Peter Hooper, Windsor, UK - Er, strange you should ask that, but speaking as an orphan, I've looked after myself.

There should rightly be a safety net, but don't extrapolate the failure of incompetent banks, the NR fiasco and ludicrous govt intervention etc as a failure of capitalism.

Laura Roberts, London, UK

If all the banks are losing money where does the Bank of England get its cash, come to think of it, where does all the money wiped off the markets go??

Dui Dag, Rochdale, UK

who looks after the interests of the financially naive, the widows and the orphans ?
Peter Hooper, Windsor, UK

1. The financially naive should look after themselves. Don't play if you don't understand it.
2. Widows and orphans are looked after by the state, savings, insurance and own earnings.

Tom Franklin, London, UK

Can I put a bid for $1 for this company?

donald, essex, uk

Perhaps Laura Roberts (2nd effort) could explain who looks after the interests of the financially naive, the widows and the orphans ?
In my opinion it is plain greedy and selfish for the strong to look after themselves, with no consideration for others !

Peter Hooper, Windsor, UK

Why don't the financial journalists and the investment bankers swap jobs?

It surely couldn't make things any worse, and some of the analyses I've read this morning suggest it could be a significant improvment.

Phil Payne, Sheffield,

Well I never ..oil down to $85,I dont have to sell the old 4litre petrol SUV after all .Its an ill wind eh .

gordon lonsdale, Northampton, UK

So Steve, so you rented for 20 years and bought outright then, is that right? Which is what I'd have to do.
Are you honestly expecting any of us here to believe your bravado claim? Or do you just mean you've paid off your mortgage? Which just means you've paid it off and borrowed like everyone else.

MN, London, UK

I expect the merchant bankers will survive on the bonuses they saved during the boom years -unless they invested in the merchant banks. Me, I just lick my wounds and rue the day I ever allowed these people to take commission from my zero growth investments.

Richard, Taunton,

Were all in for a big shock, time will tell. The FTSE 100 drop today is a taste of whats to come
Paul, Dundee

Paul, dundee, scotland

From tulips to tech stocks the patterns the same. This time its the Banks in the wringer. The world will go on (Jason Ambient - love the poem). Its a buyers market, banks are down 20 to 30 % over the year and they will claw that back eventually. Give it a month or so to settle and I'm getting in.

Dave, Midlands, UK

I fear you will be disappointed if you are looking forward to retribution. The way the financial industry works is that those who have senior jobs in it rake off as much as they want. Then their employees get paid (or fired). What's left - positive or negative - belongs to the investors.

Tom Welsh, Basingstoke,

£20Bn Bank of England funds and 70bn CEB funds can only delay the inevitable- these are tiny amounts that cannot hope to battle sustained market sentiment.

DavidP, London, UK

'If you are a company who traded idiotically, you fail'

I'm sorry but your ignorance towards the financial markets is astounding.Fundamentally banks lent money to US citz.who have no money, jobs, assets (NINJA loans), it filtered down into repackagd products, then banks collapsed under the debt.

Elsinore, London,

thing is, all these so called high powered, educated whizz kids, that run these banks,are nothing but total idiots.who put them in their jobs in the first place?a team of infants could have run the banks better.
no doubt they will get golden parachutes, and be down to their last million.

mal, london, uk

Look at it positively, quite of lot of bankers live in very nice properties courtsey of multi-million pound bonuses :-)

Jay Bee, Birmingham, UK

All the chickens coming home to roost?

Graham, Littlehampton,

£20 billion: £350 for every single person in the UK and more than 1/5th of the entire annual budget for the NHS. I wonder who will be paying back that £20bn if it does down the drain? Oh yeah, the taxpayer...

Robert, Manchester, UK

All of this turmoil has its roots in too low interest rates for too long. What do most politicians, economists and business leaders call for to cure these ills? Lower interest rates! Are they all mad or just stupid.

