Politics The economy is set up to screw young people

[faible]

Protests in the late 60s and 70s were far more violent than the tepid pantomimes that pass for them now. Where is the millennial Weather Underground?

Amazing how much the boomers complain about protests these days then, enacting laws to ban them.

I also enjoy that you're blaming those not in power, for not having power.

 

[faible]

I don't have a problem with most of that. Part of me wants to see the property market take a hard hit, but that's only because I have no mortgage or investment properties. The way of least pain is probably to have a static housing market for a significant period of time.

Deep government intervention is required if we want change. There doesn't seem to be much long term planning from the two main parties other than what will win the next election - it's become a battle between who can put the least number of voters offside. Even though I don't agree with either, I'd say the ALP targeting investment tax benefits and the LNP bringing in workchoices were brave politics. Where's the bravado gone of late?

Where do you think tenant rights are lacking? I have zero experience as a tenant so I haven't seen things from that perspective, and think the opposite is true - that tenants have too many rights.

Minimum rental standards are a regular issue.
Real Estate Agents acting on behalf of the owner, not the tenant at every turn (despite the tenant being the one paying) is a problem that exacerbates this.
Rental prices are escalating rapidly due to many reasons.

The trope of the 'bad tenants we can't get rid of' is a pretty miniscule percentage of the market, whereas most renters would have had some experience with problematic landlords, property conditions, or rapidly rising rental prices.

 

[evolved2]

Minimum rental standards are a regular issue.
Real Estate Agents acting on behalf of the owner, not the tenant at every turn (despite the tenant being the one paying) is a problem that exacerbates this.
Rental prices are escalating rapidly due to many reasons.

The trope of the 'bad tenants we can't get rid of' is a pretty miniscule percentage of the market, whereas most renters would have had some experience with problematic landlords, property conditions, or rapidly rising rental prices.

Property managers are employed by the landlords to act on their behalf. They aren't there to advocate on behalf of tenants, though I'm sure they often find themselves acting as mediators.

Low rental prices aren't a right, as such. I always tried to minimise increases if the tenant was good - if not, that's a different story. The market is screwed right now and I blame government more than landlords. At the end of the day, it's a matter of supply and demand.

You talk of bad tenants being a small percentage of the total, and that's true in my experience. What percentage of landlords would you say are not fulfilling their obligations? The laws in place protect tenants more than landlords - as they should, but I do think the balance is a little too far in favor of tenants.

 

[faible]

Property managers are employed by the landlords to act on their behalf. They aren't there to advocate on behalf of tenants, though I'm sure they often find themselves acting as mediators.

Low rental prices aren't a right, as such. I always tried to minimise increases if the tenant was good - if not, that's a different story. The market is screwed right now and I blame government more than landlords. At the end of the day, it's a matter of supply and demand.

You talk of bad tenants being a small percentage of the total, and that's true in my experience. What percentage of landlords would you say are not fulfilling their obligations? The laws in place protect tenants more than landlords - as they should, but I do think the balance is a little too far in favor of tenants.

RE: the bolded, that's exactly the point. Yet the tenant is the one handing over the cash for the 'product'. A little bit of an imbalance, no?

Who says 'low' rental prices? The prices have skyrocketed and are expected to increase even further (currently 7.8%, expected to go to 10% this year, and 8% next year). Remembering that unlike the property owner, a renter will never receive any benefit of capital gain from that investment they're subsidising.

I've no idea how many properties fall below the minimum rental standards, that's the aspect of the market purplepingers originally standard his platform on. Shit Rentals to be specific. There's no real accountability in the space, and a number of the properties he's shown over the years were reported by the tenant, had the tenant mysteriously evicted, then were simply re-listed as-is.

There's also an issue of vacant properties, where the government expected owners to self-report in order to pay the tax (lol) and upon actually investigating just 5 apartment blocks they found 177 vacant properties that weren't reported. So now they're going to do more investigations to try to force those properties back to market (or pay bonus tax for the luxury of leaving them vacant).

 

[evolved2]

RE: the bolded, that's exactly the point. Yet the tenant is the one handing over the cash for the 'product'. A little bit of an imbalance, no?

Who says 'low' rental prices? The prices have skyrocketed and are expected to increase even further (currently 7.8%, expected to go to 10% this year, and 8% next year). Remembering that unlike the property owner, a renter will never receive any benefit of capital gain from that investment they're subsidising.

