Is it ok to let HBOS go under

Degenerate

leveller2911 wrote: »

oh and not forgetting all those thousands of f e c k less borrowers seem to have had it rather easy too.

Those are the people who post the bitterest anti-banker statements - "how dare those greedy bankers expect me to pay back what I borrowed, now they're getting what they deserve!"

globalds

To push the thread off track slightly.
Having spent the last week in Ireland our banks aren't looking too bad on my return.

Deep_In_Debt

Degenerate wrote: »

Those are the people who post the bitterest anti-banker statements - "how dare those greedy bankers expect me to pay back what I borrowed, now they're getting what they deserve!"

I am paying what I owe back to those greedy bankers, unfortunately they don't like the fact that I am paying them what I can afford and not what they want...however, I will continue to pay them what I can afford but they won't stop making my life hell.

I'm not shirking my debts, never have done, never will do and will pay back what I owe but when they make life difficult, then it's hard to be sympathetic towards them.

Masomnia

Deep_In_Debt wrote: »

I'm not shirking my debts, never have done, never will do and will pay back what I owe but when they make life difficult, then it's hard to be sympathetic towards them.

I'm sympathetic to your situation, but to be fair they did lend you the money in the first place to finance whatever it was you wanted financing.

I do think people should be helped if they are genuinely are in difficulty, but when so much public money has been invested in the banks it's important that they operate to make a profit, and that means they should ensure that they are repaid.

julieq

When you're faced with a decision so mind bendingly stupid that any random bear on the Internet can call it way ahead of time as a disaster, you're faced with two possibilities.

(1) We're all going to get rich by short selling bank shares and house price indexes (wahay, roll on the good times!)

(2) It's not so staggeringly stupid as all that.

The scale of the writedown might well not have been known at the point of the merger, but the problem was known and the direction of HBOS was well established. No-one in their right mind would sail into a merger of this scale without an eye to the worst case. It'd be pretty normal to make it look as bad as possible so that recovery looks stunning.

When the dust settles from this recession, which it will, Lloyds/HBOS will be a formidable animal that would never have been allowed to evolve under normal competition rules. Arguably the removal of competition in a sector that was traditionally highly competitive to the detriment of margins will be the long term legacy of what we're seeing now. One of the reasons that the old banks never succeeded with reestablishing charges for current accounts was that the new ones were so desperate for market share that they'd undercut.

I've been reading this board for a while now, and it's great fun but a few blocks away from Planet Earth. As long as I've been alive there's been one apocalypse brewing or another, nuclear war, Aids, mad cow disease, Ebola, asteroid strike, and now it's financial armageddon. So far none of them have actually caused the end of the world.

I assume that the uber bears are confidently making zillions by shorting everything that moves in as sure a knowledge that the contraction will continue indefinitely as the house price bulls were sure they had a new paradigm as they constructed their bubble. It's the same mentality precisely.

The fact is that as soon as you spot a trend that'll make everyone rich it's on the point of turning tail, because not everyone can be rich.

Cleaver

julieq wrote: »

When you're faced with a decision so mind bendingly stupid that any random bear on the Internet can call it way ahead of time as a disaster, you're faced with two possibilities.

(1) We're all going to get rich by short selling bank shares and house price indexes (wahay, roll on the good times!)

(2) It's not so staggeringly stupid as all that.

The scale of the writedown might well not have been known at the point of the merger, but the problem was known and the direction of HBOS was well established. No-one in their right mind would sail into a merger of this scale without an eye to the worst case. It'd be pretty normal to make it look as bad as possible so that recovery looks stunning.

When the dust settles from this recession, which it will, Lloyds/HBOS will be a formidable animal that would never have been allowed to evolve under normal competition rules. Arguably the removal of competition in a sector that was traditionally highly competitive to the detriment of margins will be the long term legacy of what we're seeing now. One of the reasons that the old banks never succeeded with reestablishing charges for current accounts was that the new ones were so desperate for market share that they'd undercut.

I've been reading this board for a while now, and it's great fun but a few blocks away from Planet Earth. As long as I've been alive there's been one apocalypse brewing or another, nuclear war, Aids, mad cow disease, Ebola, asteroid strike, and now it's financial armageddon. So far none of them have actually caused the end of the world.

I assume that the uber bears are confidently making zillions by shorting everything that moves in as sure a knowledge that the contraction will continue indefinitely as the house price bulls were sure they had a new paradigm as they constructed their bubble. It's the same mentality precisely.

The fact is that as soon as you spot a trend that'll make everyone rich it's on the point of turning tail, because not everyone can be rich.

What a wonderful post.

vivatifosi

I still can't get my head found the fact that there wasn't time to do proper due diligence on a merger of this size and yet it was still seen as ok to go ahead. Its shameful.

Deep_In_Debt

Masomnia wrote: »

I'm sympathetic to your situation, but to be fair they did lend you the money in the first place to finance whatever it was you wanted financing.

I do think people should be helped if they are genuinely are in difficulty, but when so much public money has been invested in the banks it's important that they operate to make a profit, and that means they should ensure that they are repaid.

At the time they lent me the money, I was in a good financial position and was a genuine "good" customer. My debt to them is only small, in the grand scheme of things, a couple of hundred quid, and yet they made my life hell!.

I do understand your comments, and as I say, I spent the money and I'm trying to pay it back...but a bit of sympathy would help...they are very close to it being repaid, about a month actually (and yes I could have put in claims for all sorts, but I didn't)...but still they gave me hell for a poxy amount that would have been repaid, interest and all...

vivatifosi

Just heard that the Independent is going to run a feature on HBOS tomorrow, and will feature a whistle-blower stating that he has secret docs that can blow apart Brown's claims on the banking crisis... Could be an interesting one to watch.

Deep_In_Debt

Masomnia wrote: »

I'm sympathetic to your situation, but to be fair they did lend you the money in the first place to finance whatever it was you wanted financing.

I do think people should be helped if they are genuinely are in difficulty, but when so much public money has been invested in the banks it's important that they operate to make a profit, and that means they should ensure that they are repaid.

Meant to say before my PC crashed - I am in financial difficulty, hence my reason for being on a dmp but still no understanding from them...

Not saying I want them to go "under" but my experiences with them have not been pleasant.