chris955

http://www.smh.com.au/business/were-...515-1yp0a.html

It certainly explains why the retail sector especially is really struggling with people less and less inclined to spend. Im not sure how you encourage people to spend more money ? Dropping interest rates are hardly likely to have the average person flocking to the shops.

slapphead_otool

Japan has had the same problem for many years - it represents financial responsibility. The people are more interested in saving than in spending, which is a good thing.

I daresay much of the concern over finances relates to the dreadful news they keep hearing about Europe, which gets steadily worse. Faced with that it's a positive thing that Australians are concerned about the future and are saving money.


Edited to add:


The pattern of Japanese saving habits is conservative in nature. The Japanese tradition always appreciated savings and security in the future, rather than spending on consumer goods and consumerism. The residents of Japan have a high tendency towards saving.


Personal savings in a country is equal to personal disposable income minus personal consumption expenditures. It has been witnessed that the Japanese people have a lower degree of tendency for consumption in comparison to the people in the United States.

This also proves that the people in Japan are more inclined towards savings. Per household savings in Japan has demonstrated a continuous increase for a number of years on a regular basis till the year 1998.

The average savings per household amounted to 76,637 yen in the year 1984 and in the year 1998, it was 142,335 yen.

At this time, savings had risen on an average of 3.5% every year. During the period of 1998-2001, the per household savings went down from 142,335 yen to 129,681 yen and it diminished at a mean of 3% every year.

Taken from another site...

chris955

Yes I am sure the retail businesses going to the wall see it as a very positive thing.

slapphead_otool

Absolutely. Having a nation spending its money on Chinese made crap isn't good. Look up balance of trade deficit to see what I mean.

A financialy sound country exports more value than it imports.....

chris955

slapphead_otool

Is the smile agreement or admission that what you know about economics could be written on a postage stamp?

chris955

roaringmouse

Balance of trade in the negative for Australia at the moment, and heading further that way.

commonwealth

told you so. i won't mind retail suffering a bit if it means the population in general is less indebted. besides, it's mostly imported stuff the retailers are selling anyway.

people don't spend that much anymore not because they have less income but because they have become more responsible and learned from the mistakes of the americans and europeans (ex-germany).

because of the record level of savings of australians, local banks have become less reliant on wholesale overseas funding which means they are less prone to the euro shocks.

there are winners and losers in the current environment but on the balance of things, i'd rather be in australia at the moment than elsewhere.

commonwealth

it's been negative for a long time but i'm not overly eorried because it's only a part of the GDP equation.

slapphead_otool

I think far more importantly, if we are outing newspaper articles, is this scary report:

British economy may 'never quite recover' from a severe Euro collapse
Britain's economy may suffer “permanent” damage and “never quite get back up” if the euro collapses in a chaotic way, the Government’s chief economic forecaster has said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...-collapse.html

THAT is bad news.....

chris955

I think the truly financiallly sound countries are further North to be honest.

chris955

Have I mentioned I like chocolate ? We went past a huge Cadbury factory the other day and our boys wanted me to stop so we could go in LOL.

chris955

This is good news.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-1...lining/3940626

slapphead_otool

Yep, so too is the UK

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/unit...lance-of-trade

But the data kindly provided by Chris shows that consumers are changing spending patterns in Australia, which will help the situation. Why isn't it happening in the UK?