Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
Erm, people have a choice - they don't need the latest phone, console, SuperDry clothing, etc.
They also have a responsibility that they don't spend more than they earn - call me old-fashioned, but borrowing money is a two way transaction; no one holds a gun to either party's head..
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Yes and no.
Society is fundamentally built on consumer debt and not everybody has the wit or intelligence either to see what's happening or to know how to resist it.
People don't need the latest phone upgrade, but when every aspect of the culture they inhabit tells them that they
do need it, it takes a level of self awareness, self discipline and, frankly, good education to take a step away from the cultural peer pressure and decline to do what it demands.
At the top of this frighteningly complex system is a tension created out of the fact that it was debt that got us into this mess, but debt is the only way anyone is prepared to contemplate as a way out. We are constantly told that the banks need to start lending. The Government tells them to lend. The BoE invents money and uses it to buy assets from financial institutions with the aim of putting money into their hands that they can then lend. The banks pay out obscene bonuses to those employees that are best at moving that money around - including, naturally, lending.
It would be wonderful if the whole country were populated with well-educated, highly financially literate families that understood the risks and rewards of our economic system and dealt with those risks and rewards accordingly. But it's not.