I don't know why I bother to read the news each morning; it's usually so negative that it leaves me feeling glum all day. I stopped buying newspapers years ago because they stopped being reporters of facts and were more and more full of advertisements and opinion pieces. I don't mind the occasional. opinion piece per se but I do prefer it if the opinion matches up with mine.
There's always plenty of news on the internet and I can pick and choose what I read. I've given up commercial outlets and get most of what I absorb from the ABC but, even then, there's too much doom and gloom around at the moment.
This morning, there's a warning that inflation is on the rise, covid is again on the march, China is flexing its muscles in the South Pacific and homelessness is becoming an even bigger problem in Australia. That last one is a real worry: rents are rising because landlords can make more by turning their investment property into an Air B and B, and too little social housing has been built over the past decade. I was reading an article about people in Moruya who have to live in a tent on the beach because rental properties now fetch $653 a week - in a town where the average income is $941. Something has to give.
I was booking a hotel in Brisbane expecting to pay $120 or so but could find nothing under $199 and this is for a night 5 months in advance. The reason for the increase in prices is that hotels can't find staff to make beds and clean showers, so they have to close off rooms and charge more for the ones that are still open, to maintain their profits. I think I'll leave this conversation for another time.
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