Lower My Rate

With our Aussie dollar wavering for some stability in between the .62% and .66% over the last week, we’re anxiously awaiting to see what will happen to the global markets that will directly effect the Australian economy if Barack Obama wins the U.S. Presidency.  Say what you will about the Rudd Government trying to put a bit of chewy on a gaping hole in the sinking ship, but this economic crisis has been a long time in the making before Labour ever took control.  We have speculative word from 2 professionals in the States that if Obama gets the nod from the Americans, expect to see taxes on the small business owners double and corporates triple within the first 6 months of power.

That alone would put the entire World into recession if they’re not already there.  The ignorance of any socialistic view of spread the wealth is doom to fail because of our capitalistic views as people in a society of bigger, faster, stronger, greener, better etc.  We’re just fine without any government honestly.  However, we pay individuals salary for a reason to oversee that we as ‘ordinary’ people couldn’t oversee- our own lives to be more productive and prosperous.  *smirk*

Lower My Rate is something that we can surely say now and we don’t have to be heard- they’re acting on our behalf because of the irresponsibility of finance officials from corporate entities that haven’t been monitored and/or policed properly.  For those of you that don’t know anything about corporate corruption and deceipt, have a look at a little company called Enron.  It took the FED almost 2 years to catch on to what Kenneth Lay and the ‘good ol boys’ were cooking on the books there.  What happened after that?  The U.S. introduced more laws that brilliant lawyers and great accountants can get around- which only hurt small business, not the corporations that have responsibility to shareholders.

With a day and a half left to go in the election, it was kind of like the one here a few months ago- do we keep Howard, a known idiot that is a ‘go along sally’ of George W. Bush, or do we elect someone like Kevin Rudd, who with his nerdy glasses seems to ‘get it’?  Australia voted John Howard out of office because they hated his politics, his friends and him enough to elect Kevin Rudd.  If America does the same thing here with John McCain becaue they hate George W. Bush, and they elect Barack Obama, it’s going to be really bad news for the global economy and I believe that the DOW will lose 15% within the first week and have an overall loss of 25% within 6 months.

Good luck with that one yanks! 

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia’s central bank is expected to cut interest rates by up to 50 basis points due to the global financial crisis when its board meets Tuesday, economists said.

The credit crunch will likely prompt the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to lower its official cash rate to 6.50 percent as fears about a global slowdown outweigh concerns about domestic inflation, they said.

All 19 economists surveyed by national news agency AAP said they expected the RBA to cut its official cash rate when its board gathers for its monthly meeting on October 7.

Eleven of those questioned said they expected the bank to wipe 50 basis points from the current rate of 7.0 percent in what would be the biggest rate cut since April 2001. The RBA last month cut its rate by 25 basis points.

“With the higher risk of a sharper global slowdown now apparent and higher short-term cost for bank funding we expect the RBA to be more aggressive,” National Australia Bank Group chief economist Alan Oster said.

Even with the passage of Washington’s 700 billion US dollar bailout of Wall Street, tighter credit conditions meant that the RBA was likely to follow up an October cut with another before the end of the year, he added.

“While much depends on avoiding further global contagion in coming months we see the risks to both growth and interest rates as being to the downside,” he said, adding that the cash rate was likely to drop to 5.5 percent by April.

Economists from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) said financial conditions in Australia were now too tight and a 25 basis point cut from the RBA would not be enough to relieve pressures.

“In our view, a 25 basis point interest rate cut from the RBA next Tuesday would simply be enough to return financial conditions to the level that persisted before the current crisis,” they said in a market note.

“The significant downside risks now facing the global economy — and the risks that poses to Australia — suggest that such a tight setting of local monetary policy is no longer appropriate.”

Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital Investors, said the global credit crunch had become more ferocious than ever following the failure of Lehman Brothers investment bank in the US and a deteriorating global growth outlook.

Read the rest of the story on Yahoo AU!

We just tried this as a case study to see if actually doing it over the phone would work and it did! We called Wizard Home Loans and they were more than happy to match a loan quote from the Greater, but would not offer the free holiday to Fiji. Nice!

More case studies to come.