Chanticleer reviews 35 years of booms and busts – The Australian Financial Review

Looking back over 35 years of finance reporting there is one theme that stands out the propensity for Australians to get caught up in booms and busts.

For some reason, we are suckers for financial products offering returns that are too good to be true. We are, more often than not, too scared to ask questions about financial promises that don’t make sense.

We too often allow generous tax concessions to cloud our judgement about the merits of what is really being sold.

Worse still, we are too lazy to do our own homework on over-the-top ASX statements, dodgy accounts hiding off-balance sheet activities and profit and loss statements pumped up with one-offs and questionable revenue recognition practices.