patrick.net

I had no idea from Different Sean’s posts that he was Australian… His posts made me think that he was a rich trust fund kid living in the Mission cashing checks that Mom and Dad send up from Portola Valley every month (and hating the fact that his Dad makes so much money).

Huh?

My elaborate disguise worked then... little things like spelling with 'u' and making frequent references to australia and the UK are scarcely clues...

At the end of the day I can’t figure out how most Australians even get by. As a whole most make less money than Americans, pay higher taxes than Americans and buy things that cost more than they cost in America due to the high VAT taxes.

it's not really high VAT taxes, it's 10% on goods and services, which replaced a 'hidden' wholesale sales tax system prior to that. the UK VAT is 17½% by comparison. However, with relatively low levels of manufacturing, Australians are forced to import a lot of goods.

P.S. I just went to a currency exchange site and the current A$ to US$ exchange rate of $0.72-$1.00 the 42% tax rate kicks in at US$45K (right around the lowest starting pay for a kid with a degree in the Bay Area)…

it's irrelevant, as international exchange rates don't determine domestic buying power or wage setting. you would have to look at the income distribution of the entire population to understand the tax brackets. it's almost a direct analogue to US wages without doing the conversion, e.g. a comp sci graduate here might earn AUD$45K also. teachers, firemen, police, etc would earn around $50K. the biggest problem here tho is imports, and lack of buying power due to a population of 20 million.

ivy league-quality university courses are almost free here, so students don't often need loans, but they won't necessarily make as much money on graduation either. one of the biggest exports these days is the English language and university courses. american students often do an exchange semester, and now that UK universities intend to charge £3,000 a year (previously free), UK students may choose to study under better weather also.

SFWoman,

One of my best friends when I worked at "Major Firm" was the transportation analyst. He explained that today airline seats are a commodity (like so many bushels of corn). I think the term he used was ASRM. Available Seat Revenue Miles? Anyway, they always seem to think that by undercutting the competition they can drive start-ups out and reclaim the route and "drive the market". But it never seems to work out that way.

DinOR Says:

Lenders, rather than prudently tightening lending standards seem to want to go out in a blaze of glory! Have things really gotten this bad?

Lenders are behaving like drug addicts. They know they need to get off the junk (crappy loans), but they're addicted to the easy money and seemingly endless supply of suckers waiting to jump in. Once the supply runs dry, watch out.

DS,

Thanks for the Austrans website. My idea is somewhat different. It looks like Austrans is going for a public transportation solution while I'm trying to reach a broader mass transit solution - specifically with the American suburbanites in mind.

In my mind, the individual vehicles would be privately owned and driveable on normal streets, albeit at a relatively low speeds. Once they reach the transit depot (an onramp, if you will), they would latch onto a monorail like system and be directly controlled by a central traffic management system until they reach their destination.

To make this system work requires (1) some technology pieces that are probably easy to create but maybe not yet in existence (2) a modular vehicle design that is relatively inexpensive and rigorously inspected as to avoid breakdowns and (3) massive capital investment in design, testing, and refitting stages. I think (3) is the major stumbling block to ever make the system work - since it takes both public and private capital.

(Perhaps something to think about after the next big SF earthquake levels all the existing mass transport and SF receives a big dollop of dollars from a Democratic federal government.)

SFWoman,

I stopped flying (for the most part) long before 9/11. With America's "wealth effect" people that should be taking the Greyhound are suddenly able to afford flying. One of my clients has been with the same carrier since the 60's and she once had to ask a "passenger" to please not trim his toenails on the airplane! The guy looked at her like she was kind of nosy b!tch! I don't want to get into some big political thing but one of the main reasons terrorists were able to pull their stunt was b/c airports and airlines were running the show like a damn bus terminal. I tend to blame the "wealth effect" for alot of things. Some of which are true.

I kind of thought about moving to Australia from time to time. A few of my buddies in college were from there and they acted more like southeners( US southerners) than the people I went to school with in Boston. The weather is parts of that country are terrific.. but just like here, those regions are costly. The only bad thing I've head about Australia is that their top soil is almost depleted, which could become a major problem in the nest 20-50 years. I've never been there. I'll have to check it out.

SFWoman,

Thanks for the link! The kitchen looks a little small, though it would be pretty nice in a $2M level city home. The interior shots also looks a little generic, but that's easier to fix.

I can see why you'd like it at a 40% discount. It looks to be a very very pretty building and layout.

