http://www.safehaven.com/article/19516/australia-heads-for-economic-crunch by Mike Shedlock Mommy why did the tide go out?
Nothing new I'm afraid. Too many indicators already and floods and locusts won't help the situation. Time to budget tightly and get out of debt while you can.
End times are on us. Both my parents are christians, and that is what they are saying. As a christian, how do you survive?
Christians love the concept of end times and destruction. So do the other Desert God religions. And they are trying to bring it on. There are no "End Times" as such other than that they the religious fundamentalists are trying to create. The sane people of the world can create a healthy ongoing civilisation, we have the technology and skills. We just need the religious fundamentalists from the 3 religions that worship the Monster In The Sky to stop being such losers.
Bring it on. Only then will the excessively wasteful (and expensive) lifestyles we enjoy (?) be curbed, with more people growing their own stuff and looking at being more self-sufficient and less likely to take the car a few hundred metres to the local shops - because costs are too high to continue to do it. I'd love to see 99% of convenience foods in the supermarkets disappear for lack of sales, replaced with true value bulk items and a more DIY approach to food-making. I'd love to see more people care about turning the light off and being more conscious of their electricity, gas and water use. Now we are far too likely to be coerced into buying the latest destined-for-landfill crap (on credit) and the average person is in a state of 'numb' regarding their wasteful habits. Things like this slowly make people wake up and re-examine themselves, so I see the positive side.
With you there BBQ. People will only stop wasting and destroying other coming generations resources when they are forced too.
I can't believe my financial advisor friend STILL bullish on Real Estate! This guy sits down with Financial Review and a cup of coffee every morning! Go figure...
What i have seen and learnt over the years as my time on the land. Farm prices have gone up a hell of a lot. Cost of farming has gone up hell of a lot. The laws for farmers have gone up hell of a lot. All i see that will happen is the farm prices will come down in the next 5-10 years. Due to the fact the average farmer is ready to retire and has no sons or daughters that wish to take on the farm. Can not blame them either they have seen their parents struggle for so long while they were out making a better lifestyle in the towns and cities. This in turn will make it easier for a Company like Wooly's to come in and buy more into the market. Keeping prices down for the meantime so that the family farm can not make a buck and be forced to either sell to Wooly's or overseas investors. Back in the hey days of farming you could put one dollar into the farm and receive back ten. But know the farmers are putting in between 6-9 dollars to receive 10. I only learnt of this a few years ago and it had me puzzled for a while why it has gone this way. A farm was just like a BANK, only needing 10% to make 100%. It's know wonder that the banks where so easy on farmers for finance in the early days. But as we all know to well each year is different from any other for a farmer but not for the bankers
So true..I am looking to buy rural land but prices are so out of kilter with the risk one takes being on the land. From what I saw, there are heaps of farmers at retiring age yet their children have no hope to buy them out let alone given the land to make a living from. They seem to have had more than the average sized family. How do you split the farm? How do you survive on the pension if you give the farm away? From what I can tell lots are into cattle and sheep. They pay farm managers or outsource/buy what they need. There's a lot of good tax incentives but still not enough to pay the interest off the land once expenses and taxes have been taken care of. Australia is the land of poor productivity and natural disasters. Very risky to be a farmer. Something has to give. I am a firm believer in a strong small farming industry because it gives us variety that the big wigs can't give us. I also believe we need the big farms too just because we simply need mass production to feed an exponentially growing human family. The cost is that these big players destroy food biodiversity thus food security. A big fail. If any
Jonesy, Read ChunkyPM's post again to see the result of the 'sane civilized people', and how the technology and skills have been used. When the $ drives everything, it will corrupt everything.
Rural land is definitly over priced at the moment. I own a farm and the return on capital is very low, even compared to residential property. However I don't see prices for farm land falling much. They have had a correction due to the GFC but are still overpriced in terms of what they return. With more and more people to feed and less and less agricultural land I think we'll see commodity prices rise to a level that makes the yeild on rural land more attractive. In fact we are already starting to see this happen. Sheep, cattle and lambs are red hot. Wool has improved greatly and will improve more. I haven't worked out the figure but returns on my sheep property have increased considerably over the last couple of years. Combine a rise in commodity prices with the end of the drought (touch wood) and things are looking a lot more positive than they were. C
Contrarian? Nope, I'm what you'd call a contrarian. He is NOT a contrarian, if he is bullish on real estate. He's like the rest of the ignoramus in the herd. While I'm extremely bullish on metals in the long term (ie, 2 to 5 years), I'm quite bearish on metals in the intermediate term (1 to 2 years). That would make me a contrarian in that regard. You honestly cannot find a single soul that is not bullish on metals, and as a contrarian that provides a healthy warning sign that we're seeing an impending intermediate term top, which will be followed by a cool down cycle. Remember, the same thing happened with oil, and in 1H 2008 it was very hard to find a single bearish investor on oil prices - they were extremely rare - THEN oil plummeted to <$40/barrel. Again, today bearish investors are extremely rare. That means we're close to a major turning point. That is a serious warning that something really awful is about to go down in the markets. ALL markets, mind you, not just real estate or equities, but also commodities and precious metals. The only thing that is going to get more valuable is cold hard cash and short term treasury securities. Yes, indeed we could see a time where keeping cash stuffed into a briefcase might actually be prudent. Frankly, I don't trust the banks, I wouldn't trust them if their noses were touching my arse, and I am serious. Precious metals are a perfect bet if you want an asset that is guaranteed NEVER to go to ZERO, as is bricks and mortar, FREE AND CLEAR that is. But if you want to dramatically increase your purchasing power, then cash and treasuries are a much better bet when deflation really hits the economy (and it WILL, there is no denying it). When metals get cheaper you can then use the more valuable cash to buy those metals when the price is at or close to the bottom. As an investor, precious metals are a PERFECT hedge against inflation, and it is true that they are also a hedge against deflation, in that they are guaranteed not to lose their entire value. Cash is by far the best asset during massive deflation, second only to short term treasuries. Sure, if you keep precious metals, you'll preserve your relative purchasing power regardless of deflation or inflation, but if you keep cash, you'll INCREASE your relative purchasing power with deflation, ESPECIALLY debt deflation.
