Upside of the Credit Crunch

Contrary to what my children think, I'm not that old. But I can remember,clearly, a time when the credit card was not a feature of our social landscape.

I got my wages, in cash, each week in a brown paper envelope, My employer built and sold widgets. He financed the business out of sales, but had a small development loan, from the bank, to buy bigger machine to make better widgets. I lived out of my income but had a small overdraft facility to cater for emergencies. Our property values didn't sky rocket (up or down!) but it didn't seem to bother anyone.

Now with the advent of our flexible friend, our model has changed and we are pressured to live, not out of what we have, but out of what we don't have. And that;s fine as long as you can keep all the balls in the air. But, if they fall, we realize only too clearly that credit (compared with real money) is a little like the Emperors New Clothes - pure fantasy.

The upside of this economic turmoil however, is that even if I can't now afford to retire, my widow can always rely on MasterCard to make sure I'm buried in a smart new designer T shirt and Nike sneakers, rather than the cheap undertakers shroud I would have been forced to wear in the good old days.

I guess thats progress?

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World Leaders tackle credit crunch

Great news that our world leaders are now poring mega trillions into the international economy to resolve the global credit crunch and revive our falling property prices. The disturbing question for me however is, where is all this money suddenly coming from?

Did governments have it stored up in new notes, hidden away for a rainy day? Not a very responsible investment plan I would have thought. Perhaps they borrowed it. But from whom? Did they blow the dust of their gold reserves and are they putting in real cash, or just signing off against some sort of international journal entry,

And who will pay for it all in the end ?

What ever the answer the question still remains, where's it coming from and why should the world put itself into hock to rescue a bunch of irresponsible, under regulated financial cowboys.

And If there is this sort of 'bottomless pit' financial resource available, how come it hasn't been used to solve the worlds huge humanitarian problems, feed house and educate the poor, fight cancer etc., etc.

Perhaps it's simply because there's no profit in it?

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Empty Pram Syndrome

It felt strange, sort of silly really.

There I was, walking home pushing an empty pram.

She had been our daily companion for the last 18 months and today was her first full day at daycare.
The first of many goodbyes that she would say as she moved on through life: primary school at five, her secondary education as she entered her teenage years, university, marriage and so on.

It all flashed through my mind in a few seconds as I looked down at the empty pram before me.

In some ways it felt like an end of something - but then too, it was a new beginning. The start of the next new and exciting phase in her life.

Several minutes later I found myself at home sending greetings to my closest friend on the occasion of his 65th birthday and wondering how his mum felt the first time she let him go out into the big bad world alone?

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