Big Gogs Broon never tired of telling us what a great job he was doing when the economy went well - no mention of the credit for that being "global".

He also said, repeatedly, that there would be no return to boom and bust.

The boom (if that is the right word for wealth that only exists on paper and is entirely backed by debt) was funded by stupidly high house-price inflation that would have been completely controlled if the good old-fashioned lending controls had been kept in place or reinstated (TBH, I think it may have been the Tories who abandoned them but can't recall for sure).

What was wrong with only being able to borrow three times earnings or needing to put down a deposit?
Who thought house prices could only ever go up, despite the recent history of this country (1985, early 1990s etc).
Why should banks suddenly become selling machines?
Who thought building societies would be better off as banks?
Who decided greencrocers and company liquidators were the best people to run our banks?
If banks had to pay those salaries and bonuses to attract the very best management, thank fuck we didn't have any second-rate people in charge!
If the package is worth £1m a year, who seriously believes we would struggle to fnd competent people willing to do the top jobs?

Now that it's all turned to shit it's someone else who caused the problem. Sorry mate, it doesn't wash. The only people to blame for this are politicians and bankers.

Up here we're getting lots of politicians telling us that Scotland couldn't have weathered this as an independent country, citing Ireland and Iceland as examples from the "arc of presperity" (small independent countries around us), but ignoring the fact that Ireland took early action to solve the problem and that even after all this turmoil Iceland will still be wealthier than the UK. They don't even mention Norway, who have been putting a tiny fraction of their oil income into a fund that is now worth something like £200bn and provides more cash each year than the oil industry!

And finally, they seem to keep forgetting that Scottish taxpayers are contributing to the bailing out of these banks and helping pay for the London Olympics too. Hands up anyone who seriously thinks the Olympics will do anything for any normal person outside London? Strangely, we don't seem to be getting any cash for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.