Rich wankers
Let me start out by saying that I know many rich people who have a social conscience and for whom this post is not relevant. But I also know many who are wankers. And I’m sick of these wankers ruining it for all of us.
When I say ruining it, I mean doing dumb things like voting for Tony Abbott and for encouraging many others to do this too. ‘It’ in this scenario is our community. But the problem with many rich people is that they don’t even think they belong to a community. Many try to closet themselves away from the ‘general public’, because they think they’re above all that. A great example of this sort of attitude is the very existence of ‘poor doors’ which I came across in this article about London housing. Of course Australia doesn’t have ‘poor doors’ because we have hardly any apartment buildings, or even suburbs, where ultra-expensive-designed-for-the-very-rich housing is mixed in closely with more affordable housing, or even public housing.
But apparently in London, developers often need to include affordable housing within apartment blocks in order to get planning approval. So what do these developers do to make sure their rich clientele don’t have to even see the poor tenants in the building, let alone have to breathe the same air as them? Yes, you guessed it. They have separate entrances. The apartheid between rich and poor – a glamorous lobby for the rich and a meagre side-entrance in a scummy lane for the poor. It’s almost as if the rich are scared they’ll catch ‘poor’ off their neighbours and would prefer to live in a closeted bubble where they don’t have to know these nasty poor people exist. Unless of course they need a taxi, or a teacher, or a meal at a restaurant, or a trades person or, god forbid, a nurse in a hospital.
I also note that there is now solid evidence, in the form of peer reviewed research, that proves many rich people have a sense of entitlement which presents as the ‘asshole effect’. Have you ever noticed that it’s the large, shiny, expensive cars which appear to be driven by the most aggressive, least-likely-to-let-you-into-traffic, most-difficult-to-share-the-road-with-drivers? If you have noticed this, it turns out it’s not just in your head, because this research shows that it really is the rich drivers who are the biggest wankers on the roads.
And I think this road user behaviour is a perfect analogy for the problems rich wankers cause in our community. The key point of this research is that the rich weren’t wankers to begin with, unless of course they started out rich. But it actually shows that when people reach a certain level of wealth they believe they are entitled to exploit others, to behave rudely and to be mean to their community because they have earned this right. Is this a good time to mention that all three men involved in the last Liberal Federal leadership ballot are Members from three of the richest electorates in the country – Turnbull in Wentworth, Hockey in North Sydney and Abbott in Warringah? Funny that. Is it any surprise that these men were the architects of the meanest Federal Budget this country has ever seen?
So we know many rich people are wankers and it’s clear they’re ruining our community for everyone, and I agree there is probably little we can do to change these people’s behaviour. Their narcissism is likely entrenched. However I would like to try a new strategy for encouraging these rich wankers to think twice before ruining it for all of us again. I have been harping on about this topic a lot in recent months, and let me be upfront in saying I’m not about to give up on this quest, because it’s important. Wealth inequality. The rich think wealth inequality is great for them and they’re more than happy to continue promoting it. In fact, they think they’re entitled to snatch and grab as much of the country’s pie as they can get their grubby hands on. Many no doubt think their greed is as natural as the animal instinct for survival. Most of them think tax-evasion is clever. However, it’s time to question the very basis of this attitude and to question it loudly.
Because wealth inequality is not just bad for all of us who aren’t rich. It’s also bad for the rich. And no, I’m not about to say it’s bad for them because they should care about other people and they’ll find much more happiness in human relationships with a diverse range of people rather than falling in love with money. I don’t really care about the happiness of the greedy. I’m saying that what is bad for the wealth of the community is also bad for the rich. The rich need all of us to be wealthier in order to maintain their own wealth. The rich need to pay their fair share of tax so that the government can fairly distribute wealth for the betterment of all of us. The rich need to learn that the pie must grow in order to keep growing their piece of it.
