BOOM!!!! Financial Meltdown!

[Space Monkey]

Well I haven't got much in the way of debt either but I was getting mountains of credit card and loan offers that I'm sure I would have been tempted with had things been a bit more difficult. I'm lucky in that I bought a house when prices were still realistic, the next generation weren't/aren't so lucky.

[Matt]

Greed. It's caused all of this. Everyone is to blame.

I was hoping the end result would be the end of the "financial sector" and a more realistic model took it's place. No chance. People are still greedy, people still think they deserve whatever they want and they deserve it right now.

We're ****ed. When the oil gets lower and the price shoots up; it's a scary future.

[Kieran76]

I am starting to think that the big oil companies have already developed the new green fuel, they are just waiting so they can squeeze all the money out of the remaining oil.
If this financial crisis has made me do anything it is save. I now try and put a decent amount of money away every month. I must be getting old, but the thought of having some money tucked away is a ncie thought.

[bwi]

120% mortgages, who in their right mind would ever contemplate that.

The same people who arent happy with what they can afford, but more concerned with how they appear to other people. 120% mortgage usually went towards the house + big TV's etc + a nice new shiny car outside the new house.

Strangely when i bought my first house relatives helped out and you built up what you had. People want the grand designs house from the start now.

Bri

[endo]

Loans and credit have been getting rammed down our throats and pumped up our arses for so long

Were you watching porn when you wrote that or something?

[gunrock]

Were you watching porn when you wrote that or something?

[Spatial]

I must be getting old, but the thought of having some money tucked away is a ncie thought.

I agree, but the thing I find annoying is that right now you get f'all for being a saver. Plus if they start their plan for Quantitative Easing Round II I've got a sneaking suspicion that they'll run the currency into the ground so it'll be worthless.

Perhaps this is all MS doing so we'll start using MS Points as a standard unit of currency...

Thing is we (as a consumerist society) are somewhat to blame for this. It literally is a Gordon Gecko style`Greed is good` mantra which has gotten us to this stage. The banks were pushing it, the governments were pushing it, the media were pushing it, resulting in the mind set where the sheeple were to dumb to save themselves.


I want this... I must have it now... in fact I don't want it I need it... now, now, now...

Sensible people may have held off against getting in over their heads (I count myself amongst that) but lots of people didn't think the good times would ever stop rolling. It's going to be something of a bumpy ride down if the talk turns out to be true.

[abigsmurf]

I think asking the man in the street to take any of the blame is a bit screwed up. Loans and credit have been getting rammed down our throats and pumped up our arses for so long that it's been accepted by the masses as the way things work. It suited and was engineered for and by the parasites who still appear to be doing just fine while it's the man in the street whose going to be feeling the screw turn.

Fcuk the bankers, they can take all the blame.

It's not screwed up in the slightest. It's asking people to take a bit of personal responsibility. If you take out a loan you haven't properly budgeted for you're an irresponsible idiot. I don't care if you're "a man on the street". If people do stupid things, it's their own fault.

I'm not talking about people who lost their job or had some other major unforseen event occur, I'm talking about people who took out loans where they couldn't afford the repayments or took out loans on VBR where if the interest rate was raised slightly, they couldn't pay it. Heck people took out loans so they could live the high life for a couple of years then declared bankrupcy when the money dried up.

Don't blame the bankers, don't blame the adverts. The loan forms spell out in big letters how much the monthly payments will be, at every stage of an application you're informed how important it is to be able to keep up with these payments and to allow for them to change.

Frankly a good portion of the people who've taken out these loans need to stop blaming the banks and start blaming the person who appears in the mirror.

[charlesr]

Well I haven't got much in the way of debt either but I was getting mountains of credit card and loan offers that I'm sure I would have been tempted with had things been a bit more difficult. I'm lucky in that I bought a house when prices were still realistic, the next generation weren't/aren't so lucky.

Yeah, I get loan offers from my bank every other week in the post and on the other hand they are wittering on about switching to greener online statements. I can't figure out how to make them stop though. You'd think they get the message after a year of me ignoring them. Amazing how the loans are guaranteed, even though I have a frankly ludicrous amount of credit already. Wasn't there some government ruling on this? Whatver it was, it failed.

['Press Start']

I am starting to think that the big oil companies have already developed the new green fuel, they are just waiting so they can squeeze all the money out of the remaining oil.

Exxon, Gra3npom, Shell, Chevron, BP and petrolchina's combined profit in 2008 was:
?141,773,000,000
or
one hundred forty-one billion seven hundred seventy-three million

Thats just a hand full of companies.

Slight OT but the video below is an example of man trying to do good for the people. Its 10 mins but 10 minutes well spent IMO. (you can tell is has been edited to make it shorter)

[Space Monkey]

It's not screwed up in the slightest. It's asking people to take a bit of personal responsibility.

That's true but it's not realistically going to happen is it? People as you say can be seen as fools and idiots, it seems a lot of people don't have a clue about financial matters. So while at the same time as being offered unrealistic levels of credit, these same fools are fed ideas encouraging instant gratification and greed. It's not so easy to ignore the adverts when you are glued to a screen half your life. We have and are being played like puppets.
I know that probably sounds patronising but I'm really talking about myself. I've realised the position that I'm in and that I'm basically stuck on the treadmill for the rest of my life and I can't see any way off the fookin thing. I've been done like a kipper.

['Press Start']

http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/us/2005-05-18-hedge-funds-usat_x.htm

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/subprime-overview.asp

HMmmmm The global meltdown was definately kicked off by the hedge funders and the subprime mortgage lending in the states. (at its peak hedge fund managers had 2 trillion to manage and they did so recklessly and knowing the outcome would benefit them but not the many).

Our greedy loan and credit card abuse certainly did not help the UK situation but the man on the street is not the reason for the global financial meltdown. (imo)

Countries lending other countries (EU countries) money they cannot afford to give, nor can the receiving countries afford to pay back isn't exactly wise. No more wiser then lending a man of the street a stupid amount of money your bank doesn't have in cold cash but has spread around the world in theoretical investments that vanished once the bubble burst.

I have no debt btw, just a mortgage.

[charlesr]

But the men on the street are the people that accepted the bonkers mortgage offers even though they were unemployed or had no chance of ever paying them back each month. If they had been sensible, they would have said "don't be ridiculous, I'll take that smaller house over there"

[FelixofMars]

As its been mentioned its humanity's greed as usual. They knew they had no hope to pay it back but where willing to accept it and yeah the lenders probably gave them a shark tooth smile but come on would you accept a loan knowing how much they wanted back for it. Apart from my student loan (which is slowly being paid off) I have no other debts I need to pay back for the reason its not worth it I try where I can not to overspend I don't want to be in the position where I know I will be further in the hole.

[capcom_suicide]

Exxon, Gra3npom, Shell, Chevron, BP and petrolchina's combined profit in 2008 was:
£141,773,000,000
or
one hundred forty-one billion seven hundred seventy-three million

Thats just a hand full of companies.

Norway didn't allow this, it forced the oil companies to pay 75% Tax on everything, and then invested this into a global fund. It's quite big now, it just topped $500 Billion USD.

Then the 3-5% profit on the fund each year is used for schools, health, development etc, and of course the state pension.

I appreciate that not everyone agrees with socialism, but I just want to make the point that Oil doesn't automatically mean a country will piss all the money away.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11571650