sonofgloin, old mate. How you equate that Australians prefer to spend their money instead of saving it, equates to us being poorer, is beyond me.

Being spendthrifts over being savers is indicative of a contented and profligate people who have little concern for the future. I am 62, and anybody who tries to tell me that we are poorer today than 50 years ago, I know needs his or her head read. Where you get this socialist crap from, I simply do not know. But you probably got it from some lefty publication. My answer to that stupidity, is the old American retort "Hell, I was there."

Dick claimed that he could prove that Australians are poorer by comparing meat pie prices. For all I know, meat pies may be more expensive today, I just don't know. But in the past, a meat pie was just a meat pie. We sure as hell did not have meat pies with mushrooms, meat pies with bacon, meat pies with cheese, and everything else you can buy down the supermarket today. As matter of fact, even large supermarkets of yesterday were probably less than half the size of what they are today.

Consumer products are infinitely cheaper today. Second hand cars used to be so expensive that they were a real family investment that only working adults could afford, and people looked after them for decades. Cars like Hillman Imps, Mini Minors, and EH holdens were very basic cars with no add ons like heaters, demisters, blinkers (using blinkers to turn was illegal) or AM radios. Today, even girls can afford new cars with air conditioning, power steering, ABS brakes, GPS navigation,and CD players.

Transistor radios were very expensive.(and big) Today, even toys for small children can come with a radio set. The thing that you do not understand, because you have been conned by devious people, is that luxury items which were once the consumer goods that only the rich could afford, are now cheap enough to be owned by ordinary people.

Lego>> Where you get this socialist crap from, I simply do not know.<<

Sadly Lego that is not all you do not know.

What socialist crap Lego, given you deem me a socialist. In particular what socialist crap do you glean from my post?

It was a very short post and easy to comprehend. But for your sake my fellow interlocutor I will couch the post in terms that you can grasp..... I will repeat and simplify the previous post for you sport.

Point 1: 40 years ago the average Aussie household had twice the cash savings in the bank compared to today.
Point 2: 40 years ago the average Aussie household had ONE QUARTER of the debt to financial institutions than it is shackled to in 2014.

Lego these numbers and many more like them are to be found at Government web sites, such as the one I previously posted.

Lego you are no dill....but given the Aussie of today have less than half the savings.....and FOUR times the debt of their equal in 1970, anybody with the sense to put pants on in the morning can extrapolate that the majority of Aussies are one pay cheque away from life changing personal disaster.

As I have said I am not a follower of the Ashkenazi originated socialist system. Nor am I a fan of the Ashkenazi originated capitalist system in its present form.

The banks have gone from being an instrument to fund and to facilitate transaction procedures for private enterprise and national infrastructure projects to owning 40% of the globes assets and reaping 60% of global corporate profits.......From slave to master..

Just because you do not comprehend the enormity of our enslavement to a handful of bankers and I do...that does not make me a socialist sport!

Lego,
you have outlined as nobody else has, the differences of living well within our means, and or, greatly exceeding them, based largely on several false premises? i.e., more unaffordable housing adds to actual disposable wealth.
Yes the bike racks are empty, so are the school sporting Fields, and too many are waddling to the car park on their way home?
All the alleged improvements have been purchased with record domestic and foreign debt; or, the fire sale of the wealth of generations yet unborn?
The middle class is a disappearing class. and the gap between the haves and have nots is an exponentially widening one!
And the rising debt has created a (false) sense of security, or an economy awash with real money!
A MacMansion and a two car garage doesn't necessarily mean more actual wealth. Just much bigger mortgages, bigger insurance and rates bills, and or hire purchase agreements you could paper the walls with!?
And there are too many self-deluded fools, who see something better in this lifestyle, where both partners work too many hours, to the point, where the only possible destination is the divorce courts, bankruptcy, and or years spent trying to reduce a massive personal debt burden.
It's not wealth, but rather the emperor's new clothes, or an economy, that resembles a warm and comfortable frog, being slowing brought to the boil and lethal consequences!?
We probably will have another depression, and people who have had it too easy for too long, will not be able to cope or adapt, and consequently spend what remains of their lives, becoming even more bitter and twisted, or blame-shifting fools?
Every western style economy rests on just two support pillars, energy and capital!
Not only do we pay far too much for both, but we have placed both in the hands of whiteanting foreigners, who have no national patriotism whatsoever, just eyes glued in an almost maniacal fashion, to a bottom line, which must always grow, come what may!
Ah for the days of ethical business, ethical regulation, where any profit was a good profit!
Rhrosty.

Graham perhaps needs add "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down"
with counters....

Sadly without "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down" here is not so easy to work towards some agreement on what to do...

Else how can we agree on changes for the better of al

This article in today's guardian is right on topic:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/27/thomas-piketty-economist-american-dream