The Boomer Legacy

Defenestrate your livelihood: We mortgaged the future and bet it all on there not being one

The Coal Loader wharf, Waverton   (Jul 2017,  563kb)

Dutch disease done right: Not to worry. If the economy works the way the textbook says, the gain to miners should flow through to the economy, causing higher wages and tax receipts (Gittins, 2017)

Remnants of the 2000's resources boom at Lithgow   (Aug 2012,  304kb)

Rust belt potential: Our suburbs were rife with propagation and replacement

Lett Lane, Lithgow   (Jun 2019,  423kb)

The boom in retailing: Sell everything and cancel Christmas

McEvoy Street pop-up retailer, Alexandria   (Mar 2018,  240kb)

Stroking the hidden hand: We were free to choose a more comfortable but somewhat less remarkable life

Homeless tents at Wentworth Park, Sydney   (Jul 2017,  465kb)

Unearthing the past: The house is gone and the yard excavated so deep that every trace of your childhood was obliterated

What was once 12 Kensington Street in Kogarah   (Apr 2011,  424kb)

Uncomfortable at times: Events were still on, motels were still open, restaurants were still serving food and pubs were still pouring beer (Ayers, 2020)

Tour group at the Sydney Opera House forecourt during the summer bushfires   (Jan 2020,  265kb)

Have a go to get a go: We lived modestly and well within our means. We worked hard, spent wisely and made prudent investments. So we deserved to keep more of what we earned

Hopetoun Road Toorak, Melbourne   (Apr 2019,  175kb)

All snakes, no ladders: We stuck to the plan, even though we kept changing it

Subterranean utilities footpath markings outside the QVB   (Apr 2015,  553kb)

The convenience of Home Delivery: HungryPanda, Foodora, Uber Eats, DoorDash, EASI, Menulog, Deliveroo, Hey You, GrubHub, goPuff, EatNow, Yelp… We imported an underclass of independent contractors to zip around delivering authentic pad thai, burrito bowls and bubble-tea (ABC News, 2020)

Online food delivery rider at Haymarket, near Chinatown   (Apr 2020,  135kb)

Back-to-back meetings: When cities went into lockdown, CBDs became filled with empty commercial properties with few tenants to pay the inflated rents

Queen Street office building at night, Melbourne   (Apr 2019,  115kb)

Borderline conundrum: Self-service was self-defeating when there was no service to serve

Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, unused self-service check-in and baggage drop facilities at Sydney Airport's T1 International Terminal, Friday afternoon 12:30 pm   (Oct 2020,  173kb)

Futuregate: Everyone was talking about how to create everyman narratives and celebratory calls in a world full of user-generated content

Mainstream media at the Sydney Opera House   (Jul 2014,  295kb)

Espresso Kultur: The al fresco revolution gave tantalising significance to our busy lives

Outdoor cafe seating at Little Everleigh street, Redfern   (Sep 2020,  311kb)

Filled with delight: Non-inclusive apartment developments on the site of an old gasworks

Breakfast Point apartments (formerly Mortlake Gasworks), Sydney   (Jul 2014,  229kb)

Only a tap away: With interest rates at five-thousand-year lows, affordable mortgages were flying out the door

Art Gallery of NSW window looking east, Sydney   (Mar 2019,  251kb)

Roses of Picardy: The marriage industry flourished despite the cynicism, malaise and lockdowns

Private wedding ceremony at St Marys Cathedral   (Mar 2019,  321kb)

Creative Destruction: The only way to neutralise dissent was by levelling the playing-field

The abandoned White Bay Power Station at Rozelle   (Jan 2013,  206kb)

Strength Through Joy: The market faithfully rewarded those with a long-term view

Luna Park Hair Raiser ride, in the rain   (Jan 2019,  126kb)

Flygskam: One cheap long-haul flight produced more CO₂ per passenger than driving an SUV for four months

Runway approach lights, Sydney International Airport   (May 2019,  74kb)

Frictionless intermediation: Because the “Sharing Economy” sounded so much nicer than “Government Regulation Evading Extractive Capitalism” (NYTimes, 2017)

Subterranean ingress and egress aperture cover at Watsons Bay   (Dec 2014,  902kb)

The user-pays model: We rejected the idea that our generation should pay for infrastructure that we would never live to use