Skibum,

So true, so true. I (like Mr. Vincent) recall my first mortgage. It was an arduous and lengthy process. We wanted to just chuck it several times. They always seemed to want more documentation. Now it seems they are like getting one of those "flight policies" at the airport.

No offense,
but the 4 mil condo looks like the interior of Macey's Department Store. I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that place looks entirely too sterile.

DinOR,

I find plane rides intolerable without a good pair of ear plugs or sound insulating ear buds. If you're forced to fly, try economyplus on United. That tends to be a slightly better self selected group.

nomadtoons2,

Ha, thank you for your independent confirmation about Australia's top soil/ecosystem. From what I've read they have a very fragile eco-system that is failing from a century of rough handling by men. I've been trying to pose the question to DS politely, but I guess he doesn't see a problem yet.

DinOR,
I mentioned this a few threads back, but I'll mention it again - Robt. Frank wrote a book called "Luxury Fever" that you might be interested in reading (if you haven't already). Talks exactly about the "wealth effect" and the spiraling demand for luxury goods by the masses. It's definitely relevant to the bubble, as McMansions are an obvious manifestation.

Astrid,
Luckily bad farming techniques can be reversed. The SE had a MAJOR soil problem due to the topographic layout and hilly environment. Think SF hills, but worse. My grandfather was part of the TVA rural electrification project and also worked with agencies to help farmers with new techniques like countour plowing, crop rotation, and so forth. The area also flooded a lot, thus TVA constructed over 20 hydro-electric dams. 70 years later, the valley is fully restored. I'm sure Australia can do the same.

astrid,

I just think it's a shame that we would want the "Bose Sound Cancelling Devices" everytime we are in a public place. I'm not that old but there was a time when as many deals were done "in the air" as were done on a golf course. You never knew who you would be seated with and even if you didn't get the business it was at the very least a pleasant few hours. Now?

oh, there's huge problems with clearing, desalination, drought and poor soil, absolutely... i'm not a farmer or an ag science graduate, so i don't have any suggestions for them... but much of it is due to harsh environmental conditions on the driest continent on the planet...

one guy set up an absolute oasis on his land when everyone around was in drought, and everyone thought he was nuts for 25 years...

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2006/s1563374.htm

DinOR,
I'd recommend the Shure line of sound insulating ear plugs over Bose. They're cheaper and much smaller

Skibum,

Luxury Fever huh? I will most definitely check that out!

salinity, i mean, not desalination, heh - there was a proposed $2bn desalination plant to supply fresh water to metro sydney here that got knocked back recently, i've got it on the brain...

nomad,

If I understood Australia's situation correctly, they have an extremely fragile system, due to very low soil fertility (billions of years of erosion and leaching) and low percipiatation in most of the continent. It's debateable whether standard agricultural practices can ever be practiced sustainably, without substantial amounts of fertilizer being brought in every year.

there's a guy here, clive hamilton, who talks about 'affluenza', and composed the 'wellbeing manifesto' and runs a non-partisan thinktank called the australia institute. his books also critique the notion of the desirability of constant 'economic growth'. however, i think he borrows much of the ideation from the american condition in particular - the 'success at any cost' ethos is not gererally so bad over here. funnily enough, the left don't really trust him, because he doesn't really recognise the plight of labor, assumes everyone is doing well, etc...

http://www.tai.org.au/About_Us_Files/staff.htm

Why don’t they just raise the price of the tickets, make flying a little more pleasant, and make the companies profitable?

post 9/11 and supply/demand. demand really plummeted and the airlines have been just over broke ever since...

DinOR,

I've advocated on one occasion that every American college student take at least a couple of greyhound busrides when they're young. You get all sorts of behavior on greyhound buses, but most of my fellow travelers accord themselves with a good deal of dignity. Flying is now such a casual experience for most people, they just forget to be considerate to the people within extreme close proximity.

However, it does seem like people at all economic stratas are more rude than they used to be. I live in an upper middle class community and the things that come out of some of the 10 year olds' mouths! I'm no better, I guess, given how much I curse in private.

DS,

With all due respect. I may not be familiar with Australian ag practices but I do know quite a bit about Chinese agriculture. Desperate people can destroy their ancestoral land even in landscapes with far richer soil and more reliable climates.

Also, Australian lands not farmed are often grazed. Hoofed animals, especially goats and sheep, can be very destructive to top soil unless very carefully managed.

SFWoman,

My guess is that these condos operate like VIP boxes. Their owner very rarely live in them and don't have to deal with the noise on a regular basis.

