You are right V-jet, The Australian Economy is stuffed. We are coming to the end of a dream run of growth (29 years or so now?) and what do we have to show for it? A decimated manufacturing base, crippling electricity costs, vastly overinflated housing prices, massive debt on almost every measure, corruption and incompetence throughout many levels of government and business, and increasing evidence to show that the dream run of growth has largely been due to Chinese demand for our minerals and a Migration scheme that has been run largely as a Ponzi to keep retail figures up and real estate prices growing, while keeping wage growth at record low levels; and I could go on.
I despair that the opportunity may have been missed for QF to raise Capex a little during some more or less fortunate good times (rather than spend so many hundreds of millions on useless share buybacks) and buy more ‘gamechangers’, so that the fleet and network were a little more resilient running into a recession.
If oil prices were to unexpectedly lower for a sustained period once again (as they appear to be doing), it would once again present an opportunity to order a few additional frames, while keeping a solid lid on debt levels. Or just buyback some more shares, because how many of the present Management will be there in 5 years time!?