'Neither a borrower not lender be'. It's a pity that rabid consumerism has made that old mot impractical. I'm just glad that I haven't had the need to borrow for a very long time. Up until recently, people could avoid banks and go to credit unions. Sadly, the credit unions are now mimicking the banks.

Systemic risk!? And all over the joint.

Look at the deliberately massage real estate market with some of the world's most expensive residential real estate and a bubble that could and has burst elsewhere, where there was just too much reliance on it and unsustainable lending to folk who couldn't afford to service their debt obligations!

With our domestic and foreign debt already at record highs and in completely uncharted territory, very much part of that risk.

And another GFC, just waiting in the wings, courtesy of Donald Trump maniacal economic management and drunken sailor defence spending.

We are not safe and the current blind man's bluff, current economic management paradigm is not making matters better but massively worse.

And looking like a fiddling Nero as Rome burns around their ears, or a warm and comfortable frog in slowly brought to the boil, water.

But have no fear, our erstwhile leaders will be okay, come what may. Insulated and effectively quarantined from their increasingly daft management and decisions, by virtue of guaranteed personal outcomes, financial protection, Cayman Island bank accounts, post politics consultancies, and courtesy of the ever indulgent taxpayer, quite massive, negatively geared real estate portfolios etc./etc.

[And those aforementioned tax havens, ripe for a few Russian bunker buster bombs and cruise missiles aimed at their hearts, to really put the financial cat among the, coming home to roost, pigeons!]

As one well educated commentator has already pointed out, it's all really just too convoluted and complex to change! And therefore, CAN'T BE REFORMED!

Although as one visiting republican Senator observed as a guest speaker on Q+A some years ago. At some point, complexity always becomes fraud. Quote unquote.
Alan B.

Dear Ttbn,

'Neither a borrower not lender be'.

How true, but it's not consumerism (bad as it is) - it's rather the government which would not countenance this healthy state of affairs. All it has to do, if they wanted, is to stop generating inflation through the RBA, which forces savers to use the banking system only in order to keep up with inflation and not lose their life-savings. Armies of accountants, bankers, auditors and politicians are thus preying on ordinary people who only want to keep what they already have - lupo ovem commisisti!

*' Acfiipitri timidas crodis, toioso, colnmbas?
Plenum montano oredis ovilo lupo

Has nobody sympathy for the hawk or the wolf?.....yuyutsu!

Alan B why pick on Trump or bring in Russian bombs? The problem is absolutely of our own making. With you one hundred per cent on politician and public servants pensions. I hope when the tears start flowing we wreak vengeance on all politicians an public servants but!
Remember Victoria being sent bankrupt by the Cain crew? They are all fully paid up troughers as would the ps cohort. Now we still get people blaming Kennett?
We tend to get what we deserve but I am hoping for better.
As I see it we have to vote Bernardi or Hanson to stand a chance. If Lib/lab get it they will plunder us to ensure they cannot lose.

The risk to our personal deposits is worse than many realise.
The agreement between the G20 countries, including Australia, and the IMF
means that if a bank gets into trouble then the IMF's Financial
Stability Board can arrive on any banks doorstep one morning and take
any amount of depositors funds to pay the the debt of the defaulting bank.
Wayne Swann signed us up and Joe Hockey signed the rules at Brisbane's G20 meeting.
Now when I tell people this, they just don't believe it.
Well, it has already been done in Cyprus, Portugal and Italy to my knowledge.
I bill recently went through the senate which appears to be related
to this process.
Hint,
Credit Unions are exempt from FSB action PROVIDED they are
not associated or owned by a bank.
I moved some money into a credit union and I asked if they were
owned in part or whole by a bank and they could not tell me.
I had to check myself and I got them to check with their head office.
It was all news to their local manager.

So check all this but one man shot himself on the steps of the Italian Bank
when they took E100,000 of his savings.