This weekend there was an election in Australia that really no one in the rest of the world cared about, including myself. Essentially, it was a selection between two bad candidates, from parties that have like most in the world, lost their relevancy. But, unlike most places in the world, Australia has a near 100% turnout for voting, because it is mandatory. This means that most people don't throw their vote away, they use it - making it an interesting place to evaluate the changing culture.
It was a landslide win for the Labour Party.
This was to be expected, because for the first time, young voters outnumbered older voters, and voters tend to vote based on their current conditions, which in Australia, is a rising cost of living, unaffordable housing, and spiralling debt. And these affect mostly the younger voter, so it is natural that they will vote for anyone who promises to ease their suffering. And the Labour Party tend to be the ones who promise to give more to those in need - and the voter doesn't think about where that "more" is going to come from.
Free handouts are free, right?
But what is interesting to consider, is that this voter group, which is struggling financially, are making decisions that they think are going to improve their lives now, even if it is going to cost them later. That makes sense of course, but what has to be considered is that this is also the consumer generation, the ones who will willingly go into debt in order to get what they want now. They feel that they are entitled to spend money they don't have.
But more interesting than this, is what is going to happen in the coming years, as those "boomers" (many are generation-X, but accurate definitions don't matter to gen-Z, it is all fluid) that everyone complains about, are going to start kicking the bucket, and those previously poor millennials and Gen-Zers, are going to be inheriting the largest transfer of private wealth in the history of the world.
What are they going to do with it?
I predict....
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Consume more!
With little fiscal sense, an experience of consumption on debt, and a level of personal entitlement that was once reserved for the children of royalty and dictator alike, they are going to spend. And that spend is not going to be of the fiscally responsible kind, with money going into sensible housing and low-risk investment portfolios - it is going to be on luxury, glamour and betting on the longshot, as after all - they are playing with someone else's money.
The next couple decades are going to see some massive movements of wealth into many people's pockets, but it isn't going to stay there long, before it is moved back into the hands of the extremely wealthy, who are owners and investors in the products and services companies that the newly-rich are going to chase.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
And there are a lot of fools out there at the moment, who don't have the experience that their parents had with responsibility. You know, things like a mortgage and children in their mid-twenties. Instead, the young have largely stayed renters and not had children because they "can't afford it" - yet they have kept on consuming, and consuming. This means that rather than learning how to manage their money in order to take care of dependents and obligations, they can "afford" to live hand to mouth, as it is just them. This means that they have conditioned themselves as spenders and they will carry through their habits like any addict, no matter how much money they have.
More money, just means more desires filled.
And the majority will spend and spend all they have, until they are again spending on debt. And then again, the newly-poor will complain about the extreme wealth gap, which will have expanded even further due to their own spending habits and lack of control over their desires. Luxury trips, newer cars, and every gadget possible will fill their lives for a short period of time, until they are paying credit cards off with other credit cards.
But no more inheritance will arrive to save them.
Mummy and Daddy's bank will have closed, the vault cleaned out and the wealth safely in the hands of investors and corporations who capitalised on the consumer spend conditioning that they have been driving into the culture for the last few decades. Spend, because you only live once. Take that holiday, buy that car, upgrade that phone, and keep up with the influencer trends on TikTok.
What is also going to be interesting though, is that this young generation is also the ones who are coming into power themselves, including into the management of companies. They are tech savvy and willing to consume, and this means that they will be looking for more and more ways to spend, including on crypto. It will be little surprise as more of these people become decision makers, that they will push their companies to capture more of the wealth from their peers. It is the done thing in business after all - and that will include an increase in gateways into and out of crypto.
At the moment, old people are making the decisions - but ultimately, death catches every one of us and bit by bit, even the most conservative fiscal policies will start to change through the decisions made by people who have quite different experiences with wealth management.
All of this might be a good thing, because it will create a lot of opportunities for those who are able to manage themselves, invest well, and cater to the market - but for the majority, it is going to like they won a large minor prize in the lottery, and decided to splurge it on desires, rather than using it to stabilise their financial futures.
As far as governments go, because they aren't actually working toward social wellbeing, they are going to make themselves evermore irrelevant and the corporations driven by high consumption, will become evermore powerful and controlling over the lives of the people who they will keep trapping into debt cycles. Again, maybe this is a good thing - as it speeds up the process of how fast a capitalist market will eat itself, so perhaps it will all collapse soon, and we can start it all over again.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
As much as I like the idea of starting all over again the people who will need to be the ones spearheading starting all over again aren't likely to be in positions to be able to do so and then all we end up with is the same thing with different people at the top pretending that somehow the exact same bullshit will magically be different/better because they're the ones in charge now.
ideally I'm wrong there and there's a lot more people with good ideas than we realise because the media will never ever cover anything in the same universe as actually informative and useful because that doesn't make money or something
As eldest and I were hiking over to our local polling booth (it's a really easy walk and we were walking pretty fast as we were worried about getting rained on but I was not driving down the freaking road XD) we were discussing using blockchain for voting and how that could be authenticated and anonymised, so there's hope somewhere.
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This is why the billionaires are having so many babies.
You'd think this would be one of the lowest hanging fruits to make elections better and more convenient for everyone. I mean, I do my taxes online and sign in with bank details - is it that hard to have a vote?
So many babies sounds like a recipe for fratricide if all of them get too greedy and want all the billions for themselves even though one billion is probably more than adequate XD
seems to be just how things roll
It might be one of those things where "everyone" (whoever that is) is actively avoiding dealing with the research/costs/logistics/etc of implementing blockchain infrastructure for something like that even if studies etc wereshow that it would be infinitely better/more secure/cost effective/etc in the long term because as we all know shareholder profits right this very second is infinitely more important than anything else could ever be and also that might upset the status quo too much and that's something else that has to be avoided at any and all cost. I remember one of the companies J worked for previously who insisted on forcing the IT and dev teams to mollycoddle along a 20something year old database (which sounds like it had to have the most disgusting hackiest patches to keep it going never mind doing what it was meant to be doing) because they refused under any circumstances to "waste" the (rather large amount of) money and time on upgrading and refactoring everything even though it would have made everything better.
