Since the Cypriots found that their cash actually belonged to someone else, I have been suspicious of the Australian bank guarantee scheme. This says up to $250,000 per person per institution is secure, without charge.
Do you remember the stunned interviews, just a few years ago, of small business owners and pensioners in Cyprus who found their money taken? But of course, that was just Cyprus, and could never happen to a rich, smart country like Australia. Right?
But given the economic surprises that are raining on our lucky little parade here and elsewhere, one would do well to exercise great caution before putting one’s faith in any government promises. Yes, Mr Abbott, I’m thinking about your slashing of our vital Aunty, after crossing your heart (and probably your fingers) before the election.
What is a promise after all, but a statement at a point in time? Things have moved on, said Mr A.
Our terms of trade have certainly moved on, and we are being served surprises on many fronts.
Today I read on the excellent Resilience.org site that the G20 meeting has agreed to precisely the possibility I headlined above. Here is the title and the link:
New G20 Rules: Cyprus-style Bail-ins to Hit Depositors AND Pensioners
The key point is ‘they rubber-stamped the Financial Stability Board’s “Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution,” which completely changes the rules of banking’.
Such gobbledygook should sound ominous, as it allows the banks to use deposits to pay off derivative bets before honouring deposit holders.
If you dare to connect the dots of the coming storms, both meteorological and economic, you will note that falling commodity prices plus increasing militarism plus swelling populations with no employment prospects plus decreasing food capacity adds up to a no-win situation. But somebody has to pay, and it seems the world’s poor are first in line. The middle class, frugal or otherwise, comes next.
But we were all busy with the fun. Putin was a fair target, but perhaps we should have been shirtfronting our media to get the real story out. Clive Palmer said something similar the other day at the Canberra Press Club. Are we the real mugs?
I recommend to you again Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs Climate, and what I see as a companion book: Christian Parenti’s Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence.
Not one to leave you feeling down, I offer you flowers and fruit from my garden, (and a not so subtle reference to a wonderful Matisse collage) My best crop of cherries so far.
The CEC have documented lots of evidence for “bail in” They put a full page advert in the Australian some months ago and sent letters to every pollie and senior public servant about this.http://cecaust.com.au/bail-in/
Our banks define depositors as unsecured lenders so we get paid last when their derivative obligations and shareholders get paid. Our banks are not safe since they have derivative exposure of at least 6 times their assets. Their assets are our over inflated mortgages.
What are derivatives? They are bets on markets and shares moving up or down. World GDP is $70 trillion and the derivative market conservatively is 10 times this amount.
Paul Craig Roberts the ex -assistant secretary to the US Treasury says that since 2006 US Corporations have borrowed $4.3 trillion to buy their own shares so they can have big bonuses and salaries. The share market is a gigantic bubble. In the USA real unemployment is 24% and there are 50 million people on food stamps so how can the share market be rising ? So if unemployment is rising and consumption is falling, how can shares be booming? It is QE ie money printing that creates this illusion of wealth.
The banks new plan here is to offer bank bonds to our super funds as a hedge against their next collapse. This super is worth $1.8 trillion and they want it for nothing.
Comment by Ross — December 3, 2014 @ 8:55 pm
so this is a real possibility. Why has this not been discussed and explained? Who would vote for that?
Comment by Ronda Jambe — December 3, 2014 @ 9:20 pm
Rhonda, Central bankers have controlled the planet for over 300 years. They create from nothing all the money for growth + inflation. They own our Govts and much of the big global corporations on the planet.
Gough Whitlam and Rex Connor tried to turn the tide by getting cheaper money to buy back the farm, but they were sacked illegally to warn future political parties who was really in charge.
Jack Lang was the last great Labor Leader who stood up against this oppression.
How rich and powerful would you be,if you could create from nothing,all the money for our Govt to function and demand that principal and interest be paid ?
Inflationary money which they create is compounding so that $1 today buys 20 times less goods and services than in 1970. The real rate of inflation over this time is 7% and not the 3% average they try to spin.
Good to see some are awakening.
