In debt to the Bard for financial advice
'NEITHER a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and
friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." That was Polonius giving
some good advice to his headstrong son Laertes.
I was surprised to learn that when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, it was becoming a common practice among the well-off to sell off little bits of their estates to supplement a life they could not really afford in London. Is there anything Shakespeare did not anticipate?
We learned all this at school, but seem to have forgotten everything when we embarked on real life and every time you opened the post, the bank wanted to increase the limits on your credit card and we said yes.
When I first heard the phrase Credit Crunch I did not realise how well it
described what we were all going to have to go through as individuals and as a
society.
Nor did I ever realise how much I would wish I had paid more attention to the prudence of Shakespeare rather than being seduced by the flamboyance of Wilde. 'Because you are worth it' may be fine if you stick to the prices of a bottle of shampoo but it should not apply to handbags, expensive watches, holidays, motorbikes and cars and that is just for starters.
One of the few pleasant things about the current catastrophe is that we are
almost all in it to some degree.
The people with the secure public sector jobs are just as likely to have been caught with a negative equity apartment as those in the business community. People who never had to pay much attention to budget are sitting down with a pencil and paper and working out which bills to pay first and which can be held off a little longer. Everyone knows the bank will bounce a cheque if it puts you 10 cent overdrawn, so nobody even tries it on. Many small business owners have dipped into savings, if they had any, to keep the doors open.
People tell you that as soon as some money they are owed comes in, they will pay what they owe. And this is usually true. It is as if someone put glue into the financial system and nothing moves quickly.
The banks don't even want to know. And they couldn't care less what the Government says. When we get past this bump-along-the-bottom economy we should all keep the Bard in mind every time a financial institution makes an unwelcome advance.
Shakespeare didn't write that a banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain. But he probably inspired it.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/in-debt-to-the-bard-for-financial-advice-3266276.html
I was surprised to learn that when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, it was becoming a common practice among the well-off to sell off little bits of their estates to supplement a life they could not really afford in London. Is there anything Shakespeare did not anticipate?
We learned all this at school, but seem to have forgotten everything when we embarked on real life and every time you opened the post, the bank wanted to increase the limits on your credit card and we said yes.
We seem to have been more attuned to Oscar Wilde when it
came to planning our financial matters. Oscar famously said that "anyone who
lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination". Now Oscar did not
have a firm footing in the real world a lot of the time. Though I do like the
deathbed words that are attributed to him which show consistency of character.
Apparently he exited with... "Ah well then I suppose I shall have to die beyond
my means." He was in the Hotel d'Alsace in Paris, where he died leaving an
unpaid bill. If I get some warning that I am about to shake off my mortal coil I
fully intend to check into a very good room in the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo
and max out any credit cards that I have not already cut up.
Nor did I ever realise how much I would wish I had paid more attention to the prudence of Shakespeare rather than being seduced by the flamboyance of Wilde. 'Because you are worth it' may be fine if you stick to the prices of a bottle of shampoo but it should not apply to handbags, expensive watches, holidays, motorbikes and cars and that is just for starters.
People are learning a whole new vocabulary to go
with the recession.
It is now perfectly acceptable to say "I can't afford that at the moment",
whereas a few years back one would rather have been caught exiting a brothel
than to admit being a bit squeezed for readies.
The people with the secure public sector jobs are just as likely to have been caught with a negative equity apartment as those in the business community. People who never had to pay much attention to budget are sitting down with a pencil and paper and working out which bills to pay first and which can be held off a little longer. Everyone knows the bank will bounce a cheque if it puts you 10 cent overdrawn, so nobody even tries it on. Many small business owners have dipped into savings, if they had any, to keep the doors open.
People tell you that as soon as some money they are owed comes in, they will pay what they owe. And this is usually true. It is as if someone put glue into the financial system and nothing moves quickly.
The banks don't even want to know. And they couldn't care less what the Government says. When we get past this bump-along-the-bottom economy we should all keep the Bard in mind every time a financial institution makes an unwelcome advance.
Shakespeare didn't write that a banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain. But he probably inspired it.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/in-debt-to-the-bard-for-financial-advice-3266276.html
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