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We'll give you enough to live on, but we're not going to buy you a million dollar house. I think you need to think and read a little more on what welfare is in countries with real welfare.
That's still a very generous welfare system. Most of the countries on this planet don't even have such system.
That's still a very generous welfare system. Most of the countries on this planet don't even have such system.
Most of the first world countries do, excepting of course the US. Any moral society is goingto institute a welfare system once the average proserity is high enough to afford it.
The Social Welfare system though is also too open to rorts and abuse in Oz, the most common one being the single parents pension - where the (usually) non-working mother lives with an undeclared de facto male who is in full time employment, who may be the father of one or all of the children, but still gets full substantial benefits - including rent assistance and pharmaceutical discounts etc. Very hard to catch out these people.
The biggest rort is easily the disability benefit, a massive 800,000 people on it in a country of only 23 million, seems ridiculous and has clearly been used as a tool to hide unemployment by successive governments, its also happened in some other countries. As the disability benefit pays more people are keen to get on it. It you put 400K back onto unemployment you can easily calculate where the headline unemployment rate would be which doesn't look good for attracting new immigrants :P
There will always be bottom dwellers they exist everywhere.
The biggest rort is easily the disability benefit, a massive 800,000 people on it in a country of only 23 million, seems ridiculous and has clearly been used as a tool to hide unemployment by successive governments, its also happened in some other countries. As the disability benefit pays more people are keen to get on it. It you put 400K back onto unemployment you can easily calculate where the headline unemployment rate would be which doesn't look good for attracting new immigrants :P
There will always be bottom dwellers they exist everywhere.
Yes, I'd forgotten about that one.
The current government are trying to knock this on the head as best they can.
Some of these buggers haven't worked for years, due to a sore back or whatever other reason.
Then they try to get undeclared "'cash jobs"' so it doesn't affect their pension (not as many of these jobs around as there used to be many years ago).
As you said, there will always be this low element in any society.
Most of the first world countries do, excepting of course the US. Any moral society is goingto institute a welfare system once the average proserity is high enough to afford it.
Australia's got a lot of welfare for the wealthy - which is the primary reason for the obscene expense of residential property here.
As much as I hate negative gearing, the US didn't have it when their housing bubble formed and then subsequently crashed. Most other developed countries with current housing bubbles don't have it either.
Negative gearing was around long before the rapid house price growth starting in the late 90's, I think we can safely eliminate it as a primary suspect.
As much as I hate negative gearing, the US didn't have it when their housing bubble formed and then subsequently crashed. Most other developed countries with current housing bubbles don't have it either.
Negative gearing was around long before the rapid house price growth starting in the late 90's, I think we can safely eliminate it as a primary suspect.
I don't agree that it isn't a primary suspect. If you took the tax incentive out of housing investment, demand would plummet. Nobody's relying on yield anymore and expectations for capital gains are lower, I think.
Take foreigners that shouldn't legally be purchasing property as well as investors and prices would be like Wile E. Coyote going over a cliff. The government has increased the distortions and penalized the thrifty.
I don't agree that it isn't a primary suspect. If you took the tax incentive out of housing investment, demand would plummet. Nobody's relying on yield anymore and expectations for capital gains are lower, I think.
Take foreigners that shouldn't legally be purchasing property as well as investors and prices would be like Wile E. Coyote going over a cliff. The government has increased the distortions and penalized the thrifty.
You are assuming Australia is in some way diffrent from the USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands, NZ, Greece, Ireland,Spain, Belgium that's all off the top of my head
House prices have rapidly increased beyond long term trend in every one of these countries plus many more since the late 90's, google it yourself!!!
Australia is not different, understanding what's causing the problems is the first step to solving the problem, forget what the local media are telling you, look beyond it.
You are assuming Australia is in some way diffrent from the USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands, NZ, Greece, Ireland,Spain, Belgium that's all off the top of my head
House prices have rapidly increased beyond long term trend in every one of these countries plus many more since the late 90's, google it yourself!!!
Australia is not different, understanding what's causing the problems is the first step to solving the problem, forget what the local media are telling you, look beyond it.
Obviously Australia is somehow different. It's different because we have been selling huge amounts of iron ore to the Chinese. Australia is also different because of negative gearing. Of course, none of this means that we don't have a housing bubble. We do. Negative gearing is one reason why it hasn't popped yet.
I was living in the USA during and after the bubble. I sold my property and shorted the stock market. Australian real estate is dangerously over-expensive.
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