Monday | 13 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 13 January 2025 | Epaper

Money tastes sweeter than honey!

Published : Thursday, 1 December, 2016 at 12:00 AM  Count : 375
Mahbubar Rahman
Emerging from a land which we call it Scandinavia, where Viking warriors once lived and ventured to conquer lands across the shores of the sea of Baltic under the sharp edge of the Viking sword, two young men and two young women from Sweden with a musical band named ABBA raised the storm in both the shores of Baltic and further beyond to mesmerize the hearts and souls of millions music lover around the world. Bits and sounds of their music did not confine in Europe and America alone. Fury of the onslaught of music reached the shores of this part of the world too, with creating mellifluous rhythms and modulation of music in the hearts of men and women in their prime time of youth.
Having said so, I must confess at this point that this piece is not intended to review the rendition of ABBA of those golden era, but to ruminate over one of the most enchanting song saying "I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay/ Ain't it say/ And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me that too bad/....Money, Money, Money must be funny in the rich men's world/ money, money, money always sunny in the rich men's world".
A widely spoken adage says that money is sweater than honey. Some people even go to the extent of saying that money is the second god which is widely adorned by the human race irrespective of colours they bear white, black, brown or yellow. History revealing the emergence of money in the present day context in transacting business is not that long. In ancient time, different valuable objects played the role of money in transactions. Different metallic coins which include gold coins had the long record in serving as money. Gold still plays a decisive role in determining the standard of monitory reserve system in the vaults and coffers of the government. Although the requirement of money for moderate and decent living is not that soaring, but the lust and greed for its possession in infinite quantity knows no bound. It is too little to say that limit for possessing money is the sky. Perhaps sky is too small a limit for humans' lust and greed for money. Leo Tolstoy's epic short story 'How much land does a man need?' portrays rightly a figurative account of men's lust and greed for land and wealth.
Through an enduring process of transformation from one stage to another over the years, money is now visibly seen in the shape of paper notes and coins of different denominations. Evolution of banking system which had originated in Italy a few hundred years ago by a section of money-lender seating in 'banko' (bench) in the road side of market place gave an institutional relevance of money in transacting business.
Urge for possessing money in abundance through illegal means and machination is now soaring and a highly talked about subject of the day, although humans' instincts and tendency toward such an urge is perhaps as old as civilization. Money lending through the practice of usury has been widely in practice for long. Money tastes sweater at time of receiving but it soon turns bitter in taste at the time of paying back. Modern money lenders in re-incarnated shape of Kabuliwala of the by-gone days sometime go berserk in recovering the loan through inhuman practice when the loans get stuck-up. It brings unbearable pity and misery to the borrower which includes loss of ancestral homestead and cattle-head when he fails to pay back the loan in time. Shakespearian drama "Merchant of Venice" suggest a burning example of cruelty when the money lender shylock acrimoniously claimed a pound of flesh from Antonio who failed to pay back the loan in time. Antonio, however, did not have to give a pound of flesh from his body to Shylock because of extra-ordinary wit displayed by his lawyer named Portia in the court of law asking Shylock to take a pound of flesh by a sharp knife without shedding a drop of blood which was not in terms of the agreement of loan. Shakespearian Shylock confined himself only in the drama, but modern day Shylocks practice usury in different names and shapes with sharp knife concealed under the sleeves are often visible all around to suck the blood with flesh from the body of the borrows in case the borrower fail to fulfil the imposed terms of lending and borrowing. Banking practice is so widespread in the modern world that without which monetary transactions including transaction of business cannot be imagined. Digitalization of banking system facilitated the clients to deriving benefits within hours and minutes no matter how distantly the parties are placed from each other. Liberalization of banking policies supplements business to flourish and makes the life style easy. In modern banking system banks lend money on manifold accounts including on personal account known as Personal Loan and Credit Card facilities on credibility of person to person basis virtually without any collateral security. Banks charge high interest on such nature of loan account and get fabulously benefitted as long as the payback mechanism works successfully. As the bright side of the coin has equally a dark side, therefore, such random delivery of unsecured loan brings about disaster to both the lender and the borrower on occasions. Global recession of   2011-12 stands as an example where apart from colossal corporate business house debacles, borrowers in small scale in the form of Personal Loan and Credit Card contributed adversely in creating a seismic jolt in the U.S. money market including micro economic system. The Obama administration had to come forward with billions of dollar to salvage the corporate business house and overall economy from collapse with tax payer's money. In so called free market economy without proper leash in hand,  the U.S. government had to act as saviour with the spirit of socialistic pattern of economic system which is now redundant in the Western world and regarded as villainous pattern as western propaganda machines suggest.
