Is Australia still the lucky country or are we being screwed????

[Absinth]

Australia used to be called the lucky country but nowadays I ain't so sure.

Back in the 80's when we had the recession we had to have home loan interest rates soared to around 16%, the current VARIABLE RATE home loan is 7.61%.

Interestingly the US is currently in a recession and their FIXED RATE home loans are 3.75%.

Buying a new $41000 SS Commodore on HP will see you paying above 10% in interest.... at least car loans are still FIXED RATE!!!!

A brand new 2011 SS Camaro can be bought in the US for $34000 and the interest rate on a 6yr loan is ...... 0%

A 300m2 house on 1.25 Acres in Miami Florida can be bought for $385,000, A 300m2 house on the Gold Coast Qld would be over $1,000,000.

A 2002 27ft Bayliner sportscruiser boat in the US can be bought for $40,000 .... a 1999 27ft Bayliner sportscruiser is $66,000 here in Australia.

The income tax we pay on a $50,000 annual income an American would have to earn almost $150,000 to pay the equivelent tax.

The cost of living in Australia has risen 10 times more than the cost of living in the US over the last 20 yrs.

Yeah........ we sure are lucky here in Australia.

[HX76King]

And Julia just got a nice pay rise for herself!!

[HK1837]

Don't worry, hopefully she'll be gone soon. Problem is who we get to replace her!

[Gaddy]

Yeah but we have Medicare, free quality education for our kids and a VERY generous welfare scheme!
Beats Iraq or afganistan, israel Lebanon Greece etc etc etc.....
I say
AUSTRALIA
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!!!
just saying!

[Taily]

and a VERY generous welfare scheme

And therein is one of the fundamental issues, however try getting the dole to fill in a gap between being made redundant in a specialised industry (not my original trade, but then again nobody was doing any hiring during the GFC) in early 2009 and the next vacant position in my industry only coming up about six months later two states away. The whole welfare thing is geared towards school leavers and single PG13's with a litter - not those people who have worked as hard as they could for the last 25 years and worked to get ahead.

Whoops, didn't realise I'd stepped up onto the soapbox.... sorry

Byron, you've nailed it. Red, green or blue pill? They're all muppets these days, not many stand out as a cut above between them.

Regards,

Dave

[Absinth]

Yeah but we have Medicare, free quality education for our kids and a VERY generous welfare scheme!
Beats Iraq or afghanistan, israel Lebanon Greece etc etc etc.....
I say
AUSTRALIA
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!!!
just saying!

Yep, Medicare is great for those on welfare....
Our free education is not as free as it used to be and the quality differs from State to State and is far from uniform.
Our generous welfare system is excellent if you're a dole bludger... get well paid, subsidised transport, rent assistance and hugely subsidised pharmaceuticals while you share a beach house with your mates and surf all day...

How is all this paid for...... by taxing the arse out of the honest hard working citizens...... Ohh, I get it now... they're doing a Robin Hood.... rob from the hard working money earners to give to the poor lazy beach bums and single mums... what could be fairer... of course... we'll throw $5500 at them for every baby they churn out...

I was comparing us to similar countries with a similar culture.... the US and England.

What pisses me off the most is 10 years ago I could buy a 700m2 block of land for $40,000 and build a 200m2 house on it for $140,000.... today you can build a 200m2 house for $170,000 but will be flat out getting a 400m2 block of land to put it on within 1hr of any major city for less than $180,000.

Why the hell in a country the same size area wise as the US but with less than 1/10th the population are we now paying so much for a piece of that land. A family with an income of $100,000PA will struggle to buy a house in Australia and have to penny pinch to survive.... if our VARIABLE interest rate goes up by 1 or 2% a lot of those families would lose the house they worked so hard to get.

A 280m2 house on a 3500m2 block in Milwaukee 20 mins out of the city can be bought for $200,000 on a 3.5% fixed for 30yrs loan. So... they pay the same amount per month for the whole term of the loan. 10% deposit of $20,000 and a loan amount of $180,000 with repayments of $870 per month or $200 per week.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...8_M78860-07021

A $100,000PA income family in Milwaukee can live in a 280m2 house with a bathroom (ensuite) off every room, far better fitted out than you would find in Australia with a pool and plenty of room for the kids along with a new car, a nice boat and could also afford decent holidays each year.

[HZ EVIE]

It's good to see that intelligent conversation and thoughts are still alive.

In the respect of enviroment - I wouldn't change were I live for quids!!

However I do get very peeved off, working 7 days a week to help fund some dope smoking idiots lazy lifestyle, or pay for the next lot of 15 year old mum's get out of school free card (Yes I know I'm generalizing). Especially when I know how hard my parents worked and they never got baby bonuses, first home owners grant etc. etc and nor did my husband and I. We've all had to work our buts off to get ahead and just when everything starts to come together you get socked with a great tax bill.
We're better off running our business at a loss rather than trying to improve our investment and therefore potentially employ more, spend more and on and on.
I also get annoyed when I see retiree's struggling to make ends meet, especially when they've contributed to our way of life all of their's and we value them so poorly. I'd be happy allocating more funding to them and anyone else that has spent a number of years contributing to our way of life.

All said though, I personally class myself as blessed : We have food on the table (beer/bundy in the fridge), money in our pocket (some) and a roof over our heads (plus toys). Australia ain't so bad.

[playwme]

I'll take Australia over the US anyday, no matter how unlucky we get.

[Bowtie383]

Well you could alway's move to the states if you feel you are going to be better off,now look at their wages their hourly rate is a lot less then our's and they are in a recession we are not.
Myself I would not live anywhere else then this country,I was born and bred here and love what I got it also does not matter who is in goverment they are all tared with the same brush.

TJ.

[hqgts]

I just got back from 3 weeks in the states and let me tell you they are well and truly broke....

Australia has it all over them in terms of health care and care for the elderly ( pensioners)....

There is nothing worse than seeing a familyliving in the family car in the car park of thewalmart....

Australians in general have a far higher standard of living than heir counterparts over there.... The average wage in the us is us$7 an hour they live on tips which is a crap system...

I drove between Texas and Vegas and then from LA to San Francisco and now understand the term trailer trash..... Trailer parks everywhere.... And compared to some of the houses they re luxury..... The gfc had bugger all to do with this.... These people were living like that per gfc....

If you think Australia has an issue with boat people... It is believed that 10 percent of people in he us are illegal immigrants from south of the boarder.... That's some 25 million illegals....

I would rather be able to afford the 10%pa repayments on a commodore in Australia than be stone motherless broke in America

al