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As per today for 1$ AU you get
US $ 68 cent
Euro 48.50
Swiss Franc 72 cents ( four weeks ago 1.02)
What will do this to our country and its people? This is a 20% inrease for imported goods in one month .
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I don't understand it at all. The US economy is going to shit, ours is supposedly going well, and yet our dollar is doing the swan dive?
And FFS, in what sane universe does a bunch of people in another country, buying houses they can't afford cause all this shit for us? I mean, I've got an economist friend who explained how it all works, but my argument is that it shouldn't work that way.
Maybe the end of capitalism is nearer than I thought. The current model is obviously unsustainable - be interesting to see whether it can be propped up or if its already a basket case.
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GET our piss weak politicians here and in NZ (Libor, Laberal, and their lap dogs the Country bogans Treehuggers etc etc and those dangerous ultra right wing mobs run by religious groups) To tell the world and the "multinational companys" that well " you lot you want our iron ore ,coal ,gas , bauxite etc etc pay for it in our new valued Australian Dollar that will be fixed at %110 of the US dollars rate or straight trade for respectably priced Oil !!!! dont want to do that. Piss off . We have to Seize and nationalize the resources we have, this "free market with fork all relegation shit has failed!! >:( Oh and good bye to private Banks of all types!!!!!
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There is alot of merit in that Tim.
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What worries me , nobody is alarmed and most people just shrug their shoulders. ??? The fallout will be massive.
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How many of you can remember having a mortgage in the late 80's when interest rates where at about 18 percent, and some bone head politicians saying it was the recession we had to have ( Bob Hawk - Paul keating )
World markets seem to regulate almost every thing these days , sign of the new generation thingy
Australia is unable to wing it alone, as they rely on other countrys. ::)
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I've got to agree, Nathan. The only trouble is I haven't got an economist friend to explain it to me, so I still don't understand. Great to have a huge budget surplus, but it means Jack S**T on the world market. And yes, I had an 18% Mortgage. However, food in comparison to today was reasonably priced.
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Walter- It's not as bad as it seems. The market was too hot and money was easy to get ( hence the USA ) The average bloke could not see what was going to happen , hence the Reserve bank putting up interest rates to slow our spending.
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I don't have a problem with understanding the US credit crisis, and the effect on world share markets. I changed my Super investment choice to cash at the end of last year when things started to appear unsettled,so missed the big drops. It's the relationship with the $US whit upsets me. If our contracts are to a large extent written in $US, we should at least achieve something close to parity.
The last couple of products I've won on Ebay from the US don't seem such good bargains after all.
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I think Tim is on the right track , unfortunatly these days a strong economy seems to fall well down the list of priorities behind making sure that all dead beats are well cared for , that the greenie maggots are taken seriously,that education and health services are deprived of any funding that could possibly make them function effectivley and that spotty faced arseole kids are given more rights than their parents ::) and sucking up to that war criminal Bush.
Going by the law of averages i should (accidents ,assasination or illness aside) be on this earth for another 40 years :) I despair to think what this world will be like by then >:( i can only imagine that we will all be living in bubbles for our own protection from ourselves ::)
The government through their various media campaigns have convinced me that there is no way i will possibly be able to retire as according to statistics i should have started saving 1.5 x my annual income since i was a fetus ::)
Its no good relying on the younger generations to look after us in our twilight years as most of the mutants they call kids today cant pronounce anything more than a 2 sylibul word or even spell their own bloody name. Of course it doesn,t matter of course as they know it all anyway. Should one rise above and show any sign of potential they are quickly stopped and reducated that everyone is equal and they must all gravitate towards the lowest common denominator so nobody feels bad ::)
So enjoy it while you can :D VMX is for me so much more than riding restoring old bikes , it is a chance to step away from this politicly correct (who the fork came up with that phrase ) world and enjoy a short time with real people and reminiss the good old days ;)
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in times like this having little means losing little ;)
yes everything will go up and so will my hourly rate to compensate, it always seems to level out and we just lose a little more each time..thats how it works..rich get richer and the poor get the picture, middleclass is well and truly a dying breed and it also means no OS buying for me till things improve..luckily I got in just before the collapse and sent myself bankrupt on a buying frenzy :P it all arrived in the mail today but I wished I'd payed the postage a week ago ::)
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my dad work hard all his life and invested wisely in good shares ,he died a few years ago and he made sure that my mum would be able to live ok for the rest off her life .
she informed me today that her shares and investments have de valued 250k in 3 weeks .shes a tad worried
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As usual the market will bottom out, we will have recessed market/economy for a period of time .
The market will grow and away we go again.
Like they always say , buy low.
Buy now .
Or perhaps wait a little longer . But buy soon and if you can buy alot.
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Couldn't agree more 61. I almost put the money I was saving for the 465H into shares....almost.
Still a little way further to go down I'd say. If only I was a financial advisor, but I'm not :'(
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my dad work hard all his life and invested wisely in good shares ,he died a few years ago and he made sure that my mum would be able to live ok for the rest off her life .
she informed me today that her shares and investments have de valued 250k in 3 weeks .shes a tad worried
Tell her to relax. In 12 months they will be back to where they were and in 5, maybe 10, years they will be doubled ;) ;D.
Global Warming not withstanding, Australia is less dependant on America than in the past. It will impact but it's not a case that 'America sneezes and Australia get a cold' as in was in the 60's 70's and 80's. It will impact on us China, India and the rest of the world but there is still enough fundamental demand for resourses to keep things percolating.
As for America, I think she has managed to shot herself in both feet ::). And things don't appear ready to change. I don't like her chances with either candidates ::) :P.
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Yeah this U.S. collapse has made the interest % from dollars under a mattress look bloody good. But on a better note I have noticed that the big spender's on ebay havent been driving the prices up on every small part available. It must be nice to see a part you want and just buy it no matter the price, but now the big rollers seem to see vmx parts as a luxury and have stopped spending, that to me isnt what the sport is about. VMX is a passion and I wouldnt care less if my bikes were worth $1million or on todays market absolutely nothing, I cant lose money on my bikes because of the fun I have had on them and they aint for sale, unlike the U.S. stock market??
I dont understand how there $us falls and takes ours with it.
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Given the scale of the thing I'm just surprised we didn't see it coming.
Maybe some of you did, but the average bloke only notices the daily fluctuations like the price of petrol going up and down like the tide.
But you know it's serious when big Banks start to fall over.
The American mortgage crisis puzzled me the most.
When the events leading to the crisis were made public I was amazed the learned Financial Gurus allowed it to happen.
Giving massive mortgages to people with limited or minimal income was always going to end in tears.
How could that ever work?
Ok, I've over simplified it but surely the average Accountant and Financial Advisor could see that going arse up within a few years.
No-one knew the whole bloody Country was doing it. The scale of it was massive.
But who advises the average American citizen to sign up for a loan they can't repay?
Any Medical Doctor that incompetent around people would be struck from the Register!
It's an arse smacking we'll remember for years!
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Most of the U.S. problem is, I reckon down to money grabbing and pure stupidity !
You have only got to look at the movies they make to see how they portray themselves. Advertising to the world through the movie industry that the country is populated by idiots is not the ideal that a sane nation would have.
I am probably being far too harsh, and speaking out of my chrome megaphone, but hey !
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Yeah Grouty I don't know.
For me the 'movie Americans' are from another Planet.
They bear little resemblance to the down to earth Americans I've met over the years.
Entertainment/Celebrity types and the stereotypes they portray in fil-ums are 'Actors'.
And 'Acting' in a way that's far, far removed from the people I've met.
I cringe at the stereotyped Australians I see on film!
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Google " economic clock" and you will see that it is a normal cycle we are going through, straight after a few years of boom ( rising house prices, rising markets and interest rates) we then get dropping share prices, house values and commodity prices, then rates follow( like today) . next is recession, this is unavoidable, it's coming. then it starts happening all over again. hence the term " economic clock"
For normal people there is nothing we can do except battle on through it, however the rich can move their investments around, to take advantage of the situation.
Buy low-sell high, only trouble is nobody rings the bell when it reaches the bottom or tops out.
Who cares, i'm going riding, that's all that matters, do a few whips, rail a few berms and the world is beautiful again!
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I'm so lucky because I've nothing to lose money and me don't agree every time I get a little its gone :'( I've worked real hard at times and seen heaps but it just doesn't stick around :-[ jimson
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The writing has been on the wall for many years that the USA will fall like the roman empire. Unfortunatley the rest of the world will feel the effects as well. Their national deficit has just reached 10 trillion dollars. Mind boggling to say the least. The USA is officially bankrupt , but still they borrow more and more money to prop up their ailing economy. If it was a third world nation everyone would be eating each other by now to survive ,as they would have been abandoned by the rest of the world. In the mean time their minister for propaganda Alan greenspan spruiks that they will get through ok. And here we are with a booming economy and an Aussie dollar thats being treated like toilet paper. I,ve been salary sacrificing $500pw for the past 2 years, But I,ve just stopped that now and the superannuation mob can go and get f---ed, and I,ll find other ways to invest my money.
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ya know it's funny to me as so many people have said to me in the past 5 or so years since I left full time employment, "don't you worry about not adding to your superannuation and such?" "don't you think you should be investing in something instead of simply living week to week?" nope I argued, my biggest argument always (apart from I hate the parasite blood letching filthy profitering banking institutes) but the fact that the arse could fall out of all superannuation due to another world war and/or global monetary collapse..I was close..maybe closer than I wish to imagine but it didn't take a genius to see the good times wouldn't last forever :(
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.....the superannuation mob can go and get f---ed, and I,ll find other ways to invest my money.
I know where there is a nice RC500 if you are interested in an investment ;D. I'll just have a little couple laps ride as a spotters fee ;) 8).
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I know about the 7 year circle , but this time we have 2 new players with different rules on the field .(India and China). Thats what worries me.
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Someone said the US dept is 10 trillion.On the ABC the other day they said US private borrowings/debt was 41 trillion.The fuse has been lit for a massive financial implosion and by virtue of the fact that the US economy is still the biggest,saturated by products made in China with Australian commodities,the oz dollar is seen as a commodity based,therefore a poor bet currency on foreign exchanges.Where does it stop?This is the beginning of the bust cycle,probably years.The new players are what will keep the Oz economy going.But when they've taken everything out of the ground what are we left with?
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Think of it this way , a pair of shocks that was today $200 is now with the crash $240.00
I had an order for CT90 parts ready to go a couple of weeks ago that has gone from $420.00 to well over $500.00............
It's cost us both money as I'm reconsidering now.................. :-\
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The way I see it, way too much of the world's economy has been a house of cards, and waaayy too much of it has been smoke and mirrors.
There are compaines that make lots of money every year, simply by speculating on other compaines' fortunes, without producing a single thing. Now maybe that's something that can work on a small scale and/or in the short term, but when you build layer upon layer of such 'businesses', then the whole thing is bound to fail. You end up with lots of people and lots of money being based on nothing tangible, so when we hit a speed bump, they all fall apart.
And I am repulsed by the fundamental notion that we need economic growth to survive. Amongst other things, it forces population growth, which simply cannot be sustainable indefinitely.
It's also why the western world has been so desperate to empower "those stinkin' commies" in China.
Would our lives really be that much worse if we lived simpler lives, where new cars and big screen TVs took a back seat to spending time with the family?
In my life time, I've watched how we (collectively) have become so much more materialistic, and so much less happy for it. I've spent a lot of the last dozen years blaming lil' Johnny for it, but I now suspect that he was only responding to, and encouraging a sentiment that was already there.
And the last recession was a similar deal: We all got too greedy and then we discovered that we were only rich for as long as everyone else thought that they were rich too - its almost like a bunch of kids imagining that they're astronauts or sometihng - while everyone is playing the game, its fun and it works. But as soon as one kid says "Uh, my mum wants me home for dinner" then the whole thing falls apart.
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I just sent an email to a friend last night commenting on the current turmoil in the markets and suggested their may be a few cheap VMX bike going in the near future as individuals percieved wealth is being eroded on the current markets.
It seems i'm not the only one having these concerns, although no one has talked of having fire sales just yet, but it's refreshing in a way to hear peoples thoughts on issues like whether our capitalistic ways are truely a good thing or whether we should allow ourselves to be led around like a bunch of mindless sheep by corporations who in conjunction with governments only seek to suck as much cash as they can from every one of us.
As I see it, it all had to come to a head one day, and it looks like this big festering pimple on the back of the world financial ass is about to explode. We all have to get back to the fundamentals and start to produce things. Selling unaffordable loans just to make commissions was always going to come unstuck, but hey, they don't give a shit, they got their dollar out of it and now they've passed to burden on to the rest of us to carry. It's just plain old greed and unfortunately that's what a capitalist society is all about. What really amazes me is all these so called capitalists are just as happy as pigs in shit when things are going well and stach away the cash, but when things go belly up, they cry poor and look for handouts left, right and centre. I bet they will be scrambling over themselves to get a share of that US$700B so called rescue package drop-kick Bush is flouting.
Hopefully some good will come from it all when the dust has settled, but then again, pigs might fly.