A rising tide only lifts all boats if the boats are in the tide, not broken and stranded on the shore. If you don’t believe me, ask Joseph Stiglitz. He’s got a Nobel Prize for researching this very idea. Or just have a think about how the rich got rich in the first place. Sure, some of them make money from the money they already have. But think of it this way. If people work full time and can’t afford to buy the things that the rich are selling – such as mortgages, consumer goods, food, education, insurance, cars, then how are the rich going to hold onto their wealth? And back to education, if the masses aren’t educated successfully, who will work for the rich? Because no one ever got rich on their own. Wealth does not trickle down and this should be just as concerning for the rich as it is the poor. Australia needs a large and strong working and middle class in order for the country to maintain a successful community AND a successful economy. People can be wankers on their own, but they can’t be rich on their own. That’s what we need to tell them.
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Return to home pageHi Victoria – your article reminded me of this one which I stumbled across the other day. Don’t be put off by the title or the opening few paragraphs – it is a very good read. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014_Page2.html#.U833I1YxHFI
If capitalism wants to save itself it needs to understand this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/middle-out-economics-why-the-rights-supply-side-dogma-is-wrong/278044/
Well said Victoria, of course that is the case, but take it further than Turnbull, Abbot and Hocky, please consider Baird as well, he thinks that we need to sell public Land and public assets to his rich mates, how many of our decision makers have their hands in our pockets. See Crown Land Our land for proof. http://www.crownlandourland.org.au/nsw-government-goals-to-privatise.php
What annoys the hell out of me isn’t so much the extremely rich wankers… it’s the slightly wealth aspirationals who side with them, in the hope of grabbing a few scraps for themselves. It’s those people who are helping promote greater inequality. They seem to think that smoothing the way for the mega-rich will get them entry to their exclusive club.
Another word for capitalism is MLM or in common parlance a pyramid scheme. Have a ponder on that.
Do not forget Abbotts counterpart, Julia Bishop, she can out stare any one who dropped a tear at the plane crash, Ukraine, memorial of flowers, after Thatcher we now have the steel lady, one up from the thatcher days.
The health and education cut backs for more fighter jets that do not seem to fly, from 58 now 100, soon 2 hundred? who is the war to be with? the submarines are being made for Australia in Japan?
Note the tax on housing investment is not to be taxed, what will be taxed as a increase is GST, the wrought in housing here in Australia, will be the last to go, labor nor Liberals will touch it.
Thanks for those links Lincoln and Richard. Very interesting. I like the sound of the ‘middle-out’ narrative.
Victoria, I was most disappointed with your article. I’m not sure how it was that the editors of AIM agreed to allow it to be included. It’s not easy for me to specify, exactly, what was wrong with it. But I’ll have a stab at it.
Yes I appreciate that many rich people have a massive sense of entitlement – are narcissists – and feel that they are ‘above’ all of the rest of us.
And yes they think they run the risk of ‘catching something’ from us as do some of those we find when we watch “Midsomers Murder’. We also know that they’re ruining things for the rest of us. Bla bla bla.
I care about these things as much as I’m sure you do. However, if you post a main article again could you please:
* Keep your paragraphs shorter. Start each with a short sentence that summarises the main point that you wish to make. Then flesh out, in that paragraph, the details relevant to that point.
* Avoid the bleeding obvious. Though it’s easy to crank such stuff out, it’s tiresome to wade through such material again and again as a reader.
* A short summary would be nice if you feel that that would help.
To the editors: I would prefer that this site was a place where people contributed material that conveyed new ideas rather than as dumping ground for mere pamphleteers and purveyors of the bleeding obvious.
Rob031:
Have you noticed what’s been happening in this wide brown land in recent years? Seems to me that far too many people have missed the “bleeding obvious” completely!
Victoria,
For the purposes of this article, could you please define, monetarily – “rich people”? I’m finding it ambiguous to a degree that makes me unable to contextualise the “argument”.
