I am so frustrated listening to whining, greedy people in the UK who thought it was a good idea to take out 125% mortgages, buy second or third homes on the ‘buy to let’ scheme, and shareholders of Bradford & Bingley, Northern Rock et al who are upset at losing so much money as shareholders.  Those people who were looking to increase their wealth by gambling on the economy.

I am angry that these people are given media time to tell their sob story without being confronted by reporters asking questions like, “so what did you do with your profits when everything was going great.  Did you share them?”

Buying a house is a long term investment, and if it is bought for capital gain rather than to live in, then I have no sympathy at all for anyone who is going to lose money over their short termism and greed; and  I cannot believe those people who are attempting to blame banks and building societies by saying they were adviced to take this extra debt on.

Equally, I am finding it difficult to comprehend why, as a tax payer, I am being made to suffer for the incompetence of employees of banks, financial houses and the Stock Exchange who, over the course of a few years have managed to get their jobs so wrong that the Government has to bail them out!

We live in a capitalist economy.  Capitalism, by its very nature works on the principle that while some businesses will prosper others will fail.  The Government doesn’t bail out a local shop or family business when it gets into debt so why should it allow for big business to ignore bad management practice until such time that it is millions, sometimes billions of £££ in debt?

I grew up in the UK at a time when certain industries and services were owned by the Government.  British Rail, British Gas, Btitish Telecom etc were affectively owned by the state to offer the British people cheaper services. Whether you believe in nationalisation or not, the theory is to offer cheaper services to the people of the country by not running a business to make a profit.

In the 1980’s it really did look like Margaret Thatcher & her Conservative Government had eradicated the word ‘nationalisation’ from the political agenda by privatising all the main industries and services.  Now big business could manage its own affairs and not be restrained so much by Government interference.

This week Bradford & Bingley became the second bank to be nationalised after Northern Rock in February. Both have been bailed out by the Government who are using tax payers money to do so.  But I don’t see any gain for tax payers in return for this investment, do you?

The message I hear that has been given to the stock exchange and finance houses is that however badly you have managed your business in the past few years, however ignorant you have been of the fundamental ‘boom and bust’ law of capitalism while issuing ridiculous loans and paying outrageous bonuses, however greedy you have been, the Government will come to your rescue and bail you out with tax payers money that should really be spent on redistributing the wealth, not helping to keep a wedge between rich and poor.

The old saying ‘those who live by the sword, die by the sword’ should be the order of the day.