Government hoarding at Westpac Plaza, Barangaroo   (Aug 2016,  492kb)

Double your money in 7–10 years: Dr Wilson said that Sydney was likely to have a $2 million median house price by 2030 and a $3 million median by 2038 (Daily Telegraph, 2018)

Hopscotch squares at the Woodcroft housing estate, in Blacktown   (Dec 2012,  491kb)

Tyburn revisited: Decades of infrastructure deals and back-room favours had to end sometime

Sydney Metro Project construction site, Martin Place   (Jul 2019,  255kb)

Quality by design: Exclusively appointed apartments riddled with gross structural defects

Nevada Apartments remediation at Darling Point   (Dec 2018,  222kb)

Kriegsende 1989: Cheap goods turned out to be more effective than ICBMs

Stall on Tverskaya St, Moscow   (Dec 1991,  244kb)

Within Skinner's Box: Because we were worth it, we flew the friendly skies, ate fresh, thought different and opened happiness

Wall advertising, Pitt Street Sydney   (Mar 2021,  239kb)

Forget your past: Architectural awards counted for little when it came to prime development sites

Darling Harbour Conference Centre demolition, Sydney   (Apr 2014,  190kb)

Wealth always trickled down: Our system endured for so long because enough of the electorate believed they still had some chance to get rich (Citigroup, 2005)

Begging for loose change near Sydney Town Hall   (Sep 2016,  421kb)

A pattern of abundance: Full automation was the next stage in our collaborative journey

NTP Forklifts (since relocated), at Woodville Road Granville   (Apr 2017,  223kb)

Alpha Omega: We poured every last atom of our faith into property

Birrell Street front yard, Bondi Junction   (Oct 2018,  448kb)

Luxury was a human right: Stand on principle on the way up and you would miss the stampede; stand on principle on the way down and you would be run over

Even the pigeons lived in style at Hogben Street in Kogarah   (Apr 2011,  98kb)

Flags of convenience: Our vision was to create a better everyday life, by getting our customers to do all the work

The united nations of IKEA, at Tempe   (Sep 2012,  147kb)

Scaffolding everywhere: We turned our lives into a series of transactions to better embrace necessary change

One Circular Quay construction site, Sydney   (Jan 2018,  213kb)

Public Private Partnerships: Marxism without the dialectic; Socialism in one class; A game of and for mates

The southern ramp to the Anzac Bridge, at Pyrmont in Sydney   (Jan 2013,  150kb)

The engine of growth: Our generation reaffirmed the notion that markets could remain irrational for much longer than investors could stay solvent

The window-display for Central Autohaus in Alexandria   (Jun 2015,  180kb)

Too big to fail: It took a long time to establish a perfectly balanced equilibrium of collateralised debt and rising property values

Barangaroo office construction, Millers Point   (Aug 2016,  333kb)

Extremely well serviced: Only the wealthiest parts of our cities had regular bus, rail and ferry services

The F5 Neutral Bay ferry leaves Kirribilli wharf   (Nov 2020,  192kb)

What this little black rock could do: We have to make sure this economy works. We have to export dollars. We have to realise we have a moral responsibility to other people in other nations to keep their lights on (Joyce, 2017)

The Steelworks and Coal Loader at Port Kembla harbour   (Sep 2014,  66kb)

Boom without end: There was no disconnect between the prosperity we enjoyed and the systematic initiatives we took to achieve them

Philip Lodge Motel demolition at Haberfield   (Jun 2016,  382kb)

Zero sum game: The link between free trade and rising global prosperity was self-evident: designed in the USA → marketed from the UK → manufactured by Uyghur forced-labour → shipped via Panama → channelled through a Singaporean marketing-hub → transfer-priced through Luxembourg → laundered in a Melbourne casino → banked in the Cayman Islands → stashed away in a Geneva Freeport vault → splurged on trophy homes, super-yachts, racing cars, helicopters, private school fees, casinos, parties, mistresses, divorce lawyers, bribes and drugs… in New York, Beijing, Bucharest, Lagos, Monaco, Riga and Riyadh

Shipping container facility at Tempe, near Sydney Airport   (Sep 2012,  286kb)

A licence to kill: There was nothing on your dinner table that wasn't put there by conscientious and highly skilled transport professionals

