Anyone ever had a succesful Final Offer letter?

ag359

westernpromise wrote:

If banks contributed nothing to society, they would not exist. In fact, what we term society would not be possible without banks. The invention of credit was a huge step forward and was one of the main reasons European economies outperformed otherwise more technically advanced countries like China from about the 13th century. Britain's access to a far more advanced financial system than that of France or Germany kept us afloat during the Napoleonic and two world wars, for instance.


See post above.


Tripe, I'm afraid. Banks expect to incur a certain amount of cost in acquiring a customer. Whether that's through offering a 0% deal, or via advertising, scarcely matters. They assume that on average they will make money out of the customers drawn in by these means. They also make money from people who pay off their balance every month; the retailer is charged a processing fee.

There is no comparison between people who acquire and use bank products responsibly and to terms, and those who run up huge debts and then skip out on them because they just don't feel like paying up, even though they perfectly well could. The impact of such loss is felt on the bank's bottom line, in the form of bad debt writeoffs.

Since all retail banks are publicly quoted, in the UK at least, bad debt reduces the value of the company. A bank worth £10 that has to write off bad debt of £1 is a bank that is worth £9, and the shares fall by 10% too as soon as such a writedown is made.

The majority of shares in publicly quoted companies are actually owned by pension and investment funds. Ergo, people who default on their debts out of convenience and fecklessness, rather than genuine financial misfortune, are reducing the value of savers' shareholdings, which means that current and future pensioners are paying for the bad debt. It really is as straightforward as that, I fear.

In fact, the level of bad debts affects how many people the bank can afford to employ if its operation is to make money. If it cannot make enough money relative to the risk it is taking, then it may simply close down the offending division and withdraw from that part of the market. In that case, the bad debt is paid off by the withdrawal of salary from the individuals who get sacked in the closure. At best, it will hold headcount down to limit costs. So other people have their salaries taken away, or don't get hired in the first place, because of bad debtors.

Of course this is just the kind of fecklessness that the government is trying to encourage. The supposed economic boom we have been experiencing has been fuelled entirely by the annihilation of the saving habit, the looting of pension funds, and the rocketing of personal debt. If we weren't spending it all like water now, we'd be in recession.

Rather than encouraging all this, there is IMHO a lot to be said for abolishing any time limitation on debt, so that the creditor can go back later and reclaim the debt from the undeserving. Someone who has suffered genuine financial hardship - loss of income, for instance - would not be affected. But someone who makes £50k a year and wants to keep it all, rather than pay what he owes, should I think remain liable for the rest of his life, or for 50 years at any rate, and perhaps sample in his own retirement what he is dishing out to others in theirs -- regardless of whatever temporary arrangement the bank may accept.

And you think they don't also take into account bad debtors when they work out their margins - of course they do. If you make your money from lending money then the chance that people won't pay you back is something that you have to take into account, and is in fact one of the reasons that they can charge interest on the money - they are taking a risk.

And the figures you use are absurd. Of course !!!!!! do leave banks with lower profits, but don't even suggest that it wipes 10% off their profits, because you well know that it doesnt even come close.

Also, the idea that you have of 'tasting their own medicine' is misplaced. You can't really compare the effect of having a major debt hanging over you for '50 years' (your suggestion) with having a matter of a couple of pence wiped off your pension. Get real - its this kind of self-satisfied conservative claptrap that I can't take seriously. sorry.

westernpromise

ag359 wrote:

What a load of rubbish - unfortunately you have to have a bit of certainty in the world, and you can't suspend creditors' interests indefinitely until they have some opportunity to start pursuing the debtor again.

Why not? The govt white paper on this subject is proposing a distinction between culpable and non-culpable bankrupts. The OP here is plainly the former - he has a job and he can perfectly well afford to pay off the £48k he has squandered. He just doesn't want to, because he's greedy and irresponsible. He's on about £50kpa remember.

