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Cop a dose of ‘Harden Up’

It seems that this country has forgotten just what a ‘hard life’ is. Australians have managed to make good economic periods look tough. Despite low unemployment, a massive budget surplus, an array of free health care and government income support, we convinced ourselves that we were hard done by.

This spoilt country is lying awake at night contemplating an economic downturn. With the media hype surrounding unemployment rates, the stock market down turn and the credit crunch you could easily convince yourself that we are in trouble. K Rudd even jumped on the band wagon, drumming it into us in the lead up to the last election that ‘working families are doing it tough.’ So like the absorbent sponges we are, Aussies believe we are on the road to dire straits.

Before we work ourselves into a frenzy, let’s stop and actually look at what is happening. In reality, generation X and Y have never lived through a workforce down turn. Unemployment rates are only predicted to rise to about where they were before the last recession. As for the stock market, some investors would not know an opportunity if it smacked them in the face. You could argue that there is no better time to be investing while the rates are low and are set to yield good returns.

The ‘housing affordability crisis’ has also been pumped up by real estate cheer leaders. But the situation is more like a ‘housing desirability crisis’ with young adults from well to do families unable to enter the market in well located suburbs down the road from mum and dad. While working families are believed to be doing it tough these days, the truth is that working families trying to raise children on a single wage will always do it tough. However this generation of families has more government assistance and a greater chance of actually ‘working’ than its predecessors.

So things aren’t all doom and gloom as the media would have usbelieve. We need to suck it up and get on with life. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the country’s future. There is always an upside to every down turn.