Credit-crunched Britain experiences the hangover from its long party. Excerpt:
Buoyed by easy credit and inflated property prices, the British public spent itself into debt, a total of $2.49 trillion of it. The average British household now owes $102,000, including mortgages. One-third of consumer debt in all of Europe is held by people in Britain, said Chris Tapp, director of Credit Action, which counsels people about how to handle debt.Audrey Hurren, 65, a retired secretary who was waiting for the subway in central London the other day, said that it had all been too much.
"I think it wouldn't do any harm at all for some of the younger generation to be less greedy," she said. "It's not a very nice thing to say, but maybe they could behave a little more sensibly."
Mrs. Hurren was raised just after World War II believing that if you couldn't afford it, you didn't buy it. By contrast, she said, her granddaughters have more than she ever dreamed of, and are still dissatisfied. "They don't appreciate anything," she said. "It's easy come, easy go. They get a mobile phone; if they don't like it, they throw it away and get a new one."
In an interview, Mr. Tapp said people in their 30s and younger, too young to have experienced the last recession, in the early 1990s, had grown up in a world "where credit has always been cheap and easy and available." For them, there is no precedent for frugality. The austerity of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the privations of the 1970s -- when electricity was briefly rationed and the country put on a three-day work week to save fuel -- are stories to read about in books.
"The idea of saving up for what you buy, that's what you did when there weren't any credit cards," Mr. Tapp said.
What's true for them is true for us too, more or less. I suppose I should be grateful that the credit markets are starting to thaw. But it has been accomplished by bipartisan agreement that we should borrow even more money to stave off a painful reckoning with reality. Sooner or later, we're going to have to pay our lenders back. And: where is the government going to find the money to meet its entitlement obligations?
Answer: it's not going to meet its entitlement obligations. We're more or less going to be on our own in the future -- and that's going to occasion some fairly radical social and cultural changes. But if these changes are going to be positive, they're going to depend on young people being shocked into a sense of moral responsibility toward their parents, who raised them to think of themselves as autonomous individuals who owed nobody else anything. How likely is that to happen? As Peter Augustine Lawler points out:
Certainly both the young and the old are aware of the individualistic, meritoratic principle that nobody owes anyone else a living. And we have plenty of evidence these days that love, all alone, is unreliable. It's no wonder that the old do what they can to mask the signs of their age to avoid loneliness and failure. ... One downside of thinking of oneself as a self-sufficient individual too much of one's life really kicks in when you get old and frail. ... We're going to have more and more old and frail, debilitating and slowly dying wards of the state, so to speak. And the care they're going to get, because they're really on their own, isn't likely to be good. The truth is we have no idea how we're going to afford it.
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Susan,
I am sorry I offended you. As I pointed out, one of my sisters has mental disabilities and the other is seriously depressed due to a tragic loss. It sounds as though you have done everything your children needed and well deserve help and support from them. That's not my situation. My parents helped me with college and I'm grateful to them for that -- but my sisters didn't receive their diplomas until many years after they completed their degrees, because my (divorcing) parents couldn't get their act together to pay their share (we all worked and borrowed for college as well). My mother drinks and my father carouses. I certainly have no claim to being a saint; it's very difficult for me to deal with my parents, and I'm sure I could do a better job. BUT I mail my mother money for food every month (in gift card form so it goes for food and not anything else, such as alcohol). I gave my dad his rent money a month ago because he owes money to the IRS and they finally got impatient and confiscated his bank account. When my parents move in with me, I expect to be dealing with all sorts of bad examples for my kids, including incorrect -- from my point of view -- answers to my kids' questions, delivered without shame or consideration for the values my husband and I are trying to teach. I am constantly walking the line between enabling and caring for them.
By boomers I am including myself. I meant more my peers than our parents' generation, as a general rule. I meant to state that all boomers (and other generations, as well) deserve help in old age, regardless of whether or not they have lived good lives! I am truly sorry that you misunderstood me so completely.
Hiya Meg, let me give you a piece of advice.
First, sorry I took all this personally. My fault. It has nothing to do with me. I see that.
I've never met either you or your parents, so I have no idea, really, what the situation may be. I've heard your side now, but 30+ years of law practice has taught me, sometimes the hard way, that there is always another side to the story.
My parents, both dead now, were both alcoholics, so I have some personal experience with addiction, enabling, acting out, all that jazz. By the way.
Whatever. Moving right along. My advice to you, based solely on what you've posted here, which is of course all I know, is to avoid moving these people into your home at all costs. There is rent in this world, and there are places to rent. There is public assistance for people who do not have assets, and I'd encourage you to explore that.
You are very very angry. Your anger shines through every word you say.
Doubtless, from what I can tell, you've got good reasons. Whatever. Or not. Irrelevant. There it is. Maybe no one should be angry. Maybe we should all be able to flap our arms and fly. Whatever. We have to deal with reality, not with pious fantasies. If there is any way at all to avoid moving all this anger into your home, do it. Even if it's more expensive financially.
You don't need this in your life. You have children of your own, who are properly your first responsibility. You are your first responsibility. Your own marriage is your first responsibility. Don't do this to the rest of your family, don't do it to yourself. Figure out something else.
And to support that lifestyle they allowed the migraton of millions of non-Europeans. Granted they had some before, but it accelerated in the 1990s under Blair (lefties love immigration, its their best electoral weapon). Now London is less than half indigeneous British, probably less than half European. The Tube is creaky and dirty. The whole city and Island is crowded. Its awful
Hi, Scotch Meg.
Caring for an aging parent or for two aging parents who don't like each other, is a tremendous repsonsibility. There is no way to know in advance whether you are up to it except to trust what you know about yourself.
I could never live with my mother - I'd commit matricide if I did (I'm almost kidding). Whatever you decide, Scotch Meg, you have my good thoughts, but please don't allow the irresponsibility of other siblings to push you into turning your household upside down and making a decision you will regret.
Scotch Meg,
What Old Susan said. My 75-year-old mom has a personality disorder. I will do whatever I have to do to see that she remains housed, short of letting her live with me. Her behavior is very similar to that of an active alcoholic - hostile, paranoid, no boundaries, etc.
Your children do not deserve the chaos that will ensue if you bring your destructive parents into your home. There are other ways to honor the parents without disrupting your home life. You may be responding to the codependent tug that all children of alcoholics feel. Pray hard for discernment before you let them in.
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