As you count the days to the start of your well-merited summer break, postponing until autumn consideration of the damage all that foie gras, vin blanc and homard à la mode de Cleggan is going to do to your credit card, permit me to reassure you: you are not alone. According to an important IIB/ESRI survey which caused a two-day stir recently, ever-increasing numbers of us are taking on ever-increasing levels of personal debt, not for the worthy purpose of "accumulating assets", but simply to "finance our lifestyles", writes has time to ponder the sifting sands of theEnda O'Doherty
"Financing our lifestyles" is, it seems, the latest term for what we used to call shopping. This has become the world's leading leisure activity, and the acquisition of more stuff has attained religious significance, with the old requirement to go to Mass superseded by a diktat for go out and get the new, new, new.
Over the past 20 years, our Government has apparently reduced debt in the public sector from almost 120 per cent of GDP to around 30 per cent. And in the last 10 years private indebtedness has risen from 71 per cent of GDP to 123 per cent.
Translating these theoretical concepts into layman's terms, it would seem that in those dark and far-off days pre-McCreevy we were getting ourselves into a deepening hole of debt trying to provide hospitals, schools, welfare payments and pensions we could not afford. And this, as we all now realise, was a bad thing. Now we are getting ourselves into debt to buy Italian shirts, anti-wrinkle cream and seared swordfish; and this it seems, rather surprisingly, is a good thing.
It is true that not everyone shares this diagnosis. The Central Bank has been muttering about unsustainability. But the smart young economists are not overly concerned by these "ritual warnings" and argue that, except for that wretched segment of society which has the cheek to be both irresponsible and poor there is very little to worry about.
Having had the misfortune to be young at the time of what was fondly called the counter-cultural revolution, I find myself still stuck with a number of attitudes which are frankly not of much help to the economy. When I was 21 a sweet Californian I was ineffectually pursuing shared with me Thoreau's wonderful maxim that everything a man possesses he must carry on his back. I was so impressed I didn't get a mortgage for 20 years. Since then of course reality has supervened, as is its wont, but I still come over a bit queasy at the relentlessly upbeat headlines which adorn our property pages: "Dalkey villa makes €4 million", "Liberties kip a steal at €350,000".
We have the great privilege to live in what one RTÉ economist recently called "a lean, green, job-making machine". By next year, indeed, I confidently expect to hear that our little country is the most successful economy anywhere ever. So if you've got it (or hope to have it soon), spend it. Don't have the salmon; salmon is for chavs. Have the crayfish; hell, have the lobster! Your flexible friend will pay.
But what will we do with the poor, that annoying segment of society who the report tell us are in increasingly deep doo-doo because their "income growth is not matching growth in lifestyle expectations"? The only solution I can see is the reintroduction of the old tradition of the "loan", an entirely different type of financial service from those offered by banks.
The essential characteristic of this "loan", of course, was that it was only theoretically repayable, a point understood by both borrower and lender. So begone dull care: we are all pulling together to keep the shops full. Finance your lifestyle, and let tomorrow take care of itself.
