What happens when your business is massively reliant on one customer … and that customer stops needing as much of your product?
Ask Wayne Swan:
RBA Chart Pack - March 2012
Steel production not looking good. And total production growth gently sliding.
Why might that be?
RBA Chart Pack - March 2012
House prices topped out and rolling over. Floor space sold falling.
And fixed asset investments ground to a halt:
RBA Chart Pack - March 2012
Why is all this happening?
RBA Chart Pack - March 2012
The same old story, as seen throughout the Western world, now in China too.
When the “credit” (ie, debt) needed to keep blowing up a bubble slows and falls, the end is nigh.
And without all that debt-fuelled building activity to drive “GDP growth”?
RBA Chart Pack - March 2012
Say “bye bye” to that surplus fantasy, Swanny.
Oh yes, no doubt you will loudly trumpet a forecast surplus in the May budget.
But I for one am willing to bet you that, come end June 2013, there is not a snowflake’s chance in hell of your delivering one.
Barnaby Is Right 
Listening to Swan keep telling us how debt will eventually give way to a surplus under his stewardship is a bit like listening to Maureen McGovern sing The Poseidon Adventure’s “There’s Got To Be A Morning After”…..
I would even have doubts he could even forecast a surplus with those figures. It would be like forecasting a win on the roulette wheel, spending the dough accordingly, all while the wheel is still spinning.