[alokin]

How about an OZ doom-o-meter?
Doom feels different here. Or you can't feel any doom.
Still employment? Shopping malls still full?

I can't feel too much doom at the moment (unless the doom I get from this forum), but real felt doom, like neighbour laid off, no.

[Micki]

Quite a few colleagues are concerned but few take a doomerish view of the future.
Mainly they are worried about retrenchement and then taking time to find another job.
I still sound like an idiot for suggesting that property prices could have a big drop. At least they now agree it has happened overseas but most seem to think it won't happen here.
There seems to be a disconnect when I suggest that property prices are very much linked to employment and that stats are suggesting increase in unemployment which then should lead to more defaults/foreclosures. At least my wife has stopped nagging about us getting another property. She accepts my view that IF we buy, it will be when the sellers are begging us to buy.

[Crazy_Dad]

Quite a few colleagues are concerned but few take a doomerish view of the future.
Mainly they are worried about retrenchement and then taking time to find another job.
I still sound like an idiot for suggesting that property prices could have a big drop. At least they now agree it has happened overseas but most seem to think it won't happen here.
There seems to be a disconnect when I suggest that property prices are very much linked to employment and that stats are suggesting increase in unemployment which then should lead to more defaults/foreclosures. At least my wife has stopped nagging about us getting another property. She accepts my view that IF we buy, it will be when the sellers are begging us to buy.

To think that Australia is somehow immune to what is going on in the world is just wishful thinking.
The language used by Kevin and Swann suggests that we still have a way to go. I just hope it doesn't end up resembling Mad Max. Yes people will say CD is being alarmist and silly, but does anything actually EVER get done in our democratic system( If it doesn't involve GDP growth)?

I have on my lap a magazine my wife bought from the salvo's for it's Healing with Herbs article just last week.

Magazine: Simply Living, Vol 5, NO.3, 1992. Which incidently shows a story on the Paran from Borneo trying to save their rain forest home. This link shows that nothing has happened to stop the problem in the 17 years(SEVNTEEN YEARS!!!!!!) since.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 897252.stm

So, please tell me our system of corporate greed is working for us and that everything will be ok.

Well done Micki for having the power of free thought. I wish you and yours well.
Forewarned is forearmed after all.

EDIT: Stuff

[alokin]

my doom-o-meter is split up in two parts: one is what I read here and elsewhere it is in the middle of red.
The other part is what I actually see around me, how many people lost their homes, got laid off etc, and this is still in green. The people here are hopelessly optimistic.

What I want with this post to actually measure corner points when things are going bad, like the lay offs at Rio Tinto etc.
One bad sign is that in our area there are three vacant block, two are sold and nobody begins to build there since month.

[kiwichick]

inflows to murray system last 3 years lowest ever

46 % of previous lowest 1943-46

www.mdba.gov au

[Crazy_Dad]

inflows to murray system last 3 years lowest ever

46 % of previous lowest 1943-46

http://www.mdba.gov au

And I would bet the farm that nothing changes in the next 17 years if we continue to operate under capitalism and the current belief that the world will support human greed ad infinite um
I struggle in this Peter Garret world to see how we can change. When even the leaders are turned against the cause, where is the hope?

[SeaGypsy]

I have just got back here after 6 months away, I have to agree with other posters that so far people are not realizing how serious the poo is& that it is going to effect Oz more as time goes on,

I happen to have relocated work away from the desert up to the tropical 'Top End' Arnhem Land. With big wet on the East Coast tropics I expected the N.T top to be nicely damp also. However the big rivers up her got only 1 half flood and look like dry season already, 6 weeks ahead of where they 'normally' are. The top end locals are saying it's the dryest they have ever seen it here.

As usual I feel like a bump on a log with my doomerism here, so I am glad I became a part of this forum while away; at least here I know I can share with a variety of others who generally agree on the key points of P.O reality.

Seems here at 1st glance people in Oz are living in 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' waiting for the 'Inevitable Recovery' touted by the pundits and pollies, I'm tired of pushing it with people, it just ends up with me feeling alienated by their fixed narrow view.

On the positive side the 'Psuedo Bubble' seems to be re-expanding; this may give me time to get much better prepared for the inevitable real crash I know is coming.

[Sixstrings]

I keep hearing bits and pieces about how Australia has been unaffected by the economic crisis. It would be interesting to see some real numbers, though.. what is your unemployment? (shadowstats variety, not rosy government numbers) No decline in your RE market at all? Is the GDP of Oz still growing, or shrinking?

