What really happened in US banks leading up to 2008

It's the increase in non-dollar trades. It's going up fast.

The UK Banks had tons of (worthless) cash rolling in, as too did Financial Services, so the Banks did what Banks do, i.e. lend money in order to earn money. The problems started when the Banks realized that the money they held was worthless.

Most personal debt was on mortgages, and most mortgage repayments continued to be met.

Absolute twaddle - you just didn't listen.



6 economists who predicted the global financial crisis

Baron, I was bloody well THERE in the thick of it. I was being paid to write the loan application and credit search websites. I was writing the code that filtered off the basket cases and should rightly have dumped the applicants on benefits with sidelines in cash businesses on street markets in the fucking sea (sorry, gently explained that hell would freeze over and Lucifer would come back to Earth and launch a death metal boy band with Gary Glitter as his lead singer AND make the number one Christmas slot displacing the sausage roll fanatics before they could have a mortgage)

Instead we took a bung to hand them off to a second line application call centre that specialised in not asking questions, not bothering with accounts and payslips, and offered a quarter of a million second mortgage on a £150,000 flat on the basis that rip roarimg house price inflation would make that flat 'worth' 400k when it was repossessed so they'd get their money back from the repo men and stuff the debt to income ratios as what really mattered was the PPI commission.

Something that few people may believe, but I swear to god it's the truth

My position within my employer's firm placed me at the interface between the companies loaning the money and the companies providing the credit references.

I had full visibility of the big picture

Many did not

On the day when Hobby Bobbies were placed strategically at bridges over the M4 near the office in case any of the instant dismissals chose to jump, we were all told to shut down everything and get on buses to be driven to the remote office to hear the news.

It would be my fifth P45 for redundancy.

I remember a few things

After being told they were on the dole effective immediately several drop dead gorgeous PA's every one a bond girl lookalike followed the path I had taken from the meeting hall straight to the company restaurant where I had oiled my plate up high.

I remember one of the group looking at me with not quite hatred, but blazing anger in her mascara smudged eyes and screaming at me 'john, how the FUCK can you EAT at a time like this'

I put down my knife and fork and said very quietly 'Because this is not my first rodeo. This is, for me, the fifth P45 I will be collecting through an employer hitting the rocks. You, I think, are about to get your first. Please take my advice. fuck the diet today, grab a plate and a fork because over the next three hours shock anger and panic are going to hit and low blood sugar will make it worse'


She burst into tears but did what I said. As did her colkeagues. I think about fifty thousand calories of lasagne cottage pie garlic bread and chips got shifted between the four of us but it did the trick.

But it was what I experienced going into that meeting that shocked me.

Management and the 'IFA's' had absolutely fuck all idea how much shit we were in. A VERY SMALL number of the top level, who had asked me to create management information reports for them from the interfaces I had access to, knew. A SMALL number of management suspected, particularly those who cut their teeth in other countries where it was actually illegal, not just discouraged, actually ILLEGAL to borrow against property for purposes other than improvement of that property, purchase or improvement of other property or as collateral for business investment.

Here we were saying 'haveca seconds mortgage and blow it on a fucking HOLIDAY'

But the most shocking fact was a LARGE number of managers HAD NO IDEA - or simply refused to believe - what shit they were in until they were on the street

I had come into the office by bus.

I walked the eight miles home

I mentioned the hobby Bobby patrols

I walked over a road bridge taking a b road over the M4. Two.of them were sat in a car at the end of the road. One got out as I approached. When I stopped to admire the scenery forty five feet above a quick way out he approached, very slowly.

I said hello, looked at the basically piss poor barriers that were half missing stopping me from using a 44 tonnervon the M4 to solve my problem and the poor bastard nearly shit himself with fear ....

I looked at him, half my age, and told him I had worked with the head of their forensics unit a lifetime ago, and had found out from them the average bridge jumper terminated by an artic could count on their guts being strung along a good 400 yards of the roadway before the truck stopped....

He went a bit green

I went on to say 'i don't think I could do that to you, son' and walked off

It was a strange day.