Wealth Inequality

Mrmagoo said:

I think Americans prefer it that way and its their choice if it was like here where a burgerflipper geta more than a junior professional they would revolt.

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I spend some time on another forum that is dominated by Americans and can support Mrmagoos thinking, there is a near hysterical fear among Americans that paying people more than $7 an hour will some how destroy the US economy and disadvantage the US somehow...somehow its all tied into the US College education system and its quite ok for semi professionals and alike to make big dollars while the less educated struggle away.

Mrmagoo said:

Income is mostly irrelevant as most of the inequality is from capital gains and most wealth is from existing assets. When a million dollar house goes up by 10% a year marginal differences in income start to not matter.

A person in Australia working in a menial job cannot pay rent and survive when in the past they could. That is rising inequality.

30 is approaching middle age. Middle aged goes from 35-55 it is just that there are so many old people in the country now that mentalities are starting to shift.

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I think you might just find that income and asset wealth have something in common for the vast bulk of people who are not born as trust fund babies. However, the dispersion of asset wealth most definitely makes mobility of relative wealth much harder to overcome. This has become larger in the US and the American Dream is fading into obscurity. Who are the "they" who wants this to happen? Are Americans singing to the same tune on desiring massive inequality nearing those of despotic Latin American regimes? Why would they do this? Or, by Americans, do you mean some subset who wants it...because you can ask another subset which would not, and another which wants defense against alien invasion.

The comment which I made in relation to inequality related to comparisons of between the US and Australia which you previously made. If we revert to inequality measures based on wealth as opposed to income, you can turn up the volume on my prior statements to overdrive. Australia has nothing like the inequality in income or assets that the US does. Not everything in the world is leading to an extreme Feudal system. What next? Are we going to get stats on Prima Nocte in Australia vs the US?

If there is increasing inequality in Australia as measured by poverty, please outline where the Hilda studies are wrong when they show the opposite of what you are saying. They are the definitive source for such matters because of the detailed longitudinal database which they have developed and any errors should be reported upwards. Do you have contravening data?

On middle age, in the Middle Ages being middle aged would cut in at around 15. Should we use that definition, or the one which is slightly more relevant to the 21st century?

Mrmagoo said:

I think that inherently Australia is a lot less equal than we like to make out. The well off in this country hold their vanity as valuable as they do their money.

There are a long list of things which are not so equal in Australia which are promptly ignored in favor of referring exclusively to our supposed "universal healthcare" which is far from universal and very expensive and our slightly higher minimum wage laws which do not seem to benefit anyone - try raising a kid and paying rent in Sydney on a MacDonald salary and the comparison to the US is not so different. .

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Why does someone have to aspire to working in McDonalds and pay rent in Sydney?

Obviously there are McDonalds, in areas other than Sydney, that have far cheaper rent.

Then again maybe doing night school and attaining other qualifications, could open other work opportunities.

I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't move to the city untill my career and skill set were well developed and it was possible to obtain employment against stiff competition.
It is obvious everyone wants to live in the major cities, so it follows the competition for work is at a higher level than in remote areas.
It just seems crazy that someone would struggle away in Sydney, on a low paying job, when the obvious opportunities appear to be in more remote areas.

DeepState said:

I think you might just find that income and asset wealth have something in common for the vast bulk of people who are not born as trust fund babies.

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I disagree. I think wealth inequality is generational and designed that way through the housing policy. It is a way of bribing the older generations to vote for the continued degradation of younger generations so that rich people can have more money and power.

DeepState said:

The comment which I made in relation to inequality related to comparisons of between the US and Australia which you previously made. If we revert to inequality measures based on wealth as opposed to income, you can turn up the volume on my prior statements to overdrive. Australia has nothing like the inequality in income or assets that the US does. Not everything in the world is leading to an extreme Feudal system. What next? Are we going to get stats on Prima Nocte in Australia vs the US?

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We do if you compare it between generations ? The family home is the main asset of most people, many of the younger generations will never be able to own a home.

If we calculated the life of a low income person say between 35-55 equivalent with the desire to own a home starting from a time born in the 1950s to their age 70 or 80s and did the same for a person born in the early 1990s and extrapolated the results we would most likely find that once retired the person born in the 1990s would not be able to pay rent. While the person born in the 1950s would own a 3 bedroom home in an outer suburb, possibly an investment property and have a sizable super accessible at a reasonable age.

