I can't say that I agree with this Banker Bashing vibe...
Financial institutions may have been complicit with their lending policies that allowed me to get in to my position, but it is solely my responsibility.
I appreciate that the general public view of Banks is some what tainted at present. There is a lot that has gone on with the representation of the issues by journalists that seeks only to sensationalise the facts with half or selective truths.
I am not saying that Banks were model organisations, far from it!, but they have another side to the story, which is prevented from being heard. Ironically some of the issues discussed on this forum, relating to the handling of debt, have been influenced by Government & BoE policy.
I don't want to go in to specifics here, but when the Government take major shares and in some cases total control of some of our high street banks, the existing Debt Management policies were heavily criticised. This was not originally due to them being overly harsh but due to being soft! - The Government was originally more interested in protecting it's (our?) own stake while propping up with liquidity. To ensure this they requested significant changes towards debt recovery.
However, there unofficial policy has softened significantly, which follows the bad press and political pressure after the profile of debt recovery has greater publicised. I would of thought that this should now be visible at least to IP's as an improved approach towards dealing with insolvency?
With regards to lending, it seems that we the public want our cake and eat it! We criticise Banks for lending to people who may not be able to repay it but ask them to lend more to vulnerable individuals and businesses during a recession...?
Apologise for the rant, I feel I've said my piece and will let you all get back to ‘Bashing The Bankers’ (BTB). [B)]