how high this rally, page-7

hey FarOut,

Yes, I'd read that $500 mil Oz "subprime" report -- and I must admit I thought it was a classic case of financial journos essentially feeding the shock/horror with a non-story.

For a start, there is _no_ US-style subprime in Oz -- lending standards, even for low-doc loans and similar, were never as low as in the US where you could get the so-called ninjna mortgage -- meaning no income, no job, no assets. I lived in the US for several years, and observed there a whole industry of low-life predatory lenders that would not legally be allowed to operate in Oz -- and rightly so.

Secondly, $500 mil is a drop in the bucket. You are talking -- what? -- 1000 households across the country with $500K mortgages (on average) that are in trouble? Bad for the people concerned, of course, but that's not going to affect the wider Oz economy in any meaningful way.

It actually reading articles like this that I think the standard of financial journalism in this country is pretty ordinary over all.

-Mark