A short video that explains (in my opinion at least) the prime cause for the growing gap between rich and poor. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx16a72j__8

A short video that explains (in my opinion at least) the prime cause for the growing gap between rich and poor. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx16a72j__8

Well that's great. But how does it ever change? My Mum tells me stories about how in her day you had to join a waiting list to get a mortgage because there wasn't money created in the way the banks do now. She had to wait 4 years to get a mortgage she said.

I can see the point the protestors are making, but what are their proposed solutions to this?

Another video perpetuating the myth that banks create money.

When in fact they, and big business, just nick it from everyone of the rest of us.

Why do people think they should borrow so much money? I was brought up with the idea that debt is a bad thing. The problem with debt is it needs to be repaid at some time.

Big Business and the banks are just bailiffs on a bigger scale. There’s a lot of everyday people that can’t pay off their debts to these banks and big Business. So ‘nicking’ money as you put it is the only way these institutions can get back what they’re owed. That's my understanding of it all anyhow..

Come on, grow up! Big businesses 'nick' money off you because you patronise them. If you don't like them take your customer elsewhere and they will become smaller businesses. The people who do nick money are the public sector pension grabbers.

I think there's a very simple answer to that, don't borrow money you can't afford and live within your means.

Well indeed.

Banks like HSBO didn't use the money from ordinary people to gamble with, did they?

so nobody should take out a mortgage in case they get made redundant or perhaps loose their job through ill health?

How many of you could buy a house in one cash payment thus having no mortgage to pay?

Who are HSBO - you keep referring to them?

As Peggy Said –



A lot of people come into financial problems through no fault of their own. It’s a very sad situation that we’re dealing with here of which I’ve experienced through well-meaning relatives who’ve lost jobs whilst paying a mortgage. The choice that society is basically giving is either take a risk and if it doesn’t pay off then things will be worse than before or just spend your whole life poor.

It really is an unfair choice.

There are other choices. In normal timrs rented accommodation is cheaper than mortgaged and without all the costs attached to maintenance, etc. Accordingly, there is a choice of being happy in a rented home and and saving / investing the differential. Over a life time stoc market returns would normally exceed any perceived return on a house.

The wonderful flexibility of rented accommodation really is a joy to behold. My mate experienced that this year when his flatmate lost his job and there had to move out of the yuppie apartment on Leeds Riverside. The same problems still arise just in different guises. I'm sure if I could push you on saving money you'd start suggesting homeless hostels or even braving it on the streets.

How terrible having to move out of a yuppie apartment. The horror. FFS.

There are a lot of regulatory issues around banks, but without them and building societies lending money, the majority of the population would never be able to purchase their own home. If people choose not to take out mortgage protection insurance or similar products then - just as with any insurance - they shouldn't whine if things go wrong and they can't pay. Whilst banks are dumb for lending too much money in good times, so are most people who borrow way more than they can safely afford.

Moving out of any accommodation can be a traumatic experience. For example some criminals become institutionalised after spending far too much time in prison that they can't even contemplate moving back into the ‘real world’. What most people want is a stable home for long periods of time and if that isn’t reasonable then I don’t know what is.




Insurance doesn’t last forever and isn’t always going to fully pay for the mortgage. Other than that I agree with you.

So don't get one! No-one is 'entitled' to a mortgage unless they've got the means to repay it. Lenders take a risk handing out hundreds of thousands, just like home-owners take the risk they will be able to meet the repayments over 25 years or so.

No other country is obsessed with mortgages and home ownership like the UK and the rest of the world manages just fine.


What a surprise. You want everything on a plate. Someone can't repay the money loaned to them (or pay their rent) and you think it's some sort of scandal they may have to move? Who should cover their bills? The taxpayer? Or should homes be handed out free as well?

Damo: a textbook example of the "the world owes me a living" generation.

Or a textbook example of a troll who continues to land regular bites, no matter how obvious his bait or how frequently it is used.

Maybe when HSBC buy HBOS (not to be confused with RBS) from LBG (who own what used to be TSB, CGBS and HBOS), the new firm will be called HSBO?

very funny. So, let's say i do this. But let's say that Fred Goodwin and his cronies buy a huge worldwide banking business for a few billion in some pot-sing contest, without doing due diligence. let's say it turns out (surprise, surprise) that the acquisition is exposed to several £ billion of toxic debt, and so great is the fsck-up that the taxpayer, which is me, has to pay untold amounts of money to "buy" Mr. Goodwin's rather careless bank to stop it, and the banking system, from collapsing. let's say more of the same from various other gamblers sorry bankers. Let's say the world, including England, and these ordinary people that [iwere[/i living within their means suddenly and directly and for the foreseeable have their "means" decimated, their pay frozen, many even lose their jobs, and are told that they will have to put up with "austerity" measures for many years.

While Mr. Goodwin "retires", on a pension of several hundred thousand pounds a year.

How do these ordinary people avoid that? What use is your "simple answer" to them? What could they have done about it? My share of the money to prop up the lying, cheating banks and their thieving, morally bankrupt managers has already gone, and will continue to go, and nobody asked me. Did you get an exemption from paying?

The typical scenario found by someone who lost their job due to the antics of Fred the Shred & co would be that when they took out the mortgage, they were [iobliged[/i to take out mortgage insurance. This would cover the lender, so that under NO circumstances was the lender at any risk, as any shortfall on a forced sale would be covered by the insurance company as a result of the premiums which the borrower (and not the bank) had compulsorily paid.

Then the insurance company would sue the borrower for the shortfall.

Nick it? I don't remember Tesco ever nicking anything from me. I've usually exchanged a few quid for some goods I require.

I'm assured plenty people steal from Tesco, though.

It's that TV station that makes big budget American dramas. That's where she gets her 'facts' from, I think.

Then you should have watched Panorama the other night. Basically, they're very good at it.

So you'd prefer a load of retired public sector workers to be unable to pay their mortgages, eat, heat and light their properties?

You do realise, don't you, that public sector workers a) pay tax on their earnings when they work, b) make purchases in the real world, some of them every day, thereby contributing to VAT and other tax revenues that businesses pay, as well as company profits and c) when people retire, they don't suddenly get everything for free so that the pensions they receive just sit there and the money is effectively removed from the economy?

You do realise that don't you? Please tell me you do.