Money

Money seems to be a problem for everyone these days. The entire world is gripped by economic woes and it doesn't seem to be easing up for anyone. There is a global tightening of the belt going on that is causing widespread discontent and most of this "belt-tightening" appears to be of the "knee-jerk" variety.

The cause of these economic woes all depends on who you talk to. Economists and financial "experts" all have differing opinions as to who or what is to blame. There is an awful lot of finger pointing going on, with too many suspects to choose from. I think that even Agatha Christie's Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot would have difficulty finding the guilty party.

I do know that economists have warned for years that the world has been heading for financial meltdown.  It is abundantly clear that they were right.

I personally feel that everyone is to blame. I can see you shaking your head now. "Oh, no." You say. "I haven't contributed one iota to this abysmal mess!" No? I beg to differ. I'll explain.

When I was growing up, it was very important to "live within your means." In a nutshell, that means living within your salary. There are and were exceptions to that "rule." Buying a house, for example, put you firmly in debt. This was acceptable though as it was deemed a necessary part of living. In those far off days of my youth it was a lot harder to get credit. If you wanted to buy an expensive item you put it on lay-a-way, or as the English call it, the HP. Folks had credit cards back then, but, they were a little bit wiser in how they used them.

Now it is a lot harder to "live within your means." Mainly because of leisure time. We have more time for leisure activities than ever before in the history of man. Don't think so? Well we do. We as a people work less hours per week than ever before. We also have more things to do in our off work time. That combined with the new "must-have" gadgets and toys make all this spare time an expensive deal.

We all "need" laptop computers (or home computers), games consoles, flat-screen High Definition (HD) or 3D televisions. DVD players to play these HD or 3D films. Every household has multiple cell or mobile phones with the expense that involves. Folks are relying more on their gaming consoles for exercising and inter-acting socially with their families. We use computers and their bastard cousin the internet to do a lot of things that used to be done the old fashioned way.

Everyone wants to buy new things.  The number of second hand shops has dwindled alarmingly. It is just too easy to get "fast" credit and purchase new things instead of used.  We all seem to have an inbred desire to buy bigger and better things. We've stopped just keeping up with the Joneses, we're all now trying to outdo the Joneses.

And it's not just us and our neighbours who are doing this financial "snow-balling" of getting so far into debt that we'll never climb out. It's the governments as well. Governments go into enormous mountains of debt for things ranging from bigger and better bomb and space exploration, to funding silly research programs.

I'm not wagging my finger at anyone, mind you. I'm just stating the obvious as I see it. I'm just as guilty as the next person in living beyond my means. It happens sneakily, you know. One day you're balancing everything nicely - if a bit manically - and the next thing you know, you're buried in a huge amount of bills. Because, let's face it, we all like this new lifestyle we lead. And as parents we want little Billy or Suzy to have the latest gadgets and gizmo's that are out there. Just as we or our governments do.

Money may not be the root of all evil, but it is definitely a close relation and one that is going to be a problem to everyone for a long time yet. I remember once in school a teacher stated that in the future it would be hard to keep everyone occupied when they weren't working. His theory was that so many things would be animated people would have a lot more spare time. He just never mentioned how much money we'd be spending on this new-found spare time. He also never mentioned that money would be in such scarce supply.