Y -2 K
Sorta cute article about a small old church trying to navigate big modern bank bureaucracies.

Questions on the forms included: “What is the weekly footfall?” (This is not known because the church usually remains open); “What is the average 'spend’?” (Mrs Phillipps said church collections are often anonymous and always erratic); and “What is the church’s postcode?” (The church doesn’t have a letterbox or a postcode and the correspondence goes to the appropriate church officer). And finally, “When was the business founded?” (Mrs Phillipps said: “Some time before 1244”).

BLAMO! Take that, Microsoft! Take that, Unix! 1/1/80 ain't nothing. 1/1/70 ain't nothing. Can you handle 1244? You can't handle 1244.

How about Greece or Persia where a farm or monastery or temple could have been operating steadily since 2000 BC?

All of these standardized digitalized expectations are blown away by a business that would have seemed perfectly ordinary just a few years ago. Now, thanks to "anti" "terrorist" "laws", banks have to assume that all normal activity is "terrorism".

I'm still disgustedly amazed that nobody has bothered to reinvent proper banking. Since "sometime before 1244", banks have been MAKING A GOOD PROFIT by PAYING INTEREST on deposits and CHARGING INTEREST for loans. There is NO REASON why a business couldn't still MAKE A PROFIT by doing THE SAME FUCKING THING. In addition, a bank that is ABLE TO HANDLE CASH TRANSACTIONS WITHOUT IDIOT DIGITAL REQUIREMENTS could also make a nice profit.

Why doesn't this happen? I can see the legal hassles on cash handling, but I don't see any legal prohibition on paying interest. The people in charge are the exact opposite of Muslims, so you can't blame Sharia law for this. You can blame the natural tendencies of the people in charge. Moses tried to reform them, Jesus tried to reform them, Mohammed tried to reform them. No go. Continuously stiff-necked since 2000 BC.

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Sidenote: Looking at lists of oldest continuous businesses, two definite regularities appear. Many of them are brewers or distillers, and most are in Japan. Instantly yields two common factors: Stable culture for people and products, and long generations for people and products. When you're making 7-year-old whiskey and selling it to 107-year-old people, you focus on continuity. You need to keep your employees for at least 7 years, and you want to keep your customers for at least 80 years.
  ¶ 6:44 AM