Well you had a whole bunch of mini SBF types taking terrible bets on a bunch of terrible financial products.

It busted the whole economy, the BoE bailed them out, the government took RBS into public ownership and later sold at a loss) and rather than face any consequences, 6 months later they were paying themselves fat bonuses from the liquidity pumped into the system.

Correction. It wasn’t a free p[ass, it was a pass with benefits.

It seems largely forgotten, everyone rages about the government bailouts but not the behaviour that lead to it.