ianrobo1

no not at all but there is movement abeit very small, the general concesus was no recovery until the end of 2010 if that

we discussed this at the time Snowy and whet I thougth Normal was, was lending to normal buisness's and peopel with good records and income and not dodgy ones, the thing is taht the level as to be set at a good level listeing to R5 discuss this today there is some signs the lending market is loosening up, not much but some like a doubling of mortgages in December compared to Novemeber

What are normal levels? Are they the levels of lending which we saw in 2007? Or 2002? Or 1997? Also, bearing in mind that a significantproportion of the lending that was done in the UK was money which came from outside the UK (which has gone) then even UK bank returning to lending levels of 2007 would leave a major shortfall overall. as I posted before I say normal is hwo they lend not the amount, what we aw in the last three years was 'abnormal'

well it depends if you think rates will rise over the next 5 years, if it is really bad we could see it at thsi level for years for me always a fixed rate at least you knwo where you are, I am on a ten year one I'm actually bloody glad I took the variable rate now (obviously he says!). Phoned up Woolwich at the start of the week to get them to adjust my interest rate and I've knocked £40 off my mortgage payments. Might not seem a lot but when I was only paying £250 for the mortgage anyway it's quite a difference. What fixed rate deal have you got, Risso? lets face no IFA can tell you what to do because no one will knwo what will happen the only possible parrell is Japan who reduced interest rates to zero and had 16 years of recession

well it depends if you think rates will rise over the next 5 years, if it is really bad we could see it at thsi level for years for me always a fixed rate at least you knwo where you are, I am on a ten year one

But who knows what normal is? its abnormal lending over the last 10 years that led to this. If the banks dont know what normal is, and I argue that they are still trialling new models over the old income multiples, and given that "normal" levels have to take into account cycles of recession and growth over a 25 year lifecycle of product, including building in enough margin to account for recessional factors, and that we can no longer rely on growth in house price, and the uncertainties of the future environmentally, its going to be more of a case by case basis. and banks need to make heavy charges on providing mortgate products, to begin to make themselves profitible. ITs a new unchartered territory. Even the last recession was forseeable and gentle in a way this one wasn't except a few experts. don;t think anyone forecast this, not even Cable, he aadmitted on a R5 interview last week, he expect a 'correction' not this but no one knew about those 'assets' in the states and just hwo bad they were as to 'Normal lending' for me it is sensible lending based on a decent deposit (10%) and ultiples of 3/4 times income

but if everyone knew including shareholders they ould have put pressue on but they enjoyed th excessive dividends greed drives it all and say you limited mortgages to a fixed multiple of wage that would stablise the excessive rises we saw

Cop out. Neither agree, nor disagree. I guess we have a people's bank (or two!) I think that we need to identify what money we have in the country and keep it in the country. One of the laudable actions of this government was to introduce a national minimum wage, in order to protect the small percentage of the work force that was very poorly paid. The problem is that the minimum wage has become *the* wage for manual workers and those in the sort of service industries that a consumer led economy relies upon. In many cases jobs that previously paid ten or twelve pounds an hour are now paying 5 something. I wouldn't mind betting that the percentage of workers on minimum wage now far outweighs the previous percentage of poorly paid. That's less money to spend in our consumer economy, or less money to save in a 'people's bank' or peopel just move their savings from say NR to a safe bank and NR dies slowly .. a peopel's bank concept is interesting but would it not really be a building soceity ? in retorspect the worse thing that happeed was the move of the ex building socieites to bans so they could access' market funds' this meant their business models were too agressive if the 'peoples' bank strengthens BS's then it can only be good the 'peoples' bank can be anyone rich or poor I am interested with a people's bank on the poltical discussion because it does help to increase the usuage of post office but by a nationalisation which of course the Tories can not support a lot of presumptions in the next two years could be overturned

Was Gordon Brown willing to stick up for those people Ian? What did he mean when he said British jobs for British workers, or was it just a soundbite? answering a question with a question is not a debate I doubt few of those moaning now about this were moaning hwne call centre galore and IT centres were being outsourced to offshore

yes and why do so many peopel the house market is any different and plan always for unlimited rises at the end of the day banks never factored in the house market going down when we all knwo it would how could so many smart people get it worng answer - greed and excessive profits

Juju the key will be when banks start lending to normal levels again and 'normal' peopel can get affordable mortgages the question is timing of this

it could do Lev, because it is impossible to predict but at some point people will start goig back in because the prices are so cheap and mortgage deals are out there. First time buyers for example with a decent deposit must be close to the level where they could enter but who knows and who could predict ?

that may well be true but there is a group of people who swing elections labout in 97 identified these as Wrocester women, Mondeo man etc. these people would never in my view vote for a party that adovcated wide spread nationalisation for example, but they would never vote for a party that believed in full privatisation of the NHS either so TT do you agree in the principle of a 'people's bank' ?