I've no idea how many properties fall below the minimum rental standards, that's the aspect of the market purplepingers originally standard his platform on. Shit Rentals to be specific. There's no real accountability in the space, and a number of the properties he's shown over the years were reported by the tenant, had the tenant mysteriously evicted, then were simply re-listed as-is.

There's also an issue of vacant properties, where the government expected owners to self-report in order to pay the tax (lol) and upon actually investigating just 5 apartment blocks they found 177 vacant properties that weren't reported. So now they're going to do more investigations to try to force those properties back to market (or pay bonus tax for the luxury of leaving them vacant).

The 'product' is rent of a property, not management. Property managers take a percentage of rent from the landlord to ensure the property is maintained and rent is paid - those are jobs the landlord would otherwise have to do themselves. There are separate advocacy services for tenants that are usually free.

It's interesting to see things through the eyes of different perspectives. Thanks

I'm getting a little off track with tenant/landlord stuff - it probably belongs in the other thread.

 

[faible]

The 'product' is rent of a property, not management. Property managers take a percentage of rent from the landlord to ensure the property is maintained and rent is paid - those are jobs the landlord would otherwise have to do themselves. There are separate advocacy services for tenants that are usually free.

It's interesting to see things through the eyes of different perspectives. Thanks

I'm getting a little off track with tenant/landlord stuff - it probably belongs in the other thread.

The advocacy services are pretty toothless, and usually don't resolve the 'I need a roof over my head right now while you sort this out' aspect of the whole thing. There's very, very limited leverage available to tenants. You take what you're given. Even if it's a shit sandwich.

It's a symptom of the economy largely being set up for those who already have assets and wealth. It's an economy very good at transferring wealth from (mostly younger) income earners, to (mostly older) asset holders.

 

[Gethelred]

I don't have a problem with most of that. Part of me wants to see the property market take a hard hit, but that's only because I have no mortgage or investment properties. The way of least pain is probably to have a static housing market for a significant period of time.

Change will hurt the high end of town, if you hit them they will lash out electorally. You need to be exceedingly careful in your increments; if you're not, you're in opposition again inside 4 years.

It really pains me to say this, but Albo's softly-softly approach - as much as it shits me to tears - is probably about as hard or as fast as he can go to even things up, provided he keeps going. For things to change, we need an anti-Howard; a government and leader to stay in office as long as he did to hold the reins of power just long enough to see the changes wrought to have an effect over the long run.

Deep government intervention is required if we want change.

This is true, but...

There doesn't seem to be much long term planning from the two main parties other than what will win the next election - it's become a battle between who can put the least number of voters offside. Even though I don't agree with either, I'd say the ALP targeting investment tax benefits and the LNP bringing in workchoices were brave politics. Where's the bravado gone of late?

... the problem is term lengths.

As someone who believes in co-operative anarchy - think, Kropotkin - the way government is structured in Australia is almost perfect if you have to have a government at all because it's completely stagnant. It's democratic without the ability to actually enact change except over extreme long terms, with elections serving to reverse government direction every few years. There are so many checks and balances in place to change that everything is locked into near immobility; only a rare leader finds themselves in control of both houses, and that leader usually finds themselves out of government pretty quick afterward.

Our system is inefficient by design; it's not designed to get things accomplished but to keep the lights on and civic order maintained. Governments can tinker at the margins, but if they want to enact real change they require not just a mandate for it but people voting for them so significantly that they win control in both houses. Otherwise, they need to be in control for long time spans to do anything at all.

Change term limits for sitting governments - from 4 to 6 year terms - and that changes things dramatically. If you win a second term, you're now in power for fully 11ish years; you've got time to see that micro change have actual effects.

Where do you think tenant rights are lacking? I have zero experience as a tenant so I haven't seen things from that perspective, and think the opposite is true - that tenants have too many rights.

You need give a tenant three day's notice prior to an inspection, but in a rooming house the landlord can enter at any time to inspect the common areas. My old landlord placed cameras in the common areas and outside the property, which he could - depending on the system - be streamed straight to his phone.

