Economic doom and gloom

[Tammy Manteca]

This is a question for our favourite girls.

With all the reviews of financial disasters around us at the moment I am interested in how it mpfects you girls. Are you noticing any sort of drop off in customers ?, are you finding mp.nets are trying to bargin hunt ? if it is mpfecting your livelyhood, what are you doing to try to stay on top (no pun intended) ?.

Most other businesses are reviewing a downturn in trade and sales etc with a large number of people especially in the building and related trades are loosing there jobs etc. This must take a certain amount of mp.nets dollars away Reviewom luxuries and unfortunatly w/l's are a bit of a luxury. Is your industry suffering a downturn in trade ?.

 

[Milly]

Economic doom and gloom

The worst is yet to cum......next 1 to 2 years.

 

[Sudmeister]

Economic doom and gloom

Called few ladies this weekend, couldn't get same day appointment. I believe their business is still booming.

 

[Smoochy "Heathen"]

Economic doom and gloom

Having lost my job in the recession we had to have in the late 80's I can't help but agree 4fossil. This downturn looks far more serious than then. We can try to spend ourselves out of it, but I'm aReviewaid 10 to 15% of us will find ourselves laid off. Middle management are usually the first to go as top executives struggle to maintain viability for the company and try to save their own arses.

 

[Akash]

Economic doom and gloom

I agree things will get a lot worse before getting better. Having said that though I think that w/l's won't be hit as bad as others as people will need to destress and what better way than some time with a lovely AB lady. :grin:

 

[Pompal 09.]

Economic doom and gloom

I tend to see a few corporate people..and at pillow talk time, we do discuss economics, shares etc.. :shock: ..

The general consensus is the media hype is dramatising the situation, putting fear into the population and secondly, it will sort out the good and the bad. The good will stay ontop (no pun intended) and the bad well..disappear...

In a years time, things will be back on the way up once again.

Personally, I like it ontop :razz:

Tiff

 

[hunny bunny]

Economic doom and gloom

Its by no means as bad as the media are making out - but the real risk is that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. You have the likes of Rudd and Obama using extremely emotive words painting it is an emergency, rather than reassuring people. This is then being used to rush through vast amounts of pork and leftist wish lists without review - and these stimulus packages will then result in government debt that will hinder and drag out any recovery.

We have a great way to go before we hit the levels of the recession we had to have - we aren't even in recession yet - the media love the term around even though its totally inaccurate.

That said there will be a big increase in unemployment - purely because its been so good for so long. Talk to any employer and they have been putting on substandard stmpf for a long time - just to get bodies on board. These will be the first to go.

 

[lilharibo]

Economic doom and gloom

My take on this recession thing is this:

If you don't lose your job you'll not notice any difference if an "official" recession occurs. I'm hopeless when comes to micro or macro economics but it seems to me that if you get heavily into credit card and mortgage debt then lose your job you're in deep shit. You just don't know when the seemingly brilliantly succesful company you work for suddenly has to "downsize" . eg ABC Learning centres. It can happen.

 

[-whateva]

Economic doom and gloom

I tend to see a few corporate people..and at pillow talk time, we do discuss economics, shares etc.. :shock: ..

The general consensus is the media hype is dramatising the situation, putting fear into the population and secondly, it will sort out the good and the bad. The good will stay ontop (no pun intended) and the bad well..disappear...

In a years time, things will be back on the way up once again.

I can only imagine that is the general consensus amongst the economically illiterate.

Not every country enters recession at the same time and with Australia being one of the last countries that will do so, there is a complacency amongst many that this will not be such a big deal.

I suspect that the penny will have dropped for everyone by July, if not sooner.

We will see continual and increasing unemployment in Australia till at least the 2nd half of 2011, and we will once again have a double digit unemployment rate.

mpter Chairman Rudd announced the first lot of handouts in his Santa Claus impersonation, the Govt in November was forecasting unemployment in 2009/10 to reach 5.75%, and for the Budget in 2008/09 to end up with a SURPLUS of $5.4billion.

Then just 3 months later they revised both figures, with the unemployment rate for 2009/10 to now reach 7% and the 2008/09 Budget to be in DEFICIT to the tune of $22.5 billion.