You'd have a ridiculous situation on your hands, and it would just mean that bankrupts wouldn't bother working or trying to save/buy a house, because as soon as they did, under your regime, they'd have it taken off them.

In the case of a culpable bankrupt, what's ridiculous about that? What I'm suggesting is that he could be conditionally relieved of that debt, but if later he becomes demonstrably able to afford to repay it, the people he ripped off should have an option to reinstate the debt.

I don't know if it was you, westernpromise, that replied to my point about banks not really contributing to society, but what i said was that they didn't contribute anything TANGIBLE to society - there's a difference. What a meant is that most of what they do is essentially shifting money around from one person to another, rather than creating or producing anything new.

False. Banks manufacture credit, which drives all economic activity.

Moreover, the typical bankrupt is not someone doing it just to get out of paying debts - its just that you only hear about the ones that are.

Also false. 53% of bankruptcies are in fact "consumer related" (http://www.accaglobal.com/technical/responses/archive/153178) - people who've taken credit from card companies and lenders, spent the lot, and then use bankruptcy to escape the consequences. These days, the typical bankrupt is doing it just to get out of paying debts.

Most people seeking bankruptcy and FFSs are in genuinely need, and its naive to suppose otherwise, just based on a bit of hearsay.

Also false. The 47% of bankrupts who aren't to blame for their predicament are victims and have my unalloyed sympathy. The other 53% are perps, not victims:-

Previously a typical bankrupt was a self-employed trader who had run into difficulties. In an age of easy consumer credit many bankrupts are now employees who have simply overspent on credit cards - http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:mmuumMBB9w8J:www.birminghamlawsociety.co.uk/downloads/bulletin_may04.pdf+%22typical+bankrupt%22&hl=en

Ernst & Young partner Gareth Hughes, president of insolvency trade body R3, said: "Many of the bankruptcies are a consequence of individuals taking on too much debt in a low interest rate environment. Practitioners are seeing excessive levels of credit card debt.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1344831,00.html

No "hearsay" involved, I'm afraid.

Do you read the Daily Mail by any chance?

Do you just do smart remarks or do you do thought from time to time? You've got a computer with internet access - use it.

ag359

westernpromise wrote:

Why not? The govt white paper on this subject is proposing a distinction between culpable and non-culpable bankrupts. The OP here is plainly the former - he has a job and he can perfectly well afford to pay off the £48k he has squandered. He just doesn't want to, because he's greedy and irresponsible. He's on about £50kpa remember.



In the case of a culpable bankrupt, what's ridiculous about that? What I'm suggesting is that he could be conditionally relieved of that debt, but if later he becomes demonstrably able to afford to repay it, the people he ripped off should have an option to reinstate the debt.


False. Banks manufacture credit, which drives all economic activity.


Also false. 53% of bankruptcies are in fact "consumer related" (http://www.accaglobal.com/technical/responses/archive/153178) - people who've taken credit from card companies and lenders, spent the lot, and then use bankruptcy to escape the consequences. These days, the typical bankrupt is doing it just to get out of paying debts.

I'm not denying that - the point is not whether the debts are consumer related or otherwise (at the end of the day they're all debts) - the question is whether they are declaring themselves bankrupt because they really need to (i.e. because there is no way they can foreseeably meet their creditors demands) or whether they are declaring themselves bankrupt to get out of debts that they could, with a bit of effort, repay. Im sorry if i wasnt clear, but that is the distinction i meant. The majority of bankrupts are in the former category, not, as you would like to have people believe, the latter.

Also false. The 47% of bankrupts who aren't to blame for their predicament are victims and have my unalloyed sympathy. The other 53% are perps, not victims:-

Previously a typical bankrupt was a self-employed trader who had run into difficulties. In an age of easy consumer credit many bankrupts are now employees who have simply overspent on credit cards - http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:mmuumMBB9w8J:www.birminghamlawsociety.co.uk/downloads/bulletin_may04.pdf+%22typical+bankrupt%22&hl=en

Ernst & Young partner Gareth Hughes, president of insolvency trade body R3, said: "Many of the bankruptcies are a consequence of individuals taking on too much debt in a low interest rate environment. Practitioners are seeing excessive levels of credit card debt.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1344831,00.html

No "hearsay" involved, I'm afraid.