At the same house, the agent - upon someone leaving - used to charge the entirety of a tenant's bond on the basis of cleaning their room, regardless of how clean it was prior; they targeted overseas students during Covid, knowing that those students were outside the country and probably couldn't fight them on it, pocketting the bond. To my knowledge, no-one caught up with them on that because they were careful who they targeted and the process for challenging this requires appeals to the RTT, a process which is complex and tricky to undertake if you're not in the country; they're also inundated with appeals due to landlord shit****ery, and your case might take 4 years to get your bond back. For landlords/estate agents, all they have to do is delay it over and over again and the appellant might just go away due to too much trouble.

In the first house I lived in - a private rooming house - there were holes in the floors and roof, the sink leaked in the kitchen, there were clear paths on the floor for grime and dust, the sinks were always full; one of the rooms was being rented by a woman who ran a brothel through it, and the landlord was completely disinterested in doing anything about it because they only needed tenants in there for the year before they could demolish the lot and build a block of units on it. This was all above board, because there's no requirement on the part of leasers to register or have their house inspected by anyone prior to leasing it out to make sure it's in a condition for habitation.

An individualist response there could be that I chose to live in that house. I was 21; I had never lived anywhere other than with my parents; I was moving to a place near uni and the house was within walking distance and I'd been struggling with commuting badly; the house was empty prior to my moving into it, and they got all of us in there bloody quick and rent was extremely cheap for where it was. It's only in retrospect that I'm aware of the problems or illegalities involved.

The other side of it too is that some of the behaviour described above is completely legal. The landlord can absolutely place cameras in a rooming house's common areas; if you asked that estate agent why they failed to return the bond they'd tell you they possessed invoices for cleaning that I know they didn't do, and that would (if challenged) only be done a week before trial actually took place.

The system is too easy to game, and is completely underfunded to the point of being exploitable. But that's part and parcel of a legal system that favours the wealthy in the first place, Evolved.

 

[evolved2]

Change will hurt the high end of town, if you hit them they will lash out electorally. You need to be exceedingly careful in your increments; if you're not, you're in opposition again inside 4 years.

It really pains me to say this, but Albo's softly-softly approach - as much as it shits me to tears - is probably about as hard or as fast as he can go to even things up, provided he keeps going. For things to change, we need an anti-Howard; a government and leader to stay in office as long as he did to hold the reins of power just long enough to see the changes wrought to have an effect over the long run.

This is true, but...

... the problem is term lengths.

As someone who believes in co-operative anarchy - think, Kropotkin - the way government is structured in Australia is almost perfect if you have to have a government at all because it's completely stagnant. It's democratic without the ability to actually enact change except over extreme long terms, with elections serving to reverse government direction every few years. There are so many checks and balances in place to change that everything is locked into near immobility; only a rare leader finds themselves in control of both houses, and that leader usually finds themselves out of government pretty quick afterward.

Our system is inefficient by design; it's not designed to get things accomplished but to keep the lights on and civic order maintained. Governments can tinker at the margins, but if they want to enact real change they require not just a mandate for it but people voting for them so significantly that they win control in both houses. Otherwise, they need to be in control for long time spans to do anything at all.

Change term limits for sitting governments - from 4 to 6 year terms - and that changes things dramatically. If you win a second term, you're now in power for fully 11ish years; you've got time to see that micro change have actual effects.

You need give a tenant three day's notice prior to an inspection, but in a rooming house the landlord can enter at any time to inspect the common areas. My old landlord placed cameras in the common areas and outside the property, which he could - depending on the system - be streamed straight to his phone.

At the same house, the agent - upon someone leaving - used to charge the entirety of a tenant's bond on the basis of cleaning their room, regardless of how clean it was prior; they targeted overseas students during Covid, knowing that those students were outside the country and probably couldn't fight them on it, pocketting the bond. To my knowledge, no-one caught up with them on that because they were careful who they targeted and the process for challenging this requires appeals to the RTT, a process which is complex and tricky to undertake if you're not in the country; they're also inundated with appeals due to landlord shit****ery, and your case might take 4 years to get your bond back. For landlords/estate agents, all they have to do is delay it over and over again and the appellant might just go away due to too much trouble.

In the first house I lived in - a private rooming house - there were holes in the floors and roof, the sink leaked in the kitchen, there were clear paths on the floor for grime and dust, the sinks were always full; one of the rooms was being rented by a woman who ran a brothel through it, and the landlord was completely disinterested in doing anything about it because they only needed tenants in there for the year before they could demolish the lot and build a block of units on it. This was all above board, because there's no requirement on the part of leasers to register or have their house inspected by anyone prior to leasing it out to make sure it's in a condition for habitation.

