VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
‘Never trust anyone over thirty.’ (1960-70s half-joking advice by some young US-influenced hippies and ‘left’ activists.)
‘Oldies’, ‘fossils’ supposedly caused all the world’s problems.
Divide and conquer as a strategy, whether by race, gender, religion, class or age, has helped every ruling class in history to maintain its rule.
Today, in so many ways, young people have been cut loose from the financial security experienced by older people. Young people have divided lives, because successive governments have smashed public education and supported every brand of private education. University and other post school education also comes with huge fees or huge and ever-growing debts . Meanwhile John Howard infamously bequeathed himself electoral support from an aging population by indexing age pensions , while condemning the unemployed, sick and young to flounder in ever-deepening poverty.
For many young people, commentary around generational divide is about how young people are all entitled and privileged, with that mantra being used to strip away a lot of workplace rights for younger people (ongoing trainee wages, unpaid placements etc).
Feeding the real estate industry
When baby boomers and the mass of migrants from post war Europe were young, good superannuation pensions only existed for workers in government jobs. More money could be earned elsewhere, but old age had to be prepared for. Surviving on any pension was difficult. But the vast majority of workers and working people could afford to buy and pay off a home before they retired. Some invested in real estate to ensure a comfortable old age, assist children, and families overseas.
From the mid-1990s onward, the real estate industry fed itself by encouraging property owners to borrow against the equity of one property to buy another, ad infinitum, minimising tax through negative gearing . John Howard enshrined this gift to the real estate industry through a divisive electoral furore.
By 2022-23, eight percent of the population owned an investment property. A quarter of those investments were owned by one percent of the population. An ABC online article stated, just 172 people owned more than 20 or more properties, the only group that made a loss on their investments! (Presumably it included build-to-rent 19.6-billion-dollar-developer, Meriton owner, Harry Triguboff.)
What a dodge! The more you own, the more money you lose. The article quoted Australia Institute chief economist Greg Jericho who ridiculed the losses at ‘a time when interest rates were at rock bottom, reducing mortgage repayments, and rents were jumping fast.’
In late July, priced-out potential home buyer Millie Muroi called this a wealth-building machine. She supported government plans to build 1.2 million homes and real estate industry demands to cut ‘red tape’, including zoning laws.
Despite her situation, she refrained from attacking retired home owners, pointing out the dilemma of her potential future. ‘Two thirds of retired renters live in poverty, compared to one-quarter of those with a mortgage and one in 10 who own their own homes outright.’
Who’s to blame?
Mass media frequently attacks ‘rich retirees’ with houses once worth tens of thousands, now worth millions. But for a big majority, homes represent a use value. You buy to live in it, not to resell.
Some older owners would be happy to downsize, pocket some money (or pass it on to children) through their home as an exchange value. Others often rely on their long-term neighbours for community.
In a deluge of articles, few expose banks, financial institutions, developers and the real estate industry for causing the problem. Apartments and world record size new knockdown-rebuilds dwarf suburban neighbours, and new housing estates pave vast areas, once bushland or farms. But still homelessness grows.
Sydney has the world’s second most unaffordable property, using the “median multiple” – which is the median house price divided by the pre-tax median household income. Melbourne and Adelaide are in the top twenty.
The Sydney Morning Herald survives largely on its real estate advertising wing, Domain. SMH quotes far right Centre for Independent Studies economist Peter Tulip, who blames the elderly for “denying our children the right to live in the suburbs we grew up in” (wealthier areas earmarked for demolition and high rise.)
“As you walk around the lower north shore,” Tulip says, “all you can see is a sea of grey hair.”
But just weeks before the headline labelled elderly home owners “nimbies”, a developer let the truth out, “It's an alarming situation because building in western Sydney has reached a tipping point and is no longer feasible.”
He said developers can’t make enough profit there, because buyers won’t pay more than $470,000.
It's not just cities. Regional tourist centres like Byron Bay would-be renters, including families with young children, live in tents, sheds, cars, while multinational short stay holiday accommodation vendors soak up available homes.
Another land grab
Vanguard’s, Developers’ divisive dream: First Peoples’ lands to feed real estate bubble, drew on ABC online journalist Nassim Khadem’s exposure that Australian residential real estate value at $10.3 trillion was around ‘three times bigger than superannuation holdings ($3.5 trillion) or listed stocks ($2.8 trillion).’
Vanguard described how the Business Council of Australia – in another systematic divide and conquer land grab – manoeuvred Local Aboriginal Lands Councils claim and sell ‘Crown’ lands. They frequently set aside opposition from traditional custodians. It’s called ‘getting rid of red tape’.
Here’s what is also often ignored. The vast majority of older home owners are deeply concerned about the plight of young people, because it’s their children, their grandchildren. This is despite several decades of Sky and Co divide and conquer portraying young people as lazy and entitled.
Divide and conquer is an ages-old ruling class playbook. Unity is built in struggle. We need now it more than ever.
‘Don’t trust anyone over thirty’ was coined by US activist Jack Weinberg. When an interviewer challenged him about young people being ‘manipulated’ by communists, he dismissed it with those words. Weinberg was only half joking. His quip betrayed irony of an anti-racist blaming the elderly rather than capitalism.
Indexing debts means increasing debt proportionally to a government-determined increase, based on inflation. It’s cumulative, meaning each time the debt increases, the next time the increase will be on the original debt, plus any previous indexed increases.
Indexing pensions means increasing payments proportionally to a government-determined increase, based on inflation. It is also cumulative.
Negative gearing is where expenses associated with an asset (including interest expenses) are greater (or in this case are manipulated to appear greater) than the income earned from the asset.