Do you think it's spook or something we should really be preparing for?

And do you think our current government have taken adequate steps in order to prepare Australians for the possibility of another "global downturn"  this or  would be trying to neutralise the odious prospect of our country spiralling further into deficit not wanting to scare off optimistic Labor voters before an election?
Does our excessive current account deficit, combined with low investor confidence and the possibility of a currency crisis concern You?i

Sappho wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:



It's a worry, thats for sure, 2:3...  *cringe*

  ..

longweekend58 wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 3:22pm:


So basically, we "Australia" are in good shape, (better than most UN nations) ...and in comparison, we have nothing to worry about.....
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Though when you say the following, are you referring to Australia or America?

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this is about the most in touch thread here in recent times. Good question.
There is very widespread reporting on the net (not blogs, but informed, educated analysis), and it is overwhelmingly in the majority among such commentators, that there could be not just a "double dip" recession, as we've now been conditioned to think, but a full-blown collapse the like of which the world has not seen. Total debt in the U.S. is frightening. Even Bernanke has said the situation is "not sustainable", whatever he means by that.  Apparently, this debt is so big, it can never be repaid or overtaken, the interest on it is staggering, and increasing all the time. What does this mean for Australia? Firstly, you need to look at what it means for the U.S., and the most widely used descriptor of the consequences of this is "inflation", big time. That is the only way in which they can devalue this debt. Fiat currency governments love it, (including Australia) because it means governments can spend up (like labor likes to do), then let inflation eat out the value of that. The problem is that in the process, it also eats out the value of your assets, like cash or your wages, unless you are lucky enough, or prudent enough to have acquired some inflation-proof assets. The worse problem that could be coming is a combination of super inflation plus worsening unemployment across the board at a time when prices are going through roof. That's called stagflation. That's a real killer.
U.S. debt at the moment, and increasing alarmingly, is already far worse than it was in the Great Depression. When that hit, Australia was, like everywhere else, badly hit and unemployment and poverty were widespread. There has to be a reckoning for all the reckless spending that has been done by governments and populations over these last forty years.
Why do you think the Nixon Government in the U.S. took America off the gold standard in 1971? Why did Australia sell most of its gold in the mid-90s?  Economic cause-and-effect take place over decades, often longer than one person's lifetime, not over the three years of an elected government in Australia. That's one of the very big problems in Australia - people, including politicians (because they know they can get away with it) think that a "long time" is twelve months. A "long time" in economic terms is more like at least ten years, with big issues like the inflation and the devaluation of fiat currencies, and the export of jobs to foreign countries, the timeframe to see the affect could be more like twenty to thirty years. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen, probably just in time for you to see your children unable to afford a house in Australia, or get a job, or afford an eduction.
That is why it is very important for Australia to prepare now, and have a fiscally savvy government that can keep budgets under control, and maintain a surplus "going forward" especially in view of what could be coming.
You better start reading more widely on the net about this coming collapse.

...and just to bring it home a bit, do you know which governments in the world are bringing in, or already have, stable, inflation-proof currencies - gold currency? The Islamic countries, that's who.
Quite a bit of a different view to western credit-card junkie "socialist" governments eh.

According to some analysts, Japan is on the brink of collapse, and there are others as well, as we know. Do you know that Arnold Schwartzneger, the Governor of California, has declared just today a state of emergency in respect to that State's financial situation. It is not the only one. Everyone is talking about the potential "domino affect", when one goes, the rest will just collapse in short order. There is a very real and worsening danger that the U.S. dollar is going to collapse; things are extremely volatile there at the moment.
Australia has been cushioned from most of this, (and not because of the labor party, but because of Chinese demands for our resources mainly), but it is definitely NOT the time to start government spending sprees again.
I personally think that the global economic situation at present is the most dangerous and frightening in the last hundred years or so, perhaps ever.  They are talking about a financial tsunami coming again.

On the upside, yes, we have one in this country - is that if you live in Australia, you are very very fortunate, for now at least.
Sorry, but there is a lot of bad news and anxiety out there about what is happening, which most Australians certainly the media don't seem to have one clue about.

no, they are not necessarily your friend. Neither is the ABC. They are so far behind the news it is laughable. I have observed they seem to trail internet news by about six months!
The Australian media is particularly sluggish and inward-looking when it comes to what is actually happening overseas where things that happen there have a direct affect on us.