Jam Today! (pay tomorrow)

There’s a link between using credit and using alcohol, or any other recreational drug. In both cases you’re opting to have the nice bit first and the horrible bit after. Like the warm glow induced by a pint of Stella, the warm glow induced by purchasing products on the never-never is always followed by a hangover of some sort. Even if you only have the one, you feel listless and want another. Pleasure yesterday, pay today.

It’s an exact reversal of the more virtuous deferred reward strategy, where you eat your greens on the promise of jam roly-poly for afters. Instead, you first gorge on pudding and then have to face the broccoli.

These two opposing strategies are deployed in many aspects of human life. Resisting scratching a mosquito bite is of the first kind. Holding back breaks the cycle of irritation and the whole thing’s soon forgotten. Jam tomorrow. Alternatively you can have near-orgasms dragging your nails over it, but at the price of still having it, itchier than ever, a month later. Jam today. Similarly, vigorous exercise can be a daunting prospect, but it’s more than justified by the endorphin buzz that follows. More than can be said for street heroin. A definite case of jam today, hell to pay.

Learning the merits of deferred reward is an essential part of growing up, and The Little Red Hen is the parable. She didn’t shilly-shally like the other animals. She planted corn, ground flour, and baked bread, all without help from her neighbours. So when the aromas started to waft, and they came asking, she told them where to get off. Presumably a Methodist of some sort.

Indeed, the concept of a heavenly afterlife is the ultimate deferred reward strategy, though it’s questionable who gets rewarded. Accept a miserable existence in this world on the promise of eternal glory ever after. A shrewd means for the wealthy and powerful to scare the poor into compliance.

Some people want to have their roly-poly and eat it. Margaret Thatcher liked to align herself with the hen, but only when it suited: “You don’t spend money you haven’t got!” is a useful chant when you want to get public assets into private hands, but it’s forgotten when it comes to chucking money at arms manufacturers. ‘Credit’ is then elevated to ‘investment’. “Simply good housekeeping!” is another killer, coming from the Prime Minister who did so much to turn her country into the home of credit-card lunacy. That’s not bad housekeeping, that’s personal freedom.

Investment and credit are closely intertwined, two sides of the same coin. The credit run-up by the irresponsible cardholder is at the same time MasterCard’s shrewd investment. Your loss, their gain. Furthermore, it’s not always irresponsible to borrow. You can borrow as a means of investing, on the hope that the investment will itself more than cover the interest on the borrowed money. Similarly, as a consumer you can use credit wisely to pick up a true bargain that might be gone by the time your wages come in. The problems start when you borrow money but have no intention of investing it, like credit-junkie consumers, or John DeLorean in business.

Drugs and tic share a similar danger. Both allow you to steal from the future. The product you can’t afford this month steals next month’s wages, plus interest. A big Saturday night out steals happiness from poor old Monday morning, perhaps right through to strung-out Wednesday afternoon. You’ve got to pay sometime.