’s most optimistic savings targets were being reached and exceeded with phenomenal speed. It seemed as Alex expressed it to Margot Bracken as if the public mood and First Mercantile American’s timing had uncannily coincided.“Stop preening yourself and drink your orange juice,” Margot told him. Sunday morning in Margot’s apartment was a pleasure. Still in pajamas and...