No Nhoj, you have it wrong on a couple of counts and you are repeating
the financial orientated view of the world.
The reason for the tension between Kuwait and Iraq was because Kuwait
was using horizontal drilling into Iraq territory to suck out Iraqi oil.

In the second count you stopped in examining the cause of the GFC too
soon in the depth of the examination.
The crash of the housing market which triggered the financial crash
was the rising oil price which pushed up petrol diesel food production
and food distribution. It was compounded by the diversion of corn into
ethanol production.

The effect of all this was the average commuter driving worker had a choice;
Buy food, buy petrol to get to work, or pay the mortgage.
We all know what he chose.

The silly part is this whole scenario was predicted many years earlier
by Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffreys and many others.

Your opinion is held by a majority of financial orientated people,
but they are demonstratively wrong but it is a situation that
financial people and politicians are not prepared to face.

We are committed to another GFC, probably a few years after 2017 when
tight oil production is expected to start its decline.
Thats the way it is and these cycles will keep repeating until after
one there will be no sign of a recovery EVER !

Dick Dastardly, just watched the trailer and I think the full film is
adjacent. The trailer rings true to everything I have read about
previously. I will watch it later tonight and will comment then.

Great thread DD......and now we have the Trans Pacific Partnership foist upon us. A document that has to be ratified by the government of the participating nations, but the "whole" document is available only to a chosen two or three in each of those government, the vast majority of our elected swill will get a Readers Digest condensed version....there are internet legislations in the TTP free trade agreement.....why?

Actually Soneofgloin, that information is probably a lot more than they
got of the Financial Stability Board.
The FSB has been setup to seize bank deposits if any of our banks get
into financial trouble. It was setup by the IMF and the G20 countries
after a trial in Cyprus in 2012. It was approved by the IMF & G20 and
signed up for Australia by Wayne Swan, at the G20 meeting in St Petersberg in February 2013.

That is the biggest secret in town.

Dear Foxy,

<<I'd better quit and not ramble on.>>

Please don't - all you wrote is true and accurate description of the predicament we are in.

Thankyou everyone for your thoughtful and thought provoking contributions. I'm a little overwhelmed by the diversity of relevant content (not surprisingly, as it was a chore for me to coalesce my own thoughts into at least a semi-cogent presentation of the topic), so please forgive me if I don't address any individual posters.

So though I agree all of you (to varying degrees), I'm going to play Devil's advocate, attempting to outline the magnitude of the forces at play, that we desire to control, but I believe "they" have already put systems in place to counter any change of the status quo. I know this may sound defeatist, but to fight against something, we need to understand what it is that we're fighting, and its strength.

National politics for a small population like Australia can be summed-up most succinctly by the Vogons..."Resistance is futile." :)

Here's one example...BHP...In 1999, a report came out stating that the Australian currency was the strongest that it had been in its history. It was valued at about 52 cents to the USD. I said at the time to friends, "rubbish! It's devalued, and being manipulated externally into a downward motion, as who goes to the Olympics? The average Schmuck can't afford to fly to the other side of the planet to watch a guy run the 100 metres in 9 seconds. It's movers and shakers who can afford that. So you watch, property still available on the Eastern seaboard will be bought, and a business or two will also go."

I was considered alarmist and conspiratorial. A few months after the Sydney Olympics, our dollar hit its all-time low of about 47.8 cents to the USD. Strangely, on THAT SAME DAY, the BHP/Billiton deal was done. Our dollar steadily rose to not only match, but exceed the USD. That means that about 2 years after that deal was done, their investment had more than doubled in value. And the last available properties on the coast, were gone.

There is no political movement in THIS country that can prevent such an occurrence.

TBC.