It is interesting that you have noticed pubs and bars as busy as ever because the news has recently been reporting that these areas have dropped off, along with retail spending, the lowest for over 10 years. Myer laid off quite a number of staff recently as Plasma sales are at an all time low.
The weekend paper in Melbourne said there were over 300+ high-end properties on the market across Toorak, Kew and Brighton and at this time last year there were 29. They attributed this to the "rich" people doing badly on the share market and needing to off-load their properties to subsidise their losses.
The economy affects everyone differently one can assume.