banks

Australia’s consumer credit rules are about to change.

And it’s a change which could have the side effect of increasing Australia’s debt levels.

That’s if changes are made to the Privacy Act. Changes that have been proposed by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC).

These experts say the current credit reporting system doesn’t provide the full picture of an individuals’ credit profile.

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Seven short steps to the cost of living doubling or more inside 3 years…

HYPERINFLATION is widely accepted as a period of out of control price rises, doubling the cost of living inside three years.

It occurs when a currency loses its ability to store value, encouraging long-term savings to pour into circulation where they swamp the much narrower supply of consumer money, and cause the whole lot to lose purchasing power.

There is no specific recipe, but the pattern we risk repeating today would be typical.

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It’s only three more days until our Australia in the Red debt summit.

You don’t need to be a Yale educated Harvard professor to work out the main subject of the evening.

But this means your editor is moving into debt summit preparation mode.

The first thing we need to ask is whether all debt is bad? Wouldn’t we all be better off if there was no means to borrow and no means to lend?

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For months Money Morning and Daily Reckoning have been a lone voice on the precarious position of Australia’s banking system.

We’ve seen the talking heads and economic boffins assure the public the Australian banking system “is the best in the world.” The mainstream press has waxed lyrical about Glenn Stevens being a hero at inter-central bank meetings.

They’ve been positively thrilled the four major Australian banks are amongst the handful globally with a triple-A credit rating.

We argued the opposite. Our consistent position has been that Australian banks are no better off than any other bank in the US or UK. That Australian banks have received just as much taxpayer support as Citibank, Bank of America, LloydsTSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and any one of the other faltering overseas institutions.

We’ve written several times that claims by ANZ CEO Mike Smith about Australian banks not receiving “1-cent” of taxpayer money is bogus. [You can read our most recent story on the matter here]

The fact is…

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