Over the decades we have seen in many countries a trend from saving and responsible spending towards, credit and living on a have no, pay tomorrow. This of cou

Over the decades we have seen in many countries a trend from saving and responsible spending towards, credit and living on a have no, pay tomorrow. This of course is not solely down to interests lowering. But the opening up and diversification along with growth in marketing of financial products and that in itself has been driven by the increased marketing and fashion conscious mentality of certain consumer products. Is this a good thing or a bad thing. Hard to say, but certainly when your populus is more exposed on credit and less backed up with saving and secured assets, any blips in the market can and will explode into financial meltdown with more dominos in the stack to fall down in a greater knock-on effect. What we also need to know is that in the past when things got bad, governments would raise interest rates, that would have a negative knock-on effect. So the approach switched towards lowering those interest rates, more competition in financial markets and with that growth, we saw the rise in marketing and credit accessibility and the market competed with itself for your not only the money you have today, but more so towards the money you will have tomorrow. There is only so far you can cut interest rates, and had you asked anybody a few decades ago about the possibility of negative interest rates, they would of laughed so much that your ears would bleed. Today, such things are a reality. What I wonder is that Quantitative Easing ( fancy way of devaluing your currency and in effect currency manipulation that is accepted...these days) is the elephant in the room. If we never had such things, would we of ever seen negative interest rates? What's more, we are now even seeing Government bonds with negative interest rates. How far will they go and with all that. Will we see the bartering system becoming more fashionable? Finally, is saving now classed as an obsession! Really, are we seriously at that stage in in fiscal devolution that we all seem flummoxed in a few decades time when nobody bothered to have a pension plan? Finance is about balance, sure have fun, have credit, but equally, have some savings. This drive to now demonise savings, just seems irrisponsible. But do remember, savings can be in many forms, assets can be a form of savings, gold, art, shares in companies even. Some have larger risk, some more stable and with any financial blip/crisis - the same old things do better like gold. Which is also an indicator of financial crisis's, and it has been trending up recently, in a way indicative of a financial crash. Now with that in mind, and finance does have some smart people who not only see that and more, I wonder - are negative interest rates the new trick to staive of a financial market heading for a crash? Maybe, but it gets down to enough people buying into it. Now with government bonds, that may well happen as many pension pots have rules that force them to have a certain percentage of such bonds. As they have always been classed as stable. Times change, rules change and if those pension pots change there safe long term bets into another approach, things could become very interesting indeed. I do hope that this new trick in interest rates pans out, but it is hard not to be blown away by the complexities at play the further and deeper you look into it.