Smoke and Mirrors

One of the striking fetures of this crisis is the seeking out of scapegoats . And for the government the culprits are those bonus-greedy bankers . Simplistic explanations of the inherent instability of capitalism . A simple search of this blog will reveal that Socialist Courier has been exposing those overpaid bankers long before this crisis appeared , something Brown and Darling were at the time turning a convenient blind eye to. ( note though , Socialist Courier doesn't take credit for predicting the crash ) . So bonuses are to end but what else - very little .

As always the people who will be paying the real price of this slump , is not the rich but it will be the working class - once more .

The Scotsman reports
HOMES were repossessed at the rate of 110 a day last year – but experts warn the figure could double this year as the recession puts hundreds of thousands of homeowners at risk of defaulting on their mortgages.Figures released yesterday by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) revealed that 40,000 homes across the UK were seized in 2008, a 12-year high, and up 54 per cent on the previous year's 25,900.The CML does not provide separate repossession figures for Scotland, but housing charity Shelter Scotland estimated they could reach 7,000 by the end of 2009. By the end of 2008, 182,600 of the UK's 11.7 million mortgages were in arrears of more than three months.
One expert accused the group of being "too conservative" and said repossessions were likely to peak at 82,000 homes, or 225 a day.
Brown vowed to "do everything we can to stop repossessions" but the government was accused of "giving false hope" to people at risk after it emerged that a rescue scheme announced in December will not come into effect until April.

SC await a news item of just one bank executive losing his/her house in Barnton or whatever rich peoples enclave they and seeking the help of Shelter or the council housing department .

Also data from the Ministry of Justice showed that nearly 56,000 people applied to become bankrupt through the courts last year, up from about 53,000 in 2007 and the highest number since comparable records began in 1995.