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Unfortunately we have to somehow cop the notion of "profit is privatised, debt is socialised" as remember these merchant banks were for profit companies, now the public sector has to bail them out and underwrite the losses.You can also take comfort in the fact that the directors and executives of the fallen banks took home over a billion dollars in bonuses................last year alone!
The question nobody seems to be asking is "where exactly has all the money gone"
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Personally, I have been feeling the pinch since 2005, and only 2003-2005 were good years for me anyway. Never been an investor-other than a few 401ks, and a few CDs-all which had been cashed out with penalties. I hate to say it, but perhaps some of the Rich Bitches driving their Lexus, and Escalde SUVs will have to go back to work-and even consort with us peasants.
It will be a shit to sort out, but will be sorted out. We in the US eventually vote out those of avorice, and the stupid forks...eventually.
As far as the philosophy, capitalism is awesome with reasonable regulation-when we lose that- we lose. I agree we can all lead simpler lives. I think that is a component of our interest in VMX-taking us back to more simple times. I have complete faith that the USA will recover stronger than ever before. I am, though concerned about the time it will take and it's global impact.
I am registered to vote-and will on November 4-you can bet your ass I will.
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Yeah, we should be voting with our feet, and I hope enough US voters can see the light and give Obama the chance to turn his rhetoric into reality.
But I really sympathise with Walter and anybody else who is trying to keep a small-ish business afloat while reliant on imported goods. The ability to put food on the table just got 20 or 30% harder. And the bad taste in the mouth is that much worse with the knowledge that, as Lozza points out, the "heads of industry" -those hi-flying executives who get some press from time to time with their million dollar salaries and even bigger bonuses- are now scuttling into their bunkers with great wads of cash, waiting for the right opportunity to take Shoey's advice and buy buy buy at the expense of struggling small businesses like Walter's.
But surely the message should be getting through to backwater nations like Australia and NZ that we should be bending over backwards to cultivate and nurture LOCAL industry and talent. We should be giving incentives to LOCAL entrepreneurs who can maufacture LOCALLY e.g. emulators, replica plastic guards, pistons etc etc, providing employment for our kids and insulation against the vagaries of the world economy, controlled as it is by self-interested capitalists. As voters we should get behind would-be poilitcians who will actually promote education and local small business and industry, instead of just assuming that we can survive indefinately by digging up minerals and shipping them overseas to swap for cars and computers etc.
Hang in there Walter.
That's what I reckon anyway.
Nitram
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i bought some side cover for the maico franken bike last week got the invoice today
94.00 USD = 141.010 AUD
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I'm with Nitram, NZ and Australian workers have watched for years as their jobs have been shipped off shore to cheaper labour centres.
Its such a short sighted view , we should be encouraging local manufacturing and innovation ,personally I would pay extra for products made here in NZ or even from Auz . Whenever I have to do the grocery shopping I always look for NZ made products , quite easy to do but go to a hardware or appliance store and see if you can find anything not made in Asia
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tell her to blame me
i get the blame for every thing
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As far as the philosophy, capitalism is awesome with reasonable regulation-when we lose that- we lose.
Greed is the philosophy; Capitism is the mechanism. It has served us well in the last 200 years it will not necessarily serve us well in the future.
I have complete faith that the USA will recover stronger than ever before.
Yes the fundalmental are there, America will recover. But not as strong as before. America is in decline both in absolute terms and comparitively with other nations.
America's decline in absolute terms is of it own making. Over the last 20 years, and accelerated in the last 8, America has progressively lost its standing and leadership in one sphere of human activity after another - industry, technology, political, moral, education, health, research and development. It has now lost it standing in the financial world. Never again will Norweigan Villigers put their superannuation into the trust of the American Banking system.
Yes America by its sheer size and inate wealth of resources, including its population, is still strong in each of these spheres but it has lost and is lossing its leadership and all the advantages that go with it. America will never become a third world country but it will never be as dominent or as secure in the future as it has been in the last 50 years.
America lost of world leadership and status stems directly from the poor quality of its political leadership. The poor quality of its political leadership can be traced the corrupt and corrupting election process. After 12 months of campaigning and preselection America doesn't end up with the best statesman or policy maker or the best leader, but ends up with the best fund raiser. The funds are necessary for the wages of the Campaign Director and the best Spin Doctors money can buy. Millions of dollars of funds are also required for advertising, not to inform but to persuade voters. Without the Campaign Director and the best Spin Doctors and the advertising you don't win.
After 12 months of campaigning and preselection the candidates will owe more to the fund contributors than they owe to the American voters. When 'push comes to shove' they will act more to the advantage of the fund contributors than the American voters.
The candidates will know that voter loyality can be bought and swayed but if they can 'give value' to their fund contributors they can count on their fund support for the next re-elections.
This has been the history of the last 20 years with Affordable Home Loans, Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, with bank regualtion and de-regulation, and has been a direct cause, although not sole cause, of the current crisis.
The election process has again thrown up two low quality candidates and I would not expect any great difference in the quality of political leadership in the immediate future. I hope I'm wrong but given the history and the same process I'm probably right.
America is like having a brother who is gay. You love your brother, you understand your brother, you respect your brother, but shit you still wish he wasn't gay.
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I'm with Nitram, NZ and Australian workers have watched for years as their jobs have been shipped off shore to cheaper labour centres.
Its such a short sighted view , we should be encouraging local manufacturing and innovation ,personally I would pay extra for products made here in NZ or even from Auz . Whenever I have to do the grocery shopping I always look for NZ made products , quite easy to do but go to a hardware or appliance store and see if you can find anything not made in Asia
Just a moment. I'll go and find John Howard and have him explain the advanatages of Free Trade again ;D.
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Hey Guys,
Yes, there are many people to blame for this mess. Blame the spineless Regulators. Blame the opportunistic Banks. Blame the complicent Media. But unfortunately the one person that isn't attracting any blame is the often lauded, but never criticised, 'Working Class Australian' or 'American Joe Six-Pack [whatever the f#@k that means]' and their like-kinds in every developed nation around the world.
THIS MESS IS OUR FAULT!! IT IS DOWN TO PERSONAL GREED, PURE AND SIMPLE.
Now don't go blaming me for saying it, but take a look in the mirror and tell me it isn't true.
Sure the regulators changed the rules to allow the banks to profit, encourage and fuel our greed. Sure the media kept stoking the fire with endless stories of the wonderful lives of others achieved through mindless, excessive, beautiful consumerism. And, sure the government basked in the amazing growth that they claimed was down to their superior fiscal management and foresight. But is it US, the best educated people in the history of the planet that signed on, again and again, in mindless droves. We are the ones who ignored common sense and sold our sole to the devil to join the Real Estate boom, to fill our new McMansions with STUFF, to keep up with others who were already gorging on the excess. If they can do it, so can I.
So hypocritical are we that while on one hand we urge our politicians to save the planet, on the other hand we as individuals strive to consume more than ever whilst using borrowed money to pay for it. Yeah, that was a long-term plan that was bound to succeed.
Keating [no I am not a fan, but at least he wasn't a spineless, popularist who only told us what we wanted to hear] told us of 'the Recession we had to have', well this is going to make that look like a walk in the park. The '87 crash hurt, the Asian Banking crisis was mainly ‘their’ problem, and the DotCom crash was swept away in less than a year but this sucker is going to force the world to take stock. Humans never learn from history. We all know that ‘BUST’ will follow “BOOM’ sure as night follows day but this time we thought we were too clever to be caught again. Well we don’t look to clever now.
Sure the problem first exploded in the US and sure they were possibly the worst offenders but this scenario is a world-wide problem. Don’t be comforted by our Pollies saying it won’t affect us, it is only the depth of the shit that is different - it is still the same shit. Our banks weren’t allowed to be as foolhardy as the US banks but they still played the same game – you can [or could] get a mortgage for 100% of the Blue Sky valuation of your new house, you can even borrow for the Stamp Duty and moving costs. These are loans that will backfire when the economy slows and unemployment grows, it is out there ticking as we speak.
Let me say this loud and clear. If you have to borrow more than 60% of the value of a property then you can’t afford it. If you borrow 110% of the value of a property then you are crazy. It didn’t work last time, it won’t work this time and it won’t work in the future.
There isn’t much we, as individuals, can do about this current mess, but sit there and watch it happen. Sure the US is going to the polls in a few weeks, and looks like changing governments, but if you watch and read the new boys are still playing the popularist game and blaming everybody but the voters. Unbelievably both sides are still talking of TAX CUTS for the average Joe, that is like giving an alcoholic another drink. It is time we acted like adults and stood up and admitted our stupidity.
Well, are you brave enough?
We will get through this shit, it will be painful, but it won’t kill us. My concern for our kids is that we learn from this debacle once and for all. If we are posting on OzVMX about the recession of 2021 and wondering how we got into this mess again then I think there isn’t much hope for the human race.
But, if we can finally realise that living within our means, both financially and ecologically, isn’t a bad thing then this may actually be the best thing to happen to this planet in the last 200 years. We aren’t bullet proof and our amazing technologies, whilst significant, can only slow the inevitable. My hope is that the significant pain caused by what is coming will finally swing the pendulum away from personal satisfaction fuelled through mindless, selfish, insatiable greed towards a simpler more sustainable existence.
So like anybody who suffers from an addiction, the first step to recovery is to admit the problem. Lets stand up and admit that we are addicted to CREDIT [it mean dept guys] and learn to say NO!!! to Banks and institutions that offer us money to BUY IT NOW. All it takes is one little word. Say it loud and proud…NO!!!!!!!!!
Say NO to the Banks! Say NO to Harvey Norman and their 4 years interest free!. Say NO to the Politicians and say NO to yourselves! Now that wasn’t so hard was it. And the best part is that like all individuals who work hard to beat an addiction - the world will seem like a better place when you are not a slave to something that removes your ability control and enjoy your life.
Please, lets look back on this and tell our grand kids that the Crash of ‘08 was ‘THE PRICE OF AN EDUCATION’.
VMX42
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[A whole heap of really good stuff]
Pretty accurate summation there, Mr 42.
Was talking to my older sister the other day, and she made the point that we were near the end of our time at school when the last recession was happening.
We were told "there are no jobs, you'll be lucky to ever be employed" and that as a consequence, there's a narrow age bracket (say, 28~35 years old) that is actually quite financially conservative.
If I look around at the people I know, none of the financial risk-takers are in that age group.
To be sure, many people outside that age group are financially responsible, but it doesn't seem to be quite as universal as it is for people who have stared down the barrel of never having a 'real' job.
Which it why Anna and I borrowed less than half what the bank was offering, have no other debt, drive shitty old cars*, and are ahead on the mortgage repayments...
Can I please have an early mark, Mr42?
*Hey, I like my shitty old cars. But the newest car we own is a $1500 EL Falcon...
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Well Nathan,
It is that kind of responsible thinking that is part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Life doesn't end when you say no to credit. I have good friends who think I am 'austere' [their words not mine], but the money I have saved in interest payments over the last 17 years since I paid off my mortgage would buy an average house. And I can sleep at night.
I hope what you say about the next generation is true.
VMX42
P.S. and there is nothing wrong with shitty old cars, or motorbikes for that matter!!!
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I wouldn't completely agree Jeff, today we have a new wave of 'financial engineers' who use 'leverage' and 'short selling' etc etc (whatever that is) to, get returns on capital.The returns are demended by who provide the capital. That's what they are paid to do.Just as you can buy a NOS part on the other side of the world and have it delivered to your door, so can capital move just as easily around the world. Pressure for returns drove down the criteria for lending.To say we are all to blame is not quite true either. I'm sure you have used a toll road, you fully understand that you pay a price for the convienice.However if if a bridge on the toll way collapes, it's impossible to blame the unfortunate souls driving across it at the time of the collapse.
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Just on the personal debt thing I heard some figures on the ABC during my drive to work.
I didn't quite catch the number of credit cards in OZ but it was either 14 or 40 million.
That's in a Country of...is it 22 million residents?
Anyhoos, the kicker was the statement Australias credit card debt currently sits at $44Billion!
I've had my card for four years and manage to pay the balance in full every time.
I think that's important. In fact it's my personal mission or challenge to never pay interest on the plastic!
If it's used for convenience with the intent to pay in full then it's a good thing; a handy thing.
So I agree with vmx42 on the personal greed. Too much of this pain is self inflicted.
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I shudder to think of the billions of dollars the United States has spent trying to rid the world of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, blaming them for undermining the American way of life when in reality the true enemy of their system was Gordon Gecko and his greedy Wall street cohorts.
I think Jeff and Nathan are pretty much on the money (no pun intended). As a society we have ALL contributed to this mess with our blatant consumerism and absolute need to posess the biggest, best, fastest and flashest, even when we couldn't come close to affording it. I've seen so many people jump onto the McMansion bandwagon and dive head first into a mortgage that has sent them to the edge and destroyed any semblence of quality of life because the three jobs needed to pay the mortgage takes away every minute of free time and every last cent of usable income. I have a smallish fibro house, in a not so flash suburb but it's fully paid for and I'm comfortable and happy. Thankfully I've never been stricken with McMansion syndrome. I saw my sister lose her house in the Homefund crash in the early nineties and wasn't at all surprised knowing that she and her then bludger husband would never be able to cover the mortgage on their minimal income. I learned a big lesson from watching that scenario unfurl and vowed that it'd never happen to me. I started to cut back on my credit card overdraft and cut back severely on my then yearly trips overseas.
