'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.

Bazz,
"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."

I've called you out on this before. WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO TELL LIES?

The Financial Stability Board is not part of the IMF. Neither they nor the IMF have any power whatsoever to confiscate even a cent from depositors.

By claiming otherwise, you are defaming both the Financial Stability Board and the banks. I know they are unlikely to sue, but libel is still immoral.

What the FSB actually does is devise procedures to hep prevent banks from collapsing. But implementing those procedures is a matter for national governments.

Neither Swan nor Hockey made any deal to put depositors' money at risk.

As for that Italian man, ISTR he was a bondholder not a depositor.

Aiden, I must pull you up here. Bazz may have some of the details a little off, but his general argument is correct. If you were to go back to my previous posts, you will find I have been preaching on this very topic for years. The name I know it by is 'BAIL IN'. And Bazz is right. The way it was described to me was, a bank has a periodic reconciliation. The example I was given was weekly. If the figure is in the red, meaning the bank has lost money, they take money from depositors accounts. So when they open again Monday morning they are solvent, or in the black again. I did not believe this myself, until it was confirmed by the CEC a group who's job it is to keep an eye on the govt and all it's scams. I thought the banks would take some other form of revenue, I could and still do not want to believe this, 'BAIL IN'. The other thing I have preached about is called 'Glass-Steagall'. Look it up, this was the names of the two guys that got the govt to separate investment banking from commercial banks in the US back in the 1930's. It was repealed in 1999 by that arse-hole B Clinton. And so the banks were given the free hand to gouge and so we ended up with the the GFC amongst other disasters. Turnbull had the chance to re-introduce Glass-Steagall recently, but chose not to, because he is just another Rothschilds puppet.