Thursday 7 October 2010

Welcome to Ocean Finance

The public seem to have forgotten that there is a teensy weensy issue with the country's finances. Nearly 11 million people voted for the Tories, who campaigned on cuts. Over 15 million voted for the other two main parties. Both of these, grudgingly admitted they would make cuts in office too (though didn't bother working out any real numbers as they were pretty sure they wouldn't be in charge when it all came to it). Now that's 26 odd million of only 30 million who voted, all voting for parties that knew cuts were necessary. It might seem I'm off on a tangent here with all these statistics, but I felt they were important. That is because I am struggling to hear anything above the din of people whining that they are the 'victims' of cuts.

It is incredible the brevity of attention spans of so much of this country. More has to be done to explain to a generation of people who genuinely think Ocean Finance is a good idea that continually spending more than you have is a pretty poor financial model. Whilst we're on it, I notice that Ocean Finance and similar criminal enterprises have advertisements on paid for TV channels in the middle of the day. Just a thought - if you have "more going out than we've got coming in", perhaps cancel the Sky subscription and get a job - could be a start.


There must be enough people out there who understand that if you want something and you don't have enough money, you either get less of it, a cheaper version, or raise more money for it. I'm sure most people would prefer to drink Cristal Champagne than Martini Asti Spumante. The fact that Tesco stocks the latter suggests to me that people know they can't afford the former and settle for the latter. Yet when it comes to the nation's finances, not spending more than we can afford is apparently now a crime with thousands of victims. 


The basic household budget analogy works perfectly, but most people I hear complaining about budget cuts in the CSR can't seem to transfer the household model to national finances. Do they want less money spent, or more taxes raised? Simple question - the money has to come from somewhere.

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