An individualist response there could be that I chose to live in that house. I was 21; I had never lived anywhere other than with my parents; I was moving to a place near uni and the house was within walking distance and I'd been struggling with commuting badly; the house was empty prior to my moving into it, and they got all of us in there bloody quick and rent was extremely cheap for where it was. It's only in retrospect that I'm aware of the problems or illegalities involved.

The other side of it too is that some of the behaviour described above is completely legal. The landlord can absolutely place cameras in a rooming house's common areas; if you asked that estate agent why they failed to return the bond they'd tell you they possessed invoices for cleaning that I know they didn't do, and that would (if challenged) only be done a week before trial actually took place.

The system is too easy to game, and is completely underfunded to the point of being exploitable. But that's part and parcel of a legal system that favours the wealthy in the first place, Evolved.

Very fair points and you express them so well. There's plenty of food for thought there.

 

[peetoo]

Protests in the late 60s and 70s were far more violent than the tepid pantomimes that pass for them now. Where is the millennial Weather Underground?

The yimbies seem to be making inroads. Pity they don’t seem to be holding developers to account as much as governments and councils

 

[james haish]

Amazing how much the boomers complain about protests these days then, enacting laws to ban them.

I also enjoy that you're blaming those not in power, for not having power.

You get power by seizing it. That’s the point. Younger generations have no will to power.

 

[faible]

You get power by seizing it. That’s the point. Younger generations have no will to power.

By seizing it hey?

How does one seize power at the moment? Give me your plan for how millennials achieve this in the here and now.

 

[Lia]

Tax systems in pretty much every country favour investment income and capital gains over earned income. And who owns the assets producing that investment income? People with inherited wealth, and people who have been working long enough to purchase assets themselves. Young people working for a living have to pay an outsized proportion of tax to subsidise wealthy investors, unless they have very rich parents who assist them to buy assets.

The treating of housing as an investment first rather than a place to live has also screwed over young people, who make up the majority of renters. The economy is set up to keep house prices high, by keeping demand high through incentives for landlords like negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, as well as high immigration. Successive governments simply don't care about housing affordability, as evidenced by a recent Q&A episode where politicians from both major parties didn't agree that reducing house prices was an aim of theirs.

Is it any wonder we get spending patterns like the below?

View attachment 1997928

The graph is basically saying that there is a generation of people (25 to 35) who are basically in agony financially compared to the rest of the nation. When does agony turn to anger?

 

[james haish]

By seizing it hey?

How does one seize power at the moment? Give me your plan for how millennials achieve this in the here and now.

The boomers got very violent in the 70s. In the USA they even murdered judges!

 

[faible]

The graph is basically saying that there is a generation of people (25 to 35) who are basically in agony financially compared to the rest of the nation. When does agony turn to anger?

I'm sure they'd be angry about it. But what are they supposed to do to change it?

 

[burge13]

The boomers got very violent in the 70s. In the USA they even murdered judges!

Probably not a practical way to protest though is it

 

[faible]

The boomers got very violent in the 70s. In the USA they even murdered judges!

So to clarify; you want millennials to go murder some judges?

 

[burge13]

I'm sure they'd be angry about it. But what are they supposed to do to change it?

Hire that mushroom lady to cook the next family dinner?

 

[Johnny Bananas]

The graph is basically saying that there is a generation of people (25 to 35) who are basically in agony financially compared to the rest of the nation. When does agony turn to anger?

That's a good question. A lot just get depressed instead. And those that do get angry are attacked mercilessly in the media. I'm proud of someone like purplepingers starting to gain a real public profile fighting for the rights of renters in Australia and young people in particular.

 

[james haish]

Probably not a practical way to protest though is it

It got results. Boomers have reigned in politics and culture ever since. Some of those terrorists became tenured academics and one of them mentored Barack Obama

 

[kickazz]

Tax systems in pretty much every country favour investment income and capital gains over earned income. And who owns the assets producing that investment income? People with inherited wealth, and people who have been working long enough to purchase assets themselves. Young people working for a living have to pay an outsized proportion of tax to subsidise wealthy investors, unless they have very rich parents who assist them to buy assets.

