A blessing in disguise
Peter Hoskin 9:03amThe Today Programme's interview with Hector Sants – the chief executive of the Financial Services Authority – is well-worth listening to. His message is that the credit crunch will change banking “forever”, and that never again will money be available so cheaply.
At first, the words seem doom-laden, but Sants puts a positive spin on them. Yes, there will be short-term difficulties - he says - but eventually people will adjust to the long-term unavailability of easy money and fast credit. The result? Excessive borrowing will become a thing-of-the-past, and the UK can finally leap from the swamp of debt it's currently mired in.
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Bruce Robertson
February 27th, 2008 11:08am Report this comment"Never Again"? What a foolish thing to say- in 15 years time we'll be back to the same old bubble mentality. No wonder the FSA is so useless.
Martin Tomlinson
February 27th, 2008 12:37pm Report this commentIt hardly sounds like he's on the ball, does it? His institution failed to spot what the Stock Market had seen six months before - that N Rock's lending was excessive on a number of different measures. But it's OK, things have changed forever, so it won't happen again. He's right about the blessings of becoming less indebted. But that's hardly likely when young people are being habituated to huge debt by the mis-selling of government sponsored "degree" courses.
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