6 Comments

• 

  AlfGarnett at 06:20 PM JST - 13th October

  This fiasco is really annoying me. Typical Labour party response, throw bucket loads of money at the problem and expect the tax payer to pick up the bill.

  Bleeding marvellous innit. The workers get rubbish wages anyone and now they have to bail out the multi millionair bankers.

  Gordon Brown he calls himself , Gordon blooming Clown more like!

• 

  HaroldSteptoe at 11:51 PM JST - 13th October

  What a waste of public money. Yet again the priviledged are allowed to make incompetent decisions that cost us all, yet are allowed off scot free. A small business man such as myself would be left to go bankrupt, if i acted in the same way as the "old boy network". The taxpayer would not pay to keep a normal working mans business open if he ruined it through greed.

  All the "bail outs" will lead to tax increases and less pension increases for old people like my father.

  Gordon Brown is no more Labour than cameron. A true Labour leader would make laws to get these corrupt bankers banged up, and lose all thei ill gotten gains. Ohyes, as a man who works hard 6 days a week, i know more about public feelings than these isolated politicians. They are not living in the real world. If their family are ill, they can get paid hlep at our expense because of their "status". yet, when my increasingly annoying father is ill, or pretends to be i am his unpaid skivvy, and the doctor says, as he ages, he will get worse.

  it'snot fair, why can't i have alife, the government don't help me out. I want a life!!

• 

  kenchan at 06:10 AM JST - 14th October

  These comments show how opaque the financial system is to most ordinary citizens...one of the key points that governments around the world must force upon the financial sector is that from now on, they must ensure that whatever they do is understood by the people who cannot co-exist without it. The financial sector has been operating in arrogance for too long, holding all the card, smirking as it abused its position in society. No, I am not a fan of what is happening but I understand its necessary as the other option is global anarchy as the world scrambles to find a replacement for the capitalist system that we have been born into. For me, its better to use this event to force the necessary changes to the financial sector, even if there will be short term pain over the next few years for us all.

• 

  frontandcentre at 02:34 PM JST - 14th October

  A true Labour leader would make laws to get these corrupt bankers banged up, and lose all thei ill gotten gains.

  err....the problem is that the Government themselves share a major part of the blame for allowing the banks to get into this mess. Gordon Brown, who was happy to allow himself to be billed as a miracle chancellor who had finally brought and end to boom and bust, encouraged the feel-good credit binge by refusing to rein it in or to more carefully regulate financial activity. The end result is a deep recession, soaring bankrupcies and repossessions and further destruction of British jobs.

  The bale out is probably one of the better decisions that he has made, because it is far beyond the point of "bailing out fat cat bankers" (as socialists seem to like parroting, baselessly) and more about bailing out the economy as a whole. Refusing to act and letting banks go bust would do far more damage than the big hit that the taxpayer is going to take through this plan.

  In the end, individuals are also responsible because they are the ones who committed to borrowing the easy credit that in many cases they were unlikely to be able to repay. The "buy-now-pay-later" society is now getting into the payback stage and house prices aren't going to prop up consumer spending any longer.

  A "traditional" Labour PM would arguably have wrecked the economy by state intervention more quickly than Gordon Brown has, but by letting the whole credit party go on so long (and by hiding the government's own huge PFI borrowings), the damage GB has done is probably greater.

  FnC

  PS - permit me to refer to this e-mail every time I get labelled a socialist by right wing republican supporters who have zero understanding of what a socialist is.

• 

  kenchan at 03:33 PM JST - 14th October

  frontandcentre>you don't work in the financial sector by any chance? What you say has some truth to it (government's and individuals responsibility) but clearly its the collective lemming-like approach that the bankers have taken to creating non-nonsensical "investment instruments" that has been the foundation to this mess....people are right to feel aggrieved by the actions of the banks as for them, the banks have just pretty much been mis-selling to them and each other.

• 

  frontandcentre at 06:34 PM JST - 14th October

  kenchan, I don't work in finance directly - and I have no big personal axe to grind one way or another. When the consequences hit, they hit everyone, though. I agree that people directly responsible deserve a measure of "punishment" for what they've created, especially because the extent of the consequences have yet to be felt.

  The point I'm making is that people - usally with populist wealth-envy or with political points to make - are oversimplifying this to the attractive "crucify the overpaid bankers" argument. In fact, everyone has some element of responsibility in this, from governments down to anyone with a credit card or a mortgage. I get irritated to see people rabble rousing and proposing over-simplistic and simply innaccurate "solutions" which will actually make the problem much worse for most people, not just for a few rich financiers. From a libertarian point of view, what does the least harm to the most people is to restore confidence to the credit markets, and though we may argue about the details, the general idea of what they are trying to do is correct. Most informed people agree.

  FnC

Register or login to add a comment!