trakka wrote:
But how high do you think interest rates will go?

You need to look at our terms of trade.  The price of our key exports, thermal coal, coking coal and iron ore have doubled or tripled.  Thats the mining boom.  But also we are looking down the barrel of an agriculture boom as well.  Price of rice has tripled in China last yea…[Read more]

Interesting thread.One of my relatives has just gotten a Sing dollar mortgage for an Australian property.  We check the Australian dollar every day twice a day or more but have no hedging in place.  Would be interesting to see if anyone has been able to hedge (but basic economic theory says the cost of hedging should at least equal the inter…[Read more]

I have looked into this.  The requirement of NAB or ANZ is that you must be a tax resident and earning an income in the offshore jurisdiction (ie Japan or USA) where the mortgage is taken out.  I am not aware of any financiers that will allow you to take out a multicurrency mortgage (ie a loan denominated in USD and using a US rate of interest b…[Read more]

Im in Shanghai, China on a business trip. I picked up a copy of the local newspaper and it has a large ad for Vision Brisbane.

This suggests to me that Vision has a large advertising budget if they are advertising in China. Someone has to pay for those ads and we all know who that person is going to be.

What you have just described is exactly how a ski resort developer like IntraWest operates.

They buy large tracts of land on the side of a mountain – build a ski resort and lose money on operation of the ski resort. However they make a killing on the condos and commercial property in the village at the base of the hill.

What you are talking…[Read more]