Shortage of time is a fact due to the complexity of life and the fact that so many of just have to works so hard to pay for the windfall profits of others gained at our expense.

The obvious example is housing costs having risen to the stratosphere.

Many people are literally working second jobs or longer hours to pay for the unearned profits of those who gained through property speculation in previous decades.

Another is the sheer time effort and expense it takes to accomplish what often could have been done in well under an hour maybe two decades ago, that is, to go the the shop or pay a bill. The congestion, hassle of finding parking, etc, etc turn any basic shopping excursions for most people into an ordeal often lasting more than half the length of a working day.

I discussed a lot of these questions in my article "Living standards and our material prosperity" of 6 September 2007 at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6326&page=0 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326&page=0

I must take issue with you Daggett. Shopping takes about an hour. If mortage repayments are too high, that is the fault of the owner taking a gamble with interest rates and the size of the loan they took out. Ownership of houses is not the be-all and end-all of life.

The more debt a person chooses to saddle themselves with, the less sympathy I have for them. It's all about accepting the consequences of your choices and getting on with life. Contentment doesn't come from owning things, it comes from some acceptance of what is, and what you can and can't change.

So extra time needed to work to pay off debt is self-inflicted in the majority of cases. Life doesn't have to be complex, it is only made that way by individuals who try to 'keep-up' with what they perceive to be the requirements of life. The happiest people usually live the simplest life.

Phil wrote, "Shopping takes about an hour."

If you can get to a shop and back in half an hour then you are extremely lucky.

Do you live in a large city? Can you drive through often grid-locked traffic, park your car, do your shopping, get into your car and drive home again all in half an hour?

Then was a time when I could accomplish a shopping trip in half an hour, but that has long since changed.

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You seem to have no understanding of how the cost of housing has gone up in terms of income. I don't have the figures at the tip of may fingers, but once it was somewhere in the order of 3 times the median annual income of an Australian.

Phil wrote, "Ownership of houses is not the be-all and end-all of life."

Have you ever rented? Have you any idea what it is like to have to be subject to repeated landlord's inspections, to have the lease terminated at the whim of the landlord or rent raised?

If you want to own your own dwelling and have not inherited one in 2008 and receive an ordinary income you have no choice but to work your butt off and don't even imagine you could do it with a single income.

This is discussed on the thread "Housing affordability squeezed by speculators" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6697#103886 by the way.

Yep Daggett, I live in a large city...and yes, house-prices here have gone through the roof (Perth, WA) with our median price now comparable with Sydney. And...I work in the centre of the city, going in and out every day.

And yes, I spent many years renting...didn't get my own house until I was well over 30, and I did not have a problem with it. I made sure that the size of the mortgage I got was going to be something I could deal with if interest rates went up (factored this in).

I come from where council-housing was common...owning a house was by no means the majority in some areas. And you know what...it didn't stop people being happy. They just moderated their expectations.

Trouble is now we're told we should expect the world...and then we're told we are not achieving success if we don't get a house in the suburbs, a 4WD, an overseas holiday every year etc etc. Some people believe this crap...I don't. I simply choose to live without large credit card debt, without the need to compete with everyone else, without the need for society's approval, and without blaming others for my situation. I make sure I can afford what I buy, and you know what...I don't actually need to buy much, because I don;t fall into the trap of updating everything on a regular basis.

It's not hard...and it makes life a lot easier.

Phil, What you are essentially saying is:

"I can manage perfectly well, so there must be something wrong with people out there who aren't coping."

Frankly, I find this insulting as well as intellectually bankrupt.

Of course, there are people out there whose problems are due to having made poor financial choices, but there are still many others who have lived modestly and prudently and through no fault of their own face extreme financial stress and deprivation.

In your case, you have obviously made the right choices at the right times in your life. One of those would have been to buy your own home before housing hyper-inflation became too serious.

And I expect that you have not suffered too many personal misfortunes at critical times in your life such as a break down in your relationship, a retrenchment, a car smash, an injury, personal betrayal, etc, etc.

Consequently your income is evidently adequate to meet all of your current financial commitments.

However, many of your fellow Australians have not been nearly so lucky and have not anticipated that in a matter of only a few years, housing that had previously been affordable would rise in prices completely beyond their reach.

The papers are full of articles and letters about people who are being gouged by unconscionable landlords, who exploit the unearned increase in the value of the shelter needed by others to increase rent well beyond what they can easily pay for.

As it happens, a friend in my street, even though he is on a good income had to stay home this year, instead of travelling home to Germany precisely because he has been hit with a succession of rent increases. Two and a half years ago, a women, who worked as a teller, who lived in the unit above him had to move out, unable to pay for rent increases, after the units had been bought.

Phil, I note that you seem not to have read the post I linked you to in the forum "Housing affordability squeezed by speculators" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6697#103886

It confirms that housing hyper-inflation has, in fact, been anticipated and welcomed by land speculators in our midst (see also http://candobetter.org/node/610#SpeculatorsLobby http://candobetter.org/node/710).

The post I linked to also confirms, in the words of a proponent of land speculation, the precise reason why so many face the hardship that you refuse to acknowledge.

That reason is that one group monopolises a commodity that everyone needs to live a dignified life and use that to transfer into their own pockets wealth created by others.