The “roo bar” of a prime-mover at Kings Langley, near Blacktown   (Aug 2015,  378kb)

Stakeholder: We could either use General Relativity equations to derive the Schwarzschild metric in n-dimensions, or we could go shopping

Supermarket freezer aisle, Katoomba   (Dec 2003,  98kb)

Practice social distancing: So we stayed home, most of the time

Townhall Arcade foot court   (Jul 2021,  136kb)

The best that money can buy: Of particular interest to ICAC has been the planning decisions along Canterbury Road and Charles Street, which saw some Liberal and Labor councillors voting together to approve developments which council's planning staff had previously rejected due to non compliance (SMH, 2017)

Apartment construction at Charles Str, Canterbury   (Oct 2015,  329kb)

Not a house of cards then: People's jobs depend on confidence and trust in the financial and banking system. And I can assure [everyone] that, despite the very disturbing and, indeed, shocking revelations we have seen in the Royal Commission, particularly of late, that these issues, while as abhorrent as they are, are completely separate from any question about the stability and strength of [our] banking and financial system. (Morrison, 2018)

Pedestrian footbridge at Barangaroo   (Apr 2016,  203kb)

This Land Is Our Land: Keep doubling the population every 35 years → increased aggregate demand → vigorous GDP growth → robust budget outcomes → more apartment pre-sales → snowballing property values → windfall capital gains & property taxes → wealthier property-investors → bustling streets → more toll-roads & shopping malls → more bathhouses & shisha lounges → more construction & business services → more mortgages → more prosperous banks → more stamp-duties → more negative gearing on property investments → more wealth-effects → more tourism & international students → more university & private college enrolments → more waiters, maids, nannies, concierges & community-liaison officers → potentially higher rates of workforce participation → boosted supply-side potential → likely productivity benefits → projected greater aggregate income → increasing remittances to family & sponsors overseas → more money in everyone's hip pocket

Front-yard garden gnomes in Summer Hill, Sydney   (Oct 2016,  545kb)

Ponzimonium: We ran a Koretz immigration scheme to prop up the Madoff property market to keep the Mavrodi banks flush

Wedding Cake rock, RNP   (Jul 2019,  163kb)

Squad goals: We played in teams to find the back of the net and be good sports with your money

Vitamin pill promotion at Martin Place in Sydney   (Oct 2014,  917kb)

Creating value: From warehouses to office blocks to short-term lease apartments

Motorways and the former Caltex building, Sydney   (Sep 2016,  106kb)

Incentives to succeed: We held these truths to be self-evident: that the Wealthy were job creators and all of the benefits of Economic Growth were distributed equally

The rear of a Korean restaurant, in a Pitt Street Lane near Town Hall   (Oct 2012,  324kb)

Just visiting: Full speed ahead for the fly-in fly-out high-rollers in the sky (ABC News, 2020)

Crown casino construction, Barangaroo   (Jan 2020,  160kb)

From blue to fluoro collar: We spent up big on infrastructure to create a cornucopia of employment opportunities

Re-tiling the Sydney Opera House forecourt   (Jul 2014,  211kb)

Thrusting for yield: The ubiquity of synchronised growth led to social and urban experiments imposed from above

Construction cranes at Australian Technology Park   (Mar 2018,  187kb)

The shadow state: Our top-down globalist system will endure forever

North from the Empire State Building   (Oct 2017,  389kb)

Keeping interest rates low: Whatever happened, cheap debt could not be blamed

Used car-yard at Parramatta Road Granville   (Apr 2017,  206kb)

Empty Nesters Two Thumbs Up: We reformed tax laws and kept interest rates low to ensure the price of land-banked property could increase by more each day than most people could earn in a week

Irelands Road in Blacktown, western Sydney   (Dec 2012,  532kb)

Surrogate activities: The illusion of economic activity was sustained by creating archipelagos of empty construction sites

Green Square hoardings at Zetland   (Nov 2018,  225kb)

Rent not Enterprise: Anyone can become a property tycoon, but they have not got the guts or they have not got the money (Triguboff, 2014)

Vacant commercial land at Lawson in the Blue Mountains   (Jan 2012,  56kb)

Canyons of gold: The decision to pour billions of dollars into commercial property turned out to be problematic

