Young people today are starting to realise that the economic system isn’t what it’s claimed to be. Although Boomers keep saying that anyone who works hard will be compensated enough to own a home and raise a family in it, few young people still believe them. The truth, now widely understood, is that the entire system has been rigged to benefit the old at the expense of the young.
What the Boomers have done can rightly be termed intergenerational rape.
The “postwar generation” has taken advantage of their political power over the younger generations to subject those young people to a degrading level of servitude and hopelessness. Young people nowadays have found themselves effectively enslaved, working long hours and then having to fork out so much in profits, taxes and rents that they have little left for themselves.
The Boomers have tilted the scales so that every operation of the economic system favours them to the exclusion of everyone else. They are sucking the life energy out of the younger generations, and for no other reason than their own greed. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that the Millennial generation controls less than a quarter of the wealth that the Boomers controlled at the same age.
The intergenerational social contract, according to which the elderly sacrificed their wealth so that their offspring could be strong, has been annihilated by the Boomers. Instead of nurturing the following generations, the Boomers have plundered them. Boomers credit themselves for working hard and investing prudently, but the reality is that they have built their wealth on the impoverishment of those to follow.
They have done this by using their voting power to elect politicians who were willing to pass laws dispossessing the young. Everywhere that a balance needs to be struck – employer or employee, landlord or tenant, pension recipient or taxpayer, borrowing and spending now or saving for the future – the law favours the Boomers.
This intergenerational favouritism is stark if one considers house prices.
By today, when the Boomers own all the houses, the average house price has increased by seven times from 1992 levels, but the average wage only slightly more than twice. The average New Zealand house now costs more than $740,000, whereas the average wage is around $34 per hour. It means that the average house now costs 22,000 hours of labour. Hard times.
Intergenerational rape is when the Boomers charge 22,000 hours of labour for entry to a circle of wealth (homeownership) that they themselves were admitted to after only 7,000 hours of labour. Whereas the average Boomer was able to buy the average house after ten years of labour, young people are looking at thirty years of labour to get to that position.
All of this economic exploitation serves no other purpose than to keep Boomers in a luxurious state of retirement, with regular holidays, plentiful rich food and first-class medical care.
The Boomer generation has inherited an enviable level of wealth from their predecessors and then pulled up the ladder so that none of their descendants can share in it. The Boomers have behaved in this manner because they are the single most selfish and godless generation to have existed in human history. Never before has there been a generation of people willing to put their own whims and fancies above the physical needs of their own offspring.
Their actions could be compared to those of a meth addict who passes out on the couch while their children run around in the streets looking for food. It’s a degree of reckless neglectfulness that ought to be criminal.
The Boomers, however, will get what they deserve. They are mortal after all, and the eldest of them are already 75 years old. Within three decades, almost all of them will be gone. As this column has written previously, God will return to Earth when the Boomers finally die off. They represent peak godlessness, and their passing will result in a new spiritual age.
It is unlikely that intergenerational rape will end owing to any action taken by younger people. The generations following the Boomers are too divided, too demoralised and too apathetic to do anything about their situation. They will have to wait for the Boomers to die off – which means that the rape will continue for another 30 years yet.
Vernon Tava’s Sustainable NZ party made a transparent attempt to target the center of the political spectrum. The logic was that they would be an environmentalist movement that wasn’t tarnished by the social justice obsession of the Greens. In the end, they received 1,880 votes, which amounted to less than 0.1% of the total.
Variable
Voting Sustainable NZ in 2020
Voting ACT in 2020
0.54
Voting National in 2020
0.50
Voting Greens in 2020
0.26
Voting New Conservative in 2020
0.37
Voting The Opportunities Party in 2020
0.32
Voting Labour in 2020
0.02
Voting Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party in 2020
-0.41
Voting Maori Party in 2020
-0.46
Sustainable NZ may not have won many votes, but they succeeded in positioning themselves somewhere between the National Party and the Green Party. The correlation between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and voting National in 2020 was 0.50, and with voting Greens in 2020 it was 0.26. Both are significantly positive.
