Where the Blame lies? (bit of a rant about our credit happy Culture)

shinyhead

We were trying to put the world to rights the other day at work and touched on debt. We live in such a changeable world compared to that of our parents at least that it has become far harder to plan financially. I think these days we may have to use credit simply to get by at least at one point in our lives. Jobs are far less secure than before and so you may end up being made redundant and the new job you get pays less etc. We can't go and reduce the mortgage payments simply because we're on a lower wage. Because we have been steered to being more financially independent than previous generations, buying our own homes and so on, we're also more vulnerable to all the ups and downs of the economy.

But I also believe that a lot of blame should be placed on the banks for their lending practices. Particularly over the last ten years they have been falling over themselves to lend money to all and sundry regardless of the consequences. Now this is coming back to bite them in the bum they seem to simply want to shy away from any acceptance of responsibility.I'm sure they'll argue that they were simply trying to help people out but the only people any bank is concerned about these days are the shareholders and their dividends. The customer falls far behind in their list of priorities.