Sink or Swim

In the mid 1800’s American activist, journalist and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison said, “You cannot possibly have a broader base for government than that which includes all the people with all their rights and with an equal power to maintain their rights.” He was speaking in support of the emancipation of slaves at the time and, although I do not pretend to claim the banking crisis is equal in abhorrence to the plight of the twelve million Africans who were sold into slavery between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, there are definitely parallels.

Like the slave traders, there are a number of bankers worldwide who have pursued personal gain with no regard for the pain and suffering levied on others. When those enslaved by debt could no longer afford their mortgages, often as result of austerity related job losses, these bankers threw them out of their homes along with their families without a backward glance. Having systematically asset stripped the global economy to line their own pockets, this very same fraternity has maintained an aloof detachment from the cruelty their psychopathic and narcissistic actions have had on their victims. Masterfully in denial of all culpability, they have stood by while millions of homeowners (forecasters predict twenty five million foreclosures in the US alone) had both their livelihoods and their equity removed from their grasp with a single expertly placed blow.

Shackled indefinitely to mortgage shortfalls as a direct result of bank profiteering, and bullied and beaten by the banks henchmen, the individual is also expected to pay the price of the global economic crisis. In contrast the bankers are still enjoying remunerations of up to 500 hundred times that of the national average earnings. For many of those trapped in debt sentences for life, emancipation is unimaginable and with debt forgiveness out of the question, it is little wonder there has been a 36% increase in the suicide rate. Even more staggering, this figure by far exceeds the 21% increase in suicides during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Throughout the years of financial crisis help for those paying the consequences has definitely not been at hand. The UK government and their regulators have paid little more than lip service to the much needed rescue packages promised to those experiencing mortgage distress while news of a further drop in share price for many of the “too big to fail” UK banks following the announcement of two billion dollars in losses at “too complicated to control”JP Morgan only serves to highlight how little has changed since the onset of the global recession.

While the Greeks and the Spanish struggle to reach any solution at all, newly elected French prime minister, Francoise Hollande may well have had the task firmly in his sights when he stated, “My principal adversary has no name, it has no face, and it does not belong to a political party, it has never presented its candidature and has never been elected but it still governs. This adversary is the world of finance” but, encouraging as his words are, he too has yet to deliver.

However, in the US, it appears the tide may at last be turning.

Distressed homeowners with underwater mortgages and more than two months of arrears are to receive aid in the form of principal reduction in an effort to enable them to stay in their homes. After year long government negotiations the banks in question hope to avoid 850 million dollars of penalties by financing a rescue package for the individual which not only avoids the huge costs and the heartache of foreclosure, but helps those in difficulties get back on their feet. Although some would say the twenty five billion dollars set aside to implement this is still not enough and the banks have, once again, got off lightly, it is a far cry from the heartless foreclosure policies of the UK’s banking industry.

Delighted to hear our American cousins are soon to benefit from the support of a government prepared to take some of their errant bankers to task, I cannot help but wonder why a similar settlement has proved impossible to arrange for sufferers of negative equity mortgages here in the UK. Had this been the case when I was in the grips of repossession at the hands of HBOS, my story would have been very different to that which I tell now.

Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States once said, “When people fear the government there is tyranny: when the government fear the people there is liberty” and hearing these words I am left wondering what future can we in the UK can expect when it blatantly obvious that our government lives in fear of the banks.                                                                                                               

Capitalism and Punishment

Winston Churchill once said, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings: the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries” and, despite more than a fifty year interval, capitalist principals continue to force feed financial misery to the masses while our corporate and banking elite remain free to enjoy, and retain, the blessings of bailouts, rescue packages and sweet heart tax deals designed exclusively for their benefit. 
 
One might have thought embracing capitalism would provide the freedom to fail as well as the freedom to suceed but it appears the favoured few have remained remarkably unhampered by their failures and their bad decisions have instead achieved freedom from consequence via the government supported socialising of their losses.  In contrast I, not unlike the banks, but an individual with an unrecoverable deficit void of asset backing, continue to be on the receiving end of a “holier than thou” attitude towards a hand I have been dealt as a direct result of flawed banking risk management policies which saw many of the world’s largest banks run out of money in 2008.