"THE STATE is the great fiction by which EVERYONE endeavors to live at the expense of EVERYONE ELSE."–Frederic Bastiat, The State (1848)
The left promises to care for us. The right promises to protect us. Both fail time after time, instead trespassing against peaceful people just trying to live their lives, but there's a sucker born every minute.
All states fail, for pretty obvious reasons. At the same time, at scale, we need some level of governance. I don't know about you, but I don't think the wild west was such a beautiful way to live.
The Wild West was not like Hollywood portrays it, and besides, the worst outcomes were a consequence of government: wars with the natives to take their land by force, corrupt territorial governors enriching themselves, business magnates with the power to call in favors from the previous 2...
Further, governance and government are wholly different ideas. The latter is a group of people who claim a territorial monopoly in violence, and enforce their opinions upon everyone else. The former is a voluntary association for mutual benefit and dispute resolutoon. Government masquerades as governance, but fails.
Seems the wind in that continent blows from left contrary to that of Europe, which causes increasing racism.
This result was an "anti-Trump" vote. It should be pretty clear to everyone that following in Trump's footsteps is going to lead down some terrible pathways once enough are on it.
It is intriguing to see that election is mandatory in Australia. I can't say for our country, though, since voting doesn't always count no matter how odd someone thinks about it. So citizens don't bother too much to vote, and the little that vote possible pay to do so. I shouldn't generalise though cos some people still vote for candidates of their choice but you will agree with me that it is not always candidates of our choice but who they force on us, I meant the parties.
I never really thought about how the coming inheritance wave could actually make things worse if people aren’t prepared for it.
The part about spending habits really stood out. So many of us particularly this generation Z and Alpha, have been raised in a world of “buy now, pay later,” and it is scary to imagine what happens when that mindset meets a sudden pile of money.
However, many young people aren't thinking about owing up to responsibility as if they are living for themselves only. A lot of young people will be disappointed by the co called inheritance they think of doesn't materialise.
I think that since there are governments as they stand, voting should be mandatory. And they should make it as easy as possible for everyone to vote. We live in the world of blockchain - vote from your phone.
The inheritance will go to those whose parents did the hard work and made the right choices to save and invest and own. The amount pouring into the hands of the younger over the next 15 years or so is estimated to be around 80 trillion dollars globally.
Hmm, can that really happen here. Well, I shouldn't say no since technology is getting advanced day by day, but our politicians will only use it for their advantage, and not many will trust is authenticity.
Compulsory voting is to my mind as offensive as a compulsory religious sacrament. It mandates participation in a system of usurpation, and the purpose is to ensure everyone can be presumed guilty of participation in the process and thus responsible for the dire outcomes regardless of their preference. The myth of democracy is built on the bandwagon fallacy and false choice.
Hmm, but in a case of incessant killing and mauling of citizens all in the name of getting people to vote for them. I was once an electoral officer, adhoc staff, it was only God that saved me that day when the politicians brought out gun just because they didn't win in that polling booth.
Governments are just gangs with a veneer of legitimacy, and voting provides that veneer. Elections are (usually) a more civil form of factional rivalries.
I see it from another point of view. Under the current system, whether you vote or not, you are governed and subjected to the laws of the government. This means that it is easy to manipulate as seen in the US system, by encouraging people not to vote. And, in a non-compulsory system, "not voting" has no impact. Not-voting should have an impact, and then, people shouldn't vote.
The more things change, the more they stay the same :) I don't think that things will collapse, there will be volatility, but in the end things will evolve without collapse.
Not so sure this time. Every so often, a collapse seems to be required.
I've seen some of the decisions the newer generations are making. I don't think I am ready for that kind of world! :)
Just imagine... what gender will you choose to make up for yourself?
My impression is there was a Trump effect. The Australian Liberals allied themselves too closely to Trump - Trump then did the dirty on them by putting tariffs on Australia despite the US running a trade surplus with Australia.
Even if it's just 5% of people thinking "Why are you allied with people who want to hurt us?", that's enough to swing the election.
I believe the Australian Liberals were leading before Trump's inauguration..
For sure. The tariffs nailed the coffin shut.
And what did you want them to do? After all, this last generation is the best and most informed in history. And therefore, they know the end is near. Much closer than older people suppose.
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The Future Made in Australia plan will turn this arid hunk of rock into an economic powerhouse. So many people cannot see beyond the end of their nose when it comes to voting.
To me, this wasn't an election about cost of living (or cosi-living as some illiterates here call it!) - but instead: using Australia's natural resources to rebuild a manufacturing base that relies on renewable power, removing one of the largest cost inputs of manufacturing - energy.
It's mandatory here in Ecuador, too. You get a little voting-certificate that you have to show for basically every bureaucratic process, so almost everything in life here. It has it pros and cons, but these days, I think it's becoming more negative than positive. There are no informed people anymore, just influenced people. Same way as you mention with material things, it's with politics here. There is no real plan. No real proposal. Everything is based on creating emotions and entrench those, against "the other".
The promise of free stuff is quite similar. Short term dopamine kick of any kind, but nothing lasting, nothing sustainable. The next election is in 4 years, why think further than that?
Dear @tarazkp !
East Asians who have visited Australia say that Australia has plenty of resources, food and empty land, but its small population means there is no chance of becoming rich.
They argued that Australia would need to have a population of 100 million to develop its economy to a similar size to Japan.