30 September 2010
The monumental hangover from the delirious excesses of the early noughties are still only just kicking in. I remember talking to a couple of friends in a pub in Shankill about seven years ago about how the hysterical house buying had to end sometime. And yet it kept on going, inexplicably. Well today, with the final monstrous bailout being announced, those who are party to that conversation are grimly shaking their heads in vindication. It's funny to think back to those times because there was a sense of fatalism about it all. People would say, well, it is mad, but sure, what can we do? Maybe it is developers, or buy-to-let private landlords to blame, or the banks for their super mortages, or those people who paid the deposit on their credit cards. I remember going to a casting for a TV ad for a bank. The premise was a son asking his parents for help buying a house. When banks advertise their products in that manner because that is the only way their customers can access them, surely alarm bells should be ringing? They rang with many people, but the sense that anything could be done about this was simply beyond their control! They say that frogs, when placed in a pan of water, can't tell that they're cooked until it's too late - provided you heat the water gradually enough.
