THE LAST DITCH
Once again, Dr Dalrymple nails it;
The idea that living within your means is a
form of austerity, and not (other than in exceptional circumstances)
the elementary moral duty of people of honor, shows that, underlying the
economic crisis is a profound moral crisis in western society.
We’re living through disturbing times, but not in the sense that the Left would have you believe.
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It’s not possible for society to live beyond its means – it’s like saying that society has more than it has.
Austerity is forcing us to live significantly beneath our means- that is the problem… not a profound moral crisis, but a profound intellectual failing.
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Dalrymple’s is an interesting article-but surely things are more complicated.
It pre-supposes that it is only the debtor who is morally at fault-he has taken more than he can pay back. However, the creditor is also at fault-he has loaned more than the debtor can repay-and at the time of the loan almost certainly knew that to be the case.
Now, I agree this is a modern phenomenon caused by the “selling” of loans, but that does not change the moral culpability of the lender.
The borrower may well have a moral obligation to provide for his family-for that he may need to borrow. He has, with the full knowledge of the lender done that-good for him.
I think the problem is that the culpability and burden has been laid at the door of the borrower alone-when that does not reflect what has happened.
In short, the lenders who lent unwisely should not have been supported by taxpayer, but like the borrower who will have to pay back the debt, been forced to face the consequences of their actions and been allowed to go bust. The assets and loan book would have been bought by a solvent buyer at the “true” price-and the system would have been running properly again.
The West, despite having the example of Japan to warn it, has trodden the same path. It is a very long path with much hardshi to come.
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I think each has responsibility for the consequences of his actions but you don’t need to argue that the lender is at moral fault to say he should not have been supported by the taxpayer. The moral jeopardy was introduced by what the Americans call “the Greenspan put” – the assumption that the Fed would pick up the pieces if they made unwise loans.
Governments just need to announce that they won’t – and mean it. Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds were sound enough to survive and the depositors of the weaklings were protected by a guarantee scheme. The shareholders deserved no protection.
Lloyds was only put in jeopardy by agreeing to Gordon Brown’s request to prop up HBOS. Northern Rock and RBS should have gone to the wall. If the former had not been full of Labour cronies and associated with supporting the miners during the Thatcher years, and the latter had not been Scottish, who knows? The right thing might have been done. If it had the sound banks would have picked up the pieces.
Without the implied promise of Government support, of course, the whole thing would never have happened. Northern Rock, RBS and HBoS would never have been able to borrow their way into the mess in the first place.
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Ain’t that the truth.
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You commit the usual Leftist fallacy of conflating society and the state.
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You commit the usual rightist faux-pas of assuming that everything can be explained by your little box of standard responses. What is the next one? “Gordon Brown sold our gold… “?
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Surely if it is not possible for society to live beyond its means, it is also not possible for society to live beneath its means. Given your definition, society always lives exactly at its means.
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“we cannot eat more chocolate than we have, therefore we cannot eat less chocolate than we have.”
Really?
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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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