Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 December 2006 18:53:13
This BBC News story directed my attention to this site where the Conservatives use the "inner tosser" to try and sell themselves as a socially responsible party, which you only find out if you click on to the appropriate link.
Now, I have to say that there is just a tad too much cheese in the advert and site, but on one level I think this site has alot of good things to say about the dangers of debt.
However, if you click on the "about this site" link you get to this wonderful site .
Now I have to acknowledge that there are some good points in there approach but there are some downright floored ones. For example they argue one way to reduce the number of people getting into debt is to push for,
" a bit more competition and lower interest rates in the home credit market would really help some of the poorest people in our society. Home credit companies should be subjected to the same sort of data sharing requirements as mainstream lenders, enabling borrowers to switch between lenders without losing their credit history. "
Now in that one bullet point we see that it's same free market liberalism that put us in this mess in the first place. The situation we find ourself in is not all because young people today have no personal responsibility and are irresponsible rather it's because the capitalist dream has become the capitalist nightmare. This is more down to the way the dream has been sold and made available using the free market approach.
More competition actually means, normally means in practice, that the multi-nationals get bigger and actually gain more control whilst putting the smaller companies out of business. More providers with lower rates would actually encourage people to take on more cards. This is a flawed approach.
What might be more appropriate is abolishing student fees, going back to a more appropriate taxation system, increasing the amount of social housing available so people don't have to pay massive rent when they can't afford to buy and generally creating a society for all where people can live within their means and are encouraged to move away from mass consumption. The Conservative libertarian approach does none of these things.