OK the banks screwed a lot of people but

Fighting Irish

you and you alone should be responsible for your finances

Example:
Some chick on newstalk this morning was giving out about banks because she re-mortgaged her house a few years back and now her and the husband have lost their jobs and the bank wants to take the house in 6 months or something and its the banks fault?

Sand

Did she or her husband lose her job because they were incompetent or otherwise bad at their jobs?

Darragh29

Fighting Irish wrote: »

you and you alone should be responsible for your finances

Example:
Some chick on newstalk this morning was giving out about banks because she re-mortgaged her house a few years back and now her and the husband have lost their jobs and the bank wants to take the house in 6 months or something and its the banks fault?

Yeah, the logical conclusion of your argument is that we will should all live in trailer parks or campsites, except obviously folks like yourself who have parents who can throw you the deposit off the end of their hoops and throw more of their retirement cash at you when you get into difficulty paying the mortgage. This is the problem with Ireland, people like yourself who have been inbred with generational wealth who have a superior attitude with regard to the position of others in society...

Look at the stupidity of your argument. A woman and her husband lose their jobs. If they never remortgaged and bought a 1 bed apartment and still lived there, they would have the same problem with the bank. CTFOUGB.

galwaydude

Here here darragh. Very insensitive of the OP. Yes we are responsible for our finances but what happens when an unforseen event happens like loosing your job happens. Have some cop on.

Darragh29

galwaydude wrote: »

Here here darragh. Very insensitive of the OP. Yes we are responsible for our finances but what happens when an unforseen event happens like loosing your job happens. Have some cop on.

Of course it is insensitive. It has to be because the argument being made cannot stand up. Did the subject of this discussion, the couple with a house that remortgaged, be blamed for the change of circumstances that led to them defaulting??? No they can't, no matter how you window dress the argument. So if we agree with the OP, none of us should invest in more than a matress, for fear that circumstances may change!!!

It's all well and grand being smug when "mummy and daddy" are paying the bills and you give in a protected little bubble where you don't have to take on the risk of investing in more than a matress and you can have the luxury of starting threads as stupid, wooded headed and irrational as this one.

According to the logic extended by the OP, we should all buy tents and go live up in the Dublin mountains, because we should never dream of exposing ourselves to risk. That's a grand opinion to have when you're down in the UCD/TCD canteen where mammy and daddy are paying for your lunch, but fast forward a few years when the OP graduates and can't get a job, (unless of course some of his financially inbred relatives can fast track him into a job, which I suspect is the case here), we can expect a different, more humble attitude to emerge.

fergalr

While I wouldn't agree fully with the OP, and while I have the deepest sympathies for anyone struggling under the weight of debt, I do think there's merit to some of the sentiment in the OPs post.

Many people in Ireland clearly got into more debt than the should have. Getting a mortgage is to some extent making a bet on the future value of the property you buy, and on your future earnings.

If you take large mortgage and keep your job, and houses go up, well, you make a lot more money than you would have if you had conservatively rented until you could afford to buy, always saving for a rainy day.

Taking out a large mortgage is a gamble on your future earning power, and the future value of your property. A lot of people took high risk gambles, and these have not worked out for them. This is sad, but we must be very careful helping these people out financially.


We would not be fast to help out someone that lost money on the stock market, or lost money on the horses.

The people that took out big mortgages, and took a high risk, increased the property prices in the market for everyone else. Fundamentally, they took a gamble on continued increases in house prices.

If house prices had continued to increase, and the economy remained bouyant, would we compensate those who were more conservative, and did not make money by taking out a big loan to put into a property investment (ie, a mortgage?). Would we compensate those who didn't buy into the increasing property market, and who instead saved up in case they lost their jobs?

No, we probably wouldn't.
And similarly, we must be very careful compensating those who lost money when the market went down.

Now, the government and banks did not encourage responsible borrowing to buy property. They were irresponsible.

But this whole monetary system we are in only works, to some extent, if you are responsible for your own financial affairs. Otherwise, you could just make lots of gambles, profit when they went your way, and claim ignorance when they didn't.

