Greedy bankers didn't cause the recession, or at least not on their own. Wayne and Sharon mortgaging their house to buy an X5 and have 5 tropical holidays a year caused it by not being able to repay the money. Doleheads getting mortgages causes the recession. Compulsive credit card spankers who go bankrupt causes the recession. Slim Jim who borrows millions to set up a rather useless business selling designer jumpers and goes into liquidation causes the recession.

Bankers pay huge amounts of tax on their earnings, just like everyone else. Ok they are irreponsible too, but uncontrollable, unsustainable spenders are to blame mostly.

What irks me the most about all this is as smaller firms go, larger ones get bigger. Currently Tesco is the largest employer in the country. They pay most of their staff minimum wage plus 5p per hour, and the gov tops up their employees wages with tax credits. If the conservatives stop the tax credits system, Tesco will be royally [LIFTED]. No-one will bother working for them, unless they considerably boost wages.

I'm sorry but shouldn't the institutions take some responsibility? I don't know about anyone else but I've had tons of loan applications and credit card applications thrown down my neck for years and banks were quite happy to lend people mortgages much higher than they can afford.

It's not just people over spending it's being given the opportuinity to over spend and get in to debt.

Funny how I haven't had a loan application or credit card application through my post for ages isn't it?

The responsibility of borrowing money and not being able to repay it is solely with the borrower. Just like it says on a packet of smokes ' Cancer will Kill you' or whatever, loans, credit cards etc come with clear terms and conditions stating what happens if you don't repay.

Short of students going into too much debt for the first time, and they do (or rather used to) get some rather lucrative loans,bungs,overddrafts or whatever, people who remortgaged their house to buy a Mercedes ML 4wd and a boat deserve everything they get.

These people, failed to repay the money back when it all hit the fan, which in turn stopped banks lending money to normal people who want a loan to build an extension, get a normal mortgage or get finance to buy a Ford Focus. There was a point when banks had so much money because of those schemes they were involved in, they were lending money to everyone. But then as far as I know every Newsagent sells smokes and every off license sells booze.

If you take into account what you would have to do normally to own a 60 grand BMW X5 it would involve earning a load of money to be able to either save up from earnings, pay the finance and deposit (sometimes payments of 1k plus a month on some cars) so basically you'd have to earn loads, have inherited money, be from landed gentry etc etc. No way can any normal person buy a 60k car. But because of the way the system went, people could remortgage their house and be driving round in the type of value car that you only ever saw once a week in the 80's. They had NO right to be doing that, and that style of borrowing is totally irresponsible and these people are losing their houses so their kids have nowhere to live, because of reckless behaviour.

People with normal jobs, even if they work hard, can't buy 60k cars, and those that did because they borrowed against their home are idiots.

* Sigh *

So when do bankers take responsibility? Yes, many people took out mortgages who shouldn't have been able to but then they were being offered them by those very people whose one main purpose is to double and triple check that the people they are lending to will be able to pay them back.

In the 90s I worked for a firm that dealt with mortgages, more often than not calculations would deem that applicants would not have enough money, and/or be in stable enough employment, to support their initial mortgage request. They would then, obviously, be offered less or nothing. That was our job, not theirs, it was our role to work out what they could afford and hence our responsibility.

They frakked up but aside from wanting to make the public pay for their mistake they also want the public to blame each other for that mistake.

To think the whole sorry mess was caused by tom, dick or harry getting a mortgage, buying a car, or having a holiday is, to say the least, very naive.

So did you get the sack from this job you had 'in the 90's' for sighing at clients and calling then Naive ? As it happens, I might just know a little bit more about it than you think I do, without me having to resort to acting like I think I am other posters Dad like you are doing. I work as a Financial Advisor dealing with asset allocation (and re-allocation) so I doubt you have many grounds for lecturing me with your expertise on the matter.

In case you are un-aware, household spending accounts for two thirds of all expenditure in the UK economy. People have been losing their jobs for one simple reason :
The businesses and households that had relied on borrowing to fund their spending, found credit more difficult to access. Since credit was fuelling economic growth this directly impacted on the real economy as spending on goods and services dropped, prices fell, and with it company profitability, thereby forcing businesses to cut back production and staff.

What have Bankers go to do with this ? Answer, nothing.

Irresponsible borrowing is the key point I was making, borrowing beyond your means, be you individual, business or government is unsustainable and never ends well. You obviously have no idea how much money 'dissapears' in the system by individuals following this path. When you do, come back with your condescending and rude manner and we can chat more.

Absolutely. Surely, therefore, it is down to the financial institution to decide whether the borrower is a good risk or not.

What happened, in the US if memory serves, is irresponsible lenders gave money away to people simply unable to pay back the debt. Those debts were then sold on to larger financial companies, repackaged and sold round the world as "toxic debt".

Is that the fault of the borrowers? Perhaps, but surely those who were lending the cash had a duty not l to oan out to anyone unable to pay it back?

Essentially, it seems the whole "toxic debt" mismanagement ended with the entire banking system going into meltdown. It was also a wake-up call to the many irresponsible borrowers out there.

