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Re: What do you pay for GNR shows in the USA?
Hey Monkey, what do you think of this article?
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: What do you pay for GNR shows in the USA?
Hey Monkey, what do you think of this article?
Hmmm...there's sort of two sides to it.
On one hand there is undoubtedly a lot of wealth going around in Australia. I think people here are so used to it that they don't really consider it to be wealth they just don't realise it's not normal everywhere, because here it seems normal compared to people who are even more wealthy.
It's things like the extent to which we travel. Someone out of my facebook friends is always on an overseas trip somewhere. A generation ago a big trip was like a once in a life-time event that people either did by slumming it right afterschool and backpacking before settling down, or a % of people would take a big trip in later life once they'd settled down and taken care of the house and could get away with some time off work. But these days it's more like "where will we go this year" - I have a number of friends who travel significantly every 2 years at least. Most people my age have done a number of international holidays and so on.
It's things like eating out or creating expensive meals at home. We've become a nation obsessed with fine dining thanks to various cooking shows. But the idea of making everything gourmet seems to have taken off. So it's not enough to have kitchen knives they have to be chef knives. It's not enough to have coffee at home you have to have a full on prolevel coffee machine at home....and that's if you're crass enough not just to go out to the trendiest cafe every morning and get a REAL coffee. You can't ride a bike unless you're wearing professional cycling gear. It's all sort of normal here but it burns so much cash. Gadgets is another thing. We have a very high uptake of technology. Things like smart phones and tablets we have in higher density than other places and we upgrade them more often I'd suggest than most too. No one seems to own any device that's more than 14 months old...part of that is they make them to break i guess...but part of it is the keeping up with the joneses aspect of stuff like phone upgrades....
So there's that side of it.
But then there's the less wealthy way things are headed too.
There's fuck all job security here.
I can't tell you how many people I know that are out of a job, under employed (like can only get 1 day a week etc), or work full time but only get have 3 month contracts they have to continually re-apply and justify their role for.
And these are often people who are university educated, have no suspect background or anything that would legitimise the struggle. And it's not job snobbery either - it seems to happen across that board from lawyers, teachers, retail, cleaning....you name it....I've met someone who does it and is either struggling or been fucked over. And many who do have jobs have been casualised....leading to loss of security and very limited entitlements.
Then there's our housing situation. We never had the housing crash most places have had. So houses here are amongst the most expensive in the developed world.
Not sure I could really explain without you seeing it for yourself...but the sorts of sums of money you need now to buy an average place in somewhere that's not absurdly far transport wise from a metropolitan area is really crazy...especially when viewed in context with the work issues above.
So the article is sort of right and wrong. In some ways we have a really indulgent spendthrift society...but at the same time it's a hell of a struggle for a lot of people i know just to get by.
