Modern life is rubbish

May 15

universalheadOpinions 2 Comments

According to the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, between 1996 and 2003 house prices in Sydney rose by 100 per cent while average weekly earnings grew by just 3.6 per cent a year.

2 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. edalyar
    May 19, 2004 @ 14:26:11

    I think you’ll find that most people are earning less now than they were in 1996, at least in the IT world and related industries. Why? The internet bubble burst, the dot com crash and the fact that the market got flooded by graduates who all thought doing a computer degree would actually make them as rich as the “lucky gold miners” of the late 80’s. Yes, and then housing prices finally caught up with something resembling what they are really worth. The comment in the SMH is about as useful as saying 50% of married people are women. Still, it makes good reading and can be used as an ice breaker at parties

  2. UniversalHead
    May 19, 2004 @ 14:39:03

    Do you think house prices do resemble what they’re really worth? Hard to believe here in Sydney, where a crappy little flat anywhere vaguely near the city will set you back half a mil.

    I do agree though, these kind of ‘statistics’ are pretty worthless, as is 90% of the stuff you read in Saturday’s paper over breakfast that seems calculated to make you feel like you’re not getting anywhere. I’m looking forward to reading Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety, which I just bought, for possible insights into why this kind of journalism is so widespread.