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The state of the economy at the street level

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qldfrog said:
Even transfering own money is a nightmare: took me 2 days with cba to be able to start a 6 figures sum transfer
And 2 days to initiate an o/s transfer with hsbc..in a normal situation with clean money clean records
Imagine during a bank run..
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She Who is Never Wrong has a couple of accounts with the local Community Bank.
As the bank which we use for the business side of things is now being slowly squeezed to death by Com Bank, we have decided to use her account as a holding one and just transfer the necessary funds each month as they are needed. No hassle.
just completed one transfer a few minutes ago. Simple.
 
farmerge said:
Ah the Public Trustee and the Public Advocate both are at the top of my hate list.
Have it in my Will that neither of these scum organisations are to anything to do with my estate when I have expired.
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just make sure they don't 'lose ' the will

the only will they could 'find ' of aunties was made in 1946 ( before she was even married ) she made at LEAST two wills after that ( including one that donated her body to science , luckily UQ keeps better books than those scumbag lawyers/trustees so at least that part was honored

since i was years away from being born in the 'existing will ( held be a very rare impeccable lawyer ) no part of the 1946 will was relevant ( and i was the only blood relative that could be found alive )
 
farmerge said:
Ah the Public Trustee and the Public Advocate both are at the top of my hate list.
Have it in my Will that neither of these scum organisations are to anything to do with my estate when I have expired.
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You need to nominate an enduring power of attorney. If you become incapacitated the state can take over your assets, even after you pass on they have control if a will present.
 
More analysis in this article highlighting our ongoing per capita recession and profligate government spending kicking the can down the road.

www.aicd.com.au

Australia’s ‘per capita recession’ continues - AICD

Australia’s economy remains mired in a ‘per capita’ recession. According to the June quarter 2024 national accounts, real GDP per capita shrank by 0.4 per cent over the quarter, marking a sixth consecutive fall. The current per capita recession is now the longest on record. Comparable periods of...
www.aicd.com.au www.aicd.com.au
 
TimeISmoney said:
You'll lose a big chunk of it to tax if you get it before death, the Govt has it all sorted. Most of it will be squandered by the govt before you get it. How many people can afford to stay at home and look after their aging parents these days? You'll need to put them in a nursing home and that's big dollars these days when they exceed the asset threshold which isn't very much. Greens have vowed to go after retirees with homes, so the future is going to be worse, with no to little pension so that they have to sell or reverse mortgage.
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This is a big part of the system's problem: Your principle place of residence (ppor) isn't counted in basically any assets/means test, so you can theoretically live in a $20 million harbourfront palace and be paid the age pension to live there.

I've actually heard about a lot of old farts that would downsize if not for the fact that they'd lose so many entitlements (pension, health care card, I'm sure there's others) that the system actually disincentivises it.

We've actually been only half joking about the fact that my brother and his wife/kids will move into my parents' place when my father dies so our mother can stay there and we keep working the system until it's game over for her as well.

We even ran the sums on it and between the entitlements she retained and taxes he could dodge due to renting their current place out and using the rental income to make voluntary contributions to his super it equated to nearly 3/4 of a million by the time she dies at the female average of 82.

Alternatively, she lives alone in a 5 bedroom 46 square house on acreage with 4/5 of the rooms not yielding a return.

Ridiculous.
 
over9k said:
This is a big part of the system's problem: Your principle place of residence (ppor) isn't counted in basically any assets/means test, so you can theoretically live in a $20 million harbourfront palace and be paid the age pension to live there.

I've actually heard about a lot of old farts that would downsize if not for the fact that they'd lose so many entitlements (pension, health care card, I'm sure there's others) that the system actually disincentivises it.

We've actually been only half joking about the fact that my brother and his wife/kids will move into my parents' place when my father dies so our mother can stay there and we keep working the system until it's game over for her as well.

We even ran the sums on it and between the entitlements she retained and taxes he could dodge due to renting their current place out and using the rental income to make voluntary contributions to his super it equated to nearly 3/4 of a million by the time she dies at the female average of 82.

Alternatively, she lives alone in a 5 bedroom 46 square house on acreage with 4/5 of the rooms not yielding a return.

Ridiculous.
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And now with the new age care rules, it makes it even more attractive for oldies to upgrade the house and reduce the asset base, as the ppor isn't included in the asset test.
Well the politicians wouldn't want their houses included in the asset test when they get old, as for a lot of them it isn't that far away.
 
sptrawler said:
And now with the new age care rules, it makes it even more attractive for oldies to upgrade the house and reduce the asset base, as the ppor isn't included in the asset test.
Well the politicians wouldn't want their houses included in the asset test when they get old, as for a lot of them it isn't that far away.
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Yeah that's another one trawler (see, I knew there was stuff I couldn't remember). We've done an absolute mountain of renovations/repairs/refreshing of the place now because them spending the money on it now dodges a whole stack of capital gains tax compared to my brother & I doing it all later.

