Banks only want to rip you off and profits from the needs of desperate people who need money quickly.

Unfortunately there is the other part of people who are not informed about money and appeal to bank because of the simple fact that they don’t know other methods

All our dodgy lending was farmed out to the finance companies – which DID fall over. This left the banks less vulnerable.

And what happens when the housing boom in Oz falls apart?

The Irish problem is perceived by some to exist, in large part, *because of* the fact that a larger economy had a large stake in its banking system. Namely, Germany. Hypotheken and a few others.

The same but different applies to the Greek situation: without access to German, French and Italian savings in the first place, the problem would be far smaller.

Close links to a single larger economy – the “core EU” in these cases – carry their own risks. The “systemic shock” is transmitted as a sharp impulse.

The lessons I draw from Ireland are (1) governments charge far too small a premium for insuring investors’ risk – perhaps they could consider leaving it to others; (2) diversify properly; and (3) ensure your economy is ‘balanced’: scrutinise all deviations from long-run trend with, as Spike Milligan would say, a powerful scrut. And act.

That Europe is not an optimal currency area is not a lesson. We already knew that.

We should also recognise that in banking terms, we were lucky because Australia was lucky. Do we want to go on betting on the Aussies and only the Aussies?
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Nice blog – keep going!