The State of the World

[bux]

I am very interested to get some feed back as to how everyone sees the future regarding the Global Financial Crisis. From what I can see Europe is still up to its neck in it but maybe there will be a temporary path built on the smelly stuff to help them forward then it is down to the individual countries as to how they handle it Fromm there. The Americans well as a country they are stuffed but individually they are still a great power.
The Americans patrolling the China Coast is a bit of a concern and the Chinese burning Japanese cars and flags well who knows there is alot of history there.
For us with 5 soldiers being killed in Afghanistan over the last two weeks you would have to think the decision to go in there 9 years ago was flawed but highsight is a wonderful thing and a country has obligations.
At home here well the weather is crap but the economy seems to be showing signs of a recovery.
Look forward to seeing how others perceive it.

Thanks
bux

[bux]

Well I ventured into Countrylad's stomping ground for a few days a week or so ago....very nice place. Missed out on the rain, timed our run well. Stayed at Port Douglas but took a few days to see the sights. Went up to Daintree and then across the Tablelands and ended up in Tully were it was raining the size of the Gumboot would indicate not a rare sight. Amazing growing areas with cane, bananas,mangoes,paw paw,cocoa, vanilla and peanuts and did I mention bananas.

Great place highly recommend it....lots of Kiwis

bux

[Daves]

Conditions are still very fragile in the Oz economy imo, let alone the rest of the world with their greater debt loads. Every week it seems that at least one more icon business goes under. This week it looks like it will be the Allens/Billy Hyde retail music group. The commodities boom is only just starting to crumble it seems, so we have not yet seen any knock-on collateral damage, and I fear it will be extensive when it arrives.

At the moment we are seeing lots of hysterics about necessary public spending cuts and I perceive an air of Greek disease where no want to accept reality, responsibility, or the necessity to tighten belts etc.

The construction industry on the Gold Coast is on deaths door and revival will be no easy operation or cure. 7500 house starts 2 years ago has dropped to less than 2500 this year.

How big a house of cards our economy is resting on is yet to be tested. I fear that if we do not see our currency weaken considerably to bring about some competitiveness for some of our key GDP contributors, the consequences will be dire.

I hope I am being very pessimistic. I am normally an Optimist, but can find nothing concrete to hang that hat on at the moment!

[tc]

I tend to agree Dave but think its patchy.
I was wondering how much of the recent upturn on the markets was due to the postive sentiment flowing on from the Olympics and was waiting to see if it dissipated but last nights surge to the 2007 high on the Dow has to be a positive internationally.
Locally, while many of my friends are reporting very tight and quiet conditions, there are still some who are flat out. It would be great to see some new businesses emerge as the mining sector contracts but there seems to be more effort spent arguing about who had/has the rights to gather income from what was a booming mining sector and unfortunately not lot a lot of forward thinking/future industry creation discussion.

[Daves]

Saw this on another forum.

"Ben Bernanke gets some early training in how to run the Federal Reserve"