The correlation between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and voting Labour in 2020 was not significant, at 0.02. This suggests that Sustainable NZ was successful in avoiding the label of ‘left-wing’. In fact, there was even a correlation of 0.37 between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and voting New Conservative in 2020.
The strongest negative correlations with voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 were with voting for the parties representing disadvantaged demographics, such as the ALCP (-0.41) and the Maori Party (-0.46).
Variable
Voting Sustainable NZ in 2020
< $5,000
-0.17
$5,000-$10,000
-0.11
$10,000-$20,000
-0.37
$20,000-$30,000
-0.18
$30,000-$50,000
-0.32
$50,000-$70,000
0.23
$70,000+
0.44
The general rule is: the wealthier the voter, the more likely they were to vote Sustainable NZ in 2020. The reason for this, as it is for the Greens and The Opportunities Party, is that environmental issues are high up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and people suffering from housing or income insecurity will vote on the basis of that instead.
The strongest support of any income bracket for Sustainable NZ came from the $70,000+ bracket. The correlation between voting for Sustainable NZ in 2020 and having a personal income of over $70,000 was 0.44. This is a curious result, given that votes for alternative parties are normally cast by disenfranchised people, and disenfranchised people normally vote for left-wing parties. This paradox may explain why Sustainable NZ got so few votes.
The financially disenfranchised avoided voting for Sustainable NZ. The correlation between having an income between $10,000 and $20,000 and voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 was -0.37.
Variable
Voting Sustainable NZ in 2020
No qualifications
-0.46
Level 1 certificate
-0.22
Level 2 certificate
-0.31
Level 3 certificate
-0.24
Level 4 certifiate
-0.30
Level 5 diploma
-0.20
Level 6 diploma
0.55
Bachelor’s degree
0.36
Honours degree
0.40
Master’s degree
0.34
Doctorate
0.34
As with the Greens, ACT and The Opportunities Party, highly educated voters were more likely to vote Sustainable NZ than poorly educated ones. There was a significant positive correlation between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and having any of the university degrees. On the other hand, there was a correlation of -0.46 between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and having no academic qualifications.
Unlike the Greens, the correlation between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and having a highest educational qualification of a level 3 certificate was significantly negative. This reflects the fact that the Greens have broad appeal among university students, a niche that Sustainable NZ were unable to gain entry to.
From these three sets of correlations, we can see that Sustainable NZ voters were considerably more privileged than the average voter.
Variable
Voting Sustainable NZ in 2020
No children
0.19
One child
-0.02
Two children
0.39
Three children
-0.05
Four children
-0.46
Five children
-0.62
Six children
-0.64
Sustainable NZ voters walked the talk when it comes to the sustainability of their breeding. The strongest correlation between voting for Sustainable NZ in 2020 and having any number of children was two (0.39). There was also a positive correlation of 0.19 between voting for Sustainable NZ in 2020 and having no children.
On the other hand, there were significant negative correlations between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and having four, five or six children. All three of these correlations were at least as negative as -0.46. Sustainable NZ voters are clearly aware that having more than two children is unsustainable.
Variable
Voting Sustainable NZ in 2020
Working as a manager
0.45
Working as a professional
0.31
Working as a machinery operator or driver
-0.52
Working as a labourer
-0.45
A curious outcome of the election is that there was a significant positive correlation between voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 and both working as a manager and working as a professional. Working as a manager and working as a professional are the archetypal occupations of National and the Greens, respectively.
The working-class occupations, by contrast, were relatively less likely to vote Sustainable NZ in 2020. As mentioned above, people who are worried about housing affordability generally consider environmentalism to be a luxury concern.
In summary, Vernon Tava and his Sustainable NZ movement were successful in positioning themselves in the “blue-green” space that appeals to educated, long-sighted people, whether managers or professionals. The problem is that they failed in the much more important objective of obtaining enough votes to threaten the 5% threshold.
