The Return of Mortgage Madness

So the news in the UK is that the banks are finally going to start lending to people to buy houses again. Of course they have only had special assistance from the government for months and months now, I wonder where all that money went? Anyway, making it easier for people to get on to the housing ladder must be a good thing, right? No, of course it isn't. Not if you believe that the banks will be lending 90% of house values again - remember what happened the last time. It's such reckless lending that is still hitting so many individuals and families who lost the roofs over their heads and were saddled with enormous debts.

Is the national memory that useless that at the start of a new year people (just in the media?) ignore the lessons of the not so distant past and start advocating borrowing beyond people's means? Maybe it's because the accumulation of debt has become so commonplace in the country and elsewhere in the West that it doesn't make any sense to do anything else. Let's think about things rationally for a change. Don't borrow more than you can sensibly pay back, don't lend to people who will really struggle to repay and start to recognise the fact that in the workplace of the future most people won't have safe secure jobs-for-life, they will have a myriad of jobs and portfolio careers (thanks Charles Handy for that one) and just think about the risks involved in that Mr Banker.