[Closed] Bankers: was it really their fault?

Yes.

Next question.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Weren't you paying attention then ?

The credit crunch was extensively covered when the shit hit the fan.

Obviously interested parties, ie, bankers, Tories, etc, now want to re-write history......it was all very embarrassing for them. And it has to said they are having some success. As your thread clearly suggests.

I want your money. You know I can't pay it back. But you give it to me anyway, and persuade me that I'll be fine, that the value of the asset I'm borrowing to buy will be an everlasting gobstopper.

Who's the bigger fool?

(Given the information inequity.)

THE BANKERS?

That's like saying that terrorism is all the fault of THE MUSLIMS.

I blame the regulators, or should I say lack of regulation.

One thing I don't understand though is inflation is supposed to be a bad thing and is something that needs to be controlled. However, during the boom years the Bank of England turned a blind eye to rampant house price inflation.

american bankers were the fools in all this.

Surely the people taking loans they couldn't afford to pay back, which the banks then sold on and on, also must shoulder the blame?

That was only a small part of it.

The bankers themselves can't be blamed really, since they were just doing there job - which is to make money. Do you blame other businessmen for wanting to make a profit?

Each individual 'banker' was just working within their organisation and practises. The bosses of each organisation were under pressure to compete with each other.

The only people who are free to control this are the politicians. They didn't control it, and so the blame is with them.

Poor people are generally morons (not all of them) who think they deserve everything for nothing. That's not how life works. I think it's fair they feel the full brunt of the economic crisis.

I have a comfortable life, I have everything I need and can afford everything I want (within reason). I got here through a combination of working very hard, luck and having a good upbringing and a dad who knows people.

In my eyes, I deserve my life. However, there are alot of folk who don't deserve my life and they shouldnt attempt to buy it on credit!

These people need to know their "place". If they want to change their place then that's fine, however this is done through hard work (and taking the odd risk I might add).

People are brought up to believe that they must own their own home. It is a constantly pushed theme by politicians and the general media. People are scared that they are left outside of normal society if they don't conform so they fall in line and borrow to achieve the expectation.

Singularly as individuals, by far the vast majority of us, can have little effect on the course of our lives. We can try and work towards a job we like, maybe save up for a few toys and have a hobby. But we can't jack it all in and become an international playboy and live in a 17th century castle in the south of France. We have to spend much more of our lives giving our time to someone other than ourselves.

Our choices are limited to those that life presents us, and in countries where you own your on home or are nothing, the choice is to borrow whatever you have to, to become like everyone else.

Is this the point where we get the kettle on and the biscuits out ?

I have a comfortable life, I have everything I need and can afford everything I want (within reason). I got here through a combination of working very hard, luck and having a good upbringing and a dad who knows people.

Self entitlement encapsulated in one perfect paragraph.

dt, that thing with trolling...

...less is more, ok?

Regulation for finance is being clamped down, you ain't see nothing yet. google 'mortgage market review' for some night time reading. Basically after easter all secured lending has to be advised. So if you want to borrow 5k to do up your kitchen you'll have to sit through an hour long advised phone call to see which product you should have. At the end of it if you decide you don't like what they've advised you can choose what you want anyway, and that's even before the credit score. It's going to be a massive PITA for everyone. Also for all new borrowing you will have to provide 3 months banks stats and if you go in to your overdraft for a while your mortgage will be declined. I need to do a PSA on this when icba.

😀

I know, I need a new log in.

I was just trying to sum up how a worrying amount of people tend to think

The bankers themselves can't be blamed really, since they were just doing there job - which is to make money. Do you blame other businessmen for wanting to make a profit?

I don't blame anyone making a profit with a modicum of responsibility. I'm not sure lending money to folk who you know can't pay it back is entirely responsible.

😳

It is what so many people do think, and frequently post on here. I fell for it hook line and sinker.

Aw; that had potential to run for days! Spoilsport! 😡

[quote=MSP ]
It is what so many people do think, and frequently post on here. I fell for it hook line and sinker.
Don't feel [i]too[/i] bad about it. DT is Der Trollmeister

I found a series of interesting interviews with some city people recently

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/joris-luyendijk-banking-blog

I'm not sure lending money to folk who you know can't pay it back is entirely responsible

The banks wanted profit at any cost & messed up, but it's ok as it wasn't their fault, apparently it's the fault of someone else, welcome to this century, HTH.

