Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
It is greedy bankers Brian, but it is Gordon who changed the banking regulations to allow them to be greedy - before it was just an aspiration, after 1997, Brown made it possible to offer mortgages to people who had no chance of ever paying it back.
Letting people have mortgages until they were 80 years old; 125% of the house value; these are things Brown let them do and then that spread to America as these sub-prime mortgages went over there and so it grew - and grew until the bubble burst.
So you see Brian, it is Gordon who brought the Country to its knees.
Roger
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
You are right Roger but its more than just that. His banking regulation changes went a lot further in removing the oversight of the Bank of England enabling the banks more commercial freedom that, on one hand can boost profits, but with the price of increased risk exposure. As I have always said risk and reward are closely linked.
In addition Brown got the inflation brief wrong for the Bank of England and in so doing caused the massive credit and housing bubble. The increase in private indebtedness was a disaster as soon as the economy started to slow.
Then he discouraged savings in favour of borrowing. The impact of reducing the amount of tax-free saving people could do along with reduced tax benefits from saving. Add that to interest rates kept too low for too long thanks to his inflation brief. People without savings turn more to borrowing making the debt bubble even worse and leaving them even more vulnerable to the downturn.
Let us not forget the uncontrolled public spending since 2001. His massive spending increases was at the cost of higher borrowing at the time when he should have been repaying debt. After all, when do you repay borrowing? you can't do it when the economy gets worse so it has to be done when the economy booms and during that long boom Brown just went borrowing more and more.
The above all contributed to the UK being in an appallingly weak position at the start of the slowdown, lengthening it and deepening it.
Then there are all the other 'mistakes' he made. Over pensions (a disaster) over the sale of gold, over his taxation policies (including the 10p fiasco).
He must have been the worse Chancellor in British history. At least he kept us out of the Euro.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
In fact, Barry, Labour has just been following the drift of Blair's new labour policies, which are nothing more and nothing less than the e.u. imposed system of about fifteen years ago to which every e.u. state at that time agreed.
The Tories are not offering anything in the Election Campaign worth mentioning, other than that they will toss us into even further bankruptcy!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Everything is not about the EU
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Greedy bankers eh? Aren't they the same folks who have made billions for this country?
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
.......and then bankrupted the country? And then went cap in hand to the Government? And then, when they got themselves back on track, paid themselves millions in bonuses?
Yep, that's them, Sid.
True friends stab you in the front.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
nicely summed up andy.
any small business that needs a helping hand will be told where to go.
Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA