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68 comments on The Impact Of Rising Oil Prices On Sydney Suburbs
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68 comments on The Impact Of Rising Oil Prices On Sydney Suburbs
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I'm always amazed by people who do a huge commute in search of rural ambience - how do they get to enjoy it when most of their waking hours are spent at work or driving ?
All that time in the car would drive me mental.
The people in the outer suburbs are a harder case - though the family used as an example should simply move house to Minchinbury and walk to work (I'll assume it is habitable and not an industrial wasteland), given that they are all working at the same place. Then they'd have a lot more free time and hardly any fuel bills.
I think we'll see a lot of that as prices rise - people shifting closer to work, service industries moving closer to where people live and public transport being demanded by the masses so they can still get around. The train manufacturers and construction industry will love it.
I have exactly zero sympathy for that family.
Looking at the cars they have, I suspect they're not exactly frugal with their "other expenses." It's probably not Home Brand for them... So... well, stuff 'em.
There are lots of people like that. It's Rudd's "working families" or Howard's "Aussie battlers". And really it's just whingers. Obviously weren't beaten enough as children.
Crikey - you're grumpy today.
But I agree about the whinging...
I am always grumpy about the whinging wealthy. To be greedy is bad enough, to be greedy and whinging about it is even worse.
I think wealthy may be overstating it - just "aspirational" types who think a flashy car is a sign of success.
I wonder if a souped up V8 will become even more of a status symbol as fuel prices move it out of range of the average bogan, or if something else will take its place that the average hoon can afford ?
(Disclaimer: I actually drive a Commodore but it has no spoilers or any other enhancements - and its done less than 60,000 kms in over 6 years, even with a couple of trips to the snow each year and the occasional jaunt up to Byron Bay).
How long will GM manufacture V8's? Indeed, how long will GM manufacture anything? My guess is that if Toyota is smarting that GM's accounts are awash in red ink.
If you can spend $30,000 each on four cars, and drive them every day separately to the same workplace - they all go "in the morning", so their shifts can't be that far apart - and at the same time have a mortgage, then you are by all sane standards "wealthy".
""It was getting very difficult," she said. After covering the mortgage, bills and other expenses, she has $50 for items such as lunches and going out."
sounds like an aussie housing bubbler right there. no doubt the reason they moved there was to build equity because housing only goes up don't ya know?
There are plenty more comments on this one at Paul Krugman's blog :
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/stranded-in-suburbia/#comments