Comment by Ross — December 3, 2014 @ 10:02 pm
A friend, a retired bank manager, when deep in his cups confided; that he had, under orders, and trembling with trepidation, loaned out 42 times what the bank held in assets and capital, with BRAND NEW MORTGAGES counted as assets!
Ireland was one of the most successful economies until their truly asinine government tried to bail out banks, [who backed foreign debt funded REAL ESTATE speculation,] with public money, and more or less went (entirely foreseeable) bankrupt as the result!
Canada, has moved to halt this foreign speculation there, while a few Australian quislings are going hell for leather raking in the dough as fast as their fat little fingers will allow; declaring as they do so, and where rules are/were clearly breached; we are not policemen!
Had Ireland had a modicum of common sense and demanded heavily discounted bank shares for their largess, they could have used “their” banks as a mechanism to trade their way out of trouble, the way many a well managed business has.
And then allowed them to become employee own co-ops, given co-ops were the only business model; that largely survived the Great Depression intact.
Unrepayable debt in the U.S. is a problem for us, but only if we continue to allow trade weighted advantages to the U.S. or foreign purchases backed by letters of credit, from technically insolvent U.S. banks, most of America’s!?
I mean, they have an ongoing problem lending to each other, and Q.E., has largely been used to pay down debt?
Or, prop up or fatten the already super bloated; hence the negative growth.
We for our part can do very little than hand around the begging bowl, (like the poor white trash of Asia) given we have no POLITICAL appetite to actually wind back welfare for the rich!
Which to quote the treasurer, “all welfare must now be paid for with borrowed money”!
It doesn’t matter much who you vote for, (blue, red or green) given you’ll always get a (one eyed and blinkered) divide and rule politician!
Some of who (Green politicians) clearly think and are on the public record saying, you just need to power up the printing presses (manna from heaven) to run the economy!
And Joe Hockey’s welfare (government largess) includes entitlements like negative gearing, (5 billion Pa) family trusts (30 billions PA) and preferential tax treatment of high income earners super (40-50 Billions PA?)! And sure it’s not given as handouts or hand-ups, just officially foregone tax, which is exactly the same thing by a different name!
And then we wonder why we are going backwards; and or, prefer to hit university students, pensioners, and unemployed youth; most of who will vote for the other side anyway, and therefore easy targets!?
If I were to deliberately shrink my former business returns the way this (I’m all right Jack) government is deliberately; or worse, unknowingly shrinking the economy?
I’d very quickly go bankrupt, as indeed, will this once great country? Once the third wealthiest economy in the world, and a creditor one into the bargain!
But that’s when were were last led by patent pragmatists, who relied on tried and not found wanting, (eventually) Keynesian economics to grow or rescue a basically bankrupt economy, still staggering punch drunk from the twin king hits of the great depression and WW11!
And in so doing, created around 2.4 dollars worth of economic growth for every dollar of debt; as well as, ushering in an enduring period of unprecedented prosperity!
Conversely, in the U.S., every one dollar of debt, now creates just 0,03 dollars worth of growth and a zero sum game, or simply going backwards all while creating unrepayable debt!
And just so banks and billionaires can grow larger/richer more powerful! King making power being the real end goal!
Even with the huge multi-trillion dollar debt, the huge trillion dollar farm bill stays! And U.S. medicine eats more than 13-18% of the GNP, yet leaves around 30% without insurance or health care, we here take for granted?
Albeit, about to change as a now privatized medicare (american style medicine) chases profits that must always grow!
Our economy continues to shrink, and completely down to really dumb policies, that the less well off, will inevitably have to pay for, as they do now almost everywhere else! What’s fairness got to do with it/got to do with it?
What the world needs now are energy consuming energy dependent robots making more products for a largely unemployed human race, that can no longer afford them?
Why even teachers, doctors, lawyers, college professors and cab drivers can be made redundant by increasingly clever technology!
What’s common sense got to do with it/got to do with it?
I see a new and largely unavoidable Great depression, that in comparison, will make the last one look like a Sunday School picnic!
