Interest in borrowing...

Today we hear that mortgage lending has broken through the £1-trillion barrier for the first time.
Britons now collectively owe £1,006,796,000,000 through home loans, after increasing their borrowing by a record £9.3-billion during May, the Bank of England said.
Staggering figures, and isn't just new mortgages pushing up the total for Britain's finest bean counters to consider..
With levels of debt at an all time high - ironically as 40 years of credit cards are being 'celebrated' this month, a lot of equity generated from rising house prices is being taken out by the removal van load to pay off debts elsewhere. Our inability to grasp the concept of the flexible friend (or plural for many, which is worrying), means that so many are paying off interest only, and watching as the debt fails to disappear, or worse, increases.
A quick solution is to re-mortgage. Up goes the nation's borrowing again, but at far better interest rates.
It is easy to see why this is a decision made, but is it a wise one? Unless you are one of the few people who play the property market then you bought a house at a price (hopefully) affordable to you, to serve yout living needs.
Now they have become rather inflated piggy banks - it is not usunusual for people to have seen the worth of their property double in the Grimsby-area. Recently the average house price passed the £100,000 milestone here, it is a tiny per cent of the population that paid anywhere near that much 10 years ago.
The catch - moving on. Rises are across the board, and taking equity out just increases that gap in the ladder, making it a larger step to take when the time comes.
The credit culture is in need of addressing. The realisation is there now, but legislation is required too. The number of credit cards, the level of credit, the way it is means tested - all these need addressing.