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This article is an excerpt from the upcoming 3rd Edition of Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan and published by VJM Publishing. Understanding New Zealand is the comprehensive guide to the demographics and voting patterns of the New Zealand people.
People today work as hard as their parents did, but they have much less wealth. The reason for their relative poverty is that three mighty lions take a share of every worker’s production before it gets to their bank account. These three lions have always existed, but today they are much more ravenous than ever before.
The first lion is profits.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how productive the average worker is, because their employer takes all their production off them and gives only a fraction back, in the form of wages. This is inescapable given that the employer owns the workplace and everything that gets produced in it, and given that the Police will always take their side (at least initially) in any property or rights dispute.
In America, the labour share (or wage share) has been declining for several decades. Compared to the early 1970s, the labour share has declined some 10%. An OECD report suggests that a similar decline, of about 10%, has been seen in the labour share across a basket of Western countries. Employers take more, and give back less, than ever before.
To put this into perspective, the average American worker produces some USD72 of goods and services per hour of labour. A fall in labour share, from 65% to 55%, represents a $7.20 difference by the time it gets to the worker – and that’s before the other two lions take their share!
The second lion is taxes.
The average tax burden in Anglo countries is about 30%. This is lower than the average of other Western nations, and reflects that Anglo countries are run in accordance with a small-government ideology. However, it’s still a significant amount of the average worker’s productivity. After losing 45% of their productivity to profits, to lose a further 30% to taxes is brutal.
It means that our average worker, having produced $72 of goods and services before the lions took their share, is now down to about $27 after profits and taxes have been accounted for. The tax burdens of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, by contrast, are all less than 15%, despite that their wages and standards of living are similar to those of Anglo countries.
And there’s still the third lion to contend with – perhaps the hungriest of all. This third lion is rents.
The median monthly gross residential rent in the United States is now around $1,100 per month. Median rents in New Zealand are around the same level. Assuming that our average worker works 150 hours a month, dividing their rent by the number of hours worked gives us around $7 an hour. In other words, seven dollars of the income earned for every hour of labour the average worker performs goes to pay the rent.
Subtracting this from the $27 after profits and taxes means that the average American worker ends up with $20 out of every $72 they produce, once profits, taxes and rents have been taken out. If the labour share was still 65%, if the tax rate was 15% like in Far East Asia and if the average rents were at pre-Clown World levels (let’s say $600 per month), the average worker would be left with around $36 for every hour worked – almost twice as much as in reality.
Moreover, out of the $20 per hour the average worker gets in reality, they have to pay for a number of work-related expenses out of that. Transport to and from their job, work clothing, health insurance (if American) and the cost of any psychiatric medicine they might need would account for another $10 at least. They also need to save some of their wage for a house deposit if they aspire to ever be more than a rentcuck.
All of these facts tell us that, if the average Anglo worker in 2021 had the benefit of a pre-1970s labour share, Far East Asian tax levels and pre-Global Financial Crisis rent levels, they would have about three times as much disposable income as they actually do have in reality. Once the three lions have taken their share, there isn’t much left over for the average worker.
In summary, the three lions that take a share out of every worker’s wage, before the worker sees it, are profits, taxes and rents. If we could reduce these expenses to levels that exist elsewhere in space and time, we could triple the prosperity of the average worker.
The following is an attempt to reconcile ancient Western esoteric psychology with ancient Eastern esoteric psychology. The idea is that all human psychopathological conditions fall into one of twelve categories, the categories being all permutations of genetic, environmental and spiritual (in the first place) and clay, iron, silver and gold (in the second place).
The first condition is genetic clay. This refers to a person who is weak for genetic reasons.
In this category are all sufferers of genetic conditions which make them weaker or more passive than normal. The typical outcome of falling into this category is that a person becomes resentful and bitter. Hatred for the world and for life in general is characteristic of people in the first condition.
This is also the category for people who are simply dumb. Most people not naturally intelligent enough to find a place in the world become resentful. In practice, there’s good reason to categorise such people with the other genetic unfortunates. In principle, it doesn’t matter much if a person is genetically weak for physical or mental reasons, because the attitude will be similar.
