Eddie Hobbes making sense…
…But what strikes me forcibly is that, invariably, those opposed to helping genuine hard cases have never had to sit down with adult couples who cry throughout interviews and where depression and thoughts of suicide lurk like dark shadows in the background. Neither have they visited sparse homes where all luxury items have already been sold, where parents are hiding the truth from their children and neighbours and where every waking hour is spent agonising over what is an insoluble problem. These opponents simply don’t know what fear smells like and what continuous exposure does to families. They are many layers removed.
Hard-nosed commentators would prefer we continue to squeeze these people and even raid their pension funds, breaking open the trusts that ring fence these small assets in further punishment for not listening, for not being super consumers, the type of highly informed, well educated and financially trained set that didn’t swallow the guff from auctioneers, solicitors, banks, regulators and Government that the bubble was a figment of the imagination of pessimists. Their sin is that they bought at the top and then lost their jobs. Their hard luck is that nobody represents them, no well financed pressure group, no barristers, no PR agencies, no economists, no on-line community because they are concealed from us and alone. Very alone. (link to full article)