.I'm retired now, and living off my rolled over super and have learned to live within my means, which includes keeping the card in the black. My only extravagances are a small weekend property, a smallish collection of vintage bikes and my beloved XJS Jag which I bought for 3k and restored myself rather than borrowing 20k and buying a Mustang or Corvette. Most of my toys are bought as junk for junk money and slowly restored, The overseas trips are now very few and far between.
With the dollar at 66c and sinking fast I'm glad I bought my last (meaning final) batch of vintage resto candidates from the USA at 96c. I've accumulated the parts to restore all three of them and can hopefully now build them without buying too many bits from overseas on the poor exchange rate. I think we'll experience a downturn in our sport in the immediate future until the turnaround commences. Until then, we'll probably see less new bikes appearing and the cheaper classes take the spotlight.
Like others have commented, it's not all "woe is me, the sky is falling". The cycle will eventually start to come around but until then we'll have to all learn to live a more austere life with fewer luxuries that we don't really need. We also need to support as many of our local companies that are feeling the pinch and to even cut back on American or Brit eBay and support our own local economy. It's going to be a bumpy ride for a while but we'll get through it in the end.
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By the looks of all the posts , I am not the only excentric. Must be a VMX er thing to look at ther world as it really is. Likewise to many others , banks and cards are only good to me in the black . So with all the precautions taken, this storm should not bother us to much then.
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Just a note , cost of bail out 1 trillion dollars . 1 year in Iraq 3 trillion .Having been on both sides of the credit issue in my life . low Debt is the only way out . I might not impress the neigbhours but i get to keep what I have! Spare a thought for us in NZ our pacific peso (nz$) was 57c US this morning and dropping, so you can still have a vmx holiday here.
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Hey Lozza,
Don’t for a minute think I was belittling the efforts of our more creative ‘financial engineers’ [as you put it] in creating this mess. Their efforts will go down in history for their foolishness, greed and incompetence. And yes there were 1000’s of employees just doing their job and history will judge them more kindly than the architects of these outragous schemes.
I was only trying to point out that if it wasn’t for the unmitigated, short sighted, live for now greed demonstrated by the Man In The Street [MITS] the situation probably wouldn’t have occurred in the first place. These actions are what layed the foundations for the current market collapse.
Currently the MITS around the world is screaming blue murder and accusing every banker, economist and politician of every crime under the sun [probably rightly so] whilst simultaneously accepting NO responsibility for his own credit fueled excess. We all made this mess whether you choose to admit it or not. Whilst some are some are more obviously accountable than others in the end it will affect all of us.
I was also trying to point out that to fix and learn from this mess [and so as to try to not repeat it] that the politicians have to stop playing the popularist, short term game that they are currently engaged in. They need to identify all the players and their individual roles at every level, but to do this and ignore the MITS for fear of upsetting the electorate [and jeapardise their own re-election] is too scary to contemplate. This is time for some genuine leadership.
As for Leveraging, well that has been around since the earth cooled. Have you ever used an asset to gain credit - well that is leveraging. These creative [don’t you love the thought of a creative accountant - an oxymoron if there ever was one] financial dudes just took it to an extreme level. For example Lehmann Bros had a capitalisation [assets] of just $3 billion, but due to the ease of credit they were able to leverage 300 billion dollars against it. Try that little trick with your house if you can. And whilst this was happening the media and government [and investors] were lauding their magnificent deeds as wonderful - that perspective has changed just a little in the past months.
As for Short-selling. Well you can make money on the Stockmarket just by the movement of stocks, either up or down. It doesn’t really matter which, only the game changes. I don’t think that will change [although it probably should - if the entire world could agree].
Naked Short Selling is something completely different and should be outlawed immediately.
The real core issue is that in deregulating the banking markets around the world, governments created a situation where the banks had to go out and find people or organisations to lend to. Have you ever received a letter from your credit card provider offering ‘Free Additional Credit’, just sign here - well it is the same thing on a smaller scale. The banks had money and they wanted someone [and often, anyone] to help them out by borrowing it.
The bonuses the lenders were awarded were based on the AMOUNT of lending, not the QUALITY of loans and the real almost criminal situation was the ability of the institutions to onsell their bad debts, to keep their books [and bonuses] looking healthy. The public auditors and statutory bodies would have been aware of this practice, but did nothing to alert us [if in fact we would have listened as we were making too much money] - this is an almost criminal act and this area should be tightened severely world-wide.
The bottom line is, if you are lowly geared [or cashed up] the coming recession will hurt, if you are highly geared then it could be agony as unlike America, we Aussies can’t just walk away from our debts. Society as a whole will be paying for this for decades to come.
You gotta love a VMX forum that explores issues like this. I just hope we learn something from it [but I won’t hold my breath].
Back to work now.
VMX42
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I'm sure you have used a toll road, you fully understand that you pay a price for the convienice.However if if a bridge on the toll way collapes, it's impossible to blame the unfortunate souls driving across it at the time of the collapse.
Yes but...
But if you know the road has multiple toll booths along the way, and you've only got enough to pay at the first couple of booths, then you are part of the problem.
I was on a US-based forum, and guys were talking about people entering into mortgages that had super-sweet-heart rates at first (like a couple of percent) and then after a few years the interest rate ballooned out to above the market average.... So these idiots were saying "2% interest? Yeah, I can afford that!", and then three years down the track they're paying 14% and they're forked.
And I think that an interest in VMX typically means that we're people that reject the most blatant forms of consumerism.
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Nathan,
Mate you're on fire. Great stuff.
Who would have thought that VMX could save the world [they won't know what hit them :D :D :D]
I learn something everyday.
Keep it up.
VMX42
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After four pages of financial angst I thought we could use an intermission - with nice legs.
So anyway, as you were saying?
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Yea right Wombat , they cost now more too ;D
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Yes but...
But if you know the road has multiple toll booths along the way, and you've only got enough to pay at the first couple of booths, then you are part of the problem.
The problem is that the bridge has collapsed. Both prudent people with more than enough money in the pocket and people without the toll money have fallen in.
It was a lousey bridge and the bridge maker are at fault.
Arise, arise, death and retribution to the bridge makers I say ;D.
There were also people paid to inspect the bridge. They didn't do there job.
Arise, arise, death and retribution to the bridge inspectors I say ;D
But not only were we paying tolls we were also paying taxes so bridge makers and bridge inspectors were to be checked, inspected, audited and regulated so I could use the bridge without having a degree in bridge engineering myself.
Arise, arise, death and retribution to the bridge makers/inspector policy makers (politians) I say ;D.
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That ought to get you paid a visit by the "anti terrorisom" Squad!
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That ought to get you paid a visit by the "anti terrorisom" Squad!
Don't SAS me boy :o
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A lot of yanks hate the idea of government. Not that they hate George Dubyah (although they probably do hate GWB...), but the idea of 'anyone' interferring in the free market.
This is why the $700B bail-out was rejected the first time around - regardless of the clear and present danger, they ("they" includes McCain, FWIW) still clung to the simplistic ideology that says the government is bad, and does nothing but interfere and introduce pointless inefficencies..
In other words, "The bridge makers know what they're doing! It's in their own interests to make good bridges! Nobody else should ever question their work - they're the experts in making bridges, not us! If anyone else checks the bridge, it'll just add to the cost of the bridge, with no gain to anyone."...
Which might sound acceptable, except for the bit where several bridges had already collapsed, and many others were built to the same basic plan....
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http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=644079
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A lot of yanks hate the idea of government. Not that they hate George Dubyah (although they probably do hate GWB...), but the idea of 'anyone' interferring in the free market.
This is why the $700B bail-out was rejected the first time around - regardless of the clear and present danger, they ("they" includes McCain, FWIW) still clung to the simplistic ideology that says the government is bad, and does nothing but interfere and introduce pointless inefficencies..
In other words, "The bridge makers know what they're doing! It's in their own interests to make good bridges! Nobody else should ever question their work - they're the experts in making bridges, not us! If anyone else checks the bridge, it'll just add to the cost of the bridge, with no gain to anyone."...
Which might sound acceptable, except for the bit where several bridges had already collapsed, and many others were built to the same basic plan....
Ahhh, now there's the rub.
The Americans hate government interference and believe in the good of market forces. Yet it was the interference in the free market processes 20 years ago and since that has caused this melt down. Their continueing distain for government regulation only served to compound the mistake.
20 years ago American poor, especially American Black poor, had trouble getting home loans from the banks. They whinged to their congressmen. Their congressmen agreed. Their congressmen past a law that forced the banks to lend to the poor at low interest rates.
(However well meaning or well intentioned this is in direct conflict with their own principles of Free Market. It was also a complete contradiction of the principle of economics; interest rates are the price of Capital, the higher the rate the higher the risk. Even a schoolboy student of economics knows the Capitalist economic; supply and demand equal price: ya can't muck with one without effecting the others. It was a time bomb ticking.)
The banks whinged, "we'll go broke. These are high risk loans, we would normally discourage them with high interest and pay for our losses out of the additional income of the high interest." US congressmen, "don't worry about that we'll set up a quasi govt body to gaurantee the loans". Enter Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae. The normal constraining brakes (we might lose our money) came off.
Things go swimingly, for a while. Tick, tick, tick.
A whole new market opens up. Everyones happy. The poor are happy in their new homes. The morgage brokers are happy, the real estate agents, the builders, even old home owners are excited to see their house double then triple in value. The Govt is happy, the economy is firing along and they don't have to lift a finger. Everyones happy. Tick, tick, tick.
Then Freddie Mac and Fanny realise the more dodgey loans they gaurantee the more money they make. The Banks, the morgage brokers, the real estate agents, the builders, worked together in the very best of Free Enterprise synergy and advertise and marketed effectively in the best traditions of Capitalist. Even the most prudent punter is assailed 'you are been left behind. Its only gonna get harder and harder to get into the home market. Do it now or it will be too late.' The pie got bigger. The pigs had the eyes down and their nose in the trough. They eat and eat and eat and goraged. They were in capitalist heaven. They were all happy.Tick, tick, tick.
Time past. The banks, "What are we going to do with this stinking oversize pile of dodgey loans. We are also running out of money to lend, What will we do? I know, we'll sell them to superannuation funds and the repayments can be the the superannuates weekly payments. Great idea, but they won't buy our stinking pile of dodgey loans will they? We'll tell them that they are Triple AAA securities gauranteed by the US govt. But they not. Ah, don't worry, they'll never know (until after I get my commission/performance bonus ::)).Tick, tick, tick.
Kapowee. Blam. Boom.
Which brings us to today :-[ :-\ :'(.
Essensially its not a $700 billion 'bail out', it America paying back taxes. The housing policy they pursued using the 'Free Market' was actually US govt policy that should have been paid for and controlled through the budget process. They were trying to be too smart by half, broke they own rules and now we are all paying.
The pollies have avoided admitting the above. Spin Doctors are out in forces ensuring the grey men of Wall St are seen as the scape goats. Americans are happy in their ignorance and it will all happen again.
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Couldn't of explained it better myself ... well done go to the top of the class
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Ok Graeme you have me interested - what happens in the second half of the "prophesy" ??
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one thing that Rudd has to stop, is the banks continually sending in the mail offers to increase your credit card limit. just sign the form, send it back and your limit is increased. mine could have increased by 5 grand in the last 12 months if i accepted the offers from the bank. They have no idea if i could pay it back, if i have a job or any thing else about me.
Another thing i hate about the bastards (banks) is that when they loan you say 100 thou for a house and you pay back to them 200 thou! they act in their adds that they are your best mate!
also people whingeing about the high cost of house prices. Every new house built in my town has an ensuite and a bloody theatre room and a double car garage and a bedroom for everybody! no wonder the repayments are so high! i shared a bedroom all my childhood, no theatre room etc. want want want. I was at a bbq the other night and all were complaining about how tough it is! saying most weeks they only had $20 left over from their wages! half of them smoked, they all had near new cars, brick homes with ensuites, camping trailers, etc. people today think that if they have not got a 502cm plasma tv that they are doing it tough. My grandparents would think these hard times ? would be a doddle to live through!
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Ok Graeme you have me interested - what happens in the second half of the "prophesy" ??
Ok Graeme you have me interested - what happens in the second half of the "prophesy" ??
That describes only 'one of the balls in play'. Probably the most important 'ball' because it has caused a crisis of trust between lending institutions, but only one of many.
Around the western industrialised world there has been a similar economic model of high borrowings pushing home prices. There has been a need for a 'price adjustment' which is part of that economic 7 year cycle that others have postulated. Ditto in the share market. That is normally done by 'the recession you need to have'. This is all known and managed and minimised by responsible govt's with fiscal and budgetary policies.