Since then, with only the aid a few charitable hours of CAB time and the help of my trusty friend Christine, I have endeavoured to explain my impoverished circumstances to all our creditors. I have explained over and over again my husband’s vulnerable state of mind has resulted in a low paid job which leaves us nothing to offer towards the repayment of our million pound deficit and repeatedly described the enormous strain constant requests for money have had on our health, our marriage and our children’s family life. Our creditors should be in no doubt that their balances are unrecoverable, not least, because each and every letter has been supported with both financial and medical evidence.

For the past three and a half years I have borne the anxiety of our ordeals alone. I have done this in the knowledge that suicide was never far from my husband’s mind when the burden was his.  Compelled to do everything within my power to prevent my youngest three children enduring the loss of a father in an identical manner to that which their older sisters suffered more than twenty years ago I have, inch by inch, with the help of family, friends and nothing short of huge personal resolve, pieced together a modest lifestyle and a supportive family environment against all the odds.

Year in and year out I have dutifully and covertly prepared financial statements and medical reports for our creditor’s perusal far from sight of my husband’s glancing eye. With each creditors update I always enclose an appeal for a compassionate write off in the light of our unchanged circumstances. This year, however, there has been one fundamental difference to the content of this message of misery because, to my immense joy, not to mention unbridled relief, our most recent medical report states my husband is no longer contemplating taking his own life.

But,

Despite the obvious benefits of this news to me and my children, the Financial Ombudsman’s Service now tell me it is precisely because of the improvement in my husband’s health that Lloyds TSB are now unwilling to consider debt forgiveness at all. After three long years of living with the fear of an intolerable outcome, I am now told Lloyds TSB are looking for a less uplifting change in my husband’s health to be able to reconsidered my family and I for a share in the blessings that came only their way in recent years and not mine.

Unlike Lloyds TSB’s own chief executive, Antonio Horta Osorio, it appears I am destined to enjoy no respite from debt fighting stress. There will be no government bailouts for me nor will there be time off to catch up on my disturbed and troubled sleep. It appears the only hope of freedom from the misery of capitalism’s failures for me is in the unpalatable event of my husband’s demise.

American philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you are prepared to exchange for it”, and I was recently shocked to hear that in China a seventeen year old boy’s kidney was the going rate of exchange for an ipad and an iphone.  I am, however, nothing short of astounded to discover that in the UK, the going rate of exchange for £25,000 of unsecured Lloyds credit card debt is no less than the life of a forty six year old family man. Sadly, I cannot see any amount of tightening of the regulatory screws will ever address this.

Needs Must

Emperor Claudius (10 BC- 54 AD) once said “beware, lest in your anxiety to avoid war, you obtain a master” and I appreciate a potential Eurozone collapse together with endless examples of regulatory incompetence in the banking sector means  I will certainly not be alone when it comes to locking horns on every front as I battle against the banks while simultaneously maintaining equilibrium in a life where I have made responsibility to my family my master.

Fully aware there is no such thing as a free lunch when I accepted three bursaries for my youngest daughter and two son’s private education, it was no surprise to discover I had sold my soul to my children’s school when I agreed to become the Chairman of the Friends Committee. This term so far I have given a recruiting speech to parents of the whole school, written the text for the Friends website and school magazine, hosted a quiz night with a sit down meal for thirty and organised fund raising stalls, refreshments and a disco at the schools bonfire night function.

In addition to this I have implemented and run a Christmas Market for twenty stall holders where there were hundreds of children, parents and local people in attendance.

