It simply reflects that our credit laws and regulations are as other campaigners said literally decades out of date. We have very relaxed credit in an era of low wages, high expectations, high inequality and instant gratification.
The only problem I have with that statement is the notion that we are in an 'era' of low wages, which implies that this era will pass. Is there any reason to suppose that to be the case?
Even when the cycle turns, as we know it will, the downward pressure on low end wages will continue, as the gulf between rich and poor widens ever further. 'twas ever thus; 'tis now but compounded by globalisation.
The only thing that ever interferes with this basic tendency of capitalism is major wars or other wholesale squanderers of human life. Witness the black death in the middle ages, for example, which killed off a third of Europe's population, and brought in the first century in history when the peasantry got anything like a fair shake of the stick.
Nothing much regulation or legislation can do about it, in truth. When times are hard, the predators will always emerge, trailing the herd like some Attenborough nightmare, sharp eyes and sharper teeth ready for the young, the old, the sick and the lame.
As Neil Kinnock famously said, on the eve of the '83 election: "If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not fall ill. And I warn you not to grow old." Well, she did.
