Yeah Yeah Yeah, how many time have we heard it before ??
We live in a land filled with old schizos...we want to borrow as much as we can but we complain that the banks are making too much money doing us a favour. We greedily invest in Finance companies for a few extra points and blame everybody else when they imploded due to our own greed.

Now you are saying we should consume less and save more ?? What's the goverment for?
Leave our debts to our grandchildren...You only live once !!!

Neumann are calling for regional RBs to lift their ocr rates before it's too late. !!!

Kin: "invest in Finance companies for a few extra points and blame everybody else when they imploded due to our own greed." Not so sure if its greed or desperation/need...what % was retired ppl investing in finance companies v others? Many retired ppl probably have a small (too small) nest egg and need to get a high return in order to get by....add in they are simple in outlook (and I dont mean that badly, maybe I shoud say straightforward) and they get hoodwinked....this is because our financial sector is just the pits and full of sharks....we could probably have saved these ppl losses by having some sound, open and fair regulation..........instead its a mine field....It would also probably help dampen the excesses of the housing market as ppl feel safe there....yet nothing seems to be happening....I wonder of its the Govn fear that it will cost votes and/or weaken the economy further....I really dont understand why the Govn does not legislate....OAP's should consider this stance when the next election comes around as that looks like the only way to get a Govn to do anything....

http://www.sedlabanki.is/?PageID=287&NewsID=1124

Same downgrade happened to iceland based on similar fears to whats happening in NZ now. That was just before there economy collapsed and house prices plunged

in fairness Iceland was a bit worse (eg 30% growth in credit), I think we are more like 10%, 15% CA deficit we are 8.5%.

That said

- we are still growing our debt, it doesnt matter how fast you are travelling when you go over a cliff, it is always just as fast on the way down.
- our CA deficit is being hidden by low interest rates at the moment, what will it look like when a 300,000 mortgage is paying 27,000 pa overseass as opposed to 17,000? Especially when our export prices have pretty much halved. I would think we would be easily into double figures.

For those who enjoy BALANCED and insightful economic commentaries one can't go past, IMHO, the ANZ's weekly "Market Focus".
Interesting piece this week:

http://www.anz.co.nz/resources/3/2/324f41004ee5b201880b9840234ee33e/Mark...