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This is Why Australia Hasn't Had a Recession in Over 25 Years (bloomberg.com)
Australia is close to seizing the global crown for the longest streak of economic growth thanks to a mixture of policy guile and outrageous fortune. From a report: While growth is being underpinned by population gains and resource exports to China, failure to spur productivity has meant stagnant living standards and electoral discontent; a property bubble fueled by record-low interest rates has driven household debt to levels that threaten financial stability; and a timid government facing political gridlock could lose the nation's prized AAA rating as early as May because of spiraling budget deficits. Australia's last recession -- defined locally as two straight quarters of contraction -- occurred in 1991 and was a devastating conclusion to eight years of reform designed to create an open, flexible and competitive economy. But it also proved cathartic, paving the way for a low-inflation, productivity-driven expansion. As momentum started waning, China's re-emergence as a pre-eminent global economic power sent demand for Australian resources skyrocketing, helping shield the nation from the worst of the global financial crisis. But the post-crisis return of the boom proved ephemeral, failing to boost government coffers and pushing the local currency higher, eroding competitiveness and driving another nail into the coffin of a fading manufacturing sector.
There's rather a disjunction between the rah-horray headline and the text, which seems to be about how Australian economy is heading for a major bust. "Failure to spur productivity has meant stagnant living standards and electoral discontent; a property bubble fueled by record-low interest rates has driven household debt to levels that threaten financial stability; and a timid government facing political gridlock could lose the nation’s prized AAA rating as early as May because of spiraling budget deficits."
The answer to the question posed in the title seems to be "because Australia is close to China, so when the rest of the world economy hit a depression, the Australian economy was buoyed up by the Chinese money."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Complete right wing rubbish, the reason we got thru the GFC without recession was the governments prompt stimulus actions at the time.
The housing bubble is not due to supply, there are many vacant investor properties, it is the ridiculous negative gearing tax dodge that is fuelling the housing price problems.
It was our first house, and my partner was a lot more risk adverse than me. She insisted we be prepared for one of us being out of work and interest rates doubling. Both happened. I changed careers to IT and it took me nearly 2 years to get work, while interest rates went from 9% to 18% in a matter of months.
We managed to pay the mortgage and keep the house, but it was not a fun time.
To know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom. --Scooby Doo
I've posted this maybe dozens of times across the internet, I'm tired of shouting it and I'm tired of making lengthy posts with links and evidence.
The country is selling all it's gas, minerals at rock bottom prices to anyone and everyone for a start. In a huge massive way. The mining boom is finally slowing down significantly, at least so I hear.
We are also pretty lax with stopping people buying property. There's arguments why shouldn't we stop them, but seriously, I'm sick of debating it. If you can't see how someone vastly wealthier than the common local, bidding for houses isn't going to mess up the cost for the locals,..... well I don't know what to say. There's a reason Thailand, Indonesia, other smaller second class countries don't let foreigners buy.
We're getting 'Vancouvered'. It ain't about race, it's about economics and the locals (who don't own yet, you know, a LOT of people) are getting destroyed, totally by this.
That's the facts, it's as simple as that. Furthermore, as long as the Chinese can still buy property (and they do it legally and illegally) then I suspect the 'crash' which I've hoped for, for a decade, simply won't come. They'll just see a cheaper place to store their money they want to hide from China.
We're boned. Best benefit to all this would be a property developer in the last 20 years. Rest of us? Well I've held off using expletives but to say I'm white hot raging angry would be an understatement. @$#%^ our governments.
Most countries went into debt to deal with the US triggered recession, only America was/is in a position to fire up the printing presses to print trillions of dollars without massive inflation, and also to borrow even more trillions. America could easily pay back its debt and/or spend on infrastructure if they didn't stupidly cut taxes regularly. And why should other countries pay for Americas stupidity in deregulating their banks? My countries banks were regulated well enough that they didn't cause the banking crisis and according to the above posts, same with Australia's.
It's up to America to fix their problem of not being able to manage their money/economy. The trick is to save when things are going good instead of slacking off, but the rest of the world notices that you've once again elected the money/economy miss managers whose plan to pay off the debt is to increase military spending along with infrastructure spending and cut taxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The banks failed due to writing mortgages which they knew were bad.
They did not "know" the mortgages were bad. Only the shorties knew that. If the banks had "known" the mortgages were bad, they wouldn't have needed a bailout. The banks (along with everyone else) "knew" that the mortgages would be fine as long as property prices continued to climb ... and everyone "knew" that the housing market never went down.
The bankers were not as smart as you think they were.
Most of what you wrote is complete and utter bullshit. The majority of the bad loans weren't even written by banks, they were written by loan companies which were under no obligations to provide loans to anyone for any reason. You blame the government, but the banks would have done it anyway in the quest for profits. Sub-prime loans were extremely profitable, and as long as the housing market continued to rise, they were almost risk free because whoever owned the loan could foreclose on the house which would be worth more than the loan on it. The shady side of the subprime loan industry was the belief that even if they offered loans to people who likely couldn't pay, the lender could take their money until they couldn't pay any more and then steal the house for resale (and a quick profit) when they failed to make payments.
The government didn't have to force them to do anything, they hung themselves with short-sighted greed.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Oh please, spare us your xenophobia.
If I said the population of Africa is mostly black is that xenophobia? No? Then why is pointing out the simple fact that there is an incredibly large institutional investment from Chinese non-residents of Australia in the country?
I mean every major skyrise construction is bought out mostly by Chinese non-residents. Whole suburbs in major cities have been bought and build by Chinese non-residents. The two largest cattle companies in Australia have been bought out by Chinese consortium. The largest property in Australia (the size of Israel) was bought by a Chinese consortium. And let's not forget the all their investment in our dairy industry, coal industry, telecoms, ... they'd own it all if it weren't for the fact that the government keeps coming up with new laws limiting foreign ownership (and good-on-em as well).
I wonder why people were concerned about the Japanese and not the English.
You may wonder, but you don't know despite what you claim. There's a big difference between having foreign ownership from a country who is a close ally, has strong political ties, similar financial systems, and works on the same principles as yourself, vs a country who you will quite likely be at war with again within the century, who you have strained political relations with, and who you accuse of and constantly take to the various trade organisations of deceptively rigging their financial and trading systems. China is economically hostile, just as Japan was in the 80s.
The fact that you put this down to xenophobia is just an amazing display of ignorance.