Simon, London, UK

Problem is, those who traded idiotically in the financial sector don't fail, they get bailed out with our taxes. That's why they repeat the same mistakes over and over again, because they don't have to suffer the consequences like firms in other sectors.

Graham, Birmingham, UK

Speculators are rampant. It's time for the FSA to show some guts and put an immediate stop to short selling unless the trader actually owns the shares. The onus of proof must rest with the trader with the penalty for false information confiscation of the security.

A.Williams, Cradley Heath,

Maybe like in the 1930s the solution will be another world war.

Mike Mitchell, Spalding, England

It is very satisfying (even though we will not be immune to the effects) to see the fruits of greed and folly ripen. I only hope some of these well-heeled city folk now get a well-deserved taste of reality after the champagne and cottage lifestyles they've been leading for so long now.

Allan, Glasgow,

I am 38, I have a good job, as does my wife, I own my house with no mortgage, I have never had a credit card debt, I have no loans. My savings are in low-risk places. In a few years time I'll be as rich as Croesus as everyone tumbles past me. Am I expected to feel sorry for them?

Steve, Manchester,

As Billy Ray Valentine said in 'Trading Paces' "Sounds to me like you're a coupla bookies"

Andy, Crewe,

The world stirs in dark rhythm,
the hand of man but a feather.
Tomorrow, as today, you will feel the sun.
Look into the eyes of your children, smile
and live to feel,
not to have.

Jason Ambient, Bordeaux, France

Ted in London. It's nice to hear someone speak the truth as consumers are completely ignorant of the factors behind modern banking. If the world economy does collapse (and I hope it wont), will they ever move back to stable system like that?

Jay Tee, Oxford, UK

"If you are a company who traded idiotically"

How do you trade idiotically? I trade and overall make money even after some losses.

Derivative products are over complicated and I don't have a clue. Do you?

John, London,

If you make any kind of investment, you damn well follow it, and you monitor how it's being invested. We are all free to switch our investments if we didn't like what they're doing. Laziness on the holder's part is no excuse.

There are no innocents in this. You all wanted more back than you put in.

Laura Roberts, London, UK

Whatever happens in the steel-and-glass boxes, the trick is to spend a bit less than you earn.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Tom,

I would sooner live down South and be maxed out on credit and in negative equity than live in Huddersfield.

Tom, Surrey, UK

It's not the end of the world, or the end of capitalism, it's just the end of Lehmans who refused to address the issue earlier. Blame the Fed for keeping rates so low for so long in the US & promoting the greed. Asia-Pac banks are held to different regulatory standards, they'll be fine & so will we

Jenny, London, UK

mr.bush and republican staff they get made wich russian and chinese politics, try for many years, they broke an american dream the way of life- free market - and doesn´t ; amazing and a great surprise, the end of american way life in less to eight years.

Hilson M.Breckenfeld Filho, recife, brasil/pernambuco

Despite losses of £1.5 billion and an 85% drop in share value this year Taylor Wimpey have still to work out how to meet its bank covenants which are due. A £160m pension deficit in the 1st 6 months accomapnied by a £215 deficit by George Wimpey.This and other properties are teetering on disaster !

Damien Vaugh , Greenwich Millennium Village, UK

Tom

This should be a time for compassion and pulling together not gloating and creating a deeper North-South divide. How many miners lost their homes through stupidity and greed!

Sara, London (formerly of Yorkshire)

Sara, London, UK

our economy surely come down, and more seriously , no one knows when and how to get down the crisis.

pang, shenyang, china

The World is inextricably moving towards another Depression never mind a recession and then Revolutions.
We have overpopulation around the globe at a time of dwindling resources, i.e. land, water, food, fuel, minerals, oil etc.
Banks are worried about lending money to other Banks!! The games up.

