Private equity, derivatives, bubbles and busts

In several respects, although the basic model that Australia has chosen is American, the details of the outcome will be different in Australia from the US, the UK or Europe. Nevertheless, the odds are that we will suffer severely and perhaps tragically when our Goldman-Sachs-type and related bubbles, as I’ve said, "fart" their way into the sorry annals of economic and financial history.

However, even at this late stage, we just don’t know how great and widespread the suffering will be. So there may be little point for us, as individuals, to be either optimistic or pessimistic about our current finance capitalism and all the smart financial devices created by clever, mostly young, seriously ambitious, highly paid and extravagantly bonus-ed British ladies and gentlemen and Yankee guys and dolls - as well as, of course, the relatively small band of blokes and sheilas sitting at dealers’ tables and computer desks around Australia. All that we can do - we who are not making the deals and sharing in the take - is to be fatalistic.

As the song says, "Que sera sera".

At the same time, some of us might be dusting off our book of prayers!