Re: Are the banks solely to blame?

Doubble M — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:12:50 GMT

I dont think the banks are to blame. I think there are a few people to blame:

Hipocrites who blame the banks but take all their money out of the banks:

They claim that the banks gamble "our" money when really the money is not from people's bank accounts but instead from share holders, profits from bank charges and profits from loan payments. These people also say it is wrong that the government bought shares in the banks however those shares have doubled and tripled in some cases but the reason why the banks have less money is because people like them who were withdrawing all their money from the bank causing the bank to lose money

24 hour news channels and news papers:

Now that news is shown 24 hours and there are so many news papers they are looking for big headlines and the biggest headlines are when there is bad news. Also so that news does not come too repetitive there is now more speculation in the news than before when there was only reporting and if you see a report which says banks might run out of money most people would think it is reporting that banks will run out of money so they take their money out of their bank account

People who have started spending less even though they have the money to spend

The economy went down because people started spending less, by continuing to spend less it is going to make it worse

The FTSE has been actully recovering quite quickly and in the past week it has gone up a lot more than it has been in the past months, it is close to where it was in October 2008 before it's rapid fall which bought on the recession

Are the banks solely to blame?

philipnash — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:48:09 GMT

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Are the banks and banking system completely at fault for this mess? No, I don’t think they are and no, I’m not in finance and never have been.

There’s been a worrying trend for quite some time now within the mass media and specifically the reporting of news. News, and especially broadcast news is treated as fact by many. You come home, turn on the news and take the majority of what you’re told as true. This has traditionally been correct, unlike newspapers which have been viewed as biased depending on their ownership.

However, over recent years, news broadcasters caught in a very competitive ratings war have moved further and further away from the reporting of fact to the now common reporting of opinion; from the reporting of what has happened to the reporting of what might happen. This, together with the well known and proved adage ‘bad news sells’, should be causing major concern.

I like many people watch the news every day. I have noticed more and more, a trend by editors of these programmes hunt down individuals and groups with a negative opinion on the topic in question and portraying it as fact.

An example of this was Northern Rock. Did the media cause the initial problem? No! However, the building society had enough assets to cover the problem. Then the media get hold of the story and stated that the building society was in crisis and that people would lose all their savings if it failed. Lo and behold, the next morning, queues form to withdraw money which causes the building society to collapse and the media to pat itself on the back with ‘we told you so’.

This is the so called ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ effect which has become so prevalent recently and an economic and social cancer. It forces itself into our lives and homes, fed by the mass media and preys on our fears by portraying a possible future as fact. Remember, this credit crunch is based on sentiment. There’s no food shortage, no empty oil fields and no alien invasion. The only people who gain from prolonging this misery are the news broadcasters in there never ending ratings war.

I know everybody who reads this will think they’re intelligent enough to know when supposition is being portrayed as fact; but do we? When it threatens our life, our family and our homes, are we brave enough to make that distinction. When we are told that unemployment ‘could’ top 3 million it takes a brave person to go out and buy that new car. As a result, car sales drop, suppliers cut staff and unemployment goes up. Big smile on broadcasters faces as they announce how right they were and hope you will continue to watch their channel for more accurate, factual.

Take RBS. We are told on the news that the taxpayer stands to lose nearly £400bn due to the debt we’ve underwritten. This is pure scaremongering and not based on a shred of fact. It would take just about every customer of RBS to default on their mortgage. They state repossessions are up by 54% but gloss over the fact that this equates to 1 in 1100 being repossessed; a tiny fraction.

What scares me is that almost everything we know about the world outside our communities goes through the mass media and can be manipulated anyway possible. There is no conspiracy here, just the continuation of the market forces that got us into this mess to start with, but in a different guise

Don’t get me wrong, the banks were initially to blame, but it is now the media which will decide when this recession ends and they have never shown any responsibility in anything they do. They honestly believe they are a passive force for good.

The Credit Crunch

Re: Are the banks solely to blame?

Are the banks solely to blame?