For this event alone I have been required to,

·        supply, print and distribute the advertising material without spending any money

·        plan and set up tables, seating, music and Christmas decorations for the event without any guidance

·        spend thirteen hours on my feet meeting a veritable plethora of Friends and market traders needs with very little assistance

·        referee helpers enlisted to sell refreshments and raffle tickets while thwarting all power struggles and keeping ruffled feathers to minimum

·        eat humble pie as a method of damage limitation when dealing with traders who didn’t check vehicular access to our event in the hope they are not tempted to blacken the school’s reputation because of their own oversights.

During the same period I have written, another letter of complaint, this time to the Department of Energy and Climate Change in response to their ten page letter to me dismissing my case for provision of a new boiler under the governments Energy SavingTrust scheme.

Once again I have,

·        told them they are wrong not to uphold my case of eligibility

·        reminded them their administrative shortcomings should not result in my being disadvantaged

·        requested they send me a copy of the heating and insulation guidelines that were in place at the time of my application

·        enlisted the help of my local MP to ensure I am provided with a meaningful response.

On top of this, and ever hopeful that the regulatory authorities will eventually step up to the mark in my case against HBOS,  I also have emailed the FOS this week, this time to tell them that according to their latest letter they have,

·        set up a third reference number for my Bank of Scotland complaint that bares no reference to my ongoing dealings with them

·        returned my 14 page letter  to me (which cost me £5.90 to send them by registered post), with a new complaint application form

·        still not replied to this self same letter, which they originally insisted should reach them no later than 7 November or else not be proceeded with  

And,

Faced with over whelming fury on the part of my eldest child (now age thirty four), I have endeavoured to use the best of my literary skills to explain a decision I made twenty three years ago when, at the age of thirty, I chose to keep the details of my first husband’s paranoid schizophrenia and subsequent suicide from our then eleven and eight year old daughters.  At the time I spoke only of his passing.

They say the hardest battle ever to be fought is the one in which you try to be yourself. Ever mindful that I am not a failure just because I continue to fail, I take solace in the fact that “continuing to try” is my success. For this reason I have decided it is time to focus on living simply, loving kindly and caring deeply. With this in mind and for the time being at least, my battles can wait until after I have mastered the fast approaching and much anticipated family Christmas.

Jeremy, Me and Lloyds TSB

"Banks are a danger to any economy"  a guest on Newsnight recently declared. This statement followed news the government funded Independent Commission for Banking will be announcing regulatory proposals aimed to avoid a repeat of the September 2008 banking crisis. Unsurprised to hear Jeremy Paxman could not persuade any bankers, including 43% taxpayer own Lloyds TSB Banking Group, to debate proposed banking guidelines, I am nothing short of amazed, if my case is anything to go by, if he ever manages to extract any form of meaningful communication from them at all. 

The lack of response to Jeremy Paxman's requests has only strengthened my belief there is little hope I will ever achieve any kind of dialogue with anyone within the Lloyds banking Group however hard I try. To date they have ignored all mine and the CAB's efforts to inform them of our unfortunate position and even my doctor's letter referring to my husband suicidal thoughts has secured no respite from their daily threats. I can only assume the LLoyds TSB's executives to whom I repeatedly write asking for respite from this bombardment have elected to willfully disconnect from the everyday world. It seems clear the financial distress of the individual has no interest to those enjoying comfortably appointed Ivory Towers from which to focus on next year's bonuses. 

Having never been "won't pays" but now, to our great shame, "can't pays" I find it incomprehensible a bank, who has itself been rescued from the brink of financial ruin, is now so unprepared to offer us a lifeline of any sort. While the government, via the tax payer, has seen fit to cover the debts of HBOS to aid economic recovery, for the individual with his back against the wall, banking giants Lloyds TSB and HBOS are compassionless. Thankfully for us they are the exception  rather than the rule. All other creditors have now written off our debts and wished us well in our endeavours for the future. In contrast both Lloyds TSB and HBOS have picked up the very pistol which was once pointing at them, given the order to take aim at my husband and I, and for the past two and a half years, left us on death row, waiting for their final order to fire. 

I can't help wondering if Jeremy Paxman is unable to encourage them to communicate, then how the devil can I?