Dan… should she also specify some sort of “wanker” value? Or can we assume, in the case of this article, that it’s directly proportional to the wealth??
Abbott’s archilles heel is that he so wants to be in the elite class, with wealth and connections – but in reality he is not that wealthy yet he spends money (perhaps via his parliamentary allowances and sponsored sporting gigs) to keep up appearances. Sort of like a little kid wanting to play with the bigger kids, pathetically doing anything to please them.
I believe that Abbotts aspirations to attain acceptance by, and entry to the ‘upper class’ or ‘elite class’ is a site that should be identified, outed and mocked. The poor fella does hate to be laughed at.
Hockey mentioned class warfare, and that is exactly what they are doing, and the wealthy classes are winning at the moment. However, Australians like to pretend we are an egalitarian, classless society. This sees the upper classes trying to make out that they are a class or two below what they actually believe they are. Note the way they like to pretend they work hard, or have done it tough, even if they inherited their core wealth. They like to play ‘I’m just a poor boy, from a poor family’
This is an area that needs to be explored and exploited as we wait for the chance to oust them.
mars08,
Maybe we can assume such a thing, but I need to know how much wealth automatically makes one a wanker. Especially given my around the corner Lotto win.
To mars08 who said “Have you noticed what’s been happening in this wide brown land in recent years? Seems to me that far too many people have missed the “bleeding obvious” completely!”
True enough. But apart from the occasional troll who posts here the majority of us are of a like mind. We know about the born to be rich and the wannabees. We know the difference between the new-rich and the established rich. We know where the Abbott government is coming from. Goats and monkeys! We are cognisant about all of this stuff.
Sure, too many “people have missed the “bleeding obvious” completely!” as you say Mars. But does this apply here? Pretty obviously not. We jump up and down together and knock on open doors. It feels good – for me at least.
Our cause is a good one. People like John Lord and Kate Lee and others write great articles on AIM that help us articulate what we sometimes hazily understand to be the case. They help us be better informed and arm us with stuff that will help us insert gravel into the gearbox of the bullshit and obfuscation that obscurantists of the like of Abbott and Co. crank out.
Perhaps, Mars08, you have come late to this site and view Victoria’s post as helpful. If so I’m pleased. But perhaps you could browse through the many posts that proceeded it to gain a fuller view of the bastardy that we may call “The Abbott” government.
Re June M Bullivant’s comment concerning the Baird government… the sudden curtain of silence that descended after Baird announced he would privatise electricity, despite months of blazing publicity involving the ICAC revelations concerning the corruption involved in a previous water privatisation that brought down an ideologically mulish NSW Labor government and unmasked several bent state politicans, then Federal minister Sinodinos under spectacular circumstances, and finally the overthrow of O’Farrell, it is said because he was cautious about further privatisations, was quite remarkable.
Income inequality is a huge and growing problem – a total waste of resources. However, I don’t think we can blame the rich for voting in Abbott – there aren’t enough of them.
Considering the result of the last election, there are a hell of a lot of not so rich wankers too as any visit to a Coalition page or listening to talk back radio or reading the comments on Andrew Bolt’s blog can attest.
But the rich have power Kaye.
The masses only have opinions, to be shaped by enough resources. The rich are pivotal to the use of these resources.
There may be not enough rich voters to change a government, however there are enough rich people who own the media, control radio talk back shows and own mines. Notice they also drive fancy cars. Rich people have an undue presence in our society. My take anyway.
Right up to “I’m saying that what is bad for the wealth of the community is also bad for the rich”, I was totally with you Victoria……… but then you wrote “The rich need all of us to be wealthier in order to maintain their own wealth”.
WRONG.
IF we all become as wealthy as the rich wankers, we would turn into more rich wankers…… and as your excellent article points out, it’s not a good idea. But it gets worse, because the wealthier one becomes, the more one consumes and the worse the climate problems get.