Admittedly it's needed some TLC and it does make the place a lot nicer for the grandkids right now but still, two birds and all that...
 
over9k said:
This is a big part of the system's problem: Your principle place of residence (ppor) isn't counted in basically any assets/means test, so you can theoretically live in a $20 million harbourfront palace and be paid the age pension to live there.

I've actually heard about a lot of old farts that would downsize if not for the fact that they'd lose so many entitlements (pension, health care card, I'm sure there's others) that the system actually disincentivises it.

We've actually been only half joking about the fact that my brother and his wife/kids will move into my parents' place when my father dies so our mother can stay there and we keep working the system until it's game over for her as well.

We even ran the sums on it and between the entitlements she retained and taxes he could dodge due to renting their current place out and using the rental income to make voluntary contributions to his super it equated to nearly 3/4 of a million by the time she dies at the female average of 82.

Alternatively, she lives alone in a 5 bedroom 46 square house on acreage with 4/5 of the rooms not yielding a return.

Ridiculous.
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Let's start overtaxing everything so there is nothing left because governments like Labor and Greens have no idea how to manage money. More to the fact, people who have never worked a hard day in their lives can live their best lives and fornicate to raise more kids in low socio-economic environments to repeat and wash and make a livelihood out of it. Sounds great, hey?

My neighbours in their 80s sold a property they kept for 40 years, the wife was a humble part time school cleaner and the husband a forklift driver, they lived a non-exotic life and had 2 kids.

Because they worked hard and saved their whole lives, paid excess taxes for saving and had the opportunity to buy acreage, unlike their counterparts who spent wages on annual holidays and drinking the leftovers at the local pub and then being a burden on society once again when unemployed because you can, with no responsibilities of a mortgage over their heads.

After slugging it out for years, they went on the pension, the husband had a stroke, ended up with dementia and fell ill, and then ended up in a nursing home. The wife makes the worst decision of her life and sells because someone gave them a big offer on the acreage that they've been paying off their whole lives. They obviously lost any rights to the pension after selling.

The Husband is virtually an eating and shitting machine, doesn't know where he is or the time of day, has no speech. It's costing them 160k a year to keep him in the nursing home and he's been there for 3 years. So all the hard earned money they made and paid multiple taxes on over the years will be squandered by the health system.

Old pensioner Jill, who spent her whole life smoking a packet of winny blues a day and drinking a bottle of bourbon a week, all on the government coffers, gets free care when they have contributed to their own demise. Where is the fairness in this world for people who actually contribute to society, work hard laborious jobs, pay all their taxes multiple times and have taken on the risk of a mortgage?

Why bother working hard and living that life to get ahead? Just go on the dole and breed like all the other bums, until no one pays taxes and bankrupts the governments.
 
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TimeISmoney said:
After slugging it out for years, they went on the pension, the husband had a stroke, ended up with dementia and fell ill, and then ended up in a nursing home. The wife makes the worst decision of her life and sells because someone gave them a big offer on the acreage that they've been paying off their whole lives. They obviously lost any rights to the pension after selling.

The Husband is virtually an eating and shitting machine, doesn't know where he is or the time of day, has no speech. It's costing them 160k a year to keep him in the nursing home and he's been there for 3 years. So all the hard earned money they made and paid multiple taxes on over the years will be squandered by the health system.
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Gotta ask, was it a huge offer on their place or what?

I do know that the government provided nursing homes are hell on earth just fwiw. Kind of like with public hospitals - you only use them if you have no other choice.

If she/they had to fund his twilight years in a non-government nursing home I'm not sure what other option they had?
 
over9k said:
Gotta ask, was it a huge offer on their place or what?

I do know that the government provided nursing homes are hell on earth just fwiw. Kind of like with public hospitals - you only use them if you have no other choice.

If she/they had to fund his twilight years in a non-government nursing home I'm not sure what other option they had?
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They got 2.1 mil but the wife bought a replacement home for close to 850k, lost the pension and all its other benefits that she now has to pay for out of the leftover money that's divided between the pair, they paid some taxes on the sale of the property and had to back pay some of the benefits they received within that financial year.

As far as I am aware all the nursing homes in Qld are privately run.
 
over9k said:
Bumping this thread as the precursor to the recession thread. We all know the data can/will lag the reality on the ground so we should start to see a fair bit of pain being posted about here before the official indicators start going off.
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precursor ?



they have gerrymandered the definitions and data collection points so badly that i would prefer to ask the shoe-shine boy ( and i haven't seen one of them for decades ) for economic updates

by simple logic , the officials have to collect the data first ( and then manipulate the heck out of it ) and then present their interpretation of it , so there is always a lag .
 
