Friday, Jan 30, 2009
Housing Bubble
Times: The 10 people most reponsible for the recession
The bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse in confidence throughout financial markets was not caused by one individual or a single decision, so pointing the finger of blame is a near-impossible task. Give it a shot anyway. Here are ten suggestions for the nine men and one woman responsible for the mess we're in. Once you have read the notes, vote.
Posted by alan @ 06:46 PM (724 views) Add Comment
11 Comments
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1. paul said...
The premise is rather silly - that one person could be responsible for the global crisis, but I voted Fred Goodwin - not because he is responsible, but because his actions will yet prove to be the most destructive to the global economy.
RBS' losses of £28bn dwarf other global banks'.
2. japanese uncle said...
Who engineered to make easy credit available? Some argue that ultimately Bank of Japan's quantitative easing seems considerably responsible for the bubbles in US/UK. Who instructed the BoJ to do that? That is the question. Certainly it's neither BoJ governor nor Japanese PM.
3. shining wit said...
I agree with JU at 2....and with paul at 1... It is churlish to point fingers at just one individual.
It makes sense to me that with interest rates at 0 - 0.5% for years and years, the flow of "money" from Japan to the west does appear to go hand in hand with the extra cash that the credit "boom" was based on.
Printing money (all that old b0ll0cks calling it "qauntitative easing" is getting on my man boobs, remember it's a 2nd hand car, not a used one, a spade is a chuffin spade, not a "manual soil mover") is a desperate measure of a feeble government.
Let us not forget the wonderful government that preceeded the shower we have now. It was the tories that started selling off all the social housing that had been built up for 50 years, leading to the desire for everyone to "own your own home". It was the tories that bolstered the "shorthold assured tenancy", laws making it easy for people (families with kids too) to be thrown out of rented accomodation in a matter of weeks, to ease people into letting their properties in the last crash. It was the tories that removed the "Fair rent act" from the statute in the 1980s ( that allowed councils to set a reasonable amount of rent for the property's rented value), and it was the tories that brought in self-certification (I think, please verify if you can). So let us not forget when we are condemning the present incumbent and his mob in No.10, that the tories are a bunch of spivs also (Cameron is a brylcream boy after all - bit too greasy!)
I am putting my neck out here, but I reckon that, by christmas we will have a different PM. As the people of this country realise the absolute mess the git with a history degree, who thinks he's in charge, has helped foster.
Anyone care to wager against this happening?
4. phdinbubbles said...
Mysterious omission of allsopp again.
5. paul said...
JU are you thinking its the infamous 外圧?
6. Suzyandjoe said...
Angelo Mozilo gets my vote - he looks well scary, definitely sub something...
7. phdinbubbles said...
Concordia, Integritas, Industria.
Or it could just be the voices inside their heads telling them to do it or just a traditional c0ck-up.
8. letthemfall said...
This is a ripoff of the much better Guardian version of this. Politcians are only to blame insofar as they have not really governed; instead they allowed the true culprits to do pretty much what they liked. For that everyone is to some extent to blame. We get the govts we deserve perhaps.
9. japanese uncle said...
paul
It's not gaiatsu, but something more sinister and secretive.
By the way, anyone or any party responsible for having excluded house prices from the inflation index must be the real culplit at least for the UK economy.
10. letthemfall said...
japanese uncle:
Were house prices ever in an inflation index? Interest repayments are in the RPI, so you could say they are indirectly. It seems that govts since the war have been happy to allow bubbles to develop, more frequently with the increased availability of credit, despite the historical lessons - tulips, etc.
11. Nofearman said...
This list has very little if any credibility. Obviously manufactured by someone with a political agenda (just look at the image he/she selected for President Bush). I am political neutral but I can say with much more historical evidence that there is no President who set the motion for this recession more then Bill Clinton as his economic "success" was also manufactured by the fraudulent credit market, and massive corporate greed (which we witnessed at the end of his term with multiple corporate collapses). It wasn't a 90's economic boom , it was the creatio of an out of control financial policy that we now know was a fabricated credit machine, waiting for the wheels to fall off 10 years later. Ironic the US Economy has an average ten year cycle. Thanks Bill Clinton.