The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #110017 Message #2303856
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
01-Apr-08 - 06:26 PM
Thread Name: BS: the super=rich in the UK bleeding us dry
Subject: RE: BS: the super=rich in the UK bleeding us dry
What does the subprime mortgage problem have to do with it? Did you borrow to buy a house and don't have sufficient income to pay it? The lender gambled that you would be able to pay him back and lost.
The banks and loan companies are businesses like any other. They sell a product (the loan) and collect interest for their profit. Taking Bear-Stearns as an example, they have (had) some 11,000 employees to serve the public, make investments (the loans, start-up capital, loans to smaller local savings and loan companies etc.), and tend the Company. Pension funds, savings funds, and companies and individuals with spare profits or savings to invest buy an interest. You- and thousands of others have become unable to pay back the loan; as a result the Company cannot pay dividends to the investors, and their initial stake (stock, bonds) decreases in value. At the end is collapse of the company, most of the 11000 employees out of work, and the myriad investors, some large but many small, lose their investment, putting them at risk. (The 'you' is generic, not personally directed). Just think, thousands of people suffer because you all can't repay the loans.
Why the companies were stupid enough to make the loans is another story and a complex one.
But all of this only very indirectly bears on the creation of money, which, after all, is the basis of capitalism.