What’s more, as we hit Peak Everything (http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/peak-everything-eight-things-we-are-running-out-of-and-why.html) the wealthy will get less wealthy. And as shortages start occurring, the wealthy will start to find themselves in a “let them eat cake” French revolution situation where people bring the guillotines out…..
I would not want to be a rich wanker in 4 to 8 years time……. rich wankers are about to lose EVERYTHING!
As cardiologist Dr Geoffrey Chia wrote on my blog, “The proximate factors, elaborated in detail in the peer reviewed scientific publications, leading to the demise of human civilisation are: climate chaos, resource scarcity (particularly petroleum2) and ecosystem destruction, which have now converged to crisis point. These problems have been accelerated by the exponential increase of human numbers to plague proportions, coordinated by a rapacious, indiscriminately polluting, de-humanising, fossil fuel driven Government-Industrial-Military-Media-Economic cabal which I hereby abbreviate to “GIMME”. Indeed the motto of this establishment and all who participate in it could well be “GIMME, GIMME, GIMME”, reflecting the unrestrained pursuit of self indulgent over-consumption and immediate gratification without regard for any future consequences.”
You can read this non wanking rich person’s three part article here http://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/what-i-have-learned-what-we-should-be-thankful-for-what-remains-to-be-done/
Income inequality is a huge and growing problem – a total waste of resources. However, I don’t think we can blame the rich for voting in Abbott – there aren’t enough of them.
Ah but Kaye……. there are LOTS of wankers who THINK they are rich…..!
Twenty years ago, we had friends, a childless couple, who seemed far richer than we were. Beautiful house in the mountains, two posh cars, running a business they bought for a million dollars (literally, not figuratively speaking…), six monthly overseas holidays, etc etc etc……
Then the economy went pear shaped, and they lost EVERYTHING. They owned none of it, it was all on borrowed money, they went bankrupt, and were so embarrassed by their loss that we never heard from them again. Rich wanking can have a very thin veneer. And they voted fiberal.
I think one thing you might have missed, Victoria, is that a large part of the super-rich ideology is an attempt by its adherents, to almost become another species. Unlimited purchasing power is designed to insulate and isolate them from their fellows, and lift them away from the mundane that most of us endure. You could also say that this class attempts to impoverish those who are not them, by burning money, even in a democracy, before the eyes of the poor and the middle. Also burning the potential of those below them with drug dependence, vacuous consumerism, minimum wage slavery, political populism and carpet-covered cubicle middle management McJobs? What else is the modern arms industry, addictive drugs, high level sport, or most of government and private bureaucracy? Appearing to perform a function, but doing its exact opposite: I.e. Feed, house and support the population of a nation.
It’s hatred. That’s all I can ascribe it to. A shrieking fear of death that is so loud that only the elaborately constructed lies and the schemes involved in telling them have any hope of distracting them from the end. That the poor and the middling should dare to aspire to anything more than a dormitory existence to service the wants of the elite sticks in their throats, so that every move they make is to destroy commonwealth, and institute feudalism, through consumerism, right wing fear and loathing campaigns, and war.
It may be better disguised than during even the last few big wars, but control and suppression, through technology, is easier than ever.
The antidotes to this: nature, agricultural productivity, collective and social support, open-source technology and learning, are attacked, belittled and downgraded at every turn, or appropriated, marketed and sold back to us on their terms.
It’s not an accident of the few with more than the rest of us, it’s a diluted version of The Matrix – which is what the Wachowskis may have been hinting at. And the Abbotts of this world are just their loyal lickspittle henchmen, hoping one day for a seat at the lower table, if they’re good.
I found “The Spirit Level”, a book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, an excellent essay on the subject. Courtesy of our local library.
To Rob301 – nothing wrong with the article’s content. You’re only complaint is with the long paragraphs and frankly you are just being picky. You’re own layout leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t think much of one sentence paragraphs.
To Mikestasse – you missed the difference between wealthy and wealthier and so your point is wrong.
