Amongst other things, today’s “Inside Business” mentioned Australia’s banking conundrum – that few businesses apart from the banks are doing well.

The four discussants, including host Alan Kohler, all acknowledged the existence of a stock market bubble, but only one, Gerald Minack, was prepared to say Australia has a real estate bubble.

Minack has for some time now said that Australians will eventually have to pay for our grossly overheated residential property market.

I’ve enjoyed the taste of realism, the increasing unease, that has crept into the once too self-assured tone of Inside Business; the uneasy shifting in seats about what’s going on in the world of business and finance that accompanies barely discernible nods and self-aware grins that all’s far from OK these days.

I’ll watch the show with interest–as a sort of belated barometer–if things worsen before the ABC axes it next year.

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And Paul Krugman’s getting closer, too. This blog in the NYT last week.