Enter the Dragon

A couple of interesting developments in the economy over the weekend, both of which are all about how you, me and businesses get hit in the pocket.
One was the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, starting to go public with the Government's frustration at the way banks are charging high prices for loans to businesses. It's a similar situation for consumers.
The other, revealed in the Financial Times, was the decision of the Bank of China to enter the UK mortgage market.
One development might be seen as offering a solution to the other, but it's more complicated than that.
The Chancellor's frustration stems from the fact that while the official Bank of England interest rate – what it charges high street banks to lend them money – is only 0.5%, it is difficult to find a decent longer-term, mortgage deal below 5%.
Similarly, the banks are charging high rates and attaching all sorts of stringent conditions to the money they loan to businesses.
One way or the other, the high street banks are making a big profit margin on the money they're lending.
Politically, this is a bad thing because the Government will see this as slowing recovery and making it harder for businesses and ordinary people to help spend us out of recession.
Economically, it's much less clear cut.
I put this precise point to Charlie Bean, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, when I met him just over a week ago.
He didn't seem overly concerned by the huge gap between what the Bank charges high street banks and what the high street banks charge us.
How come? Because it was too many people borrowing too much money at too cheap a price that got us into this mess in the first place.
The interest rate we get charged is effectively the price we pay the bank for the risk involved in taking on a loan. When the price was low, too many people took too high a risk.
So you can argue that if we don't like it we shouldn't have borrowed so much.
That doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Sound financial practice means it should not be easy to get your hands on a lot of money: you have to prove it is being spent on something worthwhile and that you can pay it back.
But are some of the conditions banks impose on business loans actually making it more difficult to do that – in other words are we now being asked to pay so much we simply can't afford it?
On the other hand, isn't it in our interests that the banks do make more money so they can be strong enough to give the taxpayer back all the cash thrown at them over the past year?
I expect you'll see some figures churned out by the banks during the next few days suggesting they are infact doing all they can to help consumers and businesses.
They will also point to the fact that one of the reasons why there's less lending is that people and businesses simply don't want to borrow as much. They've got enough to pay back as it is after the credit binge.
But they'll also have an eye over their shoulder at the likes of the Bank of China. It has been offering loans in the UK to Chinese expats for a while, but is now starting to offer a limited amount of mortgages to the wider UK market at very competitive rates.
What is also eye-catching about the Bank of China's approach is this: it won't loan money to anyone without meeting them face to face.
In the internet and call centre age, is this a lesson our own banks have forgotten?