The treating of housing as an investment first rather than a place to live has also screwed over young people, who make up the majority of renters. The economy is set up to keep house prices high, by keeping demand high through incentives for landlords like negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, as well as high immigration. Successive governments simply don't care about housing affordability, as evidenced by a recent Q&A episode where politicians from both major parties didn't agree that reducing house prices was an aim of theirs.

Is it any wonder we get spending patterns like the below?

View attachment 1997928

That graph explains a really sad trend I'm seeing - the replacements at venues of live music, pool tables and affordable beers with overpriced wine and charcuterie boards.

Are the young'uns still having fun or does it cost too much?

 

[kickazz]

It would be good to see more data over a longer term than just one YoY comparison though.

There could be so many explanations - younger people probably spend more on fun generally, and having not experienced hard economic times yet it might be the first experience of this, hence the tightening of the belts?

But the title of this thread is generally accurate in that the ROI for capital has outpaced wage increases for a good couple of decades now.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

That graph explains a really sad trend I'm seeing - the replacements at venues of live music, pool tables and affordable beers with overpriced wine and charcuterie boards.

Are the young'uns still having fun or does it cost too much?

Well, in another country where young people are also getting screwed, the young are still having fun, because they've realised it's the only thing that keeps life worth living for them.

In expensive Taiwan, some young people are giving up on real estate to join the 'moonlight clan' instead

In a city that is less affordable than Sydney, London and New York to purchase a home, some young Taiwanese people are trying desperately to buy, while others are giving up on the real estate dream altogether.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Demonic Ascent]

Is there an accurate means of quantifying the number of people? I suppose you could get a rough idea looking at data on credit card interest and the fees paid on buy now pay later services like Afterpay.

It's difficult to become wealthy from income alone, even a good income. The easiest way to financial freedom is living within your means and setting aside part of your income to buy appreciating and income producing assets. That to me is the golden goose, and I'll vote against any political party that looks to attack it - obviously not a popular view on the SRP but one that resonates with enough swinging voters to make a difference.

I'm suggesting the average middle income earner should be capable of following the same simple plan. If not, it's highly likely they lack sensible management of their finances.

Things like inheritance tax and investor incentives are more important to me than income tax, and I say that as someone with an eye firmly on the future of my children who are getting close to being part of 'the real world' after being through the education system. Their future will be better and brighter because of what their parents and grandparents have accumulated for them. There would be a significant number of families in the same boat.

What does that mean for the poor? Currently they're shit out of luck, unfortunately. I'm sure there are ways and means to make things better for them that will be acceptable to the electorate.

The problem is the system is not designed for this to work for everyone. If everyone did as you say it would ruin the economy, inflation would skyrocket etc Capitalism is necessarily underpinned by a class system so while individuals may be able to rise up the ladder it is not designed for everyone to be "well off" - there will always be losers. Capitalism is running on the fumes of peoples beliefs that they will be the ones to pull themselves up by their bootstraps but more and more the younger generation are realising it is an exercise in futility.

It's like with the recent interest rate hikes over the last couple of years. Effectively what they are saying is that there has to be a certain level of tension with most peoples ability to pay the bills. Do too well with too much money in the bank? Sorry that causes inflation, we need to redirect that money back towards the banks. We can't have you feeling comfortable, that's not how the system is designed.

It's the same with unemployment. The unemployed will get told they are bludgers and treated like criminals for accessing the welfare safety net but the system needs a certain level of unemployment to work, otherwise wages will spiral. So it's inherent in the system for a certain number of people to be out of work.

Capitalism worked for a while while the middle class was sharing in the spoils for the most part but the upper classes got greedy and just want to pummel the middle class into the ground, treating us all like third world serfs. Now the vast majority of the planets wealth is being hoovered up by those at the very apex of the economy at the expense of the rest of us as well as the planet and any semblance of democracy. It's late stage capitalism and I don't see how it can continue without some severe interventions creating more of a social/democratic society.

 

[TheEscapeClub]

To change property settings to discourage investor class property ownership/purchase?

We ostensibly need the Boomers - the generation that holds the majority of assets here, and as awful as it sounds - to die off. Doing that will have multiple effects; it adds more houses to the market; it changes the demographics of home ownership; it removes their votes from elections.

