papaoscar Gordon Brown and co contributed to the financial mess we got into by their refusal to set up proper financial controls on banks and building societies. The collapse of Northern Rock and several other Building Societies was an entirely UK disaster. The result of lax control by government established regulatory bodies. Many economic and financial experts and pundits were warning for several years about the dangers of excessive mortgage loans and the increase in personal debt. The government actively chose not to take any action.
Gordon Brown also chose to follow an economic policy that required heavy borrowing and a large current deficit, you know, the deficit and debt that are causing so much problem at the moment. He was gambling on the economy continuing to grow rapidly and paying the debt out of that growth.
Several countries, including Canada, where financial governance was under the control of the man who is now Governor of the bank of England, managed to not be devastated by the financial disaster.
The cause of the financial collapse was a slovenly lack of financial control by governments of all political persuasions in the USA, UK, and other European countries that enabled the greedy and unscrupulous in the banking industry to make billions at the expense of the rest of us.
Remember Peter Mandelson famously saying that he was ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’? Well, we know how they were getting 'filthy rich'.
