Who are HSBO - you keep referring to them?

As Peggy Said –



A lot of people come into financial problems through no fault of their own. It’s a very sad situation that we’re dealing with here of which I’ve experienced through well-meaning relatives who’ve lost jobs whilst paying a mortgage. The choice that society is basically giving is either take a risk and if it doesn’t pay off then things will be worse than before or just spend your whole life poor.

It really is an unfair choice.

There are other choices. In normal timrs rented accommodation is cheaper than mortgaged and without all the costs attached to maintenance, etc. Accordingly, there is a choice of being happy in a rented home and and saving / investing the differential. Over a life time stoc market returns would normally exceed any perceived return on a house.

The wonderful flexibility of rented accommodation really is a joy to behold. My mate experienced that this year when his flatmate lost his job and there had to move out of the yuppie apartment on Leeds Riverside. The same problems still arise just in different guises. I'm sure if I could push you on saving money you'd start suggesting homeless hostels or even braving it on the streets.

How terrible having to move out of a yuppie apartment. The horror. FFS.

There are a lot of regulatory issues around banks, but without them and building societies lending money, the majority of the population would never be able to purchase their own home. If people choose not to take out mortgage protection insurance or similar products then - just as with any insurance - they shouldn't whine if things go wrong and they can't pay. Whilst banks are dumb for lending too much money in good times, so are most people who borrow way more than they can safely afford.

Moving out of any accommodation can be a traumatic experience. For example some criminals become institutionalised after spending far too much time in prison that they can't even contemplate moving back into the ‘real world’. What most people want is a stable home for long periods of time and if that isn’t reasonable then I don’t know what is.




Insurance doesn’t last forever and isn’t always going to fully pay for the mortgage. Other than that I agree with you.

So don't get one! No-one is 'entitled' to a mortgage unless they've got the means to repay it. Lenders take a risk handing out hundreds of thousands, just like home-owners take the risk they will be able to meet the repayments over 25 years or so.

No other country is obsessed with mortgages and home ownership like the UK and the rest of the world manages just fine.


What a surprise. You want everything on a plate. Someone can't repay the money loaned to them (or pay their rent) and you think it's some sort of scandal they may have to move? Who should cover their bills? The taxpayer? Or should homes be handed out free as well?

Damo: a textbook example of the "the world owes me a living" generation.

Or a textbook example of a troll who continues to land regular bites, no matter how obvious his bait or how frequently it is used.

Maybe when HSBC buy HBOS (not to be confused with RBS) from LBG (who own what used to be TSB, CGBS and HBOS), the new firm will be called HSBO?

very funny. So, let's say i do this. But let's say that Fred Goodwin and his cronies buy a huge worldwide banking business for a few billion in some pot-pisssing contest, without doing due diligence. let's say it turns out (surprise, surprise) that the acquisition is exposed to several £ billion of toxic debt, and so great is the fsck-up that the taxpayer, which is me, has to pay untold amounts of money to "buy" Mr. Goodwin's rather careless bank to stop it, and the banking system, from collapsing. let's say more of the same from various other gamblers sorry bankers. Let's say the world, including England, and these ordinary people that were living within their means suddenly and directly and for the foreseeable have their "means" decimated, their pay frozen, many even lose their jobs, and are told that they will have to put up with "austerity" measures for many years.

While Mr. Goodwin "retires", on a pension of several hundred thousand pounds a year.

How do these ordinary people avoid that? What use is your "simple answer" to them? What could they have done about it? My share of the money to prop up the lying, cheating banks and their thieving, morally bankrupt managers has already gone, and will continue to go, and nobody asked me. Did you get an exemption from paying?