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In Australia there’s no reason for young people to have hope about the future. The rich, the old, the vested interests have an iron grip on the wealth, the hou

In Australia there’s no reason for young people to have hope about the future. The rich, the old, the vested interests have an iron grip on the wealth, the housing, the politics and as a result, climate policy. What’s the good bit about the future for young people, can someone tell me? Unless of course you are a child of the rich. I heard this generation is called “generation rent”, soon enough “generation tent”.

muro 3y ago
That's an unnecessarily pessimistic take. There is plenty of jobs, they pay well compared to almost anywhere in the world, the country is huge with lots of natural resources and a small population. There are amazing beaches, nature and if things go bad, some social safety net. With that country size, cheap housing is possible - just not in the most desirable locations.
- andrewstuart 3y ago
  You sound like a home owner. Did I guess right?
  - muro 3y ago
    No.
- gregoryl 3y ago
  Our higher salaries are a insufficient to offset the current cost of living, which is growing at a faster rate. Our country is physically large, with a low population density. Unless you are willing to sacrifice significantly (ie. Access to medical care), your are obligated to live near one of our (few!) cities. We sell our natural resources to foreign interests, who automate extraction and pay literally zero tax. The social safety net is significantly below the poverty line, and is stagnant in the face of the increasing cost of living.
- bingbingbing777 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/kt7zARB_sxc https://youtu.be/kt7zARB_sxc It's extremely hard to make friends here, our culture is a mixture of abuse (physical and sexual), doing drugs, drinking alcohol and getting drunk and gambling. There's no innovation here, house prices are insane, food is expensive.
- magnetowasright 3y ago
  Oh, living in 'less desirable' locations! Why haven't any of us thought of that! I'll spread the news! What do you consider 'cheap' housing? What are these fabled jobs where this cheap housing is? Can't make lattes for wankers, I mean, bankers while wfh. Will these jobs pay the rent for a single room in this cheap housing? Will they lease to parents? Where is it that we have all missed, right under our noses, that could magically fix our housing crisis by expanding our cities into? Even if the builders in this country weren't challenging each other for who can build the lowest quality, shortest lasting boxes of garbage? Where? Again ignoring the ridiculous amount of empty already built homes that exist as a blip in someone's property portfolio rather than as a thing for people to live in. A social safety net? One that unlawfully (and at great cost) issued (wrong!) automated debt notices to some our most vulnerable?[0] The same one that was willing to pay $12000 per recipient to administer 'cashless debit cards'[1] which block people on said safety net from using the despicably small pittance they get at farmers' markets, on second hand furniture, or any of the only other ways people miraculously manage to stay alive while on it? $12000 a year is about as much as you can get from welfare payments and instead of just doubling the pay they'd prefer to just leave people to starve while in debt. If you can even get approved for getting welfare in the first place! The suffering is the point. Our public health system is extremely underfunded. It's a joke. Still not as gutted as the poor NHS (...yet). If corporations paid tax, if we stopped throwing billions at submarines that will never be made, we could rival the world's best, but we choose not to. Our famous beaches are essentially a luxury at this point. It takes hours to get to them. Nobody can afford the fuel or the time and energy. I do thank my lucky stars that I'm here instead of somewhere that charges hundreds of dollars (but not if you apply to 17 different coupon places, I swear!) for an asthma inhaler but this 'lucky country' crap is extremely ignorant of the realities most of us face here. The worst part is that so many people here believe the despair so many of us face is 'unnecessarily pessimistic' and would rather whinge about that than consider for a second that the despair might be justified. It's almost treason according to murdoch media if you suggest that things don't actually need to be this hard. It's 'Unaustrayan' to have feelings or be poor or sick or homeless or different or to ask more of our country who actually could be making things as easy as you suggest. Again we choose not to. Oh and this doesn't even cover if you're Black (Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated population on earth; I'll leave that to you to look up), otherwise a person of colour, religious but not Christian, queer, disabled, chronically ill, old, have school-aged kids, or live in properly rural or remote areas. Honestly being a middle class white woman is pretty scary here, too. Being a man who doesn't or doesn't want to live up to the ridiculous hyper-masculinity standard is also scary. Our rates of suicide in men, particularly rural ones, are overwhelming and have been for ages. Our nature is wonderful (...in the vanishingly small parts where we haven't utterly destroyed it). You've got that right. Bloody roos, though. Boxing rats who can go highway speeds but choose to jump in front of cars instead. Funny buggers lol. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-05/alp-drops-support-for-cashless-welfare-card-expansion/9229596 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-05/alp-drops-support-for...
deleted 3y ago
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viraptor 3y ago
That's extreme. There's so many worse place to be than Australia. I mean, sure, there's a lot of issues for the future, (there always were) but there's a lot of good things in life you don't have to pay for. Go for a walk with a friend for the start, it's nice outside. You don't have to be anywhere close to rich to have a nice life.
- andrewstuart 3y ago
  Do you own a home?
  - viraptor 3y ago
    I rented for almost my whole life. The change is convenient, but really not life changing. Definitely not "life worth living" level changing.
    - andrewstuart 3y ago
      The point is made. Anyone who says "cheer up, it's OK, all is great in Australia, you just need to smile, take a walk, smell the roses!", they always own a house.
      - addicted 3y ago
        I go to real life protests for both climate change and for better housing policy in the U.S. so I’m hardly someone who believes there are no problems. And I’m also not a homeowner. But the idea that someone, anyone, living in Australia has a worse outlook in life than 99% of humanity is absolutely not true. But I have seen enough of that in person here as well, so I’m not questioning either the actual feeling or the validity of the feeling. However, something appears to have changed where younger folks in a certain set of circumstances feel despair when someone of the same age under similar circumstances even a decade ago might not have felt that way. I have to believe social media and the expectations it creates but also the way it bombards young people with issues that they can do nothing about today has some responsibility here.

