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BankruptcyNews
Junior Member
358 Posts |
 Posted - 09 July 2007 : 10:02:41
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Britain's debt problems are coming home to roost
I RECEIVED an unsolicited telephone call last week. This always annoys me, as I am signed up to one of the services supposed to block such calls, and it immediately marks out the caller as disreputable.
But the next words took my breath away. "Mrs Hunter, are you in arrears with your mortgage?" Shocked, I stupidly snapped "No, I am not" and slammed the phone down, without asking: "Who wants to know?"
Indeed, we no longer have a mortgage. Having survived (just) the horrors of the last property crash, getting shot of that millstone became a top priority.
So my mystery caller wasn't working from a list of known mortgage defaulters, or even of borrowers. No, she was simply working her way through the telephone book.
This brought home to me the scale of the debt problems facing Britain today. So endemic have these become that it is worth a debt counselling firm employing operators to cold-call the telephone book, certain of finding people whose finances are at breaking point.
Hardly surprising, with debts of £1.3 trillion, soaring bankruptcies and credit card balances running into tens of thousands. I have long found it impossible to believe the modern idiot, sorry idiom, that we are all coping admirably with our debts.
Average statistics can be made to prove anything. I'm sure I am not alone among my generation, hit hardest by the last property crash, in being obsessed about paying off all debts at the earliest opportunity. It wasn't just a horrendous time to have witnessed, it took 10 years for the full consequences to pass. Lady Luck never lured us again onto the property wheel of fortune.
So if that generation, at the height of its earning power, is not borrowing, then who is? That became obvious with a report from City watchdogs on the so-called sub-prime market. This is where people go to get bigger loans than their salary can justify, or who are already struggling with multiple debts.
The Financial Services Authority found that getting money from these lenders was as easy as taking candy from a baby. People could borrow as much as they liked with few checks on affordability or their earnings.
No one cared if their application forms were pure porky pies. But it's too late now to begin screaming "liar, liar". We'll just have to watch as all our pants catch fire, and our wealth goes up in smoke... again.
Tax attacks
THE bunglebunnies at Revenue & Customs are in another hole after it came to light that a million taxpayers have been wrongly charged.
And this in a week when we were told that if we fail to pay the correct taxes they can take our homes away. Surely justice cuts both ways.
If they can take our homes because we underpay, surely we should be able to seize property from Treasury politicians and officers. Not that I would wish to see Chancellor Alistair Darling sleeping on the streets. On the other hand...
Words to live by
THERE has been much wittering about school mottos since Prime Minister Gordon Brown's evocation of his old motto "I will try my utmost."
I think we can all agree that Gordon can be very trying. So imagine my despair when, thanks to him, I found myself for the first time in decades thinking of my old school dictum "misericordia". It means "deeds not words". I remember as a child honestly believing that such a maxim was the only path to a worthwhile life.
Looking back as an adult, I am overwhelmed by the extent to which I have failed to live up to it. Indeed, my entire life's work stretches before me as an unbroken history of abject failure.
I'm just hoping that when/if I reach the pearly gates, my old headmistress isn't standing there waiting to call me to account.
Trying to persuade her that the "pen is mightier than the sword" would be met with very short shrift.
She's long dead now, and could never have envisaged how mass communications would come to change the world.
Another body having to learn better communications is the actuarial profession. A survey of a group of its stakeholders, such as trustees and non-executive directors, highlighted the need for greater simplicity and transparency.
One non-executive said: "A good actuary has got to have commercial judgment... and understand the consequences of what they are recommending."
Another commented: "If someone can't express themselves, the value of their work is limited."
The profession has admitted communications shortcomings in the past, but has since developed new training courses to put that right. In other words, it is determined to try harder. How my old headmistress would have approved.
Source: Scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com
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Britains debt problems are coming home to roost
