is this going to be the morther of all crashes, page-24

There are "similarities" between 1974 and 2008, but I don't know how far these eras can be fairly compared.

Australia and the world generally had extremely high inflation as a lingering effect of the Vietnam war. Today we have US spending on the Iraqi war.

In 1974 inflation was hugely exacerbated by union wage campaigns, sanctioned by the then Arbitration Commission, with the yardstick metal workers award re-opened twice in one year.

But today there is no such industrial system and wage
demands are not as easy to cave in to.

1974 there was the Arab oil embargo, which quadrupled oil prices. Today we have OPEC, the threat of terrorism and speculators who have hijacked oil futures originally designed to guarantee fair prices.

1974 we had the incompetent and unstable Whitlam government, looney left treasurers like Jim Cairns, Labour Ministers like Clyde Cameron. (Incidetly, I think it was Cameron who promised to resign if unemployment hit 2%). No comparison with today's crew --Labor of Liberal.

1974 we didn't have a resources boom, and emerging economies were places like Japan and possibly South Korea. Now we have BRIC.

1974 we didn't have mum and dad investors, computerised stock exchanges, online trading.

Draw your own conclusions -- I certainly have none. :)