My allergies are terrible this year and I am coughing, spluttering and wheezing like an 80 year old after a heavy life of smoking - and the dust from sanding the walls isn't helping at all. I am trying to wash it down with a gin tonic, but I think it might take two. I feel like crap and think I might have a slight fever, while there is far too much to do to worry much about these things, I will make the time to write a bit to clear the head, even if the body doesn't follow the mind.
So, lets have a look at something from Australia I spoke of about a year ago, which was the "early withdrawal" from superannuation funds, where a maximum of 20K could be withdrawn to cope with Covid shortfalls in the budget- with many young people drawing everything they had in there.
Australians who dipped into their superannuation during the height of the pandemic are up to $3644 worse off today, new research has revealed.
Surprise, fucking surprise.
Ok, pension funds are likely to get rekt anyway, but the average person doesn't know that.
“Of all the many ways the government could have helped people get through 2020, this had to be among the most costly.
“Instead of using its own borrowing capacity to help people, the government forced desperate citizens to miss out on an investment windfall they would otherwise be enjoying now.”
As I have said, this pandemic has seen the largest and fastest wealth transfer from poor to rich in the history of the world and it has happened in a million ways. For the last several years before the "wealth gap" has been a talking point, yet over the last 1.5 years, it has seen the greatest widening take place, as desperate people living in fear make bad decisions, like taking 20K of their super at the bottom of the market, compounded by the bad decisions of governments for them, that have seen their future incomes spent before it has been earned.
What do they say about spending money you don't yet have? Oh yeah - Don't bloody do it.
Now, it could be argued that the young people who were the most likely to "take advantage" of the scheme (scam) went out and bought bitcoin with the 20K and are now living large after having added 400% gains to it - but unfortunately, consumer electronics was the thing that got boosted.
Down with the 1 percenters!!!
I will take the 65 inch 8K - and a Playstation 5 thank you
I always find it funny how willing people are to firstly complain about the state of the world, the economy and their personal finances, citing all of the issues with employment and the rich - and as soon as they get a little cash in their pocket, they hand it on over to the people they complain about in exchange for some product that will diminish rapidly in value to near zero. Money well spent for sure.
We are our own worst economic enemy, but most of us are unlikely to ever learn this because our attention is drawn to anything else but our own well-being. As long as we do something that makes us feel like we are doing right for ourselves, that is enough.
"Yeah hi. Ah, I will take a quarter pounder and a cheeseburger, a large fries, nine nuggets with sweet and sour sauce, an apple pie and ummm - a diet coke.
Its okay, I downloaded an exercise app last week.
Our own worst enemy.
I am my own worst enemy too. I want to be my best but I don't know what it would look like if I actually was, so I end up just drifting through life, doing random things in the hope that some of them are working toward my future. Granted, I think I have improved in this capacity a fair bit over recent years, but I do tend to bite off enough that I struggle to chew. I think I like it this way - I am some kind of glutton for punishment. We all have our vices, perhaps work is mine.
Back in the day, I struggled to do anything of value and lived an uninspired life, where I was a consumer, not a creator - an employee, not an owner. I worked hard at the work I did, but did very little extra outside of work that added to my own personal skill collateral. I was frustrated as an unskilled person (I have a degree, but that doesn't mean skill), yet avoided working at something committing for long enough to gain the expertise. I was active, but doing nothing of consequence.
Back then, I would have bought the TV.
Looking back, I should be annoyed at how much of my life I have wasted on nothingness, but perhaps I needed to go through that to get to a point where I want to do something useful. I think so many are looking for some easy score so they no longer have to think about what the should do with their lives and can instead, delve into a world of endless consumption instead, never needing to raise the eyes from the latest gadget to say, what is the point of all this shit?
I see this in crypto too, where investors are always talking about when to get out of the market, but this is an industry in its infancy that is looking to *be the market. The question shouldn't be about when to get out, it should be about how to get more invested, how to build more usecase and attract more people into supporting an industry that gives them the opportunity for ownership and in so doing, freedom with responsibility.
Yes, "freedom" is not do what you want, it is about having the ability to choose for oneself and paying the price for the decision.
A lot of people want financial freedom, yet seem to take the approach of spending their way to get there. They look to satisfy their urge of having that freedom, by mimicking the actions of the financially free, consuming products on credit and building up personal debt to a point where there is nothing left over at the end of the month to invest, as it all goes into servicing loan repayments.
we believe the rich should be doing more, but aren't they doing enough? How much do they have to extract before we wake up, take responsibility and change our outcomes? How much suffering must we experience before we act for our own well-being and not just an illusion of it?
But, since most of us aren't likely to ever wake up to what is going on in the economy, we are likely destined to a life of scarcity, fighting for scraps under the table. And when we wrestle a picked bone from someone else's hand, we feel like we are winners. If only we could stand up and see what was served on the table.
Bloody allergies...
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]