[kiwichick]

unemployment in oz up to 5.7%

consensus was for 5.4%

also house prices in nz drop 9.3% in march biggest monthly drop

[alokin]

Rio Tinto lays a further 700 off.
But supermarket shelves are still full to the brim and
at the checkout mainly students working.

[Micki]

Anyone noticed a lot of Indians around lately? Melbourne seems to have a fair bit of immigration from India the last couple of years. Their numbers seem to be growing faster than say Chinese.
Not that I have anything particular against Indians, but if the market is flooded with people from India willing to accept lower salaries than the locals, then we might start to see some tension once unemployment creeps up anot couple of percent.
(And with the Chinese, there seems to be more coming from mainland China as before it seemed to be mainly from HK, Malaysia, Singapore. That might also put downward presure on salaries.)
What ya think?

[SeaGypsy]

Anyone noticed a lot of Indians around lately? Melbourne seems to have a fair bit of immigration from India the last couple of years. Their numbers seem to be growing faster than say Chinese.
Not that I have anything particular against Indians, but if the market is flooded with people from India willing to accept lower salaries than the locals, then we might start to see some tension once unemployment creeps up anot couple of percent.
(And with the Chinese, there seems to be more coming from mainland China as before it seemed to be mainly from HK, Malaysia, Singapore. That might also put downward presure on salaries.)
What ya think?

Hare Krsna!!!, when I was last at the temple as a monk in Melbourne the Indians were making the temple mega rich; Christians who think tithing is a bit much should check these guys out. 'Less than 50% is stealing from God'. The Sikh are doing nicely too.
The Indians are the least worrisome of Australia's migrants recently; be much more concerned about full tilt traumatised Africans.

[Crazy_Dad]

Anyone noticed a lot of Indians around lately? Melbourne seems to have a fair bit of immigration from India the last couple of years. Their numbers seem to be growing faster than say Chinese.
Not that I have anything particular against Indians, but if the market is flooded with people from India willing to accept lower salaries than the locals, then we might start to see some tension once unemployment creeps up anot couple of percent.
(And with the Chinese, there seems to be more coming from mainland China as before it seemed to be mainly from HK, Malaysia, Singapore. That might also put downward presure on salaries.)
What ya think?

Hare Krsna!!!, when I was last at the temple as a monk in Melbourne the Indians were making the temple mega rich; Christians who think tithing is a bit much should check these guys out. 'Less than 50% is stealing from God'. The Sikh are doing nicely too.
The Indians are the least worrisome of Australia's migrants recently; be much more concerned about full tilt traumatised Africans.

Nothing aginst Africans myself, but are they getting the mental health services that will enable them to integrate. They have been through more than most western minds would cope with. We are all humans so I think we should all live together. But one thing we all have to come to grips with: The politicians will not fix things. Get used to it. Democracy is as broken as any other system.
We have bailed out the banks with public money and the banks refuse to meet interest rate cuts.!.!
The whole world seems broken to me. The rich are still conning us? and we let them? I can't see any sort of recovery whilst every environmental indicator is a hockey stick.Surely the bankers are preparing to board the stark arks with our booty - or their stupidity is only eclipsed by their greed.

[alokin]

Kerbside collection:

this was a busy week end in our suburb, there was kerbside collection. I cannot recall a kerbside collection so busy like this one. Vehicles and vehicles passed, three quarters were people who wanted to make money with the collected items. Some were specialized on fridges, others on metal some took everything. Even big new SUV were seen searching for things.
Neighbours said "oh that is great that so much is recycled", to me, this seemed to me a visible bit of an economic crisis.

[gwmss15]

On the issue of Indians in Melbourne. I took a flight on the daylight service from Singapore to Melbourne on the 15th april 2009. This flight is a through route flight from india and departs singapore at 09.55 each day. This flight had around over 150 indians on it and the flight was full.

On the 27th april 2009 i took the outbound daylight flight to Singapore this is the 10.10 service ex melbourne and it through routes to india on a daily basis. This flight was half empty with not a single Indian onboard.

To me this shows there is a oneway flow of indians to australia with very few ever going back for any reason. So there numbers will rapidly increase in melbourne. The vast majority of the indians are young and either students or low skilled migrants.

There is also a growing local resentment for indians in melbourne with a massive increase is racial attacks on mass transport targeting young indians.

[alokin]

This is not a sign for a downturn, all these Indians. This is a sign that living in Australia is much easier than in India, and these people are missing India and their families.
Our suburb gets more and more Indian, but I like them, at least the women, Indian men are mostly a bit dumb.

I heard a story of a consultancy which worked for Rio Tinto, and they were told to stop all projects at once. What a waist stopping half finished projects!