And now the hangover begins

 

Subject: And now the hangover begins.

Are rising interest rates and the increase they cause in the price of virtually everything such a bad thing. For years we lived in a phantasy world of zero interest, rates held down politically as an inducement to consume. Consumerism had become the talisman for our economy, encouraging people to buy things outside their competency to repay without the coupled assistance of the credit card offering extended repayment periods to encouraged the purchaser to buy, since repayment was pushed far into the background of our consciousness. This encouragement to engage in taking on debt, like betting the housekeeping money on one more role of the dice has consequences.

How do we reeducate people, especially the young that there is no free ride and that learning to live within ones means is one of the most important lessons in life.

The fear of debt and the shame of not being able to repay ran through the minds of every working class family in my childhood, it was a lesson passed down from parent to child but somehow it fell out of favour and one would be roundly criticised for daring to suggest that debt was a cruel master and should be avoided. The stultifying effect of paying interest on interest, making your debt cumulative, had passed into history but sadly not and we will soon witness the woe of irredeemable debt and the necessity to hand back the keys to the house and the car, still owing the balance. The misery and feeling of failure and unworthiness this brings can crippled people for life and it was all so avoidable.

There was no need to allow zero interest rates to become a feature of our economy and the use of the credit card could have been monitored by the banks much more carefully. The bonanza was based on the false premise that national debt could be rolled over indefinitely and was a tool government used to engage the public into visualising false horizons for the well being of the government in power. The Banks, the Exchequer, the City, the Newspapers, the Journalists, every damn one of them went along with the Ponzi Scheme of unlimited consumerism.

We were duped by the very institutions we believed were there to keep a fiscal eye on things, we were in a bar where no one called last orders and now the hangover begins.