Comments on: The Dark Underbelly of Australia’s Resource Boom: Chinese Resource Demand

By: albert

albert — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:21:41 +0000

Another great article thankyou.

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:43:38 +0000

Right on Greg!

By: prozak

prozak — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:21:23 +0000

I am not sure who your analysts are that you were referring to.... but everyone outside of australia knew that commods were also in a credit fuelled bubble.....

If your stance at present is that housing and stock markets are being pumped by the new credit bubble being created.... why so uncertain that history is being repeated with commodities?

Seems pretty obvious to me.... You give GS, MS etc. $20B of free money... it can't all go into shares.... why do you think MS are talking up OIL again... it was only 6-9 months ago they said OIL would hit $25.. now the target is $100....

By: Goldwing

Goldwing — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:20:48 +0000

You make a very sound point Sir. Australia would be foolish to imagine that there is constancy in this world. It is said that the only constancy is change. Many far greater nations than our's have experienced the truth of this.

By: Goldwing

Goldwing — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:54:41 +0000

Dan Denning's critique makes for informative reading. But what would he do if he was the RBA: Increase interest rates or lower them? Or Doctor Henry: Rely on national savings for future development or upon imported capital? Or if a combination, in what mix and why? And what would he do to achieve his preference? The following statement initially confused me: "But when it came to resources, most analysts made an exception for the resource sector." A typographical error where "resources" was meant to be "assets" I imagine.

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:15:29 +0000

I think Ken Henry forgets that Australia is not the only nation on the planet that has what China needs. The Chinese have not been pouring millions of dollars into African mine projects for nothing..they are quietly working to make sure that RIO & BHP are not able to have them over a barrel ever again.

I can't believe the head of an organisation that cannot even model simple taxes with any accuracy would be silly enough to be making grand predictions out to 2050. Maybe he been eating the same mushrooms as Rudd, Swan and Conroy etc

As I have ranted on before...where is Australias Plan B if the China strategy does not work out quite as planned?

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:28:15 +0000

Personal debt-income ratios are the bottom line that tells us that Henry is a fool and always was a fool. Those assets nominally owned by the personally indebted are all neatly in the row of bubble classes that Keating era acolytes designed for them, none of them are productive in a macro sense, and all of them & the services economy collapse without the external debt funding impetus/multiplier. CBA shares doing better than BHP shares and CBA leaving its customers to the bond and equity raising markets while it extended its balance sheet capital share committed to residential and commercial real estate is reflective of the unproductive application of external funds (and the hot money) debacle.