[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jfman

The banks/the banking system. It’s once and the same. Financial speculators creaming off profits from gambles year in year out then walking away when it all goes wrong.

The taxpayer (ironically) foots the bill having suffered the inflationary effects of the loans being issued in ten first place!

Link

Alistair Darling’s words are ominous: ‘We are not out of this crisis yet.’ It is not a reassuring statement coming from the man who was Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer when the financial meltdown began five years ago this week.
...
What was in my mind at that point is that if people thought the biggest bank in the world had failed, there would not be a bank in the western world that would be safe.
‘The risk I have always seen is that people forget just how close we came to a complete collapse and the thing about a collapse of the banks is that it wouldn’t just have been the banks in ruins, it would have been complete economic and therefore social collapse. People without money can do nothing – you can’t buy your petrol, you can’t buy your food, anything.