Greg Jericho’s long credibility suicide note

More from Jericho Sell-out today:

While retiree aged households have lower incomes, they have a great deal more wealth, because you accumulate wealth over your lifetime:

A big reason for that wealth is property and superannuation. The richest 20% of households hold an average of $1.2m in property – 2.5 times the level held by households in the median income quintile.

The richest 20% also hold 2.8 times the level of superannuation that is held by median households:

And while we like to get excited about growing income inequality, over the past decade, wealth inequality has grown by much more:

It is why housing affordability is such a crucial issue. Not because buying a house might be preferable to renting, but because it generates wealth holdings that become vital in retirement.

It makes for a complex picture and one that demands we watch out for sloppy reporting and lazy talk by politicians of those being “hit” by Labor’s policy. Those who have a low taxable income might have a disposable income that is actually relatively high, and it can tell us little about their level of wealth holdings let alone whether or not they are actually struggling.

Quite right. Labor’s imputation reforms are one small redress. Negative gearing reforms are also helpful. The Banking Royal Commission will help tighten credit too.

But that still leaves the fundamental market imbalance at the very base of this wealth disparity. The “housing shortage” driven by mass immigration is the key to sentiment for speculators. A reduction in the immigration intake to historical averages would instantly adjust this imbalance and end the FOMO around it.

Sadly we can’t talk about that. Also from Jericho:

Immigration – because there are many desperate to hate – must be treated with extreme care by politicians and journalists, and certainly with more care than Abbott seems capable. The inherently racist parties will seek to use any discussion and any seeming evidence of the negative impact of migrants as fuel to burn their fires of hate.

It is an inconvenient truth, I know, that the only way to make housing more affordable is to make it cheaper.

In recent times Jericho has made it plain that he wants to see higher wages, lower house prices and de-bottleneked cities yet he is unable to address a primary driver of all three only because Tony Abbott said it too.

This is precisely the kind of politicised media that should make a former blogger’s blood boil.