I'm not a financial guru, so I can't claim to understand it better than those who work in the system. My opinion is drawn from reading, listening and watching reports on the crash from all over the globe.

There are many issues that don't get covered in the press or are widely known. First of all many people borrow money and feed the lender misleading or incorrect information. They underestimate their expenditure, exaggerate their earnings and forecasts (particularly businesses), and they also know when they borrow that they can't pay it back. Now I can understand how many of you here would not do that or consider it, but it happens. People have been borrowing money they know they can't pay back, just to live the high life till it catches up with them.

You can't generate shades of grey for borrowing beyond your means, its black and white. We aren't talking about some guy borrowing £500 off the TSB in the 80's to service his Morris Marina and buy his kids new shoes. We are talking about remortgaging and hige loans to purchase tat like Mercedes 4wd's, expensive holidays, jewellery. Living the life of a footballer without their income. I have seen it so much, people with houses in South Manchester worth £500k, driving Range Rover Sports and Audi RS's, but their job is Supervisor in a call centre earning 32k a year. I can't understand how we can blame the banks (I do think they are scum like everyone else though) for lending these idiots this money, as they know damn well they can't pay it back.

Its not just a few people borrowing money they know they can't repay, its Millions and Millions. 95% of all the expensive cars you see on the road are driven by people soaked to the skin in debt.

So we have a financial guy on one side and joe public on the other.

Mr financial guy can you tell me when why I have 4 credit cards with one company and 2 with another? And now they're wonderihng why I'm up the creek without a paddle as my partner is out of work? I've had credit cards for 22 years and have always paid them whether I was short of cash or not. Now I'm having problems I'm spoken to like I'm some kind of lepper.

The institutions AND the public are responsible. The majority of the nation has a buy now worry about it later mentality and we've all been brought up with it.

I'm glad the recession has happened. Yes things are hard for many people but it's taught me the value of money and to appreciate everything I've got.

Bickering and finger pointing does not resolve the issue. People have got to change their spending habbits and if this recessions teaches some to do that then it's been worth while. If not it will just happen again and again (this is the 3rd recession I remember in my lifetime)

I'm not a bank, or a financial guy, I don't lend money, I simply advise people who are in a bad (or good, but that's not so common at the moment) situation. I also deal with liquidation and insolvency. I am nothing to do with any Bank, CC firm or whatever.

You asking me why you have X number of credit cards and you can't repay them, so why did the bank give you them is like asking your local newsagent why he sold cigarettes to someone who now has lung cancer. That's up to you, I'm sure you got them because you needed the money, but just remember that lots of people get credit and then piss it up the wall on tat...that's the majority of the problem.

One of the biggest falls in economic activity have been in consumer goods, new cars and ‘white goods’ ( washing machines and fridges.)
These are primarily financed by credit and in recent years loan agreements have been designed to be more manageable and more readily available to entice an ever greater number of households to continue to buy what they don’t need so that companies can maintain high and more profitable production growth schedules.

In simple terms, when people abuse the credit system, the banks stop lending, and production suffers and jobs go. Banks were 'bad' enough to loan people money to buy a new fridge, nobody says that do they, they just say, oh the banks are so bad lending all that money out irresponsibly.

Here is a dilemma as these White goods are essential, unlike the tat that people can waste credit on.Though this model of capitalist economic growth is clearly unsustainable, it has devastating consequences, as it causes a downward negative economic spiral.When production falls unemployment rises which in turn causes lower spending on goods and services, lower production and more unemployment

The term 'financial guy' still covers financial advisers in my book.

I still stand by what I said, the institutions are as much responsible as the public.

I wasn't asking you anything about paying cards back I said why has one company given me 4 cards and another 2? If the institutions do not want to carry out certin checks before they issue cards and loans then yes they are as much to blame.

Funny how only 1 card reduced the credit limit too.

The credit crunch created my job and I get more money than I would without it.

You were trying to put me on one side as some kind of bankster and 'Joe Public' as you put it on the other. I'm NOTHING to do with loaning money, I don't work for any bank, bulding society, Yes Car Credit, Moneysupermarket, ComparetheMeerkat, whatever. The guy who fills the cash machine at your local Tesco has more to do with loaning money than me. Don't try and demonise my profession thanks. I spend 12 years in the Army, before the days of Labour, doing constructive things like manning a Sangar in Northern Ireland waiting for the local ASU to turn up and take a pot shot at me, whilst you were probably sitting in your cosy living room. Then I spent two years being either unemployed or doing crap jobs like scraping food off dishes until I sorted myself out with some University stuff and my current profession. I also brought up my son without a mother, so I know all about financial difficulty.

The sort of thing I do is for example had a guy come to me with 40k he inherited, minus deductions and tax. He said what should he do with it. He said where should I invest it, bonds, shares, stocks etc. I took one look at his finances and said, I would 'invest' it by paying HSBC the 12 grand loan back, 10 grand back to Natwest credit cards and pay Ford Finance off whilst you are at it. Put the rest in a savings account I said.

What do you do ?

I wasn't putting anyone in to any box, you was doing that all by yourself.

Blah blah blah cba!

(8+D

Mark