I'm a supertisious sort of soul - you know the kind of thing: spilt salt - pinch with right hand over left shoulder to throw in the Devil's eye; don't walk under a ladder, acknowledge the single magpie, be careful what you wish for for you might just get it. This little notette is especially for Beloved Son and Heir, Beloved Daughter-in-Law and Sarah M, and fingers crossed, me!
I have blogged about two things recently and coincidentally, changes were made to both subjects. Sarah M challenged me to blog about the receipt of money and I have been apondering on it for a day or so. I tend to run my life along the lines of be careful what you wish for becuase you just might get it. When I plead with God or the Angels for help, I try to be really, really, specific with my requests so that there is no room for misinterpretation.
This period of my life is one of the hardest in ecomonic terms that I have lived through. I recall times when Beloved Son and Heir and I lived on potatoe and onion for a week - yes - there are seven different ways of producing a meal with potatoe and onion. And we did survive and given time, we will all survive again. Our society has a very peculiar way of dealing with it's people who don't have the fiscal wherewithall. For example: Mr Million Aire owes the Bank of Credulity £10m; he is feted by a member of the board of the bank, invited to high powered breakfasts, or lunches, or dinners and offered generous
terms and conditions for a business loan for, oh! let's say another £2m and sent VIP tickets for Wimbledon or Monaco or where ever the great and the good are to be found. Mrs Iam Ordinary is £3.00 over her overdraft and receives a communication from her bank informing her of this fact: she is admonished and encouraged to ensure that she maintains, in future, enough in her account to meet her payments, oh! and by the way the Bank will take £30.00 from her account for telling her that she does not have enough money. The consequence of which is that £30.00 is added to the over overdraft and interest is added, compounded and carried forward.
Then there is the clever payment protection/insurance gig! Oh! How I wish I had come up with this little wheeze! Me and mine would be in clover! So, what you do is you say to someone who say, takes out a credit card, we know that you may just, possibly, maybe, hit hard times and not be able to pay what you owe. So here's the deal: You let us take £7.00 per month from the credit card to ensure that any payments in the event of loss of earnings or illness can be met. These payments that you make every month are added to your monthly expenditure and as a result, attract interest. (Unless of course you can afford to pay off the monthly amount in full).
Then, heaven forfend! the worst happens and you do make a claim on your insurance. Ah! Silly Billy! You didn't read all of the small print did you before you agreed, or were bamboozled into taking out the insurance? You forgot your magnifying glass to start with, and, you forgot to predict that bankers and government would rape your savings and pensions to support their own inept activities and that either, a) you were laid off or b) you became too ill to work and therefore incapable of generating the income needed to meet your commitments. No matter! You apply. You recieve very impressive paperwork consisting of 7 pages from the Insurers asking for very personal and very intimate details. They ask for a Doctor's report and suggest that you may have to pay for the report and assure you of their best attention at all times. You take the form to the doctor: doctor says 'I don't do money stuff - take it to the Practice Manager'. By this stage you would discuss the most intimate details of your condition with the Practice Cleaner so Manager - no problem!!!! The Practice Manager explains that request for information falls out of the state contract so the fee will be in the region of £50.00 to £75.00. If you could afford to hand over that kind of money for the report, you could have afforded to have made to monthly payment to the credit card company.
And so what would I advise my grandchildren in terms of financing their futures? I would suggest they ignore the blandishments of the money men; the insurance idiots and the poncing payment protection purveyors. I would encourage them to save what they could and put it where no other grasping paw could touch it - like under the mattress.
There was an echo of hollow laughter bouncing off the walls of my endangered cottage this morning as I heard that part of the big society iniative was to encourge us to donate to charity via either cash machines or mobile phone. Guess what Mr Government Man: we can't manage to look after ourselves just now never mind our fellow citizens, or the broader world. Mostly all we need is time, time to retrench, re-assess, restructure but we are not allowed that luxury. But instead the weak, vulnerable and least able to survive are bombarded with exhortations to do better and dig a little deeper for another weapon of mass destruction or to support a weakened corrupt foreign regime.
I imagine the following scene: Daddy? Yes son/daughter? What did you do during the economic crisis? Me? Oh not much! I advised Goverment on how to manage their budgets? How did you do that Daddy? I told them to let the starving starve to death; told them to withdraw support for those weakened by poor health or joblessness and let them die or kill themselves. I encouraged them to devolve responsibility to the street. I asked them to protect the wealth providers and abandon the wealth users. Did they listen Daddy? Oh yes! Such savings were made!!
Count those pennies
Love and Peace
THE Purple Fairy xxx
written May 2011, never posted xTTT
