Gringotts Bank

[Ali <Ali@zymurgy.org>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50661

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, kewiromeo at a... wrote:
 
Gringotts bank:

<<<I think we are completely missing the point of this bank when 
discussing the matter. This establishment is owned and governed by 
goblins. They have no matters with the Ministry of Magic or anything 
of the like. They do what they want. When the whole Death Eater 
incident happened at the Quidditch World Cup, they were too concerned 
with money to care (I assume that Bagman had borrowed money from the 
bank, or simply there is an OTB (off track betting) division of 
Gringotts.

We are aware of the ways to take out money from the bank, but there 
should be no reason that the Ministry would intervene in money 
matters. >>>
 
Missing the point? I would agree that your version is certainly 
plausible, and in Message 50580 I did mention the idea of a Gringotts 
without any MoM influence. I personally believe it to be unlikely:

<<There is no evidence that the MoM does have a legal and political 
system strong enough to control Gringotts bank but if it does not, we 
are presented with a WW economy radically driven from our own state 
directed, market economy in which the Demand/Supply economics is 
affected by government policy, but I digress
... >>

  I think it would be stretching the evidence to say that 
Gringotts "have no matters with the MoM". They may well do what they 
want. However, it is hard to believe that they do exactly what they 
want, as if that were the case, the entire WW could be beholden to 
them, and would have set up an alternative banking system. I would 
imagine that Gringotts is a private enterprise just like banks in 
Muggle Britain, but they do have to abide by the laws of the land.

IMO the point about this debate – and indeed many others, is that we 
do not have cast iron answers .  Some ideas are certainly more 
plausible than others, but discussion opens our minds to alternate 
theories, however wrong JKR might prove them to be. 

Ali