Castlereagh Street buildings, Sydney   (Jan 2019,  128kb)

Consumer karoshi: We needed to create a culture in which our customers were prepared to die

Market Street escalators at Centrepoint, Sydney   (Jan 2016,  260kb)

Go for growth mate: We'll get an army of casuals to collect our night-soil, just like a hundred years ago

Outdoor toilet and “dunny lane”, Lithgow NSW   (Jun 2019,  527kb)

Both feet on the ladder: We all became millionaires by flipping real estate to each other at ever increasing prices

Renovations in suburban Stanmore   (Sep 2012,  119kb)

Down from the mountain: … and into the markdowns

Leura antique store   (Oct 2018,  185kb)

In Goldman, Sachs We Trust: The financial sector was the bedrock of our entire social structure and enabled massive cultural progression — whereas the 1960s were squandered on aerospace and NASA, the 2000s had asset growth via cheap debt and the ISDA

The financial district in eastern Sydney, with the rocket-shaped 1 O'Connell Street in the middle background   (Jul 2011,  128kb)

Driven by unceasing mobility: Remember the physical-distancing rule and only travel when essential

Waiting for the Cronulla Ferry at Bundeena Wharf   (Aug 2020,  242kb)

Waiting for the great leap forward: From brewery to Kowloon, the third-world was just around the corner

Central Park development, at Broadway in Sydney   (Jul 2012,  160kb)

The customer was king: Everything you could ever possibly want, at your fingertips

Supermarket checkout, Nepean Village Penrith   (Apr 2003,  119kb)

Taming animal spirits: There is something more systematic about the way people behave irrationally, especially during periods of economic stress (Greenspan, 2013)

Lunchtime in a George Street amusement arcade, Sydney   (Sep 2003,  322kb)

Messages of hope: The truth was whatever you wanted it to be

Boutique shop-front, Leura   (Aug 2021,  101kb)

Covid Safe: Restricted trading hours [✓] Patron number limits [✓] Temperature checks [✓] Sign-in attendance records [✓] Perspex table-shields [✓] 1.5m social distancing [ ]

The Celsius Cafe at Kirribilli Wharf adapts to business conditions under COVID-19   (Nov 2020,  325kb)

Living in a film-set: Months spent wandering through a landscape of shuttered restaurants and disoriented diners

Deserted food court, Centrepoint Sydney   (Apr 2020,  154kb)

Retail led recovery: Luxury brands rode out the pandemic rather well

Luxury goods store entrance, George Street Sydney   (Nov 2020,  240kb)

Business service industries: The only way to counter economic headwinds was by being more nimble than the market

Finance workers at Australia Square   (Dec 2004,  250kb)

Click and collect: Socially responsible trading during yet another hard lockdown

George Street boutique, Sydney   (Jul 2021,  109kb)

Fierce, Wonderful & Closed: What little trade there was ended up bleeding out

Cafe shop-front during a level-four lockdown, Katoomba NSW   (Apr 2020,  224kb)

Segregation now, tomorrow & forever: Few could afford the right to live in their own city

Distillery Drive cutting at Jacksons Landing, in Pyrmont   (Jan 2013,  321kb)

Curate an educational passport: The uncapping of university places achieved exactly what it set out to do

University of Sydney main quadrangle   (Oct 2017,  507kb)

Agile entrepreneurs: Surveillance cameras [✓]  Motion-activated floodlights [✓]  Canvas-covered windows [✓]  3m high fencing [✓]  Steel chained front gates [✓]  Threatening no-trespass signs [✓]  Resourceful SMEs serving a niche-market [✓]

Domestic bliss on Neville Street in Marrickville   (Sep 2012,  422kb)

One country, two systems: Income Inequality versus Wealth Inequality: we argued endlessly about the former while maintaining a careful silence about the latter

Woodcroft housing estate versus Harris Street Ultimo   (Jan 2013,  177kb)

Reflating the economy: We proved we could effortlessly retire old debt by taking on new debt

Tumbalong Park attractions, Darling Harbour   (Jul 2014,  220kb)

The cranes were flying: At one stage there were more apartment construction cranes on the Australian eastern seaboard than in all the major cities in the USA (ABC News, 2016)

