I totally agree that
I was stupid and out of control.

But look at it a different way:

You let your mate drive your car all the time then one day he gets pissed and dents it...

Do you lend it to him again?

It's technically his fault for doing the deed but you're the one who put the keys in his hand.
(Kip, Mon 22 Dec 2008, 14:18, 2 replies)

if you profit from him denting your car,
then yes - lend it to him again. And again. And again. Banks are businesses.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 22 Dec 2008, 14:19, closed)

True
But they didn't (ish) they may have made money the first time around, but the second time they had to freeze the interest so they won't have made much.

At the end of the day I could have been worse by going bankrupt but fair's fair!
(Kip, Mon 22 Dec 2008, 15:39, closed)

I agree with this
This is not a good analogy as you would not normally profit from your mate smashing up your car. By your own admission, your bank has done well out of you.

Banks have an obligation to their share-holders to maximise profit, not to their customers. The only thing banks have done wrong here is to push the situation so far that they have started losing money. In this sense, they have wronged their shareholders, not the people they lent too much money too. Obviously we have all been indirectly affected now as the government has had to bail them out with our cash.
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Mon 22 Dec 2008, 15:48, closed)

I'm going to bail out now....
I'm in a lose lose situation, either I'm at fault for getting myself in debt (true and I admitted it)

and/or I'm totally at fault that the banks got bailed out by the government/you/us.

Happy fucking Christmas!
x
(Kip, Mon 22 Dec 2008, 15:53, closed)

Ah dude!
Don't be like that. Yes you were at fault but you admitted it and sorted it out and good on you. That makes you the hero, at least you didn't bail. People just don't get why you go that far, dig yourself out of the myre and kinda half blame someone else for putting you there - that's usually the attitude of the people that bail!

Plus its an interesting argument for us bored types ;)
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Mon 22 Dec 2008, 15:59, closed)

And most definitely not your mates
If we alter the analagy to fit the situation you (the bank) are a greedy stranger lending out fleets of cars to hundreds of strangers for a ton of cash. Occasionally one of them gets pissed and dents one of them and you lose a bit of income on that car for a bit, whilst rolling in the cash you're still generating from all the other cars that are being driven fine. You still get tons of cash and some schmuck you don't know got hurt in a car crash - where's the downside for you?

Ethics, morality etc. only come into it insofar as the banks are required to comply with the law and whatever other rules the FSA or whoever lays out for them (that's their "ethics" right there. Man.). Any action that furthers their goal, to make as much money for investors as possible, and doesn't contradict the rules they are bound by is kind of a no brainer as I see it.

What's interesting though is that responsible lending, as it turns out, would have been in their interests all along, in the long term. So maybe the rules do need to be re-written after all - not to protect frivolous borrowers, but the economy, the rest of us and the banks themselves. So however irrelevant this is or isn't to them as a moral, ethical or legal issue, looks like its an important business issue.

Would I see the situation the same if I were lending you money? No. I am an individual with the capacity for pity and the ability to make a judgement on whether my conscience can bear the weight of your misery, not the faceless hive-mind of a Corporation.

Essay over. Good thing is, you're not the bloke who dented the car - you sorted yourself out and paid all the money back, learned from your mistake and won't do it again. Given that I think I just find it strange that you don't accept 100% of the blame (though I appreciate it has a lot to do with wishing there was something to prevent others getting into the same situation).
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Mon 22 Dec 2008, 15:54, closed)

Cheers.

Although I didn't say at any point that it wasn't my fault entirely, I just said that banks could do more to help.

Anyways...
(Kip, Mon 22 Dec 2008, 16:14, closed)

Aye twould be good
I don't think anyone with the ability to empathise would argue with that (with the exception of big stakeholders ;]). But let's face it, even if it is now demonstrably in their business interests to lend responsibly, if they can find what they think is a way to push on the same that is risk-free to them, they will.
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Mon 22 Dec 2008, 16:34, closed)

Very well put
You are right that the bank's irresponsible lending has actually screwed all of us, including them. The fault probably lies with the bodies that set the rules in which banks can work. They should have forseen this issue and stopped it happening.

