Millions will suffer for the mistakes of the few. And the few won't suffer enough.
I agree, a society that punishes everyone for the mistakes of a few is a society that will continue spiraling from crisis to another, because the few that take the highest risks, will be encouraged to take on more risk.
I just want to see any senior bank official taken away in handcuffs and sent to prison. It would make paying back those €30k that my family has never seen but stilll owes a lot less unacceptable.
I think the problem is that no banker actually broke a law. What they did was perfectly in the rules of the game called fractional reserve banking.
In the ranking of blame I think it runs:
1. Financial Regulator - Abject failure in his only role, kept telling us all was well in the months pre meltdown, what a fool.
2. Fianna Fail - Bertie with his "they told me not to worry" - do your bloody job man, its your business to get to the truth/facts. All they do is accentuate the economic cycle - fuel the boom and cut the gloom - good thinking lads
3. Bankers - ok its their job to make profit and shareholders wanted more and more, but they didnt achieve much profit in the end did they?, roll over loans like theres no tomorrow, credit committee - whats that?, personal fiefdoms with huge bonuses for paper profits and no accountability. Probably the worst run era of banking the world has seen.
4. Developers - in fairness to them they do what they do, buy land, build and sell. They were greedy in the good times and if they were let take their fall now then it would be fair enough.
I slightly disagree with your rankings, here are mine and their reasoning:
1) Central banks: Without the increase in the money supply and reduction in reserve requirements consumer price inflation and huge assets bubbles would not be possible. All that money commercial banks lent out originated in central banks, and banks can only lend out what is supplied to them
2) Government: Firstly for lack of control on the central bank. I know Ireland does not have any deciding control over monetary policy, but the Irish central bank is a member of the ECB and therefore can recommend a different monetary policy. I have searched the web for any reference to the Irish government or central bank actually advocating higher interest rates during the boom and didn't find a thing. Secondly for basing the majority of the budget on income from construction. And thirdly for bailing out financial institutions or more importantly their bond holders.
3) Commercial banks: For taking on too much risk and only looking at the probability of risk and not the value of risk. Even if the probability of a banking system collapse is very low, you prepare for it. The likelyhood of my house being broken into is low, but I am prepared for it if it happens.
4) Regulator: not for missing this crisis, but for pretending that regulations can actually contain the financial industry; and for making it impossible for new small enterprises to enter the financial system. The cost of even basic regulatory compliance makes it impossible for a small bank to open business with a very simple deposit and loan book.
5) Developers: for overleveraging on their "investments", but other than that they just offered a product that thousands of people wanted.
So even apart from the recent recklessness, at the best of times you cant expect bankers and developers to self regulate and act for the good of the country, its regulators and policy makers (government) who are supposed to put the checks on unbridled capitalism, but we're taken a twisted view on that where we allow capitalism to truly run amok (no assistance when house prices spiralled beyond reasonable levels), but then FF volunteers us to pay for the clean up, twould make you sick.
If by capitalism you mean crony-capitalism or statism, then I agree. But the crisis is not a failure of free market capitalism, as our markets are not free from government intervention. The reason the whole financial system ran out of control and into a massive credit bubble is because those people investing most in banks, i.e. bond holders, put no restraint on the risks banks took (the way they normally do this is by asking for higher interest rates). The reason they did not do that is because they knew 100% that even if the risks were too big and the banks failed, governments would step in and guarantee their investments. Every one of at least the last 4 decades has seen a financial crisis, and every time governments have stepped in to essentially bail out bond holders. The crisis was a failure of preceding and present government interventions, not of free market capitalism, which would punish those that make the biggest mistakes most severely.
What exactly do you mean by "no assistance when house prices spiralled beyond reasonable levels"? Is it maybe all the things government actually did to in the name of helping home buyers, like increase mortgate interest relief, reduce/abolish stamp duty, tax free real estate investment? All these things fueled the demand for housing causing prices to rise even more. If this had not been done, house prices would have become unaffordable a lot earlier resulting in prices going down. If government had done nothing to fuel demand, prices would have peaked a lot sooner.