Property Prices Destroy Lives & Society
COMMENT, Australia, USA, UK – This is a reminder that the world has changed.
Increasingly we live in a consumerist society, obsessed with consumption of the cheap, short term and disposable.
This will end eventually, because quite simply cheap consumption, especially plastic, is based on cheap oil. And cheap labor. And shifting pollution to some one else’s backyard.
So that cheap consumerism will end. Corporations that create polluting products will learn it can’t continue.
I mean what are we doing?
Irrespective of whether you, dear reader, believe in global warming, it has been scientifically, logically, ethically and morally proven that dumping toxic chemicals into water supply and food chain makes you sick. Dumping pollution into the air is proving to be a problem too.
Does it matter, in a global world?
Yes. It DOES. I don’t want my plastic spoons or cheap hardware supplies deforesting agricultural land and destroying family life in China or Malaysia.
And you don’t want it either.
Yet I look out my window, and see people rushing from one side to another to earn more, to consume more. Every day, in the city of Melbourne, I see:
People almost run over strangers, in a rush to consume.
Small business owners desperate for customers.
Normal people working themselves to death for mortgage payments.
Record levels of ‘Go to Las Vegas’ fraud from employees of banks and airlines.
What are we really doing here?
The real problem in Australia (and most English-speaking countries in various forms) is an asset-price inflation of house prices.
How can my house price affect society?
One of the major stages in most married couples lives is buying a house, or unit, before having kids. This is a goal irrespective of location, wealth, religion, ethnicity or relationship type.
Yet we look at the anger in society, the fear, the suffering.
People see their neighbors getting wealthy, a new car, a trip overseas; and they want that too. It was once jokingly called Keeping Up with Joneses.
But the serious gap, is housing.
When there is no correlation between effort and income, then you have social unrest. Rising rates of minor crime, or violence is a sign of anger.
When some people see life as powerless, when men cannot get married or a house, because of wealth inequalities, and inflated asset prices they get angry.
This is further exacerbated by the perception that leaders of the world, are in some countries being very dishonest with their citizens. We’re once that same dishonesty would have seen them forced to step aside, they merely sail right through.
The number of scandals in Australia and USA, from Neo-Conservative administrations, increasingly on the far-Right, would put any period of history to shame.
And therein lies the problem, we are so focused on consuming and paying the bills, in a world where workers have to be flexible and mobile, that we do not have time to be engaged citizens.
Manipulated Inflation Measurement
In Australia’s case, the former Howard government have managed to keep property prices at record highs, and interest rates at artificial lows, by manipulating various economic factors in the way we measure inflation.
Too many people now in economics and finance are just fancy wizards creating new financial instruments to make a very few from rich to super-rich; without regard for the effects on society.
These naive banking people are not grounded in reality, they don’t see the costs of massive asset price rises, or if they do, they hope they will become rich before it ends.
Most downturns after a boom have seen the boom described as ‘people flooding in and feeding the boom, hoping they were not the last ones out’.
Of course, this boom is sustainable because of massive outsourcing of risk and negative externalities onto other poorer countries.
But for those who cannot see how they can ever afford a halfway decent house, they get angry.
Those who borrow up to their eyeballs, and who barely can afford it, pray they don’t get sick.
Of course, like the Sub-prime crisis, this effects the poor the most.
But if the wealthy don’t care about the poor, then the poor won’t care about protecting the rights of the super-wealthy. Crime is fueled by perceived inequality.
“Haven’t they realized that they have run out of ideas yet?”
It is not a recipe for a healthy, happy society.
I’d rather a society of intelligence, creativity, hope and dreams.
It is possible, and thanks for those of you have written to me, sharing the same dream. I appreciate your support.
Take care
Christopher
Speaker. Author. Editor-In-Chief. Executive Director of Innovation, 2thinknow.
One Response to “Property Prices Destroy Lives & Society”
What's your View?
Or Follow us on Twitter or StumbleUpon
I agee with you on manipulation of house prices. The median house prices in many towns in USA, before the credit crunch, was in the 100 thousands of dollars. In real upmarket places, they might have gone into the $300 thousands. Why is the median price in Perth $AU~500’s? What is different in Oz compared to USA? Why do we pay so much? Someone is profiteering.
Secondly, who is manipulating the oil prices and where is the profit going? Methinks someone has to pay for all the wars that are going on and it is ending up being the man in the street.