On the subject of blame from an individual's point of view, I think that there is one more thing to consider here and that is how much of people's over-spending could be put down to an addiction and a result of things that may not be their fault (such as depression). For example, my sister got into shed loads of debt and ended up bankrupt. I am sure that part of her over-spending was down to her being depressed (she was and still is). I always feel better when buying stuff (don't we all) so maybe this was a just a symptom of her illness.

I am not one of those people who has an addictive personality. I have never smoked, don't drink all that much etc, so it easy for me to say, just don't spend. Maybe it isn't as simple as that for many people.

The government protects us from ourselves in a number of ways so maybe this is one more things they should protects us from.

Can you tell that I am very bored and just waiting for Christmas to start?
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Mon 22 Dec 2008, 16:25, closed)

Heh, me too.
Poor old kipper has to bear the brunt of our boredom.

I think its a societal thing. We do all feel better buying stuff because essentially the meaning of life in this country for a lot of people is to amass as much stuff as possible. That sounds really cynical and like I feel I have some higher purpose, but its not quite what I mean. Some "stuff" is important on a higher than material level, e.g. arguably the better your hi-fi equipment the more transcendent your musical experience (ignoring the whole "culture industry" thing for the moment). So its not to say that the pursuit of better possessions of any kind is a bad thing or something that I sneer at, excepting perhaps that pursuit as an end in itself.

I definitely have an addictive personality and readily admit, that whilst I have no time for "status symbols", designer clothes, whatever, I'm as much a sucker for cool stuff of varying kinds as the next person. My circumstances just meant I've never fallen into this particular trap (parents in debt - never went there! Also lucky enough never have had to NEED to get in debt, touch wood). My addictions are emotional. And food. 2 years of not being overweight any more and counting!! :D
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Mon 22 Dec 2008, 16:45, closed)

"Ethics, morality etc. only come into it insofar as the banks are required to comply with the law"
So the law is the arbiter of ethics?

You really think that?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 23 Dec 2008, 11:09, closed)

Not in the way I conduct myself
but in the way I expect big business to act when I'm dealing with it. I'm playing bank devil's advocate here. The law and professional codes of conduct are the only things there to regulate how banks conduct themselves because at the end of the day no one person is really taking personal responsibility for their actions. A bank doesn't have a conscience. It has the law and subsidiary rules that are laid down for it to abide by to protect the people it is dealing with and, it seems, everyone else. Leaving the philosophical complexities of conscience aside for today, if you don't have one morals and ethics are meaningless. You need the explicit rules and penalties.

If customers need added protection that's where it needs to come from - explicit rules. Yes of course everyone SHOULD act ethically, everyone should act morally. But we realised that particular paradigm for society wasn't working out way back sometime BC - they don't, and they never will, not everyone, not anyone (to varying to degrees) if you ask me, part of the reason being everyone's varying definition of ethical and moral standards and/or willingness to abide by even their own. Hence the law.

Beyond this you rely on the kindness and conscience of individuals, but is the loan manager going to jeapordise his job by going against policy and turning down a loan application from a desperate family who need something to keep the electricity going next month but he knows will ultimately default (a moral dilemma in itself)? Will you and I take the decision to stop investing in banks that have unethical loaning practices by our own standards when that means that we can't have a bank account with anyone (and therefore find life very difficult)?

I could be way out of line here, but that's how I see it today :)

For myself, I like to think that when I choose not to take advantage of someone (were it legal for me to do so) it's because I'm highly empathic and understand the hurt I might cause them if I do so. That's my ethics right there - do unto others... But the making of money is not my raison d'etre.

Bringing it back home, whilst I wouldn't personally loan money to someone I knew would have terrible trouble paying it back, whilst fleecing them of a load more, I still think that anyone who borrows money from a bank does so entirely of their own free will and is entirely responsible for having done so. The suggestion that they weren't is entirely analagous, as someone else said, with the fat person suing McDonalds and is everything that is wrong with the world.
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Tue 23 Dec 2008, 13:02, closed)

PS
You're all bastards!! I'm sitting here still not dressed when I was supposed to go to pick up meat about 3 hours ago. Damn your stimulating ways
:P
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Tue 23 Dec 2008, 13:37, closed)

It's tricky.
I haven't done any work since February 2007.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Tue 23 Dec 2008, 13:39, closed)

*nnnggggh*
- Safari
- Quit safari
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Tue 23 Dec 2008, 13:48, closed)