Wide Boy Bankers

I was amused by Rodger Bootle's comments in the Telegraph

Not long ago, banks and other lenders were falling over themselves to lend on wafer-thin margins to people and propositions which their predecessors would not have touched with a bargepole: 125 per cent mortgages; huge multiples of earnings; self-certification. Now the lenders are shutting up shop and fancy mortgages have disappeared like melting snow. Both approaches cannot be right.

The silence about the corporate behaviour which led us to this pretty pass is scandalous. Come off it boys, you were sucked into a bubble of the classic sort. You were persuaded to believe that nothing could go wrong. Yet any study of financial history would have set the alarm bells ringing. But do you ever read any? To his great credit, the Governor of the Bank of England warned explicitly and publicly of the risks. But did you listen? Outside commentators and analysts, and even, in some cases, your own in-house experts, pointed out the over-valuation of property. But did you pay any attention?