Who do you blame for the recession
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Soldato
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Moths. Vile things.
Soldato
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The economic crisis was caused by high finance bankers being short-termist and creating too much banker demand for shoddy loans, by ratings agencies being too weak and ultimately mortgage lenders for lack of discretion, on a moral level.
The US government (and in part other governments around the world) allowed the economic crisis to occur because interest rates were kept artificially low to allow a housing bubble to occur (to replace the .com bubble).
The economic crisis was felt much harder here in the UK because our Chancellor (Gordon Brown) failed to keep the house in order and mismanaged the economy based on the same belief the bankers had that house prices would always go up and there would never be another bust.
Our own government essentially had no part to play in the global financial crisis, but by god it did everything (or nothing) it could to make sure we felt the harder than almost any other country (bar the basket cases).
So, all of them were complicit in incompetence and greed in some form.
The US government (and in part other governments around the world) allowed the economic crisis to occur because interest rates were kept artificially low to allow a housing bubble to occur (to replace the .com bubble).
The economic crisis was felt much harder here in the UK because our Chancellor (Gordon Brown) failed to keep the house in order and mismanaged the economy based on the same belief the bankers had that house prices would always go up and there would never be another bust.
Our own government essentially had no part to play in the global financial crisis, but by god it did everything (or nothing) it could to make sure we felt the harder than almost any other country (bar the basket cases).
So, all of them were complicit in incompetence and greed in some form.
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Soldato
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Yes, but personally I do not think we are to the extent of Ireland et al - we issue our own sovereign debt. That crutch has propped us up - without it, yes we would probably join the ranks.Can't we just say we are pretty much basket case, HTM?
If you really want to peel it back and be philisophical about it then you could just say inherent greed is to blame.
Greedy governments allowed greedy banks to allow greedy people to buy things they can't afford. And now everyone else who has some money gets to pay for it.
Greedy governments allowed greedy banks to allow greedy people to buy things they can't afford. And now everyone else who has some money gets to pay for it.
Your absolutely right you cant blame people for trying to make as much as they can if the system allows it.
But the shear number of people, organisations and banks involved especially the credit default swaps if it's not criminal what is it?
I don't have much money but i didn't make what i do have off the misery of others nor by exploiting the system to the maximum and precipitating the near collapse of the global economy.
Darn those Bankers never fail to get me mad
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A financial system interested solely in short-term profit.
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He certainly made the recession worse in the UK due to hefty borrowing to fund labour giveaways to lifestyle unemployed etc etc.
Votegrabbing giveaways over the years which the coalition are now having to revoke, funded through insustainable means are making the Tories/Lib Dems look like the bad guys, tough decisions are never popular.
Why does it matter? Nothing you can do about the past except learn from it when you're out the other side.
If you really want someone to blame:
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- Cash is king. Labour overspent rather than saved leaving us with huge interest payments and a level of wastage that simply wouldn't have happened if departments had to be more efficient. The government also didn't regulate the banks from offering crazy mortgages and taking too many risks when the Government knew of their vital importance to the economy.
If you really want someone to blame:
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That's pretty spot on. You have Cambridge maths graduates coming up with new schemes and marketing graduates selling them, knowing nothing about the risk or the actual goings on behind it.
- Cash is king. Labour overspent rather than saved leaving us with huge interest payments and a level of wastage that simply wouldn't have happened if departments had to be more efficient. The government also didn't regulate the banks from offering crazy mortgages and taking too many risks when the Government knew of their vital importance to the economy.
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Indeed, look at for example Barclays Bank, who were recently fined a huge sum by the FSA and ordered to make amends on a fund they sold which was rated incorrectly for risk. The end result was they pulled out of regulated advice making thousands more redundant, the blame for that lies with people who rate things based on math not experience.
Huge swings in the stockmarket these days happen because a computer looks at a trend and decides to buy or sell, that computer has no inside knowledge of whether a company is a good buy, above or below asset value, etc etc.
These days companies have little social accountability, and care nothing about employing people, only shareholder profits, those shareholders being institutions, pensions funds, of the employees being made redundant, who can no longer afford to fund that investment.
The irony is that longer term, the only sustainable way for this to continue is for investment in UK business to shift more and more to overseas investors who don't give a hoot about UK employment, and the result is less and less social accountability.
Certain things should not be run by investors, these include utilities, public transport and bank deposit taking.
I hate to harp on about one particular UK Bank, but I will as it is the one that "claims" it is better than the others as it never took govt money. Barclays made out it was better than the other UK banks but it actually took money from the Abu Dhabi royal family instead of facing restrictions in senior executive pay required by the UK Govt. How patriotic, rather than pay its senior execs reasonably, it was better to sell a big chunk of the business to foreign investors rather than the UK Govt.
To my mind the recession and the greed for money will continue to have negative effects on not just the UK but the world economy. Until the world gets a conscience and gains some social accountability, we are destined for a continued downward spiral.
EDIT: OMG I sound like a socialist!
A very broad generalisation, but yes, I agree with greed and peoples needs and wants, but thats a given.
Dr Who said:
Every system has it's advantages and disadvantages, when talking about 1 thing in particular it may appear to be better than another, but on the grand scale of things it may not be the case.
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