Now, superimposed over this is the credit crisis between lending institutions brought about by the mistrust introduced by the American misrepresenting their securities, by their dodgey accounting practices, and by the 'unexpected bankruptcy' of American banks that have used their dodgy practices to misrepresent themselves to the market, their shareholders, the regulators and other banks.
This is a crisis of trust. Trust is a human element and can't be measured or managed or predicted.
The combination of recessionary forces throughout the western industrial world and the crisis of trust is uncharted waters.
The share markets see all of this and are uncertain. They are edgey. They could panic and sell us into a depression. They could steady. Panic is a human element and can't be measured or managed or predicted.
All 52 cards are in the air. They will all hit the ground. Which ones are up and which one will be down we don't know.
Australia will go into a recession. How deep, how long? Who knows. But we will weather it better than most. Our fundamentals are good and strong. But our wealth comes from trading so when America sneezes Australia and our trading partners will get the virus.
The wild card this time is China. China will suffer because she relys on trade with America. But she also has a lot of development and infrastucture building going on. If China can continue to finance that remains to be seen.
If she can, we as suppliers of raw materials will do okay.
IMHO, totally unqualified opinion ;D.
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And I was intending to shut up for a bit, but you've brought up another bug bear of mine: Nobody builds 2 or 3 beddies anymore!
All of these new 'estates' are full of houses that have four bedrooms and two bathrooms as a minimum!
WTF!? Our birth rate is falling (although bouyed by Costello's baby bonus), so why do we need the McMansions?
How much cheaper could entry level housing be if we had a 2008 version of the simple, unpretentious little houses that are scattered through our established suburbs?
Yeah, I know that they're not the nicest box to live in, but I'll bet most of us grew up in them, and it didn't do us any harm!
I've lived in plenty as an adult, and it didn't harm me then, either!
No wonder we've got a fricken rental crisis when all of these houses are knocked down and replaced with over-sized McMansions that everybody has to stretch to afford (either to buy or to rent).
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Good work Graeme in explaining the crisis in terms even I can understand.
I was thinking before about the American economy and the social and financial structure that has seen an ever broadening of the gap between the black/hispanic/poor white underclass and the affluent middle to upper class and I can't help wonder how America would have evolved if their tax dollars weren't squandered on space exploration to the Moon and Mars that has done nothing nothing to benefit its people in a social sense, or spent trillions fighting (and losing)wars that had nothing to do with them such as Vietnam and Iraq. Perhaps some of that money could have financed an efficient low cost housing system, thus avoiding the greedy bank involvement that has fed our present catastrophe. They could also have created a National Health scheme that would have avoided the current disgrace where people are turned away from proper medical care because they can't pay.
Imagine what a wonderful place America could have been if those trillions of dollars could have been used for the good of its people instead of funding the quest for World domination. I lived in America for seven years, have a number of dear American friends including an ex wife, and loved every minute I was there. The people as a race are warm, inviting and in reality, little different to us. Sadly they have been misled for generations by their government spin doctors who have hammered the free enterprise American doctrine into their psyche and created a distrust of any societal system that differs from their own. It's created a society that blindly believes that their way is the only way and it's created a society that elects maniacs like George Bush. Thankfully I suspect there is a growing groundswell of Americans that have had enough of the fundamental religious ultra right controlled media and government and the greed that goes with it and will elect Obama in November. Let's just hope that he can not only bring the country back on the correct political path but can also regain the trust in America that the rest of the world lost many years ago.
I
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http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=75&sid=94604
And they were absolutely right, until they turned out to be wrong.
Their mathematical virus took a cyclical free market downturn and turned it into a Biblical catastrophe.
You have to be smoking some pretty potent weed to blame some overextended homebuyers in poor neighborhoods for Wall Street's decision to pile up 60 trillion dollars in credit default swaps. 60 trillion, you see, is about four times last year's Gross Domestic Product.
The problem with a house of cards isn't the one card that slips -- it's the idiot who chose playing cards as a building material to begin with.
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http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=75&sid=94604
And they were absolutely right, until they turned out to be wrong.
Their mathematical virus took a cyclical free market downturn and turned it into a Biblical catastrophe.
You have to be smoking some pretty potent weed to blame some overextended homebuyers in poor neighborhoods for Wall Street's decision to pile up 60 trillion dollars in credit default swaps. 60 trillion, you see, is about four times last year's Gross Domestic Product.
The problem with a house of cards isn't the one card that slips -- it's the idiot who chose playing cards as a building material to begin with.
An interesting reference and read Nathan. Pretty much what I had sussed out but in greater detail naming names etc.
Also identifies the 'too smart by half' breaking of the basis principles - securities must have value behind them.
It also identifies that the problem has been identified for some time and their pollies did nothing. There is evidence that they were 'bought off' (even if it was indirectly) by the 'pigs with their nose in the trough'.
McCain was one of the pollies charged with heading off the problem. Corrupt or not he either didn't have the brains, brawn or backbone to do his job. And now they want to make him president ::). The Peters Principle in play? ::) or Spin Doctoring supreme. God help all of us :-[.
Obama's connection may not be as strong but the Demoncratics connection is; and Obama is just a figurehead talking puppet for the Democrats. God help all of us :-[.
It is so evident that both the American Election process and Big Business is corrupt and corrupting but the Americans can't come out and say it. Quite the opposite, they chant, and believe, that it is the "Greatest Democracy on earth", "America is the Greatest Nation on earth". Question that and you get yelled down as being "unpatriotic" or "un-American" - the most damning of all crimes in America.
For change to happen about 300 million Americans have got to realise and let go of many interlocking tenets. Without an absolute catastrophe it arn't gonna happen.
Maybe 60 trillion dollars in credit defaults will be that catastrophe. God help all of us :-[.
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Nathan , WTF wrong with having a Mc Mansion on a few acres ;D and I've seen posts of your shed ;)
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Surely there's a new suburb near you, where you could walk from roof-top to roof-top without fear of falling?
The bit where you've got it on a few acres is very different to having it on a 550square metre block, at least in my view of the world.
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Back on page 1 Nathan made a good comment and I ask the question again now, as I am to dum to work it out. If the Ausi economy is not that bad & the US is screwed why does the Aus $ do what it did next to the US $. I dont understand this & would like to.
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Read to what I said please ba-02-xr Our beloved gutless vote grubbing leaders and their equally snot filled gutless oppositions in Aust and NZ have to set a FIXED in relation to price now for our Dollars!!! as I said 10 maybe 15 cents above what the USD at anytime. Farmers miners and exporters will squeal but shit if they need the goods they got to pay a fair price. Will except fair trade (real trade deals not the lies and bullshit the pollies sell us!!!) for cheap goods like oil we may require as long as the detail is printed in newspapers for us to read, NO more Liquid lpg or natural gas to Japan for 1 or 2cents a litre and we pay the bloody freight shit deals. The days of namby pamby lets kiss all the other parts of the worlds arses as they root ours must stop now. Fair and free trade must be such. Countries and unions of countries that subsidize farmers and others with fake money to produce nothing are not to be given anything of ours till that stops dead !no more ! Australia and New Zealand stand as one. :(
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I think we should give Tim a go as Prime Minister ! It could not get worse , only better and Tim would have a Job again ;)
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you know I have heard more commonsense about how to run a country on this thread than you will ever get out of the motley lot that actually run our countries
with the imminent elections here in godzone I think it is timely to launch a motorcyclists party to stand for parliament ,get elected and make this country proud again ( a balanced mix of dirt /road /VMX riders should do the trick)
here are some policies for our manifesto
-all golf courses will be immediately turned into moto-x parks - (body armour will have to be compulsery to cope with flying golf clubs)
-no straightening of good roads without permission of a committee of sport bike riders ( who will of course have to immediately go out and ride the road at high spped to assist with their decision)
-an immediate complete lifting of all speed limits for motorcycles (except harleys - oh thats right ,doesn't matter for harleys as they struggle to make the speed limit!!!)
-no campervans on the road during the hours of daylight
all other suggested policies will be looked at (over a beer of course)
please post your suggestions here
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If the Ausi economy is not that bad & the US is screwed why does the Aus $ do what it did next to the US $. I dont understand this & would like to.
As I've got too much time on my hands, I've been doing as lot of reading on this.
I've read a lot of utter shit.
Today, my stupid and annoying Yahoo community thing finally asked a question that I gave a rat's arse about: "Why is the Australian dollar dropping if our economy is good?". The link is here (http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081012231830AAmyeZF), but this is the best/least bullshit-full/most plausable thing that I've ever read on this topic:
This will take some explaining, so bear with it..!
The value of the currency is linked to the value of the products that the economy produces as well as the central bank's value.
So in our case, we had huge demand for our key products (resources, agriculture, primarily) and overseas buyers were willing to pay high prices for it. This meant that Australia was a "good bet" for future profits. The Aussie dollar rose strongly against other currencies because overseas investors bought into Australia - selling US Dollars, Euros or GB Pounds (whatever...) in order to get Aussie Dollars. Laws of supply and demand: people want something (the Aussie) and the price of it goes up when supply is limited. So that's one reason...
This was compounded by the Reserve Bank's policy of increasing interest rates to fight inflation. Overseas investors saw the Aussie as a way to get more interest on their money - in Japan, for example, the equivalent of $1m in Yen would earn only $10,000 a year in interest. The same sum in Australia earns $70,000 or more. This makes the Aussie a "high yield" currency.
If the currency values stay the same relative to each other, an investor makes more money in Australia than Japan. Therefore, investors in low-yield economies (Japan, USA, Euro-zone) where the interest rates are low were buying currencies where interest rates were high (Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, to an extent UK). This also pushes up the relative value of the Aussie compared to the US Dollar (laws of supply & demand again).
So that's the basic mechanics that brought us to where we were in, say, August 2008.
Now - the credit crunch effects unravel and we are in a position where the future is uncertain. The USA has announced a US $700billion investment in its financial system (compared to Australia's potential AU$20billion infrastructure fund). This suddenly means that the US is a "good bet" for future growth, or to at least ride out the coming economic storm. So what do investors do? They do two things:
1. they cut back on production of goods, e.g. in China, Japan etc. who buy Australian resources. Australia is now not so attractive to invest in as investors don't know whether the resources market will hold up (i.e. sell their investments in Australian companies and therefore sell Australian dollars)
2. investors seek a "safe haven" for their currency funds and go to the currencies they know will hold their value - traditionally, the US Dollar and to some extent the Swiss Franc. Return is not so important now as holding value, so the high-yield currencies (AUD, NZD, ISK, etc.) are sold off and the safe currencies (USD, CHF, [and compared to the Aussie, GBP,EUR, SEK], also, JPY) are bought. Laws of supply and demand again - the price of the currencies nobody wants falls.
The same thing has happened to the South American currencies and some of the Asian currencies.
When (if?) the crisis is over, and demand for Australian resources bounces back, the Aussie may strengthen. Until then, it will be valued relatively lower.
Internally within Australia, the value of the Aussie will be important for imported goods so far as the average consumer is concerned - especially consumer electronics, oil and transport, cars, etc. and no doubt it will have a knock-on effect to agriculture and food so that costs of groceries will increase.
The government's moves are only intended to shore up domestic consumer demand and to cushion domestic productivity. Our banking system is strong, but are we really well placed to weather the storm when so much has been bet on the resources boom continuing? If demand in the US falls, China's production will fall, which means fewer resources from Australia, which means cutbacks in production and potentially job losses. Not as rosy as the government would have us believe... hence if they start investing in infrastructure, that will provide jobs so the unemployed can potentially find work.
The next phase of this will be the property part of the cycle, which will happen in the next 12 months or so: people losing their jobs or their investments now have insufficient money for the mortgage and prices fall.
I hope that gives you a view that helps.
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That sounds more understandable.
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The same old problem will come back for sure. The "Investors seeking safe havens' are not using their own finance................... Its all a cock and bull, smoke and mirrors set up based on credit that is really does not exist. Credit is a proper concept, I lend you a real twenty dollars out of my pocket ,you give me the kids as a security and get them back next week when you pays back the $20 and what ever interest . Banks and stockmarkets and "future traders etc do not use real cash as they make up figures of what they think they can , then are supported by fake companies that say they are seventy three A credit rated.
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Looks like not much has changed , exept we get a few months of grace ???
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did anyone watch the 4 Corners episode last night? it was a repeat of last years show which looked at the US sub-prime loan system.
If you missed it, these loans are quite literally pushed onto lenders as the best option by brokers who are paid more by lenders for recommending these loans over others. They have a built-in "reset" arrangement whereby at a set time in the life of the loan eg. 3 years, the interest rate jumps from the attractive intitial rate of maybe 7% up to maybe 13 or 14%
In most cases where these things have been foisted onto lenders, this little detail was glossed over. The 2nd tier banks kept paying the brokers big bucks, and the upper level banks kept buying up this bad debt for whatever "clever" financial forkery these wankers do, leaving the 2nd tier banks free to keep going.
The scariest part of the show was an interview with a guy who was running some sort of support agency for people who were about to lose their homes or already had, in Cleveland, Ohio. 1 in 20 houses there were already empty (this is back in 2007) and houses were being passed in at auction for $1000 !!!.
He stated that he couldn't see how Cleveland as a city could continue to even exist into the future!
