Category Archives: What’s New

Little bites are causing a big decay

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A perfect storm is brewing inside Australia with the gap between the strongest and weakest industries being greater than ever before.

From a business confidence study conducted by NAB it shows that there are several factors underlying the deterioration of weaker sectors. The biggest concern was that the gap between two speed economy was actually getting wider. Scarily so it was not due to the larger sectors getting stronger but by smaller industries getting even weaker. Small business is hurting and hurting bad. Who cares you say? You should, as the small business community are a massive employer of Australians and the more that sector shrinks the more people that will be put out of a job.

It seems that in a nutshell simply don’t understand how what’s happening around their own day to day world. Sure they may read the news headlines and take in a few micro seconds of what’s happening in countries like Greece and the US but they unfortunately have no mechanism to aggregate all the news stories together to form one big picture.

Unfortunately that big picture is looking bleaker than the politicians would have us believe. We all seem to so well deluded by our ‘mining boom’ and the rhetoric from the government. The little bits of information you are receiving is hiding the massive decay.

This has been a concern for mine for quite some time now. As I said in a post back in September, we’re all just a bunch of lemmings. But as evidenced by the NAB falling business confidence report I fear that the ‘boom times we are bathing in are short numbered.

Every financial event adds up. The bite sized chunks of news in this country are contributing to the decay which is going to surprise many people and unfortunately cost them dearly. Just think about the last time you went to the dentist and they discovered a tooth that needed some work and cost you fair bit.

Your thoughts?

Time to clean up the sinister activities of banks

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Now I don’t have a problem in general with banks making profits and marketing themselves. But I literally see red when I observe unscrupulous marketing and sales activities that have no regard for the short term or long term financial well being of the consumer.

Take this case for instance. Featured in the Sunday Telegraph was a disturbing insight into just how far the ‘Big Four’ will go to get their bonuses even juicier.

Despite already expecting a $24.2bn combined profit this financial year, the banks have released ‘incentives’ for their staff to “double up” their sales of debt based products and insurances to squeeze even more from their ‘customers’.

Not that is so out of the ordinary but what is really on the nose is that these incentives are for their Christmas parties! Yes, you read it right, Their Christmas parties! What has the world come to?

I thought selling financial products knowing that you will receive a personal gain contravenes multiple ASIC rules and regulations..

Look, I’m sure they can find a million ways to get around this and defend it but let’s take a moral stand on this and pose the question.

Is this right for the working Australian? My answer is pretty simple No! And it should be regulated.

What do you think?

Have you recently been approached by an over zealous bank employee that wanted to flog you extras?

Have they completely lost the plot? Are the desperate to make up for some of the lost revenues. Give me a break. Here we are looking to our banks to be the bastion of financial moderation as we see this behaviour.

Time to wake up and smell the roses – they’re dying!

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As I said in a post back in August, Australia is slowly sliding into another GFC. Now here we are a few months later and despite all of the continuing signs such as the Australian and world share markets collapsing, the Aussie dollar tumbling and big business realizing that Australia isn’t bullet proof. Australians are merrily carrying on with their daily lives, totally oblivious to what’s going on around them.

What gets me hot under the collar is that so many people seem to think the good times will never end. Take for example, a recent study of Gen Yers (18-29 years old) showed a renewed interest in saving, (not a bad thing) but when asked why they wanted to save for, the answer was very simple: to afford bigger ticket items NOT for unexpected expenses down the road.

God help us! I am perplexed. The signs are all around us and still yet we seem to have such a ‘she’ll be right attitude – we’re the lucky country.’

Hmm… that’s what the USA and Greece thought – and now look at them.

What’s your take? Are we fine and I am overreacting, are we all too busy to see what’s going on or do you simply not care?

What do you think?

Here comes GFC 2

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I’m going to make a prediction that I can guarantee will raise a few eyebrows.

The Australian economy will slide into a slow motion GFC over the coming 6 months.

A big call I know. But if you read between the lines of all the data and hype put out by the government and the media – Australia is up to it’s eyeballs in debt and hurtling towards an economic train wreck of train wrecks.

Oh, but what about the boom that we are in you say? Well, unless you are in the mining sector, not many other industries are experiencing boom time growth (just ask the retailers).

Leaving the rest of us mere mortals hocked up to the hilt and facing ever increasing day to day cost of living hikes. When it comes to debt, we as a nation over the past 20 odd years  have been partying like there’s no tommorow, consuming things for the now and payng for them using someone else’s money (ie the banks). The amount of debt we have racked as a result up is staggering having grown from $500 billion to just over $1.1 trillion in 5 years!!! All of which on home loans, credit cards and personal loans.

Now if you add this ticking time bomb to the government debt problems of the US and many European Union members it is little wonder why the world is teetering on the brink of a GFC 2. Sooner or later their weak economies will affect us. Not so much directly but indirectly as ultimately China is dragged into this financial mess.

You see China’s major export partners are the US and Europe and with them slowing down the Chinese ecomomy will start to slow. Hence, you guessed it, they will slow down on their need for the massive quantities of raw materials from Australia.

So as you can see in this simple scenario, our lucky country may not be luck for too much longer. Batten down the hatches as slow moving ecomomic storm cell is approaching.

Can’t think it can happen to Australia? Just ask anyone from the US, UK and Ireland.

Am I being too over reactionary? Maybe!

Your thoughts?