Debts

Have I ever talked to you guys about debts?

Nothing I find more annoying is the attitude to debt on tv. "ooh Im so indebt, I cant afford my bills each month, we spend more than we earn" ... deep soothing voices says "Does this sound like you?, well we can help, take out a loan and all will be great, you can do it over the phone, we wont turn you down" .. what should happen is a little red man with horns and a pointy tail appears saying "just sell me your soul"..

in nearly every ad about debt solutions they make out they can make your debt less.. yeah by streatching it over the next 400 years, so while you may only pay 20 units of currency a month, you'll be paying it long past your death and at an interest rate that out of that 20, 19.99 is interest.

But worse still..

the ones that have the person who was supposedly in debt talking to their "friend" later saying "Oh we got the loan we even had *money left over* so we went and bought a new car/on holiday/got a conservatory" .. err..

the "new" car featured is usually *new* not just as in new to them, and a conservatory costs generally at least 10k even for a naff one.. Im sorry, but these people were struggling to afford stuff, now you have them on a loan for a long time to come so even though they maybe paying less instead of having to live tight for a couple of years its now say 10.. and on top of that you conned them into borrowing well more than they needed! These people dont have money, what part of this is unclear??

What made me write this rant? theres a thing on tv about a couple - the sounds off, but they were in debt so bad they felt the best thing was to emigrate.. some family member paid off their debts and so .. err, they went to australia on the way to where-ever they were going.. and well are shown in a plush hotel, drinking a lot, smoking.. um.. if they had no money.. how did they afford this? Im not sure I could afford a trip to australia, let alone the plush hotel, the constant all day drinking shown... yet these guys were supposed to have no money at all.. Australia was not where they were planning to emigrate to.. (from the captions anyway) they only went to Australia to "Pick up a package" um.. yeah, just popping out mum, need to go to australia for a beer.. dont think so.