Ahh wow. My place was $300k (I live in Albury) and I had about 18% of the loan, so I only ended up paying about $5000 mortgage lender's insurance. I didn't realise it became much steeper for higher amounts. All I can say is hang in there. The market is starting to look better each day. There will be at least one more interest rate cut before end of year, and it should stay pretty low by then. 

In my situation, I live 300km away from Melbourne (closest city) and am in a profession that is more suited to city life (software engineers aren't paid much in the country). That's why I'm really looking forward to either the NBN, which will allow my personal business to grow and take on more work remotely or internationally, or the Very fast rail, which will enable city work to be less than an hour's commute away, and forcing employers in the regional areas to compete with wages of the cities if they wish to employ professionals.

I think there will ultimately be a revolt here over electricity. People still remember the days when electricity was government owned, and (here at least), all this talk about privatisation of electricity being a good thing is only getting people worked up, ever since electricity prices have jumped threefold in the past few years.

What kind of investment guy is going to work with someone who has, at most, $200 TOPS a month, to play with?  That small amount of money isn't hiring anyone, and they won't get anyone but a sales type who will pitch this or that mutual fund.  When you are on the bottom end, you get the office the shelf variety.

In my case, even if I get working again (as of now, I am on handouts so there is no investing), it would be best I pay down my credit card at this point.  I also need to keep my car on the road.  Best long-term thing isn't paper investments, but develop IP that can sell.  

Paper assets pay so poorly on a return now, whether it be dividends or interest paid (bonds) it just isn't worth it on the lower end.  People on lower end are best acquiring skills and trying to do business stuff, as in entrepreneur.  Trying to play appreciation game with paper assets is a huge risk at this point.

The high index mutual funds aren't too bad.  I mean you gotta keep in kind mind most mutual funds don't really make money unless you do.

Watched the figures for the labor force in the USA... only ~65% of the people that are in working age have a job/are searching for one? That would be impossible in here, over 60% of spanish workers earns less than 1100 euros, while the minimum wage in France is 1425 euros. And the prices are nearly the same.

Years ago people spend their money in different stuff. How many radios do you own now? And how many times have you used the regular mail service? People buy less music, books, go less to the cinema...

Now we own more TV's than before, but a bigger factor is the decrease in reliability. And given the questionable tactics we know they use to increase profits, I'm not going to believe in their honesty (Extrapolate to all electronical devices).

Then there's the price of the house (again much, much worse in Spain).

Some of the Spanish mismanagement is on purpose to benefit those that are rich or powerful...

People didn't own that many radios back then.   Also, compaired to 1982... people spend less on some of those products, not all, and get way more for it.

To put it in graph form...

Don't want to argue about Spain, since Spain does seem like a pretty messed up country and has for about a decade and a half, but in the USA, what your saying really isn't the case.  Additionally, it's hard to blame the situation on free market capitalism, when the real issues seem to specifically be caused by bad government policy, including stupid regulations which tend to favor the rich/companies.

What you usually find is, that when a politician decides to "Go after" one group or another, what they really end up doing is writing laws that actually benefit them.  Like Dodd Frank, which will drive smaller banks out of buisness leading the big "too big to fail" banks,  Bigger.

People may have more money, but if they have to buy three TVs in 15 years instead of one...

Reliability is very hard to check. How can we know for sure that a company is making a product the best they can or just making it to last 5 years?

And when they get away with stuff like this (thanks to the regulations), imagine what they do that we don't know:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1178897/samsung-s-a-c-panel-differences-2009-lcd-line-up

To resume things, what is happening is that a certain TV model doesn't always have the same screen. And of course they doesn't have the same quality.

Not only Samsung does it, LG, Sony... all of them do this. They are well aware of this and send the TVs with the best panels to review sites.

And they laugh in our faces:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/lcd-led-lcd-tvs/506989-samsung-ignoring-lcd-panel-lottery-issue.html

Again, we are talking about the poor and working poor here, and what the woman said.  Individuals living paycheck to paycheck, aren't going to have much of anything to put into things like mutual funds and so on.  Unless the individual can end up turning it around, they will maybe hit middle class, if they are lucky.  And middle class isn't even to the place of being wealthy either.  Idea is to become independently wealthy so you don't need to work.  In short, retire.  A poor person MAYBE gets there if they have the right breaks.  But to just tell them to stop smoking and drinking, work longer hours, and invest and create jobs, is pushing it.  This isn't happening with the average poor person, no matter how much one thinks they need to work harder.  MAYBE if they are like the Golden Voice, and get a break, then it can be different.  But not for the average poor person.  Pretty much, get a break at the right time, and end up spinning off that.  And if they work, they face challenges:

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/futurework/conference/workingpoor/workingpoor_toc.htm

They certainly aren't going to get rich going to some financial planner who pitches mutual funds.  Maybe they can end up knowing how to do some real estate and end up owning rental property.  But go and create jobs?  Sorry, I can't take seriously a woman who inherited a bunch of money to tell people who are poor how to lift themselves up by their boot straps. Sorry, the Lucky Sperm Club (Wayne Root term) member isn't in a place to tell people what to do.  Have a rich father isn't a method for everyone...

Again... that's why I said it was a first step.

It won't make you a ton of money, but it sure will get you to the point of where you have a good amount of it for later investments. 

Mean.

While the statement was over generalising and I disagree with reducing/removing the minimum wage she does have a point. I know full well that I could double my salary inside of three years if I bothered to give up 10+ hours of my free time each week for the next 3 months and dedicate it to passing a few exams. I know I'm more than capable of passing the exams and I can see my career progression ahead of me but the simple fact is I'm not bothered. I get paid a fair wage for the work I do and it pays my bills and gives me a enjoyable lifestyle. I'm just struggling to motivate myself to do more.

I'm not jealous of people who earn more than me and to be honest people who complain about the wage they get paid often annoy me anyway. If you're not happy about your wage, leave and get a better paid job, if you're so good someone will pay you what you think you're worth (often people overvalue themselves in my experience).

If you want to earn more there are steps that can be taken, you just need to identify them. Sometimes it's improving yourself, sometimes it could be a change of attitude at work for example behaviour modification to make you appear a more attractive proposition. That kiss ass at work who never says a negative thing and is always full of positivity despite things going tits up is probably thinking exactly the same as you but knows roles with greater responsibility (and hopefully better prospects) will often goto the people with positive outlooks and a apparent ability to remain calm under stress.

In summary, people can improve their prospects by working harder, they just need to start breaking barriers down rather than raising obstacles to get in their way.

"Once you take responsibility for everything that happens to you, that's when you start to learn"