5 November 08 - Financials Smanshials

It has to be funny when you're sitting across from a mortgage advisor at your lender/branch and she phones head office to clarify something and gets mired in repeating what she's asking and not getting the answer she's seeking. And at the end of ten mins of to and fro she gives you an answer that doesn't really inspire confidence. She pulls a few faces as if to say what you're thinking ie 'They don't know shit!'.

Later on she suggests that you call the head office yourself and you think 'you must be joking'.

If you exponentially project this level of incompetence you begin to understand why it's all gone so horribly wrong out there. I always want to ask these people 'What qualifies you to do the maths in this job? How much better than I am are you? I'd expect anyone dealing with financial services at consumer level to be able to show me the maths and make me understand them, not just punch a few formulas into their calculators or on screen and show me the result and voila'. I bloody well want to know what a difference of .25% over twenty more years of a loan makes to my pocket you morons.

But... we're at the mercy of the banks. Any other avenues of borrowing except your own family /cash are sure to be worse though it doesn't stop scores of people borrowing from money lenders.... Ok things not so bad for me, but find can't make choices until I understand all implications and those never seem to be exhausted, you can pay less here but then they get you there or viceversa and it's just going to get you to the point where you say 'ok , this one'. But borrowing 400k is not like buying a pair of shoes, is it now?