IvanM

Spot on. No amount of she'll be alright worked. No tinkering on the edges convinced anyone and more banks collapsed. It took an outright guarantee by all governments of affected countries.

renth

BankWest was looking VERY shaky for a while and is about to be bought by Crimminwealth Bank for a knock down price of $2bil.

savanna454

Yeah and they turned down $4bil earlier this year but hindsights a great thing!

renth

I hope the ****er who lied to me and she shiny suited spiv from the complaints department get sacked and have to eat baked beans on christmas day.

Lookin2Oz

It is stupid to think Oz will not be impacted by the global recession.

China is the big player in manufacturing and the demand in the US and UK for Chinese goods are – down.

So what does Australia supply to China ? Raw materials. So if the demand for output is down then so is the demand for raw materials.

No rocket science required.

Recent news explains that the Aust Ford plant are cutting back hundreds of jobs dues to petrol price hikes etc etc. Cost f living goes up with petrol hikes, spending money comes down, and economy gets tight.

asprilla

If it really is this simple, then Australia is clearly in big trouble.

Is it really this simple though......

savanna454

Exactly my thoughts

OZ media keep saying how rich China is and how OZ is going to continue to feed off its 9% growth/internal consumption/infrastructure growth etc.

I don't believe it!

tictac

China's urbanisation programme will still require raw mats and, at this moment in time, their economy is still predicted to grow between 8 and 11% so Oz will be impacted but not to the extent some of the doom and gloom merchants are predicting.

Lookin2Oz

Not trying to be doom & gloom BUT

All the team leaders at the bank that were chanting the glass half full mantra and now realising that no matter how hard you chant & rah rah rah it doesn't change the glass, only how you look at it. Now the rest of the globe is seeing that and those sorts of things just don't happen overnight, it must have been in the making for a good while so they must have been chanting for some time.

So call me doom & gloom I would rather know when the car is going to run out of gas rather than pretend the tank is still full.

Yes China has it's own growth but the main customers for China are - export - the USA and of course the rest of the world, they are all playing safe for the next few months as will Oz.

The stock markets seem to have responded positive to the capital injection but the long term story is how will the tax payers now afford to pay of the bills for bailing the banks out.

I can tell you that I resent my expensive bank fees more than ever Let’s not talk about the big bonuses for the jerks running the banks as that does depress me

Also, China is investing HEAVILY into Africa guess what for ? Not their cuddly toy manufacturing. So whilst the rest of the world sits back & waits for idiots like Mugabe China DOES BUSINESS and buys up the houses & hotels.

sonlymewalter

That's because all government departments have invested in banks abroad. If those overseas banks don't get baled out by their respective governments, Aus will be as buggared as anywhere and anyone else. Luckily with the rescue packages that are coming to fruition, it's all looking better and the global market has stopped going into freefall. So far so good.

Australia is not out of the woods yet. Not by a long chalk.

renth

Not true, China's growth is nearly all generated by internal demand, exports to "the west" account for about 7%

MartinLuther

It is stupid to think Aus will not be impacted by the global recession.

Those that think Aus is immune from the credit crunch must be barking.

You shouldn't wear thigh high boots with a short skirt.

You shouldn't wear a that tie with that shirt.


Is this a thread for stating the obvious?

OzTennis

Proving that markets aren't self-regulating, especially the most important one for world well-being.

The argument of course should not be that Australia is completely immune but perhaps less exposed to the current woes than some other economies because it's financial sector is basically sounder. There hasn't been a need for 3 nationalisations of some of the biggest financial institutions for example. Suncorp yep, comparatively small player; Commonwealth, ANZ, Westpac et al no (RBS, HBOS, Barclays, Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley; Bearn Stearns, Lehman, Fannie and Freddie, AIG, JP Morgan only going to survive by private Japanese investment etc, etc yes).

It seems that a bigger reliance on commodities rather than financial instruments might be a blessing rather than a hindrance? Commodity prices can fall yes but commodities, unlike financial institutions don't go bankrupt, they're real.

Kalenge

I work for a multi-national company in the mining industry and we have just had a global conference at which forecasts were made for the state of the industry and business as a whole. Even considering the current financial crisis, the forecast for the next 3-5 years is actually extremely good. Yes, the pace may slow down a bit (and that’s only relative to the frantic pace that things have been at) and focus shifted to other areas, but on the whole the growth is still very positive.

I’d sooner be riding out any downturn in Oz than the UK.

autorock

Amen.