"Dr Nicholas Gruen is ... Chairman of Peach Discount Mortgage Broking". Who would have thought such a person would encourgage greater borrowing? I AM surprised!

I have been retired for many years, and have more money than I can spend. I put my wonderful lifestyle down to several basic principles:

1. Don't spend.

If this is carried out consistently, it leads to:

2. Don't borrow.

Again, at length, this leads to:

3. You don't have to work. (i.e, you can retire.)

The slogan I saw on a car several weeks ago says it all;

I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

Idiots who allow themselves to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like have only themselves to blame if they find the debt trap into which they have been inveigled increasingly oppressive; they should realise the influence of the vested interests in society (foremost of whom is the government) who are keen to get them in that position.

We are now in the process of watching the Americans slide into the cesspool of unpayable debt. If there is major world financial crisis we will be particularly affected, for as Napoleon said "You don't worry about the stables when the house is on fire". When our overseas debt of $550 billion is called in, (something that has happened before in 1893 and 1931), the virtue of being solvent will again become apparent to everyone.

What a pity we did not follow that example of Norway, who when the bonanza of North Sea Oil was revealed, did not spend the money, but put it aside in a foreign investment fund which now totals $US400 billion, and that for a population of 4 million people.

At least the Howard government paid off our government foreign debt.

The last thing to remember is what Albert Einstein considered to be the most powerful force in the universe - compound interest.