Second stimulus package discussion

[sinner]

Pull your head in mate, i'm a full time student (yes that's right FULL TIME) trying to live on govt support of ~$180 a week and a measly earnings allowance of ~$125. Don't you dare suggest i 'can't be bothered', mate.

This payment/bonus will make a huge difference to me in very real and very tangible terms

I never asked the government for support while I was a full time high school and uni student, I worked anywhere between 12-72 hours in a week! Avg over the year usually 36 hours a week, just under a full time roster, including full time uni.

Think getting indignant that the free money you get isn't enough, $305/wk, more than I budget for myself NOW per week, is a bit backwards.

What exactly are you spending money on that $305/wk isn't enough?

 

[Largesse]

rent - $120
groceries - $80
transport (public) - $25

Set aside for utilities per week - $25 (internet contribution, water/elec/gas)
Set aside for telephone per week - $10

That leaves me with a whopping $55 per week over what i need for BARE essentials.

So if i need to say... buy myself some uni stationary or textbooks for example, or if i need you know... a pair of shoes or some underwear, or maybe something like a new pillow case because the one i currently have is going yellow because i've had it for 3 years, i have to save for weeks.
Let alone if i wanted to, SHOCK HORROR, have a beer or two with my mates!


But you don't get it because you're probably just another silly old man.

"when i was a boy i could get by on $20 a week" except you are forgetting 20c could buy you a pie and sauce, and you could rent a small room right next door to university for $10 a week.

i'll say it again, pull your head in

 

[tommymac]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/09/2486668.htm

The Aust Retail Association wants vouchers instead of cash to be paid to ensure the money is spent and not saved.

It's really worrying when someone says:
"There is something uncomfortable to us about taxpayer funds being used to reduce credit card debt."

 

[MrBurns]

rent - $120
groceries - $80
transport (public) - $25

Set aside for utilities per week - $25 (internet contribution, water/elec/gas)
Set aside for telephone per week - $10

That leaves me with a whopping $55 per week over what i need for BARE essentials.

So if i need to say... buy myself some uni stationary or textbooks for example, or if i need you know... a pair of shoes or some underwear, or maybe something like a new pillow case because the one i currently have is going yellow because i've had it for 3 years, i have to save for weeks.
Let alone if i wanted to, SHOCK HORROR, have a beer or two with my mates!


But you don't get it because you're probably just another silly old man.

"when i was a boy i could get by on $20 a week" except you are forgetting 20c could buy you a pie and sauce, and you could rent a small room right next door to university for $10 a week.

i'll say it again, pull your head in

So what are you studying ?

 

[Largesse]

commerce

edit: $45

 

[Calliope]

Pull your head in mate, i'm a full time student (yes that's right FULL TIME) trying to live on govt support of ~$180 a week and a measly earnings allowance of ~$125. Don't you dare suggest i 'can't be bothered', mate.

This payment/bonus will make a huge difference to me in very real and very tangible terms

What made you think I was talking about you?

 

[sinner]

rent - $120
groceries - $80
transport (public) - $25

Set aside for utilities per week - $25 (internet contribution, water/elec/gas)
Set aside for telephone per week - $10

That leaves me with a whopping $55 per week over what i need for BARE essentials.

So if i need to say... buy myself some uni stationary or textbooks for example, or if i need you know... a pair of shoes or some underwear, or maybe something like a new pillow case because the one i currently have is going yellow because i've had it for 3 years, i have to save for weeks.
Let alone if i wanted to, SHOCK HORROR, have a beer or two with my mates!


But you don't get it because you're probably just another silly old man.

"when i was a boy i could get by on $20 a week" except you are forgetting 20c could buy you a pie and sauce, and you could rent a small room right next door to university for $10 a week.

i'll say it again, pull your head in

Actually, silly young boy, I just graduated at the end of 2008, I'm only 22 and I've been working and studying full time since I was 14 and 9 months (the legal age). I've kicked **** at Woolies and Luna Park and countless other **** kicking jobs to get to where I am today. Never complained once or asked the government for a dime even when I was getting $450 a FORTNIGHT working an industrial traineeship working 9-5 at CSIRO and studying full time night courses. (it was actually $500 but minus $50 for HECS which I always pay every fortnight)

We brew our own beer here, to the cost <$1 a bottle. Share rent with 3 other people to reduce costs. Live near the uni and work to reduce transport costs and save time. Transcribe all notes to the puter to save stationary costs. Get our furniture when there's a council clean up or make our own. Grow our own veggies, herbs and medicinal plants. Eat Mi Gorengs and frozen beans when there is no money for food. Second hand uni books where possible (or just pirate them from the net).

$55 * 52 weeks = $2860. What exactly are you buying, egyptian cotton pillow cases? $1500 gives you $750 for books each semester. That leaves $1360. $1000 can be spent on pillowcases and underwear. $360 left means $7 a week left for beer, hey presto $3.50 beer at the uni bar, perfect a couple of beers a week.

Instead of being disillusioned by silly old men who buy pies for 20c, and the hundreds of free dollars you get every week which my taxes pay for, why don't you grow up.

 

[Calliope]

Instead of being disillusioned by silly old men who buy pies for 20c, and the hundreds of free dollars you get every week which my taxes pay for, why don't you grow up.

Obviously the "full time" study of Commerce gives Largesse (his name says it all) far too much spare time to sit around with his mates complaining that the silly old men who pay the taxes which supply his largesse are being mean to him.

 

[joeyr46]

So what are you studying ?

