“consciously abusing your account on this forum”

Hehe Daggett, come on, get real! Just because I am a skeptic and refuse to swallow
every hard luck story that the press writes, you call that abusing this forum.

I actually checked up on some of those stories. The WA renter was upset that at
25 he could not afford to buy a house in one of Perth’s better suburbs. What’s
wrong with Armadale and similar, where houses are half the price? Lots of
young people buying houses in Perth Daggett, they just get off their butts and
help themselves. There will always
be whingers, who blame the world for their problems.

Then I checked on the girl who was going to lose her apartment. She didn’t want
to move further out, again where apartments were available, as the kids would
have to change schools, IIRC.. Umm so what? Kids change schools all the time,
that’s life. Yes I know that lots of people would like to live in the best spots
on the sunshine coast, all very nice. But what say if that doesn’t work out,
they move to where there is accommodation and jobs.

I see the opposite end of this story, every day battlers who don’t whinge and
complain, but get on with life and make the best of what they have. Australia
is full of opportunities and anyone can grab them. That is what market economies
create, opportunities for those who want to have a go.

In the early 90s I employed a 17 year old farm girl as one of the staff here, fresh
out of school. Whilst the other girls blew their wages on clothes, cds, expensive
make up etc, she saved what she could and grabbed any overtime available.

At that stage experienced investors like Kerry Packer were selling Westpac
shares for around the 3$ mark. Next thing I found out that this kid was buying
every share that her paycheck and savings could afford for around 3$ a piece.
She landed up with many thousands. Go and see what they are worth now!

We have been told that:

“There will always
be whingers, who blame the world for their problems”

And yet -

There will always be “whingers” that whinge about other
whingers who blame the world is full of whingers that whinge
- ad infinitum.
______________________________________

Cacofonix,

Thanks for the info. & the url, I will definitely use it.

- Mr Smith

I read a great quote recently: *Knowledge is a process of piling up facts, wisdom is
in their simplification.*

Whilst you Daggett, bog yourself down with Friedman, Chile, the US, plus all
sorts of conspiracy theories about who did what and why, I ignore all that and come
to some very simple, basic conclusions.

I’m not the puppet of any Govt, loaded with people full of their own little agendas.
I know best how I want to live, where I want to live, what I want to do, what gives
my life meaning and purpose. Govt is there to serve the public, not the other way
around.

How others want to earn their money and spend their income, is best left up to them,
they can vote every day with their wallets.

The best thing that we can do is give people every opportunity to help themselves.
Anything else will limit their innovative abilities, which are the key to human progress.

Yes, there is a role for Govt to help the weakest and those who cannot help themselves.
Yes, some basic Govt regulations are needed to regulate certain
things in our society. That is quite different to people being the puppets of
the state, as they are in centrally planned economies, as distinct from market
economies.

BTW, AFAIK the South Australian Housing Trust still exists, with tens of
thousands of houses on its books, providing housing for the poor, much like
Homeswest in WA.

http://www.familiesandcommunities.sa.gov.au/Default.aspx?tabID=2013

These organisations have a role to play in our society. That is quite different
From Fidel’s Cuba, where people are puppets of the State, houses are
falling apart from lack of maintenance and I gather the size of new homes
is 700 sq ft or 65sq metres, or a quarter of the size of our homes. That’s a
shack, not a home :)

As to WA, we are one third of Australia in area, with just 2 million or so
people. We are certainly not overpopulated. We don’t even know how
much iron ore or gas are in the NW. Selling a bit makes perfect-sense.

Wiz, if your sisters are not prepared to lower their standards as to where they live and by what means, then they are simply going to have to bite the bullet and rent where they really want to live, rather than buy. Its simply supply and demand. Everyone of course would prefer to live in the best locations and in the nicest houses. Those that are prepared to lower their standards and make other sacrifices will eventually get to where they want to be, as by taking on lower value mortgages, they have half a chance of paying them off early, then using their equity to buy a place where they REALLY want to be. Its a bit like the good old uni graduate walking into a work place and expecting to be CEO within a year. The philosophy is the same. If you walk into a career with th right attitude and take the time to start a little lower and gain experience in all facets of the business, you are more likely to one day end up in charge.

Country Gal - the point is that my parents 25-30 years ago, on a single income, were able to afford very decent houses in suburbs like Box Hill, Mont Albert and ultimately Balwyn (where Mum still lives, though planning to sell soon). Today my sisters at a similar age can't even afford a small 1 br apartment in Glenroy or Coburg (roughly what they are renting, though my older sister is sharing), and both earn average or above average incomes for their age group.

As little as 6 or 7 years ago prices were reasonable enough for them to at least be able to afford such options, and for us to be able to avoid a small 2-br weatherboard on a main road in Blackburn. Today, if we were first home buyers, we wouldn't even be able to afford that (at least, not without my wife working full-time in a well paid job).

I think it's fair to say the experience of my family is fairly typical of millions in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane particularly.

Yes, it's supply and demand - but there's been a huge surge in demand from investors and speculators with considerable cash at their disposal, and very little change in supply. Hence first home buyers have lost out in a major way. The whole point of the discussion is to look at ways that situation can be ameliorated, or at least avoided in the future once the market eventually returns to reality.

Yabby wrote: "BTW, AFAIK the South Australian Housing Trust still exists, with tens of thousands of houses on its books, providing housing for the poor, much like Homeswest in WA."

This is the fourth time you have made a dishonest pretence at having answered my argument, when, in fact you had not. My argument was this:

"... the housing Trust of South Australia for years made good quality housing available to all levels of South Australian society and never cost the taxpayer a cent."

(Note, Yabby, ALL levels of South Australian society, not just the 'poor'.)

"The example of the HTSA confirms absolutely that Australians could do very well without the private property market. By having run down the public housing sector since the 1950's when Menzies began the process of privatising it, Australian governments were only doing the bidding of the private property sector to the detriment of the rest of society."

---

As a consequence of the privatisation of the housing market, the median cost of housing has increased to 8.5 times average income where it was 4-5 times 10 years ago as originally note by Mr Smith.

No amount of sermonising about how we should learn to 'lower (our) standards' can get around the fact that we have paid a massive cost for our various governments' folly of privatising the housing market.

Proponents for property speculation including, Country Gal, Col Rouge and yourself, would have had us believe that the unearned profits earned by property speculators fell out of the sky.

They never did.

They are being paid for out of the pockets of today's renters and homebuyers. The example of the Housing Trust of South Australia is absolute confirmation that this appalling situation was wholly avoidable.

That is the simple truth that you refuse to acknowledge with your endless repetitive sermonising, red herrings, personal attacks and other assorted debater's tricks.