If you'd been thinking lately that the global financial crisis was a thing of the past, you might want to take a wee look at what's been happening around the globe this week.
After a relative period of calm in the euro zone, Irish debt and banking worries - similar to those in Portugal and Greece - have come roaring back into centre stage, even knocking the US Fed's money printing out of the spotlight.
Traders seem to doubt whether the Irish government is going to be able to push through a tough austerity budget and have started demanding far higher yields on Irish government debt.
In fact according to the UK Telegraph, yields on 10-year Irish bonds has spiked from 6% to 9% in just three weeks.
The Irish government has described the bond spike as very serious, while 20 out of 30 economists and bond experts polled by Reuters expect the Irish to have to ask for an EU/IMF bailout similar to Greece's. Yikes!
But it is not just Ireland where the trouble is flaring up.
Take a look at the red-hot banking debate in Australia.
Anger in Australia
This week ANZ joined the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in increasing its floating mortgage rate by nearly double the amount of the most recent increase by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
The move drew massive criticism from politicians and the public who claimed it was unfair and unjustified.
The banks however say they had no choice given the increase in funding costs on world markets.
Remember the big four Aussie banks, while some of the safest in the world, still need to access global money markets for a large chunk of their capital.
Interest rates in these markets are still a lot higher than they were before the global crisis.
Now I know some people can't bring themselves to believe anything banks say, but surely ANZ and CBA wouldn't have increased rates by such an amount at this time if they didn't really need to?
They would have been fully aware of the angry backlash that was coming.
Why would they have incited it if they didn't need to?
And while New Zealand's central bank may have last week removed the last of the emergency liquidity measures it introduced at the height of the GFC, we are still by no means out of the woods here yet either.
Threat of war
The biggest threat to our country right now seems to be the prospect of an all out currency war between the world's global economic powers.
A currency war would essentially see nations in a race to devalue their currencies, thereby boosting their export competiveness.
This would be disastrous for New Zealand exporters who are already up against it with the kiwi near 80 US cents.
New Zealand as a small trading nation would simply be collateral damage in a currency war.
I know some will argue the war has already broken out given the US's desire to print money.
And it's true the Fed easing last week did weaken the US dollar. However the US government strongly denies it's trying to devalue its currency and instead argues the reason for the weakening was the greenback no longer being seen as such a safe haven currency.
Thankfully whilst there's been plenty of mud slinging from the likes of China, the US and the other emerging powers like Brazil and India, we are not quite into open currency warfare yet.
This means there is a chance common sense will prevail at the G20 this weekend and a truce of sorts can be found.
And while New Zealand is not big enough to be at the G20 there will thankfully be plenty of other like minded nations there that are keen to avert becoming collateral damage in a currency war.
These include Brazil, India and Australia.
If ever there was time to root for the Aussies, this weekend is it.
