[andrewb]

Originally Posted by g jones

I think your failing to understand the problems other than in a simple crass way.

2 reasons for the UK recession. House price boom and UK reliance on banking which makes up 11% of GDP and is suffering worldwide, so we will suffer the most as one of the worlds leading bankers.

Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain are in a bad way too as are many others.

No bank can allowed to fail in the UK hence the intervention. Howver it is a mixed picture. Barclays avoided Triple A whilst RBS problems resulted from usurping Barclays £9billion bid for ABSAnro Dutch bank with a £11bn bid and ABSAnnro had massive toxic debts.

Like Morgan Stanley who ditched 'Junk' Bonds whilst Lehman brothers didn't. Global markets led to vast sums of money slushing in the US primarily, Chinese money. That led to sub-prime bubble with any NINJA (no income, no job or assets) roadside hobo offered loans whilst mortgage sellers wrapped up the loans as TripleA rated bonds and got away with it 'because everyone was making millions'. A failure of laissez faire or regulation.

Credit laws were relaxed in the UK in the 80's and subsequently by all Governments. David Cameron did not oppose these measures but said there was too much bureaucracy in the city. Some Labourites like me objected but we were a small silent minority marginalised.

As Enti says, every bank is different. This is not a Gordon Brown (I am not his biggest fan) problem and to say so causes further problems for the UK because pointing the finger in the wrong direction will lead to further ongoing problems.

Prior to 1999 here was no Financial Police and Labour introduced the FSA. However this had reasonable results at a low level it has failed utterly at a strategic level to spot the toxic debts.

Recapitalisation of Northern Rock has led to their debts to the Government almost being paid off I believe. The doom mongers said it would last for decades and the tax payer never get paid off.

I think your point of view is consistant Andrew, always attacking the Government always (when it matters) and promoting The Conservatives irrespective of the facts.

A long post about how the recession happened. Lets not read off the standard play script though, that everything is to be blamed on America, and Flash Gordon has saved the world. The UK is suffering worse than other countries, we are the worst prepared to weather the recession. Regulation was there, in the 80's and 90's. Credit probably was too free in the 80's, which is an element of our situation. The real problem though, the complete deregulation of the banking sector in 1998. Brown split up the bodies dealing with regulation, and effectively left it without any means to regulate. When you have a lot of free credit in the market, and banks are not regulated and told no, you cannot lend irresponsibly, this leads to our problems of massive private debt.

Combine this deregulation, with large public debts, which are only getting larger when the government finds logic in 'The problem is over borrowing in the private sector; lets counter it by over borrowing in the public sector'.

Banks need to be responsible, and they need to be told to be responsible by regulators if they decide not to be. People need to be responsible and only borrow what they can afford to pay back.

If you're unhappy about the Labour deregulation of the banking system in 1998, then perhaps you should join the Conservative Party. Failing that I'm sure the Socialist Party will take you in.