You Never Give Me Your Money

What does an aid worker do when restricted to the house by a gun battle – stranded with no form of communication as the phones and internet go down, and with a bag packed, waiting for word that it’s ok to jump on a bus and head into the capital? No tv, no flat mates, no radio, no work? Go on, ask. Ask me. Really, I’m so starved for conversation that I’m simply bursting through my skin to tell you. Go on, go on, ask!

This little aid worker has been taking full advantage of the (unwanted) downtime to do something that is usually reserved for rainy weekends in winter, or summer holidays in exotic locations by the water, or for stolen weekends away in front of the fire, good glass of red on the coffee table. I’ve been reading voraciously. In fact, it’s 12:24pm right now, and I’m still sitting in my pyjamas, even though I’ve been up since 3:30am (because what you want when you’ve got all the time in the world to sleep without an ounce of guilt is insomnia).

As I read the last page of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone on Wall St (or Pitt St Sydney, come to think of it. Yes Macq Bank, I’m looking at you, kid) has taken the time out to give the book a cursory glance. Because as I read of Emma’s new curtains and lace and carpets and seat covers and flat screen tv and new car and i-pod touch, all purchased with thin air lent to her by the local GE Finance rep, with demand notices being stuffed into drawers for another time, it got me to thinking. How could Flaubert, whose novel about that most scandalously immoral woman was first published in 1857, predict the current global financial crisis?

How could he write about it so clearly, and with such sage advice for readers so long ago, long before Bank West’s offer of 0% interest on balance transfers for 6 months, or RAMS ‘No Deposit’ Home Loans, or BMW Finance’s lower than sea level car loans before there were such things as credit cards or cars or first home buyer’s grants?

Even more baffling than Flaubert’s crystal ball qualities, however, is the complete reckless stupidity of our modern day experts (financial institutions, banks, governments, economists, et al please stand up) who continued to ignore the basic principle that if you borrow something from someone, they are quite within their rights to want it back.

What also became glaringly obvious as I shook my head at Emma’s next Must Have purchase, however, is that I couldn’t quite put all the blame on the conniving Monsieur Lheureux (a modern day Harvey Norman providing both the goods and the credit with one flick of the feather) who so tidily helped Emma and her unenviable husband Charles into their well-woven mess of debt. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I tried the way anyone who can bang on about corporate greed with wearying predictability would try. And while I came really really close to shouting at the scoundrel as he schemed to whisk away the Bovary’s Aussie Dream from right underneath them by ‘refinancing’ their spiraling debts, I couldn’t help but shake that voice in my head which kept saying: Oh Emma, STEP AWAY FROM THE LACE! Yes, step back, one foot after the other, put your head up, turn on your heel and exit stage left. You CAN’T AFFORD IT!!! Predictably she didn’t listen. But neither did we, did we Flaubert?