John, kouvola, Finland

The FTSE 100 fell further towards the 5,000 mark today after the Bank of England pumped an additional £20 billion in funds into the UK financial market

Where does the Bank of England get the £20 billion from ??? the same place everyone else,s money came from ... thin air ...
http://tinyurl.com/27jppm

H E Torrance, London, England

Laura - its not like that though is it? The BOE (ie us!) are bailing out companies that lent too much by swapping treasury debt for their dodgy loans. It isnt simply a case of poor companies going to the wall -they are dragging down the rest of market and economy and taxpayers are picking up the tab

david, leeds, uk

After watching this latest financial fiasco, I have come to the conclusion that Government, Bank of England, Wall st, Bankers in general, Regulators and Captains of industry are nothing more than crooks in suits!

Dave Bridge, Southport, UK

Taylor Wimpey have fallen further . Now its there pension fund thats looking precarious with a 150% rise in its deficit reported by the FT, bring the deficit to £160m in the first 6 months. Its other company George Wimpey has a 45% increase in its pension deficit of £215m. Another £45m off Capital !

Damien Vaugh , Greenwich Millennium Village, UK

As the great man said - the tide has gone out, and there were a lot of people swimming in the nude.

Next stop - watch the eastern banks fail.

jeremy, hassocks, sussex

S.Greenhalgh Stafford - I am laughing into my trading screen at your comments. you clearly have never heard of the 'Rule of 45' - These bosses have lost millions of dollars personally as the majority of their bonuses are paid in company stock options, which are now worthless.........!!!

Stuart, London,

Speak up anyone in Yorkshire who was daft enough to borrow more than his house was worth and to finance his consumption with credit cards at 25%.

Silence.

Whereas down south where greed is good........

Tom, Huddersfield, UK

I agree with Laura Roberts in regards to individuals who unwisely bought property etc at inflated prices.
However, I cannot see how they can be held responsible for pension administrators, life assurance co's etc. who bought mortage bundles in place of Gilts.
Is anyone's pension safe at present ?

Peter Hooper, Windsor, UK

Sam-Glasgow, I completely agree, but the problem is that we already had that and it was disposed of to make money off debt and credit. It was the fractional gold reserve system (the 'Gold Standard').It was stable but stopped massive profits from massive lending so it was disposed of. Shame isn't it?

ted, london, uk

Where is all this heading, who can stop this or is it to late for all of us, has it started yet or is it just the begining. Now I am seriously worried for tomorrow

Lec Neli, London, UK

Laura Roberts: That is utter codswallop, their short term greed will force tens if not hundreds of thousands in the UK alone into unemployment. The move from the gold standard (Real Money) to fiat currencies (pretend money) created an unsustainable growth based on debt. We will all pay for it now.

Jay Tee, Oxford, UK

While there can be little sympathy for the pompous and greed driven traders and bank chiefs who brought us the present crisis we should not gloat over the thousands of bank employees who have lost their jobs as it is the ordinary middle class worker who sustains the economy, not the fat cats.

peter fieldman, paris, france

Capatilism at its best? 'Companies' do not trade. Their managers do, and with an eye solely on short-term gains which net them personally huge bonuses. They know the long-term risks they are taking, but don't care as by the time of their company's fall they have their cushions of millions. The losers are the savers whose pensions funds and other savings vehicles have invested in the companies. Large bonuses should only be paid on rolling ten year profits figures and should be repayable in the event of company failure.

S.Greenhalgh, Stafford,

This is the end of Western Banking as we know it. Time to move to a banking system which is more transparent and allows the banks and savers to split the risk equally.

Sam, Glasgow,

I do wish people would stop moaning about the free market.

It's working beautifully. If you are a company who traded idiotically, you fail. If you're an individual who made an unwise investment decision by mortgaging, you lose the asset.

Capitalism at its finest. Government - keep out.

Laura Roberts, London, UK

Pigs can't fly. But the fact is that the big companies which are going to bankrupt are from UK and US. Who are the pigs now?

Eladio Martin, Toledo, Spain