Mums Finance

Well, did you get out to the new Westfield opening yesterday…? and if you did – what did you buy…?

The opening was a huge success; celebrities were everywhere (at least they can afford to shop anyway…), champagne corks popped, people thronged in their thousands…but how much money was spent yesterday I wonder. If you were after a bargain then you should have bagged one yesterday – maybe you left with a new pop up tv, some cosmetics, or just had a great day out.

They predict 21million people will visit the complex each year and a sale will go through every 30 seconds; parents will be able to electronically tag their kids in case they get lost. You might say that such a venture does not really suit the current economic climate – maybe, hopefully, it will reflect better times ahead.

Let’s hope so…

Popularity: 24% [?]

Well, it has always been described in humorous terms by women but it appears that the male menopause is actually a reality.

Just as women suffer the effects of a drop in oestrogen – the male meno involves a man experiencing a loss of testosterone, lack of libido, listlessness…many women would sympathise. Some even need those incontinence products just like women do – but for different reasons of course.

HRT is now being developed to help men cope with their change of life; I’m not laughing though, I believe that men do experience something akin to the female menopause. And I wonder if the male HRT will be available on the NHS as it is for women.

It should be, and let’s hope it will be.

Popularity: 26% [?]

In times past, that didn’t really matter but as we’ve seen in the case of the Icelandic banks it does when there’s trouble around.

Obviously it affects smaller economies more than the large ones but it does make you wonder just how much faith you can place in the guarantees underwritten by foreign banks. What about Ireland for instance? It sounds great that they’ve guaranteed all the deposits of their top six banks, but if that guarantee ever kicked in, where would they get the money to pay for it?

To date, nobody has actually lost money from a normal bank account in spite of the unprecedented turbulence but no government can continue to print money to bail out depositors. Let’s hope that an end to the chaos will be in sight soon.

Popularity: 25% [?]