Glob-a-log

Any idea how much the average person in the West is in debt, thanks to mortgages, credit cards and ‘easy’ lending schemes? Well, I’ve got some figures here for the UK. Those of a nervous disposition better skip the next bit:

Total UK personal debt at the end of April 2008 stood at £1,436bn. The growth rate increased to 8.4% for the previous 12 months which equates to an increase of ~ £110bn. Total consumer credit lending to individuals in April 2008 was £230bn. This has increased 6.5% in the last 12 months. Total lending in April 2008 grew by £7.3bn. Secured lending grew by £6.4bn in the month. Consumer credit lending grew by £0.9bn.

Average household debt in the UK is ~ £9,223 (excluding mortgages). This figure increases to £21,450 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan. Average household debt in the UK is ~ £57,683 (including mortgages). Average owed by every UK adult is ~ £30,260 (including mortgages).

Britain’s interest repayments have soared to £94.3bn in the last 12months. The average interest paid by each household on their total debt is approximately £3,790 each year which has increased £343 in the last 12 months.

Why all these dry and very depressing statistics? Well, one of Britain’s leading banks have thought up a way to make matters much, much worse…:

A leading bank is giving children as young as 11 debit cards without informing their parents, it has emerged. Lloyds TSB is sending the cards directly to children raising fears that they are being used to buy cigarettes, alcohol and pornography over the internet. Last night it was reported that one 15-year-old boy had used a card to buy Viagra on the net.

The cards are Visa-enabled and can be used any time a Visa sign is displayed. A spokesman for the bank said: “We wrote to customers under the age of 16, who previously had a cash machine card, to let them know they could have a debit card. We made it clear that they should let their parents know. Parents or guardians can ask for the cards to be blocked.”

Oh well, that’s alright then…

Of all the fucking cynical ploys! Make it clear to children that they should tell their parents that they have this cool, magical card that can get them much of what they want the moment they see it? Yes, that will happen – especially if you warn them at the same time that when informed the parents have the power to take away this card immediately. Again, even among all the other cynical schemes our banks come up with to lead us into temptation, this one is a beauty.

We’ve already seen it with mobile phones: how kids can build up quite impressive monthly debts, through calling and texting each other constantly. Most of the time, their parents pay off these monthly charges, so their children can go on treating ‘their’ phones as if building up debts never has any consequences whatsoever – and you can hardly blame them. Not when the parents keep paying the money and, on the whole, give their children all kinds of bad examples by buying God knows what on their credit cards and taking out loans for weekend trips, etcetera, etcetera.

As it stands, you can’t blame children for coming to the conclusion that it’s not at all necessary to work for the things you buy. We live in a spend first, pay later society – and then we blame the government of the day when we can no longer pay back all the loans we signed up for without a moment’s thought of the consequences.

That, as I said, is how matters stood till now. Now, enter Lloyds TSB and its cynical ploy to enslave its customers at an even younger age. You know, of course the tabloids obsess about what some kids will buy with those debit cards: porn, Viagra, sniffing glue and what have you. As always, they are missing the point. Who cares if a handful of kids will go on to buy things that will seriously harm them? You think those kids would not have found another way to do that if there were no debit cards. If you want to you don’t need to buy trouble: Believe me, you can get it for free, if you are seriously looking for it.

The real problem with this scheme is, of course, that it will peel away yet another protective layer from our already over-exposed communities. We know that the true powers that be don’t think of us as citizens but as consumers. They need us to buy their product and they need a captive public for that. It’s been a long time since they even bothered to dress things up for us – and now they are ready for that final step: to catch and enslave them when they are really young.

For verily, these days you don’t need iron chains to tell the difference between slaves and masters: You only need Mastercard.

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 14:45 and is filed under Columns, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.