To Victoria herself – excellent piece. Hits the nail on the head.
Love the article, but how do we get through to the rich wankers ? They are unlikely to read AIM. At the moment it seems to me that many at the top of the tree juts don’t care AT ALL. They don’t make the connection between their wealth and where it came/comes from. Only if they lose it all will they know, and then it’s too late for everyone under them as well.
So Vivienne…… what is the difference between wealthy and wealthier? How many dollars…..???
mikestasse:
That’s not issue. At all.
The point is that the very rich RELY on those on the lower rungs to consume. The more they consume, the richer those at the top become. Making those at the lower levels “wealthier” is one way of encouraging them to spend more on stuff they might not really need.
Hear Hear. Wealth inequality is bad for everyone but it is much worse if tax evasion and minimisation strategies are in play because THEN they are THIEVING from the country they live in and the citizens of that country.
So much LESS money is available to care for others in need through welfare programs and SO MUCH LESS is available to BUILD the country that the FAT CATS wealthy live in too.
THIS MENTALITY IS THE HALLMARK of the LNP and all who support the LNP. Even with the tax deductability of CHARITY donations only 2% of the wealthy DONATE AT ALL and really this says it all. They do not pay tax and they do not donate.
THEY EXPECT to live in a country, breath the air and use ALL OF THE facilities for FREE.
THEY EXPECT to be VENERATED for the wealth and the belief that THEY HAVE a god given right to FLAUNT the system at every opportunity. WHY look at the financial ORGANISATION of many of our MPS with their negative gearing and trusts and their un anddeclared business interests ( like Hockey).
If Labor ever REGAINS government again one of the first and most important things that must be pursued is the tax avoidance strategies which exist legally now and which should be removed and corporate tax avoidance methods including international money moving which is DETRIMENTAL to the standard of living and the capacity to grow the nation for all Australians.
Has anyone here read this yet……… bloody amazing….
http://www.monbiot.com/2014/07/24/the-pricing-of-everything/
mars08……. no argument. Which is why I proffer consumption reduction on a massive scale.
Sorry Rob, would you prefer I spoke really slowly and limited my discussions to a three. word. slogan? Maybe News Ltd with their reading age of 8 would be more to your liking?
And by the way, this is an independent media site. I don’t answer to an editor. So any complaints you have with my work should come to me.
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As I enter my mid sixties, and have taken a great deal of notice in the lessons from the river of life, it occurs to me that this species has changed little since the dawn of agriculture, if one primate has more bread than the other primates that immediately leads to power over, that the other primates all helped in various ways does not seem to make any difference, it’s the primate holding the bread up high that receives all the accolades, a hypnotic appearance that all primates see themselves as, in the bearer’s place, and instantly makes them vulnerable to the holder of the breads.
that some crumbs may trickle down is the expectations of all the primates. The clever trick is to deceive those primates into saving the crumbs to get the same loaf of bread, but alas what crumbs that were allowed to trickle down are always far so few and stale before amounting to a loaf. Ahh! but the hopes that the crumbs will materialize into bread is only the hopes, to be kept alive by the bread holder.
Victoria, great article once again, articulate and well written….. Thanks 🙂
@Dissenter,
Could you take your caps lock off.It is seen as shouting and makes the comment difficult to read
Yes mikestasse, I watched it, George Monbiot, a Humane person of farsighted intellect, one in so many billion.
One of those flames that burn the conscience in the insane minds of the manufactures’ of darkness.
Vic, precisely why we ‘poor’ people should vote ‘together’ first we need a party who honestly believes in ‘our’ causes, a centre-left party of the kind that former Governor-General Bill Hayden once lead.
Kaye Lee quite rightly stated
To which the prompt response was because the ‘rich wankers’ owned the media therefore, the ‘bleeding obvious’ wasn’t getting out.