Apartment construction cranes at Lewisham   (Sep 2015,  142kb)

Stake your claim: A lot of micro-businesses were created when the factories shut down, resulting in vigorous employment growth among non-employees

Small business badge window display, Wentworth Street Port Kembla   (Sep 2014,  598kb)

Life in the Bunkercene: The lockdown caused us to cocoon just that little bit extra

Martin Place hoardings, Sydney   (Mar 2019,  277kb)

In the circle of FIRE: We made so much money from fees & rents & short-term leases & collateralised debt & margin-accounts & franked dividends & big-dog meetings & asset management & asset concealment & asset stripping & short-selling & bear-raids & gambling wagering & grey-rhinos & black-swans & shiny tech unicorns & fantastical profit projections & 300-year visions & peer-to-peer lending & off-balance-sheet funding & liar loans & narco-state money-laundering & parking Saudi billions & Shanghai aged-care schemes & cloud mining tokens & cash-for-visas & child-pornography & terrorism financing & tax-evasion & optimistic bets & hugely successful bets & insider knowledge & insurance fraud & lying to corporate regulators & rewriting independent reports & unenforced enforceable-undertakings & Glass-Steagall repeal & ATO confidentiality obligations & political donations & influence peddling & door-opening & hiring ex-ministers & grey gifts & privatisation & exceptionalism & impunity spells & bailouts & deregulation & strategic litigation & Wagyu-beef-washed-down-with-finest-shiraz judgements & swaps & options & swaptions & binary options & CDOs & CMOs & CDFs & FICCs & REITs & FAANGs & SPACs & BATs & PGUCs & NFTs & FOMO & FONGO & BNPL & inventing ever more abstruse financial instruments to conjure “assets” out of nothing to ensure money kept raining in torrents from the sky, that there was no point in doing anything else

The Elizabeth street facade of the Commonwealth Bank Building   (Oct 2020,  382kb)

Ghosts of the CBD: Governments had to resort to pleading with voters to return to city centres

King Street pedestrians head home after work, Sydney CBD   (Sep 2016,  149kb)

Cargo Culte: We lounged about in ill-fitting uniforms, languidly pressing buttons on small screens… waiting patiently for the day He would return, bearing great gifts

Palm tree outside the abandoned St Mary & St Mina's Coptic Orthodox Church at Sydenham, near Sydney airport   (Sep 2012,  355kb)

Everywhere the glint of gold: Vibrant cities crammed full of soaring casinos, buzzing with energy and excitement

Microflite City Helipad, Yarra River Melbourne   (Apr 2019,  266kb)

Clip service: Legacy media could always look back into a past brimming with promise

Testaroossa Sammy-Santino Mens Hairstylist, Double Bay   (Jan 2019,  364kb)

Twilight's last gleaming: We slid down the Phillips Curve until we reached the Minsky Moment

Construction hoarding at Barangaroo, Sydney   (Sep 2016,  163kb)

Spare capacity: Feel the love by shopping even more

St Collins Lane shopping arcade, Melbourne   (Apr 2019,  182kb)

Look back in covfefe: Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that's more productive (Trump, 1987)

Trump impersonator on Broadway, NYC   (Oct 2017,  264kb)

The golden hoard: Stacks of empty apartments were built for short-term yield-desperate investors

The construction boom at Wentworth Point   (Sep 2016,  286kb)

Decades of irrational exuberance: No matter what happened, the market always soared to record new heights

Financial reporter at the Sydney ASX   (Oct 2018,  152kb)

Consumer kaizen: We needed to create a culture in which our customers were prepared to kill

High Street bus-stop, Penrith   (Feb 2017,  556kb)

Fumbling the revolution: We threw off the shackles of a command economy to enjoy the benefits of privatisation

Street vendors 200m from the Kremlin on Tverskaya St, Moscow   (Dec 1991,  248kb)

Play the Tradie's Game: Contract for a knock-down-rebuild and then deal with months of excuses as to why it took so long to construct a simple suburban house

House demolition and removal at Warrimoo

The original house was demolished in April 2020 and the replacement was still unfinished a year later…   (Apr 2020,  523kb)

Exit strategy: With a bustling economy and well-paying jobs that we could easily change; with free education, fully resourced public hospitals and affordable housing; with robust social cohesion and connectedness and an innate sense of purpose and belonging — how could we have been anything other than healthy, prosperous and optimistic?