I stand corrected scaredy. 🙂

The banks wanted profit at any cost & messed up, but it's ok as it wasn't their fault, apparently it's the fault of someone else

Would you let your multi billion pound business (and that of the shareholders) fail because you didn't do what everyone else was doing?

People are brought up to believe that they must own their own home

That's not really it. Owning a home is hugely desirable from a financial point of view.

I know, I need a new log in.

So did cybicle. He got a new one, though.

Owning a home is hugely desirable from a financial point of view.

Yes, but only if you can afford to buy it.

The banks wanted profit at any cost & messed up, but it's ok as it wasn't their fault, apparently it's the fault of someone else

I think the theory runs along these lines :

If banking experiences failure then it's everyone's fault and everyone should be made to bear the consequences.

However if banking experiences great success then the credit must go to the bankers and they should be richly rewarded.

It's the logical progression from nationalise the losses and privatise the profit.

IE, socialism for the bankers, free-market for everyone else.

Owning a home is hugely desirable from a financial point of view.

Because we have built a system where that is the case, and then allowed the prices to spiral to such an extent that people think they have little choice but to overburden themselves to achieve home ownership.

Everything you need to know is here; this [url= http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/ ]oscar winning documentary [/url]spills the beans

Would you let your multi billion pound business (and that of the shareholders) fail because you didn't do what everyone else was doing?

If it was my business & I thought it was a bad business model then yes, are you really saying it was all about shareholders?

Well sort of, it's all about competing in the marketplace.

It's like blaming a dog for attacking people. Yes, it's the dog's fault on the face of it, but I blame the owners.

If you ran a bank with anything other than absolute competitiveness, you'd be booted out pretty sharpish and replaced.

If it was my business & I thought it was a bad business model then yes, are you really saying it was all about shareholders?

Thats why you're not a banker

Certainly a society problem, rather than a banking one. We have bubbles all the time: south sea, tulips, property up until 2007.

People were banging at the banks door to borrow 120% to buy houses in the 'have to jump on the bandwagon days'.

What does the bank make on a mortgage? 5% a year less costs? The idiots overstretching themselves were doing so in the hope of doubling their money in 10 years. So who was greedy? Who was lying about being able to repay loans, or not coming up with a plan to pay off interest only loans?

Now the banks have quite reasonably decided not to lend to people who can't be bothered to save up for a deposit. But, we're not having that, so now the government has been forced to step in to lend to the greedy and lazy instead!

As a population we need to get a better handle on debt. No bank ever forced anyone to take out a loan they could not afford. No bank will now lend to anyone who can't prove they can afford it, and the papers are going mad about it, saying lending has to increase. That is the problem in a nutshell.

It's like blaming a dog for attacking people. Yes, it's the dog's fault on the face of it, but I blame the owners.

So the bankers were the dumb animals and the people were the clever owners in charge of the situation?

[quote=skooby39 ]No bank will now lend to anyone who can't prove they can afford it, and the papers are going mad about it,
Too many banks were turning a blind eye (self-certification anyone?) in order to ensure they still had a decent share of the mortgage market. As has been pointed out already, any CEO that didn't achieve this didn't last long.

If banking experiences failure then it's everyone's fault and everyone should be made to bear the consequences.

To be fair that's pretty much the position of every sector of the economy: the harvest fails and the farmers are pleading for aid, bumper harvest and they're not exactly queuing up to pay more. Same with haulage companies, construction etc. etc.

Where we went wrong was is not telling them to f-off. And for that I blame the politicians more than the bankers: they let the banks get "too big to fail".

There have been a few comments on the bankers just doing there job etc. but it is interesting to think who they were working for. Some of the biggest investors in this country are the pension companies. They work for us trying to maximise returns on our investments.

To be honest whenever I see someone "blame the bankers" I lose interest as that is far too simple a summary of something that was massively complex. There are a huge number of factors in play but it is easy to single out one group and plant the blame there. It makes a nice sound bite and it is human nature to try and find a group and blame them.

So, to sum up. Bankers are no more or less corrupt than any other business, but the public's desire to own homes and lack of regulation from the government allowed them to get away with it?

EDIT: and by corrupt, I really mean morally flexible.

