Agree! Wages on average are just 16% of the cost to the bottom line, whereas the middle energy costs as much or more than 30%! The last rising cost of energy has caused most of our inflation.

And not assisted by the paper shuffling, profit demanding middleman! Nor Commission sales people talking up prices to increase their margins!

If all commission sales were outlawed and replaced by salaried staff, this would force the real estate industry to replace margins with volume to stay afloat! Thus putting downward pressure on house prices!

And this would also remove a large portion of parasite realtors from the industry!

As for energy? We can force the price of this way way down with new technology! That technology being MSR thorium and prices as low as 1 cent PKWH! And far far cheaper than renewables!

And if adopted here would indeed create an energy super power 24/7! And not just when the sun shines or the wind blows!

And the latter needs still expensive batteries to be reliable 24/7 adding considerably to (Tripling) retail costs, more so if we retain the middleman, paper shuffling, profit demanding and unecessary wholesaler!

Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees or shooting oneself in one's own economic foot!

Way too many people know about MSR thorium for Labor to continue to claim renewables are the cheapest!

Q. How can we tell when a pollie is lying?
A. His/her lips move!
Alan B.

Correction. The "middle" energy costs should simply read the energy costs. A virus moves text and words to try and force me to buy Macfee security.

What's the odds that MacFee is the source of that text and word moving virus? And bound to fail given I will never ever buy any MacFee product! So carry on MacFee, I've got nothing but time.
Alan B.

Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods and services. Increasing wages as per Labor ignorance would be like the proverbial dog chasing its tail. Governments need to cut spending; so do individuals.

The violins are out for the working poor!

Here are some quick fix ideas to help the working poor, and the desperate, the non-working poor. Those on fixed incomes subject to the whims of Politicians lost in the space of ivory towers.

Primarily, start at the bottom consideration of the most desperate, many of whom are starving themselves to pay unregulated rents, and unforgiving private retailers of electricity.

Yes, we have people starving in this country.
Governments need to react immediately to this aspect of true inequality, totally outside of the rainbow false flag of gay rights, projected by the ABC standard metric of inequality.

The best and fairest regulator of inequality is not wages, repeat, not wages.
It is actually Government interventionist policies geared towards containg outgoings beyond the control of poor wage earners and those below them!
Minimum wages as an issue is as false a flag as the rainbow model.

Cont.,

Cont.,

The method used to most effect is regulation. Rent controls are most urgently in need of implementation.

Taxing profits currently free of tax in the ten trillion dollar housing market, is the next obvious step. Politicians with the guts to do this will only come from those willing to vote with a bullet, because the likelyhood of any meaningful changes for the increasing numbers of the poor in our communities currently ignored, ( let’s not divide them for convenience into sub groups), will NOT eventuate from a politically elite group, entirely fixated on their own self interest.

Further; since an estimated thirty percent of our economy is hidden under the counter from tax obligations, it’s best to face the fact officially.
Accepting that a large portion of the poor supplement incomes by trading in illicit drugs, prohibitions on the import of illicit drugs should be lifted, to allow this illegal trade to be fully observed and dealt with openly and realistically; a move alloying the devastation of drug use, to be grasped and dealt with.

Authors like the one posting his divorced from reality opinions on minimum wage inequality, are actually allowing themselves to be used for the benefit of Political elites, to dodge their obligations towards serving the entirety of our communities, not just the convenient few at the top.

Regards,
“Vote with a bullet party”

Dan.

Rather than expecting governments to solve their money problems, the "working poor" should seek advise - free counselling from the Salvation Army is available - on how to budget: another thing that is thought of as too lowly to be taught in schools. Budgeting and prioritising spending can solve their problems, as can not thinking that they can live the way rich people seen on TV do - or seem to do.

Mass immigration, soon to recommence no matter which party wins, also keeps wages down. No mention of this in the campaign.

As for Labor’s promise to push up wages in isolation, IPA economists say that would lead to:

" a 2.25 percentage point increase to inflation, taking inflation from the current rate of 5.1% to 7.36%;push mortgage rates up by 57 basis points, taking the average mortgage rate from the current rate of 4.52% to 5.05%;cost the average mortgage holder an extra $273.27 per month in higher mortgage payments, which is $3,279 per year; and push the average small business lending rate from 4.75% to 5.41%."

ttbn

So you agree with the experts in this instance, where on previous occasions you reviled against similar experts, when the argument was opposed to your desired outcomes, re COVID restrictions advised by medical experts.

It’s when experts get to rule, is the true problem, let’s keep focused.

A simple shifting round of taxation obligations could easily solve the problems of the impoverished renter classes, currently the most maligned financial group in our communities.

A system of franking credits given to corporate investors to reduce income tax obligations, could be applied to renters on low wages. This would greatly assist low paid workers without the need for Government handouts, such as rent assistance, which goes straight into the pocket of the landlord in increased (unregulated) rents.

