The Happiness Sell.

There’s an ad appeared on my Hotmail page for a financial institution here in the UK. The thrust of the ad is that they’re offering overdrafts fee-free for 12 months to new accounts. (They don’t mention the interest, of course, which is separate.) Only after the first year will they start paying a fee of £182.50 a year on a £1200 overdraft (as well as the interest, of course.). And the image they use to promote this offer shows an attractive young couple looking relaxed and happy out wandering the open landscape and luxuriating in one another’s company. The message is happiness and freedom. And all because they’re now in debt and paying for it through the nose. Irresistible.