Of course they do. They've watched people have a great time on cheap credit whilst they were still on a "beans and toast" lifestyle because they don't like risk.
Now they get to rub it in people's faces as if they were right all along when, in reality, that's not the case.
I think its more a case of plenty of people seeing those on very average salaries living on the very edge of their means despite almost everything being cheap and in their favour for the most part and then watching those same people complain of having no money when times change. We live a good life but damn we could be living a much better one if we didn't care about tomorrow. We could have a nice new car, go on expensive holidays, eat out all the time etc. People who go without to be financially secure have less sympathy for those who don't. Its not surprising.
Extremely low rates lasted longer than expected... Why wouldn't some people think it would continue? This is probably more apparent in the younger generation as they have known nothing BUT low rates.
The "told you so" is generally from the older generations (30+ year olds) who have potentially had experience of higher rates.
I have never experienced high rates however since I became an adult I have always had the feeling of "this doesn't make sense" when it comes to things like house prices and how people spend their money. The concept of saving for a rainy day is not a new idea, nor is it an outdated idea. Expecting adversity to never hit either yourself or the country at large is silly and you can't just brush it off as "no one could have predicted this" and expect someone else to compensate for it.
Thats not how anything in the world works. You mitigate against unforeseen events. You take out insurance against your house burning down. You insure your car. You take out travel insurance. None of these things are likely to ever be used by most people but you still know that you need to make sure you aren't bankrupted by the unforeseen.
I don't think anyone foresaw what has happened over the past 3 years or so. Anyone who says they did is lying. Plenty of people have made general provisions for ensuring their financial health should something bad happen though.
Some people don't have the luxury of that but a lot of people do. A lot of people have been living the good life and leaving nothing on the table for when life isn't so good.
You can see this from the amount of mortgage deals being pulled recently... They haven't a clue what to do.
If the "experts" don't know what to do, how can you expect the average person to?
The experts are doing something. They are removing themselves from unpalatable risk where they can. Removing yourself from a situation
is doing something. They don't know what is going to happen but they probably have plans to cover most eventualities. Banks, unlike people are very calculating because if they aren't they will either lose money or make less than they could. Neither of which they like.
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