for non opes affected members, page-20

There are lots of events that could take it allot lower, ANZ derives most of its income from the real estate market, if folks like Steve Keen are correct we could see a 20-30% fall,

http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/

Australasians have a higher debt to income ratio than Americans, the only impact in the Real Estate markets so far has been with non bank originators, if this spreads into a broader sector slow down you could see allot of income clipped from a higher cost of funds, increasing foreclosures and delinquencies , we could have some major derivative counter party failures and bond insurer insolvencies, I think notionally ANZs total derivatives exposure is up around 1.2 Trillion, folks tut tut about that not being an issue, although Buffett seems to disagree with the rest of the market, what if Buffett is right (hes been right a few times before) and "weapons of mass financial destruction" is pretty strong language, he doesnt seem to be a person thats prone to fanciful language so he probably means what he says.

I remember on the last call Mike Smith was talking about how unlikely it would be fore his derivatives counter parties to fail, he said something like "well if these debts failed well then it would mean several very large banks around the world, the only way thats going to happen is some kind of mass financial Armageddon and if that happened ANZ would , be the least of your worries", he said something very close to that, now a few months down the track a financial Armageddon of sorts is unfolding

it worries me when bankers talk like that, its not normal language, it reminds me of that saying in Hamlet "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" , you often learn allot by the way folks sell an issue to hard, it sometimes means that someone is exaggerating to cover for a concern.

Did you know that Mcfarlane never attended a Risk Committee meeting?