Too many banks were turning a blind eye (self-certification anyone?) in order to ensure they still had a decent share of the mortgage market. As has been pointed out already, any CEO that didn't achieve this didn't last long.

Are you saying that those blatantly lying are not responsible for their actions?

Say a friend borrowed £10 off you, saying he'd pay it back, but fully intending to put it on shergar at the bookies. After you've found out, and written off ever seeing it back, would you
a) expect all your friends to call you a swine for lending it to him in the first place, having taken him for his word but not checked it out. Then all ask you for £10 as well.
b) not lend any money to anyone else in the same situation for a while. Have to borrow £2 off Mum to get bus home because you didn't get the £10 back.

Banks are currently doing b. Much of UK population currently doing a.

To be fair that's pretty much the position of every sector of the economy: the harvest fails and the farmers are pleading for aid, bumper harvest and they're not exactly queuing up to pay more. Same with haulage companies, construction etc. etc.

That's not actually true, apart from anything else it is illegal under EU rules for governments to financially prop up companies unless they have special EU dispensation.

Farmers do sometimes get assistance for loss of livestock outside their control, but the whole business isn't propped up, which is what happened with the banks - they were failed businesses, not simply businesses in difficulty.

And I don't know what haulage companies and construction companies have been saved from bankruptcy by the government - care to elaborate ?

The banks received very special treatment, there's no doubt about that.

Capitalism is way too complex a system with too many players for the bankers to be able to bring it down on their own.
There were certainly a lot of shoddy practices going on in the banks, but regulators were asleep on the job and we, the people, went mental on personal debt. And scarily seem to be going right back there again right now.
It's easy for the various stakeholders who would like to deflect the blame away from themselves to blame 'bankers' en masse - they were hardly flavour of the month even when we thought we were rich. It's like blaming all black people for all crime...
We need to be very careful about following simplistic narratives about the crises, otherwise we'll end right back there again in short order

I see the problem as people blaming the regulators, just let the business go bosoms up, why/how does a business get so big it needs regulating?
That to me is the real problem.

[quote=skooby39 ]
Are you saying that those blatantly lying are not responsible for their actions?
oh - I'd say that, individually, they were all responsible for their actions. Fraud actually. However, if you [i]knew[/i] your friend was going to put the borrowed money on a horse at the bookies but lent it to him anyway, would you not accept some complicity?

Obviously it wasn't ALL their fault. I can't remember anyone being forced to take credit that they couldn't pay back at gunpoint. A significant proportion of the blame has to be attributed to people who wanted to live beyond their means and to hell with the consequences.

However, the actions of the banks were negligent at best, malicious at worst. There was a genuine disregard for any kind of normal prudence when lending irresponsibly. They were negligent because they managed to convince themselves that they had segmented databases of credit profiles that allowed them to lend to more risky people because they probably spent a bit of money on them. Not many people asked the question "err, but what happens if a significant number of lendees start to default?"

But negligence was only part of it. A lot was hit and run tactics by opportunist crooks. They knew full well it wouldn't last, but kept pushing the limit in order to keep raking in the bonuses. This wasn't banking in the 'stern local bank manager who won't give you a loan without seeing you in person' mould. It wasn't acting in the interests of the people who actually deposited money with the banks, the people who should be looked after.

People who had reined themselves in whilst a lot of their peers were remortgaging their house to buy flash cars or go on holiday, now have been screwed over as their savings earn no interest. But they do have some peace of mind. A good job if you consider the risk of becoming unemployed on the resulting shit storm.

But none of this mattered if you were trousering six figure bonuses each year. You might conceivably end up doing a bit of time if the worst really came to it, but you'd still have all your lovely dosh.

The whole thing was a sort of perfect storm of material greed and those (also motivated by greed) who had the means to service this avarice with no consideration of what would happen in the long term.

I often think the best course of action would be to have taken one of the top five earning 'salesman' bankers out into the street outside Bank tube station, shot them in the back of the neck and left them there for a fortnight pour decourager les autres.

Make no mistake, this WILL happen again. People will say lessons have been learned. Then someone will break ranks and start lending irresponsibly again. The others will follow suit as they will say they cannot afford not to. The actual mechanics of it will be slightly different, but it will happen again in one form or another.