It is true that like deadly poison potassium cyanide, money tastes always sweeter. But on some occasions, money may equally give bitter and deadly taste. Money wears two faces i.e. white and black particularly in the developing countries of the world. Holders of black money represent a very powerful lobby in the society. Even the long hands of law do not easily reach the necks of black money holder at time it warrants. Sometimes governments of the sovereign state are visibly seen to be benign and comprise with the black money holders in facilitating them whitening the black money with lucrative package of nominal taxes, Government of Bangladesh offered, on many occasions in the past, such packages of nominal taxation for whitening black money with unfortunately no substantial visible outcome of the government's such move.
Recently, in India, to arrest the soaring adverse effects of black money in the country's overall economy, the Narendra Modi government had to crack down on black money and take resort to punitive measure like demonetizing the bank notes Rupees 500 and Rupees 1000 denomination, thus creating a seismic jolt in the country's money market. In frantic struggle to change the demonetized old  notes by new notes, common people had to be in long queue for days in the bank's ATM booth resulting so far death casualty of 70 people in the queue with other several thousand injuries from such unprecedented hassles and unrest. It has, of course, not yet been reported, how many big fishes wallowing over black money in billions got heart attack which is unlikely to happen because of the fact that losing ill-gotten billions out of the government's such ongoing punitive move counts peanut worth to those giant black money bullies whose money, in fact, does not count in figures and numerical numbers. However, time will tell only if such ongoing clampdown of the Modi government on black money succeeds or call for a more serious devastation in the Indian money market.
Without having right preparation to adopt an absolutely free market economic system, Bangladesh with 7 percent GDP growth rate has been preaching and practicing the system toward achieving economic goal. Hallmark, Destiny, Share Market and Bangladesh Bank's money plundering by hacker's scams where billions of taka has been siphoned off by the ominous hands stand a clear testimony to the fact that free market economic order without state control in some form or other is not the panacea for economic emancipation. Similarly, providing the customers with Credit Card facilities with lucrative package is not also the sign of economic prosperity where the recipients of such facilities cither have no intention to service the loan or not capable of doing so because of inadequate income earnings despite their good intention. Money which tastes sweeter than honey soon turns into poison with bitter taste to digest. The lender who treated the customer of such small loan or Credit Card as 'Valued Customer' soon start hounding after them in recovering the stuck-up amount. In some cases bankers of global trademarks with snobbish outfit blended with outlandish words act out of the way in resorting to rowdism by hiring so called third party agent for recovering the loan without pursuing due process of law, which is the only remedy for recovery as prescribed by Bangladesh Bank and the government.
I am sure that the banks particularly the ones with foreign trademark no matter how smart garb they are fitted in, have not been given license to harass the borrowers by employing a band of hooligans in the name of a third party agent toward recovering the loan, Such vile acts of high handedness and vandalism without walking the legal path is a clear violation of banking norms and rule and obviously tantamount, to punishable offence. Bangladesh Bank and the government should constantly monitor the situation so that the human right is not abused without following the country's legal system. Defaulting bank loan in no way be encouraged. Bangladesh bank has prescribed certain procedures like rescheduling of loan with easy and workable term to give a breathing space and a way out to the defaulting borrowers. It is observed with great concern that some banks operating in Bangladesh with an alien insignia tend to defy the rules, which is not in their favour with the plea that such re-scheduling process to give relief to the borrowers is not compatible to their self manufactured system. I wonder if those banks are existing outside the purview of Bangladesh Banks set rules and norms and consider themselves 'aristocrat' in the given situation they operate within, while other local banks, providing equal facilities to the customers adhere to the principle of Bangladesh Bank and running business successfully toward attaining their goal.
Coming back to ABBA's memorable song' 'Money, Money, Money ...' I would like to re-emphasis that money is always bright and sunny in the rich men's world and because of the sweetness and brightness of money, human's urge to run after money is unending. Humans go mad in possessing money by whatsoever means like by hard work, legally, illegally, plundering and looting etc, in infinite volume. An escort free system is bound to suffer a nose-dive fall at the end of the day. Any indiscriminate lending and borrowing process gives rise to corruption and chaos in the society and breed neo-Shylocks with an urge, grinning their teeth of lust to consume a pound of flesh from the borrowers, Concerned leadership in the state machinery should not give a blind eye and deaf ear to the warning bell that is ringing and as such may deeply ponder over the situation before suffering still a greater
financial scam than ever before.r
Mahbubar Rahman is a former civil servant





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