Take your positions, please

by | Jun 9, 2011 | Commentary

A debate is a chance to crunch opposing views. Strong ideas advance and poor ones are discarded. Good. But when participants and audience have already made up their minds, fresh argument goes nowhere. The Money Institute’s big debate in Sydney on Tuesday asked – Will...

A feast of houses – at the old price

by | Jun 2, 2011 | Press Releases

2 June 2011 MELBOURNE:- Homes available for sale across Australia are up 68 per cent on last year while sales volumes have slipped dramatically. The real estate industry has immediately flipped its argument and is calling a ‘buyers market’. “Not so fast!” Prosper...

Hit over the head with a plasma screen

by | May 31, 2011 | Commentary

Have you noticed? Owning a modern flat screen television proves you are not saving every day in every way – the sacrifice essential for home ownership. This theme is raised again and again by the shills and trolls pouring venom into the debates on the blogs and...

Can You Smell the Fear?

by | May 26, 2011 | Commentary

A home should be a secure retreat where owners sleep soundly. Instead, they are waking in a cold sweat to the living nightmare of falling house prices. Values are down but the family mortgage is not. Call it what you like – wealth destruction, equity erasure or...

Australia’s fatal flaw: Negative Gearing

by | May 25, 2011 | Commentary

“You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” – Warren Buffett, Chairman’s letter 2001. Negatively geared property investors are exposing themselves, the banks and every Australian citizen to capital destruction, a highly infectious...