Never a borrower or lender be

Make no mistake, this WILL happen again. People will say lessons have been learned. Then someone will break ranks and start lending irresponsibly again.

Don't agree with most of your comment, but we could run to a hundred pages on that.

Your last line though is clearly wrong! Someone has already broken ranks. Due to massive demand from the 'faultless' general public, the Government has stepped in to lend to anyone who wants to borrow up to £600k without a track record or a deposit.

Edit - and the public are all loving it, but will be sure to blame the Government rather than themselves when it all goes wrong.

All sorts of people to blame. The credit agencies get surprisingly little flak, considering the key role they played. I don't really understand how this has come to be- their job was to appraise institutions and particularily CDOs, which they massively failed to do, why are there not law suits flying? At the very best they were incompetent but it seems more likely they were complicit.

Also agree that weak regulation was part of the problem- but while you can blame the police for not stopping crime, the criminal can't blame the police for not stopping them. The fact that regulators failed doesn't absolve the banks at all, it's 2 failures not a split of one.

That's not actually true, apart from anything else it is illegal under EU rules for governments to financially prop up companies unless they have special EU dispensation.

Farmers do sometimes get assistance for loss of livestock outside their control, but the whole business isn't propped up, which is what happened with the banks - they were failed businesses, not simply businesses in difficulty.

And I don't know what haulage companies and construction companies have been saved from bankruptcy by the government - care to elaborate ?

The banks received very special treatment, there's no doubt about that.

No idea in the UK, but the Spanish haulage companies certainly managed to get some concessions from the government when petrol prices went up a few years ago. Car dealers have got state aid, dressed up in part as an ecological measure, with incentives to private buyers trading in older models. Not sure about construction, though.

And it's not against EU law - exemptions are allowed, and AFAIK the law only covers international trade. Unsurprisingly (and as you point out) [url= http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/legislation/temporary.html ]the banks receive special treatment[/url].

I'm sure companies like Wonga etc are all totally responsible & nothing like 2008 will ever happen again, if only. The difference being they make enough profit to sustain the loss making side of the business.

no.

bankers get banks in trouble.

politicians get countries in trouble.

Governments want there to be as much money as possible loaned out as this maximises the amount of money moving around. Its not is the interest of government to have most people saving and working towards financial independence. There was no motivation to regulate the banks. Its similar to the failure of governments to raise the retirement ages slowly and consistently. Instead the cost of a retiring population has ramped up so much retirement ages are being jumped by big chunks and people find it a shock. Similarly banks become overstretched and when they failed they were too big to fail as they should have done.

was the hedge fund managers that caused the actual crash

because theyd bought and sold the american dodgy mortgage debts, chopping them up and repackaging them essentially just to try and multiply their value each time and multiply their own bonuses

when the mortgages looked like they were going bad the banks and investors asked the hedge fund brokers what the funds were actually worth

they had no idea because theyd created a system of smoke and mirrors

all of a sudden the banks got paranoid and wouldnt trust anyone else so lending stopped

plenty of people at fault; estate agents trying to bump up prices, self certifying mortgage borrowers and lenders, poor oversight & regulation from government, banks that lobbied for less and less regulation, banks that were addicted to risk and enourmous profits, banks and investors that didnt ask enough questions of the hedge fund managers and the hedge fund managers themselves, selling something they didnt understand

Government has stepped in to lend to anyone who wants to borrow up to £600k without a track record or a deposit.

This is stupid. I can't work out if this is being done just to gain votes or if the majority of the government actually believe this makes sense.

plenty of people at fault; estate agents trying to bump up prices, self certifying mortgage borrowers and lenders, poor oversight & regulation from government, banks that lobbied for less and less regulation, banks that were addicted to risk and enourmous profits, banks and investors that didnt ask enough questions of the hedge fund managers and the hedge fund managers themselves, selling something they didnt understand

Probably best comment so far on this thread.
You only missed joe public thinking all was OK because their house was "worth" double what it was five years ago, and there was nothing untoward with that, or anything troubling about their kids never being able to afford a home of their own without borrowing 10 their salary.

bankers get banks in trouble.

politicians get countries in trouble.

Not really the bankers fault [ though it was this time] as it is what capitalism does boom and bust ;it had to happen - you can pick a villain each time it happens but it will always keep happening

So the bankers were the dumb animals and the people were the clever owners in charge of the situation?

