Journal tomhudson's Journal: Hear the one about the lawyer who bills 30 hours a day? 4

Here in Brazil, the bank that used to be the third-largest non-government bank (it's now 4th because Santander, a Spanish bank, bought Banco Real ABN Amro, making it the 2nd-largest non-gov't bank in Brazil) is called Unibanco. Unibanco's branches have signs that say "banco 30 horas" ("30 hour bank"), and it's supposed to refer to 30 hours per day. The funny thing is that when I saw it, I said "those fsckers are open about 30 hours per week," and it turns out I was pretty much right, but actually a bit generous.
Here's the basis for their claim of 30 hours per day: the branch is open to the public 6 hours per day on business days, plus the cash machines are available 24 hours. Oops, except they're not, since you are limited in how much money you can get at machines in places like malls after 10 PM, plus they are completely unavailable from midnight until some time in the morning - I think it's 6 AM. Anyway, add the 6 hours that the branch is open on business days only (and not on weekends or holidays) to the 24 hours the cash machines aren't even really available anyway, even though the six hours the branch is open would be concurrent with six of the "24" hours the machines are available, and you get 30 hours. There are so many lies built into that number that it's hard to believe they get away with it, but they do. I was right when I said they're open about 30 hours per week, because 6 hours per day times 5 business days per week gives you 30 hours per week, but I was actually a bit generous because an average week has less than 5 business days because of holidays.
Anyway, I'm surprised to see lawyers getting as low as bankers. Yes, I know how Tom feels about lawyers, but keep in mind that Cheney also goes on about "trial lawyers" in much the same way as he talks about al Qaeda. That's because lawyers sometimes represent people against corporations. Banks are always total thieves and fsckers, so I consider bankers much, much lower than lawyers. But here we see lawyers getting down to banker level. Worse, down to Brazilian banker level.
Here in Brazil they say the most lucrative business is a well-run bank. And they say the second-most lucrative business is a poorly-run bank. Ha ha, right? Well, yes, except it's true. And they get away with murder because they own the government here the way the insurance companies and petroleum companies own the government in the US. And come to think of it, given the way the bankruptcy bill and the "subprime mortgage crisis" happened in the US, we can say banks are also partial owners of the US government.