And then there were none .

[id]

IO mortgages are only ever 5 years (and can be rolled almost indefinatley) so not sure why your mate would think that. Also would reflect on the fact that I have a few mates who have made a lot of money out of property thru pure luck rather than any real insight or clever thinking about the actual market. Plus the old chestnut of opinons are like arseholes -- you know the rest.

Yeah, He was drunk at the time and rambling, so who the fuck knows? I was drunk as well so may well have not understood what he was saying.

Maybe coming up for retirement in 10-15 years and interest only so may not own places outright? Anyway, he's getting rid of a lot of his residential and getting land to subdivide and commercial space.

[Rona]

Most io loans presuming you don't refinance can only be rolled 1-2 times. If property crashed due to a Chinese fire sale many would get fucked as they wouldn't meet the lvr requirements to refinance if they'd rolled the io loans to the maximum allowable limit with their current bank.

[id]

Most io loans presuming you don't refinance can only be rolled 1-2 times. If property crashed due to a Chinese fire sale many would get fucked as they wouldn't meet the lvr requirements to refinance if they'd rolled the io loans to the maximum allowable limit with their current bank.

Could well have been that. I'm not up to speed on that side of things. If I'm paying interest I want something to see at the end of it.

I view IO as witchcraft as they fucked up badly in the UK in the early noughties and burnt a lot of people I know (nopics family)

[260BC]

Has any Western country had the population growth that we have had? 1940 around 7 million, now 23 mil? That's what has put pressure on the housing market. That and the migrants want to live in a couple of capital cities.

[id]

I'm trying to find as a percentage of population, but the US and Canada had similar levels.

[Jim]

we are pretty consistent with global trends.

[Jim]

also
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW

sorry old boy you can't blame the coloured people. Our population growth has consistently been between 1% and 1.5% since the 80's.

[Forg Convertible]

What was this thread about again?

In other thoughts, could there be a perfect storm coming? All the car makers gone, and the say Qantas goes. Maybe China has a recession. Then we all be farked.

Just got off the the phone to the old man and he is always doom and gloom but tonight he was downright depressing. He really went off on tangent and talked about fathers murdering their sons and blokes chucking girlfriends off highrise balconies, saying the world is a different place now.

He was a lucky barstard growing up in the 60's surfing etc.

[TonyJZX]

try not to read news.com or smh.com if you dont need to

its basically full of cunt stories for cunts, yes even the smh which was an ok paper before the intarwebs

[Spammy]

I'm so over the "we have stopped making Falcodores so our economy will crash"

Somebody knock up a chart with time (say 20 years) on the x axis thenAussie cars sold on the left had y axis axis and overlay any measure of the australian economy on the right hand y axs....then we can discuss the correlation.

[townie :)]

My understanding is this shit happens every so many years, we go into a recession, stop spending money on shit we do not need and live within our means, productivity goes up with competition and prices of stuff slowly fall until we can afford to spend again.

Obviously once Australia fucks out and cannot sustain itself wages will drop, prices of shit will drop, and it will eventually balance itself out again, if we happened to however loose our natural resources or their need we would be absolutely fucked, we are isolated and have no real means of supporting such a low population that is so sparse without what we can sell.

The other interesting thing that could happen is that automation of industry and the lack of need for as many jobs to actually support living could cause a much bigger recession then in previous times. But all in all if people cannot afford shit they don't absolutely need the price of it will fall greatly, supply and demand type stuff.

Many many years ago our relatives grew up without spending big on everything they wanted, Alot of people just survived with enough food on the table etc, eventually it has to happen again, we just have grown up in the sweet spot.

[Spammy]

My understanding is this shit happens every so many years, we go into a recession, .

Can I just point out to every chicken fucking little in Australia that our last recession was 22 years ago.

[irsa76]

You have to understand how the industry is moving. Its all about consolidation and scale. Look at VW for example and how they're sharing platforms. Then look at how Ford and GM are shutting plants in Europe (eg Belgium/Germany). Then ask if it was every likely that they were going to keep open a small plant in Australia only making 50-100k (at best) cars a year? It was always going to happen. Someone in government realised that the industry was changing and that it was only ever a cash grab.

As for the dollar, the car companies are all over that. They have hedging in place if it rises. I used to consult for some of the Japanese truck companies and they did that 15 years ago. Ask yourself when the dollar was stronger, if prices changed much? Not really. They just threw in a couple of extras that didn't cost much to make it seem better value. On top of that, they have an efficiency advantage by not having to individualise the cars as much. Win-Win!

The only way car prices will come down is through competition. Given how competitive it is in Australia, products have improved. Shit ones (eg Citroen, etc) or overpriced ones (eg Fiat) don't survive long because there is something better or cheaper available.

Platform sharing isn't new, especially at VW-Audi. What is new though is how many Manufacturers are now sharing the same platform. And under how many models. PSA's EMP2 platform underpins half a dozen PSA products at the moment with more on the way, plus is expected to form the basis for upcoming Opel models and now there is a rumour that some Fiat-Chrysler vehicles will also share the same platform. Not to mention engines being shared across a variety of models/manufactures.
As for the closure of factories, I know the ones Ford shut down in the US, especially in Michigan, were extremely old and inefficient and were really simply kept open because Ford couldn't be bothered shutting them down. From what I've read it's been a similar situation in Europe. Most of the plants that have been closed down were old and needed expensive work to bring them up to scratch, and in a couple of cases they were getting too close to residential developments as well.

[chomper]

I'm so over the "we have stopped making Falcodores so our economy will crash"

Somebody knock up a chart with time (say 20 years) on the x axis thenAussie cars sold on the left had y axis axis and overlay any measure of the australian economy on the right hand y axs....then we can discuss the correlation.

It isn't that the demise of the auto manufacturing industry will single handedly kill the economy, it is seen as such because it was the barometer of the overall manufacturing sector. Considering so many small manufacturers have gone tits up in the time since Ford announced the end of local manufacture, it may have been an accurate one.

[Spammy]

It isn't that the demise of the auto manufacturing industry will single handedly kill the economy, it is seen as such because it was the barometer of the overall manufacturing sector. Considering so many small manufacturers have gone tits up in the time since Ford announced the end of local manufacture, it may have been an accurate one.

People no doubt said the same thing when the local horse drawn cart indust closed taking with it most of the horseshoe and buggy whip factories.