Money

Excuse me but where did all this lending come from?

The irresponsible banks.

This is not a social problem but a political problem as much as they failed to regulate banks, It is a banker problem, they over extended loans without evaluating the risk. Now the risk has caught up with both lenders and borrowers. But if the banks, who in the first place provided the money, had refused to lend it, then the crisis would not have happened.

Greece, and all the rest of the world and you and me, would not have been able to run up debts and would have been forced to live within its means. In other words, if we want something we would have to save up for it, or make a good business case for our desired investment, staying within our ability to pay.

So let me repeat, this is primarily a bankers irresponsible problem, second a political problem. It is clear what bankers should have done: refused the loans, not bought the bonds, etc

What should politicians have done?

- limited credit overall within a sensible money supply, not permit ficticious money to allow casino banking

- set up a firm basis for a common euro currency, and even making this a condition of EU membership

UK note, you should be in, not out. If you think it is clever to stay out, you are weak and refuse to meet the challenge of creating a sensible new currency. Bugger the City, forget huge Treasury income from financiers. Focus on making money do what it is supposed to do for people (trading) and businesses (investing)

So who will sort out the mess? And at what cost to whom?

The way it is balanced just now is that irresponsible bankers, who remember are at the top of the causes pile, will again get bailed out at the expense of sucking yet more taxes out of ordinary citizens. And this is not right. A balance is needed.

For sure we have all indulged in borrowing which in reality we cannot afford to pay back, for example ever longer mortgages, on ever more inflated house prices. But banks have encouraged this, and extended vast amounts to our credit cards, which we have found just too easy to resist, even if we could not pay it back.

So we have to return to real values for money. And money, not credit, has to be the basis of ort economic activity. This means cancelling debts, removing them from our books, redefining the value of money, severely regulating the financial people.

And by the way it is not a "financial industry with products", it is not an industry, it is banking, investing, not gambling. Why do we, even now, quietly accept the way the financiers act as simple casino banking or gambling, with our money.

Because money belongs to us. It is issued by governments to people to trade and invest. Not to bankers to gamble.

Action

- make a 10-20 year debt write off plan for governments an banks, AND people

- allow only government borrowing equal to business investment

- allow personal borrowing up to a maximum % of income (two limits, secured i.e mortages, and unsecured, everything else)