New opportunities appear in the wake of the crisis

The best way to look at a crisis is to see it as an opportunity.

And figures released on Christmas Eve show Australians  are doing just that.

The data, produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, have received little attention, so far.

That’s a pity.

For they show that there are advantages to be had, as big players in the corporate world rebuild their financial strength, largely by borrowing.

The bureau reported, for example, that Australians lent no less than $13.6 billion to the nation’s banks and other financial corporations in the September quarter alone.

That looks like being a smart investment, in most cases.

These figures were part of the bureau’s September quarter National Accounts, in the Financial Accounts sector.

The bureau also reported that Australians, in what it calls the household sector, increased their demand for credit by $24.5 billion in the quarter.

The total household sector debt, at the end of September, was $1.3277 trillion.

For a nation of some 21 million people, that’s a truly impressive figure.

The ABC reported, over the holiday period, that on a per capita basis, Australians are now more heavily in debt than Americans.

It said that Reserve Bank figures show that Australian adults now owe an average of $74,000 each.

The share market recovery, over the past year, has helped to put some balance back into family finances though, even for Australians who don’t invest directly in shares.

The  crash, of September last year though, showed that thousands of Australian families do, in fact, have big interests in shares, through their superannuation funds.

The value of  superannuation payouts plunged, in the months after that crash.

Much, but not all, of the value wiped out at that time has since been restored, as share markets rose -  more quickly than expected – over the past year.