Hard to explain how bad economic crisis is, says Cable

Thrugelmir

[quote=[Deleted User];43849062]The financial crisis they created caused a major recession. Its been called 'The great recession' by some pundits. One of the consequences of this was unemployment hitting about 2.5 million in the UK alone.

[/QUOTE]

From April 2007.

The number of people employed in manufacturing fell by 54,000 to 2.97 million, the lowest level since records began in 1978.

What the 2008 crash revealed was the UK's dependancy of the financial services sector for growth in the wider economy. The cracks had been papered over in the gold rush.

[Deleted User]

ILW wrote: »

How many of the lost jobs would have been there in the first place if it had not been for the banking system?

Another stupid question. It would be impossible to give a precise figure. However, given that businesses existed before banks its hard to believe that there wouldn't be employment without them. The fact is that banks are part and parcel of our economies and nobody has suggested changing that.

Your latest silly question is of course prompted by yet another false assumptions of yours; that I am against having any banks.

Read my posts again and you will see I just want the individuals who caused the problems to be punished for their actions. I want the banks to act in good faith and honour agreements where there have been no defaults rather than call in well serviced loans to take personal assets so that they can help repair their balance sheets that bit faster.

I also want an end to political donations from the banks and their staff.
The bonus culture is obviously the largest contributing factor to the mess they have caused. Delaying the payment of bonuses and having better means to claw these back would help reduce the likelihood of a repeat performance.

As already mentioned, punishing the banks and their employees is no longer a legal option thanks to Osbourne's Operation Merlin. I suspect the fact that more than half his party's funds came from the financial sector might have something to do with that. Before some idiot starts on the Tory v Labour routine both of these parties received major donations from the sector.

[Deleted User]

Thrugelmir wrote: »

From April 2007.



What the 2008 crash revealed was the UK's dependancy of the financial services sector for growth in the wider economy. The cracks had been papered over in the gold rush.

Generally (please note that word) if credit is available then businesses will use it otherwise they hand their competition an advantage.

The rate of the contraction of that credit after the banks screwed up ie the speed of the adjustment required is part of the problem.

The drop in demand is the biggest factor as their customers are struggling with the damage to the economy.

I partly agree with your last statement, however there is more to it than that.

blackshirtuk

I thought Mr Cable's article was about how little the public understood about how bad the economic situation is.

However it seems several on here want to debate why we are in this mess, without addressing the point of the original Post.

Who here knows the true extent of our debt? (without googling it!)

Total National debt not annual deficit. I am truly interested if Mr cable is right or if the members of MSE are more informed than the average joe public.

Please post what you think the national debt is and we can begin to understand if mr cable is right or wrong.

ermine

Wardwark, until you come to the conclusion that YOU can fix some of the problems in your life you will never know peace.

When I had to leave London in the late 1980s because I couldn't buy a house I was bitter and twisted because THEY had all the money
When I paid 14% mortgage rates in the early 1990s I was all bitter and twisted because Geroge Soros had all the money
When I sold that house for 40% less than I paid for it I was all bitter and twisted like you because all those other B***s had all the money

When I !!!!!! and started to pay down my mortgage on the next house and eventually cleared it after 20 years I learned the power of individual effort to fixing my life, now I am part of THEM that has all the money.

You can bleat and gripe and moan as much as you want. It won't change the banks and it won't change your life for the better. What will change your life for the better is to play the hand you are dealt the best you can. Seek understanding of the world and try and avoid the obvious charlatans, do the best you can with what you've got. The world does not owe you a living.

You won't take any of this on board because you have a defective belief system that does not match up to the reality that you live in. The world isn't fair, and it doesn't owe you an easy life. You heard it here first. My personal wealth is a lot lower because I suffered from your problem for the first 10 years of my working life. Everything that was wrong with my life I thought was due to Other People's machinations. Many people are a lot poorer because they never get that. You are simply jealous of other people's good fortune. Yes, mistakes were made in regulation. The European universal banking system never had an equivalent of the Glass-Steagall Act. You are probably right that Clinton should never have repealed Glass Steagall.