One of the main points of the show was that the vast majority of these loans hasn't yet reached the reset point.
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Sorry I hate to be the dumb idiot here but as a 28yr old first home owner at the minute, I strongly belive that people should take care for there own borrowings and dealing. I for one have started out small not cause I had to but through my own choice of not being over stretched if things went belly up.
But it seems to me that all logic of starting small and working up to something are gone, Borrow big buy big and worry about the rest later.
People are so eager to look for a scape goat when things go wrong like the new car loan, the 5five credit cards(to offset one another) the 400thousand dollar 90% loan on a house. I mean really do you need to be a genius to work out that if your in coming are less than your out goings there is a problem.
What ever happened to the person in the mirror saying "Streched myslef to far...
Are people really that stupid and thick?? or in other words Dumb?? Really.
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I didn't see 4 corners last night nor did I see any ads leading to it. Probably a good thing by the sounds of it; very depressing.
I think there is another time bomb ticking both here and America, and that is private debt as credit card and personal loan debt. There's billions of 'easy money' owing for LCD's, overseas holidays etc. I suspect there is an avalance waiting to happen as people lose jobs and can't make repayments. Seeing Esanda or GM Money 'go to the wall' wouldn't exactly bring eyes to my eyes ::) but it will still cause lots of financial grief for the economies.
You might like to watch this,
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
I can't vouch for it but it pretty much confirms what I have read elsewhere. All pretty sad and depressing.
Here's something a little more light hearted on the subject.
http://patdollard.com/2008/10/it-is-here-the-banned-snl-skit-cannot-hide-from-louie/
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You're right there!
The credit card and personal debt has been an issue for some time but it will certainly get worse.
The 'in Store' cards pushed by large Retailers like Myer are a real trap for the unwary.
and I think it's a crying shame we remain 'unwary'.
Teaching life skills (budgeting etc) should be a part of the School curriculim (did I spell that right?).
Credit is faaar too easy to attain.
We scream about the stupidity of the big Players getting into so much debt but it's so damn easy for us all to follow suit.
The multi credit card trap must be so hard to escape from.
We have to start somewhere so let's start training the new generation coming through.
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I will get Tim on this straight away ;D Tim ! Sorry he cant hear me , he is trying to start his Lanz Bulldog again. :D
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I'm one of those "damn Yankee's" that is so pissed at the government,
banks, wall street and anyone else that caused this mess. I will blame
mainly the congress on this one. No money down? no job? no problem.
Fannie Mae will get you into a house! If your a minority, or poor, no problem
we will get you into a house. Interest only payment for three years,
no problem, by the time the three years is up, you can refinance or step
up to a better home and start again.. Kaboom! housing market goes flat,
houses are worth less than the mortgage is for, People can't make the monthly
payment after resetting, and the rest is history...Who's at fault? Democrats?
Republicans? Wall Street? Banks? They all are too some degree. No one is stepping
up to the plate and taking responsibility. They should all be shot! They all new better
and they were all greedy and now middle class Americans (and now the world) have to
take a bite of this shit sandwich. This is not the America that I grew up in, and
not the America that I have known for the past twenty years. So, I am opting out.
Not going to vote for Obama or McCain, nor any Democrat or Republican this cycle.
I'm pretty sure that Obama will win the election, so I will have 4 or 8 years of socialism,
and other assorted BS programs to contend with as they suck me and the rest of the
so called middle class dry with increased taxes. By the way, gold and gun sales are
at an all time high. Stay tuned, if there are runs on the Banks and that "bail out" money
has no effect, there could be a reaction. The revolution will not be televised!
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Walter the Lanz is away at present (actually in Townsville QLD!) doing a country show circuit and may be away for a couple of years:D :o
Cappra your at the coal face imput is very respected and appreciated by me . Thanks and Cheers Tim
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Jared, sorry to hear you so pissed off and angry but we fully understand your anger (we get pissed over with our pollies but for scale and thoroughness your's 'take the cake' ::)).
You can probably see from my writing I put the whole debacle fair at the feet of your political leadership (ably aided and abetted by other equally culpable scumbags who were in a position of trust) - and both political parties equally - this problem has its origins over 20 years - both parties have contributed and both parties had their opportunities.
I would never suggest that anyone in a democracy not vote. I reckon all of America should simple make it there business to vote out any incumbent polly, regardless of party - a 'clean sweep' - get rid of the mothers - they have all contributed by commission and omission.
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...
I'm pretty sure that Obama will win the election, so I will have 4 or 8 years of socialism
...
With all due respect, I'm yet to meet an American who would know what socialism was if it bit them on the arse.
You guys are in for a tough time regardless of who wins the election - the seeds were sown long ago, by many and varied different people.
And while I'm not wishing for it to be true, I can't help but think that at the end of it all, China will be the economic cornerstone of the world, not the USA. They've got a fund that's been estimated to be growing at the rate of US$100million per hour.
A little, fatalist part of me can picture the USA in 15 years time as being a lot like modern day Russia - basically a bitter and twisted shadow of its former self, but with enough military power left-over from the glory days to be a worry.
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I'm still going to vote. I have changed my registration to independant and will vote for the
independant or Libetarian candidate.
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A while ago I spoke to some Aussie soldiers that where training with some American soldiers and they said a lot were leaving so the U.S government was paying big money for them to resign up. swings and roundabouts if everyone is thrashing the shit out of this who will want it in the end. Its always left for the average bloke to pick up the pieces and carry on :( jimson
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With respect Jared...I'm in total agreement with Nathan. Most Americans wouldn't have the slightest inkling of what socialism is.
At a dinner party in California a few years ago I was approached by a guy in who gushed enthusiasm for Australia and its people. He finished the glowing wrap on Australia with the observation that " I really admire that Aussies can still be so laid back, considering the opressive socialist system you have to live under. It must blow you away when you come to America and see true freedom and democracy in action". I was so dumbfounded by the statement I couldn't speak. It was especially ironic when I discovered that his visit to our evil axis country was during the facist Howard regime. Most Americans sadly have no idea on political diversity.
Obama and the Democrats to my mind are politically moderate and while not being as right wing conservative as the Rebublicans, are still nontheless extremely conservative. I wonder how America would have reacted to Bob Hawke?
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I wonder how America would have reacted to Bob Hawke?
How about Gough then ;D, and the 'It's time' love in gang 8).
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For one thing, we are not a true Democracy, but a Republic.
From my viewpoint, and I might be wrong, Socialism is the redistribution
of wealth and selected nationalization of key industries. (like they are doing
to the banking industry) from manys viewpoint, Obama is a raving radical lefty
who wants to take away our guns, open our borders, raise our taxes, and
clamp down on personal freedoms. He is also far from being an outsider
of the system. His hands are just as dirty as McCains and the rest of them.
I live in Arizona, and have had to deal with John McCain for the past 25 years,
so we know where he is coming from as well. (can you say Keating 5?)
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who wants to take away our guns
Now, wouldn't that be a good idea!
Obama is about as left as Billy Graham. One only has to watch five minutes of the Fox "news" to understand the inaccurate propaganda that's being fed to the American people in the guise of news. The ultra right christian fundamentalist gun lobby have taken over and it's hard to take any of it seriously. A bit of good old fashioned genuine socialism would be a good thing in getting America back on the rails. It's greedy capitalism that got America into this pickle in the first place.
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Firko, I will agree on the direction this is going( Obama). While viewed internationally as perhaps moderate-he is viewed by some moderate Americans as quite liberal.
Still, I have enough clarity to see that in relaity he will not be able to take all our guns. What is concerning to many is not the talk and record of opposing assault weapons( thereby classifying what does and what does not constitute an "assualt "weapon), but the banter of many gun control supporters.
I have heard many say-including my sister that NOBODY should have any guns except the military and the police. Since the inception of the Concealed Carry Permits in Texas some time ago, violent crimes have in fact dropped signifigantly.
Personally , I was robbed at gunpoint while living in Az in 2004. I beleive in my heart that he took the $ and hauled ass out since Az has a policy of allowing open-non-concealed carry. I often saw a few customers in the store with pistols in their holsters. I prefer the Texas law. Same reason Japan did not invade the US in WWII-...a rifle ..could be behind every blade of grass. For the record, I have no problem at all with any background checks, or waiting period in some cases-and do not think every dipshit should be toting a gun. However, in a violent confrontation, you have reason or force-plan and simple. In fact, this is the only "liberty" I see many ( or all?) not having in Oz. Just a point of view difference. Respectfully, I hope.
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You gotta love Americans and their guns. I hate to say it, and it might come as a huge surprise, to some, that the vast majority of Aussies don't want a gun. Simple as that. So no need for any pity on that front.
The most ironic is the position of the far right Christian Fundamentalist Republicans and their childish facination with guns - its shows that they haven't actually read the Bible - or maybe they just inserted a few extra parables in the US version to suit themselves. It is a 'FACT' [as that smiling empty headed rocket scientist Ms Palin says] that they have no problem rewriting history to suit and support their myopic, blinkered view.
True liberty doesn't come from the barrel of a gun. The truth is that being a slave to that kind of thinking is just a bad as being beholden to a bank due to a short sighted lifestyle based on excessive credit and unquenchable material possession.
And as for the fear that a new [or any] government might have to raise taxes to help fix the current situation in the US - heaven forbid, they wouldn't dare!! The unfortunate reality is that the only way to pay for the Billions being spent [and owed] is to increase tax or then again I suppose you could just borrow the money from the Chinese or Arab Emiriates…
VMX42
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Ya know, I understand the excesses that have brought about the current situation.
If you read my post, I am not defending the rants of Palin( where the hell did she come from). In fact, I support what I think in the US is considered reasonable regulation of firearms. I do, though support ultimately the right to own guns for the honest citzen.
I am not suprised that many or most Aussies wish not to own firearms. Again, if you read my post carefully, I made no implications of the contrary. Perhaps I was unclear, though-The right of the indivdual citzen to own guns is the only contrary opinion I hold to so much of what has been said here. I beleive I offred no pity on that issue, but rather only a different opinion.
As far as faith, I think the church has been the largest block to people enjoying fullfillment in their faith. Further, I tend to keep my religious views more private than most other so called "conservatives". I agree with you statements about the effects of the extremists, though both right and left wing. Recently, "conservatives" have both created new words, and changed the connotation of many others. So, we are in agreement on that.
Incidentally , I am no "Christian Fundamentalist Republican" either. Though it is intersting to possibly be labeled as such for supporting gun ownership. LOL
Still, I see your viewpoint along with some labeling , and offer that is justifiable.
Maybe if I see you in Jefferson next year, we can have a nice dark ale and find that we agree much more than we disagree( which I suspect).
James
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I dont think Ive enjoyed reading a thread like this for years, nice that we are all so politicaly aware.
The reason why the dollar is so low at the moment is due to the American inverstment organisations taking their cash out of everything and putting it in a box under a bed or the equilivant bond at .5% interest. The perceived risk and the reaction to it will secure a downturn for 12 to 18 months in my view and there isnt too much we can do about it except prepare and be cautious with our cash. Most Australians will not realise they are in any sort of trouble untill Xmas and the months after so watch out.
As for America - they are consumers without being producers, that in combo with their have it now mentality and credit is what screwed them. What really got me was when Bush was saying there was a need for the "rescue package" so people could get credit again - thats the problem !!! and a black / white example of how stupid Bush is.
Roll on 2009
211
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Hi James,
I wasn't aiming my comments at you [or I would have said so], although your post did provide the inspiration to comment. I was just offering an alternative view so please don't take it personally, they were just observations from afar and not directed at any individual.
Maybe pity was the wrong word, but I did have a bit of a chuckle at your comment that the only liberty we don't have is the right to carry arms. I think the desire for those kind of gun rights is a singularly American condition, that is not shared by the majority of the rest of the world. If you guys are happy with it, then that is fine, but it is a strange thing that it plays such a huge role in US politics. And the linking of a supposedly Christian political movement to the gun lobby is bazaar in the extreme - can't see that the Pope would be carrying a side-arm under his robes. Then again maybe he is?
As for having a beer, in Jefferson or Sydney, I agree I don't believe we would have a problem although I don't know that you would be able to convince me of the superiority of Maicos!! But then again, if we kept drinking anything might be possible.
Keep the different opinions coming, as Dave says it makes for far more interesting reading. I don't log onto this site expecting to agree with everything that is being said [or I could just sit at home and talk to myself] but it is the exchange of opinions from VMXers all around the globe that makes it interesting and the fact that we sometimes branch out beyond VMX to discuss politics, the environment or even cultural differences only makes it more intersting. I certainly don't take it personally although sometimes it does sometimes challenge my views. It would be far worse if we didn't have varied opinions, or forums to discuss them as it would probably mean that the barstards in power had finally won.
Speak to you soon,
Thanks
VMX42
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I would wonder just how many Americans are shot with 'unloaded' guns or how often the 'family protection 38 Special' gets used in a domestic violence situation against another family member? As far as assault rifles are concerned they are designed with a single purpose to KILL, there is really no justifiction to even want to own one.How many uni,school or work massacre/suicides does there have to be?
