It was a pretty special week. I got to fly on a plane interstate — which even now still seems pretty exotic, despite what a record-breaking Qantas profit might indicate.
I stayed in a lovely city hotel, and I went out to dinner with a friend. When all of that happens in the middle of a working week it can seem as exciting as three negronis on the shores of the Italian Riviera. At least, I imagine it is.
When the bill for dinner came, I blanched a little. The food was simply tremendous, the service was the kind you dream of – kind and friendly and enthusiastic; the company was lovely – I had nothing to complain about. This was a great example of getting what you pay for.
But that bill. Wow. And it landed hard because all that week I had the words of the Yorta Yorta musician and actor, Briggs, rolling around in my head about how grindingly hard it is to be broke.
I had interviewed him for You Don't Know Me and he reflected on the brutal choices that being flat stony broke presented him.
And as I sat looking at this bill, his words took me back to a place I still feel like I've never really left: I still felt exactly like the uni student who had nothing in the bank and some months, despite working four nights a week waiting tables, still couldn't make rent (eternal gratitude to my sister); I still felt like the 22 year old who slunk off from catch ups at the pub before someone suggested we head out to eat, because I didn't have the cash to make my share of the dinner bill. I still felt like that kid whose mum couldn't make round figures for her weekly primary school banking.
And yet, with a bit of economising for the rest of the week, I could pay that bill.
And even today, every time that happens, every time I can pay that bill – every time I can afford to put TWO packets of kitchen sponges in the supermarket trolley rather than one – a little thrill of luck and excitement goes through me. Well, look at me – LOOK at what I can afford now!
Wealth is concentrating
Briggs is right. That lurking fear of being "so broke, I had to save up to be broke" never, ever goes away. And now it actually feels like it's coming back around.
The Intergenerational Report that the federal government released this week contains intimations of a return to those times for an emerging generation of younger Australians, at a time when individual wealth, family wealth, and corporate wealth has never been higher.
You don't need me to reprise all the treatises on wealth concentration that have been written recently but it's becoming increasingly ridiculous – and I mean laugh out loud ridiculous – that in this staggeringly wealthy country, the clearest, most true path to income equality is the one most steadfastly avoided here.
Allow me to remind you of this simple, but irrefutable truth from Rutger Bregman.
And while comprehensive tax reform is still not on the agenda, and economy-distorting realities are still allowed to continue within Australia's taxation system, these conversations will persist about the terrifying, creeping realisation of how much more is now of out of reach.
Briggs will be singing a song that many more Australians will be able to join on the chorus.
This weekend school canteens and co-funded home ownership continue this theme.
Have a safe and happy weekend and here is Senator Briggs in all his bullshit-radar glory: he is such great company.
And I reckon he needs to sing us a song too, hey? This one comes with a language warning, but he makes the point about wealth better than I ever could. Go well.
Virginia Trioli is presenter on Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.