Every two weeks I have the treat of playing bridge with my University of the Third Age (U3A) people. It’s a wonderful evening of fun, laughter and puzzling as we try and work out what to call and play next.

During our coffee break somebody asked me who was to blame for the recession we are in. Good question that. My plain and simple answer was: all of us. Or at least all of us with a mortgage, credit card, overdraft or a loan from our employer amongst many options of borrowing.

You could count the number of people without some form of borrowings on one hand, I would imagine. Even the wealthy tend to borrow more. In fact I always felt that the level of wealth you had was more an indication of how much you could borrow, than how much you actually owned outright.

Why are we to blame then? Isn’t it the fault of the government, the banks, the advertising industry, the sub-prime lenders, the insurance companies, the stock exchange traders, the traders selling short, the traders selling long, the congress, Government or the CEOs earning too much money and that’s just to kick-start the list.

Can you add to that? I’m sure you can think of a few yourself. There was a letter to Citibank on Huffington Post that complained that the writer’s parents in their 80′s were now being charged close on 15% interest on their credit cards even though these old folk had been responsible people with their money.

The question is, why would one use a credit card. The word in itself means you are getting credit. Why don’t her parents operate a debit card. That is you pay with the money you have. Besides that point, also remember that you only pay interest on your credit card when you have outstanding money and not if you pay on time.

So going back to the question, who is to blame for the recession, the answer surely is all of us. It’s we, the consumer. We bought into the hype of having everything now even if we could not afford it.

In the US we bought houses where we didn’t have to pay any installments for two years. After two years we suddenly couldn’t pay. What? Didn’t we get it? We had to pay at some time. It wasn’t as if we didn’t know. We just thought it would go away. The UK lenders also offer some strange options for home loans.

What about that maxed out credit card? Did you really need to have five pairs of jeans in your cupboard. Did your kid need that Nintendo or Wii gadget. It’s not just the sub-primers that we all look down on as being foolish people. It’s all of us with our credit cards, loans and mortgages who spend more than we earn.

A recent experience pointed this out again. I’m looking for a place to move to. I viewed a flat with two small rooms, tiny kitchen and bathroom and a patch of garden. The letting agent and I could barely walk in this space because the two adults living there with their baby had covered every possible inch/cm with stuff. There’s even a baby’s blown up swimming pool on the lounge floor. The amount of money that has been spent by this family on non-essential items is awe inspiring.

So whose fault is the recession then? It’s all of our fault. We did it. We brought it on. Our massive consumerism finally tipped over. There was just too much debt in the world. It had to fall apart. We just never worked it out that spending far in excess of what we could afford was not healthy for our financial well being. So now we are ill.

The cure? Pay off your debts and live within your means.