If Labor were to run an election on reducing foreign ownership and immigration in a package with slowly decoupling the investor class from property - whether that's grandfathering in changes to franking credits or whatnot; I'm not an expert in this area - there'd be a lot of votes in doing it on two fronts; it'd allow them to dogwhistle to the racists in the same way the Coalition does, it keeps the unions onside, and it'd even up the property market to allow younger people to buy homes because the asset ceases to be a good investment and becomes what it is; necessary shelter.

Creating a RC into media ownership and instituting a fed ICAC would not go amiss either; one investigates if the media holds an unreasonable sway over elections by choosing which facts or interpretation of them to present, the other prevents lobbies from holding too much sway over the political process.

Except for Tassie the entire country is Labor, time to put the bogey man to bed.

 

[Leeda]

Change will hurt the high end of town, if you hit them they will lash out electorally. You need to be exceedingly careful in your increments; if you're not, you're in opposition again inside 4 years.

It really pains me to say this, but Albo's softly-softly approach - as much as it shits me to tears - is probably about as hard or as fast as he can go to even things up, provided he keeps going. For things to change, we need an anti-Howard; a government and leader to stay in office as long as he did to hold the reins of power just long enough to see the changes wrought to have an effect over the long run.

This is true, but...

... the problem is term lengths.

As someone who believes in co-operative anarchy - think, Kropotkin - the way government is structured in Australia is almost perfect if you have to have a government at all because it's completely stagnant. It's democratic without the ability to actually enact change except over extreme long terms, with elections serving to reverse government direction every few years. There are so many checks and balances in place to change that everything is locked into near immobility; only a rare leader finds themselves in control of both houses, and that leader usually finds themselves out of government pretty quick afterward.

Our system is inefficient by design; it's not designed to get things accomplished but to keep the lights on and civic order maintained. Governments can tinker at the margins, but if they want to enact real change they require not just a mandate for it but people voting for them so significantly that they win control in both houses. Otherwise, they need to be in control for long time spans to do anything at all.

Change term limits for sitting governments - from 4 to 6 year terms - and that changes things dramatically. If you win a second term, you're now in power for fully 11ish years; you've got time to see that micro change have actual effects.

You need give a tenant three day's notice prior to an inspection, but in a rooming house the landlord can enter at any time to inspect the common areas. My old landlord placed cameras in the common areas and outside the property, which he could - depending on the system - be streamed straight to his phone.

At the same house, the agent - upon someone leaving - used to charge the entirety of a tenant's bond on the basis of cleaning their room, regardless of how clean it was prior; they targeted overseas students during Covid, knowing that those students were outside the country and probably couldn't fight them on it, pocketting the bond. To my knowledge, no-one caught up with them on that because they were careful who they targeted and the process for challenging this requires appeals to the RTT, a process which is complex and tricky to undertake if you're not in the country; they're also inundated with appeals due to landlord shit****ery, and your case might take 4 years to get your bond back. For landlords/estate agents, all they have to do is delay it over and over again and the appellant might just go away due to too much trouble.

In the first house I lived in - a private rooming house - there were holes in the floors and roof, the sink leaked in the kitchen, there were clear paths on the floor for grime and dust, the sinks were always full; one of the rooms was being rented by a woman who ran a brothel through it, and the landlord was completely disinterested in doing anything about it because they only needed tenants in there for the year before they could demolish the lot and build a block of units on it. This was all above board, because there's no requirement on the part of leasers to register or have their house inspected by anyone prior to leasing it out to make sure it's in a condition for habitation.

An individualist response there could be that I chose to live in that house. I was 21; I had never lived anywhere other than with my parents; I was moving to a place near uni and the house was within walking distance and I'd been struggling with commuting badly; the house was empty prior to my moving into it, and they got all of us in there bloody quick and rent was extremely cheap for where it was. It's only in retrospect that I'm aware of the problems or illegalities involved.

The other side of it too is that some of the behaviour described above is completely legal. The landlord can absolutely place cameras in a rooming house's common areas; if you asked that estate agent why they failed to return the bond they'd tell you they possessed invoices for cleaning that I know they didn't do, and that would (if challenged) only be done a week before trial actually took place.

The system is too easy to game, and is completely underfunded to the point of being exploitable. But that's part and parcel of a legal system that favours the wealthy in the first place, Evolved.

Plush five...you make too much sense...stack the decks....