Unproductive Wealth is Creating Poverty

 

Homes are a perishing product. They perish slower than many products. But they perish. They need repainting, roofs degrade, fences break, pipes break, over time houses degrade. They can be maintained and renovated, but they are perishing products.

They are also perishing products on unproductive land. The vast majority of homes grow or produce no saleable products. A small percentage grow veggies and fruit. A smaller percentage have livestock. Some people might have hobby businesses running out of their homes producing products. But overall suburban backyards and garages are not places of production.

So, homes are perishing products usually on unproductive land. Neither of these things are the basis of wealth. For wealth to increase for a nation you need productivity, you need production of various kinds.

But we collectively decided as a nation, a generation or so ago, to pour the vast majority of everyone's wealth into these unproductive blocks of land, with perishing products on them. Now, a lot of Australia’s wealth is locked into these homes, much of that is wealth that could have been and would have been invested into productive capacity. We have an appearance of wealth on paper, but really we are increasing poverty because more and more money is going to less and less productive aspects of our society.

This was a choice to sabotage our economy and our future prosperity. Homes must exist as places to house people. It is good to invest in them for the purposes of making them a home for your family, children and grandchildren. But turning them into financial investment opportunities was the most short-term economic decision since Marx suggested common ownership of all property. The difference was the danger of our choice was hidden for long enough for most people to be oblivious to it. But now it has become too obvious for most people to deny or miss.

It is good to see most people realize this now. We should make a pact as a society to boycott any politician of any political party who cannot see this reality. Those that can't will destroy our way of life for good. We need representatives who can see more than short term gain.