Straight Talk — Thanks for saying no

I want to take this opportunity to thank every banker who has ever said "no." It's not an easy thing to say in this have-it-all culture. Bankers, however, have to say no regularly, and it certainly doesn't do anything for their personal popularity ratings. But I am writing this column to say "thank you.". I often think about bankers who live in small towns, where they know everyone and they see just about everyone at the ball game, church or village square. Saying no in a small town is a lot tougher than saying no in the big city where your chances of ever seeing a loan applicant again are nil. But when you say no in a small town, the applicant is likely to be your neighbor, or maybe the kid who went to school with you.. But the world needs rational people who look at requests for credit in a level-headed way. We need people who won't ignore the facts, people who will say no when it is clear the applicant won't be able to repay the loan.. In a world where people say "yes" to everything, folks come to expect everything and ultimately value nothing. For decades, the culture has been saying yes to anyone who wants a car, post-secondary education, exotic vacation or comfortable house. Credit is tougher to get now than it was five years ago, but still, nobody seems too worried about all the debt it requires to fund these kinds of amenities. Wouldn't it be better to save the money first and then buy these things? Oh, I am so old fashioned! So many non-bank or non-traditional lenders make the money available, encumbering recipients for decades to come.. Recent news articles about mounting college tuition debt bring this to mind. Federal student lenders are so willing to lend young adults money so they can attend over-priced colleges and graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. If they go to grad school, the debt can easily reach into six figures. It would be better for the lender to say no and force the kid to figure out a different way to pursue life.. My sense is most of the people reading this magazine don't lend money to people without sufficient income to pay the loan back in a timely manner. You folks say no from time to time. We might all be a little better off if this kind of common sense pervaded all variations of lender.