See above - you're talking about a different issue.


Do you just do smart remarks or do you do thought from time to time? You've got a computer with internet access - use it.

Eh? Ok, I don't get the point about internet access, but I'm sure it was particularly witty and biting anyway. I was just trying to establish your position on the political spectrum.

Ok, i think we just see things differently. I, as a lawyer, appreciate the need for certainty over fairness, whereas you (presumably not as a lawyer) prefer to take fairness over certainty. Its a bit of an irresolveable argument, and there is a good case for both. But I stand by what i said. As, I'm sure, do you.

Ok...I mucked up the formatting - what I wrote seems to have got stuck in the middle of your quote.sorry.

ag359

Why does my signature have some ridiculous quote in it - i never wrote that...

ag359

westernpromise wrote:

Why not? The govt white paper on this subject is proposing a distinction between culpable and non-culpable bankrupts. The OP here is plainly the former - he has a job and he can perfectly well afford to pay off the £48k he has squandered. He just doesn't want to, because he's greedy and irresponsible. He's on about £50kpa remember.



In the case of a culpable bankrupt, what's ridiculous about that? What I'm suggesting is that he could be conditionally relieved of that debt, but if later he becomes demonstrably able to afford to repay it, the people he ripped off should have an option to reinstate the debt.


False. Banks manufacture credit, which drives all economic activity.


Also false. 53% of bankruptcies are in fact "consumer related" (http://www.accaglobal.com/technical/responses/archive/153178) - people who've taken credit from card companies and lenders, spent the lot, and then use bankruptcy to escape the consequences. These days, the typical bankrupt is doing it just to get out of paying debts.


Also false. The 47% of bankrupts who aren't to blame for their predicament are victims and have my unalloyed sympathy. The other 53% are perps, not victims:-

Previously a typical bankrupt was a self-employed trader who had run into difficulties. In an age of easy consumer credit many bankrupts are now employees who have simply overspent on credit cards - http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:mmuumMBB9w8J:www.birminghamlawsociety.co.uk/downloads/bulletin_may04.pdf+%22typical+bankrupt%22&hl=en

Ernst & Young partner Gareth Hughes, president of insolvency trade body R3, said: "Many of the bankruptcies are a consequence of individuals taking on too much debt in a low interest rate environment. Practitioners are seeing excessive levels of credit card debt.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1344831,00.html

No "hearsay" involved, I'm afraid.


Do you just do smart remarks or do you do thought from time to time? You've got a computer with internet access - use it.

Also, why are you getting so stressed about the benefit of banks - i don't disupte that they are valuable and indeed vital to society. My comment was a throwaway comment which included the word TANGIBLE for a reason.

MoneyBags

This board is not the place for this, totally off - topic, discussion - its for the morally support of people living with debt problems. Please take your, clearly daily "high and mighty" mail reading, opinions else where.

ag359

Sorry, no offence intended - nothing wrong with a bit of healthy intellectual debate is there? It wasn't entirely off-topic - we were talking about whether FF settlements should be accepted or not? And I wouldn't touch the Daily Mail with a bargepole - I find its opinions absolutely abhorrent, but that's another story! Again, no offence intended - I am fully supportive of people on this board with debt problems.

Alex

westernpromise

MoneyBags wrote:

This board is not the place for this, totally off - topic, discussion - its for the morally support of people living with debt problems. Please take your, clearly daily "high and mighty" mail reading, opinions else where.

The original poster has an attitude problem, not a debt problem. He can easily afford to pay his debts. He just doesn't want to.