This credit crunch business....

My first news blog and I feel there's only one thing I can start with.

With the world in such an economic downturn, it was no surprise to find an article in todays Daily Mirror regarding the well publicised resignation of former HBOS chief Sir James Crosby. Following on from claims by a former employee, Paul Moore, alleging that he was dismissed by Crosby for warning him that the bank was expanding too fast, a second former worker has come out stating that he also tried to warn the banks bosses of the approaching trouble. Tony Main, the banks former head of funding states that he had also become worried by the amount of money the bank was borrowing from US banks in order to fund lending. He too, alleges that although Crosby said he was "alarmed", nothing was done to stop the banks expanding.

This got me thinking that although ultimately Sir James Crosby has lost his job because of his negligence, why has it only come to light after the collapse of Britain's banks? Sure, the two whistle blowers claim that Crosby ignored their worries, but surely if they were that worried they would have continued to push their point until someone took them seriously. To me, coming out to the papers after this all happened seems like they are competing to make themselves look more competent at their respective jobs. Rather than blaming each other maybe the bankers should be trying to make this recession pass as smoothly as they can, if that's possible.

Today, Lloyds announced that HBOS made a yearly pre-tax loss of £8.5 billion , stating that this was driven by £7 billion of bad loans. With Eric Daniels, boss of Lloyds claiming that his £1.6 million pound salary was "modest", and the ongoing Crosby saga, it strikes me that it's no surprise that the economy is in the state that it is when we have these clowns running the countries banks.