Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The bad economic news

I took the car in for a new cam-belt today ... to a garage on the other
side of town where one of my relatives works. Took it in for 7.35am
(which is a bit early for me!). It was said to be a huge job -
major surgery to the car engine, taking at least four hours, so I
wasn't surprised by the bill at the end of the day ... £393 ...
almost the cost of a new laptop.

How the average person can afford to run a car beats me ... especially
the poor and the "squeezed" middle class, struggling to pay family
shopping bills, utility bills, plus paying the mortgage and council tax,
& running a car, on an income of £30,000 + per year. "We've no spare
cash for any holidays", I heard one person say on Radio 4 yesterday
morning.

And the poor? They include all the unemployed who now total 2.57
million people. The figure has been increased by all the recent school
leavers and new graduates who can't find a job, and by the downturn in
our economy thanks to the last and the present Government. "We've been
living way beyond our means" say the politicians, to justify the drastic
cutbacks, which in turn throw more people out of work. Hooray for
Capitalism!

Walking back into city centre from the garage, I spotted this statue
sitting in a window of a beauty salon ...

IMG_0121r
(Click on the image to see a larger version)

I've added it to this post, for a bit of sparkle, to lighten my mood.

4 Comments:

Blogger andrea said...

You hit the nail on the head. We recently had to replace my 20 year old 370,000 km minivan and the only way we could do it was because we'd renegotiated our mortgage for a longer term. (Must admit I am anjoying my new little wagon, though -- a 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback.)

5:45 pm  
Anonymous lom said...

Unemployment is a lot higher than that, they never count the people like me who don't have a paid job but don't claim and benifits either.

She is a very nice lady, wouldn't want to have to dust her though.

4:54 am  
Anonymous Keith said...

I am a Senior Citizen (the lame-brains in the Govt refer to me as an Old Age Pensioner) and I'm struggling to keep a car on the road and if anything goes wrong now I will have to scrap it. It will have to go next March anyway because I now cant afford to have it MOT'd, taxed and insured after then. Then I'm confined to barracks unless I use my bus-pass to get about; but I read that the Govt are considering whether to get rid of them (the bus passes, not the OAP's!), or revert back to half-fare status.

"Oh woe, woe, and thrice more woe", as Jim Yakomoto once said.

9:35 am  
Blogger justin said...

Thanks for your comments, everyone.
I can't see how a pensioner (on State Pension alone) could afford to run a car, Keith. I'm disappointed to hear that the Govt. intends cutting back on free bus transport for OAPs, though the news doesn't surprise me.

10:05 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home