Far better than wage increases designed to ameliorate the increasing cost of living. It’s already in some States a given that fuel tax reductions be given towards lowering fuel prices. So Governments are willing to comply to necessity.

Regulating rents to a factor applicable to unimproved capital values, such as Councils factor your rates cost annually, would unhinge rents from unfair and unreasonable market fluctuations as the driving factor in rents. If it’s a good 3nough system for Councils to fleece you of rates, so it would be for renters to give them security of tenure and @void unpredictable rent rises forcing them from rented properties they call home.

Dan

DD, you need a landlord like my wife. She gave the Indian girl students 3 months free rent in our flat in Sydney during Covid. She wasn't asking for pay back, now they have moved out. The agent said she was crazy to do that, but she felt sorry for them, $4600 sorry.

Unfortunately, there is a real risk that Tristan will get what he hopes for, and the wage share of GDP could rise sharply in the next few years.

Historically, periods when the wage share has risen significantly in relatively short periods have been times when the profit share has fallen sharply; which is almost always caused by, or a cause of, recession. So the post-war peak in the wages share was in 1975, when the economy was a stagflation-riddled basket case afflicted with the (then) highest unemployment rate since WW2. This is hardly a benchmark to aspire to.

The level or direction of the wage share is a virtually meaningless measure of the wellbeing of workers or the fairness of the economy. It is influenced by economic structure, levels of development, capital intensity, taxation, government spending, capital deepening, technological change and a host of other factors. For example, one of the most spectacular drops in the wage share of a modern advanced economy occurred in Ireland between 2014 and 2015, when the labour share of GVA dropped from 47% to 36%. This was because changes in the tax system saw a large number of global companies relocate their European headquarters to Ireland and declare their profits there, resulting in a large jump in nominal GDP. This probably had little effect on average Irish workers, and if anything the extra economic activity and taxes would have benefitted them. But by Tristan’s measure, this was a disaster for workers.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pii/productivityinireland2018/gvaandthelabourshare/#:~:text=Prior%20to%202010%2C%20labour%20share,pre%2Drecession%20levels%20of%20growth.

There are many more useful and meaningful measures of workers’ economic well-being – growth in real average and median earnings, the earnings distribution; growth in compensation of employees, and broader measures such as real household disposable income.

Dan, franking credits are what you get from owned shares! And if you are wealthy enough to own shares and therefore earn dividends along with the aforementioned franking credits? It's hardly likely that you are one of the working poor!

If you want downward pressure on house prices then we need to seriously ramp up the supply side.

One way would be to force state governments to rezone more urban land! And could be down by withholding their share of the GST until they complied and removed stamp duty and all other front loaded taxes.

Another, to build rapid rail and rezone huge swathes of rail-side land. Another to limit negative gearing to brand new build only and then limit it to 5 or 6 per investor! Another, to outlaw foreign investment in the real estate market by non resident investors and do so retrospectively.

The latter investment practice, is what crueled the Celtic economic miracle! And the last thing we need here!
Alan B.

If we would halve the cost of living or doing business? then we need to eliminate the paper shuffling, profit demanding middlemen! And replace commission sales people with salaried staff!

This would reduce salespeople in the real estate field and all but force realtors to change to volume sales rather than talk up value in the hope of higher and higher margins!

Unless this change is acted on by Authority, this huge bubble that is the current over inflated real estate market, is going to do what over inflated bubbles always do!

The government cannot prop this bubble up forever, in the hope of saving politicians' retirement investments? And need to do what needs doing to quite massively increase supply!

And if that results in a few pollies getting their fat little fingers burned? Then, tough titties, it's not what we paid you to do!
Alan B.

A system of franking credits AB, means a system that gives a tax break to dividend payments geared exponentially downwards, giving greater reward for taxation relief on the dividend to the least wealthy investor. A scheme that mimics franking credits, would be helpful to low paid workers who make a large share of the renter class.

These credits could differ to the standard maximum 30% deduction in franking credits, and increased to a 100% credit in the case of rent subsidy through taxation relief of the poorer payed workers, tied to wage levels of thirty percent of income, or less for married couples with children.

On its own, that would not be sufficient compensation under current market attachment of rents ATM, but coupling rents to an index of unimproved capital value of rented properties, would stabilise rents and bring them back to affordable levels, reducing pressure on wage increases which effectively go towards propping-up landlords profits in a round-about way.

There are generous tax breaks for landlords and nil for renters, this must change and change quickly. Already it’s reaching the stage of a Human Rights catastrophe IMO, from my own view of the world around me.

Ten years ago, it was people capping themselves with ropes around branches of trees, as an observed epidemic. Today the epidemic has deepened in meaning, I’ve lost count of the numbers of people evicted from rental properties, as rents escalated under a market forces attachment.

Dan.