Dear BD,

You'd know all about 'empty rhetoric.' ...

However as always you just don't get it .

The Government approved a plan yesterday that will make it easier to switch direct payments to a new account. The plan is designed to be a tough stance against the banks in the wake of increases in rates that are unrelated to official rises.

You said that there's "not a lot of dollars and cents' in this government initiative?

Exit fees on mortgages charged by the main banks start at $700 with
some banks charging a percentage of the outstanding loan - which could be thousands of dollars. So yes - it's more than just a few
'dollars and cents.'

And by the way, the Australian Consumer's Association welcomed the Government's initiatives. "We've been saying for years banks needed to do something about this."

You're a doer not a whinger?

"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And Boazy's a doer who can never do wrong,
And I am Marie of Rumania!"

Yabby I agree with much of what you've said in regards some of our inefficient business/govt ways.The cost of energy however is a special case.We could deliver natural gas for half the price and still give the gas companies a profit.Most of it goes overseas and that is where the real profits ly.

The Howard Govt through work choices saw the reality.If we continue to lower tarrifs we must also continue to lower wages/salaries to keep industry here.This is why Kevin Rudd is not dismantling Work choices in a hurry,since he knows that local industry will close down,if it goes.The philosophy of free trade and lowering tarrifs was that eventually poor countries will meet our living standards is a fallacy.There re too many people and there is not enough energy to supply their needs.Of the 1,300 million Chinese only 400 million are presently involved in their industrial growth.In the next few yrs the price of energy and food will escalate and we will be a lot poorer.It does not have to be so!

If we make local energy cheaper than our competitors,then we have a manufacturing advantage and can export more.We also can have much higher living standards as they do in places like Dubai.

Globalisation is for the multi-nationals who want to capitalise the profits and socialise the losses.I don't think it is a good concept in it's present form.Too much power and wealth is too few hands.This is what caused wars and revolutions in the past.

But Arjay, Govts are not in the energy business, companies are.
Yes, there is NW gas coming south for Perth industry, at a lower
cost. The same applies to companies that have set up in the NW,
tapping into that gas. But its not up to Govt commit to
30 year gas contracts and build billion $ unloading terminals
in the East, private enterprise has to do that. If Aussie
companies won't do it, ok, so the gas goes elsewhere.

Australian industry can't compete, based on low wages, just
as Swiss, German, Swedish etc industries can't compete either.
So there have to be other factors. Go to Dubai, Shanghai,
Singapore etc, European luxury goods are selling like hotcakes!
Rich people like prestige goods, its a huge market, thats
just one. Swiss industry, like German industry, makes alot
of niche products, where price is not the driving factor,
as it is with cheap consumer goods. I remind you that the
biggest beneficiaries of cheap consumer goods from overseas,
are in fact the poor. If their clothing was all locally
made, how could they afford the clothes?

There is nothing stopping Eastern States industry from building
a gas pipeline across Australia, tapping into the NW shelf.
Its for your industries to do it, not for Govt to do it.
That makes far more sense then cooling the stuff down to
-160degC, shipping it is not cheap.

The biggest beneficiaries of globalisation are consumers, that includes all of us. You can go to Bunnings and buy a drill for
30$, for instance. If it was locally made, it would cost you
at least 200$. Your standard of living would go right down
with tariffs. Besides, where are all these unemployed people
that you are concerned about?

Dear Foxy one...

"empty rhetoric"... me? :) I can stand that little barb... because I'm sure there are times when I woffle a bit..but "I CAN DO NO WRONG"...

eeeeeeooooouuuuch! that hurts.. now where did you get 'THAT' idea from ?

Just because I criticize different views, and state the Biblical position on such things as homosexual behavior..... have you ever heard or read my saying "Unlike myself who am pure and without blemish or spot" ?

You stagger me mate... but saying I consider myself some kind of "holier than thou" is a tad over the top.

<<Eph 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.>>

Standing for principle.. and advocating a value system based ON...Gods holiness is quite different to saying "and here I am..the abiding example of all that I'm saying"

Chill a bit k. "Issues..not people"

Regarding Exit rates.. aah.. now we are getting to the meat of it.

I heard not a syllable about WE WILL LEGISLATE such that exit fees cannot exceed such and such an amount..I DID hear a lot about "making information available to consumers....ABOUT them"

duh... if consumers take out a loan not knowing what the exit fees are, then I'll feed them to Pelican and Yabby .. dum dums.

"Knowing" about them doesn't change them.

So, the government approved a "PLAN" did they ? hmmmm lets see if its more than just 'recommendations'? Did they LEGISLATE ?
"who's plan"?
"backed up by law"?
"Enforcable"?

mannnnny unanswered questions.

Yabby,back in 1980 I came back from OS with nothing.Within 12mths my wife and myself had saved $20,000.00 which was more than 25% for a deposit on a house at Epping.We paid $76,000.00 for a run down house.We were both working for the Dept of Education on base salaries.Who these days can save even 5% for a house with two parteners working in 12 mths?

We have a far greater GDP per head of pop now, but financially we are far worse off.The answer is that we have become slaves to big business and wasteful Govt.Globalisation enslaves most of us who are not at the top of the food chain.

Maybe I'm too cynical Boaz, but I'm still waiting for the second shoe to drop.

A rambling grizzle about a perfectly unexceptional statement by a government looking to establish some ground rules on what it expects from the banking system. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Where, I keep asking myself, is the catch? Where is the tortuously contrived link with the evils of Islam? Where are your interminable and incomprehensible biblical quotes?

The Banking system, whether you like it or not, is a deceitful oligopoly that has set out, over many years, to establish a foolproof method of guaranteeing itself perpetual profits. This was in response to a scare in the early nineties when their collective lack of management nous nearly ruined the lot of them.

Now they have evolved a process where they have every angle covered, they'll get you via interest rates, or they'll get you via fees and charges. But most importantly, they all do it - there is absolutely no competition for your business between the banks.

And please, don't kid yourself.

>>You know..the ONLY thing which would be hurt by having a peoples bank is the PROFIT margins of the big commercial ones.. and that.. has pretty much ZIPPO effect on me.. I don't have any of their sullied shares.<<

Do you have superannuation? Are you absolutely certain that your fund has no shares in the Australian Banking system?

Because most do. After all, banks make over $20billion in (guaranteed) profit every year.

Dismantling the stranglehold the Banks have over your and my wallet is not going to be easy, even if it is in the end a sensible objective. Perhaps it would be easier to stomach if you think of it as an - admittedly inefficient - means of enforced savings. The banks pocket your cash, but it comes back in the form of a nice fat super fund.

But here's a thought. Perhaps you'd prefer Sharia Banks?