Archive Article: The Christmas Financial Hangover. Feb 5th 1999
December 27, 2008
The bills from all the Christmas and New Year celebrations are now coming in. $12 billion was charged up to credit cards during the festive season. Here is an excellent book to help people to cope with their financial excesses.
Betty Weule is the Manager of Wesley Mission’s Creditline Financial Counselling Services. She is Australia’s leading expert on financial counselling and has pioneered many innovations in this field.
Betty Weule’s latest book is The Bankruptcy Handbook. It is published by Redfern Legal Centre Publishing, who specialize in publications that are reader-friendly and aimed at the layperson. Their books enable people to “take the law into their own hands”.
One value of The Bankruptcy Handbook, then, is that it is easy to read. It has been written by a financial counsellor primarily for other financial counsellors. But the ordinary layperson will also be able to make great use of it.
Second, the book is written on the basis that bankruptcy is not just a matter of economics. It shows that there are also emotional factors to be considered.
Third, the book shows how society’s attitudes to bankruptcy have changed. The books puts bankruptcy into an historical context. From earliest times to the present day, the treatment of insolvent debtors has tended towards punishment rather than rehabilitation.
The root of the word “bankrupt” was “banca rotta” in Italian and “banca rupta” in Spanish, which meant broken bench and referred to the breaking up of a merchant’s trading post or bench by creditors as a form of punishment.
Today, the aims of bankruptcy legislation are to establish a more efficient and effective means of securing contributions from the income of the bankrupt so as to increase the return to the creditors, and to enhance the opportunities of persons with levels of debt they have no prospect of repaying (and so leading to a rehabilitation of the debtor).
Bankruptcy is not to be entered into lightly. But, if it is so, then it is not the end of the world. Organizations such as Wesley Mission’s Creditline Financial Counselling Services can be of great assistance to people in thinking through what can be done.
This book provides a step by step approach to what is required, what are the options, and what the advantages and disadvantages of each option.
Financial problems are a fact of life. We live in an economic system designed to encourage people to spend. It is virtually a national duty to do so.
For example, television advertizing is designed to make you feel dissatisfied. No matter how beautiful your wife is, she will look even more beautiful in new clothes. No matter how handsome your husband is, he will be even more handsome in a new car. Advertizing encourages children to manipulate their parents into “proving” their love for them by buying presents.
Therefore, people will continue to have financial problems. And so we need books like this one to cope with the financial pressures of life.
BROADCAST ON FRIDAY FEBRUARY 5 1999 ON RADIO 2GB’S “BRIAN WILSHIRE PROGRAMME” AT 9 PM, AND ON FEBRUARY 7 1999 ON “SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE” AT 10.30 PM.