Recession and the money grab

As a home owner, rental home landlord or tenant, facing a recession plus disaster recovery in some areas, there are some aspects of a recession that absolutely smack in the face. It doesn’t matter which side of the rental or home owner fence you are on.

Back in ‘the day’ talking about our finances used to be taboo. Our wages were secret. Our financial affairs were secret. They were preventative ethics that kept our family finances safe from nasty unknowns (and sometimes known) threats. There are changes with the way we treat such knowledge in todays world and it is a good thing.

In government and corporate worlds, in order to provide pay parity, equality and open understanding, most use a method of a pay ladder. So, a standard advisor could start on pay ladder point 6 and a Senior advisor could start on a pay ladder point 9. As each year goes by there would be open and transparent progression both up the ladder and if not, a guaranteed minimum increase, say 2%.

This is a far cry to the wild wild west days where every individual had an individual job specification (hopefully a well written contract) and an individual rate of pay. Pay rises, if any, were treated individually.

The same goes with beneficiary payments. Whether sickness, unemployment, special purpose (e.g. war vets) or superannuation. They are across the board at a fundamental level and can be calculated.

The point of this is, the more people are in the above scenarios, the easier working out how to help in recession can be (outside of recession points, such as growing food, sharing basic produce, etc.) Fortunately, we know the average, minimum and ‘living wage’ at any one time. We also know how these pay ladders/corporate and government schedules work. We know the minimum, medium and higher levels of rental costs. We know how much it costs to get from A to B to work. This is the power of an Information technology world. We know. We just have to put it together.