Back on topic, I have to agree with Tim Costello on why was it so easy for the worlds leaders to find so much cash in such a short amount of time, when NGO's have to beg for years to get tiny fractions of these amounts to fix easily preventable diseases, famine and grubby wars in third world countires?
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I couldn't have said it better, in fact I was about to post something about how I enjoy the diversity here-and read your post.
As far as Maicos, if you get me to drink enough I might even like Husqvarnas( well, that's a stretch ;D). To clarify, even if it was aimed at me-in global terms it is certainly understanded. The past eight years have done nothing to promote America's interests abroad. The events have further decayed the perception nationally, and more so internationally of Americans holding views in the center or anywhere to the right of center. I am but 40, and remember a time when after researching issues-could vote a party ticket. That seems a lifetime ago......but I look forward to a time when my own economic outlook enables me to visit Oz and race with the most dedicated VMX enthusiasts in the world.
BTW, I personally have ZERO credit card debt. I still owe on my Ford pickup, my Kia Spectra ( though the fuel $ savings have been greater than the payment and increased permiums), and my mortgage-which is a fixed rate.
As far as the stats for gun accidents, home portection weapons used for domestic violence, I have no figures. As far as assault weapons, if they are made to KILL, the same can be said for handguns, and ultimately all firearms. For protection, that is the point. Let's say that you broke into my home to bulglarize, and were startled, then confronted by me? Now, I am an average size bloke at 6ft 2, and 230lbs, but you are armed-I am not. You shoot me, I die. This leaves my wife and kids in one hell of a nice postion, now doesn't it? Or perhaps my wife comes home in the day to find a home invasion? This is why I believe in owning guns.
I will not try to justify the horrible shooting sprees here, like the Littleton, Colorado killings, or the Port Arthur Massacre-and agree controls are needed.
BTW, my father was murdered in 1992. The pos was convicted, but was released upon a technical appeal to the Supreme Court in 1998. He served time from conviction in 1994 to 1998. Four years for KILLING a man-leaving broken pieces for my stepbrothers and sisters to pick up, and scars that will never heal for his family. dad was an avid hunter, and competitive shooter as well ( owned a few .17 cal rifles). Dad never owned or carried a handgun, though. Given the circumstances where he was fatally shot, I wonder if we would have him today if he had.
James
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Interesting dillema really, most of my 8 years of VMX has been funded with borrowed money & lashings of credit card, VMX magazine subscription being no exception either.
Now it would seem the boot is being put into us punters for being dumb enough to borrow. Makes me think about how it would effect manufacturers & suppliers of vintage mx goods if people like me who borrow pulled the pin.
I don't discuss politics or religion.
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Lozza,
I was reading some detailed editorial on one of the last school massacre at a US University. The author went into great detail describing the situation and the events that lead to somebody going home to collect their guns and show those guys that he couldn't be pushed around. The end result was bloodshed and carnage. An absolute tragedy.
In the washup following the event, teachers and lecturers at the college were shouting loud and clear that something had to be done. The situation was untenable. Something had to change!!!!!!! And NOW!!!
So what did they [the supposedly intelligent educators] want? Did they want guns banned from the campus? No. Did they feel that the campus needed additional security? No. Did they want students to have psycological councelling? No.
No, what they wanted was the right to carry concealed arms onto campus and into classes to enable them to defend themselves.
Yeah, logic like that will fix the problem.
VMX42
And ENO, the current financial problem is partly due to excessive credit, spent by people who couldn't pay it back. Nobody has ever stated that credit is bad, so long as it is well managed. I am sure you haven't bankrupted yourself with your VMX passion.
And your point of what will happen if you stop spending is a good one. As the economies of the entire Western World are based on consumer spending we are in a right pickle. How do we keep the economies ticking over whilst trying to only use responsible levels of credit. This is a problem that is going to haunt us for decades and we haven't even touched on the relationship between consumerism and the degeneration of our environment. Add this to the previous problem and we are really in deep shite.
It is your right not to discuss politics or religion, as it is our right to do so if we choose too. I don't think any internet forum is the right place to seriously discuss religion but I only brought it into my policial comments because the Republicans in the US use their supposedly superior religious believes as a point of difference between the two main parties. I believe that religion should play no direct part in politics it is only use as a devisive tactic and to cloud the real issues.
Lastly, MJ, I can't imagine the pain you went through with the death of your father my heart goes out to you and anybody else that has been through something similar. If I was put in a similar position the maybe my opinion would change - don't know - I suppose it could go either way. Guns in society are a huge problem and after all this time [and with so many millions of guns already in society] I don't think anybody has a real solution to the situation, it has to stop somewhere. But how and where, who knows? I just worry about our kids and the kind of world they are going to inherit.
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I can never understand why Americans have never embraced socialism when the very heart of democracy (and republicism Jared) is " a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people collectively, and is administered by them or by officers appointed by them". To my way of thinking, true socialism is closer aligned to the democratic system than the capitalist system that rules supreme. I think that an elected government body using the peoples tax dollars to distribute services like health and education would be more in line with the the beliefs of a democratic society than in trusting those vital rights to a private entity that is in the business purely to make profit from distributing those services.
As the American system stands now we have a major portion of the tax dollar going towards projects that have no obvious benefit to its citizens such as the huge military system that is, according to the United Nations and other bodies, at least three times larger than America needs to maintain domestic security. The space race has also eaten up trillions of tax dollars and despite the obvious positives that have come from it such as satellite communications, Americans are still burdened with the tax drain of unnecessary moon and mars exploration that have little or no benefit to Joe Average.
Imagine if those tax dollars were used by elected government bodies representing the people to distribute health, education and other services that benefit the American taxpayer? Then and only then would America be able to call itself a true democracy.
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Bugger now one of my other passions is getting slammed here.I fall into all the bad catogories-white middle aged male,(also a chauvanist too so my wife and her sisters say)I ride a bike -must be a bikie ,ride a dirt bike -enviromental vandal,own a 4wd bigger enviromental vandal,used to own a semi trailer drug taking enviromental vandal and menace on the roads own and collect firearms weirdo,potential killer,self worth issues,also hunt that one gets even worth. we tried to get into place a system where if a doctor thought they patient could be a loon they should be reported to the police to check to see if they had a firearms lic or to check when one was applied for ,evidently that would be a violation of your civil rights so lets just target everyone.no i dont need to own a rifle but then you dont need to own a vintage polluting 2st motorcycle.sorry this went off track but remember most of the gun haters hate you too noisy motorbikes nasty fisherman horse riders -for spreading horse shit . robin
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Hey Shorelinemc,
You really have stacked up the 'vices' haven't you.
I don't think anybody is questioning your right to be a sporting shooter, but that is very different from every householder having hand guns and assault rifles. But as you say it is always far easier to target everybody than just finding the real culprits.
Sure are lots of questions coming from this thread.
VMX42
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The subject of this thread is spot on "Where does it stop".
There is a saying and it is "The buck STOPS here". It applies to many things that have been discuss in this thread. The money situation will right its self, that is just the way the finacial market opperates. The bigger the crest of the wave is, the deeper the trough. This has been proven time and time again.
The thought of a wealthy nation not taking care of the weak/less fortunate/ill or injured is truly a nation living in fear or paranoia. The land of the free, so long as you can afford it?? When, in a civilized world, is it humane to refuse people healthcare or the necessities of life?? Is it went you havnt got the insurance to cover the cost? Greed, the Money of all Evil??
I have been a gun own, and I use to enjoy hunting in the bush over here, but to consider my guns as "protection" is only fuelling the belief that everyone wants to shot you. If you buy a gun for "protection" then you must be willing to use it, which is a very scary thought. How many people own guns for "protection"?What is the value of another human beings life?? The cost of a bullet it would seem. 'Liberty' does not give you the right to bear arms, but it does give you the right to live freely.
Common sense would or at least should tell us that the more 'living in fear' and unjust happening in the world today can only be amplified by fighting fire with fire. Yet we still do it.
As for religion, how many people have died in the name of religion?? and, continue to do so.
When will common sense become the front runner to the way we live our lives?? instead of P.C. paranoia that has made people irresponsible for there own actions, yet at the same time tied individuals hands so tight that behaving normally is impossible.
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Hey Eno who do you think the Pope votes for ;
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I've always found a great degree of amusement in the term " Sporting shooter". What is a sporting shooter? I reckon it's someone who gets his jollys from blowing the head off some innocent marcupial, mammal, reptile, bird, or anything else with a heartbeat with no way of defending itself.
Or maybe a whole ring of circles and the hero of the day is the one who blows away the smallest circle on the target. Or even a tin can. forking whoopee. I'd rather be a "sporting motorcyclist"
And if I ever hear the term " Guns don't kill people, people kill people" I'm gonna kill the prick that says it!!!
Now I feel better.
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Its the prick that pulls the trigger !!! its like your bike Magoo it won't hurt you when it's parked up .
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Exactly my point, pricks need guns. Normal sane people don't
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"Guns dont kill people, people kill people"
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Magoo you being the judge of anyones sanity c,mon
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I'm comin' to get yooouuu Ribbbboooo,
I knew I'd get a bite out of you.
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A gun or firearm is an inanemit object magoo, please explain how it kills someone!!??? This subject never fails to raise my blood pressure. How many people in Australia have been killed by legally registered firearms in the past three years ?? would you believe 2 or 3. Seems to me old mate that you need to direct your hostilities and pent up energy towards a more noble cause, such as banning alcohol and cigarettes perhaps ,one of the 2 bigger killers in todays society.
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an inanemate object specifically designed for one reason, to kill things. Rocket launchers and nuclear missiles are inanemate objects too. As for cigarettes and alcohol, you're right there too.
Why are you gun nuts so defensive?
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Put it another way , Did you enjoy tea tonight Magoo .... was it chicken - Beef or lamb .
Yes I have guns, and I own a car which can kill also.
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I had chicken and it was really yummy thanks oldie. I also used to hunt when I lived out bush, mainly for food. am I a hypocrite? maybe. The only animal in the world that kills for fun are humans. It just shows a fundamental weakness in character I reckon to kill things for no reason. Survival, sure, fun, nahh, I'd rather go riding
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Guns??? religion???? Gee how did we get here from VMX ::).
Did I see rational argument been used to justify an emotion ::).
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..
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now let's move onto politics and we've covered the spectrum. If we were logical MX we'd probably be into something sensible, not old dirtbikes. It's really interesting to hear different peoples point of view though without it turning into a mud slinging exercise though.
I'm off to rip the head off my neighbours budgie and turn in for the night
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that buddgie is arm to the beak .WATCH OUT
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Yes, that was in depth...glad to have a forum where we can discuss such things in a civil manner. It is refreshing when opinions are welcomed, and people are not attacked for holding different opinions.
What will be will be, and I think it will improve in the near future. It is regretful that the events have had such an impact, both here in the US and abroad.
Once again, it should be said that Mx racers, in particular VMX racers..are a diverse group of some of the better people you are likely to know.
Thank you.
Cheers, James
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forgot to mention i drink and smoke and ride a sidecar oh and good size boars have nice sharp tusks interesting in belly high grass or crawling thru lignum tunnels got to be quick or you end up with 145 stiches like my mate did ansd shooting paper is nomore pointless than ridingaround a track or worse still golf, lawn bowls or trials
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forgot to mention i drink and smoke and ride a sidecar oh and good size boars have nice sharp tusks interesting in belly high grass or crawling thru lignum tunnels got to be quick or you end up with 145 stiches like my mate did ansd shooting paper is nomore pointless than ridingaround a track or worse still golf, lawn bowls or trials
got a cheek taking a swipe at Trials >:( Sidecars ...waste of space! Takes 2 half wits to operate one. At least with Trials it only takes one halfwit to operate successfully ;D
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got a cheek taking a swipe at Trials Sidecars ...waste of space! Takes 2 half wits to operate one. At least with Trials it only takes one halfwit to operate succes
It takes two people to have sex too and thats how we all got here. ;)
ps back too the money issue/subject with usa shares etc,people have got to stop over spending and save money for the Qlds events next year :D ;D
cheers ...........bring on the CONONDALE Events yyyyiiiiiiipppppppeeeeeeee
yours in pre75 from the town library
alison
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What everyone needs to do is go to the I.T.S.A (Insolvency trustee service of Australia) and file for voluntary insolvency (part X agreement) and write off all the credit debt in Australia. You would be surprised by how much protection you can get when going bankrupt voluntarily, no bailiff auctions (unless you have more than $10,000 of household good to spare over and above the mandatory minimum requirement) you can piss off your credit and store cards but keep your mortgage and car loan if you wish (Car equity valued up to $8000)
and no-one can chase you for money in the courts too they just have to suck it up. You only go on the register for 7 years and you can, if your foolish, apply for loans after 3 years anyway.
I did this 5 years ago and wrote off $18,000 in bad debt (GE finance thieving greedy BASTARDS) and have been debt free and saving money and regretting the loans in the first place but also wishing someone had told me about the ITSA years ago and saved me thousands in interest and fees.