I have huge sympathy for anyone caught up in the falling property market, but it's very hard to know how much help to give them.
But borrowing money is always a risk. And there wasn't much sympathy going around in 2003 for those that hadn't bought property a few years earlier.
Borrowing money is always a risk.

Yeah, the logical conclusion of your argument is that we will should all live in trailer parks or campsites, except obviously folks like yourself who have parents who can throw you the deposit off the end of their hoops and throw more of their retirement cash at you when you get into difficulty paying the mortgage

Darragh, I don't think that's a logical conclusion at all. The OP just says people should be responsible for their own finances. Clearly, it's easy to look back and see that people were borrowing more than they should have. And equally, it was hard to see at the time. But that doesn't mean the only other option was to get a deposit from parents. I know people who didn't buy because they were worried that if something bad happened they wouldn't have enough to survive. They didn't have parents rich enough to pay for them. They continued to save, and rent. And all through 2000-2004 they lost out on the year-on-year gains property made - if they had taken a 100% mortgage they'd have gotten those gains.
It's quite a complex scenario, but it's not fair to say the only choices were:
1. Take huge mortgage with huge risk 2. Get money from parents. 3. Buy caravan.
There was also:
4. Rent, scrimping and saving until you can afford a smaller mortgage with less risk.

Look at the stupidity of your argument. A woman and her husband lose their jobs. If they never remortgaged and bought a 1 bed apartment and still lived there, they would have the same problem with the bank. CTFOUGB.

Doesn't remortgaging generally involve taking a loan against your property that's already (at least partly) paid off? So, if you didn't take out this loan, and your house was paid off, you wouldn't be in trouble with the bank?
Of course, I wouldn't want to comment on the details of a particular case, maybe these people had to take out the loan for a medical procedure to save their lives or something, in which case, I completely understand. But if they remortgaged to buy more property, I'd have less sympathy.


I don't know, it's a very complex issue - it's awful to see people getting caught. But at the same time, I see the OPs point, in that people do have to try and be held responsible for their own decisions, otherwise things don't work so well in the system.


I sort of subscribe to the idea that a society has to look after it's less fortunate members though...
As a taxpayer I'd probably support the government helping out the people that got caught, particularly the worse cases where peoples backs are up against the wall (less so the property speculators)... would have to be done very carefully though, so not to bring down the system - that's a question for someone with economical and political knowledge...

sceptre

Darragh29 wrote: »

CTFOUGB.

Note: if I could figure out what the GB part of that meant, there probably would be a warning issued. Civility please.

Darragh29

At the end of the day, we were paying what has turned out to be USELESS CORRUPT C*NT'S millions of Euro, not just within the banking system but also within the financial regulatory system, to manage the system to the betterment of us all and our economy and to protect and provide, in strategic terms for our longer term economic interests.

Guess what we have found out now, these OVERPAID CORRUPT C*NTS were too busy representing their own financial interests, instead of doing what we were paying them millions of Euro a year in salaries to do, which was to manage the wider financial system prudently, to provide for our collective current and future financial security and well being.

You can't turn around and blame Mr. & Mrs. Rsecently Unemployed for this complete disaster, because their employer now cannot get access to working capital from the bank, because the bank is using their Tier 1 capital to service non performining developer loans on behalf of developers who cannot even pay interest on these loans now...

I don't know if you ever had such a thing as a Revenue Audit, but I've had one, and this is where the Revenue Commissioners come into your business and examine every cent coming into and departing from, your business. If they even think that you owe them 20 Euro, you will have a demand served on you and if you don't take it seriously, you will have a sherrif at your door with a summons with a commital order attached to it (that means that are taking you to court with a view to petitoning the judge to have you taken into custody/jailed).

This is the threat that every small business operates under. It's either comply, or else sherrif, summons, committal order, Mountjoy, it is as simple as that, it's a four step process. But if you are f*cking up the country by virture of you being paid millions of Euro a year to manage a bank, but Christ if you decide that a couple of million Euro a year is not enough for you and you have to bring the country to the point of bankrupcy in order for you to satisfy your insatiable greed, then there is no oversight, and not only that, the useless c*nt who was supposed to be overseeing you resigns with a 600K handshake. You can do what you want and nurses and firemen and people on shag all money get hit with a 10% "levy" to bail you out...

