In the SST today, arch-conservative Martin Hawes mentions the A-word: Armageddon. This guy has written numerous booklets, like how to save taxes with your rental properties etc. He says that globalisation is OK, delivers benefits, and that only the financial sector is holding the world back. Pertinent to this thread, he now has 1% of his portfolio in GOLD, but he's not stockpiling arms and ammunition.
Other scary indicators on the same inner page of SST are that wealty americans are pulling their investments out of Eurozone banks and buying American dollars with them. Witness the rise in the US$. It's not because the states are doing better at all. Some funds loaned to eurozone banks have a recall within 7 days. That's short-term lending. French and German banks refusing to roll over loans to British firms in Europe. Big banks absent from buyout deals they normally would have helped with. The Eurozone is China's biggest trading partner. Problems over there will be felt around the world. Anyone else having trouble selling goods into Ireland? Over there, house prices have fallen 50%, are still falling, unemployment is high, and most banks have stopped lending.
While NZ and Aussie are relatively isolated at the moment, it has a pattern of catching up with us within a year or two. And none of the commentators seem to have grasped the issue behind all this negativity.
Until the world has cheaper energy again, the good times are over. While we still have the structures in place, a much bigger effort must be made to reorganise the energy sources that we use, and complete some technologies to the practical stage.