William Seidman (former FDIC chairman)’s banking jokes
L.William Sediman was chairman of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). He has produced numerous banking jokes. Below I put together some of them.
On Russian banking problem:
“Ivan asked his mother – mother, why have I got the biggest feet in the third grade? Is it because my dad was communist? She says, no son, it’s because you’re 19”
On Russian lending problem:
“I went into one small bank and there were three or four of the tougher looking Russians sitting around with AK47s and I said, I know that crime is awful around here, but do you need to have a real army here to defend this small of a bank? They said, well, they are not here to defend the bank, those are the people who collect our loans.”
On Japan banking problem:
“A doctor calls up his patient and says, I have bad news for you and worse news for you. You have only 24 hours to live. The patient says, oh, that’s terrible. What could be worse news? The doctor says, I’ve been trying to get you since yesterday”
On World Bank’s blank check aids
“I was there for the World Bank and we had $2 billion to spend, and if you want to really be treated royally, just wander through Russian with $2 billion that you can provide them I got so full of caviar that I couldn’t look at a fish egg again.”
On Japan’s stagnation:
“They’ve been in a non-growth economy for many years now... if something like that was going on this country, there would be a revolution. The fact of the matter is in Japan, the average Japanese citizen may be better off than he was seven years ago... since they have experienced deflation in effect, the average person in Japan is living as well or better than he did in the past. As a matter of fact, the crash in real estate prices ahs allowed lots of Japanese to now live somewhere closer to their work than a two-hour commute by train to Tokyo”