To which I had to ponder why do enough lower income voters believe the MSM? All in all this article suggests (emphatically) that many rich ARE wankers or ARSEHOLES (Victoria – not ASSHOLES – we speak Aussie not USA-ian) and many of the poor simply believe everything told them without question.
Does the percentage of rich wankers balance out the poor gullible? The RW’s certainly need the PG’s to continue the lifestyle to which they deny others.
What is the point of my post?
Rob and,
Thank you for your opinion, we always appreciate it when representatives of the Young Liberals visit. I’m surprised that you didn’t criticise Victoria’s punctuation while you were at it, after all that’s what is expected of the Young Libs, the tactic recommended to disrupt valid debate.
Victoria, I agree about the sense of entitlement, after all who bleats the loudest when they might have to fork out a little more? There are certainly extremely wealthy people with a sense of justice, with a sense of fairness but unfortunately these are a rare breed compared with those who begrudge people such as those with disabilities a small pittance more – who want to teach the unemployed ‘a lesson’ – who believe that the elderly should have ‘tried harder’ when faced with a way of life amounting to acute poverty – who believe that *my kids* have the right to attend the best schools and the right to jump the queue due to the ability to pay for private health. These types believe in their right to Premium everything and that everyone else can sod off.
Thank you Victoria.
Why is it that these “Rich Wankers” seem to be of the religious kind? Why do they ignore their ‘lord and master’s’ directive to the point that they are actually following their ‘dark lord and master’?
Being an atheist, it seems to me to be such a wank of huge proportions.
Why would anyone with an ounce of integrity ever vote for these wankers??? I know they want to be ‘like’ them…but it is like 12 year old school kids cutting their hair to a Beatles hair style to be like their idols….useless and the only purpose being to feel like you ‘belong’. It never works, never has, never will.
(BTW ignore the types who want to control your writing style and message. They are just control freaks like our present Govt. Ignore, keep calm and carry on. You are doing good!!)
Love this article. I think, ‘they’ are ‘rich on their own’ and increasingly so. If the education systems sit 10 years back, and as long as they can charge unearthly sums for it, supported by privatization and government law, they will continue to control the wealth. Money and greed will fight at every turn to maintain control. Hence, the people will have to rise-up to overcome the ‘police state’, the surveillance, the threat to net neutrality, and ‘cartel’ politics and secrecy a we see with the TPP. If they control the media, they control thought so, yep, I reckon it begins with education. The hacking culture, of code, art, activism, and a free press, 100 percent supported by human rights and a social conscience. If the law is wrong, one is forced to break it down, expose it, as we see with Snowden, Greenwald, Assange, Dotcom, and the many other ‘activists’ who, right or wrong, are responsible for ‘real education’. And we do not ‘teach it’. It is illegal, or ‘harmful to society’ or a ‘threat’ to teach activism, or open source code, or student curated content in schools. They use the same vernacular of religion, of fear. to justify their seedy existence. And we work, no, we slave to pay down the debt they happily mount on top of us, at every turn. The sucker class.
rabbottians(mostly poor wankers) are so angry that the unemployed or pensioners(aged or invalid) may getting something they don’t deserve and so terrified that some recipients will rort the system that they, through centrelink, impose some awful conditions on their ‘clients’. The same wankers ignore issues like private enterprise and rich wankers being renowned for taking advantage(rorting???) of government grants so what are the checks on the claims of the rabbott’s women of calibre for paid maternity. Will it be averaged on their last 5 years tax return? Will the rabbott’s men just believe what a company says they pay women? What about family companies who normally practise tax minimisation, will they adjust to claim the maximum? eg I wonder what a gina-type, who normally earns nothing, would get from the rabbott???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shi6GzC59d0
I think Dave sums it up well in this one…
Fat, Fat, Fat, Rich Cu*ts
Thanks for the video. A bit of a rock out on a Monday morning is not a bad thing at all. RW’s can’t stop the music.
Nor can the fat, rich bastards take it all with them.
