Civilisational Foolishness

 

Australians are slowly learning many ancient lessons the hard way. Like the high cost of living alone, especially as you age.

They call it the singles tax:

"Singles tax costing people hundreds of dollars a month...

“That concept is known as the singles tax – the idea that single-income households do not benefit from the same cost-sharing benefits when it comes to things like rent and bills as a couple does.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data suggests a single person spends more than $770 extra on living costs a month compared to a person in a couple.

Brisbane financial advisor Michael Khouri said there was also the time and effort factor to consider, as well as that inability to share resources.

"If somebody's single and they're trying to do everything themselves, they're usually a bit more time poor," he said.

He said he also saw people who had just come out of a separation struggling to fund separate homes – either renting or buying – especially as the cost of housing continued to rise.

"Fifteen years ago, I'd find that probably half or maybe say 30 to 40 per cent of their expenses was housing — and now it's just getting higher and higher."

More than half of Australians living alone are women, and around half of those women are aged 65 or older.”[1]

I know a lot of people do not have sympathy for a lot of boomers, but I can’t help but see a perfect storm brewing in this area. Many of these older people, over 65, were born and raised in one of the most prosperous economic booms and times the world has ever seen, in one of the most prosperous countries the world has ever seen, and amongst some of the easiest conditions the world has ever produced to help people get ahead.

They called this country the lucky country for a reason. Because we really were better off than most in so many ways, and it was also evident that this prosperity was more a result of luck than anything else.

Now, consider the disaster coming for many older men and women who were forged in that sort of benevolent economic environment, thinking they can easily tank their marriage, or burn their families connections, because it has always been relatively easy to rebuild yourself in this country. A lot of these people have a rude shock coming, and I think the rest of society has to recognize this as well, because the political power of this demographic is still incredible and will be for years to come. Australia is about to be hit by a poverty wave that will likely set this country on track to be something like the new Argentina in a few decades, or close to, if things are not addressed very quickly.

This sort of situation should be rare anyway. People are not really meant to live alone. We are meant to live in large, often multigenerational, households. This sort of family arrangement was always a shelter from financial burdens.

But Australians got so rich, beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors, that living alone became cheap, easy and common. At least for a time, and only when economic windfalls were ticking up. But this sort of culture is really a house of cards. Once things get tough, it becomes hard for people to live alone. Especially on government handouts.

Because people were really not meant to live this way. It is an aberration, a product of a hyper-individualist society with short time horizon preferences. In other words, our society is filled with stubborn people who cannot think ahead.

The saddest part for me in the article is that this woman says she fears she might have to move in with her adult daughter. Why is this a fear? Because our culture has made this an undesirable thing.

But really this should be a no-brainer. How much family wealth is chewed away from people across our country, because families that could live together and would have once done it without thinking in the past, are each paying for rents, regos, their own rates, electricity bills, etc, etc, when people could live together and prosper.

If you pay attention you will note that a lot of families that come here from Asia, or Eastern Europe, or other places don't hesitate to pool resources, and they build wealth this way. Why? Because they drive down their costs for all sorts of things in their life. Life is done better in community. It is just wisdom.

Australian culture really has been hollowed out. An older man or woman with kids should never even have to think about not being able to pay rent.  It should be unthinkable, except in the most extreme of circumstances, "Honour your mother and father" means primarily to make sure they are never destitute. But we should not forget, that it was the older generations who taught the younger generations to break this generational safety blanket, and go their own way and now we have countless people in desperate situations that just did not need to happen.

List of References

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[1] ABC Business, 2026, https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/government-support-and-welfare/singles-struggle-to-afford-housing-as-cost-of-living-rises/ar-AA2dHarz?ocid=msedgntp&pc=NMTS&cvid=6ac6ec1dfc26404888200d4ef6474e70&ei=42&fbclid=IwY2xjawU0AjdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mAWJyaWQRMXFjTWpNZEtkZzM3aFpoTnRzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeLj4jbExbaJShsVHqpCeLJ2FWcBOKBbvofNrbZDwmzbbA5WSHDgsfhdMAgJ0_aem_JDCHrX24gWIviv6FlvYrGw