You can make up a bunch of stuff and say that person doesn't matter and only look at very aggregate results for a person that either doesn't exist or is even more limited and claim something from that which I think is pretty wrong as the homeless elderly person from my example would still be homeless.

If that is not inequality then you're just playing around with a narrowly defined technical definition which doesn't mean anything beyond its own self contained definition.

sptrawler said:

Why does someone have to aspire to working in McDonalds and pay rent in Sydney?

Obviously there are McDonalds, in areas other than Sydney, that have far cheaper rent.

Then again maybe doing night school and attaining other qualifications, could open other work opportunities.

I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't move to the city untill my career and skill set were well developed and it was possible to obtain employment against stiff competition.
It is obvious everyone wants to live in the major cities, so it follows the competition for work is at a higher level than in remote areas.
It just seems crazy that someone would struggle away in Sydney, on a low paying job, when the obvious opportunities appear to be in more remote areas.

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Are you suggesting people move to areas of lower employment because they're rural areas ? You have this back to front. Rural areas are infested with unemployment.

Some people don't want to get qualifications. Does that mean they should just live in tents ?

What about outer suburbs ? Are they not part of Sydney ? Many of us are born to parents with low incomes and are born in such areas which are also very expensive.

That is a very narrow point of view. Sydney is a large metropolitan area and all of it, even the supposed low income areas are too expensive for a person working at McDonald's.

Secondly you shouldn't judge people who are working for low incomes as you do not know their circumstances or how they got there and furthermore, someone has to do it.

This is what I mean by a class system. People think that just because you work at McDonald's that you should eat dirt. It is not right but the political debate in Australia is run by vain hypocrites who like to think of themselves as caring but do spit on low income earners regularly and will vote for the party which crushes them. Both ALP and the LNP are bad. I would say the LNP is better for low income people, just based on a comparison between the Howard years and the ALP years.

So to say we're somehow better than the US based on a Gini coefficient or a discussion of minimum wage earners is wrong. There are other reasons why we are better than them and it is do to with education, health and workplace rights, but minimum wage earning is not one of those areas anymore.

Mrmagoo said:

Are you suggesting people move to areas of lower employment because they're rural areas ? You have this back to front. Rural areas are infested with unemployment.

Some people don't want to get qualifications. Does that mean they should just live in tents ?

What about outer suburbs ? Are they not part of Sydney ? Many of us are born to parents with low incomes and are born in such areas which are also very expensive.

That is a very narrow point of view. Sydney is a large metropolitan area and all of it, even the supposed low income areas are too expensive for a person working at McDonald's.

Secondly you shouldn't judge people who are working for low incomes as you do not know their circumstances or how they got there and furthermore, someone has to do it.

This is what I mean by a class system. People think that just because you work at McDonald's that you should eat dirt. It is not right but the political debate in Australia is run by vain hypocrites who like to think of themselves as caring but do spit on low income earners regularly and will vote for the party which crushes them. Both ALP and the LNP are bad. I would say the LNP is better for low income people, just based on a comparison between the Howard years and the ALP years.

So to say we're somehow better than the US based on a Gini coefficient or a discussion of minimum wage earners is wrong. There are other reasons why we are better than them and it is do to with education, health and workplace rights, but minimum wage earning is not one of those areas anymore.

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Some people want to spend their megre earnings on smokes and take away food also, that is also their right, same as not wanting to get an education.

Nobody is saying that someone who works in McDonalds should eat dirt, but if McDonalds isn't paying enough for someone to afford living in Sydney, then that person needs to re assess their situation.

One of my sons ran off the rails and at 27 started an apprenticeship, after much self induced drama he finished it seven years later.
He now works in a remote town, it was too expensive and competitive in Perth, so now he relocated to a country town, saving for a deposit on a house in Perth.
Also gaining experience in his work, which will help him get work back in Perth, when he relocates.
I really can't see any other way of getting ahead, other than expecting a lotto win or a handout.

When I mention remote areas, I am suggesting areas of low unemployment, this normally is associated with Northern Australia.
Not Southern Australia, where 95% of the population want to live, it's the other 70% of Australia where no one wants to go.
Plenty of opportunity up there, just not many want to go there.

sptrawler said:

Some people want to spend their megre earnings on smokes and take away food also, that is also their right, same as not wanting to get an education.

