Credit crunch - the plus side

I think I can salvage a nugget of comfort and optimism from this whole credit crunch business, writes blogger Dan Wainwright.

Taking a bus into town on Saturday for my usual several pints and a wiggle at Blast Off with my friends I had to endure the usual inane babble of Wolverhampton’s loud and obnoxious teenagers.

Normally such noise involves a mobile phone blaring out some incomprehensible tune at full blast from a tiny speaker with the music so tinny and distorted they may as well be playing the sound of a lawn mower under water.

But this time their standard expletive-laden banter and discussions about how much booze they will illegally try to pour down their probably underage necks gave way to something altogether more important and profound.

For the first time in years I heard a group of hoodie-clad lads and short-skirted girls discussing their frustration at how much they lose from their part-time job salaries in tax.

This gave way to a lament about rising petrol costs while they were trying to learn to drive and even a political opinion about the Tories having not provided them with any workable solution.

It may seem extraordinarily ordinary but in all the time I have been taking that bus it is the first time I have ever heard a group of stereotypically loud mouthed youths discussing anything akin to politics with a genuine interest and concern.

What was even more remarkable was that Big Brother is on at the moment and there had been an eviction. Wayne Rooney had just got married which meant there was plenty of the usual celebrity rubbish for them to talk about instead.

After ten years of economic growth where politics did not immediately hit everyone in their pocket at the point of sale we were all perhaps a little disinterested in it.

But here we have a crisis which unites us all, which we all have an opinion on and which we all need to overcome.

If our shared financial woes provide common ground between old, middle-aged and young then maybe our shared money worries will provide more mutual understanding and tolerance than years of antisocial behaviour orders ever did.

Of course I didn’t venture to join in with this discussion. They were big lads after all.