WILL THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT BECOME THE BEAST ?

AND WILL PERTH MINT BECOME THEIR FEAST ?


Consider this - Western Australia's deficit has blown out to a massive $3.1 billion and the government has imposed a six-month public service recruitment freeze to cut costs.


Staggering State debt was forecast to blow out to a record $39 billion by 2018-19, up from the $36 billion forecast in May.


With the Perth Mint depository being the only Government guaranteed program in the world with approximately 21,000 customers and approximately 2.7 Billion worth of bullion in storage.

With new bail in laws introduced and rising pressure to pay debt, the Perth Mint and other assets have to be in the Governments sights. It's inevitable that a Jeff Kennett style purge to haul in State deficits and raise credit ratings is their only option. Governments will be reluctant to bail in on public deposits to avoid public outrage and opinion polls. The softer touch is to target Government assets. With the mining boom all but over and revenue down, W.A residents will be in for some financial scalping in future years. It may well be the shoe is on the other foot. Rather the State Government having to guarantee The Perth Mint. The Perth Mint may have to bail out the people and the Government of Western Australia.

 

silversearcher with what ! From last years PM report and Brons postings over 90% of the working inventory is owned by the Unallocated bullion accounts. My understanding is that most of those account holders are overseas investors. Does the Perth government want to defraud these investors and bankrupt the PM by this confiscation? I doubt it. I thought the state government guarantees the PM not the other way round ?

Anyway I think they will come after you in taxes, land tax, stamp duties, power and water increases, draconian traffic fines, just to mention a few. Far easier to justify and after all it's to support our "Australian way of life"! With regard the mint - they may just sell it to a private company? Who knows what desperate animals do when they are cornered.

 

Anyone owning a home is a sitting duck. What are you going to do? Abandon your family home or give in to the extortion?

 

They are already sending letters out warning of much higher water and power fees. Of course it's the drought and global warming at fault. Nothing to do with their decaying infrastructure. I can't tell you how many water mains have burst over the past year that have resulted in massive water loss. The one in South Perth lost enough water to fill Darling Harbour. But as they are now building monuments to Colin, like new sports stadium, railway lines that will operate only once a week, entertainment centres and big holes the the river bed, there is no money for infrastructure, power or water supplies. Yes much more in taxes awaits us all.

 

Same as Jeff Kennett. The process has already started. First no recruits for public service. Then mass sackings of public servants. Thousands of public servants jobs will then be tendered. Then Public assets sold. A Government Mint can be sold off ( Probably the best thing to happen in my opinion ). Perth Mint states figures of 21,000 customers and 2.7 billion in precious metals holdings on Youtube ( Not me )...That's the perfect eye candy for any private consortium. I'm with you on their Unallocated bullion / certificate program. But Perth Mint is more than that. They do sell Gold in the tonnes to bullion banks. Where all that Gold and silver will come from in the future is another topic. But who needs real precious metals even if you can't get ! Just buy some paper and print it ! Perth Mint are pushing harder each year to pump certificates, derivatives and unallocated. Soon PM representatives will be holding paper instead of the real deal in their vids also....

 

I doubt private housing will. As most people have mortgages, and Governments never confiscate off banks as most land titles belong to the banks. Public housing is on the cards. Public housing often sold off.

 

Depending how bad it gets and thus how good the gold markets gets, yes the Mint may end up a huge cash cow. Only problem is that the govt takes too much of our cash flow so we can't reinvest in expanding capacity to make more profit - long term thinking unfortunately is not how they work.

 

What you described happened Victoria. Under Kennett and years of it... It gets a lot worse when they do the sell offs and mass sackings of public servants. And yes taxes will explode.

 

Bron I think some of us know how bad it's going to get. Look at the debt position of the WA government which was accumulated in good times. The bad times have just begun. What will it be in 2-3 years. Business is shutting down: been to West Perth recently or to Industrial areas like Malaga or Welshpool? Every block has space for sale or rent. Buildings everywhere are vacant. Brand new buildings pop up and then stand vacant. The tax loss must be horrendous yet I don't see any govenment buerocrats losing their jobs. Red tape is also blowing out. In one organisation I know red tape used to cost $15,000 per year in 1999. Today it is nearly $280,000 per annum. Bron I have lived through this before and I know it well and further I know how it ends. I agree with you completely that government thinking especially long term thought processes are like hens teeth, vanishingly rare.

 

You will end up like South Australia, we have very high stamp duty on houses, amazingly high parking and traffic fines and I believe the highest electric prices in Australia. Not to mention pokies (read lots of tax dollars) in every pub and cuts to just about every state provided service.... Ah SA you will not be alone for long WA is heading down to join us!

 

But, the miners will continue to provide everything you need, won't they?

 

Privatisation of the Mint has been raised before over here by media and rejected by the Premier. The problem is that the Mint is more valuable to the govt in its hands than the lump sum it may get because some part of its profits are based on the govt guarantee, which is something a private owner will not have. For example, the Federal govt will not allow a privately run mint to issue Australian legal tender coins and you can be sure that RAM will then pick up the bullion coin programs, so that is a big chunk of profit gone. There is also the question of how many clients would pull out of the Mint's depository when it lost its govt guarantee, more profit gone.

To put this in terms of simplistic and theoretical numbers for sake of example, say PM makes $50m profit and someone would pay ten times earnings. So for the govt they would want $500m for the PM (which is bugger all considering govt debt is $39,000m) but a private operator may say that the loss of the govt guarantee means they could only make $30m profit out of the PM, so it only makes sense for them to pay $300m. From the govt point of view $300m is only 6 years worth of PM's profits - they would be better of keeping it, particularly as ratings agencies would run those numbers and probably downgrade the govt credit rating because of the loss of ongoing revenue from the PM. And anyway, even in some fanciful scenario where PM was to somehow make $100m and someone would pay 10 times, that is only $1b which would not make much of a dent in $39b debt or the ONGOING yearly $3b deficit (whereas the sale money is only a one off).

Yes govts can be stupid, but these sorts of calculations mean that privatisation is less than certain.

 

Will the paper develop milk-spots, as well?

 

Maybe WA should get its rightful share of the GST/

Qld is also going to feel the pinch of the mining downturn.

VIC & SA are in for the same when the car industry closes.

Australians tighten your belts, thats what will happen and then austerity hits . Result financial crisis.

I am sure that the red and blue teams will have the answer.

My answer is simple, cut the F35 PURCHASE, bring in the NDIS OVER 10YEARS AND TAX THE CORPORATIONS/CHURCHES.

REGARDS ERROL 43

 

Sounds like a plan.

 

Absolve all state governments and let the regions control their own pastures. GST to go to private enterprise to build the hospitals/schools/roads etc

 

my father always told me to save in the good times so you can get through the lean times. WA comes out of the biggest 'good time' $39 billion in debt!!!!!

if you have no money after a good time you certainly won't have any in a bad time.

 

That's the story of Australia in recent decades. You simply can't trust governments, both state and federal, with large amounts of money.

 

Good thread. The questions are fanciful, the answers are hypothetical, but the problems are real. The only sensible course of action is your own. Build your stack with a paper trail whilst still staying under the grid. One day GST is sure to kick in. If you have either allocated or unallocated, you will pay 15% GST to redeem it regardless of purchase time.

 

A paper trail works when the government is fair. A paper trail also leads a govenment straight to your door when things go bad. We may be able to trust the government today, but can you say that will always be the case?