At the Bakery

Pic courtesy ABC

My daily habit, gentle reader, is to drive the short distance to a nearby bakery to buy a coffee and a bagette. 

 I should probably walk, but my son's blue heeler looks after my exercise by taking me around the block daily. Besides, I enjoy driving. 

You should always do something you enjoy every day. I can at a stretch, pretend I'm still driving my MX5, despite the fact that I had to dispose of it a few years ago as physical access became a problem. The CX3 has the same engine and gearbox, after all. 

 This morning, as I was about to drive out of the car park at our local shopping centre, I was approached by a woman who asked for money. I told her I didn't have any cash (which was true) and was about to offer to buy her something from the bakery if she was hungry, but she didn't give me the chance, telling me to "f**k off" before I completed my explanation. She then approached somebody else, and as far as I could tell, got a similar response. 

 I was thinking about this incident on the way home. The last time somebody asked me for money was in Washington on a visit in 2018. Apart from that, I vaguely remember a similar request in Paris in 1980. 

That was a very long time ago and in a very different place when the world and I were a little younger. So what has changed, in regional Queensland, and perhaps in this land of Oz, to cause this behaviour to emerge? Are there fundamental changes afoot, or was this an isolated insignificant incident? 

ACOSS (the Australian Council of Social Service) with the cooperation of the University of NSW, has published a report which illustrates pretty clearly at least one aspect of the situation, that of wealth distribution in Australia. It reveals, amongst other things, that people in the highest 20% of the wealth scale hold nearly two thirds of all wealth (64%), while those in the lowest 60% hold less than a fifth of wealth (17%). 

 That is obviously significant, but is this disparity a simple enduring reality, or is it part of a trend? Generally in this country, current research doesn't detect a measurable trend, and that, I suppose, is somewhat comforting. Ann Harding's 2002 paper does however suggest that the middle class (however you define it) is shrinking. Certainly, the Australian dream of home ownership is increasingly beyond the means of many of the younger members of the current middle class. 

 Inequality across the pacific is growing, as is apparent from this illustration from this Pew Resource Centre study.

Social and economic trends across the Pacific are almost always visited on us in this country, after a three/five year delay. The abandonment of support for the war in Vietnam first in the USA, and a few years later here, is the best example of this phenomenon.

These trends shape the political culture. 

In the USA, the response seems to be the rise of neo-Fascism. In Australia, the emerging of the TEALs and the growth of support for Green candidates in urban electorates is apparent. Young renters are becoming more than a little unhappy with the major parties.