Consumers forgo finer things as slump hits home

"CONSUMERS are already cutting back sharply on their spending and have turned away from high-priced luxury items as fear grows that Australia faces a deep and sustained economic downturn."

The economy needs to be based on primary and secondary industry in slower economic times. People will have less disposable income and will use their income to drive their life. They will cut back on luxury items and service industries will deplete. It'll be interesting because we have a lot of people who haven't experienced tough economic times and they are probably going to look upon it as deprivation. Things will have to be practical and functional and people will start looking for things which will last. That ought to be interesting in today's throw away economy.

Consumers forgo finer things as slump hits home | theage.com.au

S&P/ASX 200 and All Ords surge on decisive Obama win

"AUSTRALIAN shares surged alongside Asian markets today after Barack Obama won the US presidential election."

Woo-hoooo!!! Even the stocks are happy. Way more interesting than yet another old guy.

S&P/ASX 200 and All Ords surge on decisive Obama win | The Australian

Generation Y-worry still unfazed by credit woes

"They are not married, they don't have a mortgage, they don't have children, they're not too worried about their careers & So if they lose their job, that's fine. They'll just hunker down at home, watch the plasma telly and won't worry about the future."

If they are still spending and running up credit ,then eventually they will have to change. They are an ever optimistic age group who not only have had a lot, they have had to change a lot. Some of them have been driven to be high achievers with every waking moment supervised, every thought scrutinised and every idea challenged. Others have been in freefall like the market with no boundaries and no solid foundation. They have done as they have pleased and they have no idea what authority and limits mean. So it is an interesting mix of people and the article looks at quite a number of the issues with Gen Y. Some of them will survive extremely well because they are not fussed by outside influences and they can manipulate all sorts of circumstances and people quite well. Others will hit the wall. They are good at networking and very good at creating productive groups so it will be interesting to see how they manage. Those who have the wisdom of their families behind them will be all right. Those who survive boundary free living will be very inventive. They will change and maybe even bring some innovation to our consumer approach to life.

Generation Y-worry still unfazed by credit woes | theage.com.au

AdelaideNow... Private schools facing slump

 

"It says some public schools have already filled vacancies for next year, with up to 60 per cent of new enrolments coming from private schools."

I am sure the state schools are feeling more than privileged to be considered at all and will embrace the endorsement wholeheartedly.Should make for some interesting times judging by what we have had in the news.

AdelaideNow... Private schools facing slump

Bleak October for local market - ABC News

Bleak October for local market - ABC News

"It has been one of the worst months on record for the Australian share market."

I think we have worked that out. We have all been scrambling trying to work out how to deal with it. The article at least gives a good run down on the state of play. It is so incredibly hard for people with shares to decide the best course of action at the current time and of course, it is based on intestinal fortitude.

Mr. Bush wants us to recommit.

Image via Wikipedia"As we focus on responses to our short-term challenges, our nations must also recommit to the fundamentals of long-term economic growth - free markets, free enterprise and free trade," Mr Bush said.

I don't think so. Judging by the article, no one else thinks so either. We need an international response and the best financial brains in the world to work this lot out. I should like to think we have sufficient brainpower on the planet to haul us out of this but it will take a complete commitment to international co operation to build some solid , global financial foundations so going down the old road is out of the question.

Government Action on Money Matters

Any government at the moment is in an invidious position. It is just not that easy to work out what to do because things are changing rapidly. They are not as they were and so the courses of action are hard to plot without considerable consultation and consideration and , of course,  no one has time at the moment. They just want it fixed. This whole money mess was a long time in the making and so it is not something which is going to be fixed that easily. Rich people in Russia are just plain losing their fortunes and the domino effect of those sub prime mortgages is  starting to be felt around the world. People are worried, they are frantic and they are losing patience at a time where a calm outlook is of the essence. We can contribute to the situation by being ill advised and reacting wildly. Tough money situations call for tough physical constitutions because they can run you right to the edge. It is better to be steady. The Government is not going to be able to solve everything. No government is because a lot of it is to do with how businesses , trade and financial institutions have been structured since Thatcher, really. A long time.Jobs are starting to go, things are starting to pull back and any government has to concern itself with the best options and they are not going to be able to fix it all nor fix anything too quickly and they know they will be blamed. It is important for us to know how we can help and what our best course of action is to help contribute to a safer journey through this crisis. We are still getting plenty of information about what is occurring but nowhere near enough information about how to help and that needs to be coming at us on almost a daily basis at the moment. The one thing I am grateful for is our journalists are getting right onto the immediate issues and getting them  out there and clarified for us so that we can at least think straight and that, I think, is helping us a lot.

