Can we forget Paul Keating Mr Howard?

Rate rises.  The very thing that has kept John Howard in office for the past thousand years is now coming back to bite him.  He has said time and time again that Interest Rates will not rise under a Coalition government.  Largely rates have been in check and he has ridden on the wave of good economic management but he forgets to mention the failure of wages to rise with inflation and hence the ever growing addiction we Australian's have to credit.

 

Home loans are now strething out beyond 30 years and are in some cases becoming inter-generational - where you borrow a stack of cash that your children will pay off for you when you're in the old folks home.  Its disgusting that we live this affluent life style on the back of low (suppressed?) interest rates and have kept Howard in the chair long enough to permanently destroy the reputation of our nation internationally.  We are no longer a "lucky country" universally accepted around the globe but now as a Western Nation with xenophobic views and a reliance on the US that causes us to seen in a bad light throughout Asia and the Middle East.

 

Now rates are set to rise multiple times by years end and what does Howard say.... "At least its not as bad as it was under Keating!"   Well Johnny, Keating was PM some 10-15 years ago... why dont we go back and compare Australia to the Menzies era's?  Or how are we doing in comparison to when Chifley and Barton were PM's of this Nation?  Why dont we compare Australia's situation to when we were scared of "the Hun" or when we were worried about "US Sailors romancing our good women folk in the 40's"?

 

For fuck sake, stop using the Keating era as a crutch.... It was hardly a time of desolation.  I remember those days that Australia was actually a good place to be... sure interest rates may have been higher, but I recall my parents buying the family home for $88K.  What does $88K get you these days?  Three bricks on a pedastal in a back laneway in Mosman...

 

/rant off.