Welcome to Gaia! ::

Funny, I just came home from having coffee with a *not so bright* friend - she is about to go overseas for a couple of years and her only complaint was the weak Australian dollar.
I don't think that I got it through to her that eerrr..not just that, the world is verging on DEPRESSION....like, no jobs, no money for fun stuff...
Yet she still is planning her holidays and tours - which her parents are funding I might add.
//rant over

So, back to reality and my life :
Tuesday, the Australian Reserve Bank dropped interest rates by 1% - which was double the prediction and a total shock to all of Australia. It helped the Australian stockmarket...for one day. rolleyes
That very same day, I put an offer on a property - to be an investment rental property.
Wednesday The offer was accepted and I sign a contract.
Oil drops to $86, my company shares (I don't own any) drop by $15 (and then another $12 the next day).
Friday
Oil closes at $77.70bbl and the Australian dollar is the lowest it has been in 5 years. The bank phones to let me know that my loan has been made 'unconditional' (ie, there is no turning back!!)

My parents are retirees - I think they'll pull through okay without having to sell shares or property (they have two other properties other than their home). They have put getting a new car on hold.

Other than that...no biggie. Life as normal. eek

when i first heard about all that stuff i thaught, great dollar is cheep again so let´s shop a little at ebay.com , but then i looked up the market value and i were really suprized. the dollar was very strong. i haven´t expect that.
the worst thing you can do now is panic like taking all you money home and not using he bank system anymore. right now here in germany most people change their bank. they run away from banks that are active on the market to some that seem to be save. so some of the banks now get weaker and weaker...
look at the past there were many crashs, but we learned form it (well i hope it), but somehow everything got up again. everything get worser when people panic, like they did in the past. most of them panic because of wrong information and too much control about the market from above.
it seems silly but look at the gaia market, it´s not really controlled but it works well. sure there are ups and downs,but it works.

we cannot do much to help, because we don´t know everything about the collaps.
well i don´t know if we can do anything.

We'll live on squash, beans and rice. Let that cider get hard, we'll make apple jack in the winter time. cheese_whine

I forgot to add - BOTH of my banks, BankWest (my home loan) and St George (Savings/transaction account) were taken over by other banks last week. My Mum mentioned that her bank (actually, it's a "building society") was taken over too.
My company shares fell another $7 today (or was it $12??).

In a word :
Freefall
rolleyes

Scary, scary! *hugs* take care!

It hasn't really affected my daily routines because I've been living pretty frugally as a student and as an unemployed job seeker anyway. I think it's made it harder to find jobs and upped the unemployment rate, though, definitely.

Have you guys been watching the Colbert Report? Stephen Colbert has had some pretty funny segments on the recession and economic crisis. xd

I think the unemployment will be high for a while. It's the uncertain times when people are reluctant to take on an extra staff. I don't think our generation have really experienced that - I have a couple of friends who are totally oblivious to the reality that they might not be able to find a job one day.

Australian shares recovered up to 3% Friday morning, then went flat in the afternoon. A glimmer of hope?

Yesterday I signed all the bank papers. They said that settlement date was the 11th November (which I have to check - I thought it was supposed to be the 19th).
Will my life style be affected? Day-to-day, not really. But I'll not be taking holidays or going on huge shopping sprees anytime soon.