Who do we really not like?

IN 2001, I found myself as a member of the most despised profession in the world - a practising public accountant. This was because of a number of international scandals blamed on poor standards of auditing, culminating in the fall of Enron and the demise of the then largest international accounting firm - Arthur Andersen (AA).

In the UK, the national broadcaster habitually referred to AA as the firm that "did the books" of Enron. Untrue, but causing public enmity to all accountants. The scandal eventually embraced two other professions - lawyers and bankers - and we were grateful for that. For a while, the three professions were the butt of public jokes and top of everybody's list of "people we do not like".

Then came a much bigger problem in 2007-2008, now referred to as the Global Financial Crisis, though its impact was really in major financial centres and the economies of North America and Europe in particular. Recovery is still in progress, especially in Europe. The crisis was caused by the sudden withdrawal of credit by banks and between banks and between governments, when they recognised that enormous areas of global lending were not underpinned by valuable assets.