Thanks to jobs being lost to automation; and because our situation is made even worse by the selectively deaf and blind on both sides of the isle leading Tweedledum and Tweedledumer.
Or put another way, the self serving inmates are now in charge of and are running the asylum!
And as ever, trying to protect or shore up shrinking privilege!?
Personally I wouldn’t trust the banks too much, but would spread my money in the following areas, Gold, Positively geared Housing, and at the low end, where the rents are still affordable.
Negative gearing being of very little use if you don’t have any/very much tax to save!
And bulk freight forwarding remains one of the most profitable business models? And will continue in some form regardless of the economic parameters?
After all, the world will still need to eat drink sleep and fart over the next 25 years, even if that is mostly in soup kitchens/homeless shelters etc.
Alan B. Goulding.
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — December 4, 2014 @ 10:43 am
The solution is simple, Comrades, nationalise the banks, or at least, re-establish publicly-owned banks and leave casino capitalism to those depositors who want to take a risk with private corporations.
Comment by RussellW — December 4, 2014 @ 11:53 am
Russellw.Do you think they will allow us to nationalise the banks? Putin kicked the Rothschilds out of Russia and nationalised resources and energy, that’s why Russia is demonised. Russia and China have many Govt banks, that’s why they have almost no debt.Read ‘The Confessions of an Economic Hitman’ by John Perkins. He was paid by these oligarchs to enslave countries in debt and if they did not comply after bribes,assassination was the answer.
Alan Gould you have been quoting for James Rickard’s ‘The Death Of money’ See the interview below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYW5OGWfqJc
If you want to protect yourself against the big collapse coming see http://usawatchdog.com/ hosted by Greg Hunter. He interviews people like James Rickards, Peter Schiff, Gerald Celente, Rob Kirby, Dr Paul Craig Roberts etc who predicted the 2007-8 crash and they all say the next one will be the mother of all crashes.
Comment by Ross — December 5, 2014 @ 5:36 am
@6 Ross
“Do you think they will allow us to nationalise the banks?”
Of course not, I was putting it on my wish list.
Years ago, before the deregulation plague, there were state owned banks and the Commonwealth Bank was owned by the Federal government. After three years of Coalition incompetence the political environment should be conduicive to the re-introduction of publicly owned banking on a small scale.
Comment by RussellW — December 5, 2014 @ 8:22 am
I was quoting who? Well that’s possible, given much of what I read sticks, except perhaps the source? [Great minds think alike; and or, fools seldom differ.]
One notes the years of double digit inflation free growth in China, and the fact they still retain their banks as state owned organisations! [Cause and effect.]
With all the current inflation fueled by 30% wages inflation and investment speculation in housing in established cities?
The almost inevitable price of success.
Trickle down economic theory was thoroughly disgraced a very long time ago; yet a few die-hard, witless ideologues, grit their collective teeth and crack, whip away, endeavoring in that endless effort, to make it get up and run; when in fact the only remedy is a bullet to the head, hypothetically!
The first thing we must do to avoid that predicted future, is completely reform the tax act, so avoidance is no longer possible.
My choice would be a single stand alone expenditure tax!
With every other tax measure jettisoned.
I’d start it at around 18%, which given the inherent savings, or no compliance costs needed, a real rate of around 11%; and collected via the banking sector via every withdrawal for any purpose; including international remittances or transfers!
And just kick the can/stick the BS and just don’t tell me it can’t be done!
In the future banks will undeniably need the national government well and truly in their corner, or face almost inevitable extinction!
With that done, we should use the huge new surpluses to kick start a brand new peoples bank, which by the way, could be franchised through Aust Post and or, former tax practices; the latter preferred, given they would likely have a good handle on just who were successful operators, and able to be trusted with the poeples’ venture capital.
Which should first prioritize cooperative endevour, and family businesses.
We need to invest in our best ideas and best people, instead of simply allowing them to offshore, and then import their commercialized products/ideas.
I commend the current government for taking a stand on employee shareholdings!