There is probably still a lot wrong with banks. cleverer people than you and I are looking at this and will no doubt improve things a little. However, the fundamentals remain the same, if you create a hot-house of alpha males high on risk you will get excesses. Because the banks can pay more than the regulators they will always be more ingenious in coming up with ways to buck the system than the regulators will be bright enough to see.

In a lifetime of searching for it I have never found the rewind button on the tape recorder of life. You have the choice to play the rest of the unheard tape of yours to the best of your ability. Or stick it on pause and wallow in your bitterness at all the unseen people that make your life less than what you believe it should be. The choice is yours, use it well :rotfl:

ILW

[quote=[Deleted User];43849658]
Read my posts again and you will see I just want the individuals who caused the problems to be punished for their actions. I want the banks to act in good faith and honour agreements where there have been no defaults rather than call in well serviced loans to take personal assets so that they can help repair their balance sheets that bit faster.

.[/QUOTE]

You keep saying about punishing these bank employees, but seem to have absolutely no practical suggestions as to how this could be done. (Unless I have missed something)

[Deleted User]

ermine wrote: »

Wardwark, until you come to the conclusion that YOU can fix some of the problems in your life you will never know peace.

When I had to leave London in the late 1980s because I couldn't buy a house I was bitter and twisted because THEY had all the money
When I paid 14% mortgage rates in the early 1990s I was all bitter and twisted because Geroge Soros had all the money
When I sold that house for 40% less than I paid for it I was all bitter and twisted like you because all those other B***s had all the money

When I !!!!!! and started to pay down my mortgage on the next house and eventually cleared it after 20 years I learned the power of individual effort to fixing my life, now I am part of THEM that has all the money.

You can bleat and gripe and moan as much as you want. It won't change the banks and it won't change your life for the better. What will change your life for the better is to play the hand you are dealt the best you can. Seek understanding of the world and try and avoid the obvious charlatans, do the best you can with what you've got. The world does not owe you a living.

You won't take any of this on board because you have a defective belief system that does not match up to the reality that you live in. The world isn't fair, and it doesn't owe you an easy life. You heard it here first. My personal wealth is a lot lower because I suffered from your problem for the first 10 years of my working life. Everything that was wrong with my life I thought was due to Other People's machinations. Many people are a lot poorer because they never get that. You are simply jealous of other people's good fortune. Yes, mistakes were made in regulation. The European universal banking system never had an equivalent of the Glass-Steagall Act. You are probably right that Clinton should never have repealed Glass Steagall.

There is probably still a lot wrong with banks. cleverer people than you and I are looking at this and will no doubt improve things a little. However, the fundamentals remain the same, if you create a hot-house of alpha males high on risk you will get excesses. Because the banks can pay more than the regulators they will always be more ingenious in coming up with ways to buck the system than the regulators will be bright enough to see.

In a lifetime of searching for it I have never found the rewind button on the tape recorder of life. You have the choice to play the rest of the unheard tape of yours to the best of your ability. Or stick it on pause and wallow in your bitterness at all the unseen people that make your life less than what you believe it should be. The choice is yours, use it well :rotfl:

You seem to be making the false assumption that I'm one of the people who is bitter as they can't afford a house or have experienced some sort of personal financial upset.

Maybe you should check you facts before making your ill informed, overly verbose but non the less condescending comments.

My anger is not born out of personal suffering but anger at what I see as clearly inexcusable and detrimental to the country as a whole. I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand that though.

[Deleted User]

ILW wrote: »

You keep saying about punishing these bank employees, but seem to have absolutely no practical suggestions as to how this could be done. (Unless I have missed something)

Yes you have missed something. The people who are capable of reading will note that:

1. I have mentioned what I think should be done to reduce the risk of a repeat.

2. All legal options for punishment have been removed by Osborne with 'Operation Merlin'. IMHO it seems highly likely they got this deal thanks to the amount of party donations received by the Tories from the Financial Sector.

Are you genuinely incapable of reading or are your posts just intended as a wind up/disruption?

EDIT: Sounds a bit harsh, but it is an honest question having considered your earlier posts in this thread.

chucky

seeing that the average bank employees salary is somewhere between £40k and £60k, i'm not sure how or why bank employees should be punished.

ILW

As far as I know, no criminal offences were commited.