The clock is ticking on NZ$84.5 bln of foreign debt

These are nervous times for banks all around the globe as they try to refinance debt they owe to banks in other countries.

The international inter-bank credit markets virtually froze this week as banks stopped trusting each other. They were petrified in the wake of the shock collapses of AIG, Washington Mutual and Lehman Bros, the forced mergers of Merrill Lynch, Halifax Bank of Scotland and Wachovia, and the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bradford and Bingley, Fortis and Dexia.

Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard acknowledged the disruptions on global credit markets this week when he said some parts of the inter-bank markets had jammed up, which would be a significant concern if they remained frozen for longer than a few days.

This matters for New Zealands banks because over the last 5 years New Zealand banks have borrowed heavily in these international credit markets on our behalf and have shuffled it through to us in the form of more and bigger mortgages, which have promptly use to boost house prices.

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[john1962712]

vote green

[w0y1z92753]

@TheSilverGuild youtube search 'criminal rothschilds' Every American President who told the banks to piss off ended up dead - These included Jackson, Lincon and Kennedy. One of the last things Kennedy did before he was murdered was to sign executive order 11110 which was to phase in debt free govt issued treasury bonds (money), while phasing out fed (bank) money.

[TheSilverGuild]

Why cant we just issue and print our own money? why do we have to borrow money from the IMF and private foreign banks? No government or country should have to borrow money at all ever!

[dizzayB]

Ourgovernment has lost control of the printing of its own money to the so-called RBNZ. This is merely a deceitful name. It is none other than a private bank which answers to the Banking cartel which directs monetary and therefore social policy.

What do you think causes inflation? It is the stolen value from our dollar through interest payments that our government has to make to the RBNZ that it borrows! yes! Our governmnet is indebted to a private firm!

Wake up NZ!!

[barbaglia111]

I want to thank you, Bernard Hickey for your quality reporting. You are a great source for news and information that I am unable to find here in the United States.

[bellpawt]

Maybe they systemic collapse of iinternatioinal banking as a result a derivatives meltdown will conflagrate all the banks and we`all get to keep our houses ...:-)

[Scoot2612]

Republicans screwed the nation and the world.

Heres what happened in the financial crisis that could not have happened on a worse time as in this month.

Both parties agreed that part of the members should vote against to keep so that as well Reps as Dems could not get the blame but global economy would have been saved.

12 REPTILES didnt stick to the agreement. What do we have, Reps gained more voters and could blame Dems and a recession. We feel screwed by the Reps.

WHY DONT YOU