Which is far and away the best way to exclude the lay-a-bouts and drones; and road block unionists, who just get in the way.
I worked in one mine that was virtually union free, and that was because they were paid 10% above the odds!
And the workers would simply would have no truck with union officials trying to foment disharmony, or kill the golden goose.
During the last great depression the only business model that largely survived intact, was the cooperative model!
Moreover, I have yet to hear of a co-op that ever grew too big to fail!
All western style economies rest on just two support pillars, energy and capital, and we need to claw back both, given foreigners and foreign speculation has robbed us of control of both, and indeed, have all but purloined our economic sovereignty.
With the capital side of the equation repaired, we need to crack on with complete energy Independence; rather than allow price gouging foreigners, to force us to the wall and or bankruptcy.
Even if that means accessing the probable energy bonanza that lies beneath our reef! If only to earn enough capital to draw down debt as well as grow the economy.
A return to a healthy working economy and the status of a creditor nation rather than a debtor one, will allow us to crack on with the endlessly sustainable alternatives; and be far more generous with our social security safety net, and get things like an NDIS well and truly up and running!
Which in turn would unshackle some of our best (Stephen Hawking type) minds and get them out there and finally productive!
I’m very much in favor of alternative energy; but unlike most of the advocates understand these thing just don’t just pop up out of thin air; need to be planned and paid for, and face a veritable tirade of vested and or self interest; all trying to protect a patch; and all to often, in spite of the national interest.
Those alternatives have to include thorium, which we have enough of to power the world for 700 years, or our own highly competitive manufacturing base for literally thousands of years, if we wake up and save it for our own exclusive use/competitive edge.
We’re told there are are no free lunches, that the world doesn’t owe anyone a living.
So, that means we need to earn our own, and as simple as using the brains we were born with and the huge resource base we still currently own and control!
Naturally oil producers the world over are going to protect “their interests” as best they can, even if that includes the bribing of corrupt officials, or winding up the less nimble thinkers, and have them act just like rent-a-crowd, in order to halt progress or the real national interest!
I see a future where mega cities and their plethora of problems are avoided by the timely roll out of rapid rail, and the creation of 70-80 new towns and cities along its routes. Which should include the eastern seaboard, and maybe Darwin to Port Headland.
And all paid for with the eventual resale of rezoned resumed land.
That future simply has to include micro grids, Thorium and biogas energy; and broad scale algae farming.
It also must include driverless CNG/methane powered electric cars, that pickup car pool passengers, working for the same company organisation or enterprise, thereby reducing the usual gridlock commute by at least 75%!
And these car will be able to communicate with each other and the traffic lights, so the speed can be adjusted to synchronize with them, to further reduce gridlock?
And even more so, by flexible arrangements that allow many of us to work from home/video conference with our colleagues and exchange ideas.
Many employers will resist this, as it stops the most incompetent (corporate psychos) from picking the brains of their intellectual superior/more competent employees, then accepting all the kudos and reward/promotion for those very ideas; but only after seriously bagging/humiliating/bulling/ the source of those ideas!
And these people can be found wherever (moth to a candle)power beckons! Boardrooms, churches and politics, just to mention the most obvious, and or the reasons we see some of the most asinine decisions occurring before our very eyes!
When will they ever learn? When will they learn; or even just learn to listen.
Alan B. Goulding.
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — December 5, 2014 @ 12:28 pm
Very interesting ideas Alan
Comment by Pat — December 5, 2014 @ 5:33 pm
No accountability without transparency.
Not so long ago, Australians owned their critical infrastructure: banks, phone, electric grid.
This gave us the theoretical possibility of holding them accountable. But corporations can do what they want, and pressure the gov with their deep pockets to toss the legal and policy settings in their favour.
How else would we be giving so much subsidy to the fossil fuel industries while shooting ourselves in the gut by withdrawing support for renewables?
Lucky country, bah humbug! We are the stupid country.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — December 6, 2014 @ 8:15 am
Yes Rhonda we are the stupid country but we are in a better position than most Western countries.
