The blame game

There's been a lot of blame flying around recently. We have a recession - there has to be a scapegoat. And most of the blame has been targeted at the bankers.

Now, top bankers make up about 0.05% of the population, so they make an easy political target. Hedge fund managers are even easier to target.

But where is the politician who is willing to blame ordinary voters? Yet the speculative bubble of the housing market was not caused purely by estate agents, banks and building societies. It was caused by everyone who bought the idea of an ever-rising market, who bought a house for investment value rather than its use as a home, who borrowed more than they should to 'get on the ladder' - who got caught up in the frenzy.

And the fact that the savings ratio shot through the floor is not the fault of the bankers. It's the fault of everyone who, seeing their house price rising steadily, decided to live above their means. Private school for the kids, three cars, big house, holiday in the Caribbean - and all on a household income of £60,000? Really?

It was all unsustainable. But even the Guardian was putting £1,000 handbags in its style section. Reality check; the Guardian sells to social workers, teachers, council staff. I'd be surprised if its demographic shows significant numbers of people earning seven figure salaries.

The vilification of Northern Rock was particularly nasty. Northern Rock operated what was a perfectly valid business strategy - gaining market share by relaxing its loan criteria, and using wholesale funds to support a higher rate of growth than would have been possible had it used only its deposit base. It got it wrong, of course - the credit crunch meant it couldn't re-fund, and lower quality loans defaulted earlier than the higher quality borrowers at other banks; but getting it wrong is not actual proof of evil intent.

As long as we blame the bankers, there are going to be too many people looking forward to a resumption of the bear market - and wanting to get rich quick. The one thing that the cycle of boom and bust should have taught people is that getting rich quick runs the risk of getting poorer very quickly too... Until we stop blaming the bankers, we're not going to learn anything.