It's a good thing if the banks don't go bust (I imagine), but as someone who has never had savings as such, its kind of hard to panic. I have saved money, but for projects: I saved up some of my paltry wage with a view to replacing the double glazing and gutters. I saved a bit of the last wage for a new pair of glasses. When people are panicking about whether the government will guarantee all their savings, not just the paltry 35-grands worth currently underwritten, I wonder which planet they live on?
They don't have a scary mortgage that eats away at their wage? Or food and utility bills that are currently expanding exponentially? I assume they don't run a car, or have the occasional night out, they don't have any need for clothes, furniture, re-decoration, household maintenance or holidays? How do they manage to save so many thousands of pounds?
I guess they might have been rich to start with - and this money is all kind of surplus to requirements? They save it up with a view to passing it on to their kids so they can nurture it in their turn. Someone should explain to them that money is supposed to be a form of exchange, not a sacred trust.
Well, I don't know. The Guardian letters pages seems to be full of folk bleating about how their nest egg is being jeopardised, and how they're not rich but prudent and all I can think is "how did they do it?"
And being a prudent saver gets you where exactly? By the time you retire, you must be so used to scrimping and saving, that you no longer know how to spend? Or you end up spending all that lovely loot on the fees for your private nursing home, while you dribble the rest of your life away, demented. Or you give it to your thankless and A. already rich children who don't need your little pile or B. recklessly self indulgent children who will spend your money in an orgy of pleasure.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to save less, pay more tax and get looked after directly by the government? It seems that the population of this country are determined that the government should 'do something', so why not let them do something positive (give you a decent state pension), rather than prop up the banks, who, after all, caused the whole fucking problem in the first place?