Carol Taylor, as a famous bloke once said”injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere” the principle has not changed. All we are asking for (should be demanding) is a fair go, a more equitable distribution of wealth. We, part of the 99% should not live in poverty, while the 1% live in opulence.
Thanks for the video CQMum – good to rock out on a Monday morning. RW’s can’t stop the music of the 99% nor can they take their ridiculous wealth with them.
Abbie, you make a good point, the LNP thrive on hypocrisy without it they would not survive, what I don’t get, is how easily fooled the average person seems to be?
as I consistently have made the point the bludgers who fiddle government revenue, whether it be by claiming an extra pension that they are not entitled to or dodge tax by depositing huge amounts of money in tax havens, both are robbing bastards and both deserve to be punished, though it seems that only the pension claimer receives any punishment. Sadly at least $60 billion each and every year is hidden away by corporate Australia in places like the Cayman Islands, without challenge, which is obscene.
Di, the problem is that their wealth comes at our expense, wealth should be shared more evenly. When they die, they leave it to ‘their’ descendants, with which their descendants repeat the process and on it goes, over and over again. The poor living in poverty while these grubs live in opulence. Our children deserve better than to be just handed the scraps and remain silent as we have.
townsvilleblog
Yeah, I thought about that:
and decided if they could take with ’em rather than pass it on to the kiddies they would – Gina Rinehart?
Their descendants then get to play the game with us, yes they probably would take it with them if they could, it shows us the futility of having great wealth though, would Clive Palmer’s 15 year old daughter be any happier than any other teenage girl her age because she was given a $5 million yacht for her 15th birthday, I think not.
Nothing lasts forever as change is the only constant.We are not here to live in the glory of our material successes. Once a section of society becomes wealthy it also becomes secular and conservative.If you break down the word conservative you get CON = which generally means to convince you of something which is false. SERVE = which means to give to another in a manner of gratitude,with ATIVE as a suffix on the end to describe it as an action.Get the picture. The thing is this picture sits inside a bigger picture that is inside a bigger one again and the last one is a forgery and that is the mantra of ME ME ME over all else and the canvas upon which it sits is about to fall away as the rot gets exposed
On the issue of public housing it is well know to those in the sector that if these tenants are housed in an are a where the other houses around are privately owned they have less trouble from them and they get more opportunities to better themselves.The NSW Housing Comm. often build sets of houses in average suburbs instead of making ghettos like the have before
As for the rich wankers in shiny pretend 4wd you are right.Having spent 30yrs in heavy transport I have seen the advent of these people on the road. Once you are in a car you become anonymous and these drivers try to drive with the belief that might is right and is probably synonymous with their attitude to others.When I change lanes or merge I always pick the shiny pretend 4wd to either cut off or make a gap in the traffic. You see regardless of how big,good,grand,smart,or great you think you are there will always be something to bring you back to earth.And the next one will hit with a thump.These are people who are not competent drivers as many have a desire to be able to see the traffic ahead so as they know whats going on.They haven`t learnt to think and pay attention when driving.
The rich wankers do not run the community for us,they run it for themselves as our parliamentary system only works for the side which holds the larger BALANCE of seats.Nobody else has much of a say,especially if the media is on their side
Like I said,nothing stays the same forever and you always get brought back to earth.The higher you go on the way up the harder you fall on the way down.The more you have the more you have to lose.
Buy Gold or Silver……..SOON…!
townsvilleblog
The lifestyle of the rich and powerful is on another frame of reality. Many years ago, I happened to be on a regular social basis with an extremely ‘old money’ and political family. I am keeping details obscure as well as not revealing names – simply because I did actually like these privileged people however, even if I didn’t I believe respect is a two way street. The patriarch underwent some financial difficulties, the solution was to sell a valuable artefact and while this sale went through, move from their top suburb in a major city to an ever so slightly less prosperous one. Once the sale went through they were able to move back to their natural habitat.