In a roundabout way, what I'm saying is this:

In the current system, bankers can't really be expected to behave any differently. As humans, we can be moral creatures of course, but the commercial environment creates the job and its requirements, and the best person to fulfil those will end up in it.

It'd be lovely if all the top bankers got together and said 'you know what, this isn't really cricket is it?' and started being much more sensible and less profitable, but I can't see it happening.

Kimbers: you're also forgetting about the large number of civil servants that signed up local government authorities etc to financial instruments they didn't understand and failed to get proper guidance on.

Government has stepped in to lend to anyone who wants to borrow up to £600k without a track record or a deposit.

Are you talking about the 'Help To Buy Scheme'? I've only had a cursory glance at it but don't you need a 5% deposit and to secure a mortgage on 75% (I think) of the value? And to secure a mortgage (especially now) will require credit checks etc.

So on the contrary, that's a 'track record' and a deposit.

Have I missed something?

5% is not much of a deposit and if you can secure a mortgage on 600k you should not get government help.

Disclosure at significant risk of massive abuse / flaming - I've been in "the city" for 30 years, seen a few cycles this was the biggest peak to trough crash so far.

My 2 pence

There was (and still is) far too much debt, there was a huge explosion in borrowing by governments, corporations (including banks) and individuals. A bit like musical chairs when the music stopped there was a problem but it was much bigger than anticipated by most (a select few did predict a big crises and made a lot of money from that).

The seeds for the crises where laid by the deregulation of banking, including in particular in the US where investment banks and retail banks where allowed to merge (having been broken apart after the 1929 crises)

Low interest rates post Twin Towers / 9-11 made it cheap to borrow

Lending and borrowing in the US went nuts, you could get a big loan with very few checks, people want to buy stuff today including that dream home rather than save so they want to borrow.

The UK didn't want to miss out so we did the same in particular the old Halifax (HBOS) went nuts with lending, Northern Rock etc too - basically the old building societies

Not to be left out Governments decided the borrow now, spend now, pay back never was a good way to win votes, this was particularly true of the weaker Euro group members.

When the music stopped, people couldn't pay, when people couldn't pay banks couldn't pay and when banks couldn't pay governments couldn't pay.

@kimbers - hedge funds where certainly involved but the crises would have occurred without them.

That nasty word "bonus" - the crises would have occurred with or without bonuses, politicians wanted power they don't get paid a bonus.

So I'd say in summary banks and the broader financial sector was certainly at the centre of the problem but they where ably supported by greedy individuals and naive governments

Junkyard - lazarus

so when the banks were in trouble we could have just let them fail and nothing at all would have happened to the economy

er, exactly, sort of.

IF the country's finances had been more or less ok, we could have taken the hit of letting a bank or 2 fail / bailing them out, with a bit less pain.

but instead, politicians had geared our nations finances so that we *needed* 3% growth every year, to cover the repayments for the money borrowed the previous year.

if i did this at home, by running up £4000 of credit card debt, necessitating a 3% pay-rise next year to cover the minimum payments (£50/month), my wife would be very upset,

if i did it again the next year, and the next, and the next, and etc. my wonderful wife would kill me to death. It's clearly an incredibly stupid way to run things, but this is what our politicians have done. Despite all the talk of 'recession' this / 'downturn' that, all we're really talking about is a lack of growth. permanently relying on growth/pay rises to pay off debt is bad financing.

back to my original point; it's popular to blame 'the bankers' for all our financial problems.

naughty bankers.

but there's a bigger picture, and we're all part of it - through our own behaviour, and the politicians we elect.

all of course imho, i'm only a lowly engineer, not an important economist.

Specifically to support @scotroutes comment above. Halifax (HBOS) head of mortgage lending thought it was all getting too risky in 2006 so he tightned the lending criteria. As HBOS lost market share he was fired. A new man was put in place who redoubled the daft lending efforts, HBOS where well known in the broker community for NEVER spot checking self certified loan applications. When the music stopped HBOS failed, its large dodgy mortgage book being the primary factor

Though, to add a little background, HBOS was in the process of frantically trying to make itself look big, to avoid getting bought over and bummed by some larger bank with equally dodgy business practices. Playing safe risk-wise wasn't necessarily safe business wise. Not helpful. But that's capitalism eh.