Nobody is saying that someone who works in McDonalds should eat dirt, but if McDonalds isn't paying enough for someone to afford living in Sydney, then that person needs to re assess their situation.

One of my sons ran off the rails and at 27 started an apprenticeship, after much self induced drama he finished it seven years later.
He now works in a remote town, it was too expensive and competitive in Perth, so now he relocated to a country town, saving for a deposit on a house in Perth.
Also gaining experience in his work, which will help him get work back in Perth, when he relocates.
I really can't see any other way of getting ahead, other than expecting a lotto win or a handout.

When I mention remote areas, I am suggesting areas of low unemployment, this normally is associated with Northern Australia.
Not Southern Australia, where 95% of the population want to live, it's the other 70% of Australia where no one wants to go.
Plenty of opportunity up there, just not many want to go there.

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You have got it all wrong. THere are no jobs in the country. Most people are stuck in the cities they are born. Cities are not some magical luxury where all the rich people live. They're where most people are stuck.

The smokes and beer things is pretty similar to a racist attitude. Are you saying low income people should not be able to purchase basic luxuries ?

This is what I mean Aussies love the sound of equality as it flatters them but they don't like the reality of it as it means poor people can buy beer and smokes and live near where they were born and raised and be able to buy a house. The attitude of most Aussies is stuff them I am better than them I deserve everything and they deserve nothing.

i.e almost identical to americans

Mrmagoo said:

You have got it all wrong. THere are no jobs in the country. Most people are stuck in the cities they are born. Cities are not some magical luxury where all the rich people live. They're where most people are stuck.

The smokes and beer things is pretty similar to a racist attitude. Are you saying low income people should not be able to purchase basic luxuries ?

This is what I mean Aussies love the sound of equality as it flatters them but they don't like the reality of it as it means poor people can buy beer and smokes and live near where they were born and raised and be able to buy a house. The attitude of most Aussies is stuff them I am better than them I deserve everything and they deserve nothing.

i.e almost identical to americans

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From what you are saying, everyone should live in the city, expect to recieve a house and work if they feel like it.

Well put me down for some of that.

sptrawler said:

From what you are saying, everyone should live in the city, expect to recieve a house and work if they feel like it.

Well put me down for some of that.

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2/3 of ALL Australians live in Urban areas.

Most of the problem with Australia is the lack of... you know what.... passs... yeah only rich people live in cities thumbs up mate ! Good one ! Those damned city folk !

Mrmagoo said:

You have got it all wrong. THere are no jobs in the country. Most people are stuck in the cities they are born. Cities are not some magical luxury where all the rich people live. They're where most people are stuck.

The smokes and beer things is pretty similar to a racist attitude. Are you saying low income people should not be able to purchase basic luxuries ?

This is what I mean Aussies love the sound of equality as it flatters them but they don't like the reality of it as it means poor people can buy beer and smokes and live near where they were born and raised and be able to buy a house. The attitude of most Aussies is stuff them I am better than them I deserve everything and they deserve nothing.

i.e almost identical to americans

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Um, yeah Mrmagoo, low income people shouldn't be able to purchase 'basic luxuries' such as cigarettes and alcohol at the same time as trying to survive and get by. It's not discrimination, it's just recognition of their poor decision making. "Luxury - a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense." I can't afford to drink and smoke, in fact I can hardly afford to go to the pub once a month to catch up with a few friends over a couple of pints. I am a full-time degree educated employee, with a full-time employed tertiary educated wife living in a capital city and trying to buy a house. We're sacrificing now so that we can get ahead, the same as our parents did.

I know people that came from the same background as me, got the same (lack of) help as me, spent the same amount of time in the workforce as me, and guess what? They're doing much better than I am financially. They've bought a home and an investment property. They're saving large portions of their income, and can afford dinner at the pub without checking the monthly cash flow before they decide to go out. Do you know why they can do that? It's because I chose to drink and smoke, they chose to save and invest.

They traded the grog, tobacco, drugs and trips to Europe and Bali that are a rite of passage for seemingly everyone not ready to grow up, leave home and join the real world, for a home deposit or capital for a business so that they could set themselves up financially.