I could go on, but I won't. When there is a protest, I'll be there because I've had enough of the corruption and paedophile like honour that I associate with the governance of this country. The people running this country are in my opinion lower than paedophiles and I couldn't give a f*ck if I get banned for saying it, that is how I feel.

fergalr

Darragh29 wrote: »

...

I would point out one thing Darragh, we don't directly pay the banking execs money in order that they be socially responsible - they are most directly responsible to their shareholders, and their motivation will generally be to make as much profit as possible, once they act within the law. We can't really expect them to act against that profit motive, in the public good. Perhaps we did, and perhaps that's why we are disappointed.

This setup can cause problems, certainly, but we shouldn't forget that this is how it is - when they do risky things to try and make extra money, we must remember that their reason to be is pretty much to make as much money as possible - unlike our government and civil service who have an explicit responsibility to the national interest, and whose jobs it is to regulate things.

I agree with a lot of what you say though. It seems to me - as an average joe when it comes to banking matters - that things were not at all as regulated and audited as they should be. And so, I'd need a very persuasive argument to convince me that the relevant elected officials and civil servants were doing their jobs properly, in light of what's come out.

Of course, as the electorate of Ireland, when things aren't run properly, we do share some of the blame - it's our country, and we do have some responsibility for how it's run - mustn't forget that. There did seem to be a lot of greed floating around, not just amount the top level bankers, but in the man on the street too.

Darragh29

fergalr wrote: »

I would point out one thing Darragh, we don't directly pay the banking execs money in order that they be socially responsible - they are most directly responsible to their shareholders, and their motivation will generally be to make as much profit as possible, once they act within the law. We can't really expect them to act against that profit motive, in the public good. Perhaps we did, and perhaps that's why we are disappointed.

HORSE SH*T. We, the people paying the excessive banking charges, the insane mortgages, the stupid interest rates, are the people who have been paying for this, not the shareholders or the TD's. We've also been paying our tax and this pays for the regulators office and his own crazy remuneration package. Everywhere someone has been f*cking up here, we've been paying for it and now that they have f*cked up beyond their own repair, we are paying fro it again in order to clean up the mess these people have made, on top of having paid them hansomly to prevent a mess like this in the first place. Whatever these people have earned over the last 5-10 years, we should be looking for the lot of it back. We pay TD's to legislate to protect the common good, and by Jesus Christ I can tell you that they are pretty damn well efficient at legislating for it when it comes to the taxation of small businesses.

The only reason they don't legislate for it when it comes to big business is because the c*nts are corrupt beyond redemption.

youcrazyjesus!

Fighting Irish wrote: »

you and you alone should be responsible for your finances

Example:
Some chick on newstalk this morning was giving out about banks because she re-mortgaged her house a few years back and now her and the husband have lost their jobs and the bank wants to take the house in 6 months or something and its the banks fault?

Should we let them starve to death too?

fergalr

Darragh29 wrote: »

HORSE SH*T. We, the people paying the excessive banking charges, the insane mortgages, the stupid interest rates, are the people who have been paying for this, not the shareholders or the TD's.

Certainly, the banks make some of their earnings from the members of the public that are their customers (as well as business to business banking, investing, trading etc.). But we don't pay the staff in the bank on the basis of their social responsibility. We, as customers, tend to use whatever banks give us the best deal on the services we want, rather than the bank that we think is behaving the most responsibly. I didn't see any advertisements saying 'The Most Socially Responsible Bank - We Will Only Loan You 60% Of Your Mortgage'
because that's not what we as individual customers were after...


Anyway, the banking executives are most directly hired and fired by the shareholders, as opposed to the customers of the bank. The shareholders generally care most about maximising profit, and that's all I was pointing out.
The responsibility of the management of the bank, generally, is to profit, not the good of society, and we should not be surprised, therefore, that they maximise profit over social well being.
We can be surprised and cross if they break the law, alright.