Or they're deaf already. :P

SFWoman,

I couldn't agree more! This should be frowned on anywhere! You bring up a good point though, we should have minimum standards anytime we are in public (regardless of how pricey or cheap).

I've made this argument until I'm blue in the face. One of my friends grades commercial loans (many of which are for the air carriers) and he keeps insisting that the airlines opened up a can of worms when they made air travel for the masses affordable and now they can't give up the volume unless everybody else did it too! The other thing is that carriers are extremely leveraged. The planes are leased, the ground support equipment is leased, hell even the wheel chocks are leased. Everyone knows your costs! As frustrating as it seems I still believe that aviation is important to America and we need to find ways to reassert our leadership role in this sector. I'm pretty sure though that making flying affordable for every guy in a sleeveless T-shirt isn't the answer.

owneroccupier,

An easier way to get umlauts and accents is to use the Character Map application in the Windows/Accessories menu. It does the alt-codes for you so you don't have to remember all the keystrokes.

There is also an international setting in WinXP, where you can change the default language. Be careful with that one though. It's caused me trouble in the past (it remaps your keyboard).

astrid,

"Flying is now such a casual experience"

Couldn't have said it better myself! Same goes for grocery shopping (which I detest). Not so much for the shopping itself but for the manner in which so many people conduct themselves in a public place. I don't know who to blame but I do know I don't like it. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not some priss but dog gone it people this is not your living room!

Different Sean wrote:

"it’s irrelevant (that the A$ is only worth $0.73 to $1.00 US$), as international exchange rates don’t determine domestic buying power or wage setting."

Exchange rated are very relevant since people that import stuff to Australia don't discount it because people make less. Almost everything in Australia costs more than in the US and almost everyone makes less money. Even products made in Australia cost more. I can buy Australian wine at the Marina Safeway or Plump Jack for less than it costs at any store in Australia (or even the wineries).

> ivy league-quality university courses are almost free here, so students don’t often need loans,
> but they won’t necessarily make as much money on graduation

I got an "ivy league-quality" education here in California that was "almost free" (it was under $2K a year my first couple years) and I made good money after graduation. I have a good friend that went to College of Marin for two years (paying $100 a year + books) and transferred so he has a degree from a good school that cost under $4K total.

SFWoman,

Yes, rabbits were brought in by the original settlers for meat and small game hunting. They're now so bad that the Australian government intentionally bring in rabbit diseases in the hopes of controlling the population.

For anyone interested, here's a link on the subject.

http://www.answers.com/topic/rabbits-in-australia

Didn’t rabbits or hares destroy a bunch of Australian grazing land?

they certainly bred like rabbits... rabbits are originally from the middle east, and are well adapted to the climate in oz and blend in...

The cost of wild rabbits is more than economic: they cause environmental damage which is often irreparable. The loss of vegetation from rabbit grazing threatens the survival of native birds, mammals, and insects that rely on plants for food and shelter. Rabbits have contributed to the extinction of many native plant and animal species.

Wild rabbits compete with livestock for available pasture and kill young trees and shrubs. Their warrens contribute to soil erosion by removing vegetation and disturbing soil.

they were brought into australia in the 1850s as hunting stock on a nobleman's estate. funnily, they somehow got out into a very friendly terrain - for them - and... bred like rabbits...

foxes have also been introduced, also for hunting, not to mention cats and dogs which go feral or just prey on wildlife within suburban and rural areas.

a brilliant case of early (1930s) attempted but failed biological control was the introduction in qld of the 'cane toad', bufo marinus, to attempt to control sugar cane beetles, which failed. cane toads are also known, appropriately, as giant toads and are native to North, Central and South America (it's called a 'spring chicken' in belize). females can weigh 2.5kg and have a length of 26cm. cane toads rapidly spread from their places of introduction, and are still advancing south and west. The cane toad is now a pest, and eats native species out of house and home, and occasionally poisons them when they are eaten by said species. now they have to find something that will slow down the cane toad without screwing some other part of the environment.

nomadtoons,

I’m not disagreeing with you on the ” cash is king” statement, but how would this be helpful in a depression since the dollar could get signifigantly erroded?

As a rule of thumb:

Inflation erodes cash purchasing power, meaning you want real assets or inflation protected investments during inflation, not savings accounts or cash in a safe.

Deflation increases cash purchasing power, meaning you want savings accounts and cash in a safe.

During the Great Depression people desired to actually hold their cash physically (Granny hid it under the mattress), because of bank failures. During Japan's deflation, most people just left their cash in the bank, they didn't take it out and hide it.