Your endless moaning about woe is me, the system is out to get me, it's all terrible doom and gloom is almost physically painful to read. If you aren't happy where you are, move. I couldn't get professional work where I grew up and lived, so I left. I didn't want to stay pouring beers at a pub until I was 25.

Hell, Brisbane has 2 bed townhouses 30 minute bus trip to the CBD door to door for 230k. That's a $14,000 or so deposit and a mortgage of ~$1,250 a month. Toowoomba has 4 bed houses for $300k, big backyard and all. There are 11 pages of ads on Seek for jobs paying over 60k in Toowoomba. There are some paying much more than that.

Can't cut it in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth? Get over it. There is a whole other country out there and people go to work there every day. You don't automatically get the entitlement to buy a home in your suburb of choice just because you were born there.

Mrmagoo said:

2/3 of ALL Australians live in Urban areas.

Most of the problem with Australia is the lack of... you know what.... passs... yeah only rich people live in cities thumbs up mate ! Good one ! Those damned city folk !

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You have hit the nail on the head, lack of being prepared to get off their ar$e and go North, the place is full of 457 visa workers and backpackers.
Why?
Because lazy Aussies, want to sit on their ar$es in the cities, rather than live in an uncomfortable climate.

Just to clarify, I have lived and worked in the North and it was before airconditioning was available.

Which leads to an old saying, " you get out, what you put in".

So either, the world stops to let you catch up, or you re assess you're options to get on board.

Vixs said:

Um, yeah Mrmagoo, low income people shouldn't be able to purchase 'basic luxuries' such as cigarettes and alcohol at the same time as trying to survive and get by.

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As I said we are NOT an equal society. Thank you for agreeing with me.

Vixs said:

Um, yeah Mrmagoo, low income people shouldn't be able to purchase 'basic luxuries' such as cigarettes and alcohol at the same time as trying to survive and get by. It's not discrimination, it's just recognition of their poor decision making. "Luxury - a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense." I can't afford to drink and smoke, in fact I can hardly afford to go to the pub once a month to catch up with a few friends over a couple of pints. I am a full-time degree educated employee, with a full-time employed tertiary educated wife living in a capital city and trying to buy a house. We're sacrificing now so that we can get ahead, the same as our parents did.

I know people that came from the same background as me, got the same (lack of) help as me, spent the same amount of time in the workforce as me, and guess what? They're doing much better than I am financially. They've bought a home and an investment property. They're saving large portions of their income, and can afford dinner at the pub without checking the monthly cash flow before they decide to go out. Do you know why they can do that? It's because I chose to drink and smoke, they chose to save and invest.

They traded the grog, tobacco, drugs and trips to Europe and Bali that are a rite of passage for seemingly everyone not ready to grow up, leave home and join the real world, for a home deposit or capital for a business so that they could set themselves up financially.

Your endless moaning about woe is me, the system is out to get me, it's all terrible doom and gloom is almost physically painful to read. If you aren't happy where you are, move. I couldn't get professional work where I grew up and lived, so I left. I didn't want to stay pouring beers at a pub until I was 25.

Hell, Brisbane has 2 bed townhouses 30 minute bus trip to the CBD door to door for 230k. That's a $14,000 or so deposit and a mortgage of ~$1,250 a month. Toowoomba has 4 bed houses for $300k, big backyard and all. There are 11 pages of ads on Seek for jobs paying over 60k in Toowoomba. There are some paying much more than that.

Can't cut it in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth? Get over it. There is a whole other country out there and people go to work there every day. You don't automatically get the entitlement to buy a home in your suburb of choice just because you were born there.

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My brain is in a minor meltdown after you mentioned you are a dual income professional couple with no kids.

1) A dual income professional couple can't afford to go to the pub once a month ?????? Wow. This country is more rotten than I thought.

2) Working at a pub is a strong hold of employment for handsome people. Have you considered a career in sales (being serious here) ? I always suggest handsome people try their hand at sales. You can make a fortune from commission.

3) A discussion of income inequality means that people on low incomes can't afford pretty basic stuff, when that happens society in unequal.

4) Our parents drank, smoked played around at whatever and some ever went to Europe and could still afford to purchase houses as the multiple was only 3 times average income. My old man spent most of his youth around race tracks losing all his money yet still bought a house.

5) Like most political commentary you confuse an opinion different to your own with something evil.

