BankWest has lowered in rates in line with the big banks

Overseas owned West Australian Bank, BankWest has cut its standard variable rate by 80 basis points from 9.25 per cent p.a to 8.45 per cent per annum. The move comes after the major banks passed on part of the shock 1 per centage point cash rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia earlier this week.
Their rate tracker home loan will also move 80 basis points from 8.35 per cent p.a. to 7.55 per cent. This is one of the best mortgage loans in Australia according to Mr Mortgage
The new rates will be effective from 17 October 2008.

Mortgage Finance: what will happen to interest rates?

The Reserve Bank of Australia's dramatic 1% interest rate cut has not worked according to Mr Mortgage , even though they were followed with a joint round of rate cuts around the World, because consumers have stopped spending, and this has not helped them to restart because credit card interest has not been lowered and now investments and superannuation plunges are melting away confidence and job security.
On the housing front there are now 800,000 house-holds suffering financial [mortgage] stress, and the 0.8% rate reduction passed on by the banks will help a little, but that will not encourage new home buyers into the property market, with job prospects on the slide.
The fact is Australians are fully loaded with debt, and more debt is not the answer for their problem.
Paying down debt would be easier if credit card debt were lowered the 1% that the cash rate was discounted, but banks Worldwide have liquidity problems, so milking the poor credit card holder is an easy way out of their problem.
The answer to the question what will happen to interest rates is easy. They will fall, so expect another 0.5% reduction before Christmas. This will only solve a part of the problem. The reason that the share markets are in free fall is loss in confidence, and the reason for that is the lack of liquidity in the banking sector. Even if people can repay a loan, they may not be able to get a new one because the banks haven't got the liquidity.

Sub-prime mortgage blunders made in the USA and exported to you by unconscious incompetents

Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary has been asleep at the wheel for the last two years at least when the Sub-prime Mortgage lending credit crunch first surfaced in finance news says Mr Mortgage.

 

Paulson seems to be another Bush-era ring and joins George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney  with the trademark combination swagger and incompetence, [they are unconscious incomptents, i.e.  incompetent but they don't have the intellectual capacity to know it.] 

As a former chairman of Goldman Sachs you would think that Henry Paulson actually had a clue, but as US Treasury Secretary he does not know what he is doing as he goes from one blunder to the next "rescue" of Fannie Mae, have triggered unintended consequences around the world, resulting in the death-spiral of financial values. 

But last Friday, Paulson outdid even these Rumsfeldian achievements, when he demanded $US700 billion ($843 billion) from Congress for a "comprehensive and fundamental" solution to the global financial crisis, without apparently having any idea of what he would actually do. 

The good news  is that Paulson's blunders no longer matter very much. There will still be a huge US government [US Taxpayer] bank bailout, which Mr Mortgage says will do little to avert a disastrous slump in the US and global economies. 

The other good news is that this mess wil have little effect to Australian mortgages and bank mortgage lenders.

But because President Bush and Henry Paulson have lost any political initiative, this bailout will now be led by the Democratic leadership in Congress and will be structured around its priorities -- relief from mortgage foreclosures, restrictions on bankers' pay and big government shareholdings in US banks. 

For President Bush it is a disaster, and he now looks certain to pick up the wooden spoon as 

"Worst US President Ever". He was certainly the most dangerous ever and the most lawless ever.

Expect more stuff ups from these maverick cowboys before they are done.