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  Mark those 1700% loans are appalling but these are only meant to be relatively small amounts and short-term, hence the astonishing rate. I am personally would outlaw such loans even so. Mostly people who use these have problems with budgeting and are on low incomes. Better that they resolve their budgeting issues and learn to manage their money.
  
  A bigger problem has been the use of credit cards as a substitute for saving and the 'need' for instant gratification. There are clearly issues of education here. These can be a good tool if used responsibly but murderous if not.
  
  High mortgages are a different matter. This is where the housing bubble got out of hand and where the failed inflation brief to the Bank of England was the big causation factor with interest rates too low to long. As I say the Treasury mistakes do not let lenders off the hook pr individuals for not assessing their affordability properly. Advisers too, some unscrupulous advisers, particularly where they had a vested interest in a property being sold as well, did not adequately consider affordability.
  
  I no longer do mortgages and have not done so for quite a few years but when I did I told many a potential home-buyer that they could not afford a particular home or suggested a limit to their borrowing who then went to an estate agency broker and got a mortgage.
  
  I have made representations to the FSA that a business relationship between estate agents and brokers should be reviewed with a view to separating their interests.
  
  Nevertheless, regardless of all this - ultimately people are and should be responsible for their own decisions. You need only to look at the case of those I told not to proceed with a mortgage and then went to find the answer they wanted elsewhere.

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