Learning to have perspective

 



Subject: Learning to have perspective.



I’m afraid the appalling combination of the Truss/Kwarteng alliance has taken the wind out of my sails as we start to plot the route of Reagan/Thatcher trickle down economics or Milton Friedmans reliance on Markets and the wholesale dumping of regulatory rules to protect the less well off is coming into full view even as we speak.

Fiscal creativity, where relaxed rules  encourages money making for the few, made easier by promoting investment returns, doesn’t ensure ‘good investment’ only ‘good returns’ which don’t necessarily improve the lot of the bulk of the population. Perhaps in the history of mankind a concern for the bulk of the population never really happened and, like smoke and mirrors, nothing was as it was portrayed.

Of course Liz Truss would counter, why should it, we applauded winners in sport, culture and business but not those minimalistic, basic achievers, why in fact should there be some sort of guaranteed standard of living. Why have minimal standards for the undeserving poor and no fixed reward for people who show initiative. Where did the concept of  'standard morality' come from, the assumption that all people are born equal and have fixed human rights, it isn’t something which has been around forever.  In health care for instance there was a time when many of these human conditions we now hear about were unknown and this blossoming of ailments is truly amazing, and of course costly.  People these days come onto the media with all kinds of self analysed problems, truly believing in their reality and that it should be fixed or at least catered for. They feel they deserve their place in the human pecking order but who, other than Jesus prescribed the human condition or it’s attendant attention.

I have never felt I deserved any sort of special consideration or treatment.  I'v had my fair share of disillusionment, my fair share of financial upheaval and when it arrived I simply put it behind me and got on with what I could control. Control therefore is the  crucial word.

First and foremost, control your spending, control your activities, control your consumption. Don't be persuaded you are someone or something your not, stand up for your values and parade them when you can. Frugal living is more real than binging on the credit card. Doing without can give you perspective and perspective is maybe the most important lesson you learn in life.

We can put the ‘Truss/Kwarteng’ phase in our lives behind us if we take matters into our own hands and stop assuming we deserve better. We often don’t appreciate just how well off we are. There are billions of people much worse off than we are.