Plastic Fantastic: Pop Goes the Credit Bubble

'We have been living in a financial haven for the last 10 years'

THE COST of energy bills, fuel, and food are causing many financial worries. Pension figures are as worthless as the paper they are printed on and, due to our banks being as safe as our personal details on a governmental laptop, many are being faced with the prospect of storing wads of cash (if you're lucky enough to have any) under mattresses.

This means it shouldn't come as a surprise if, in the next few months, Mexican television companies start running commercials with ghastly, black and white images of a family sitting in front of a measly 32inch television and eating turkey twizzlers, with a voiceover saying 'Just 337 Mexican Pesos could get this British family Sky Sports for a whole month.'

We have been living in financial haven, over the last ten years, where all the rules of fiscal rationality went south, and house prices went north.

We were able to live on eternal credit, take out mortgages five times our salaries, and bask in the financial sunlight; with not all of us thinking about why, for a country who hasn't manufactured anything useful since the 1950s - and imported almost everything from Asia - was able to live in economic prosperity.

As I'm writing this, Britain still has a banking system. Although, is it coincidence that the Government who were wetting themselves with excitement to build a super casino were, in effect - through not intervening with the happy-go-lucky banking structure - gambling with the public's money?

And while complaints have recently risen due to the number of betting offices in our communities, there is, in fact, a new gambling medium on the high streets: they're called banks.

Just a few years ago, the Government were pompously boasting about the unparalleled period of economic prosperity in Britain. Somewhat ironically perhaps, as this was also the same attitude portrayed by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin not long before the start of the Depression in 1929 with ye olde stock exchange.

The only difference being they didn't have frustrated men in Armani suits, their nostrils lightly dusted with the Devil's dandruff, shouting into mobile phones with a fearful look on their face.

We've recently seen American banks that we've never heard of go under, Lloyd's black horse supposedly getting set to rescue Harold the Halifax man while he's inadequately surfing in the middle of the ocean and have realised that's why business magnates go (or did go) to Iceland.

And suddenly, everyone is slowly getting to grips with the financial lingo. A year ago we wouldn't have heard old grannies at the bus stop coming out with terms such as "account aggregation", "monetary policy committee", and "spread betting". Even those whose vocabulary only consisted of the words "Posh" and "Becks" have now increased their terminology to "pounds", "pence", and "Ocean Finance".

It may be the case, however, that companies are latching onto the term "credit crunch" as an excuse to increase their prices - thinking that we will be more acceptable of the high prices because it's what we expect from a "credit crunch". Even though many of us don't even know what the terms "credit crunch", "recession" or "economic downturn" actually mean.

The phrases are just up there with contemporary, accepted jargon - alongside oxymorons such as "Great Depression", "Hell's Angels" and "President Bush".