We are now all asking ourselves: why has this come about?
Could it be because we have seen persons playing Monopoly with the country's wealth whilst walking away with millions of pounds in bonuses. One person in authority the other day on the radio said that if you were able to take away those bonuses it would grossly affect the London money markets; he must have had a vested interest to even make such a statement.

We have seen and witnessed persons bringing about the downfall of certain banks and institutions and then joining the banks that have bailed them out and still receiving millions in transfer bonuses.

We have now all come to the realise that banks etc have lent too much, people have borrowed too much and quite a lot of spent too much with total disregard that some day those loans would or could be called in. Unfortunately when they go down they also drag those who have been more prudent with their money and needs.

Many of us have realised for a long time that the housing market had quire simply become too expensive for ordinary people with no chance of ever getting on the ownership ladder. Here the powers-that-be have openly allowed houses to be built at extortionate prices and not as affordable houses as should have been the case.

Now those building speculators are knocking off huge discounts to try and rid those unsold houses. What I would like to know is how much profit would they have stood to gain if they had sold those houses at their original sale price?

I must now, with hindsight, question why Mrs Thatcher took it upon herself to sell off most of the council stock at ridiculously low prices. They would now be a great benefit to those who cannot afford to buy or cannot afford their mortgages.

I suppose America must shoulder some of the blame in the present crisis, but we too have to examine our ourselves when we pay huge salaries, extortionate expenses, non-contributory pensions and any other perk that can be gained out of the public purse- david Cameron is right when he says there has to be change; possibly he could start in this area. I now learn that the FBI are looking into wrongdoing in the American financial markets, surely that tells us something!

As for this pillorying of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, would it be any better under David Cameron or Nick Clegg? No! I don't think so, because it is a worldwide problem (even George Osborne has now admitted that at the Tory Conference). Here , I for one would prefer a man who has dealt with the financial markets of the world for a considerable amount of time, he being Gordon Brown.

Here I must praise Vince Cable, Liberal spokesman in financial matters; he rose in my estimation because he talks a lot of commonsense on the crisis at hand. Perhaps here one of our political parties should remember the fiasco some years ago with the ERM and "Black Monday" before criticising the Prime Minister and Chancellor Alistair Darling -the then chancellor wasn't very successful, was he!

Now the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has pledged, when the Tories come tom power, that they will freeze council tax for two years. I hope he realises that many people who are made redundant or laid off will not even be able to pay that tax. What will be the implications of that to already cash-strapped councils – cut-backs, salary and wage freezes and even redundancies.

I don't profess to be a politician or a financial whizz-kid but someone who was taught that you can't spend more then you have coming in and if it doesn't jingle in your pocket you can't have it. I always thought that explained the word "economics" Evidently I was wrong!

What has happened in the last 12 months has done very little to instill confidence in the political system in this country.

And what will be the outcome of all this turmoil? Probably that all the financial speculators will snap up all the houses at rock-bottom prices and hang on to them till there is an upturn in the situation.

I now think that John Reid's famous statement that the Home Office "was not fit for purpose" applies both to the political system and the financial markets. Welcome to rip-off Britain where there has to be change – but who has the courage to redress decades of false promises?

R Hallam
School Road
Peak Dale