6) My life is pretty good. I am not struggling by any means. It is just I have done the sums and home ownership doesn't pass basic math without exceptional capital growth. Plus I can't really afford the $600 a week it would cost to pay off a relatively small mortgage over 30 years. The house will come if I ever get married.

7) Number 6 doesn't really matter, because as a general discussion point, housing is expensive and poorer people spend a lot higher % of their income on housing.

8) I don't really agree with anything you have said because it essentially amounts to you think that any amount of horribleness can be worked around by simply working harder and your point of struggle is a dual income professional couple with no kids, which causes my mind to just about explode from the irony of it all. You can't just work hard and magically become well off, it doesn't work like that. Giving up basically everything just to be able to survive is the definition of a poor person. Dude, you're poor, you're not really sacrificing for anything. You're poor. We're all poor people. In our parents day no one saved 5 years as a dual income professional couple for a property. Very least they waited till the mid to late 90s and got a home loan with no deposit. Many people inherited and used the money as a deposit. Many got paid absurd union wages in the 80s and had a deposit after one months work.

9) if you need to sacrifice as lot to get basic stuff, that means we've gone economically backwards and if someone else didn't have to work as hard to get it or sacrifice as much, that makes society unequal.

sptrawler said:

You have hit the nail on the head, lack of being prepared to get off their ar$e and go North, the place is full of 457 visa workers and backpackers.
Why?
Because lazy Aussies, want to sit on their ar$es in the cities, rather than live in an uncomfortable climate.

Just to clarify, I have lived and worked in the North and it was before airconditioning was available.

Which leads to an old saying, " you get out, what you put in".

So either, the world stops to let you catch up, or you re assess you're options to get on board.

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Yes I agree. People's inability to tolerate heat is exactly what is causing increased wealth inequality in Australia.

Mrmagoo said:

Yes I agree. People's inability to tolerate heat is exactly what is causing increased wealth inequality in Australia.

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More people's inability to accept, that they are to some degree responsible for their own outcomes, rather than an intolerance to heat.
There are also opportunities at Antarctica.
The only way to get equality, is to not reward endeavour, then everyone goes to the lowest common denominator.

sptrawler said:

More people's inability to accept, that they are to some degree responsible for their own outcomes, rather than an intolerance to heat.
There are also opportunities at Antarctica.
The only way to get equality, is to not reward endeavour, then everyone goes to the lowest common denominator.

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No you clearly mentioned the heat.

Mrmagoo said:

No you clearly mentioned the heat.

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O.K you aren't interested in the debate, looking for bigger fish?

So_Cynical said:

I spend some time on another forum that is dominated by Americans and can support Mrmagoos thinking, there is a near hysterical fear among Americans that paying people more than $7 an hour will some how destroy the US economy and disadvantage the US somehow...somehow its all tied into the US College education system and its quite ok for semi professionals and alike to make big dollars while the less educated struggle away.

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Might that forum have content which favors membership by social conservatives who care less about inequality than average by some reasonable margin, think the economy is stuffed beyond correction and hence favour low wages for the worker and prefer smaller government for social transfers of many kinds? If unsure, please whack up a question on atheists and homosexuality and report back on how fast your screen melted from abuse. That would provide a reasonable gauge.

Mrmagoo said:

We do if you compare it between generations ? The family home is the main asset of most people, many of the younger generations will never be able to own a home.

.....

You can make up a bunch of stuff and say that person doesn't matter and only look at very aggregate results for a person that either doesn't exist or is even more limited and claim something from that which I think is pretty wrong as the homeless elderly person from my example would still be homeless.

If that is not inequality then you're just playing around with a narrowly defined technical definition which doesn't mean anything beyond its own self contained definition.

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Without a basis of cross-sectional comparison, wherein some are wealthier or earn higher income than others, you cannot have inequalities. It is a relative concept. A single person cannot be poorer or more disadvantaged than themselves. You developed the concept further by making cross-sectional comparisons between current levels of inequality in the US and that of Australia. Comparisons of comparisons. If you want to talk about inter generational stuff in the way you have, you can say that inequality appears to have risen. If you want to harp on about individual cases or concepts of absolute hardship for subgroups, then please start up another thread on Absolute Poverty. Alternatively, find yourself the correct definition of inequality. It's not a particularly technical concept that is narrowly applicable.