I'd have to agree with you Pericles, the article was full of assertions and little evidence. I've read and marked undergraduate papers far better than this.

Roses1,

Can you be our Prime Minister somehow?

I can assure you, you would get tons of votes.

I have not seen such clarity in describing the folly of how an ARISTOCRACY can find heinous but legal mechanisms to roughshod-rule over a DEMOCRACY before.

That millions of people have had to die on battlefields to bring about peace through Democracy means nothing to banker morons. They just don't get that you can't trade past ghosts away like other risk commodities.

How did the refugees get on our cruise ship in the first place? Like Somali pirates they have boarded us and are holding us to ransom.If they dont like the cruise and where we are going they neednt think they are going to make us change course and sail into an Islam sunset... or should i say an Arab Spring?
The best advice I can offer them is to get off at the next port.No charge instead our eternal thanks.
socratease

diver dan
go back and look at what you wrote.

You did know that the property market in Australia, and most other places, have been stagnating? In Australia they have been stationery, if not falling back, for years. Those that were up took a hit during the GFC. You may care to rethink your ideas in the light of that fact. Banks can and do have poor lending practices during a property boom, but we are not in one now.

I dunno about being God but I do glance at property indexes and reports every now and then...

A good healthy review by Bruce of the rosy picture being painted by the bureaucrats and politicians but in the end it seems its about bank bashing and politicians being out of touch with the people. Really?

It seems to me that our country hasnt evolved from its pioneer status, simply exploiting and crying victim when times (and weather in the case of our victim mentality rural sector) turns against us. We are a country of exploiters with governance more about allocation, than vision, more about preserving the moribund, than supporting winners.

Our world's greatest treasurer is simply presiding over a time of the Great Gut, that emptying of the natural endowments of minerals and energy - the superannuation of our children. Gutting by removalists giving themselves respectable title of "developers".

We are screwing everything and everyone. One in four workers is a manager.

To focus on the banks as Wayne is doing is simply popularism and isolated of the bigger picture.

And as for the politicians being out of touch. Nah, they are very much a mirror on us. We are driven by the hippocket and that recent survey on the resource tax showed that. Its about me and about now.

Where there are opportunities for rationalising, notably our vehicle industry producing dinosaurs at huge cost to taxpayers (say $40,000 per employee in that industry) we resist it. The question mark over Point Henry aluminium production too is the shadow of regional development that has come to roost.

Australia is indeed the Lucky Country for now. The Great Gut in Qld and WA has enabled us to bungle on - for now. Its us, not them that's at issue. Popularism in the house of cards economy.