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On poverty : Comments
By Don Aitkin, published 13/6/2019In our country, and others like them, at election times, and indeed pretty well all the time, poverty is seen as being somehow wrong in principle, and my political party or yours will end it, or at least reduce it.
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Rents are beyond the reach of people on fixed incomes.
A stark choice between homelessness or hunger.
I was talking on the subject of housing with an acquaintance recently who had done his sums with the capital gains of one of his numerous properties. One house in particular has increased in value from $26k in the late seventies when he bought it, to a staggering $1.7m current value.
Out came the calculator to compare wage increases needed in order to maintain a relative chance to purchase the same property today: For wages to increase at the same giddying rate, a justifiable $280 per hour should be expected, based on wage levels at the time of the original purchase.
Over on another page, an acquaintance who has worked as a tradesman for thirty years, gave up his trade in disgust, as his hourly rate of pay had remained unchanged since the late eighties.
These two examples are a stark reminder of the inequality created by the manipulated housing market, and stagnation of wages over many years.
Both of them lead to increases in poverty and homelessness.
Dan.