Human Capital

1) I went to the dentist for my regular six-monthly check up yesterday. Nothing special to report – the usual minor plaque scrape and 'make sure you floss very carefully at the back' - and I was sent packing after paying my £75 bill. My dentist, like 99% of others in London, doesn’t want to know about the NHS these days. They like things private, with cash on the nail. Anyway as I was booking the next appointment for April 2009, I suddenly thought: why don’t I extend the six months to eight or nine? Wouldn’t make any difference. I’m not going to expire from gum disease in the interim. Save a couple of quid. It’s tiny little marginal decisions like this – some made semi-consciously - taken by all of us, that slow things down. I’m not remotely worried about the welfare of my dentist – she’ll be fine (show me a hard-up dentist). But her amalgam-maker, her drill-manufacturer and the mouthwash-producer are going to feel a little pinch.

2) We bought my 13-month-old son his first pair of shoes at the weekend. The kids’ department of Peter Jones on the King’s Road is a bedlam of wailing sprogs, dazed, heavily-pregnant mums-to-be and irritable fathers even at the best of times. Saturday was no exception. We put our names down on the list to be served and I noticed on the wall display of infant footwear that a couple were half-price – down to about £10. We finally got served, after The Kid had crawled the floors, pulled books off the shelves and removed his socks. He was measured up and four pairs were brought out from the stock room.  The two cut-price booties weren’t that nice, the third was so-so but the pair of Clarks in Size 5G was nice. The sort of thing in which a proud parent wants his child shod for those first, precious steps.  Surprise surprise, they were far and away the priciest at £30. I bought them because a) I wanted to get out fast; b) quality is quality; and c) you do the right thing, even in a downturn.

3) My 80-year-old father gave my 13-year-old son £20 on Sunday (having lived through the Depression, he knows the importance of keeping cash sloshing through the system). As soon as we got back to our house, the 13-year-old was on the laptop and into Top Man’s website. Within 10 minutes he’d blown the lot on some of Philip Green’s finest teenage threads. This shows a) the young who have grown up through the boom years clearly have no sense of saving money. Sod Icesave - they get it, they spend it. And b) this might be very good for the UK economy - the downturn won’t stop the young spending what they have as fast as they get it. Assuming indulgent parents and grandparents keep it coming...    

In today's bulletin:
Rates slashed as bail-out fails to calm jitters
Sainsbury bucks trend with sales hike
The true cost of the Icesave meltdown
Editor's blog: What does the crunch mean for you?
MT's Little Ray of Sunshine: Pay peanuts, get monkeys