And we can definitely be surprised and cross if the state regulators, whose job it is to regulate the banks, fail to do their job. But it's not a surprise that the bank management acted to maximise profit, and share price, in the medium/short term.

We've also been paying our tax and this pays for the regulators office and his own crazy remuneration package. Everywhere someone has been f*cking up here, we've been paying for it and now that they have f*cked up beyond their own repair, we are paying to again in order to clean up the mess these people have made, on top of paying them hansomly to prevent a mess like this in the first place. We pay TD's to legislate to protect the common good, and by Jesus Christ I can tell you that they are pretty damn well efficient at legislating for it when it comes to the taxation of small businesses.

The only reason they don't legislate for it when it comes to big business is because the c*nts are corrupt beyond redemption.

I probably wouldn't take as hard a line as this, but certainly, our TDs and government look like they did not fulfill the responsibility placed in them, similarly our banking regulators have a lot to answer for. I think it's very understandable to be angry at the situation.

But as the electorate, we can't just shirk all the blame.
No one was out protesting for tougher lending conditions or pay cuts to slow the economy down when things were going well.

ArseBurger

Darragh29 wrote: »

It's all well and grand being smug when "mummy and daddy" are paying the bills and you give in a protected little bubble where you don't have to take on the risk of investing in more than a matress and you can have the luxury of starting threads as stupid, wooded headed and irrational as this one.

This doesn't really stand up.

People shouldn't get into debt if they cannot afford it and should accept what happens if they default. It is, after all, their debt. Assuming that people who have this opinion are backed by others is a bit narrow minded, in my opinion. Some of us have been able to manage our debts and income so that we can weather a slump or fall with no external leverage.

Once you become an adult, you are responsible for any and all contracts you enter into. Mortgages are a gamble - and if you sign up assuming that there is no chance of losing out, you're a fool.

fergalr

youcrazyjesus! wrote: »

Should we let them starve to death too?

This is not a fair thing to say to the OP. Saying people should be responsible for their finances does not equate to saying they should be let starve.

For my part, I like the idea of a welfare state, where even if you are totally unable to work, or are totally insolvent etc the state provides you with enough resources to get by, to satisfy your basic needs. This isn't at all incompatible with saying that people should be responsible for their finances, in the context that they shouldn't blame the bank when they cannot repay their mortgage.

Like, the banks were bad to give out more than was responsible to do so, definitely, but the people that borrowed from them can't just blame it all on the banks - they are responsible too, and that doesn't mean anyone thinks they should starve.

If someone came to me and asked me for a loan, and I gave it to them, and they later couldn't repay me, and they said it was all my fault for loaning them the money, I'd be a bit bemused. It's not the same situation with the bank, but it's worth thinking about both ways.

Senna

I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who has lost their job and still have a mortgage, loans etc. But i think a majority of people that re-mortgaging their principal private resident were looking at it as free money, to be used to buy that new car, holiday etc. They were seeing their house rise in value and assumed it would go on for ever.

It wasn't so long ago that peoples objective in life was to 'get the mortgage paid', i couldn't imagine a scenario were my parents would have added to their mortgage, baring some medical bill. This mentality was lost during the boom years and irresponsible lending was to blame.

The ability of credit dictated the price of houses during the boom, it was plain to see but the average person can be forgiven for not seeing it. Banks and financial regulators should have seen it. The push for profits is the reason why banks did nothing only loosen lending criteria, but why did the financial regulator not see this and act in the public interest?

oh well , okay

How many of us over the last decade regularly received pre-approved loans through the mail , just sign on the dotted line there boss .... check's in the post . I had to ring my bank several times and tell them to stop f***ing increasing my credit card limit , and they kept on doing it . I qualified for a modest enough mortgage 5 yrs ago and once I'd gone through the qualification process the bank were on to me with offers of loans wildly over what I had actually qualified for . Every year I receive a mortgage statement and with it I'd receive a phone call inviting me to re-finance , every year I told them to feck off but where's the governance here ? Where's the regulation ? Anglo Irish are handing out hidden loans to directors , propping up the books every year to the tune of billions and doing deals amongst themselves to save one of their own from losing his fortune and we hear about it now , after we've been waltzed into buying the feckin bank.