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never made any claims to sanity remove trials(sorry) insert dressage - how to reverse park a horse
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Couldn,t reply last night magoo ,so I,ll do it now. First of all I ,ll start by saying that I don,t own a gun but, I have done...You know mate every time some innocent soul dies from a legally registered firearm in Australia,the owners of all registered firearms cringe in anticipation of the fallout from every misguided,ignorant,naieve,ill informed,over educated,cat hugging,smog breathing,suburbanite,crusader rabbit,who will climb out of the woodwork and start bleating..".Ban Guns-Guns Kill". Despite the fact that a busload of people may have died on the same day in hospital all over the country from smoking or alchohol related illness. There,s even one self appointed freakin retard who calls himself the "head of the anti gun campaign.".......The Sporting Shooters Assoc do a damn fine job trying to save our native animals by shooting foxes and feral cats. When the problem becomes to big in a National Park what does the government do ?They start an Aerial drop of poison baits and poison the fork out of everything that walks or crawls. I am not a member of the SSA but they have my full support. I do get to play with guns twice a year though ,when my SSA mates take me out shooting. And I must admit that I get rather excited when I have the crosshairs of a high powered rifle on a big fat feral kitty cat, squeezing the trigger and watching a 7.62mm projectile turn it into a stain on the ground.If I had my way,every kitty cat in the country would be placed into an Industrial strength plastic bag ,connected to an exhaust pipe and given a damn fine touch up with the ol, carbon monoxide....... At least I can walk away at the end of the day knowing that I have made some effort to erradicate the feral pests and help to save our native animals....... I see that you took great delight in slagging off at the SSA . So let me ask you this one simple question old mate ...What have you done of late to help save them ??????
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... You know mate every time some innocent soul dies from a legally registered firearm in Australia,the owners of all registered firearms cringe in anticipation of the fallout from every misguided,ignorant,naieve,ill informed,over educated,cat hugging,smog breathing,suburbanite,crusader rabbit,who will climb out of the woodwork and start bleating..".Ban Guns-Guns Kill".
Yep. I actually whole-heartedly agree with that.
The pollies get mileage with the 'surburbinites' from stupid measures that acheive nothing beyond causing pointless grief for the sensible gun owners.
But I reckon Magoo's basic point it still valid... There's something inherently a bit worrying about the mentality that wants to kill things for the sake of it. There's something a lot more worrying about the need to assert oneself by the possession of a firearm - even when its couched in weasel words like "protection", 99.9% of the time its really about wanting to be the big man.
As a young man, I killed more than a few rabbits and Indian Minors, using a gun. Yes it gave me a sense of satisfaction, to the point where I'd even say that I enjoyed it. It wasn't the taking of life that I enjoyed, it was the concentration, mastering the skill, and the sense of value that I placed in eradicating a pest.
As an adult I've had to kill more animals than I'd like to admit (not using a gun...), and I don't like doing it at all - even when its 'finishing off' a fox that I've run over.
As a new father, I suddenly find myself very aware of the value of life and the idea of killing anything for "sport" is really quite perturbing.
I'm no bleeding heart, and I fully appreciate that in rural life, guns are an essential part of day to day procedings - but I'm not sure what Joe Surburbanite gets from having a .222 in the wardrobe, beyond a dangerously overinflated sense of power.
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Another 7 % loss today , the bandaide did not work , the world could not be fooled , Gun or Pussy lovers become irrelevant . 110 Decibel perhaps become irrelevant too :o .
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Another 7 % loss today , the bandaide did not work , the world could not be fooled , Gun or Pussy lovers become irrelevant . 110 Decibel perhaps become irrelevant too :o .
Best post ever.
On so many levels.
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Another 7 % loss today , the bandaide did not work , the world could not be fooled , Gun or Pussy lovers become irrelevant . 110 Decibel perhaps become irrelevant too :o .
You'll get very frustrated and depressed if you look at an event of this scale day by day. And get the wrong message.
It was never about being fooled or being rational, it's about being confident, and that is 90% emotion and 10% rational.
The measures taken should stop a freefall and a world depression. The market will bottom out somewhere around where it is. We will have the recession 'we need to have' ::).
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Great thread! Someone mentioned motorcycles a few pages back...
No seriously, I love it.
An intermission question to lubricate the thinkin' gear: anyone know what that six legged creature is in the top right corner?
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Great thread! Someone mentioned motorcycles a few pages back...
No seriously, I love it.
An intermission question to lubricate the thinkin' gear: anyone know what that six legged creature is in the top right corner?
Six legged creature ??? ::). You must be old or sick :P. What's the two legged creature called and what's her phone number ;D.
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A picture of my mother inlaw ;D
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I don't know 'where it will stop' but this is how it ends up ::).
(http://i323.photobucket.com/albums/nn458/mx250syd/2008-545--the-credit-crunch.gif)
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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This will help most understand how the stockmarkets work
Once upon a time, in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.
The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching. The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, Since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.
While the man was away the assistant told the villagers. 'Look at All these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.'
The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again and once more there were monkeys everywhere.
Now do you understand why and how the stock market works? ;D
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Stick explaination best - just wish i could host the Power point somewhere.
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But if I wanted to buy Monkeys, would the banks lend me 100% plus costs?
Out of my way, I need monkeys and I need them NOW!!! Everybody else has monkeys in every room so why not me.
See you in the jungle
VMX42
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would the 6 legged greature be a griffin?
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Here's that explanation as a diagram for those who didn't follow it ::).
(http://i323.photobucket.com/albums/nn458/mx250syd/2008-585--handing-over-the-package.gif)
Well, close to it. I think the man in the barrel is specifically the US taxpayer but it's all of us indirectly ::). Its the 'little man's' job and/or business that goes to the wall; it is 'the 'little man's' family that get put out on the street; it is the 'little man's' children that go hungry.
It might be a cartoon but I believe the CEO of Liebmans walked away with $300 million for his last year's salary - bloody obsene :-X. I would have my doubts about the morality or the economics of this in a good year, but immediately before bankruptcy???? And he wasn't alone >:(.
Rudd's making noises about keeping this in check but I can't see how.
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FORREST GUMP thinks
Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates.
Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds.
Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates.
These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors.
Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime.
Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.
Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal.
Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates, are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.
Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest".
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Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates, are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.
Pretty accurate from what I understand.
"Stop them, there getting away :o."
(http://i323.photobucket.com/albums/nn458/mx250syd/2008-566--US-economic-recovery-rail.gif)
It might be a cartoon but its pretty accurate :P. We the plebs are too busy pumping the hand cart to survive, the bad boys have the luxury of their payouts to survive the crap they have caused and to frustrated the pursuers with legal stratagems.
Did I mention neither sheriffs, Dems or Republicans, are very interested to give chase either.
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would the 6 legged greature be a griffin?
I think Griffins have wings...dunno :-\.
Who knew Googling 'six legged black beast blowing flames at it's arse' would bring up a nice photo of Gaerne boots and dirty bricks?
I was expecting something random... Ya gotta love the internet.
Hey thanks for all these analogies on the financial crisis.
Painting a picture makes it all easier to understand.
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Stick explaination best - just wish i could host the Power point somewhere.
taDARRRR
Only explaination youll ever need, its a Power point so when it loads up click image to go to next slide.
http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pli=1
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I read this on a US-based Volvo forum (of all places). Thought it was worth sharing:
So we all hear about the financial crisis and the economic meltdown, heard plenty (too much?) about it I am sure!
Anyway I heard someone speak today (joseph stiglitz) who actually thinks about it the same way I do which is that fundamentally the system is broken.(especially with Publicly traded companies)
Essentially the root problem is big corporations looking to their stock value as a measure of the company's value.
Company value used to be measured by tangibles; capital, market share, product quality, and consumer's opinions of the quality and price of their product. All of the above would be used to estimate value, this promoted quality lasting products, led to innovation, and generally healthy companies.
However in the last 20 years due to lax regulations on the financial market coupled with lack of transparency in stock options and their value, the executives of Companies have started to strive towards only attempting to gain their stock value rather than focusing on their actual products.(whether these be a good or service)
And to add insult to injury these executives often are left with golden parachutes (stock options generally) when they leave the company after having failed.
We have probably all seen this in corporate America whatever you do and wherever you have worked.
The reason that this has put such a strain on the economy is many faceted and I will try to touch on some of the facets (but bear with me I am not that good at remembering and it will probably be added to through edits.) My favorite fact to point out is the fact that:
No dollars are ever "produced" on the stock market, merely exchanged. This may be a hard concept for many to comprehend and I am not good at teaching economics, but take my word for it every dollar there has already been taxed ONCE at least.
(attempt at example: I buy a pair of shoes, joe the shoe man made them with $25 worth of materials, I bought them for $50, so Joe just produced $25.
However if I buy $50 worth of stocks from joe who bought them for $25, joe has gained $50 but he hasn't produced anything as the money he gained just came from someone else's losses.)
So when corporate execs are given shares as stock options they are essentially diluting the value of all of the REAL investors in the company, and when they cash them out they aren't producing anything but rather taking capital out of the company.
So corporate execs stand to gain mightily by driving the price of their stock up (through any methods necessary) this has led to the demise of many corporations that could be producing and profiting today were it not for the actions of their execs lured by the value of stocks..
Essentially what has happened is that deregulation has gone to the point where companies that should be producing actual products to sell for profit are supplementing their normal sales by becoming financial companies through taking risks in investment.
Companies have had such over-inflated stock values through meddling by their execs that their stock value greatly exceeded their actual company value in the old sense. Now that the market has started to right itself there is mass hysteria that the sky is falling and we are going into a great depression Part Duex so what happens but the government pumps Billions into the markets. Well what did we learn above?? No Money is ever produced on the markets, so the government is now essentially giving an economic stimulus package to the rich. (cause they stand to lose the most by the markets dropping back to reality)
Well this is getting rather long winded but the question is what can we do to FIX our capitalist society? I mean we all like it right? I do, but it's totally broken as is evident by the Current conditions.
One way to fix the economy is to tax the hell out of revenue gained through trading of stocks to a point where investors act as investors rather than gamblers. They would have to leave their stock in one place unless they wanted to take the tax hit. (maybe a smaller hit if money is rolled right into another stock, but maybe not)
But I think the real fix has to start at the top and start with CASH bonuses and CASH incentives for Corporate officers, this lessens their short term interest in the stock value and frees them up to strive for long term success.
This above I think would be the only way to stop our current Capitalist society from spiraling down the tube.
Just my two cents about how the country needs to start to change!
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Thanks Nathan S that was interesting reading,just watched on the news US spends 100 million a day in Afghanistan on the war and 7 million on relef.
bloody madness
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Thanks Nathan S that was interesting reading,just watched on the news US spends 100 million a day in Afghanistan on the war and 7 million on relef.
bloody madness
100 million per day?? Are you sure? Is that right??! That seems insanely high and it's hard to fully comprehend that sort of figure.
Heard this quote some time ago:
"A Billion here, a billion there; pretty soon it adds up to some real money".
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It is not really , when you can just print money as required ( that is what america does)
If you and I would continue to write uncovered cheques , what would happen then ? Same thing , just on alot bigger scale. Back to original question : Where does it stop ?
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"It aint over till the fat lady sings"
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"A Billion here, a billion there; pretty soon it adds up to some real money".
100 mill a day.
That was on the news ,so believe it or not.It does add up medical bills,housing/families back home/weapons/transport air sea land,food/water/clothing etc
They are also saying that America is like us and has its own income so there for make the weapons to on sell to the war zones of the world.
still bloody madness
ps and hopefully it stops about pre90 ;) ;D
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Just got me super fund Satement today FARK - 7.47 % I'm off to have a cuppa and study where it's all gone wrong .
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Oldfart :) if you are very close to retirement then worry >:( ,but if ya have a few years to go relax. :P
have a great weekend
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Just got me super fund Satement today FARK - 7.47 % I'm off to have a cuppa and study where it's all gone wrong .
What about the +20% the last 2-3 years,funny how we forget about those, market corrections are a good thing, the world is not coming to an end, buy up now and you will be laffin (if you are game :D)
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That was on the news ,so believe it or not.It does add up medical bills,housing/families back home/weapons/transport air sea land,food/water/clothing etc
They are also saying that America is like us and has its own income so there for make the weapons to on sell to the war zones of the world.
still bloody madness
ps and hopefully it stops about pre90 ;) ;D
Yeah, I wasn't having a go at you, but it just sounds obscene.
One hundred million dollars per day just on the war in Afghanistan... and then there's Iraq... and everything else their National budget pays for.
My life suddenly seems very simple.
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Same me , the accontant called me crazy for buying so much stock . I am glad now.
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Hmmm must go and find which nation started this trade in NOTHINGS called the shares and stocks market. Got an idea in my head I know already. Then there is other financial bullshit that should be crushed and obliterated like "Futures Markets" and "Financial ratings Companies.
Seams this farce his been around for 700 years..........................
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hey rossco doesnt matter what value you put on those spanish bikes . or mine at the end off the day if theres no one with money to buy them there the same as stocks in pelican shit worthless
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When you say you invested your money into old bike's and 70's music ??? do you mean Gary Glitter and the Glitter band :-*
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havent you seen the sherbet collection :o
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and hush :D
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNmcf4Y3lGM
The Final Explanation, finally ;D.