TimeISmoney said:
Let's start overtaxing everything so there is nothing left because governments like Labor and Greens have no idea how to manage money. More to the fact, people who have never worked a hard day in their lives can live their best lives and fornicate to raise more kids in low socio-economic environments to repeat and wash and make a livelihood out of it. Sounds great, hey?

My neighbours in their 80s sold a property they kept for 40 years, the wife was a humble part time school cleaner and the husband a forklift driver, they lived a non-exotic life and had 2 kids.

Because they worked hard and saved their whole lives, paid excess taxes for saving and had the opportunity to buy acreage, unlike their counterparts who spent wages on annual holidays and drinking the leftovers at the local pub and then being a burden on society once again when unemployed because you can, with no responsibilities of a mortgage over their heads.

After slugging it out for years, they went on the pension, the husband had a stroke, ended up with dementia and fell ill, and then ended up in a nursing home. The wife makes the worst decision of her life and sells because someone gave them a big offer on the acreage that they've been paying off their whole lives. They obviously lost any rights to the pension after selling.

The Husband is virtually an eating and shitting machine, doesn't know where he is or the time of day, has no speech. It's costing them 160k a year to keep him in the nursing home and he's been there for 3 years. So all the hard earned money they made and paid multiple taxes on over the years will be squandered by the health system.

Old pensioner Jill, who spent her whole life smoking a packet of winny blues a day and drinking a bottle of bourbon a week, all on the government coffers, gets free care when they have contributed to their own demise. Where is the fairness in this world for people who actually contribute to society, work hard laborious jobs, pay all their taxes multiple times and have taken on the risk of a mortgage?

Why bother working hard and living that life to get ahead? Just go on the dole and breed like all the other bums, until no one pays taxes and bankrupts the governments.
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You reminded me of two people that I know.

One live in a retirement village, just under 2/3 of her pension pays for her accommodation which includes a self-contained unit, dinner every night, entertainment, and electricity. It also includes the services of a staff member that finds out all the government subsidies and services that she is entitle to. Which includes all manner of devices like hearing aids, mobility, medical pedicures to her unit every month. I'm constantly amazed at what she is entitled to, and that she probably only worked a full 20 years in her whole life. She is constantly at the doctors for something and has used the ambulance service several times for minor issues because that is what she has been told to get quick service.

In the early days I just laughed, now I am annoyed because my tax bills keep going up and I feel that I am working for the government. And on top of that, I have been saving for my Retirment so as not to be a burden on the system, but it looks like I would be better off having nothing and living of the government welfare.
 
JohnDe said:
You reminded me of two people that I know.

One live in a retirement village, just under 2/3 of her pension pays for her accommodation which includes a self-contained unit, dinner every night, entertainment, and electricity. It also includes the services of a staff member that finds out all the government subsidies and services that she is entitle to. Which includes all manner of devices like hearing aids, mobility, medical pedicures to her unit every month. I'm constantly amazed at what she is entitled to, and that she probably only worked a full 20 years in her whole life. She is constantly at the doctors for something and has used the ambulance service several times for minor issues because that is what she has been told to get quick service.

In the early days I just laughed, now I am annoyed because my tax bills keep going up and I feel that I am working for the government. And on top of that, I have been saving for my Retirment so as not to be a burden on the system, but it looks like I would be better off having nothing and living of the government welfare.
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.. until the government decides you are not a supportive ( of their policies ) demographic and quietly culls you from their budget system and focuses on indoctrination ( OOPS ! i meant education and public information services )
 
JohnDe said:
You reminded me of two people that I know.

One live in a retirement village, just under 2/3 of her pension pays for her accommodation which includes a self-contained unit, dinner every night, entertainment, and electricity. It also includes the services of a staff member that finds out all the government subsidies and services that she is entitle to. Which includes all manner of devices like hearing aids, mobility, medical pedicures to her unit every month. I'm constantly amazed at what she is entitled to, and that she probably only worked a full 20 years in her whole life. She is constantly at the doctors for something and has used the ambulance service several times for minor issues because that is what she has been told to get quick service.

In the early days I just laughed, now I am annoyed because my tax bills keep going up and I feel that I am working for the government. And on top of that, I have been saving for my Retirment so as not to be a burden on the system, but it looks like I would be better off having nothing and living of the government welfare.
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It's impossible to plan for retirement more than a few years ahead because you don't know what surprise this desperate Govt is going to spring on people who hold a little extra wealth and trust me they're going to look for extra money in everyone's pockets.

Tax paying companies are exiting Australia day by day, and future tax revenues are down due to relying on the big holes in the ground to produce most of their income.
 
Needed a new microwave, drove to the ‘super centre’ where every product known to mankind. I haven’t been for a while and was surprised at how busy the place is, finding a carpark was a challenge. Walked into Harvey Normans and it is bustling, I don’t think I’ve seen it like this for years.

I’m now sitting in a couch listening and looking at all the shoppers, all ages and nationalities represented but mostly 30 to 60 year olds
 

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