Their was a property race going on here for the last decade and the builders , the banks , the media and our own government encouraged it at every turn and us gombeen Irish who love to own our homes lapped it all up . Everyone's implicit in it I agree but if (with our money) the government can bail out the banks who bail out the builders who bail out nobody then why should Joe Soap be left pissing himself carrying the can ? Some people got reckless and overnight thought they were Sarah Beeny and fair enough they got caught playing with the big boys but most people just wanted to own their own home . They took out a mortgage with the belief that the boom would only get boomier but sure if the soft landing comes at least I'll have a house over my head .

Fair enough it's their debt but what purpose does it serve to have them evicted , what real value are these houses to the banks in the present climate anyway. If their can be a plan to help bail out the banks , if the banks are trying to accommodate the builders then surely their can be some sort of compromise to the person who's just been made redundant and is about to default on his payments.

To be honest I think the OP's remarks reek of callousness . I would hope they never find themselves in an unexpected change of circumstance .

LoLth

ArseBurger wrote: »

People shouldn't get into debt if they cannot afford it and should accept what happens if they default. It is, after all, their debt. Assuming that people who have this opinion are backed by others is a bit narrow minded, in my opinion. Some of us have been able to manage our debts and income so that we can weather a slump or fall with no external leverage.

What you are saying is true but , when the woman and her husband remortgaged they could afford it. they BOTH lost their jobs! surely this counts as unforeseeable circumstances and should be taken into account by the bank ? perhaps allowing them a deferral of payments to give them time to find new employment ?

I doubt anyone said that they were unwilling to repay their debt and I doubt the woman was complaining that the bank wouldnt wipe their debt off for them. Pretty sure she just doesnt wan the bank to foreclose so soon as she feels there is a chance they will be able to find employment and continue paying off what they owe.

The OPs post is true in so far as yes, we are all responsible for our own debt and finances but it lacks any form of empathy , sympathy or ability to understanding.

Its akin to saying homeless people should know better or people who lose their jobs through economic downturn have only themselves to blame for not being indespensible.

I sincerely doubt that when the couple were taking out the mortgage they considered the possibility of both incomes disappearing. One or the other possibly but I really doubt anyone has made contingency plans for both. (possibly people have now, when things have taken a turn for the worse, but not 5 years or three years ago).

Macha

LoLth wrote: »

Its akin to saying homeless people should know better or people who lose their jobs through economic downturn have only themselves to blame for not being indespensible.

It's nowhere near the same thing. You're taking the argument to the extreme and then attacking that stance - a very easy, but lazy thing to do.

People who cannot afford mortgages should be renting. They're not going to end up on the streets. This bizarre idea that everyone in Ireland is entitled to own a house is what's at the root of a great deal of this mess.

djpbarry

Darragh29 wrote: »

It's all well and grand being smug when "mummy and daddy" are paying the bills and you give in a protected little bubble where you don't have to take on the risk of investing in more than a mattress...

:rolleyes: That’s a mighty big chip you’ve got on your shoulder.

Darragh29 wrote: »

You can't turn around and blame Mr. & Mrs. Rsecently Unemployed for this complete disaster...

If by “Mr. & Mrs. Recently Unemployed”, you mean a substantial chunk of the population of this country, then yes, they do have to share some of the blame for poor management of their personal finances.

Darragh29 wrote: »

We, the people paying the excessive banking charges…

Not too many people pay charges for a current account these days.

Darragh29 wrote: »

…the insane mortgages…

That people chose to burden themselves with.

Darragh29 wrote: »

…the stupid interest rates…

Stupid? As in they were too low? You seem intent on absolving the population of this country of all blame for our current predicament.

Shiny

Fighting Irish wrote: »

you and you alone should be responsible for your finances

Example:
Some chick on newstalk this morning was giving out about banks because she re-mortgaged her house a few years back and now her and the husband have lost their jobs and the bank wants to take the house in 6 months or something and its the banks fault?

I don't think it is their fault or the banks fault either.

