Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Floating away and Bubbles

Abbott's youthful ( conservative ) paper upon the errors of floating the dollar in hindsight is notable. Our dollar has traded from 56c to 1.13 since, devastating many an industry amidst such instability. The floating dollar does raise serious issues.
The biggest of which is that every player is in it for themselves. And big financiers do mighty well out of such variable floating currencies, pushing one way then the other, making waves then plundering the instabilities.
Our high dollar has now wiped out much of our agriculture and agricultural processing, our manufacturing, ford holden .
It has risen from excess capital in US markets via low interest rates, pushing commodity prices into bubble zones. Profits for wallstreet bankers, disasters for the farmers and industrialists on the other side of the deals.
Then our dollar follows - bubble zones, till many industries are unsustainable.
We could have kept our dollar down with the right intentions and practises.

Right intentions? Selfish accumulation or seeking balance and common good?

Printing of money weakens currencies and incites inflation. For the latter reason it has largely been tabooed.
But where one considers and works with Steiner's solution - gift money - inflation need not take hold. Concievably printing money could have moderated our overblown currency, saving many of the industries lost over the last 5 to 7 years. Inflation would have gone through the roof is the argument against but had we significantly gifted support to needful countries, making lifelong friends, building global stability,mutual interest and respect, inflation imaginably needn't have emerged, let alone devastated.
Even now, were the government to use such gift impulses, in the form of vehicles, cars and parts for East Timor (bug free), New Guinea, Malaysia, India,Vietnam, Maldives, Africa......contracted into the future we could stabilise our industries. Similarly for bottled fruit, or for canned vegetables, for milk or for cheeses.
We have vast Intellectual advances and could also offer much as aid to Afghanistan or Iraq, medicine, agriculture, infrastructure.
The quest for sound government, for harmonious relations, is to look beyond the three year electoral cycle to the five, ten, fifteen and thirty year cycles, aiming not for corporate profits, but for commonwealth, for balancing, for global stability.
We need citizens with similar understanding if we want democracy to realise such developments.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Abbott has inherited an economy that is rurally struggling. Agricultural businesses, farmers too are failing to survive the post GFC currency disturbances. America and Europe QE's have kept their economies from shock/shutdown, but shot our dollar so high no-one wants to buy Australian farm produce.
To deflate the dollar might help. Were we to fund humanitarian educative measures where needed, globally, from "created currency" we might save our farmers (by deflating our dollar), and our neighbours by spending dollars on helping them.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Congestion

So we've now got the small business lobby noticing the constriction on the roads, see the smh
....but government has been so busy accommodating the kindness brigade with 40km/h school zones, the traffic lights manufacturers with new sets of traffic lights, the locals with restricted side streets twisted, speed-bumped and stopsigned, the taxi lobby by opposing rideshares and the tollroads with funneling strategies they haven't noticed.
Seeing its an economic argument the government will likely want to jump,... but even they are constricted by their own policies, bureaucracies, ...

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Inflating the Dollar (and Destroying the Local Economy)

In the grand tradition of "The Sorceror's Apprentice", Julia & Co have inflated the Australian dollar to the point where our farmers are selling up, our food processors are being liquidated and our new industrial and mining ventures are being shelved, priced out of global markets.
When we 99% are covering the bank's deposit holders from any loss for the next five years its little wonder shifting global funds are pricing up our AUD currency. Our depositors interest rate is already significantly better than America's.
All Swannie needs to do now is grab at super funds or swipe at negative gearing and J&Co will tip all the pricing models on their heads,...utter mayhem,... and we, the 99% will be wearing massive losses courtesy of Canberra guaranteeing these banks.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Default and Dominoes - Cypress

So Cypress has taken the less damaging option, given in to the realisation that they cant fund their own deposit insurance scheme if their banks go down.
But which other PIIGS country can? America could, they could print more money, so too the Brits but the countries bound by EU legislation cant source the QE to comprehensively guarantee their deposit insurance schemes. We dont even know if America would want to protect and cover deposit holders.
Have the EU financiers understood this? Cypriot haircuts are likely to prove highly contagious. Were it October and impending Winter in the PIIGS countries there would be certain economic terror and mayhem. Maybe the hopefulness of Spring will engender acceptance and thwart any impending run on the banks.
Otherwise the only solution is to have the ultimate guarantor of each countries deposit insurance schemes the EU itself, lest it hold any out of favour country to ransom.
This haircut to save the big financiers could easily be at the expense of the whole global economy.
As the economic policy is run by bankers, it will likely take a Grillo, to roll the austerity Monti's of the EU before any people powered economy can establish a sound and sustainable economy into the future.