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The banking collapse is all your fault
It’s time the general public took responsibility for their ignorance and greed, says David Cox
So who is really to blame? Greedy bankers, witless shareholders, dozy directors or lazy journalists? It is always nice to find someone to blame. But beneath the ruins of our financial system lurks a culprit more guilty than any of these. Us.
The so-called government rescue plan is a foolish mistake. Rotten institutions should be swept away, and those who chose to invest in them should pay the price. Yet we, the people, find this harsh reality unacceptable. Politicians know they must do something, or we shall vote for someone else.
So, institutions that have gambled and lost must be propped up, and their shareholders saved from the wipeout that should be their due. Depositors must have their savings preserved in full, however greedy they may have been.
It is happening this way because we expect the government to safeguard us from the consequences of our actions, whether these take the form of over-borrowing, over-spending or even over-eating. We are no longer responsible for our own decisions: our advisers must give us foolproof advice; regulators must eliminate the risks of the marketplace. If we buy a pup, we have been 'mis-sold'. We have become infants. When we fall over, we insist that our leaders must pick us up.
But they cannot. All they can do is postpone pain, divert it and in the process magnify it. If taxpayers' enforced investment in our bombed-out banks was likely to pay off, it would not have been necessary. Instead, it seems bound to result in big tax increases that will deepen the impending depression. These will be followed, very possibly, by hyperinflation. The first will penalise the industrious, while the second will ruin the thrifty. In the end, we shall all pay a much-enhanced price for our own folly.
Maybe it serves us right. If we are lucky, however, it may at least teach us to grow up. ·
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Comments
The Author of this drivel needs to give himself a stiff uppercut!! To apportion blame to anything other than bankers GREED is not only disengenuos it is blatant bit of sophistry!! For the halfwit that holds similar views, capitilism is inherently immoral. You think because communism is rightly condemned,that that somehow makes Capitalism whiter than snow??? I don't think so!!!
Here here. I have to say that I agree with this article.
I think that both parties are to blame for this problem. The banks should have been more responsible in their lending and made sure that each loan or mortage issued was likely to be paid back, I agree with that. However the basic point behind this article is don't buy what you can't afford. A lot of people have been unrealistic and greedy in their borrowing, and that should be obvious to everyone. When you see people as young as 18 "buying" 10 grand cars on finance, you can't justify that and say that they are not being stupid. I see this happen with so many of my friends racking up huge credit card bills and just clearing the interest every year, never actually repaying any of the debt.
Obviously the argument is a bit extreme in it's finger pointing however these points needed to be raised. It's not just the bank's or government's fault. We have to take some responsibility because we, in the end, spent that money.
But to say that we are not in any way to blame for this shit show is ridiculous.
Don't shop at John Lewis when Argos will do.
My thanks, - if needed, to the three correspondents who have responded to David Cox's ludicrous article. NO, we are not all like little children, howling and crying when we do not get our own way. The really petulant actors in this drama, - "Nightmare on the High Street", are Brown and Darling, especially the former. I could hardly believe my eyes this morning when I read that Brown has had the cheek to blame all our woes on unfettered capitalism. Apparently we need capitalism to be reined in by ethical principles, - as if it, - capitalism, were inherently immoral.
No, Mr. Brown, what we need is politicians to behave as servants of the people, not their commissars or Gauleiters. And if there is one set of people who must behave "ethically" it is Comrade Gordon Brown and his lackeys. For a start, they should stop lying to the electorate and cease making promises that they have no intention of keeping. We had Tony Blair in 1997 promising that his "New Labour" government would be "whiter than white", - and then, last year, Comrade Brown promising us a free vote on our membership in the E.C.
Secondly, Brown and Co., - especially Brown himself, were in charge of the economy all through these past 11 years of socialist bondage. He proved to be the arch-spender and chief taxer. But Brown NEVER has the humility to accept any blame for anything that goes awry in the life of this once-prosperous country of ours.
Bring on the General Election!
What a pathetic, simplistic article - Yes, people should not have been offered silly credit that was unrepayable, yes Governement should have been aware of this occuring and have the sense to understand it's consequences, yes, these people should not be saved, but..... "Depositors must have their savings preserved in full, however greedy they may have been. " I am in credit in all my dealings, with the exception of a modest mortgage, yet you seem to put my situation as worthy of derision and that loss of my hard work is somehow a personal responsibility? The responsibility for allowing it to happen is the point of control, which is with Government.
"Depositors must have their savings preserved in full, however greedy they may have been. "
What?? Savers, greedy?
Going on this absurd, and stupid, logic, we are also all to fault for the Iraq War, for Superbugs in the NHS and for not even 50% of students getting 5 A-C at GCSE. Every single one of us. Some people in society are responsible for certain things, others are responsible for different things, thats the way it is. We cannot all be held accountable for certain people being offered stupid mortgages, that is the responsibility of the lenders. Financial institutions are responsible for their behaviour.