dharryAh, you got me.True, competition wiped out.Writeoffs...

dharry

Ah, you got me.

True, competition wiped out.

Writeoffs peaking, I doubt it. Could be but maybe just a lull. The results of debacles continue to surface for years after the calamity.

Businesses being screwed, yeh, I mentioned that a while ago. Small business and farmers paying 10-11%.

My son is a commercial property manager in HO of a major bank and although I was warning him in 2007 about what was to happen, he was constrained by policy and unable to exercise personal judgement. That's the way it works.

Yes, and maybe we sail through and all is hunky dory.

I have to admit that when we came out of 1982 easily and then 1992 easily, I thought 2003 couldn't be just another easy decade. It was till 2007, the usual suspect year.

Now out of 2009, can it be so easy again? Maybe I just think it will be different and it ain't. I have been guilty of overestimating human reaction before. After the 1991 gulf war when markets soared on the attack, I thought Iraq would be different but it was just the same.

The result: Don't expect human or market behaviour to ever change. Never think that past experience means future behaviour will differ. It won't.