?

It saved millions of jobs. You are the blinkered one here. Welcome to Greek economics on acid.

Most jobs are wrapped up in smaller businessness, which survive on credit. They get by on overdrafts and all the rest of it.

Did you have money in a bank account? Because if you did you would have lost all of it and had no recourse to be certain of.

Yes it was bloody worth it......what realistic other choice was there....let the banks fold? In an ideal world....yeah....if you have money enough to get through the next five years great for you...but what everybody else?

Was it ethically ok......no it bloody wasn't....life isn't fair and it was a prime and bloody clear example of it.

What can we do about it? Nothing......it's apart of the unfairness of life that we have to put up with because there is no radically different system (which is no assurance of improvement) can be enacted without revolution....and no real revolution happens without blood...anyone telling you different is deluded or a liar.....the banking system is full of gutter low lifes with big lifestyles but it is also full of savings, accounts, pensions, government bonds and all the rest of it.....you can fiddle around the edges...ring fence this or that but that's about it if you are even going to pretend in a free market.

You can't divorce the baby from the bath water.

Edited by Stirlingsays (29 Dec 2017 10.20am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

It is a funny argument in my mind. Take London. It has just returned to its population level of 1939, a little higher than it was post-war. That means that we, as a state, have had 70 years to plan a city around a population of 8 million, and for the most part, rising.

Why then do we have a homeless crisis? To my mind, blaming overpopulation could make sense if we had seen a sudden increase in population, but we haven't seen that, either in London or the rest of the UK. Migration has been steady, emigration is now on the increase, and if anything we have a problem with birthrates of citizens.

So what argument is overpopulation a convenient one to deploy against? Well, when we talk about overpopulation, we ignore the fact that we are the most unequal nation in Europe; that we are the 5th richest economy in the world, and yet thousands will go to sleep tonight in temporary, inadequate accommodation or worse; that the UK population gives the government nearly 800 billion a year in tax, and yet that government at the moment can't even house all of its citizens.

We aren't facing any problems that we, as humans, haven't faced before, and haven't dealt with before. All it takes is us to have the courage to tackle them, and for normal people like us to not allow the decisions to be made by vested interest groups at the very top of our society.

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

Why do people bend over backwards to avoid a simple obvious reality? It's OK I already know.

Which part of an increasing population needs an increasing number of houses is too hard for them to understand?

True, but then less people means a massive crash of the housing market, and the UK economy is very dependent on that market. The route of the problem is several factors

1) EU working migration levels increasing the population
2) Shortage of Property and an unregulated property and rental market
3) An economy driven by the housing market.
4) Cuts to public spending, to pay for tax cuts and corporate tax cuts.
5) Suppression of supply to the job market through the use of migrant workers.
6) Corporations paying minimal taxes.

These are all significant factors. To see this just in terms of population levels is myopic, as there is a reason why the rental market and buy to rent market has been keeping the housing market afloat.

Of course none of this is sustainable - and the housing crisis is probably the single most likely factor to deliver a victory to Labour at an election (now that Brexit is out of the way).

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

But TUX we would not have the dough now or in any years between.
That's the point.
It wasn't in the budget.
It was borrowed at a very low rate specifically for the bail outs.
Now on reselling any profit WILL go in the budget for us. So in effect we will all benefit ( well some will but probably not me n you !!!!) We work !!!
The yanks issue wasn't the same, as their bad bits made our bad bits look like peanuts.
Speculate to accumulate was the mantra.
It's like you getting a house and not wanting to borrow for it.
You won't have a house then.
It's done and dusted.

Bailing out the banks was the best of a bad deal. The alternative was to let the banks go bust. I assume that Labour would have protected small savers up to about 75 / 85k. However
- Any individual with savings over the threshold would have lost the lot.
- Any investors / share holders / bond holders would have lost the lot meaning the markets losing confidence in the UK.
- Thousands of ordinary people who work for high street banks would have been laid off through no fault of their own. I worked at Barclays HQ for 3 years the average salary of the folks on the tills outside of London was 16k hardly big money.
- Thousands more people would have lost their jobs indirectly. There are many jobs in Canary Wharf which are only there because of the bankers e.g. shops.
- Thousands of businesses would be in jeopardy. The liquidator's only concern is to get back as much money as they can. Business loans would have been called in companies and people with cash flow problems would not get any leeway.
- Unemployment would go up and the economy would take a hit as less tax money to spend.
- Because the economy is tanking the Chancellor would need to borrow money from the markets to pay the increased benefits bill. Guess what? The markets are made up of the very investors the government knocked. They are not going to want to lend money and if they do they will demand a high rate of interest. I saw this when Argentina knocked the American banks in the 1980's. It killed their economy and of course the ordinary folk suffer.

I could go on as I have previously stated I wasn't happy bailing the banks out. At least this way we could borrow money at a low rate of interest and to some extent the governments (Labour and Tory) have managed the economy. As for getting our money back we will eventually and there is an argument that says the banks should be taxed more to compensate for the grief they caused.

One more point