Good manners He's flunking

 

[Glen48]

Any one explain why J B HI FI is going up when others are tanking?
Is the bail out money being spent on CD, DVD etc?
Strange how Hardly Normal is complaining when he was one of the first to introduce nothing to pay for eons and now its coming back to bit him.

 

[Trevor_S]

But you don't get it because you're probably just another silly old man.

shrug.. add me to the list, 43.. I guess is pretty old.... if your <20. I couldn't afford to study full time when I studied, so I studied part time, worked full time, then did my last year working full time and studying full time.

I now employ (some) Uni students, and I observe them. I see lots of them struggle to cope, piss poor time management mostly... ie ring in sick for a shift for work but find time to go to a staff social... they don't go out for a beer or 2, they go out and get so blind drunk, then don't come to work the next day and then later that week complain they have no money... and some of them balance it well. The former group complain, often, the latter group don't complain much at all and just get things done.

 

[shaunQ]

Any one explain why J B HI FI is going up when others are tanking?
Is the bail out money being spent on CD, DVD etc?
Strange how Hardly Normal is complaining when he was one of the first to introduce nothing to pay for eons and now its coming back to bit him.

I guess cause they posted some pretty good results, +27% odd profit, 50% dividend increase.

 

[Glen48]

I guessed that S Q but Harvey Norman, WOW, Strathfield sell along the same lines?
I did read were J B employs Hip young ones not the UNI type.

 

[tasmart]

"when i was a boy i could get by on $20 a week" except you are forgetting 20c could buy you a pie and sauce, and you could rent a small room right next door to university for $10 a week.

Funny reading this - your figures are spot on!

When I started Uni in 1972 I got a Commonwealth Scholarship which was $20 per week. Full board (I had to move to Sydney) was $18 but I moved out of there after a few months into a share house and paid $10 per week - that was down on Coogee Beach - and I would walk (or ride my bike) up to UNSW. I worked as a waiter to help ends meet - could earn $10 on a good night! And I certainly didn't waste money on a pie & sauce!

hmmm....... come a long way since then.

But it really is irrelevant to this discussion.

 

[Julia]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/09/2486668.htm

The Aust Retail Association wants vouchers instead of cash to be paid to ensure the money is spent and not saved.

I don't see that going to all the extra administrative stuffing about to issue vouchers would achieve anything at all. People will simply use the vouchers to buy food etc that they would buy anyway, allowing them to free up other funds to do what they would have done with the original cash.

It's really worrying when someone says:
"There is something uncomfortable to us about taxpayer funds being used to reduce credit card debt."

Worrying, is it? Can you explain why you find this statement worrying?
Personally I find it distinctly uncomfortable that my tax dollars should be used to pay off someone's profligate credit card spending, if that in fact is what is being suggested.

 

[Julia]

Re handout going to students, I don't have any problem with this. Students are our future, they are racking up huge HECS debts, most work as well as study.

I'd much prefer they get a one-off $950 than that families where one partner earns way in excess of $100K p.a. but the other earns slightly less, will once again get many thousands - depending on how many children they have - when they have already received several thousands in the pre-Christmas splurge.

A relative of mine gets the Parenting Payment as a single mother. She received $4000 pre-Christmas and will get the same again in April. She has a private agreement with her ex-husband via which she gets about another $400 p.w.
She doesn't work and enjoys a million dollar home on Sydney's north shore.

So don't begrudge a student a payment of less than a thousand dollars.
I think they will make very good use of this money.

 

[shaunQ]

A relative of mine gets the Parenting Payment as a single mother. She received $4000 pre-Christmas and will get the same again in April. She has a private agreement with her ex-husband via which she gets about another $400 p.w.
She doesn't work and enjoys a million dollar home on Sydney's north shore.

I appreciate the point, but thats a fairly non-standard situation. You could probably say the same about some students who seem to live like millionaires.

In my view thats probably the worst things about this stimulus, regardless of what its spent on or how much, it causes division in the community - some thinking they're more deserving and the other isn't and all having good arguments to suit there own cause.

 

[tommymac]

Worrying, is it? Can you explain why you find this statement worrying?
Personally I find it distinctly uncomfortable that my tax dollars should be used to pay off someone's profligate credit card spending, if that in fact is what is being suggested.

Would you be more comfortable if these same people used it to buy a new DVD Player knowing that you would never be able to use it, even though your tax dollars bought it?

Isn't the handout only to people who have paid tax. Hence it's not your tax dollars. It's their tax dollars that they are getting back. Correct me if I'm wrong.

IMO it is not socially responsible for the Government to hand money to people, some who are struggling, and then force them to spend it when it should be used to reduce debt (whether they do it or not).

If the Government decided to give the money to people only because they had large credit card debt, that would be an entirely different matter. Basically getting rewarded for being irresponsible. But this handout is on a broad scale.

And note the quote came from the Aust. Retail Association so they have an interest in all the cash being spent.

 

[Prospector]

Only Uni students who get Youth Allowance will get the package, or those who earnt more than around $18,000 last financial year. The others will still rack up their HECS debt but not get anything.

 

[Calliope]

Today is supposedly D-day for the so called stimulus package. The Senators who hold the balance of power after much posturing will fold rather than risk the wrath of the recipients of the handouts. Fielding will the assured that the unemployed he is concerned about will get their share closer to the election along with the pensioners, and the Greens will be happy with a few soothing words.

Only Nick Xenophon is on firm ground. He has a true concern for the rights of the SA people who put him there and believe me, the future of the Murray-Darling basin is a huge concern for the people of that state. If he can keep the blowtorch on Rudd on this one the whole country will be better off.