Kind of like you or I selling off Granny’s diamond ring to remain solvent but on steroids. They really do not have a clue, yet I would not call these people as obsessed with wealth as the Rineharts or Murdochs. Their lives are as different from mine as mine is from a poor woman living in Afghanistan.
Warren Buffets are rare – I can’t think of any equivalent person to him here in Australia, one who can see that truth that the vast majority of people do not become poor by choice.
Di, I definitely agree with you, there are thousands of wanna-bes who are living much better than those of us in surburbia I don’t hate them and I have had relationships past with people far above my social level for whom money is no object. My view is that those who are easily able to make a greater contribution in taxes to society should be made to do so. I would not want to live as they do, but in the name of fairness they should pay their fair share towards the society that they live in.
TVB
We cannot convince those for whom money is power and vice versa. So how do we get the message out to the rest of the 1% who are not totally heartless, but are cushioned from the everyday reality of survival from one pay-day to the next?
Tarring all wealthy with the “rich-wanker” brush – cathartic though it is, does not open any doors of communication. The right have been very successful in convincing many that taxes are to be avoided or kept to the minimum. Think tanks such as the IPA or Heartland Institute need be targeted for the fascists they really are. I was living in the USA in the early 80’s and returned to Australia grateful for our more socially equitable culture only to watch, as the years pass, such equity eroded in the name of so-called independence and libertarianism. In many ways I am very glad not to be 20 years old and just starting out.
America does it better…
QUOTE:
“This report that confirms the devastating impact of income inequality on
the majority of US households deserves far more attention than it is
receiving. Once again, a study indicates that money is not trickling down
from the rich; it’s trickling – gushing might be the better word – up to
them and away from us.”
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/nyt-confirms-average-us-household-now-worth-a-third-less-while-1-soars
Di, it is not the 1% that we have to get through to its the 99% who are poorer as a result of the 1% that we must try to organize into a force for fairness. For example if all of the Australian workforce voted for themselves and not for their bosses and there were a political party who would represent the overwhelming bulk of the workforce, then that party would never be out of office. If only such a party existed that carried the hopes and aspirations of the workforce, such as a fair dinkum labour party for example.
America has 45 million people on food stamps.These are people who have given up looking for work and are not in the “official statistics”These are people eligible to work.
Sums it up.. ! !
John R. yes that is true, but they have multimillionaires and billionaires so, like Australia currently, it has a grossly unfair distribution of wealth which suits the few “insatiably greedy” individuals who will never be satisfied, no matter how much they get, and punishes ordinary people who may have a different mental health problem that has been diagnosed as major depression and anxiety.
You are wrong. It has nothing to do with them thinking they are being better. They got theirs and now the rest can go and die. The rich don’t care. You can’t argue with them. When they are wrong, they don’t care. It is just they rule and they make sure anyone who they talk with just listens and no commentary. They lie and lie and lie more. They are called honorable and all these words after become nothing. They destroyed the media diversity of the past. It is gone and this happened to make sure that the real story does not come out. We have a biased ABC and then we have the fight to brainwash and further dumb down the country. The destruction of the media is the why we have the inequality that we have now. It was planed and what happened with the G.F.C was planned to create more poverty. It is why we have the fascist Rich come forth and put out extremist views and pretend these benefit all of us. These rich folk are not only are evil , they love being evil. They love being mean. They feared the peasants in Australia and took away the guns. In the USA the rich folk live in walled communities and high security. Even then they know that some nobody might end it for them. In the USA there will always be a circuit breaker. It is the gun.
It is also a myth to believe that the rich are smarter than the average person, I know a person who began her life as a maid, who slept herself into money. She has less IQ than the average person and has relied on the IQ of others to keep building her enormous nest. She is a multimillionaire who cries broke at every opportunity, The Australian better off also have begun to live behind walled communities it is sad how we seem to emulate the yanks every step of the way?