TT, it depends how you class it and that i for another debate but look at the constineucies classed as 'swing ones' like Edgbaston for example .... one thing about the middle class is that they are conservative by nature so we would ever see an extreme left or right party ever get elected to run the country

and these strikes over the foreign labour were these workers willing to come out for millions who have lost their jobs to 'offshoring' was there a Daily Mail article then backing those call centre, IT and back office staff who lost their jobs then ?

Shame that this idea has had to wait until the closure of a large number of post offices to garner some support from ministers: then again there wasn't a revolt against privatisation plans to try and head off last year. but it is such an obvious move we debated the PO before but a 'people's' bank in these time would be so **** obvious, from a political POV will the Tories support one considirng it would be a state controlled bank competiting with private ones

Labour did not HAVE to go to the right. Michael Foot would have got in in 1997. Labour went to the right cos it was led by a charlatan. totally disagree mate, the reaso why Labour was able to captilaise on the Tories blow up was precisely because they were seen as a centre party in this county no proper left party would ever be elected, the group that always decide elections = the middle class would never allow it

not private equity Tony Soverign funds ... under your sceanrio we would have had very few major british banks left ... it is the free market solution to this but what happens if RBS was such a basket case even the Arabs or chinese would not touch them ?

No, Ian. De-merged local financial institutions rather than multi-national behemoths that are 'too big to fail' or too big to be allowed to fail. So, the people chose light touch regulation, did they? It would have been nice for them to have been in on the policy making. You can't really hold 'the people' responsible for an action (or inaction) just because they enjoyed the fruits of the policy. yes we did choose light touch becaue peopel voted for parties who support the free market once we made that descion and accepted globaliation, light touch was the logical way to go

Santander have brought Alliance & Leicester ..as well as Abbey prior to all this Nationwide brought The Derbyshire and The Cheshire. HBOS were able to raise £4 bn of new capital and then went into safer hands of Lloyds TSB (the country's most conservative lender). I'm not even sure that the banks couldn't have resolved this themselves ..as I say some banks may have been allowed to fall (NR) but as also previously mentioned the direct impact on savers etc would have been small HBOS only merged with LLoyds because the competition rules were waived and the government now own is it 40% of the Lloyds banking group ? You knwo how much mess RBS was and still is in, without the government now owning it, it ould have collapsed no other bank could take it on it is not small

Tony, I remeber you sayig that but the failure of NR would not have stopped the problems of RBS, HBOS, B&B, Morgan stanley, BofA, Citi etc because the problem was alreayd well entrenched far too much money loaned on the back of what were worthless assets so given what has happened these past months woul you have rescued the banks remebering thsi has affected banks in many countries

hats right Scott, because I agree with Gringo I would too have gone all the way and nationalised the banks I then would have merged some then created out of the mess rha was left a national bank to be run with the post office with this then I would have made a new law forbidding any building scoeity becoming a bank because all those failed that did I would have then laid down minuium asset to loan ratio's I would make it illegal to ever to give out 100% (or more mortgages) all house sales have to have a min of 10% depoist and multiples of not great than say 3.5 times joint salaries, ths would of course in the short term drive down prices and a large number of people woul have negaive equity but over the long term this would keep price rises in line with wages imagine though how popular that would be ?

with respect it's not a question Gringo , or anyone on this board can answer and as such it's a pointless question more aimed at deflection really the same question , it's been repeated throughout the 41 pages on this thread , i took the time and trouble to try and think of some answers and then just got a reply of ..that would never work ..no reason why or counter argument just the kinda the mantra that we keep getting over and over from this government and it's supporters well newsflash ..nothing the government has done has worked so I don't see how they and their supporters can take the line that the alternatives are wrong Tony if you have answered this then I aplogise but can you tell me if you answered the question of whether you supported the state backing of the bank to a huge cost ? if not why ? forget the blame game, the politics just the pure economics over whether you believe the supporting of the banks should have been done ?

...because governments chose to have little control over it... I would say the people 'chose' what I keep trying to say is that the people (ie. US) want the free markets, we want the plus sides but when the negatives happen we seem to rebel against the free market. If people wanted for the sake of argument a communist party in charge we would have voted for it but it is clear in the UK that we would never vote for this and in fact labour had to go to the right to ensure they embraced the free market to get the votes IF WE wanted another way then of course we could have had, WE chose not to take this way

I actually in thei debate would like your view on it and not just copy and pasted articles it seems Gringo you are unwilling to this, this is not BIAD poltics but the economies of every country which gives everyone a living or not you still have failed to say if you woul have allowed the banks to collapse, the Tories have refused to ay this, Cable has refused to states this from what I have read you are bot prepared to answer it, it is not a poltical debate but an economic debate one extreme is to state pure free market it to let them all go the other extreme it total nationalisation, where do you stand ?