Schadenfreude:a German word meaning to take pleasure in the misfortune of others.
Well, today some very bad news has come to light, one of my sibblings and their partner has made it known that their personal debt, excluding the mortgage on the property they own totals a MASSIVE £34,000 with only one above average salary and one part time salary to service this debt, They are having serious difficuties meeting these commitments, This has put my parents in the unenviable position of working out how to save them - how did they get in this mess? Well I don't think it matters now to be honest but it's put me in a serious state of conflict over my own affairs, let me explain .....
For many years I have been priced out of the property market, I've still yet to buy my own home - for the best part of seven years I've had to slog my gutts out and scrimp and save towards a house, whilst they rocket further and further out of my reach and with the double kick in the gutts in the form of the pityful rate of interest returned on the money I have sitting in a savings account, which the bank use to lend out to people to buy even more property, pushing the prices even further out of my reach.
I was absoloutly delighted when the Bank of England raised interest rates last week (3 August 2006) shortly, I should be receiving a larger return on my savings and the debt ridden people of the UK will be shown that the party has to end sooner or later and with global rates pushing up and inflation pushing way above "official" targets, I believe there is going to be a bloody financial massacre in the very very short term. I'll take great pleasure from seeing all those people who bought buy-to-let investments, or stupidly over stretched themselves because they were told "Property only ever goes up in value" or used equity release to fund that M series BMW or even a further property to add to their "Portfolio" not to mention the endless gadgets for the home that they should have saved up for, meltdown is nothing more then they deserve in my opinion.
Property Speculation, is a social injustice, it's that simple, and it looks like the scales are now finally tipping from the "Have's" to the "Have not's" - I feel the end of the current economic cycle is on the horizon.
But I now fear for the people closest to me, who have made bad choices which has led, as per my opening paragraph to one of my nearest and dearest now being sat on the knife edge, where I don't even think my parents can save them from, they need interest rate cuts and lots of them to save themselves, but that would be at the cost of me ever being able to make some sort of life for myself, as cuts in interest rates mean less money in my pocket and once again, soaring property prices.
So we come full circle, back to the original title of this entry: "Schadenfreude and the conflict of personal Interests"