I agree that there is a correlation, but its the entire economy that needs to be looked at, not just the 24/7 work cycle. I think was UOG who said it in an earlier post - we are all slaves of the capitalist system and finally we are starting to ask questions - bring it on!

The average child in this day and age will have both parents working, not just to pay for the little treats, but just to keep a house over their heads and food in their bellies. Houses are now 8-10 the average annual wage and food, power and other essentials just keep going up. There are few families for whom its a choice to have one parent at home.

It's the children who are suffering and the blame lies at the feet, not of any political party or leader, or even greedy corporates, the whole system is corrupt and needs to be understood for what it is - a great big ponzi scheme.

Well I have been in business throughout my kids entire lives.

They were fortunate enough to have their mum as a 'stay home mum' for all but the last few years of that.

My kids are now 22 and almost 20 and they are true jems. Sorry, a proud dads talk.

There is no doubt that they have gained from their experience.

Now belly, you say that small shops have the option to shut.

Well, that's where you are wrong.

You see, retail is a very tough industry as we are fighting for the bit that's left after the bills are paid, and that is forever decreaing.

Now of that we need to secure and hold our ever decreasing share and not being open will not help.

And a point another has raised. You can only spend your money once.

I would guarantee that if all shopping centres shut at noon Saturday and all public holidays, 1. everyone would learn to cope and 2. families would be better off for it.

You talk about greedy multinationals seeking profits for their shareholders as if it is a bad thing.

The managers of these businesses are employees. The shareholders are owners. In many cases, there are several million owners (those of us who have superannuation, for example, are likely to be indirect shareholders in both of the 'big two' [whose status as 'multinationals, by the way, is debatable]). What business owner in his right mind would employ people who did NOT seek to make a profit? What business owner in his right mind would employ people who sought to make 'a bit of a profit' but didn't endeavour to make the biggest profit he/she could? How is the 'greed' of the big business shareholders any more reprehensible than the 'greed' of a small business owner?

That said, I understand and agree with your point that work demands have led to much dysfunction in families. I don't know that this is caused by seven day trading - most of the rich kids who waste their lives away on drugs and alcohol are the kids of five-day-a-week professionals. The poor kids who waste their lives away on drugs and alcohol did so even in times when parents would be home by 5:00.

First I want to challenge in the strongest terms we are living in a giant ponzi scheme.
And that capitalism is a fraud.
Humanity is not perfect, never can be, OUG judges us from the eyes of a God that never existed.
Men of true greatness wrote his and every Gods books proof we can be great.
To come from the caves to living in big numbers shoulder to should our world in places is held together by sticky tape.
The fact it is held together is amazing.
Without capitalism,without reward for effort, with our reason to try harder we are going to fail.
Weareunique,I look back even just months ago and know I failed.
Far too fixed on my jobs my ability to one day own this home I worked too often too hard, 5 children I helped raise did not see enought of me.
But they got much from my hard work and I got the home.
Do not be too hard on ourselves that need to make the top of our hills is instinctive, it comes with self defense and flight instinct.
Maybe failure to love and understand children's the gift they are,, drives bad parentage too.
Rechtub some like me rarely had the money as kids to buy from you,we got to buy half a sugar bag of corned mutton flaps now and again.
We did not however get instructions to be lessor people my parents near chanted this mantra at us all.
Get a job work hard buy a block build a home .

My mum was a stay at home mum.

The time I broke both my arms, falling out of a tree on my way home from school, I had to go find her at the mid week tennis.

The day I almost cut a thumb off, she had not got home yet from shopping. The shops were over a mile away, which she walked pulling a little trolley behind her, in Townsville heat.

The day a couple of us were gathered up by the cops, for playing with bits of wood, in the water flowing across a fairly busy road, she was not yet home from playing bowls.

Stay at home mums are great, but can get it wrong sometimes too.

Challenge accepted!

Capitalism in itself is/was not such a bad idea, as Belly said, it is reward for effort. However, what it's not, is "fair" reward for effort.

Instead, capitalism relies on the goodwill of those further up the pyramid to share the benefits around, either through providing employees with a fair share of income through adequate wages, or by paying appropriate levels of taxation.

The current cost of living pressures tend to indicate that although workers are making greater and greater profits for companies, workers aren't getting their fair share back. They get paid as low as possible wages, which are usually directed back to corporates via increased prices anyway. Not to mention that potential profits (and therefore, taxation) are diluted by exorbitant executive salaries, add in low corporate tax rates and the great majority of the population is not benefitting.

I take the point about us all being potential shareholders through super funds - but in any case what use does that serve us if we cannot access that potential wealth to care for our families, to raise our children and to provide them with a step up in life so maybe one day they can get ahead of the game.

It's all well and good if you got in early and are further up the pyramid, but a lot aren't - and its those people that they are the dysfunctional families who can't afford to buy a home, where both parents have to work just to get along, whose children are being raised by child care workers and teachers. and its those people who are making the ones further up the pyramid more money. And they do it because they buy into the myth that someday they might be the ones at the top (or at least a little further up) - sure, some of the probably will be the ones at the top - but not all of them can be, and that is not necessarily going to be from lack of effort.

How is that not a giant ponzi scheme?