As was mentioned earlier, they both had jobs when they re-mortgaged the
house. The probability of both of them losing their jobs at the time when
their loan was approved was quite low.

The **** hit the fan all at once and not many people saw it coming and
no one thought it would happen so fast.

K-9

Shiny wrote: »

I don't think it is their fault or the banks fault either.

As was mentioned earlier, they both had jobs when they re-mortgaged the
house. The probability of both of them losing their jobs at the time when
their loan was approved was quite low.

The **** hit the fan all at once and not many people saw it coming and
no one thought it would happen so fast.

No ones fault at all?


That sounds like a FF excuse to me. What part of "your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments" do people not understand?

Fighting Irish

Darragh29 wrote: »

Yeah, the logical conclusion of your argument is that we will should all live in trailer parks or campsites, except obviously folks like yourself who have parents who can throw you the deposit off the end of their hoops and throw more of their retirement cash at you when you get into difficulty paying the mortgage. This is the problem with Ireland, people like yourself who have been inbred with generational wealth who have a superior attitude with regard to the position of others in society...

Look at the stupidity of your argument. A woman and her husband lose their jobs. If they never remortgaged and bought a 1 bed apartment and still lived there, they would have the same problem with the bank. CTFOUGB.

OK sure tell me my life story :rolleyes:

The stupidity of my argument? They had their house paid for and remortgated it for whatever reason(she said for renovations or something) and now its someone else's fault?

BroomBurner

Ok, before this all gets out of hand, this is another one of those cases that you just can't have a generalised opinion on.

Case 1: OP's couple

That couple remortgaged their house to release equity, as entitled to, and would be able to manage their finances continuously were it not for the fact that they both lost their jobs. If they lost their jobs through lay-offs, etc., then why would anyone want to start laughing in their face about how they can't manage their finances? Only heartless individuals that have never experienced unemployment with mounting debt.


Case 2: Loans to pay loans to pay credit cards to pay credit cards

Anyone that gets themselves in to the situation where they are getting more and more credit to pay off other credit and continue in a lifestyle that requires money that they don't earn, THEY are the people you can justly slag off for not managing their finances.


So, while there is some merit in what the OP is saying, unfortunately they have picked on the wrong people to slag off, making him/her sound like quite a nasty individual that enjoys the downfall of others.

Fighting Irish

galwaydude wrote: »

Here here darragh. Very insensitive of the OP. Yes we are responsible for our finances but what happens when an unforseen event happens like loosing your job happens. Have some cop on.

insensitive maybe, but expecting your job to be a job for life is stupid

Fighting Irish

sceptre wrote: »

Note: if I could figure out what the GB part of that meant, there probably would be a warning issued. Civility please.

I've no problem with it(whatever it means:D ) let him fire as he pleases

K-9

Fighting Irish wrote: »

They had their house paid for and remortgated it for whatever reason(she said for renovations or something) and now its someone else's fault?

That's the part I wouldn't feel sorry for them. Alot of people remortgaged for personal spending or for extensions to keep up with the Jones.

Fighting Irish

youcrazyjesus! wrote: »

Should we let them starve to death too?

So the sensible people should help people who tried to live above their means for years and are now in a hole?

People will never learn unless you let them learn

BroomBurner

K-9 wrote: »

That's the part I wouldn't feel sorry for them. Alot of people remortgaged for personal spending or for extensions to keep up with the Jones.

Maybe they remortgaged so that they could fix up parts of their house that were in disrepair? Would you begrudge them that?

I know it's all hypothetical, but to be happy at someone's misfortune is a bit crass. Smacks of prior jealousy tbh.

Fighting Irish

I just gave that couple as an example, this thread isn't just about them

BroomBurner

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I just gave that couple as an example, this thread isn't just about them

Bad example, IMO

Fighting Irish

BroomBurner wrote: »

Maybe they remortgaged so that they could fix up parts of their house that were in disrepair? Would you begrudge them that?

I know it's all hypothetical, but to be happy at someone's misfortune is a bit crass. Smacks of prior jealousy tbh.

jealousy? i don't think so