Kerre Woodham: Gangsters... um... I really meant banksters

Although I am not wealthy, I'm not envious of those who are.

Generally speaking, people who are in the top 0.01 per cent of income earners in this country work jolly hard for their money or have come up with a brilliant idea the rest of the world wants.

Michael Hill, Sir Peter Leitch, Karen Walker, the 42 Below team - good on them.

They are successful entrepreneurs who've taken a few chances and rely on the quality of their product to compete successfully in an open market for people's disposable income.

But not all rich buggers are created equal. When I heard the Finsec rep calling bank executives' salaries unethical, I was forced to agree with him. What do highly paid bank executives do? They screw down expenses and come up with ever more innovative ways of charging us more to use our own money.

Why should I have to pay a fee for moving my money from one account to another, using my time, my computer and my electricity? Sure, the banks provide a service by allowing us to borrow money - but it's not out of the goodness of their hearts.

We end up paying almost the same amount again for the privilege and, when we look like getting too close to getting out from under, they send us brochures, offering to up our credit limit or trying to entice us into some other form of debt.

No wonder the Oxford Dictionary accepted a new word into the lexicon this week - banksters. Because that's what these top dogs are.