The second condition is genetic iron. This refers to a person who is cruel for genetic reasons.
The usual reason for a person to fall into this category is that they are physically stronger than average, but mentally weaker than average. This combination can lead to contempt for those physically weaker than them. This is the category that schoolyard bullies usually fall into, and it’s the one that adults fall into if they don’t grow out of the schoolyard bully stage.
People in this category might be ‘bad’, but they’re not ‘fucked-up’ or ‘evil’ like people from the sixth and tenth categories. It’s more a matter of being unusually boisterous or vigourous. Many juvenile delinquents fall into this category owing to understimulation, and most of those grow out of it (or have it knocked out of them).
The third condition is genetic silver. This refers to someone who has no genetic conditions, but who is otherwise not special.
The condition here is indifference towards those who are genetically less fortunate. Many people who are born without genetic conditions are incapable of understanding the suffering caused by them, and as such they feel contempt instead of sympathy towards those who have them.
Characteristic of the third condition, then, is a callous kind of apathy for ordinary people. It’s not really malicious, although it can be. It is different to the cruelty of the second condition in the sense that people in the third condition tend to direct others to cause harm, rather than causing harm themselves.
The fourth condition is genetic gold. This refers to someone who is perfectly in balance.
Those of genetic gold possess neither the weakness of people in the first condition, nor the brutality of people in the second condition, nor the cold apathy of people in the third condition. Belonging to this fourth condition are all the people who naturally feel empathy with other living beings.
Insofar as belonging to this group is a condition, it is the condition of suffering the envy of the less gifted, and the despair of not being appreciated in proportion to one’s true worth. Those of genetic gold will always have to adapt themselves to a world created to suit someone else. Someone in the fourth condition, then, is someone who literally has it too good for their own good.
Those are the four genetic conditions. In short, they are: suffering weakness and becoming masochistic; suffering weakness and becoming sadistic; not suffering weakness and becoming apathetic; and not suffering weakness and becoming sympathetic.
The fifth condition is environmental clay. This refers to people who have endured so much trauma that they have become depressed.
Abuse and neglect that lead to giving up on life is the most common reason for a person to belong to the fifth condition. If a person suffers so much during childhood that they come to feel that the world is an evil place, and so there’s no point in trying to be happy here, then they fall into this category. This is also the category for people who have become shut-ins owing to adverse early childhood experiences.
The fifth condition is for people that were created genetically normal but who were then broken by the world. A great number of suicides fall into this category, because those with harmful genetic conditions have often learned to live with them by the time they reach suicide age. Most deaths of despair afflict people in the fifth condition.
The sixth condition is environmental iron. This refers to people who have endured so much trauma that they have become sadistic.
When children are born, they don’t immediately know if the world is a good place or an evil one. They learn this, based on how their environment treats them. Those who come into the world and are met with abuse learn that the world runs on abuse. As such, they naturally come to abuse others. Alchemically speaking, their environment has hammered them into shape like a blacksmith would hammer into a shape an iron dagger.
The main difference between genetic iron and environmental iron is that the former is dumb, whereas the latter can be of any level of intelligence. Genetic iron tends to fall in line with a smack to the head; environmental iron is much less predictable. Although people of both genetic iron and environmental iron can behave like psychopaths, the latter is closer to what used to be called a sociopath.
The seventh condition is environmental silver. This is otherwise known as “having a decent upbringing”.
It’s comparatively rare for people to grow up in this world without suffering heavily. Someone who grew up genetically unremarkable and who also had an unremarkable upbringing usually enjoys the human experience. Much like people in the third condition, the major characteristic of the seventh condition is apathy.
The main difference between the seventh condition and the third is that people in the seventh condition are much more likely to move out of it. Those in the third condition are usually stuck there on account of the mindless inertia of biological forces, but those in the seventh can either reason their way out of apathy or have an experience that causes them to learn sympathy.
