Financial Armageddon!!

[Austrokiwi]

I have just cashed in the last of my Mutual Funds this week.
Better safe than . . .

One question where do you put the cash?

[flyernzl]

I'm accumulating to pay off two of my three IP mortgages.
Have just renewed the third one fixed for four years.
That'll give me a $60,000+ per year IP income.
Then I'm going to buy a caravan and bum around Australia for a few years looking at the sights while the world falls in.

[Perry]

Take dogs and . . . .

[eri]

In the aftermath of the Lehman crisis, policymakers broadly did the right thing. The result was not a rapid return to prosperity in the West, but after such a big balance-sheet recession that was never going to happen.
Now, more often than not, policymakers seem to be getting it wrong. Their mistakes vary, but two sorts stand out. One is an overwhelming emphasis on short-term fiscal austerity over growth. Fixing that means different things in different places:
Germany could loosen fiscal policy, while in Britain the reins should merely be tightened more slowly. But the collective obsession with short-term austerity across the rich world is hurting.

The second failure is one of honesty. Too many rich-world politicians have failed to tell voters the scale of the problem. In Germany, where the jobless rate is lower than in 2008, people tend to think the crisis is about lazy Greeks and Italians. Mrs Merkel needs to explain clearly that it also includes Germany’s own banks—and that Germany faces a choice between a costly solution and a ruinous one.
In America the Republicans are guilty of outrageous obstructionism and misleading simplification, while Mr Obama has favoured class warfare over fiscal leadership. At a time of enormous problems, the politicians seem Lilliputian. That’s the real reason to be afraid.

http://www.economist.com/node/21530986

[Perry]

The politicians getting it all wrong? No!
It can't be! What on earth gives that
impression? Silly, silly plebeians.

[eri]

....this looks like the first time that contagion from the debt crisis in Europe has really taken hold in America, when precautionary moves by investors have resembled something more like panic.
If so, it spells nothing but bad news. It means that the unwinding of US money-market funding of European banks will accelerate. It means that American banks will be under pressure to reduce their exposures to European lenders, stifling attempts by euro-zone banks to borrow directly from them. It means that the process of infection that has spread from Greece to contaminate other indebted countries in the single currency is now threatening to go a stage further and make any mention of the word "Europe" seem toxic. Calling for decisive action from euro-zone leaders to resolve the sovereign-debt crisis has become horribly repetitive. But without it, an entire continent risks becoming subprime.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee...ancial-markets

[drelly]

It means that the unwinding of US money-market funding of European banks will accelerate. It means that American banks will be under pressure to reduce their exposures to European lenders, stifling attempts by euro-zone banks to borrow directly from them

Funny how one debt-laden country can still afford to lend to another!

I've recently pulled out all my cash savings to pay down debt. Is anyone else doing anything like that in case things worsen?

[Bluekiwi]

Call me counter cyclical, but with interest so low with all the doom and gloom, and expected to stay low, isnt now a good time to buy more property that is yielding nice returns ?

[drelly]

BK - I would be if my Wife was working but she seems intent on spending all our money buying kids toys, clothes and shoes now we have a sprog!!

[TheLiberalLeft]

And it doesn't stop. In fact it gets worse as they get older.

[drelly]

And it doesn't stop. In fact it gets worse as they get older.

It's ok, I am already planning for my daughter to grow up *thinking* we are penniless

[TheLiberalLeft]

Haha. That's a plan, and one that I wished I'd discovered about 10 years ago. On the flip side, I broke the news to them last night that we're off to Disneyland in April next year. Their expressions were worth every penny.

[Austrokiwi]

Done the same

[Austrokiwi]

............ with interest so low with all the doom and gloom, and expected to stay low......................

Is that a reasonable assumption?

I ask because of the mess in Greece Italys credit rating downgrade and NZs Credit down grade. For sure Bollard isn't going to be keen to raise the OCR but the OCR has only a limited effect on the interest rates NZers pay. If non NZ investors continue getting scared and increase their flight to US treasuries.....NZ interest rates may rise independently of anything Bollard does.

[patmat-co-nz]

I've recently pulled out all my cash savings to pay down debt. Is anyone else doing anything like that in case things worsen?

Being cash-less (or easily-cashable assets less) in the wake of a global financial armageddon may not be the best idea. But what else to do I don't know. Buy a plough?