Far fewer consider that the blame lies with advisers, borrowers or society at large.
When asked 'which of the following do you think are most to blame for the credit crunch?’, three in ten blamed ‘financial institutions’, representing the most popular response from over 280 received. ‘Regulators’ received a quarter of the vote and ‘government’ 23% of the responses, suggesting strong feeling that the financial institutions have been inadequately controlled. Conversely, a mere 4% considered that the blame lies with advisers, and only 6% with the borrowers themselves. The remaining 12% of votes went to 'society/culture' at large.
Derek McGuire, director of Marketing Innovation Forum, said: “The response is loud and clear; users of our website lay the blame for the current situation firmly with the politicians, regulators and, primarily, the financial institutions. We have certainly had some strongly worded criticism of the US banks posted in our forum, and others discussing the value of a ‘post mortem’ at all. It's interesting the volume of blame apportioned to those who provided the infrastructure and facilitated the credit, compared to those who took advantage of it and advised others to do so. We actually expected a greater proportion of the responses to cite the debt culture/society that has evolved in recent years in the UK and the US.”
