With nothing in my back pocket I am immune to the credit crunch
I don’t want to come across as smug but I think I have beaten the credit crunch.
The collapse of the banking sector, the free fall in the property market and the bloodbath on the Stock Exchange have failed to leave a dent on the McComb investment portfolio.
All things considered, I expect to remain relatively unscathed by the financial meltdown that has left the former chief executive of RBS, Fred Goodwin, struggling to make ends meet on his £580,000 a year pension. I am sure you, like me, pity the poor chap. I know I feel his pain because like poor old Fred, (favourite band: Wrong Said Fred) I have had to cancel the family Christmas bash at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai. It is a bitter blow when one considers a special 10-night seasonal bash starts from only £22,000, and they will throw in complimentary flip-flops and Coco Pops to boot.
Otherwise, though, yesterday’s propping up of a trio of our high street banks, RBS, HBOS and Lloyds TSB, for a modest £37 billion doesn’t trouble me. Good on them, I say. Fill your boots, boys.
It strikes me there has been a lot of hot air expelled over the fact that taxpayers’ money is being used to bail out those finance bosses who have made a pig’s ear of balancing the books. Isn’t this merely rewarding failure? Of course, it is. It is what we do so well in this country.
There is no point in deceiving one’s self. Not a quid of this £37 billion money mountain would ever have seen its way into my pocket, even if the banking sector hadn’t gone pear-shaped. And I doubt if any of it would have gone your way either.
So why get steamed up now that this whopper pay-out is going to someone else, albeit banks? It was always going to be the way. That’s what taxpayers’ money is there for.
And in this sense, the nation’s brazen benefit cheats, skivers and bankers are no different from one another – they all live off the fruits of funny money, money that is kind of there, but isn’t really.
But no doubt you are desperate to find out how I have managed to shield myself from the excesses of recession and slump. In fact, it is not that complicated and is as easy as getting a loan from Alistair Darling. I have achieved this monetary miracle through prudent financial planning – and having virtually no disposable income.
In finance-speak, I have eschewed short-termism (no derivatives or emerging markets in Bangalore for me) and have cautiously “under-geared” myself in the market. I have shunned the temptations of Fannie May and the like and have put my faith in sweet Fanny Adams. Having had very little to invest, I have, correspondingly, lost very little.
I haven’t got an unsustainable loan on a crap leather sofa and haven’t mortgaged myself to the hilt, because I haven’t got a hilt. I opted out of debt-fed consumerism a long way back because, frankly, taking on bags of debt has always scared the living daylights out of me. Fear is a great demotivator when it comes to scanning the personal finance pages for “the best loan.”
Secondly, I have always felt there is something vaguely immortal about borrowing large amounts of cash simply to feed a thirst for frippery. If you’ve got it, by all means flaunt it; but if you haven’t, I follow the philosophy that it is best to muddle on and make do with what you have got.
Such a view goes a long way to explaining my bafflement over the “how to beat the credit crunch” case studies trotted out by the finance editors of newspapers in the last few days. These are the “happy families” that are used to highlight the current problems faced by Mr Average.
It’s a good idea, until you read the actual stuff and learn about these people’s alleged problems. For with problems like these, who needs to win the lottery?
I quote an example (the names have been changed to protect the idiots):
Mr Bugalugs and his wife have a £400,000 home and a second property (value £140,000) which they rent. Their kiddies are at private school (annual cost £15,000). They can afford to stick aside £500 a month – and they’ve got pensions.
And the problem is what, exactly? Perish the thought that the Bugalugs might have to sell their second home or bung the children in the local comp.
Some people really have stopped living in the real world. So when commentators say the crash of 2008 is worse than the 1930’s depression, treat it with a very large dose of organic sea salt.
Only when I have to skin the family cat and put her in a pie (jugged moggy might work better) will I concede that the country is on Skid Row.
