We have seen huge investment in sport over the last few decades. Bigger and bigger deals were made whereby big companies paid millions of pounds and dollars to sports events, groups and individuals to promote their brand on racing cars, football shirts, golf events and many other sports.

The argument in favour of sports sponsorship was always that it promoted the brand which in turn would bring profits to the company paying to have it’s brand all over the TV screens of the world. Yet, in recent months we have heard of lots of backtracking on this. RBS has announced it is halving it’s sponsorship and is pulling out of Formula 1 by withdrawing sponsorship of the Williams team altogether at the end of it’s current contract in 2010.

We have seen how the banks, in particular, have for years been making huge payments to their top executive staff while destroying their companies and shareholder value and we cannot help but wonder at the financial decisions taken to spend millions on the basis of promoting their brands and enjoying corporate junkets, at the shareholders expense, at sports events around the world.

In an economic climate where competition is fierce to get customers through the door you may think that advertising is more important than ever and if the argument for sports sponsorship is correct now would be the time to invest more than previously yet sponsorship is being withdrawn and reduced everywhere.

This leads to an inevitable conclusion that the sports sponsorship was more about the corporate benefits available to top executives at the sponsoring company than it was about getting more business and making additional profits for the company.

It is claimed that sport has been improved by all these millions but it remains to be seen if the actual sport will be any the worse for the fact that money is not so freely available. Many argue that all this money has changed the whole nature of sport and made it into something less desirable. It looks as though over the next few years we will see sport revert to something that is more about the essence of the sport and less about the money to be made.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

I’m all for saving money where possible and it makes a lot of sense for airlines to reduce costs where possible but I do sometimes wonder if the world is going mad. Michael O’Leary the CEO of Ryan Air has said that one of the options they are considering is to charge up to a pound for using toilets on their aircraft.

He points out that by doing so they could reduce the basic cost of flights, which may be the case, but I suspect they would sell a lot fewer cups of coffee and other drinks. Why pay a couple of pounds for a cup of coffee when it will cost you another pound to relieve yourself of it an hour or two later?

Cost cutting to remove waste, no pun intended, does make sense but when you get to the point that you are quite literally causing your customers to suffer to save money I think that is a step too far and I don’t even like to think about the possibility that someone, in their attempts to wait until they get to the terminal toilets on landing, might get caught short. Would you want to be the next passenger in that seat?

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

It’s no joke but it sounds like one. What’s the difference between a bank, a casino and a bookie?

Experience shows us that the answer is that the banks gamble but the bookie and the casino benefit from gamblers and which are the ones who make money all the time? Once again it is the bookies and the casinos.

It is shocking that the people we expect to know most about handling and investing money are the ones who are the least capable but it is also interesting to note that bookies and casinos are carefully regulated. So, perhaps the conclusion we must draw from all this is that without regulation people’s greed overcomes their common sense and leads to huge mistakes.

We have more rules and regulations than ever before but it seems that while the goverment were thinking up new ways to arrest people they didn’t worry about defending the country against greedy people whose actions were to bring the country to it’s knees.

We all got suckered in to some extent or another. We all thought house prices were ridiculously high but few of us wanted the rise in house prices to stop and now we know why. We were living in a house of cards and when one of the weak foundations eventually collapsed it brought down the whole edefice.

So what can we as individuals do in the future to protect ourselves from financial problems? That is the million dollar question. Be cautious in your financial dealings would seem to be the answer. Beware of getting too much in debt, keep your investments in secure places and avoid the temptation to cash in any increases in house values as they may not be permenent.

The chances are we will recover from this current financial mess and there may not be another one like it in our lifetimes but we will all sleep more soundly if we take a more cautious approach to our finances in the future. We will all benefit from the savings we make on interest payments by avoiding too much debt so we could all be better off by dumping most of our credit cards and using real money for a change. That will feel strange for a while but I am sure we will get used to it.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)