Confidence Trick

Confidence is an awkward emotion to describe. Having confidence in another person implies a kind of trust that, if tainted, makes us look a fool. We may have been "too trusting". It is as if our cynical self is always just a step behind our trusting self waiting to smugly point out our gullibility.

However, confidence is vital. I don't know about you but I wouldn't get on an airplane if I didn't have confidence in the capability of Airbus to produce a decent product and confidence in the Pilot and his ability to fly the thing.

I don't go to the Doctor very much, but I certainly would go to see him if I thought there was something wrong. I have confidence in his judgement and skill. I trust his judgement.

But what if the confidence that we have in an institution turns out to have been misplaced? What if the trust we have placed in a whole system ends up being wrong. How should we feel then? Let down? Betrayed? Just plain angry?

I think that this is the situation that we are all in right now. Some of the very pillars of our economic system appear to be shaky. The people we trusted to be intelligent and insightful with our money appear to have been wrong. Our confidence in these systems and these people is severely compromised. Our trust has been shown to have been injudicious.

From the top down, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Investment Bankers, the Regulators, the traders, the fund managers and bank managers have all held our collective confidence and it now appears to have been imprudently handled.

And yet there is no little voice gloating that we have been fooled, that we were "too trusting". No, these people and these institutions were above that threshold. In fact they have had our confidence unreservedly. In looking after themselves, so the wisdom went, they would look after us. Go on. Pay yourself a fortune as long as you make me a pile.

How wrong we were. It has been the ultimate Confidence Trick.