Three events in the 1990s; the dotcom boom, the Asian financial crisis and the rise of al Qaeda (aka the response to 911) were the causes of the credit bubble.

[quote=jambalaya ]Specifically to support @scotroutes comment above. Halifax (HBOS) head of mortgage lending thought it was all getting too risky in 2006 so he tightned the lending criteria. As HBOS lost market share he was fired. A new man was put in place who redoubled the daft lending efforts, HBOS where well known in the broker community for NEVER spot checking self certified loan applications. When the music stopped HBOS failed, its large dodgy mortgage book being the primary factor
One would almost think I was there.....

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=194151. Here is link to an interview with Alan Greenspan by Evan Davies BBC

Could go some way to answering your question

@scotroutes 8)

R
B
S

That is all.

It really is missing the point. No single human being should have the facility to take that amount of money from everyone. The 1% who hold all the profits have as much money as everyone else in the county. There's only a certain amount of money available and the richer they get individually the poorer the ENTIRE nation gets,they already have billions, for every extra pound they are still earning your lifestyles will have a lower standard. Don't cap banker earnings cap everyone's. No man should have a billion pounds especially if it means 1million more people should live in povery to do so.

[img] [/img]

Also if you don't know I'll explain how bankers rip you off, remember also you are not getting anything from them, not oil, nothing. It's just numbers.
I'll dumb down the figures so it's easier to understand. A bank can lend 7 times what it actually has so take 1million, they can actually lend out 7 million that doesn't exist and make interest off that so they are already sucking all that money from the economy that they didn't even have to start with. They make huge profits which they then pocket. But say 3million couldn't afford to pay that back, the government then bail the bank out.....again out of OUR money and give it to them even though they never had that 3 million. So now they have 3 million plus the interest of 4million whilst starting with no more than 1 million! Is this not fraud? Even if the banks are regulated better and everyone were able to pay back their loans. They would still be making profit on money they didnt have to start with. The end result can only be economic failure as it is impossible to pay back all the debt because not enough money exists in the economy and it didn't exist to start with.
now stop voting.

Icke in 3...2...1...

In
Before
The
Icke
??

Banks don't lend money they haven't got - they borrow it themselves from other banks or investors at a lower interest rate than what they sell - usually the LIBOR rate (so there is another banking scandal) and is backed up by security - i.e. your house or business or whatever it is you're borrowing against. Banks collapse when the people they lend to start defaulting on their debt to them which means in turn they can't service the loans they've got and the security deposits against their loans is worth less than the debt they have (so like negative equity for the banks).

The problem was the banks were over extending their lending to the public, most of it bad debt, somehow selling that bad debt onto other banks (as if bad debt has value) and all that bad debt started circulating and building up in the worldwide banking system until ultimately it couldn't take any more, property prices collapsed and in turn banks started to collapse.

The government then had to step in to bale out collapsed banks and prevent other banks from collapsing before the banks started to raid our savings, pensions and our homes to repay their debt to their debtors.

The rest is history, and, from what I can tell, our future at some point cause I can't see what has actually fundamentally changed to prevent the same thing happening again.

This is a gross oversimplification, but you get the gist. So are bankers to blame? Yes and for the larger part, but not totally - they were just fulfilling demand from the general public. Governments are as well and to a certain extent alot of us as we're the bottom of the food chain feeding and creating this cycle of debt.

The biggest effect to the UK was the fact that under Gordon Brown, he had got our nation saddled in so much debt and the structural deficit was so poor that we were not able to weather the storm which has lead the the current austerity measures that are ultimately hurting us, and are probably necessary to continue for some time to come.

I'll dumb down the figures so it's easier to understand.

You're too nice.

Banks don't lend money they haven't got

[img] [/img]

[i]Banks don't lend money they haven't got[/i]

I'm pretty sure that's precisely what they do. They lend money from investors to lend to other people who need money. The banks make sure they take risk with other people's money. Never their own.

As for the overall crash, I thought the LIBOR rate fixing was the main cause of it all? And that absolutely was 100% the fault of the bankers both by fixing it and failing to stop it happening.

If you want to look that close to the event you could argue that RBS (and others) went down because of a run on the bank. No bank holds enough cash for that. Libor freeze and the run on the banks was just the last act. The root causes went back to the 1990s.