http://www.wikio.co.uk Sodium Haze: Banking crisis - struggling families pay the price
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Wednesday 22 June 2011

Banking crisis - struggling families pay the price



The Haze was angry but unsurprised to read on the BBC website that the consumer group Which? is accusing banks and building societies of putting the squeeze on homeowners who have standard variable rate mortgages, painting a clear picture of unaccountable profiteering from the usual suspects.

More than 40% of mortgage borrowers are now on standard variable rates, which kick in after cheap introductory mortgage deals expire. The highest are around 6%, double the cost of the best value mortgages.

"They're just milking people," one homeowner from Peterborough, Mark Fellowes, complained.

He says the interest rate on his Egg mortgage dropped by just 1.5% when the Bank of England cut official rates by 4.5% after the financial crisis.

"I was very puzzled initially and then you just get angry," he says.

Quite. Regular Haze readers can probably guess what's coming next...

...yep its time for a media friendly euphemism!

Under the heading of 'Recapitalisation' the BBC article says:

"The Council of Mortgage Lenders argues that the standard variable rate, or SVR, is dependent on the cost of attracting deposits from savers, rather than the Bank of England.

But its director general, Michael Coogan, admitted to BBC News that lenders have been widening their profit margins after losing heavily during the crisis."

"I think what we have is the banks and the building societies trying to restabilise the system which was in shock in 2008," he explained.

"They are trying to recapitalise their organisations, deal with past losses, deal with the risk of future losses, and at the same time keep their customers as happy as possible through the economic cycle."

The Haze can put all that media spin into a plain English translation.

The 'Economic Cycle' is a media-friendly phrase to describe the inherent financial instability and impoverishment created by the financial services industry via the ponzi scheme of Fractional Reserve banking.

What this remarkably frank banker is telling us - is that they will try to soothe their customers while screwing them for money - in order to make up any losses incurred during the financial chaos THEY created.

He deeply patronises his customers by implying  via the slippery euphemism of 'the economic cycle' - that his customers don't really understand the complexities involved and that they should be grateful that the banks try to 'keep them as happy as possible' while simultaneously acknowledging that they are profiteering.

As long as we continue to allow private banks to lend us our money supply at interest they will continue to treat us all with contempt.

The banks are the unaccountable, unelected masters of our country - the political argument against them is just, rational and must prevail, if we are ever to put them in their place and re-assert our sovereignty in the public interest.

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