Wendy Kelling, of Portobello, has written an open letter to the Commission for Financial Capability.
Dear member of the commission, I heard your interview on Radio NZ National recently. My heart goes out to you and your fellow workers. What a mission.
Firstly, your name; Commission for Financial Capability, suggests you have decamped to the Kremlin - I do hope not. You should have rejected that.
To survive after 30 years in a neoliberal world, you can rest assured we are already financially capable; the government, however, I wouldn't be prepared to vouch for.
Secondly, you have callously been sent in to scrape the bowl when it has already been through an industrial-strength dishwasher and crusher.
Sorry, but government fanatics, the financially driven, and wall-to-wall advertising got there before you.
You'll have heard of market forces - the market decides and all under it are blessed by the invisible hand. It seems the market doesn't ''do'' saving.
It all began once upon a 1984. A mummy and daddy had three kids, little house with mortgage, one respectable job for daddy and another that mummy was revamping as the children grew.
Doing OK-ish. Then Roger Douglas rode into town and off they went in the rodeo of a lifetime.
Apparently, the destruction is creative - people create, the market destroys, and governments beam.
Odd. I never did get the beaming, but it might relate to them dumping their responsibilities at the hand of the market, then popping off to the rugby.
As a result, I need to bring up a word that doesn't feature in right wing discourse: Stress. You know - it's the thing that makes you debilitated or sick, maybe irritable and even violent.
Heaven only knows what invisible hand thinks about what that costs the country! Can't talk about it because it is all one's own fault.
Not exercising enough, not eating the right things. Finger-pointing badness.
It's never anything to do with the world one is marinating in. Nothing to do with the workforce being thrown to the crocodiles. Just have to get used to it - face reality.
People may be stripped of their employment at one end, then bullied at the other to stop being a bludger on a benefit, while all the time wages stagnate and security is chopped away. Not stressful? Nah. Just losers.
Add to this household debt, encouraged as unemployment and low wages constrain the spending needed to keep the economy bubbling.
So one borrows - for crazy-priced housing, for miscellaneous consumables and for trying to contribute as adults (called student loans).
And has to pay back! In 1987, household debt was about 40% of household disposable income.
By 2007 and the GFC it was up to 175%, and since then has dropped back to 160% then climbed again to 165%.
And the kids who had to pay to become capable adults, who had to pay to acquire skills to contribute to their society, have fled. Discovered there is no society. Can't earn enough to afford to live here.
So you think we should save for our retirement? That it is financial capability which is the problem? Shame on you.
Stop thinking we're financially incapable and start seeing the big crazy picture.
Unless, maybe, you teach tax avoidance? On a salary or wages I didn't learn to do that.
Might yield a dollar or two to squirrel away, and if it's everyone's responsibility to rely on themselves, why on earth do some of us still pay taxes?
I've just become hopeful. Perhaps you do have a niche.
Wendy Kelling,
Retired student of living Dunedin
