As a banker myself, my favourite bit so far has been the "avaricious, deceitful, mendacious, amoral, irresponsible parasites that prey on the vulnerable to line their own pockets"
But it's too long for me to use it as my MN name
Seriously, the level of vitriol here is getting a bit OTT. Every level in society has loathesome individuals and I personally would prefer to spend an evening down my Dad's social centre any day of the week than in the company of some of my hugely arrogant colleagues. Yes we do get paid much more than we morally contribute to society but we live in a democracy, not a meritocracy. If you want to change that, then politics is the field to be in. From a 'democratic' standpoint high wage earners will earn whatever the market pays them and will follow the market if it goes overseas for tax reasons. the market wage is fixed by a simple formula whcih matches your contribution to the company vs your costs to the company, with a quick check at the levels of supply & demand. I am very lucky to be in an industry which pays well (especially as I grew up in a council house) btu I don't pretend that I have any moral superiority here.
But that doesn't mean that I hand over the moral highground to anyone else either.
FWIW,
(1) the US crisis wouldn't have happened without mortgage brokers standing in the middle and there are a lot of legal cases going on in the US because of misrepresentaiton and the like. These brokers are certainly not the bankers at the top of the tree - more like the ambulance chasers than anything. Although of course there were plenty of Bankers who were also not entirely blameless.
(2) When 100% mortgages and 125% mortgages were expanded here in the UK, it was in direct response to the problems that young people had getting their feet on the housing ladder. I can't remember the Daily Mail moaning at the time about the low interest rates that made these deals affordable, nor about the fact that without these deals people would simply never have been able to buy their houses.
(3) There is a whole 'mis-selling' explosion that will no doubt come in due course over 'interest only' mortgages. If you've got one you have been sold a duff. Just somethign to bear in mind - lots of turmoil still to come, and many people with high % loan-to-value loans and with interest only loans will have helped excacerbate the problem, by over-reaching. It's not just the bankers you know.
(4) When Barings went bust the media went wild at the government for not saving it, and it subsequently led to the loss of UK ownership of many financial institutions and a lot of job rationalisation. Compare that with Northern Rock, where the incentive behind the govt is NOT to save the arse of bankers, but to save jobs (albeit underlying that decision is politics, not economics). Sounds to me like you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
A final thought - be careful what you wish for. The surging housing market has been met with joy and glee by most of the (houseowning) nation. There is NOTHING nice about properties going up unless you are planning on downsizing or dying. Releasing equity sounds nice but you are just borrowing today to buy stuff that you expect to pay back tomorrow. It is still borrowing on the never never no matter how nice it sounds. And falling prices are actually GOOD if you want to trade up because the next house becomes within reach. At the heart of this crisis is greed driven at all levels - from people wanting to get on the ladder to people wanting to trade, to idiots like Carol Vordeman and those debt consolidaiton firms who made it possible, and, yes, to financiers who responded to demand, and created ever more complicated routes to supply it.
Life is never as simple as the Daily Mail makes out. Those of us who earn good salaries need to whisper 'there but for the grace of god go I' every night to stay real. And those criticising them should pause before letting fly with the vitriol.