muro 3y ago

That's an unnecessarily pessimistic take. There is plenty of jobs, they pay well compared to almost anywhere in the world, the country is huge with lots of natural resources and a small population. There are amazing beaches, nature and if things go bad, some social safety net. With that country size, cheap housing is possible - just not in the most desirable locations.

andrewstuart 3y ago
You sound like a home owner. Did I guess right?
- muro 3y ago
  No.
gregoryl 3y ago
Our higher salaries are a insufficient to offset the current cost of living, which is growing at a faster rate. Our country is physically large, with a low population density. Unless you are willing to sacrifice significantly (ie. Access to medical care), your are obligated to live near one of our (few!) cities. We sell our natural resources to foreign interests, who automate extraction and pay literally zero tax. The social safety net is significantly below the poverty line, and is stagnant in the face of the increasing cost of living.
bingbingbing777 3y ago
https://youtu.be/kt7zARB_sxc https://youtu.be/kt7zARB_sxc It's extremely hard to make friends here, our culture is a mixture of abuse (physical and sexual), doing drugs, drinking alcohol and getting drunk and gambling. There's no innovation here, house prices are insane, food is expensive.
magnetowasright 3y ago
Oh, living in 'less desirable' locations! Why haven't any of us thought of that! I'll spread the news! What do you consider 'cheap' housing? What are these fabled jobs where this cheap housing is? Can't make lattes for wankers, I mean, bankers while wfh. Will these jobs pay the rent for a single room in this cheap housing? Will they lease to parents? Where is it that we have all missed, right under our noses, that could magically fix our housing crisis by expanding our cities into? Even if the builders in this country weren't challenging each other for who can build the lowest quality, shortest lasting boxes of garbage? Where? Again ignoring the ridiculous amount of empty already built homes that exist as a blip in someone's property portfolio rather than as a thing for people to live in. A social safety net? One that unlawfully (and at great cost) issued (wrong!) automated debt notices to some our most vulnerable?[0] The same one that was willing to pay $12000 per recipient to administer 'cashless debit cards'[1] which block people on said safety net from using the despicably small pittance they get at farmers' markets, on second hand furniture, or any of the only other ways people miraculously manage to stay alive while on it? $12000 a year is about as much as you can get from welfare payments and instead of just doubling the pay they'd prefer to just leave people to starve while in debt. If you can even get approved for getting welfare in the first place! The suffering is the point. Our public health system is extremely underfunded. It's a joke. Still not as gutted as the poor NHS (...yet). If corporations paid tax, if we stopped throwing billions at submarines that will never be made, we could rival the world's best, but we choose not to. Our famous beaches are essentially a luxury at this point. It takes hours to get to them. Nobody can afford the fuel or the time and energy. I do thank my lucky stars that I'm here instead of somewhere that charges hundreds of dollars (but not if you apply to 17 different coupon places, I swear!) for an asthma inhaler but this 'lucky country' crap is extremely ignorant of the realities most of us face here. The worst part is that so many people here believe the despair so many of us face is 'unnecessarily pessimistic' and would rather whinge about that than consider for a second that the despair might be justified. It's almost treason according to murdoch media if you suggest that things don't actually need to be this hard. It's 'Unaustrayan' to have feelings or be poor or sick or homeless or different or to ask more of our country who actually could be making things as easy as you suggest. Again we choose not to. Oh and this doesn't even cover if you're Black (Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated population on earth; I'll leave that to you to look up), otherwise a person of colour, religious but not Christian, queer, disabled, chronically ill, old, have school-aged kids, or live in properly rural or remote areas. Honestly being a middle class white woman is pretty scary here, too. Being a man who doesn't or doesn't want to live up to the ridiculous hyper-masculinity standard is also scary. Our rates of suicide in men, particularly rural ones, are overwhelming and have been for ages. Our nature is wonderful (...in the vanishingly small parts where we haven't utterly destroyed it). You've got that right. Bloody roos, though. Boxing rats who can go highway speeds but choose to jump in front of cars instead. Funny buggers lol. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-05/alp-drops-support-for-cashless-welfare-card-expansion/9229596 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-05/alp-drops-support-for...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

viraptor 3y ago

That's extreme. There's so many worse place to be than Australia. I mean, sure, there's a lot of issues for the future, (there always were) but there's a lot of good things in life you don't have to pay for. Go for a walk with a friend for the start, it's nice outside. You don't have to be anywhere close to rich to have a nice life.

andrewstuart 3y ago
Do you own a home?
- viraptor 3y ago
  I rented for almost my whole life. The change is convenient, but really not life changing. Definitely not "life worth living" level changing.
  - andrewstuart 3y ago
    The point is made. Anyone who says "cheer up, it's OK, all is great in Australia, you just need to smile, take a walk, smell the roses!", they always own a house.
    - addicted 3y ago
      I go to real life protests for both climate change and for better housing policy in the U.S. so I’m hardly someone who believes there are no problems. And I’m also not a homeowner. But the idea that someone, anyone, living in Australia has a worse outlook in life than 99% of humanity is absolutely not true. But I have seen enough of that in person here as well, so I’m not questioning either the actual feeling or the validity of the feeling. However, something appears to have changed where younger folks in a certain set of circumstances feel despair when someone of the same age under similar circumstances even a decade ago might not have felt that way. I have to believe social media and the expectations it creates but also the way it bombards young people with issues that they can do nothing about today has some responsibility here.