Fig Street tunnel, Ultimo   (Jul 2017,  403kb)

The road to zero: A globalised market where all tastes were equal and we voted only with our dollars

William Street beverage hoarding (since rebuilt) at Kings Cross   (Oct 2012,  326kb)

Living in an asset society: We denounced the enemies of growth

Suburban Toorak, Melbourne   (Apr 2019,  209kb)

The rising tide lifted all super-yachts: No matter how bad things looked, income inequality did not get worse (Morrison, 2017)

Darling Harbour Marina   (Jan 2017,  135kb)

Practical streetwise living: Stretch out in hygge comfort to snuggle beneath an extra blanket

Pitt Street Mall food-court entrance, Sydney   (Jan 2019,  350kb)

Financial kinesiology: Despite all the green-shoots, confidence and near-zero interest rates, it appeared we didn't survive the crash

Outside the Sydney branch of the Deutsche Bank in Hunter Street.

A security guard tried to prevent this photograph from being taken “due to copyright reasons”. A detailed and patient lecture on photography-rights disabused him   (Jan 2012,  135kb)

Positive growth model: A bustling economy filled with baristas, bloggers, unpaid interns and cash-in-hand pizza workers

Lower Baldwin Street, Dunedin NZ   (Nov 2017,  227kb)

A million jobs Mr Speaker: Offshoring brought huge economic benefits which were shared equally

Shepherd Street factory yard, at Marrickville   (Sep 2012,  337kb)

Potemkin Prosperity: The central irony of the financial crisis was that while it was caused by too much confidence, too much borrowing & lending and too much spending — it could only be resolved with more confidence, more borrowing & lending, and more spending (Summers, 2011)

Fields of green shoots at the Westpac plaza in Sydney   (Jan 2014,  520kb)

Bubble watch: Along with carefully observing the growth of real-estate prices, the Reserve Bank also carefully monitored trends in lending standards

Spectators on the steps of the former CBC Bank, Martin Place   (Apr 2006,  278kb)

Spare capacity: We solved mass unemployment by redefining the meaning of “employed”

Red flags at the Circular Quay promenade   (Jul 1992,  475kb)

A bull market in everything: This time it really was different

Charging bull statue, NYC   (Oct 2017,  178kb)

City of forgotten men: There's class warfare all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war and we're winning (Buffet, 2006)

Homeless opposite the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney   (Aug 2014,  372kb)

Practising our future: We poured resources into whatever appealed to our sense of adventure

Abandoned front yard yacht, Kirribilli   (Jan 2020,  522kb)

Forging a new deal: The transition from manufacturing to a service-based economy was completely seamless

Derelict Ford truck at The Grounds of Alexandria   (Apr 2018,  565kb)

Dog-boxes in the sky: Mate, phone-in punters bought them off the plan like it was Christmas

Spacious and exclusively appointed apartments at Broadway, near Central   (Jul 2016,  193kb)

Franchisee nation: The nature of employment changed. We didn't know what the new jobs would be, but we knew they would surely come

Food cart on 37th Street, NYC   (Oct 2017,  328kb)

Knowledge-based economy: If you could no longer make a profit by making things, then you could profitably spend your time making things up

The interior of the Queen Victoria Building, near Sydney Town Hall   (Jan 2012,  246kb)

The emporium struck back: Department stores battled heroically against irrelevance

Storm-troopers at the David Jones lift-well   (Jan 2019,  68kb)

Jobs & Growth: Social cohesion was a luxury we could no longer afford

Wall markings behind Parramatta Road, Strathfield   (Jul 2014,  564kb)

Exuberant expectations: Great success and performance created its own reality (Pfeffer, 2015)

Church Street car dealership, Parramatta   (Apr 2017,  168kb)

The weight of calorific delights: Just a spoon full of HFCS helped the processed food go down (Hyman, 2014)

Candle wax at a Kent Street wine-bar, near Town Hall   (Jan 2014,  284kb)

The retail ziggurat: The ideological apex of our commercial sector was the domestic-consumption economic model

Shopping trolleys huddle beneath the mobile-phone towers on top of Marketplace Leichhardt   (Sep 2010,  374kb)