Haves and have nots

This article from the SMH today is hilarious, but I am not going to rant about it until some minister actually comes out saying it's a good idea, let's do it, here's some funding for a preliminary study. Enough hot air swirling around already today, no need to make the problem worse.

Instead I will draw your attention to this article by Chris Zappone from November 6, which seems like straightforward stale news about house affordability decreasing. "Yes I knew that already," you jaded New South Welshpeople will say. And then you will either be smug about how your property has increased in value, or, more likely, downright pissed off that you can't afford an entry-level property any more because seemingly overnight every property that used to cost less than $400k now costs exactly $550k.

Pissed off people, you can skip to the end of this post, because I am now going to explain to the smug bastards why unaffordable housing is not a bounty of investment return for the lucky few, but a curse for the many.

Unaffordable housing means more miserable people bringing down the mood in your workplace, and more useless freeloading bastards just marking time or brown-nosing for an undeserved promotion "because they need the money".

Unaffordable housing means more middle-class people bitching about how hard it is to make ends meet and acting like they really know the meaning of suffering just because they can only afford one latte every second day.

Unaffordable housing means your favourite little cafes and specialty food stores close down because nobody except you has enough discretionary funds to justify shopping there. And let me tell you, there is very little prestige in buying your Essential Ingredient supplies from the internet in your PJs, no matter what designer label said PJs are branded with.

Unaffordable housing, in short, is fucking up your life in a million little ways that you previously hadn't thought. You probably thought that the world was just full of bad tempered pricks, jerks and general arseholes. Au contraire, property owning elitist. Unaffordable housing is making everyone around you unhappy and unpleasant to be around.

[Ok pissed off people, I think the smug property owners are convinced, now read on...]

So now we are united, smug homeowners and pissed off landless serfs. Unaffordable housing is bad, affordable housing is good. Very well, what can you do to make housing more affordable and get people to cheer up and be nice to each other for a change?






What? Hop to it, folks! Think of something to do and then do it. I'm not going to tell you how to solve your problems. Quite frankly, I don't give a shit. After all, I'm a proud homeowner and staunch misanthrope. Go fight your own battles.