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It was England a few hundred years back that freed up credit. We are doing worse than Oz, but then I could never understand how we were doing so well in the first place, turns out we weren't!
Maybe we should have just stuck to inventing sports and then allowing other countries to beat us. In the interests of fair play you understand, old chap. "It's not who wins it's how you play the game".
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I know its an old thread-but it has the right heading and I'm a farm girl. ;D
I feel for all our farmer's across Australia and this one takes the cake,,,they have all gone BANANAS
Biosecurity Australia has decided that it is safe for bananas to be imported into Australia from The Philippines, sparking an angry backlash from growers.
Biosecurity Australia today released a statement to inform stakeholders that the Director of Animal and Plant Quarantine has determined a quarantine policy for the importation of bananas from The Philippines.
It says that importation of bananas may be permitted subject to the application of phytosanitary measures, clearing the way for import applications to be lodged.
The Australian Banana Growers' Council says it is "profoundly disappointed" by the decision and will take its concerns to a Senate Committee hearing in Canberra next week.
The ABGC is convinced significant threats from pests and diseases associated with Philippine bananas cannot be effectively managed and that exotic pest or disease outbreaks in Australia will be an inevitable consequence of this decision if it leads to volumes of fruit being imported.
"The Philippines does not have a quarantine culture," ABGC Imports Committee chairman Len Collins said.
"It is a disturbing thought that Australia's quarantine security is effectively being handed to Philippines companies and Australian growers are highly concerned about new exotic pest and disease threats."
The decision is based on a 600-page biosecurity report released on November 12 last year which cited 21 pests and diseases in The Philippines of quarantine concern to Australia, but which concluded the risks could be reduced to "acceptable levels" by proposed risk-management measures.
Biosecurity Australia says a detailed operational plan between Australia and The Philippines will now be developed, which will need to be approved by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service before any import permits for bananas from The Philippines into Australia will be considered.
ABGC chief executive officer, Tony Heidrich, said there were huge gaps in scientific knowledge of key pests and virtually no information about how AQIS would ensure that Philippines' exporters meet required stringent quarantine conditions
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Didn't know where to put this,this started out a cheap little book I was going to get for a read and now its thought the roof....... :-\ who said theres no money about.......
Are the people hurting from this ressesion the ones that over spent in the first place???
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=200295532862
so here's the (1956) edition ;D eBay 350173264694
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The banana thing is weird - for a start, I thought that it all happened well over a year ago.
In any case, there was a report on the risk analysis, saying that it was certain that we'd cop some particular banana disease, but they went ahead and did it anyhow.
Can't remember what the good point(s) are.
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Nathan,
I was going to post the response from the Philippines Bio mob,but didn't get any interested feed back from here so didn't bother. ;D
ah enter Nathan.
Anyway -as it turns out our Australian rules and regulations are too hard for Philippines, so its not happening,,,,,,, Hallelujah. 8)
As I write this they are probably getting into the country from some other source.
cheers Alison
cheers for the book info lukeb1961,always on the look out for bike people presents :P
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Yes, its bull sh////T, it cost me over $3000 to bring a bike in from the States.
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(http://i323.photobucket.com/albums/nn458/mx250syd/gop-economy.jpg)
:) ;) :D ;D
A bit like Rudd and the Libs.
:) ;) :D ;D
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Wherever it stops, I hope it's soon. My workload has taken a nosedive and every other tradesperson I know is telling me the same thing.
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While we all want to have a whinge about this or that things could be much worse. Look at this the only value this note has is to bank note collectors like myself.
(http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s297/Lozza85_2007/SN850244-1-1.jpg)
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While we all want to have a whinge about this or that things could be much worse. Look at this the only value this note has is to bank note collectors like myself.
(http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s297/Lozza85_2007/SN850244-1-1.jpg)
Is it real? Whats it's approximate Aussie value?
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it is real and it has no value now because their dollar just collapsed!!
Rossco
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Check out the 100
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/MOTORCROSS-Aussie-Novelty-Money-Notes-set-of-3_W0QQitemZ300273701097QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Motor_Racing_Memorabilia
Ross are they going to kick that bloke out now. ???
cheers alison
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/10-000-000-ZIMBABWE-BANK-NOTE-UNC-VERY-RARE-NOW_W0QQitemZ200317864553QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Coins_World?hash=item200317864553&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A1|39%3A1|240%3A1318
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pefect for Dr evil............. one trillion dollars.......
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I have a 100 Trillion coming, minted Feb 09, largest ever denomination printed.
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I have a 100 Trillion coming, minted Feb 09, largest ever denomination printed.
ok ok - I'm hooked and bidding 8) adding to my collection in the safe ;D
unc is the best ;)
alison
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G'day Alison, did you see tonight's 7.30 report? the banana import deal seems to be still on the cards
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G'day Alison, did you see tonight's 7.30 report? the banana import deal seems to be still on the cards
ABC -now your showing your age. ;) ;D .No didn't see it.still madness though.Saw Californian Oranges the other day for sale.. ::)
Anyway here is some tractor info below. 8)
cheers alison[/color]
Like the famous quote attributed to a Rolls Royce driver, namely "the only sound to be heard is the ticking of the clock", the same can be said of New Holland’s prototype hydrogen tractor.
The company's global marketing manager, Pierre Lahutte, was commenting on the "eerily silent" driving experience associated with sitting behind the wheel of New Holland's NH2 tractor which runs on hydrogen and oxygen, producing nothing but water.
"In fact the only sound is the electric motor working, which is a bit like the noise a large radio-controlled tractor makes," Mr Lahutte said.
"And when it's stationary there is no noise at all, as it doesn't need to idle."
Interestingly, the absence of a conventional combustion engine could pave the way tractors-of-the-future look since the vertical exhaust pipe is no longer, replaced by a small pipe under the cab that lets the only by-product of the fuel cell (water), out.
Having tantalised energy-concious producers with the concept over the past few months, New Holland concedes it still is not able to come up with a price tag.
Much will depend on the cost of fuel cells.
"All the technology is there and companies are already using it - it's only the cost of the components that are prohibitive," Mr Lahutte said.
"But put these into mass production and cost could reduce dramatically."
The suggestion is that the volumes associated with the automotive industry will be the key to paring back the expensive of the technology.
New Holland says it already has a second-generation prototype waiting in the wings, expecting it to be on-farm in 2010.
The company says it has plans to have production models of its NH2 tractor by 2013-15.
FOOTNOTE: New Holland’s NH2 prototype hydrogen tractor won a prestigious Gold Medal at the recent SIMA Innovation Awards in France.
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ABC -now your showing your age
unfortunately I'm old before my time, but not wise beyond my years ;D
Tonight 7.30 report was an absolute pearler. One of the features was an professor talking about (in a nutshell) how spending too much time in front of the computer led to people being unable to comprehend how they should behave with other humans in a normal social situation. Mmmmmm.... might be on to something there.
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ABC -now your showing your age
unfortunately I'm old before my time, but not wise beyond my years ;D
Tonight 7.30 report was an absolute pearler. One of the features was an professor talking about (in a nutshell) how spending too much time in front of the computer led to people being unable to comprehend how they should behave with other humans in a normal social situation. Mmmmmm.... might be on to something there.
..unbelievable.... ::) always trying to out do each other these professors :o get a real job :(
cheers alison
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I dunno if you saw it but i reckon this lady was on the money. Among other things she said that people find it easy to post insults/comments on forums and the like because they don't have to deal with the personal response they would get if they said the same thing face to face to another person.
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ive got that MOCED SHIT HERE VERY CONTAGIOUS TAKE THE LAP TOP TO WORK
MICK THEN YOU DONT HAVE TO RACE HOME TO GET MOCED RIGHT UP ;D
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Hey I'm not shit faced I'm just happy its friday today ;D
Mainline,
I agree about insults and not being face to face.
Its such a large area of communication nowadays.
Its not possible the whole population has lost morals,manners and some small commonsense. ::) :o
Gotta have faith and hope. 8)
(quote; get a real job) If more professor's take up teaching Internet ethics in the home,schools and the workplace,we may have a chance of less disagreements/wars..
Anyway happy Friday Cheers ;D
Alison
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Hey I'm not shit faced I'm just happy its friday today ;D
Mainline,
I agree about insults and not being face to face.
Its such a large area of communication nowadays.
Its not possible the whole population has lost morals,manners and some small commonsense. ::) :o
Gotta have faith and hope. 8)
(quote; get a real job) If more professor's take up teaching Internet ethics in the home,schools and the workplace,we may have a chance of less disagreements/wars..
Anyway happy Friday Cheers ;D
Alison
(http://i323.photobucket.com/albums/nn458/mx250syd/ATT626096.jpg)
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I dunno if you saw it but i reckon this lady was on the money. Among other things she said that people find it easy to post insults/comments on forums and the like because they don't have to deal with the personal response they would get if they said the same thing face to face to another person.
I agree 100% - and I believe the aggression on our roads is linked in a similar way.
Vehicles and computers give us limited anonimity (computers more so) and people often speak and act with far more bravado when behind the steering wheel and/or the keyboard.
Check out the responses next time you're on good old 'You Tube'. That list of comments below the video has some particularly nasty and vitriolic attacks.
What's that about? That sort of language and attitude would bring a smack in the gob no matter where you're from.
I visit plenty of Forums and I marvel at the disgusting personal attacks on them all!
But I don't fully agree with the Professor's opinion that sitting behind a computer affects our comprehension of how to deal with people face to face.
We don't spend ALL our time in front of the computer. Real life has different rules.
Just try that verbal vomit in public - and face to face.
The 'tolerance' message will be hammered into your brain the hard way.
Same goes for the dickheads weaving through the morning traffic like life's a video game.
You can only tailgate and give the finger and swerve like a moron for a limited amount of time.
Eventually you will meet someone bigger than you with a faster car and an attitude you should never have f*cked with...
Again, you'll learn the lesson the hard way.
However, I do believe the more people are allowed to get away with 'keyboard rage' the more they will continue.
I'm convinced we all know what is right and acceptable, but hey, we're all eight foot tall and bullet proof sitting here tapping away.
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Sounds like there are still a few chooks still running loose out there ::). George W is gay???? And that the Superprofit at any cost was aided and abetted by Government?
Predatorary Banks. Who's head of such a thing? What country would tolerate such abuse of position and trust ::).
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/291.html
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As this thread started about money .I'll post this up here.
Being in the a mining and energy town,I quiet often read about this emissions issues/environment etc and the power of money ...suppose GREED just intrigues me ;D....some people are going to get rich out of this Carbon Credits Government plan and going green.........
An interesting article below for Fridays Farming news :)
How the world's largest meat processor slashed its carbon footprint
BY LUCY KNIGHT
10 Dec, 2009 04:00 AM
THE world's largest meat processor has become so obsessed with reducing its environmental impact that it has calculated its carbon footprint down to each individual pork chop.
At Danish Crown, being environmentally efficient is king not just because of the consumer and regulatory demands to do so, but because the cost savings from being green are so great.
Danish Crown slaughters almost 20 million pigs each year and is the name behind many well-known pork products in not just Denmark and Europe, but here in Australia too, sending about 30,000 tonnes of pig meat here every year.
But it's hard to believe that this company kills pigs for a living when visiting their new state of the art processing plant at Horsens, in Denmark's Jutland region, because it's so clean, bright, fresh and modern.
This is the most modern livestock processing plant in the world, built four years ago predominantly to reduce labour costs by introducing new levels of robotic processing machines, as well as meet new animal welfare standards.
But the 175-year-old farmer-owned company didn't let the opportunity to overhaul their facilities pass them by, using the chance to think and act green in every aspect of processing.
In the quest for complete environmental accountability, Danish Crown has put the equivalent of an environmental price tag on each pig slaughtered, which gives the company a benchmark to continue driving down emissions and waste.
Greenhouse emissions mapping has enabled Danish Crown to calculate that each pork chop has a climate change impact of 360 grams of CO2 equivalent.
They say this is the same as drinking four cups of coffee, driving one kilometre in a car, hoovering for 25 minutes or watching television for four hours and 45 minutes.
Corporate communications manager, Anne Villemoes, says waste had been reduced so significantly, that only the pig's scream was left.
But now that is gone too.
"If you look around the plant, there's no waste. Every part of the pig is used," Ms Villemoes said.
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Oh how the tide has turned .....go back back and read the first post . And our dollar ( OzD) is at a 28 year high of nearly $1.02 per $1-00 usd
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They say this is the same as drinking four cups of coffee, driving one kilometre in a car, hoovering for 25 minutes or watching television for four hours and 45 minutes.
I started reading that and thought geez it's all my fault ::) Then I saw the bit about the hoovering for twenty five minutes a day, Feuw, I'm off the hook, it's not me that wrecked the joint after all.
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Why drag this shit up from three years ago Walter? NO MORE POLITICS FOR FU#K SAKE. It's an open invitation for the forums hand wringing amateur economists to start up again.
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So what your saying is i should be riding my bike cause it produces more CO2 than a port chop. I like it ! i love muy marketing spin.