Rewards Despite Financial Catastrophe?

The recent financial catastrophes in which we have seen the collapse of big banks in both the US and the UK have provoked much comment among newspaper journalists. Talk of the "credit crunch" is rife and many are proposing belt tightening en-masse in order to try and offset some of the hardship which will inevitably follow.

We’ve already been witness to frightening price rises in our supermarkets over the past year so it is worrying to think that things are set to get even worse. (Strange how inflation is still being quoted at around the 5% mark when staple foods such as bread and rice have risen by as much as 40 or 50% in real terms. But I digress…)

Typical recommendations from the literary harbingers of doom are to avoid foreign holidays, buy cheaper brands at the supermarket and generally cut down on spending - as if anybody had the choice but to cut down when money won’t buy nearly much as it did a year ago.

Just a thought, but if we are to do without holidays abroad; does it mean we should not have a holiday at all or perhaps stay in our own country? Anybody living in the UK will know just how expensive it can be to check into a hotel or rent a holiday property in a popular area; in fact the cost of a package holiday abroad is more often than not a cheaper alternative to a holiday in the UK. Ridiculous when you take into account the price of flying to another country! Perhaps there is a clue there somewhere – something is definitely wrong with that situation.

But regardless of how we should be compensating, why should any hard working person have to cut down and do without in the first place? Life is for living after all. I’m not proposing that we should all take out loans and get further into debt in order to fund a couple of weeks in the sun. But I do say that a working person deserves some reward for his/her efforts.

Is that really too much to ask?