There is a serious threat to both our retirement funds and lifestyle that virtually no one is talking about. It doesn’t rate a mention from politicians or most of the mainline media and the general public appears blissfully unaware.
I have been writing about retirement issues for most of this year and that sometimes requires looking at the bigger picture. It concerns me that the bigger picture contains some menacing aspects that we shouldn’t continue to ignore.
The European economy is in a crisis and it will take a generation to recover. America’s debt is so huge that it’s almost incomprehensible. If they can pay it back, it’ll take a long, long time. The Chinese economy is slowing and there is no knowing how hard or soft its landing will be. In Europe and America, under the guise of sophisticated terms like “Quantitative Easing” and “Financial Stability Facility”, the money printing presses are running 24/7. This flood of paper money may postpone next month’s crisis, but it will create major inflation in these economies in the years ahead.
As the American and European economies are in dire straits, you don’t have to be a genius to work out that they will be cutting back on Chinese imports, further compounding China’s already significant problems. We cannot expect that all of this economic turmoil amongst our major trading partners won’t have a serious impact on the Australian economy and our retirement savings and lifestyles. Yet we do!
In spite of all this clear evidence of major economic problems both overseas and within Australia, there is very little acknowledgement that there is an international economic crisis bearing down on us and it might be a good idea to start preparing for it. Our federal politicians and the Canberra Press Gallery are obsessed with issues like gay marriage, boat people and what our political leaders were doing 20 – 30 years ago. In fact when Martin Fergusen was honest enough to say that the mining boom was over, we were quickly assured by a host of senior government ministers, that it wasn’t and everything will be just fine.” Don’t you worry about that!”
The unfortunate reality is that we are not immune from the impact of overseas recessions and a severe restriction of our economy and a turn down in the stock market will have a major effect on the retirement funds and lifestyle of every Australian.
Isn’t that fact worth a little intention from our political leaders and the mainline media?
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