Discuss the following questions before reading the text.

· Do you think parents should provide their children with pocket money? Why (not)?

· What do children spend pocket money on?

· Should teenagers work or do odd jobs to earn money?

Paying Your Way

There were red faces at one of Britain's biggest banks recently. They had accepted a telephone order to buy £100,000 worth of shares from a fifteen-year-old schoolboy (they thought he was twenty-one). The shares fell in value and the schoolboy was unable to pay up. The bank lost £20,000 on the deal which it cannot get back because, for one thing, this young speculator does not have the money and for another, being under eighteen, he is not legally liable for his debts. If the shares had risen in value by the same amount that they fell, he would have pocketed £20,000 profit. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old. It certainly beats a paper round.

In another recent case, a boy of fourteen found, in the attic of his grandmother's house, a suitcase full of foreign banknotes. The clean, crisp, high-denomination notes looked very convincing but they were not legal tender in their country of origin or anywhere else. This young wheeler-dealer headed straight to the nearest bank with his pockets crammed with notes. The cashiers did not realise that the country in question had devalued its currency by 90%. They exchanged the notes at their face value at the current exchange rate. In three days, before he was rumbled, he took £200,000 from nine different banks. Amazingly, he had already squandered more than half of this on taxi-rides, restaurant meals, concert tickets and presents for his many newly-acquired girlfriends (at least he was generous!) before the police caught up with him. Because he is also under eighteen the banks have kissed goodbye to a lot of money, and several cashiers have had their careers blighted.

Should we admire these youngsters for being enterprising and showing initiative or condemn them for their dishonesty? Maybe they had managed for years with tiny amounts of pocket money wrung from tight-fisted parents. Maybe they had done Saturday jobs for peanuts. It is hardly surprising, given the expensive things that young people want to buy, such as fashionable trainers and computer games, if they sometimes think up more imaginative money-making schemes than delivering newspapers and baby-sitting. These lads saw the chance to make a killing and took it.

Another recent story which should give us food for thought is the case of the man who paid his six-year-old daughter £300 a week pocket money. He then charged her for the food she ate and for her share of the rent and household bills. After these deductions, she was left with a few coins for her piggy bank. 'She will soon learn the value of money,' he said. 'There's no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has to be paid for and the sooner she learns that the better.' At the other extreme there are doting parents who provide free bed and board for their grown-up children. While even the most hard­hearted parents might hesitate to throw their children out on the streets, we all know of people in their late twenties who shamelessly sponge on their parents. Surely there comes a time when everyone has to leave the parental nest, fend for themselves and pay their own way in life? But when is it?

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1106