Global financial crisis - what does it mean to you

[paul]

one off my mate left for the mines about a bit over 14 mth s ago  he rang a few times and said things were going great ;was working in a nickle mine and was getting preety good dollars ,had big plans ,said he was comeing back at christmas to buy a house for him and his son ,been a single dad since his son was a baby and has done it tough ,the mother was a dead shit who got on the drugs and was last seen liveing under a tree up nth,so this guy has struggled all his childs life and finally he could go and try and do some thing and set up the rest off his life ,4 weeks ago the phone rings and he says im back the arse has fallen outa the mine that he was working (not sure if this is exacte prices or not)when he was working nickle was 30 k a tonne went down to 8 k a tonne and they closed the mine with only a skelton crew ,he said there were bus loads off miners heading outa town  now hes back renting a flat and is on new start again so i would say thats just one horror story and its getting worse every day  its bleeeping crisis world wide dont worry about that

[VMX247]

Yes I think it will come full circle again and people will have to rethink about where its all (money/food) coming from...
Beef processor here has shut down,Japanese market has slowed don't need so much WA beef ,
hide market has slowed,roo shooting... everything right down the line is slowing up....but it has happened before now and will happen again.
moneys in GOLD,WATER,OIL,remember MAD MAX   
oh and lamb chops on the bbq for Australia day

[paul]

ross do you still want to run  the montys on red gum  i think you may be onto something there .you will just have to have a soot collector on the pipe

[paul]

[paul]

there will be a few truths soon when obama lets some cats outa the bag

[brent j]

I'm thinking a lot more about what I spend my money on.

There are a few mines in the NT either slowing down or closing up but not as much as WA, yet. I got out of that industry quite a few years ago, now I'm a public servant. I have a job no one wants but it's an essential service and a legal requirement. I operate sewage treatment plants and no matter how bad things get people still have to eat and they still have to sh*t.

Darwin may fare better than other places, house prices are still strong and rentals are in demand. The NT govt just signed up an agreement to design a new gas plant with a Japanese company so we now have to wait and see. The company are planning to produce gas for their home market (Japan) so it's not a speculative type set up. They have their own market.
The last gas plant built here, 3-4 years ago, sucked up every tradesman in in the NT for two years. It also drove up wages locally. This plant will be 4 times the size of the last one and will take 3-4 years to build. If it all goes ahead it will, to a point, insulate the top end from the worst of things, WE HOPE!

In the mean time we wait and see. I remember how things were in the early nineties and like the experts say, I think this will get a lot worse before it gets better.

I talk to some of the young guys I work with and they have no idea of what is happening and what could happen. I feel a bit sorry for them, for their ignorance and lack of interest. They tell me that if things get bad they'll just get another job. They can not understand that there could be no jobs.

Brent

[VMX247]

WA has grown out of control too fast and the gas power can not keep up(amongst other things) so the Coal has kicked in/kept it up with no help from the government at all.
Bring on private Enterprise

So to the list of things that still stand and have money at the moment GOLD,OIL,WATER ,COAL and lamb chops for our farmers for aussie BBQ's.

[asasin]

The way I see it we are returning to "normal" money conditions that exsisted before the 2000+ boom in property that saw people use their houses like money machines , buying the new boat and car etc on the house , then upgrading the house for more money and buying the rental (for their retirement , yea right !) and sucking the life out of those also . Banks gave it away like confetti .Now we have to have bigger deposit for houses and employment is to be treasured not treated like somthing to do between fishing trips and lattes.
To me this is just normal financial constraints of life that I grew up in.Yes it will be tougher and the credit card 20 and thirty somthings will hurt ,but it couldnt keep going forever.

Im sure as a mechanic you will get work , I fix auto electronics and i have been busyier as people are tending to fix rather than replace. good luck.

[caps 999]

well ill now be further downsizing my bikes  but i can always find more of those  :'( but sometimes it has to be done

[Rosco400]

The coal industry is suffering in the hunter. Xstrata about to hand out 120 redundancies . Good indication is normally around 50 ships anchored off Newcastlle, at the moment counted 8 as of yesterday, big money going into 2nd stage coal loader at the moment but that will be a waste of time BHP and Rio shares if you got em, be careful

[evo550]

I'm with asasin I've been digging holes for a living for the last 20 yrs,prior to the property boomI had to turn up to quote, couldn't pick and choose jobs, and certainly couldn't name any price I wanted.
The last ten years you could pick and choose and almost charge what you wanted, but those days are almost over and it's reverting back to the "good old days"....when you had to work for a living.
I think the people who may suffer most in my industry are the ones who started up during the boom and know no different, or the ones who grew 10 fold and will now struggle with cash flow.

Anyone want a hole dug?

[090]

At the risk of sounding like i have my head in the sand, i hate hearing all the doom and gloom. Mainly on the tv by Governments and economy types. Mainly because my theory is, if you keep talking it up, its going to happen.You know what i mean? People keep telling  you you look like shit. Eventually you will believe them and start feeling like shit. It hits home a bit more reading stuff from you guys though, especially Hilly losing his job.
I keep telling myself that SE Qld will fair better than others. Hope so!

[oldfart]

Same SHIT different day in the plumbing game. Construction industry has slowed done to it's normal pace  ( Gold Coast works on a 7 year cycle -boom and bust ) which seems to catch out the new players.
Those that have been thru the cycle just plod along as usual ..........Mind you my bike fettish has SLOWED DOWN  some what .

[Marc.com]

my salary comes in yen so I am making out like a bandit. I am happy as a shit about home prices plummeting, means i might be able to afford to move home one day, business is good but nothing is guaranteed except this years bonus 

[lyle2212]

Well Rosco400 ,judging from your concern, your probably from the Newcastle area, as am I...and you are probably involved in the construction industry also .as am I... I recall a few months ago the so called "experts" harping on about how safe it was to be in the coal industry, as the world needed Coal  to keep the coal fires burning in the Power Stations world wide.... Alas they have been proven incorrect, as we have seen by the recent 1100 lay offs in NSW and QLD coal Industry.... I myself am employed in the gold Industry, luckily for me the one resource thats has continued to climb the ladder ,amidst a deepening global economic crisis.    ...Call me the prophet of doom if you choose, but, I firmly believe that we are only seeing the tip of the ice berg in regards to a world wide economic crisis, perhaps I am wrong and I hope I am ,as I have 3 kids and a huge mortgage ,but  I believe we should do what we can to prepare ourselves for what is abou t to come.....