Recent content by plusnq

Goodbye. And thanks for all the fish. Cheers Shane

Yep. And they still don't pay their rent.

Now thats an oxymoron!

All workers have the same rights as everyone else. The right to work hard, study and improve their lot in life. There are far too many examples of people who started with nothing, who through hard effort and self improvement made their lives a lot better. Delayed gratification and self sacrifice...

Economists and Meteorologists. Fabulous jobs if you can get one!

Yep. Its the currency wars race to the bottom. Problem is if we have a high interest rate differential then we will have funds flowing into the AUD. I wouldn't like to be Glenn Stevens trying to balance on the edge of the knife.

Yep. All forms of insurance are only good if all the parties can meet their obligations. Derivatives, CDO's and other synthetic products are all supposed to help minimise risk. The problem lies in the assumption that only one or two parties to the transaction will get in trouble and need to pay...

We have been in a long period of deflation due to technological advances. The costs of production have dramatically decreased and will continue to do so with the advent of 3D printing, lower energy costs and information being free. It will have a dramatic effect on employment and quality of...

I'd agree with this

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_gearing_(Australia) The view that the temporary removal of negative gearing caused rents to rise has been challenged by Saul Eslake, who has been quoted as saying, "It's true, according to Real Estate Institute data, that rents went up in Sydney...

I agree with you and it applies to most government statistics. It's the reason sites like shadowstats exist. Long term trend stats are skewed by changes in the calculation method and make comparisons difficult. A lot of the statistical methodology is regularly reviewed by organisations such as...

Well now we know your choices. :) It's always foolish to assume that everyone's needs or choices will be the same.

Quality of life is a totally personal set of choices and by no means any form of indicator. What may be an important factor in quality of life for one person, may be totally irrelevant to another. I always laugh at the "best cities to live " surveys as the criteria is so personal to the authors.

Not sure that fractional reserve banking has been around for millenia. Centuries yes, but not millenia. Notes were exchanged for real money and gold in the early 1600's in Amsterdam from memory. Could be wrong though. The problem with seeing a crisis coming is understanding its timing and...

The argument was for peak oil of light sweet crude, no all oil. And LSC is in production decline, but as you say alternative options become available as the price rose. I feel that smart countries will use this time to ensure their energy security by whatever means they have available (invading...