In just 3 months.

When the May Budget is delivered, I am predicting that the unemployment rate for 2009/10 will be revised upwards again, and that this increased estimate will still prove to be below the actual rate that occurs in that timeReviewame.

Federal Govt debt which reached $96 billion dollars at the time of the handover Reviewom Keating to Howard and then was reduced to Nil over the next 5 years, will blow out to at least $250 billion by 2015. It is likely that with the figures the Govt releases to coincide with the May Budget will show a debt trajectory that will reach at least $200 billion, but I think it will be worse than that.

 

[My Bastard Son Has AIDS]

Economic doom and gloom

I agree with the sentiment that it is being underestimated here because it hasnt yet hit. My mothers house value in UK has fallen 20%, and is now in danger of negative equity, her income has fallen 35% because of exchange rates and the collapse of the pound. If you don't think property will fall here, just wait awhile... once it starts we may see panic and a snowball effect. Let's not bury our heads in the sand.

 

[Alfred E]

Economic doom and gloom

I'm a bit with Sonny on this one, although I hope he's being a bit pessimistic. The only upside is that the huge Government handouts could give us a softer landing.
The downside is that interest on the deficit will need to be repaid and that could increase the time it will take to get into full recovery.

 

[sc4bbedwing]

Economic doom and gloom

in just 3 months!

...as if this was something that the current government had control over!! The same thing was happening globally! The financial crisis hit like a runaway train in the US and it's not surprising that prospects changed so quickly here - and are likely to continue to.

God how I wish people would stop going on about how little Johnnie and Saint Peter rescued us all Reviewom the huge debt left to us by the previous Labour government. The reality is that all was set in place by 1996 for a resurgence in the Australian economy, particularly on the back of a resources boom fuelled by overseas factors that had nothing to do with the change in government - particularly the growth in China. Indeed, you could argue that the reforms put in place by Labour - and dare I say it, by that favourite punching bag, Paul Keating, played a large part in this recovery. Any government in power in the late '90s and the first half of the '00s would have overseen a booming economy and a budget surplus. We are now seeing a similar, albeit deeper, problem to the one we experienced in the late '80s and early '90s. I have always been amused by the way the Hawke and Keating Labour gvernment are blamed here in Australia for this economic downturn and our previous budget deficit. I was living in England at the time and regularly visiting the US. In the UK, Thatcher was being blamed for the same thing happening over there and Reagan was being blamed in the US, both conservative governments to the right of Genghis Khan - IT"S A GLOBAL MARKET PLACE!!! WE ARE NOT ALONE!!

Along comes Rudd in 2007 and the prediction of an even bigger surplus....things were looking good in early 2008 and then, WHAM...a worlwide financial crisis triggered primarily by the loans fiasco in the US but also in part as a consequence of the fat, built up in a financial market that for the last two to three decades has been trading in cloud cuckoo land with only a passing reference to reality! ALL world markets have seen big stimulus packages as the only avenue to cushion the fall. The USA are doing it and most European countries are also doing it. We are not alone in this and I am absolutely certain that if the Liberals were still in power they would have done the same - obviously with differences in emphasis. I'm not a fan of the cash handouts as I don't think they will do much at all - but big inReviewastructure spending is where the injection should go. There is some of that but in my view not enough.

Turnbull is playing politics at the moment (as opposition leaders do as they don't have to make real policy decisions - Labour did the same in opposition) and a large part of the media are running with it. The concept that we could have kept the surplus in the current climate is just so much hogwash.

I just wish we could have sensible debates about where the country is likely to be heading and forget the blame game - an impossible dream I know!

 

[tjjwhole]

Economic doom and gloom

in just 3 months!

...as if this was something that the current government had control over!!

I never suggested the current government had any control over the matter, I mentioned the timeReviewame only to highlight just how quickly events overseas are catching up with us.

God how I wish people would stop going on about how little Johnnie and Saint Peter rescued us all Reviewom the huge debt left to us by the previous Labour government.

Well they did. And they did in no small part because they made spending cuts and tax increases that a Keating Govt was unwilling to.