Market Mayhem

Just about sums us up , doesn't it? Then there will be an emergency meeting after the US elections So much for emergency. Even that doesn't mean what it used to.. So we are built on a house of cards, poor counsel, lack of boundaries and we have fallen into dysfunction..financially, socially and on the weather front as well. The planet can't keep its act together because we were not operating on reasonable limits. We just kept pushing the envelope...pop...whoosh...weeeeeeee...aaaaah! Some people have worked hard at keeping good values going but they have been pushing against a massive current of deregulation and now in 2008 we are reaping the benefits and facing the consequences. We could think our way out of it now. We could take action but again we are waiting, waiting. It's this waiting and failure to act which has created the confusion and lack of clarity. Maybe people were too conservative and maybe traditions and structures were old hat...Better than this.

Job Losses

We can tread this path of doom and gloom and get sucked into the black hole of poorly managed global finances and the rewards we, as normal citizens, will reap form their hair brained schemes or we can hang onto our hats, our dignity and our self respect and think our way  out of this. It might mean we have to consider others. It might mean we have to share. It might mean we have to co operate as a group. There must be ways of managing this so we are not all pushed to the wall. There must be a way of getting through this so we can all manage. Maybe part time work will help. Maybe changing the work day will help. We need to look at our options. I am not going to put up with the fear fest that is for sure. It serves absolutely no useful purpose.

Up yesterday, down today.

Image by publik18 via Flickr

Stocks are down again. So much for making money yesterday. We are trying to decide whether to have a hard or soft recession, apparently.  The trampoline fiscal management just doesn't work, does it? Da de da de dum..oops. Oh bugga. Down again. Gotta get up.

Boosting Bank Deposits

Image via WikipediaKevin Rudd at least listened to the outcry last week when he was only going to underwrite deposits to 20,000 dollars. That was never going to succeed nor make a difference. To now boost all the bank deposits has made a difference. It is making peole feel safer and it is helping us to stay optimisitic. That Malcolm Turnbull wants to work with the Government in helping stabilise Australia's financial position is good too. We need to be helping each other and we need to be told what we can do to help. We need recommendations and guidelines because we will do it. It has become claear that risky decisions have been made to get quick profit and qucik riches. That approach to finance has blown out world wide and we need to look at the safer options. We have come to realise that global financial stabiltity is very important to everyone. Without it there is mayhem, panic, a lot of personal pain and then a bleak outlook which doesn't help anyone to think their way out of it. Good move.

G20

Image via WikipediaThe G7 meeting went pfft…bit like Chrome really. All expectation and then pffffft. Still, they are politicians and we shouldn’t really be expecting them to solve the global financial situation. I dare say a bit of wheeler dealing went on, you know, the sort of stuff we aren’t privy to, but past that point nothing real came out of that meeting. The G20 may be more productive but it doesn’t look that way because we already know the financial crisis has to be solved globally. It has to be solved by people talking to each other. We also know we need bona fide, well credentialed, well experienced experts on the job . There will not be a quick fix now because this has probably been developing since Reagan and Thatcher went big on privatisation. It was then that deregulation became popular and even though there was encouragement to be creative financially and economically, we have learned that that kind of inspiration isn’t always in the common good. So there have been no checks and balances. It has been a case of whatever goes. We are discovering we need those checks and balances. We cannot just let the market run free and unfettered. We’ll have to round up some of the riskier practices and we’ll have to have a team of really cluey people onboard to get this lot sorted out. Shall we look upon it as a challenge?

Market down again

The shares keep tumbling, the market is in freefall, the newspapers are having a ball....hang on to your hats, breathe in , breathe out, think calming thoughts and get the sensible information. Now we need to decide if our banks need bailing out. Everyone else seems to be doing it.

Financial Crisis

Image via Wikipedia

AdelaideNow... Shares rebound on bail-out hopes

Leaders of the US Senate yesterday said they were scheduling a vote to be held last night on a revised financial system rescue package and if this was passed, it would raise pressure on the US Congress to also pass the plan, possibly tomorrow.

Our money situation just didn't happen just like that. It's important to respond and not react. It's going up, down and all over the place. The great outcome of this is that people are pooling their thinking resources and some really interesting views and explanations are being heard. Radio stations and the Net are coming into their own as they share news and views very quickly and effectively. We are really very fortunate to have an ageing population because they have a wealth of knowledge and experience on which to base some interpretations of this market. Then we have some real whizz kids out there who understand how the new terms and ideas work and can interpret that for us. The big plus of this situation is there is no generation gap. The ages are working together to bring some sense and sanity into all of this. Firstly it brings us information. Secondly it is bringing us strategies and thirdly it is getting so many people to think better about all of this. The whole world is online and we are able to share our views , knowledge and experience. We are able to get information quickly and then there are people who are showing us what to do with that information. Money crises are not a bit fun and people are tearing their hair out. We just need to have confidence in our connectivity so that international experts can help us sort through this in a more comfortable way.It really is a challenge and it's a test of whether we actually have sufficient knowledge and know how to competently steer the global markets!