The eighth condition is environmental gold. This refers to a person who has endured trauma that made their behaviour worse, but who has overcome that.
The eighth condition is analogous to gold because of its value and rarity. The vast majority of people who suffer heavily become either meek or cruel, and the majority of those who don’t suffer become apathetic. A person who has suffered, and overcome it, has demonstrated a spiritual quality of the highest value.
All of the world’s genuine spiritual leaders fall into this category. It is the category for those who have learned the ultimate spiritual and alchemical power of transmuting suffering into joy. Eckhart Tolle is probably the most famous example right now, having learned to transmute a near-suicidal depression into tranquility.
These are the four environmental conditions. In short, they are: suffering trauma and becoming masochistic; suffering trauma and becoming sadistic; not suffering trauma and becoming apathetic; becoming sympathetic regardless of whether one suffered trauma.
These eight conditions are as far as mainstream psychology goes. Mainstream psychology is only concerned with biological nature and environmental nurture; it allows no concept of any spiritual dimension, because any such dimension would not be amenable to measurement. The latter four conditions in alchemical psychopathlogy are spiritual.
The ninth condition is spiritual clay. This refers to a person whose true will is to withdraw from the world.
People in the ninth condition have a spiritual attachment to suffering. They are often described by others as excessively sensitive. They are not broken like people in the fifth condition or defective like people in the first. They just don’t want more life.
Many old people come into this condition once the prime of their lives are over. It’s both common and understandable for a person to mentally check out of reality once they only have pain and suffering to look forward to. People with schizoid personality disorder also fall into this category, as does everyone who has simply become bored of life.
The tenth position is spiritual iron. This refers to people whose true will is to increase the amount of suffering in the world.
People belonging to this condition are rare, and are often hard to detect until it’s too late. People without a genetic reason to be resentful and who have not suffered significant environmental trauma, but who still act to increase the net amount of suffering in the world, could be said to be evil.
The characteristic way to recognise a person in this condition is that there’s no explicable reason for their actions. This is why they can’t be said to be ‘fucked-up’ like a person in the sixth condition. A lot of old people end up in the tenth condition if they become bitter, because it’s common for old people to become resentful about their impending deaths and to take this resentment out on the young.
The eleventh position is spiritual silver. This refers to people whose true will is to be indifferent to suffering.
Most people in the eleventh condition have drifted through life in a state of bliss. They haven’t suffered for genetic reasons, haven’t suffered for environmental reasons, and they do not have a strong spiritual attachment to suffering. They experience life much like an enlightened person does, without appreciating why.
People in the eleventh condition are different to people in the seventh because people in the eleventh are indifferent to their own suffering, not only (or even primarily) the suffering of others. Someone in the seventh condition might suffer and then become a person of the fifth or sixth conditions, but a person in the eleventh condition can suffer without being affected.
The twelfth position is spiritual gold. This refers to people whose true will is to decrease the suffering in the world.
People in the twelfth condition are the bodhisattvas of this part of the Great Fractal. They are the ones who have managed to find a way to transmute suffering into joy, not just for themselves but also for others. Their spiritual nature has overpowered both their genetic nature and their conditioned nature, but in the best possible way. People in this condition plant trees even though they won’t get to sit in the shade of them.
David Bowie once said that “Religion is for people who fear hell, spirituality is for people who have been there.” The twelfth condition is for those who have suffered but who have found a way to overcome it absolutely, not partially or temporarily as people in the eighth condition have. These people are the masters of alchemy who have succeeded at the meaning of life.
These are the four spiritual conditions. In short, they are: a true will to withdraw from suffering; a true will to increase suffering; a true will to be indifferent to suffering; a true will to decrease suffering.
Generally speaking, a person will fall into one of the earlier conditions as their life begins, will move into the middle conditions as their life progresses, and will finally move into the latter conditions as their life comes to a close.
This reflects the developmental influences of humans from almost purely genetic when they are born, to genetic and environmental in youth, to genetic, environmental and spiritual in middle age and to spiritual in old age.