Below you’ll see an interview with Peter Schiff and James Rickards. They and many others are saying to buy precious metals. Do not buy the paper certificates. It must be in a safe deposit box and only you have the key. Do not use a bank deposit box.
For every oz of precious metals there are 100 pieces of paper laying claim to its existence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDWVvMZWy7Y
Other good investments are precious stones, fine art and assets not over inflated such as farmland or commercial property. Tangible assets will always come back in value but the share market at the moment is very dangerous. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Comment by Ross — December 6, 2014 @ 10:08 am
Yes Ronda, but that was back then when there was a light on the hill, and a country run by pragmatists!
And that was a time when we still relied on tried and not found wanting, Keynesian economic theory.
A time when we were the third wealthiest country in the world, and a creditor one at that!
Even so, publicly owned infrastructure was run as virtual monopolies that had too much inflexible union control and the most asinine demarcation lines embedded; (the British disease) and therefore, made most top heavy and hugely overstaffed.
And a time when CEO’s salaries would invariably never exceed 30 multiples of the lowest paid factory or shop worker.
The inherent problem with Government owned enterprise could be fixed by running them as completely autonomous, competing for survival, duopolies!
And then use the much lower price structures for mucho plenty social benefit, and enough guaranteed income to pay for the alternatives I’ve alluded to elsewhere!
As for fixing the current budget:
Removing negative gearing would return around 5 billion per to consolidated revenue, and we are the only country that has one.
Even so, impossible to wind up, given the number of politicians (see the pecuniary registers) who now own investment housing, and still trot out the “BAH HUMBUG” that Sydney is the most livable city in the world, all while ignoring the fact it’s also the most expensive!
Where a shoe-box bedsitter, costs more than the current single pension!
It’s not blinkered pollies that are the real problem, but rather the blindfolded ones; or those who must be Obied!
We could simply jettison family trusts and save 30 billions per?
But no, and I’ll warrant, for the same reasons mentioned above?
Or, we could claw back between 40-50 billions per, just by ending preferential tax treatment of millionaires’ super; but no, and I daresay, for the same reasons already mentioned?
And then a cigar chomping Joe (possibly benefiting from all of the above) informs us the age of entitlements is over; and or, all welfare must be paid for with borrowed money!
Real tax reform and vast simplification, would end the need to continue to run these onshore tax havens!
There’s a couple of other problems; the first being general apathy, and kids claiming to be consumed with concern over climate change, yet refusing to vote; (40% of the vox populi) and given the current choices, hard to critique them for that.
However, if that’s their beef, they could encourage a new class of candidate, who understands just who is the servant and who is the employer; by just continuously putting the incumbent last on the ballot!
And a far more powerful protest than simply refusing to vote, or flushing their only real power to usher in change, completely down the toilet!
Can’t died in a cornfield over a century ago!
The flowers looked nice and I’m sure the cherries were delicious.
We grew them when I was a boy along with fresh picked apricots and peaches so juicy, it would have no choice but fairly dribble down your chin, as you chomped into them.
The only thing I seem to grow much of now is gray hair, and my height; given I seem to be growing up through it?
Cheers, Alan B. Goulding.
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — December 6, 2014 @ 11:07 am
I’ve been on a crusade over the last 6 years to alert people to what is really happening. Tell as many people as you can Rhonda since the more people who have protected themselves against this tyranny, the better our chances as a nation surviving their pathological need for money and power.
Forget politicians, they sold us out a long time ago. Change has always come from a grass roots level of ordinary people struggling for survival.
Comment by Ross — December 6, 2014 @ 4:57 pm
This morning Joe Hockey said we have to prepare for the next GFC.He wants to bring some regulation in on the banks but the banks say there will be extra charges if regulaion happens making mortgages more expensive.
Note how shell shocked Tony Abbott is of late.Perhaps Joe Hockey has given him some really bad news like our banks with their money creation and gambling in derivatives are on the verge of collapse and they want “bail in”
Comment by Ross — December 8, 2014 @ 9:12 am
I’ve been told by the smaller banks, Bendigo, BoQ, Suncorp…etc…that they do not deal in derivatives. If everyone shifted their savings to such institutions, their money might be safer…unless the smaller banks are dealing with the monsters.
