THE New Year is a time to ruminate on the folly and greed of man (and woman too). You may remember the recent case involving a faulty cash machine at the Co-op Late Shop in Tottington.

Instead of dispensing tenners, it disgorged £20 notes and the not-so-good people of Tottington are reported to have reacted by telling all their friends and returning with a fist full of cards.

A steady stream of people arrived to withdraw cash, but it seems that nobody thought to go inside the shop and tell the staff. Am I alone in finding this behaviour disgraceful?

The Co-op Bank could well have lost several thousand pounds through this deliberate theft, but it reacted with more dignity than the people who were prepared to steal from it with such enthusiasm. It admitted the fault and assured customers that they would not be chasing them to get the money back.

"The customers can keep the money and have a good Christmas on us," a spokesman said. He said, possibly through gritted teeth: "Our customers are very special to us."

The Rochdale Pioneers, the far-sighted people who founded the Co-operative movement for the benefit of the thrifty poor, will be trampolining in their graves.

The only consolation I can see is that the bank will no doubt be very keen to analyse the transactions carried out at this particular cash point during the period when it was paying out double amounts of cash.

You have to presume that somebody knows who the perpetrators were -- and I hope it makes them feel guilty.

This incident demonstrates to me that the veneer of civilisation is very thin indeed in Tottington -- and probably everywhere else in the world.

War and natural disasters such as earthquakes seem to be the trigger for looting on a massive scale.

Human nature, constrained by the artificial rules which allow modern societies to function, is given free expression when the opportunity arises and "everybody else is doing it".

But other members of the human race -- those higher up the food chain -- find more sophisticated methods of self-aggrandisement.

Major corporate scandals, such as those at Enron in the United States and the Italian food group Parmalat, tend to overload my cynicism levels.

Men in sharp suits are just as likely to be robbers as rough fellows in striped jumpers carrying bags marked "swag".

In this climate, I am very pleased to read that the United Nations plans to crack down on off-shore tax havens and tax avoidance by multi-national companies.

An International Tax Organisation will look at the clever wheezes which big businesses employ to avoid paying taxes which would benefit the countries where they operate.

The UK, say, misses out when multi-nationals conduct their affairs through the Cayman Islands and other places where they get a tax advantage.

A leading accountancy expert, Professor Prem Sikka, is quoted in my daily newspaper estimating that £25 billion is lost to the British Treasury in this way EACH YEAR. Why should this be?