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European Bankers Desperately Calling America for Assistance, Americans have no Idea what they are Saying.
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diff --git a/wiki/news/european-bankers-desperately-calling-america-for-assistance-americans-have-no-idea-what-they-are-saying.md b/wiki/news/european-bankers-desperately-calling-america-for-assistance-americans-have-no-idea-what-they-are-saying.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..83930237 @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "European Bankers Desperately Calling America for Assistance, Americans have no Idea what they are Saying." +type: news +status: confirmed +date: 2023-03-15 +author: Max Shaft +image: "https://storage.ghost.io/c/2b/78/2b7819dd-fa09-4afb-83f8-6f9e5bcc69fd/content/images/size/w1200/2023/03/15765536141_ff700c3145.jpg" +sourceUrl: "https://www.bugle.news/european-bankers-desperately-calling-america-for-assistance-americans-have-no-idea-what-they-are-saying/" +sources: + - raw/news/european-bankers-desperately-calling-america-for-assistance-americans-have-no-idea-what-th.json +--- + +As [[storylines/banking-crisis-of-2023|the banking crisis]] rocked the continent, European bankers frantically phoned their American counterparts for help — and got nowhere, because no one on the American end spoke French, German, or Spanish. + +"I kept getting these calls from some guy speaking in French. I had no idea what the fuck he was saying," one anonymous American banker reported. "I kept telling him, 'I'm sorry buddy, I don't speak French,' but he just kept talking... It was really frustrating, so I went for lunch." Another described a German call as "like listening to the lady who cleans my walk up fight the vacuum up the stairs." European frustration was quotable but untranslated — "Nous sommes dans une crise financière majeure, et ils ne peuvent même pas comprendre le français? C'est ridicule," said one French banker, in a quote The Bugle admitted it could not read either, appealing to readers: "Here at [[orgs/the-bugle|the Bugle]], none of us speak French, German, or Spanish, so please let us know what any of this means." + +American relief efforts were characteristically resourceful. One bank sent a team of translators; lacking Spanish-speaking staff, it canvassed the Bodega on 34th, and one Tommy called in his landscaping crew, "but it turned out they're Laotian so we couldn't use them." A skeptic surveying his own rolodex found only "my nail lady, the pool kid, or that Russian chick I meet in Murray Hill sometimes." As the crisis rages on, the European bankers' urgency is clear — even if their calls for help are not. + +> irl: Published amid the real March 2023 banking crisis — Silicon Valley Bank had collapsed on March 10, and Credit Suisse took an emergency $54B lifeline from the Swiss National Bank on the day this ran. The target here is American monolingualism, not the banks.