Recently the British political classes have been trying to persuade us that they are fit to lead us next year and beyond. Most recently, George Osborne repeated numerous times during his speech that we are all in this together. Well,sorry, Mr Osborne.
I'm a pretty classic, middle class, typical swing voter. Well, I think so, anyway. I don't belong to a political party. I have voted differently in different elections. We're NOT all in this together.
Why isn't this phrase going to resonate with me or with many in my position?
I don't have lots of borrowing, so don't feel part of a phenomenon where it is OK to remortage and spend every time your house price has gone up, and where it is OK to max out multiple credit cards and just pay the minimum off each month.
I'm not one of the people who benefited from city bonuses during the boom. I just suffered from inflated house prices because my chosen area has lots of big shots with more money than sense driving up the prices.
My pension is mostly the money purchase type not the final salary type, so it got hammered when the market collapsed. So much so, it is probably a good thing I don't have to retire at 65 and both parties are considering raising the age when my mediocre government pension starts to pay off. I doubt that I will ever be able to retire and still have a decent standard of living.
My savings are also not growing because all the banks are busy recapitalising at my expense, widening their margins by not paying savers a decent return. There isn't much incentive to keep your money in the bank. Nor is there much option where else to put it because I don't have time to earn a living and watch the market for short term volatility gains. Nor does property seem particularly attractive. Nor do bonds.
In short, a plague on all your houses. Look at Canada for a model of how to run the country's finances and how to regulate their banking system. A good start would be to make sure that the future profits that the banks and the bankers make are taxed as windfalls when they are excessive. Then come back and tell us we're all in this together.
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