Foxy,
Obviously contracts that have already been signed have to be
honoured.

I am reading Jeff Rubin's book "Your World is About to get a Whole Lot
Smaller". We was chief economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
and it appears was one of the top economists in Canada.

He compares, in the chapter I have just read, two economic bubbles
and financial crashes and how they were handled.
Japan's crash which led to their lost decade and Argentina.
Japan did not go down the stimulus route and Argentina did.
Japan had low growth for a decade and Argentina has had years of
falling services and debt.

Jeff Rubin maintains that Japan came out better and that I believe
that as we are going into an extended period of low growth or no
growth we would have been far better off emulating Japan's method of
handling the crisis.

Now we are stuck with it and risk being dragged down by the US and
European countries. There is no way we can avoid it now because the
stimulus funds were borrowed from overseas and have to be repaid from
a low growth economy and the growth is unlikely to be big enough to
pay the interest.

We will be in a low growth to contraction economy from about now to
about 2015 when energy depletion will set in and we will then have
no hope of paying our debts and will see major contraction of
services, and probably pensions etc. There will not be any school
halls being built either.

I believe this will all happen no matter what party is in power, as
neither of them over the last ten years were prepared to listen.
I suggest you read the Hirsch report and you will see why it is now
to late.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/oil_peaking_NETL.pdf

Cheers

$65,461,585,948.00 and counting

Dear Bazz,

It seems to me that you totally believe Senator
Joyce's claims that Australia is, " the Greece
of the Pacific; the Argentina of the Antipodes;
the Iceland of the south..." a country with a
government so profligate and a public debt so
huge that it's in imminent of danger of default.

All this doesn't make sense when international
financial experts like Brendan Flynn, who analyses
Sovereign risk for Standard and Poor's gives the
Federal Government the highest triple-A credit
rating.

You only get a triple-A rating when you've got
an extremely strong ability to meet financial
obligations and very little chance of defaulting on
debt.

According to the experts we have an excellent
debt-to-GDP position which is the envy of the
industrialised world and international investors
see Australia as an excellent credit risk.

But hey, you go on believing whatever you want.
Time will tell - who's right.

As Peter Costello's former Press Secretary suggested -
Mr Abbott needs to place Senator Joyce on Ritalin
to take him down a peg or two - or sack him as the
Shadow Finance Minister.

Mr Abbott has admitted that his Minister would need
correcting, "from time to time."
He can add Senator Joyce's claims that Australia
is at risk of defaulting on its national debt
to the list.

Bazz,

If that debt is really true, why doesn't the Coalition drive a debt truck around town that emulates the website you showed us? With big red LCDs that whiz through the numbers.

It'd be interesting to see the reaction to it if nothing else.

Actually Foxy you point up exactly what is the problem.
Foxy said;
>You only get a triple-A rating when you've got
>an extremely strong ability to meet financial obligations

You can hear that attitude in financial circles every day.
We know that Standard and Poors failed in their duty to warn of
the poor nature of the financial instruments being flogged around the
world. Local government councils in Australia bought the mortgage
investments that had AAA ratings. Yet they lost most if not all their
investments, so please don't take too much notice of Standard & Poors.

My son is in the financial business and I asked him why are financial
advisors, investment companies and indeed the whole financial field
continuing to advise investment instruments that assume recovery
and business as usual ?
His answer was enlightening.

If they tried to structure their business around energy depletion in
the next decade or even sooner and considering a zero growth regime
they would not get many subscriptions and the projected returns
would be so low as to be unprofitable.

They are faced with telling it as it is and going out of business now !
As my son said, "What can we do except hang on and hope".

Some financial people are like the politicians, they just don't want
to know and tell the public how it is until it cannot be avoided.

Following this discussion I have put my money where my mouth is and
I am moving into fixed deposits while I think about it.
The latter part of the year is where we might get an indication as I
note Alan Kohler on ABC has been dropping hints about that.

Dear Bazz,

Your son has proven my point.

Criticizing and undermining our government -
scaring off investors - would be detrimental
to our economy.

Senator Joyce needs to take heed - as does
the Opposition.

Things could get much worse.

Bazz the stimulus was/is extreme, but not new whole financial plans involving such government interventions are to be found in our history.
Both sides used them and continue to do so.
Your doom and gloom, may well be right, but because the mess is not yet over.
Do you understand our total debt if compared with Americas is crumbs?
Or England's
Ice lands, Greece, a host of country's.
And have you doubts if in power in 2008/9 conservatives here would have, like every western world country, spent money we did not have.
Let us not mix up the true remaining western debt problem with this country's position.
To compare our country with any south American one is at best uncharitable.
The subject of this thread is Barnaby Joyce.
either a fool or a man who lies repeatedly to bring about unfounded fear.
Both in my opinion.
And not even close to having the skills his job demands, then again it appears Abbott got what he asked for.
fear and a shadow of Joe the flying foolish peanut.
Your task Bazz is to find a reason other than truth to cover Abbott dumping our Barny pre election, he will do so.