Education & Work Have a job and yet living in poverty

Move to the tropics then. LOL.

 

I personally know of people (as I'm sure you do too) who have come from very difficult circumstances who have managed to turn it around and have a prosperous life. The main reason is because they are were lucky enough to be doing it in this country (where opportunity is everywhere) & they made a CHOICE to give it a solid go. There is this moment in time where you've had enough..where you make a decision...to achieve something great and let nothing stand in your way. I think if your desire is strong enough - anything is possible.

 

Brisbane is nowhere near "that" level.. it's very affordable.

I was listening to 'triple j - the hack' the other day where they were looking into the apartment glut and, with such a boom and oversupply of apartments, why hasn't the rent dropped?
Their case study was a brand new 2bed 2 bath unit in West End with river views (West End is as trendy as it gets). The rent was $550/wk. So the calls come in "why isn't the rent dropping.. how can I afford this when I take home $600/wk??"

I know if I was a renter I wouldn't be thinking I'm entitled to rent these premium properties (and I earn a pretty good income). Yet low income earners think it's their right to live in the most prestigious properties.. typical

The fact is the apartment glut has dramatically reduced rental prices, on the city fringe in established (60's/70's brick) unit blocks. Not that the gen y's would consider these

 

If I was receiving the same income in Tasmania, be easily killing it with more property acquisitions, several holidays per year, binge spend on things and etc.

 

Great point. Products are made for target markets. If Mercedes overbuilds C63 AMG, they’re not going to massively discount it just to get people in to the car.

They’ve overbuilt inner city luxury apartments, unless the landlords become desperate they will wait for a luxury tenant.

 

Lol yeah because previous generations were totally lining up to buy walk-up units even when these buildings were brand new. Growing up, we lived in one of those (as a rental) for a grand total of one year while my parents were building their house in Melbourne. They would never have dreamed of buying one to live in long-term and they came here as migrants with limited education and income. Don't apply standards to young people that were never true for previous generations

 

This has been discussed before. Last time I raised this I was yelled at that every person in Australia is better off than millions of other people around the world. Apparently they should be grateful they were lucky enough to be born in Australia and not some other country where they will be worse off.

 

A brick unit wasn't good enough for your parents? So they built a double storey brick house on a 1000sqm block, next door to the unit block in an inner city suburb? Because it was so much more affordable back then? Not sure what your point is..

My point is - people with a job, living in poverty, who are often renters, should not be expecting to rent premium properties.

 

Do they though? People often post these kinds of things on here and it's usually extremely exaggerated and untrue. I have never met anyone who lives in literal poverty and expects a 'premium' property (as an actual expectation, not in a 'if I won the lottery' type of way).

 

don't even need to talk about those people struggling.


Imagine if the middle class suddenly took on this mindset and made wealth building their priority. The young will focus their energy from school age, avoid careers that do good to society but low pay, ppl leaving their boring yet necessary 9-5 jobs, everyones’ an entrepreneur, more businesses that make more junk – who’ll be the teachers, the bus drivers, the garbage collectors, real journalists, scientists that just study for the love of knowledge (Faraday didn’t discover electricity to be a billionaire), the stay at home parent etc etc


There’s nothing wrong with people not have the same zeal and drive for wealth or not having the abilities or competencies as some here. It gives us a balanced stable society (which some on the forum have been able to build their wealth) and a great country to live in. Let ppl have their weekend coffee rants over avocado with friends

 

I can guarantee you they do.. not all poverty stricken folk wear rags and live on the streets, they're gen y kids with a personal trainer certificate earning $34k a year, spending $50k a year on clothes, holidays and iphones. Not long ago I used to house share with exhibit A, and all his mates were in the same boat.. complaining they couldn't live in a mansion. But I want an oompaloompa noooow daddy!

 

Mixing socialism and capitalism creates an entitlement mentality.

The capitalists (doers) subsidize the socialists (talkers).

 

Hundreds and hundreds of free channels? Not on my TV.

 

Mine either. I was referring to those pay tv channels. There are literally hundreds you can pay for (and people do) from all over the world.

 

Looks like nothing has changed since Orwell 1937:

... To get rid of class-distinctions you have got to start by understanding how one class appears when seen through the eyes of another. It is useless to say that the middle classes are "snobbish" and leave it at that. You get no further if you do not realise that snobbishness is bound up with a species of idealism ...

Every middle-class person has a dormant class-prejudice which needs only a small thing to arouse it ... Suggest to the average unthinking person of gentle birth who is struggling to keep up appearances ... that he is a member of an exploiting parasite class, and he will think you are mad. In perfect sincerity he will point out to you a dozen ways in which he is worse-off than a working man. In his eyes the workers are not a submerged race of slaves, they are a sinister flood creeping upwards to engulf himself and his family and to sweep all culture and decency out of existence. Hence that queer anxiety lest the working class shall grow too prosperous.

5 Reasons Why The Middle Class Doesn't Understand Poverty

https://www.redletterchristians.org/hating-poor-loving-jesus/ ...Some extracts from the article:

• Susan Fiske, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University She has studied attitudes toward the poor for a dozen years. “It’s the most negative prejudice people report, greater even than racism, “
  
• “You’re looked at like you’re trash. It’s like they think you want nothing out of life. Like you’re not still a person.” Once people are dehumanized, it is easier to ignore their misery and even oppose efforts to help them.

Blaming the Poor for Poverty

• the notion that the poor can make “free and rational choices” and thus can be held responsible for their situation is incorrect. There is accumulating evidence that poverty literally “messes with your mind” in a way that obstructs responsible choices.
• In fact, the “free market” contributes to an environment that makes the poor decidedly unfree: confused, preoccupied, and feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. In other words, being poor makes you cognitively dysfunctional.
• “Poverty captures attention, triggers intrusive thoughts, and reduces cognitive resources.”

Why governments condition opinions on poverty:

• Economist's View: Blaming the Poor for Their Poverty
• https://www.centreforglobaleducation.com/why-governments-are-blaming-poor-their-own-poverty
• http://www.openculture.com/2017/05/...-americans-are-taught-to-hate-themselves.html

Sadly but not unexpectedly ... once again there is dehumanization, ridicule and victim blaming the poor without even an effort or ability to understand poverty, its circumstances, human impacts and social cost...

 

Everyone born in Australia starts with an enormous advantage over most other people in the world, in terms of free schooling and healthcare, freedom to choose their own path and freedom from predation.

 

A national (Australian population: 24 Million) dis-advantage can still be an international advantage (world population = 7.4 Billion).

 

Let's take this to its logical conclusion, shall we? Imagine if everyone started focussing on their finances and building up their assets. What do you think would happen to the value of your assets and the economy in general? It would collapse.

It has always been hilarious to me that high falutin' 'I'm better than the average person' investors look down their noses at the very people they rely on to stay where they (the poor) are so they (the investor) can achieve their wealth goals.

But hey, if kicking people while they're down works for you, then who am I to stop you?

 

On the other side, how about people who yell at other people that there is no real disadvantage in Australia compared to billions of other people in the world and then tell those same people they are ridiculing and victim blaming the poor? If there is not real comparative disadvantage in Australia, who are these "poor" we are supposedly ridiculing?