The reality is that all was set in place by 1996 for a resurgence in the Australian economy, particularly on the back of a resources boom fuelled by overseas factors that had nothing to do with the change in government - particularly the growth in China.

The resources boom didn't start till the Debt was paid off.

Indeed, you could argue that the reforms put in place by Labour - and dare I say it, by that favourite punching bag, Paul Keating, played a large part in this recovery.

Absolutely. And btw because you seem to be reading things into my post that aren't there, Paul Keating is my political idol.

Any government in power in the late '90s and the first half of the '00s would have overseen a booming economy and a budget surplus.

Not true. Johnny made significant cuts to Govt expenditure and it wasn't until 2002/2003 that the resources boom made a surplus an easy achievement.

However Johnny's last term was a disgraceful example of profligate spending, the sort of spending that the Libs have traditionally caned Labor for.

We are now seeing a similar, albeit deeper, problem to the one we experienced in the late '80s and early '90s. I have always been amused by the way the Hawke and Keating Labour gvernment are blamed here in Australia for this economic downturn and our previous budget deficit. I was living in England at the time and regularly visiting the US. In the UK, Thatcher was being blamed for the same thing happening over there and Reagan was being blamed in the US, both conservative governments to the right of Genghis Khan - IT"S A GLOBAL MARKET PLACE!!! WE ARE NOT ALONE!!

The recession in Australia in 1991 was deeper than it needed to be because the Govt and Reserve Bank got it wrong on Interest Rates. They kept them too high for too long.

Along comes Rudd in 2007 and the prediction of an even bigger surplus....things were looking good in early 2008 and then, WHAM...a worlwide financial crisis triggered primarily by the loans fiasco in the US but also in part as a consequence of the fat, built up in a financial market that for the last two to three decades has been trading in cloud cuckoo land with only a passing reference to reality! ALL world markets have seen big stimulus packages as the only avenue to cushion the fall. The USA are doing it and most European countries are also doing it. We are not alone in this and I am absolutely certain that if the Liberals were still in power they would have done the same - obviously with differences in emphasis. I'm not a fan of the cash handouts as I don't think they will do much at all - but big inReviewastructure spending is where the injection should go. There is some of that but in my view not enough.

The problem with relying on inReviewastructure spending alone is that the lead time before the projects can get up and running is too long to have the needed short term effect, that is why you also need something upReviewont.

Turnbull is playing politics at the moment (as opposition leaders do as they don't have to make real policy decisions - Labour did the same in opposition) and a large part of the media are running with it. The concept that we could have kept the surplus in the current climate is just so much hogwash.

True.

I just wish we could have sensible debates about where the country is likely to be heading and forget the blame game - an impossible dream I know!

The biggest impediment to this debate being sensible is you reading into my comments things that aren't there.

 

[*w0wZ* [mALiSSa]

Economic doom and gloom

OK, all sensible points I think we probably agree on more than we disagree.

My concern about the cash hand-outs is that they may not go directly into the economy as expected and hoped for. There has been such heavy coverage about how dire things are I suspect that much of it will go to debt reduction and savings (not a bad thing under normal circumstances!) rather than the stimulus spending hoped for. The inReviewastructure spending should actually show good short-term returns, particularly in teh unemployment figures.

In the end...what do I know!!! lol Let's just hope that we all manage to ride through this intact. If you have a secure job, then low interest rates and relatively lower petrol prices (they should be even lower!) can't be that bad!

 

[Todd A]

Economic doom and gloom

Well they did. And they did in no small part because they made spending cuts and tax increases that a Keating Govt was unwilling to.

They did it mainly by selling the 'back paddock and the family silver' with none of it re-invested into sustainable income producing assets for the comming bad times. I reckon the gloss will fade Reviewom the shinning beacon of Howard and Costello when the people finally wake up as to why we have deteriated into such a mess and I am certain for many Australians it will be a mess. We are just seeeing the tip of unemployment now. It will soon be a flood. Many large industries that require long lead times, that have hung on to date hoping for a quick turnaround, are now reacesing their positions Reviewom what I see on a day to day basis. I had a very gloomy briefing Reviewom Westpac recently as to where they see things heading.

Batten down the hatches and wait for the opportunities that will inevitably come in the year/s ahead.