People do count - but there are structures that are bigger than all of us and like the Titanic if they’re heading for the icebergs we’re going to get drowned if they’ve skimped on the lifeboats.

And yes it annoys me, in fact it makes me incandescent with furiosity that people who made the decisions that lead to its collapse will probably walk away with some massive payoff and full pension rights. I don’t know how they live with themselves. This happens in all walks of life from sven G erikson, through UHL trust ceo, to city institutions and business.

But i know that these people are immoral (imo) and wouldn’t expect more of them.

The ‘little’ people however i do have some faith in, most are not corrupted by vaste amounts of money, and they do have some influence on events and with that (albeit limited) influence comes also a small amount of responsibility.

The press continues on a daily basis to try and give us someone to blame for any unfortunate event, by taking away our responsibilty they are also taking away any understanding of our powers to influence events. Imagine the effect on our young people - who get the message constantly that they don’t count, and there actions have no influence..

I personally want to retain my ability to influence and my ability to take responsibilty for my actions, but then again i always was a sad git!!

The situation in the US worsens also, and far worse than here, the dollar has been weak for quite some long time.

But the situation here in the UK is absurd, how many times salary is the average mortgage? The housing market will stagnate first and then collapse so all equity is lost.

The debt alone at Northern Rock (administrative not customer) is now greater than the National Debt (comparatively) in the 1940’s. The govt funding to Scotland is £30m but the bail out of Northern Rock is £1Billion.

Things are well and truly f**ked

I don’t understand why there isn’t any monitoring and restrictions on these organisations. Whilst we must all be responsible for our own monetary affairs, there many vulnerable people who struggle agains the odds and are regularly bombarded with literature from banks giving opportunities to get further into the mire, but seemingly disguised as ‘the solution’ to the recipient’s problems.

If you honestly believe that the ‘little’ person in our society has absolutely no influence on any events then we may as well all just give up now.

————————-

Mods and Admin

Northern Rock’s disaster had nothing to do with the customers, no well run financial institution would have to answer to a run like that. Read the whole thing when you have time, in the forums,agw is the author

Of course you are all invaluable in the NHS, but wouldn’t it be more efficient if there were more medical people and less administration? Our local hospital at Southend was paying some chap £35k pa to ‘manage’ the car park, he made a complete and utter balls up of it. It takes me 30 mins to drive there and then an hour to park, and some of the auxillary nursing staff have to pay £5 per day out of their taxed pay of £35 for a god knows how long a shift to park there , its obscene. BTW he also had to pay a £5!

I can’t get over the ‘customers’ many months ago queing to get their money out and despite reasurrances caused a ‘run’ on this bank.

Probably the same people who will moan like crazy about it being nationalised..

Anyway isn’t it shocking that a morgage lender seeks to repossess someones home… let him keep it, and let those of us who pay our morgage, before spending a penny of our hard earned salaries, accept another rate rise to cover his costs…

Along with the hike in insurance premiums to pay for those unlucky flood victims who ‘forgot’ to insure their homes, oh and a three year pay deal designed to fight inflation, i might be able to afford those new work shoes at some point in the autumn….

sorry - am obviousley in one today - must have been up late posting on anorak or something…

—————

Mods and Admin

You have indeed missed the whole of the point, its not the punters withdrawing their money , or mortgage defaulters, its the way the bank was run that caused the catastrophe - the directors- the managers - the fund managers- all the highly paid people. Have a look in the forums.

You are in nursing? is the rickety state of the NHS your fault ? or the patients? or the people who mismanage the whole shebang?

As an aside most people who live on a flood plain cannot get insurance, not amnesia, just cannot get it