Hi Kelly

"Blame the banks".....spot on

My little story:

Every weekend we go into our local town with friends, usually for a meal at around 7pm, our favorite place usually gets busy around 9pm. But over the last couple of months we are now having to go out earlier to get a seat and sometimes have to wait an hour

All around the town the restaurants are much busier, plus 2 new Indian restaurants opening in the last month

At my local pub you could walk up there around 6pm and have meal, but now every day of the week if you get there after 6:30pm you will not get a seat and the car park is rammed

The theory:

These people are your average worker that probably has some disposable cash each month, say £500:00. Normally he would probably be paying off his Bank or Finance company car loan for his new or second hand vehicle........but now the banks or finance companies will not lend to them as they deem anyone earning less than 50k or outright house owner a bad risk. So these people are going out and enjoying themselves instead

Funny how things change, when i got my mortgage 25 years ago i could only borrow 2.5 times my income and needed a 10% deposit, then 20 years later the same greedy (foolish) banks are lending 110% mortgage on 6 times their earnings with no deposit . The American banks do the same to people with wooden houses that blow down in a strong wind and shacks in deprived areas.....they then sell these mortgages onto greedy UK banks who then wonder whats happened when someone flicks the switch on the party

The danger now is that many will get used to having a bit of extra cash to spend on going out, leisure and keeping their 4/5 year only car going a few more years rather than worry about paying back a 10k car loan

Got to get the banks lending again, the only way to save our Motor Industry


Peter