Comment by Peter — December 8, 2014 @ 9:52 am
Yes Peter, but I’d prefer credit unions, which are a sort of banking cooperatives?
With the examples mentioned by you, sort of half way between the big four and credit unions.
And as a matter of trust, I’d also prefer not for profit friendly societies, [another example of cooperative enterprise,] for health insurance.
At least that way, we will feel that our money stays here a lot longer, and beavering away in the very local economy!
Even then the smaller towns will bleed millions to the larger regional centres!
But still preferable to see our money heading on a one way trip offshore!
The big banks are already squealing at the prospect of having to hold more funds; given just how much they’re in the hole, due to their foreign debt/exposure to quite horrendous farm debt/tax avoiding patent ponzi schemes?
Made worse by their normal bread and butter, a shrinking mortgage market?
Free markets and free enterprise is also supposed to include an element of risk!
If you borrow against/mortgage your house to invest in tree farms something similar, and then take a bath and lose everything!
Why then should anyone, least of all honest fellow tax paying Australians help you out of a hole of your own making; which you and you alone entered into, for the sole purpose of avoiding a fair share of tax!
Always a problem when an economic downturn is coupled to lower official interest rates.
And compounded due to the fact that our big four are by and large owned and or controlled by offshore hedge funds?
And it seems, all four bank are largely owned by the same group of offshore patently parasitical entities?
Then we wonder why some seem to be continually griping about the lack of competition; bank fees and charges; (Credit cards/commercial loans) or indeed, transparency?
Cheers, Alan B. Goulding.
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — December 8, 2014 @ 10:59 am
Peter I bank with the Bendigo and yes they deal in derivatives. They call a form of insurance. How exposed they are I don’t know. Here you will see the exposure of the big 4 banks. http://cecaust.com.au/main.asp?sub=articles&id=background_financial_crash.html
The Commonwealth Bank stopped publishing their exposure to derivatives in 2012 for obvious reasons.
The problem is even the Credit Unions are interwoven into the banking system and no one wants to tell us how risky they are. So if you have inside info let us all know.
Comment by Ross — December 8, 2014 @ 3:57 pm
Wall Street lobbyists are trying to secure taxpayer backing for many derivatives trades as part of budget talks to avert a government shutdown.
You simply can’t make this stuff up.
http://www.silverdoctors.com/wall-street-moves-to-put-taxpayers-on-the-hook-for-derivatives-trades/#more-49079
Comment by Ross — December 9, 2014 @ 5:19 am
Derivatives again? Surely one global meltdown per generation is enough!
And what do they propose to secure them against this time?
A real estate market guaranteed to always rise/Merchant bankers’ grins?
We know how that ended last time; and indeed, that the worst offenders, wall street bankers were left largely untouched and out of prison, to mount another attack once the still extremely fragile economy seemed to be recovering?
What are they proposing this time to back their largely worthless paper? Smoke and mirrors; or perhaps the 64 trillions worth of the derivatives created by them last time, and feed as INSURANCE to gullible investors!?
Millions of ordinary mums and dads lost their shirts last time this stunt, (the fire sale of the emperors new clothes) was tried on!
There an old maxim in business; if you don’t understand it don’t buy it!
Your are right Ross, you just couldn’t make this stuff up!
A fool never learns, and at first blush it looks as though the responsible officials, (former wall street bankers?) are going to allow this to fly; or do a very foolish thing!
Somewhere and someone with a still functioning brain and power is just going to have to say, both short selling and derivatives are now verboten!
If mortgages could no longer be securitized, we’d like as not avoid another GFC!
If The land of the dollar bill is bound and determined to cut her own financial throat, must we join them in their economic suicide?
Or chart our own course, using what we have and the brains we were born with, to steer a very different course and towards our own enduring prosperity?
And that’s not more of the same (inmates in charge of the asylum) rubbish that placed us in this precarious financial position initially.
