mightychurch.com

Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said she was concerned the economic crisis could create a “lost generation” of transitional youth without formal skills who can’t get a job.

from Here

I don’t see it that way at all.  I see this recession as a realignment of our whole system away from this crazy debt based credit economy.

Plumbers will just have to buy a shovel again and landscapers will need to use wheel barrows instead of calling in a machine to move 4 metre of sand.

I used to do piece work in front of the telly when my day at work was finished ...that’s how i bought my first home. I’ve been one of those who has always argued with the accountant over why my stock is in the liabilities column (and why I always kept heaps in any business I had…as long as you owned it!)

My own son I’ve pushed into infrastructure over the last few years (he sold hisdomest/commercial concrete cutting business in 2007 and works for his mate now…..all airports/freeways/dams/MelbWater etc))....they already have a desal contract)
My other son (thinks he is anyway, he was my apprentice many years ago) has a automotive transmission repair business and he hocked himself in November and bought out all the Local Dealers auto repair sections as they were all trimming with there floor plan finamce disappearing ....so we jumped in with a fix .....and we got it all for a song. He now has 10 years of hard parts ...and very few competitors heheheheeeee
Reconditioning will be a big thing over the next few years is my belief.

I’d start a Piece Work business at the moment (if I could be bothered) .....industrys everywhere at the moment are suffering the usual supply problems with different parts sourced out of asia etc ......the aussie dollars gone bad and local supply is plausible again.
Anyone can have a hard look at their own area of expertise at the moment and with a little thought there is a good income to be made.

My own daughter has started up her soap business again ....thousand laugh but she sometimes clears a whole extra wage out of it and the whole thing at night (with the family usually) as she works during the day with her little cleaning contracts around the town.
Now she is hastling me to make biodiesel again as I was her major source of raw material heheheeee ...but she can look elsewhere as diesels cheap at the moment :)

Thing that I wonder about in our new society is if this regulation and certification of everything will stand the strain of a back to basics strategy. Aussie innovation will find a way I’m sure.

:rolleyes: ....better stop babbling and go do somethin’! ;)

The financial crisis explained in simple terms ......

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar. To increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger ( thereby granting the customers loans ). Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar.

Taking advantage of her customers’ freedom from immediate payment constraints, Heidi increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager (subsequently fired for his negativity) of the bank decides that slowly the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar.

However they cannot pay back the debts. Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy. DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95 %. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80 %.

The suppliers of Heidi’s bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities are faced with a new situation. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.

The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.

And the funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax levied on the non-drinkers.

Up until about 2000 I was an Amex carrying dunderhead and culminated the stupidity with a franchise business. I was a fair haired boy at my bank and the only thing they ever complained about was that I didn’t have enough debt to offset tax. (I’ve never minded paying taxes however….and see it is the only way to make it “MY” money…...others may disagree)
Around 2000 I was being well shafted by church and justice system and became very sceptical about both.  Is also when I started to see this obscenity they call the ‘home owners market’ for what it was! .....a dead end. My simple argument was that the simple arithmetic didn’t add up and no way could Mr Average me pay off a house in a lifetime ....and any loan closures were dependant on the housing inflation to eradicate anyones debt .......but causing the next to get in deeper.
Just crud as far as I could see! ....but what would io know!
By 2007 I was intent on getting any of my assets out of this immoral system (the way I saw it anyway .....and would argue continuously with my brother (who is very successful) about his huge investments in offshore diddles ......he played the market badly….....I told him many times I thought it obscene.
I was determined to get my pittance of a superfund away from this stock market and I got my bank to find a legal place I could move it too.  Bendigo Bank attached it to a bullion fund in April last year.
I did all this because a few things opened my eyes to the way we are manipulated as citizens in this country…....not because I saw the crash .....I just knew/felt the whole thing obscene.

I can remember sitting around running down and canning all these conspiracy freaks etc over the years .....I used to be the good little business man running around dreaming I was building my empire ......what a joke ....we were all being manipulated in these last 10 or 15 years by this stupid stock market and investment beliefs…...nothing there helps the average joe on the ground unless he was in more debt…..is just a way of taking a little bit more out of him all the time.
Jon Stewart tells it as it is
At least someone has come out and said it as it is ......I take the point it’s a shame it had to be a comedy show .....should have been 4Crns at least.
Nice to see someone pointing out a few home truths.

So now I do business a different way .......local woman needed a trench dug and looked like a 4 hour job for my backhoe/loader .....so put her on my ‘time to pay’ system of 20 weeks.  She delivered her payment yesterday

Six point of lay chooks .......allowed the women/client to use her expertise as payment and she has bred me six healthy birds ......I’ll let the tax office know that the GSTs in the freezer.
(she sends a 10 week old rooster along as apparently they’ll settle to lay faster .....then he goes in the freezer )
When we came here in 81 and the kids were young we had chooks and horses and foals and a breeding heifer and calves for the freezer and even fattened a few pigs.  I always worked but the work got more and the play farm got less ....until the work killed it completely.
Time to start anew.
This is just how I feel these days ........I can’t bring myself to play this ‘money’ game anymore.
and if anyone doubts whether I’ve completely lost it about this….the loader is powered by used deep fryer oil.

and to show you how grumpy I really am about this I changed my server to BigPond in Nov as I thought it fitting as I illegally share it by wireless with all the people in town here who can’t afford it themselves. (just another manipulation was the telstra sale)
(NB to BigPong ...I model my network on Horshams Community Wireless Network service and they help me set it up ...I take no fees) 

edit .....so 600 pixels is the magic number Luke :) ...‘am keeping it under 50k as some are on dialup I believe….see it’s still squashing the page :( ...I’d better pm the boy :rolleyes:

Just an aside .....you reckon you’re a duffus with a keyboard Ian ...I’m in more trouble than Ned here with this new fangled crap heheheheeee ....no matter how hard you bail there always seems to be more coming in than you can handle. :)