The Moral Maze

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On Wednesday 13th June, Save Our Savers was invited to participate in the live Radio 4 programme Moral Maze. Our spokesman, Simon Rose, was the first of four “witnesses” to appear. After a general introduction by chairman Michael Buerk, the four panellists were invited to give their preliminary ideas on the topic.

Simon was interrogated first by Claire Fox and then by Michael Portillo. The section directly involving Save Our Savers can be heard through the video link below. Episodes of Moral Maze remain on the BBC’s website to “listen again” for a considerable time. You can hear the complete programme by clicking here. Or, if you prefer to download the podcast, this is the place to get it.

Other media appearances by Save Our Savers can be seen on our YouTube channel.

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5 Comments

1. Anne

   June 15, 2012 at 7:45 pm

   I also have written to the PM via my local MP. My letters also get passed on to be answered by someone else. The points I make in my letters, are always avoided. Therefore I can guess that the comments I make are rather too close to the truth for governmental comfort and thus replied to at a tangent which is long way off the mark. How DIS- honourable is that?
   And yes, the interest on EVERYONE`S money is being deliberately syphoned off.This is robbery by the back door.

   Did someone say` Honourable Gentlemen of the House` or have I misheard?

   Recommend (4)
2. frances

   June 16, 2012 at 9:32 am

   My MP will not even respond to letters any longer
   The entire subject of the effects of low interest rates on Pensioners struggling to cope on savings interest is being deliberately ignored

   Honorable they definitely are NOT
   Moral ………not on your life

   The entire House of Parliament , All the Civil Servants , The Bank of England and MPC along with bosses of all the big Banks have not one single moral bone in their bodies.

   The entire lot of them are out and out THIEVES

   The latest cheap loans dished out by Bof E is simply more QE by the back door and will make matters even worse

   Not one single action any of them have taken over the last 4 years has done a bit of good they are pouring our country down the drain

   Recommend (4)
3. John.

   June 16, 2012 at 10:21 am

   Try as I might I cannot grasp what strange processes are going on in Claire Fox’s woolly thinking. I can’t help but wonder if people like her even grasp that savers lend their money to the bank which the bank then uses to make profit from others and pay the saver (or not as seems the case now) for the privilege. Perhaps it is just indicative of the modern age where until very recently money had become little more than numbers on a screen or scratched on a form, something you simply (and far too easily) borrowed from the bank to pay for whatever you wanted, lived now and paid later or as it has turned out, just let savers pay much of the debt interest off for you!

   Like successive governments, politicians who don’t seem to understand the difference between rising national debt and reducing their deficit spending levels. Who’s only solution to their profligate spending has been to get their central banking masters to buy fancy pieces of gilt edged paper with eye watering amounts of counterfeit money, sealing the fate of future generations debt slavery to the crime syndicate. Then in addition extorting even more money from the non-corporate tax payers who don’t earn enough to cheat and beat the system, and to kick the increasingly heavy public debt can down the road, in order to let the next lot of kids try sorting it out when they grow up.

   The issue is not savers verses borrowers, after all borrowing within your means to fund a spending requirement which you know you can pay back and afford long term is what makes the system work.

   What has broken the system is the lunacy of money greed through usury and profit taking for it’s own sake, parasites feeding on parasites, where bankers and many companies have become intoxicated by easy usury profits and have actively encouraged debt, resulting in the unholy mess we now find ourselves in.

   The unsustainable housing bubble is the prime example, where a 10% year on year rise in house price was just accepted as normal and somehow sustainable, you have to ask what were people thinking! The answer of course is they were thinking about profit and enticed by greed. No one was looking at whether the sums involved related to or represented in any way whatsoever the actual value, just the numbers and what profit it would yield based on last year. You had estate agents and banks just going into a feeding frenzy.

   The rises may have stopped but the bubble they created is still inflated by money being stolen from savers via interest rates to parachute the banks and borrowers debt costs. What happens when that money dries up? It will eventually, maybe not in this lifetime but the road being travelled is as straight as an arrow in that direction.

   We live in a sugar coated fantasy island, much of modern life is a debt fuelled illusion. I don’t think we in this country, when talking about globalisation, corporatism and banking debt and crisis, realise quite what destruction it is causing around the world. We will eventually as the reality catches up and smashes our illusions once and for all

   I wonder if Claire Fox realises that without “stingy” savers “stuck” in their financially independent ways, who live within their means, neither she nor anyone else would even get the option to borrow anything in the first place.

   Recommend (5)
4. Prussia

   June 17, 2012 at 12:29 pm

   Listening to Mr Rose on the Moral Maze defend the rights of Savers, to me sums up the crux of the problem.
   Debt and particularly bad debt is being used in the same manner as credit. These are not interchangeable words. Taking credit out when you can service the debt imposed is not what the problem is. Bad debt, debt one is swamped by, is. The chronic debt problem the nation faces as a whole is the real problem that needs to be addressed.

   Savers soon will be vilified and probably targeted.
   One of the panel on the Maze suggested that savers were by their very nature stingy and therefore not helping society.
   How can society benefit best by savers? By impinging on their savings, then savers cannot help in the way they may want to because their savings have taken such a hit. Quite basic really….. Even for a

   Bad debt is the real moral problem here. It shows a lack of common sense and a devil may care attitude to money and the basics of good economy.

   I sincerely hope the backlash against savers does not escalate….
   In times of crisis, people will always look for a scapegoat…

   Recommend (4)
5. David

   June 20, 2012 at 9:34 am

   Unless I missed it where was the word “responsibility” mentioned? What seems to be missing from the argument is that it is morally responsible for everyone to accept the consiquences of their own actions. I thought that Simon Rose wiped the floor with the other debatees. I would love to see/hear Simon go up against Mervyn King!

   Recommend (2)