If banks couldn’t securitize their mortgages, they’d be far more circumspect about who and why the lend to, with risked depositors funds!
And if they expect the taxpayers to bail them out yet again, then they should hand over all largely worthless shares/junk bonds as security, and indeed, allow any such rescued enterprise to be run (receiver managed) as an employee co-op; until they can trade out of trouble and repay any government largess; all of it!
And if that’s not an option? Well let them go to the wall!
My advise, get out of banks while there’s still some of your shirts left.
And invest it in gold/positively geared housing, something that may rise and fall, but arguably the best safe havens and far less likely to be worth any less as far as the eye can see/anytime soon!
Ditto sustenance/permaculture farming?
Alan B. Goulding.
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — December 9, 2014 @ 9:35 am
Well we are all in agreement about how scary the economic factors seem. Just when I was thinking of getting out of some real estate to simplify my life, looks like instead I might have to buy more.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — December 9, 2014 @ 7:29 pm
Ronda, Allan,
One remedy for the banks’ cavalier attitude to depositers’ funds would be to treat deposits as secured investments with a priority claim over the banks’ assets.
I’m not sure if housing would be a sound investment until after the real estate bubble bursts and the Coalition-voting middle classes find that their McMansions are worth half their mortgages and the unemployment rate is at 20%.
Whatever the outcome one fact is certain, the current government would, because of its ideological obsessions, make any recession much worse.
It’s possible to grow a lot of vegetables in the average suburban backyard.
Comment by RussellW — December 10, 2014 @ 7:33 am
Rhonda if you want a female perspective see Ellen Brown author of ‘The Web of Debt’ http://usawatchdog.com/big-banks-will-take-depositors-money-in-next-crash-ellen-brown/
It sounds like they are not even going to pass legislation on this theft of our deposits. If it happens make sure you have several months of food because there will chaos everywhere.
Our politicians all know,so there will be no excuses if they allow this to happen.
Comment by Ross — December 10, 2014 @ 5:23 pm
Ross, I read that, thanks, confirms the bad news that makes me slightly sick in the stomach. Where can I preserve my own unimpressive life savings? Dammed if I will let the banks gobble it for their greed.
How incredible that this has received NO coverage, or it would have been front page news. I tweeted that link, the media hounds should have picked up on it already.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — December 11, 2014 @ 5:13 am
Rhonda, MSM like many other corporations and our Govts are owned by these central bankers. He who pays the piper calls the tune. It won’t make headlines.
Comment by Ross — December 11, 2014 @ 6:49 pm
Yes, but theoretically our ABC is not in the same category. Maybe there is a legal embargo on discussing this aspect of the G20, a gag order. I intend to write to some journos and find out.
By the way, are you the Ross who did a Phd at QUT?
Comment by Ronda Jambe — December 12, 2014 @ 6:46 am
No Rhonda no PHDs. Graham Young knows me as I’ve posted on OLO for over 10 years and sent Graham a copy of this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LVfmpv71TQ This is the story behind ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ by Bill Still. L Frank Baum was right into social and economic justice.
In the book Dorothy had silver slippers and not the ruby ones worn by Judy Garland in the movie. In 1873 the elite bankers removed all the cheap silver money from our economies and replaced it with their gold. Since they had most of the gold, they took most of the wealth. This was the beginning of the 1890’s depression which lasted for over 25 yrs. The Wicked Witches of the East and West were JP Morgan and JD Rockefeller the two major banking powers in the USA at that time. It was the silver slippers and the liquidity of water which defeated the evil witches.
Many are now pushing for a gold standard to back our money thus stopping the printing of money which I call Mickey Mouse money,that is created with the click of a computer mouse. If we had proper regulation of money creation,fiat currencies can work. Bitcoin is a good example of this but it has problems too.It seems that Asia will soon have most of the gold on this planet and when the derivatives collapse,the wealth will move there.
This doco by Bill Still won international awards for best documentary but MSM won’t go near it. Well worth watching.
Comment by Ross — December 14, 2014 @ 6:54 am