Critical things in the world are shrinking away. Food is short. Fuel is short (in Scotland at least). Credit is tight. Housing sales are down. So that's gas, food and lodging - and the money needed to pay for them - on the way down.
Remember or ever see Dad's Army? While writing this I can hear the Scottish guy "we're doomed! we're doomed!". I'm sure we're not. We're cleverer than that. The home guard jokes are good even now.
"Bloat" refers to everything that is done to even slight excess, which has been the norm in the last 10-15 years. Even before that, we had the 80s, with its pints of champagne, shoulder pads and Gordon Gekko. I am no great economist but since the 70s, we have largely, in the West, been in Bloat.
Personally, I hate Bloat. I hate its opposite - dearth - just as much. But just below Bloat there is Adequacy and just below that, Thrift. Float somewhere between thrift and adequacy and everything will go swimmingly.
Think about your day today. Where have you seen bloat? That's easy if you've been to any supermarket. Petrol station shops are my favourite - every type of crap you never needed plus vastly overpriced muffins matched only by their calorific value. Retail outlets of any kind especially low cost ones like Primark - brilliant business models but why do people need to load up on cheap t-shirts that often?
I recently realized that I needed to shed some pounds. (My excuse: it goes on all over and i can wear all my clothes so it takes a while to notice. Say what you like). I realized that another very lame excuse - not even an excuse, more of an observation - is that fat is the new normal. In the UK, look around. How many people over 40 are not also overweight? Bloat.
Debt is a form of bloat. It represents the inches on your waistline, the food in your vast "American fridge", your Caribbean cruise, your car. Our car is so old that my wife has to park it far away from business events in case anyone should realize its hers. We could bloat up on an Aston Martin today.
What stops me from doing so? Is it better to live for now or be thrifty? Does it matter that you have too much stuff - just stuff - everywhere? Clothes, books, houses, cars, bottles of wine, credit cards, direct debits, holidays, ideas even?
I think the answer is that Bloat equals Stress. Think about it. Are we more stressed now than say 10 years ago? I challenge anyone - unless they have retired on a nice income from employment or cool deals or luck - who says that they are less stressed now than in the past. Why? BLOAT! Why does a dog....? Because it can. Why do I (a) rack up activities for my kids all the time? (b) endlessly analyze financial management options (c) consider buying property abroad obsessively (d) sometimes shop at Asda but also at Waitrose .... Because I am a Bloat baby.
We are relatively hungry after all. The baby boomers and young Gen Xers were brought up by parents who had lived through a long world war, rations, poverty and lack. Suddenly, credit cards, the Internet, and cheap travel - just a few examples - landed in our laps. Phwoah! Go for it! We are like kids with rickets in a candy store that will never close. Take a flight from Paris to any UK airport on an airline that does Eurodisney deals. Bet you my house that you will be surrounded by exhausted, overweight parents with exhausted, overweight children, crippled under the burden of retail and experiential bloat from the mere few days they have just spent in that rainy paradise of tack in suburbia somewhere.
The next big thing is thrift, in my view. Mend don't spend. Grow your own. Live smaller. Go by bike. However you translate it, you will have to downbloat, if only temporarily.
Today, alone, a good friend told me of visiting a friend in hospital. Attempted suicide because his property company has collapsed due to no further credit. Another friend called from her car on the way to picking up insolvency papers for a guy who lives in Monaco.
The correction of bloat is upon us. Get on board. It's fun to sew, they say. The only thing that will always be free is information. So if you can't pay, blog.
