Well, last time it was through choice, but this time the current economic climate is being used as an excuse to add me to the statistics, yes, I’ve been crunched as I expected I would be in my previous posting, so I’m officially on notice now.

It’s certainly an interesting state of affairs we’re going through globally at the moment. As to when the current economic turmoil is going to be over, this time around the guess of the man on the street (or out of work and almost on the street) is probably as good as the experts. I’m sure it won’t last for ever, but I genuinely do hope things change and we come out stronger. Unfortunately I think that opportunity may already have been missed.

I don’t blame the banks for bringing on the crunch, well not the banks alone anyway. The way I see it, they only did what they could get away with and it became a self fulfilling prophecy, which turned into a house of cards. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Blame the traders for their massive bonuses if you want, but really are they any worse than any of us? Honestly, I can’t see many people when presented with the opportunity of making massive amounts of money (in this case for effectively gambling) turning it down. At the end of the day I believe they just did what anyone else would do, the only difference is that they had the opportunity, others didn’t so it’s easy to feel cheated. The fact they still often seem to reward themselves so highly is a bit rottern though.

So whose fault is it?

I don’t know, probably all of us. The government is a popular answer for most, but they were benefiting from the excess, and as oblivious to the consequences as anyone else at the time. There were warning signs, but I can grudgingly understand why these were ignored.

What about the shareholders of the banks, shouldn’t they have been protecting their investments? Well, think who the major shareholders in the banks are…

So my take on it is that no one person or sector is to blame. We all enjoyed the cheap credit, the rising house prices (actually I’m not so sure about that), and the general trappings of living in a prosperous economy at the time, we just didn’t realise quite how badly it was being supported.

What does upset me is how the money is being squandered trying to get out of this situation. Sure some money needed to go into the banks, but it looks like it’s being done in such a way that no lessons will be learnt. It is a bail-out isn’t it?

I would have liked to see greater regulation in the banks, and more importantly some of this money going to making the country a better place, for example some of those billions could go towards improving our infrastructure, building road and rail links, investing in new power, funding new science, more efficient hospitals and the like. Then we may have a stronger country when we come out of the other side.

Should banks have been allowed to go under – probably not, it hurts too many innocent people. But it looks like some were bailed out a little too readily.

I don’t know how I’d fix things, I just wish I believed the lessons would be learnt.

And when’s it all going to be over? That depends if you’re talking about my individual troubles or that of the globe.

Either way, if I had a dollar…