Got a problem? Just reclassify and it will disappear

It was a piece of Canberra politics so audacious, I was honestly inspired. Gobsmacked, I was.

“Pure genius!” I screamed too loudly to a household that was, apart from me, devoid of awake human beings. “Now, THAT is how you make a problem disappear.”

Let me explain. On June 26, just hours after Julia Gillard was dethroned and replaced with her “Back to the Future” predecessor Kevin Rudd, Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr appeared on Aunty.

Despite it not really being his brief, he said this about asylum seekers: “They’re not people fleeing persecution … they’re coming here as economic migrants”.

Whoa! Brilliant.

Reclassify the problem, make it disappear. “Asylum seekers good, economic migrants bad.”

We’ve got to wait to see how that pans out, but it’s possible that particular albatross around K-Rudd’s neck has been turned into a Hawaiian lei.

It got me thinking. Could we use the same logic to make other problems disappear? Maybe even financial ones? You know, redefine the problem to create the solution.

As I thought about it, I realised some people I knew were already pretty good at it. Such as Mrs DebtMan.

DebtGirl (4): “Mummy, I don’t like cauliflower.”

Mrs DebtMan: “It’s not cauliflower, darling. It’s white broccoli. You love broccoli!”

DebtGirl: “Mmm. Delicious!”

And so it got eaten.

Sure, money problems are, inherently, trickier. But, with PM K-Rudd and Senator Carr as inspiration, let me offer a few ways to reclassify some money issues, with a view to eradicating some common problems.

Problem: “DebtMan, I’ve got a credit card and it’s always bumping up against the limit.”

Solution: Get a NEW credit card limit. Raise it from $5000 to $15,000. If that doesn’t get rid of the problem, it will at least kick that particular can down the road, maybe even the highway.

Problem: “I owe all of my friends lots of money. It’s socially awkward when I catch up with them.”

Solution: They’re not your friends. They’re your enemies. Find a new pub to drink at (assuming you don’t live in a one-pub town, in which case you might have to give up drinking). Take up a new hobby. New friends, to whom you don’t owe considerable debts, will come and you’ll have a clean slate.

Problem: “I wait for the sales. But when the sales come, they never have my size.”

Solution: Put on a few kilos. Then a few more. Move on up a new dress size. Far easier than dropping down. Eat pizza three nights a week, “Supersize Me” at McDonald’s for the other four. (How bad could that be?) Before you know it, every shop will have something in your size during a clearance.

Problem: “I don’t look good in board shorts.”

Solution: Spend January in Norway.

Problem: “My children are keeping me poor.”

Solution: Put them up for adoption. As lovely as they are, wasn’t life more fun BEFORE kids? If you think you’ll get soppy and eventually miss them, register with government agencies so they can contact you when they’re financially independent.

Problem: “I can’t afford my kids’ school fees.”

Solution: Change schools. Move towns. Seriously. Kids are resilient – they’ll make new friends in a week or two. It will be tougher for you. But that blow will be softened by the fact that you’ll also escape all your friends to whom you owe money, without having to declare them enemies. Set your Facebook whereabouts status permanently to Vanuatu.

Problem: “I can’t keep up with the Joneses.”

Solution: Bugger them. With surnames like that, they must be commoners.

Problem: “I can’t save.”

Solution: Take up a new sport: tax minimisation. Follow the scriptures of the late Kerry Packer, the patron saint of not-paying-more-tax-than-you-have-to. “I am minimising my tax and if anybody in this country doesn’t minimise their tax, they want their heads read, because as a government I can tell you you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.”

If you have a massive problem, I mean a MASSIVE problem, then the normal solution is to avoid talking about it, shun it, hide from it, sweep it under the carpet, or, simply, pretend it doesn’t exist.

But maybe we should all take a leaf out of K-Rudd’s book and simply reclassify the problem.

Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au), a licensed financial adviser and mortgage broker. bruce@debtman.com.au.