johncee1945 wrote:

"The banks at times lend money knowing forclosure on house and land is a very likely. But the banks do nicely after receiving deposit and payments, as well as, house and land."

Ahh comrade john.. I don't know where to start with the gibberish you post but here is as good as any. Deposit? What is a deposit john? It goes to the SELLER of the property, not the bank, why would the bank get it? Secondly, do you think house lending is risk-free? Do you think house prices can only go up? If so, you have no idea about the reality for people in Sydney's west and south west right now, where negative equity is commonplace - negative equity is where your house is worth less than what you owe on it. It happens when you buy at the top of the market.

That's why lenders get paid - they take risk - risk that the loan won't perform or the asset falls in value. That's why banks (and other lenders) charge a premium over where the capital markets are pricing say, oh I don't know, government debt at, for the same period.. because its RISKIER!!

Anyway, as Felicity mentioned in her piece, borrowers have never had so much access to credit, banks are not the problem john, the assumption that:
1. rates can't go up
2. asset prices can only go up

THAT is the problem.

Any upward pressure on interest rates is due the ALP State Governments' deficits.
The Howard/Costello Government's handsome surplus is the main reason they haven't gone up already:
http://www.treasurer.gov.au/tsr/content/pressreleases/2006/087.asp

So, Admiral von Schneider, Costello is now blaming the states for interest rates?

When rates were going down, Costello was happy to claim the credit. Now they're going up, it's someone else's fault.

Looks like the death of personal responsibility?

What a waste of talent for Felicity to be feeding us such garbage. But then, as one who once knew a family of wealth, I can see the breathtaking hypocrisy and self-entitlement that comes from our upper classes.

Born to rule alright. As for selling herself, well she may get into politics [not much principle there] or get some cushy media job like Bolt, Piers or Janet Albrechtsen.

Let Felicity get her own way. We'll have lots more urban crime from rollbacks of welfare. We will have stacks of gated communities. With our flooding immigration from Asia and rapidly expanding inequality, we will have the extreme disparities of wealth and poverty similar to Bangkok or Manila. Is that what progress means and Felicity's version of personal responsibility means for us. Well my own career prospects will not be altered significantly, they are already somewhat more like them two cities anyway.

Johnj, it's the Reserve Bank pointing the finger, not Costello.

Aime wrote:

"Stickman, I do hope you're not daring to allude to the suggestion that I'm a racist are you?"

Aime, your tortured grammar aside, that was certainly one way in which your post could have been interpreted. Thanks for clarifying that you aren't in fact racist, but merely xenophobic.

I agree with the proposition that the world has enough people and we needn't encourage the creation of any more... but here we seem to diverge. I would have thought that was all the more reason to ENCOURAGE immigration from countries that can't seem to work out how to feed their people rather than discourage it. Shouldn't we be 'sharing the wealth' more than we are right now? There are a lot of children going hungry in the world as you rightly point out, let's try to give them a better life here if we can.