Citywire's Best of the Web

Some stories that caught our attention today:

• To start, a proposal from Chris Dillow at his Stumbling and Mumbling blog for the creation of two classes of banks; in one camp, the nationalised banks that take in guaranteed deposits and make vanilla loans to firms and households, behaving like utilities. The others would be unregulated, operating as they please, but with no government protection for depositors or investors. Let the gamblers gamble.
• Are you an emotionally fit investor? According to CNN Money, ‘Bear markets like this demonstrate that you need to be emotionally 'fit' to invest for the long run.’ Train to get into financial shape, it tells us. The message here really is to invest for the long run and have the patience to see out tough markets – one that does no harm in repeating.
• Bankers have woken up to the reality of what government help means. By paying off the government quickly ‘we’d be under less scrutiny, and under less pressure’, Goldman Sachs’ chief financial office tells the New York Times. ‘Less scrutiny’ and ‘less pressure’ for the banks? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
• Spain has been hit as hard as any country by the economic downturn as homeowners over there will know. Now, in a new tactic to entice visitors to the North East of Spain, the tourist board is using a picture of a beach from the Bahamas. A novel tactic, but the peddling of falsities is a bit close to home at the moment. The Guardian reports.
• And the Daily Mash brings its usual unrivalled insight to bear on bank remuneration with the headline ‘Other people’s bonuses are morally wrong, says everyone’.