[DemolitionRed]

Whilst our parents and grandparents may of struggled to pay the accumulating tab at their local butchers or greengrocers, in today's Britain, borrowing is far easier. Back in our grandparents or even parents day, credit was small and bank loans were difficult to obtain, so although they were poor, their debts were small.

In modern times even a poor earner can have credit debts amounting to many thousands of pounds and modern day aspirations have ensured a fairly high percentage of people have what could quickly become crippling debt if they had to take a pay cut or god forbid, become unemployed even for a short time. Easy borrowing has allowed most of us to buy the goodies we want. Credit cards, finance agreements, pay day loans and large mortgages are what affords us the big house, the new car, the fancy clothes and a home furnished with every conceivable gadget.

We can build our castle on borrowed money, unlike back in the 30s, 40s and 50s when what you had is what you usually owned outright. Now we can appear to have everything whilst having nothing; we can be poor with an outward appearance of being comfortably off. Most of us are okay so long as we can keep borrowing but once our line of credit is cut off, we would quickly fall into the poverty trap.

Here’s a question: If our banks were to stop lending money from tomorrow onwards; if all credit, finance and pay day loans and mortgages were to cease which meant people could only buy something if they could pay for it outright, do you think people would adapt? would we all have considerably less in the way of material wealth?