Japan actually experienced a period of negative *real* interest rates during their deflation. That is, the nominal rate (posted rate) was effectively 0%, but the bank charges some fees, mainly the cost of protecting and storing your money. So, cash was perceived as being so valuable that people were actually willing to *pay* to give someone else their money. This is a rare and extraordinary event, and somewhat unlikely to happen in the US system.

Finally, during inflation it is very good to have debts if (a) you can service the payments, (b) the rates are fixed, (c) there is no funky amortization trickery. When you have a long-term, or even shorter-term, fixed rate debts during inflation you can always earn a guaranteed, risk-free rate of return by paying and prepaying the debt, thereby exploiting the inflation to the cost of the lender.

During deflation the above is reversed. The lender is exploiting the deflation against you, because rates are falling but you are paying back your debt in ever stronger dollars (but not getting the value of that strength, you're giving it all back to the lender). This is why Depression Era folks hate debt and inflation era folks love it.

Anyway, getting back to those "guilty pleasures" I have to be honest here. I would hate to see them do away with flaky NAAVLP altogether b/c one of my secret guilty pleasures has been to wait for the crash, swoop in and pick up a swanky (formerly overpriced) McMansion with a pool and do the whole thing on some kind of IO payment, then commence to neglect it entirely! Wouldn't that be fun? While your neighbor that bought at the height of the market struggling with ever higher payments looks on in horror as you invite Surfer X and his "buds" over to "break in" your blender? You know, the tupperware "Texas Tumbler" sized glasses? Not sure I'll ever actually do it but just the thought has kept me going.

SFwoman,
All said and done.. It's still a condo. I don't know- I'm a bit old fashioned, but the idea of paying to own a part of a building seems like fake ownership for some reason.I wouldn't feel like I owned it all to myself. Even at a million bucks, this is signifigant dough. Guess I am yet to be on a level where my value structure has aquired metropolitan penchants and taste, but that's ok. The idea of people paying 500k for a view of the NASCAR track is quite ubsurd. Then again... NASCAR is HUGE in parts of the country. I got so sick and tired of seeing all the NASCAR stickers everywhere back there. Imagine if all the "No war in Iraq!" stickers on the bumpers in Berkeley turned into "Dale Earnhart is No 1!" stickers. That's what it is like.. only 50% worse! Believe it or not, in Japan, US NASCAR is immensly popular- so popular that there is actually a Nascar track there. I have to say that I admire the NASCAR marketing machine. It is the most sucessful marketing campaign in US history. It is soon to eclipse basketball. Product placement is everywhere, and they fully understand their target audience. I got so sick of it. The only good thing about it was that every weekend there was a race, the freeways were abandoned because everyone stayed home to watch the race, effectivly erradicating the weekend rush.

"While your neighbor that bought at the height of the market struggling with ever higher payments looks on in horror as you invite Surfer X and his “buds” over to “break in” your blender? You know, the tupperware “Texas Tumbler” sized glasses?"

Can I join in? I'll help you build a BBQ pit or a smokehouse for extra rusticity points.

nomad,

I never got the point of NASCAR myself. You watch the cars, usually at a great distance from your vantage point, go round and round the track at really high speeds. I've been told by my Chinese family (who are big F1 fans) that they follow it for the car crashes.

DS,

Import 100 million Chinese from the poorest part of China. They'll eat up all those pesky rodents in no time.

But they might be hard to eradicate afterwards...

HARM HARM HARM, it's a$$ pounding.

You are a very bad man.

Even products made in Australia cost more. I can buy Australian wine at the Marina Safeway or Plump Jack for less than it costs at any store in Australia (or even the wineries).

erm, that sounds a bit odd to me. freight across the pacific isn't free. an AUD$16 RRP bottle of wine would be US$12 + freight. my g/f actually audits exporters for the australian trade commission, the only benefit exporters get are a favourable exchange rate internationally. unless giant multinationals deliberately siphon off most of the stock to sell overseas under exclusive agreements...

i thought everyone had to pay $10K a year in tuition fees to attend US colleges - the kids who come here on semester swaps surely do...

DS,

FAB speak of the good ole days, before whippersnappers like me, hate to rent, and nomadtoons2 came along.

I had a friend from high school who was English and ended up going to Cambridge. She came back with complaints of Blair's plans to raise Oxbridge tuition, and got laughed out by everyone else.

California tuitions are still quite affordable for in-state students. However, with room and board, the total amount would be close to $20K a year.