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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: TobagoJack who wrote (92807)7/24/2012 3:13:52 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 217740
 
Australia's Housing Industry Wants Immediate Rescue Package
24-Jul-2012
By Ray Brindal

CANBERRA--Australia's Housing Industry Association lobby Tuesday called for an immediate rescue package from the government and longer-term structural reform, lest the sector--one of the economy's major drivers--continues to languish in recession.

"Economic conditions in the housing industry are the worst in decades," Shane Goodwin, the association's managing director, told reporters, adding that new dwelling starts this year will fall by around 12% year-on-year to an estimated 130,000--the lowest number in four decades--and well below the long-term annual demand average of 165,000.

"At best there is only a very modest recovery in the pipeline and even then, that could be 12 to 18 months away," he said.

Mr. Goodwin was commenting after convening a roundtable meeting of industry and government officials, including Housing Minister Brendan O'Connor, and representatives of the government's Treasury Department, Reserve Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp. (WBC.AU) and national building supply companies including CSR Ltd. (CSR.AU), Boral Ltd. (BLD.AU) and Brickworks Ltd. (BWK.AU)

Manufacturers and all businesses in the supply chain are shedding staff and moth-balling plants, and the industry--which is worth an estimated A$70 billion a year to the economy, or almost 5% of gross domestic product--is seeing disinvestment and is contracting, he said.

Any industry rescue package would include further stamp-duty reductions by state governments, which have an immediate impact, but longer-term structural issues need fixing, he said.

"Our product is too dear because of the amount of embedded taxation," with 46% of the cost of a house and land package in Sydney being embedded taxation, and 42% in Melbourne, Mr. Goodwin said.

Planning constraints add to the costs of land supply, while buyers lack confidence and are finding it increasingly difficult to get finance, he noted.

Earlier, Mr. O'Connor, the housing minister, pledged the government would review industry regulations at all levels to make sure there are no impediments.

Building-approval figures jumped to record levels in May and while this isn't yet a trend, it is a positive sign, he said.

Inflation is contained, housing mortgage rates are the lowest in two years and this is leading to increased interest among people to enter the market and buy houses, he said.

"So there are some very positive signs but there are some structural issues that we need to attend to" with state and local governments, he told reporters.



To: TobagoJack who wrote (92807)7/24/2012 6:43:30 AM
From: elmatador  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 217740
 
Marie lost her head per mob rule.



To: TobagoJack who wrote (92807)7/24/2012 9:58:21 AM
From: elmatador  Respond to of 217740
 
Foreign takes shoes off, are X-rayed. Locals can buy 6.000 bullets, high capacity loading ammo clips, helmets, tear gas cannisters all without background check if he is criminal or maluco*!!!

With the ease of downloading a song, anyone with a computer and a credit card can order thousands of bullets and shotgun shells on the Internet, along with tear-gas canisters and speed loaders. They can get the same high-capacity ammunition clips that infantry soldiers use. They can even get bulletproof vests and SWAT helmets. All without fear of a single background check.
No one is paying attention to whether buyers have criminal histories or mental-health records. No one is monitoring bulk sales of ammunition to see who might be building an arsenal. Even after a young man in Colorado buys 6,000 rounds by mail order and uses them to commit mass murder, it is the rare politician who proposes to make the tools of terror slightly harder to obtain.

nytimes.com

*Maluco
dictionary.reverso.net



To: TobagoJack who wrote (92807)7/24/2012 11:49:17 AM
From: Maurice Winn1 Recommendation  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 217740
 
Indeed, slavery rather than voluntary exchange has always been a large part of human interaction: <

the majority cannot get blood out of a stone
but the majority can and had always tried
w/ bad consequences for bloodless stones
>

The process is more genteel these days, with Calvinball rules [rule by making up rules] enacted by democratic process, but really little different from the Roman mobs in the Colosseum or the tumbril mobs of the 18th century in downtown Paris.

In my memory, conscription to forcibly send men to Vietnam to decimate the local yokels with napalm and whatnot was considered a good thing. Libertarian virtues and Virtuous Victorian Values are thin on the ground nearly everywhere, though Hong Kong is fighting a rear-guard action, to some extent. Eudaemonia, an excellent Greek word, needs resurrection and application everywhere.

Mostly majorities are focused on getting blood out of stones. They will be bitterly disappointed and quite possibly dead.

I'm currently resident in London, in an apartment in a terraced row of battery hen economic units. While the weather is fantastic, the economic foundations which developed the British Empire are not evident in the locality. It's hard to see what keeps people supplied with food and electricity to run the tubes. There is some economic activity lurking in downtown London I guess, though Bob Diamond of Barclays resigning suggests that all is not well at Canary Wharf and likely elsewhere.

It costs one million pounds to buy a stack of bricks along this average sort of street. I recall when one million pounds was a significant part of a country's national accounts. There has obviously been substantial dilution of said pounds, especially when the size of economic activity compared with 60 years ago is accounted for.

Continued dilution and competitive central bank efforts in that, looks more than likely.

The hunt for stones with blood is on. Bloodless stones will no doubt be caught in the crossfire.

These million pound piles of bricks will not be moving anywhere. Those bricks have blood. They can be used to fund governments for a long time yet as landlords don't get much sympathy - especially as rents rise to cover the cost of government imposts. The ex-aristocratic landlords of your current country manor of a bygone era have obviously been feeling the pinch.

Incidentally, it occurred to me that the unit of economic activity 100 years ago was the brick. Now, seeing the hordes with their mobile Cyberspace deVices, it's obvious that the unit of economic activity is now the pixel. Here's Microsoft's advertisement which shows what the street scene is like here in London with everyone on their deVice, ignoring children and their surroundings: youtube.com

Gold was the unit of economic measure 100 years ago. It will not be the unit of value in the mobile Cyberspace era any more than the brick is.

Incidentally, gold, bricks and Cyberspace meet linguistically in goldbricking: en.wikipedia.org
Mqurice

PS: Maybe goldbricking [the idea of coating a brick with gold to defraud people - the original usage] could be reversed and those with gold to hide could coat gold bricks with actual brick and hide the gold in these piles of bricks. Hollow out the inside of bricks and pour gold in. There are several construction sites nearby with loads of bricks being delivered. Renovation of run-down piles of bricks now worth a million pounds is worthwhile, so it's a significant activity in London. Hiding gold for the financial interregnum and Teotwawki is probably a good idea. In a bank vault is a bit too obvious and accessible by authorities, or anyone.