By Gareth Vaughan
The first-half of 2024 is likely to be tough with rising unemployment and more businesses failing as the economy "bounces along the bottom," says BNZ Head of Research Stephen Toplis.
In a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Toplis delves into the swathe of domestic economic data from the past week including Gross Domestic Product, migration, Statistics New Zealand's Selected Price Indexes, the Real Estate Institute's latest monthly housing data, the current account deficit, the dovish US Federal Reserve monetary policy review, China and more.
It's tough times for businesses and households are under the cosh, Toplis says.
"Our view has long been that the second-half of 2023 and first-half of 2024 would be the trough in the economic cycle. And I think this [recent data] is confirming evidence of it," says Toplis.
"We're just bouncing along the bottom. And we'll continue to bounce along the bottom, probably until the central bank starts lowering interest rates. So there's more of this really, probably until the second-half of next year."
He notes the economy would look even worse without surging migration, but this is becoming problematic.
"We knew prior to Covid that we were having difficulty as an economy absorbing more than about 50,000 or 60,000 people in a given year. Now we're trying to absorb double that, and that's resulting in things like pressure on your rents, pressure on your housing market, and a pick up in demand in some places that will be difficult to meet," Toplis says.
Thus it's time to "look very closely at tweaking the [migration] settings to moderate those inflows."
Meanwhile, with the new coalition government planning to reduce government consumption aggressively, the reduction in the size of government "is going to be a headwind to New Zealand for some time to come."
"There are quite strong multiplier effects of that because government consumption is largely people employed. So if you reduce the size of the state sector, particularly its employment, it will have multiplier impacts on spending throughout the economy."
"If you think about the last time we had a massive correction in the size of government, that was actually in the early 1990s when Ruth Richardson ran her mother of all budgets as she called it. The sort of decline in government consumption that we're talking about now is of a similar magnitude. Back then it had a very, very big impact on both the unemployment rate and economic activity generally. The broader environment was quite different so it would be remiss to suggest it would be exactly the same impact, but it will be meaningful," Toplis says.
In the podcast he also talks about the inflation outlook, including why we "need to be a little bit careful in being overly concerned about non-tradeables" inflation, the housing market, the labour market, the outlook for interest rates, and more. (See more on tradeable versus non-tradeable inflation here).
"Volatility remains the order of the day unfortunately, and we still have the worst of this economic recovery to get through."
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
129 Comments
Over the short term the huge immigration numbers we're seeing are going to contribute more to unemployment than they are aggregate demand.
Most immigrants won't be buying much if they're struggling to find a job. 17k arrived last month alone on work visas. Are there 17k job openings waiting for them? I doubt it.
Assumes all of them are looking for work at once, but possibly not. Some may have jobs before they arrive also.
But all of this seemed self evident for a while.
We like to talk about what we do and don't like on interest. Which is fine. But a take home when talking about the future is that the government can and will print more people to shore up an economy if it needs to. So something to take into account for the future, probably the next few decades at least. The locals will get sad, but it's not up to them. As has been done for over 150 years.
Again, that's not an endorsement, it's just a fact, not to be ignored.
I like pineapple banana ice cream. Unfortunately it's not always available.
The boomer generation is not without it's problems, but yep, there's some inescapable realities that make a 60 year old better off than a 30 year old.
Biggest joke is the boomers overlapped the hippies, a generation that Pooh poohed the status quo and railed about how bad the world was, peace and love for everyone, only to become the most capitalist sons a bitches the world's ever seen.
I shudder what the gen zs and millennials will turn into. Generations that wanted cameras to point at themselves, rather than outwards.
"only to become the most capitalist sons a bitches the world's ever seen."
You always get a range of people and views lets be fair. Don't label all boomers which I'm not, as bad people and Donald trump like. DT is same age as my friends mum, she is frugal and caring and managed to save enough
By being frugal, and living through an enormous cyclical reduction in interest rates that has pumped asset prices beyond the reach of the young.
I'm a pretty comfortable millennial, but man I don't envy people starting their journey now. They have it much harder and naturally some are quite vocal about that fact.
Indeed. People only seem to have very short term outlooks.
To be on earth in itself, is far preferential to being seemingly anywhere else in a vast universe.
To be born into this time, is immensely better than being born during 99.99% of the rest of human existence.
To be born into our sort of society, is better than being born into most of today's societies.
You may well be right.
Not an lot of people know that NZ's longest depression occurred between 1865 and 1895, 30 years long. Those few of us whose European ancestors were here during that time weren't mollycoddled like our post WW2 immigrants. In Auckland there were huge numbers unemployed and near starvation living mainly on Christian charity.
Thousands fled to Australia.......so nothing new here. Proportionately, far more than today's exodus.
Unfortunately, the commenteriat here doesn't place their gnomic opinions in historical context.
I don't know. Say you're a 20-something looking at an unaffordable world and wondering how you will ever pay your student debts and buy a house. Are you more likely to compare your situation to the depression generation of the late 1800s, or to your parents and grandparents?
"To be born into our sort of society, is better than being born into most of today's societies."
The probability of being born in NZ is very low as the population of NZ is low relative to the rest of the world - 0.06% (that is one in every 1,666 people)
Then the odds of being born into a good family in NZ reduce those odds even more.
People forget that the odds of them being born into their starting circumstances in NZ are quite low.
Depending upon one's own definition of an undesirable country, being born into an undesirable country might have a probability above 85 - 90%.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/
You can pre-book parking on auckland airports website in the short term parking section.
I did a drop off on Saturday around 9am. Wasn't much traffic and my prebooked parking was $7 for 2 hrs. Stuck around to see the mrs off and actually thought intl departures was very quiet.
Housing has to be affordable. Otherwise how will the price be sustained? The answer is that in the short term it can depart from fundamentals because only a very small percentage transacts, in the long term all the houses have to be bought at the new prices. Rentals don’t solve the equation, a rental should cost more than owner situation because it has to pay the same costs and generate a return. That rental owners have accepted less cause capital games is a short term distortion.
The prices will be sustained by the segments of society that can afford to buy them.
If no one can afford them, then we won't get new homes and people will continue owning the old ones.
If there's less people to live in the old homes than there are homes for sale, the price will drop.
Rents don't have to 100% represent the value of today's cost to buy, because much of our rental stock owes the owners less, because very few of them bought recently - that low transaction volume you mentioned.
Even if all you say is true as a general principle, the point is other jurisdictions have better housing less than 1/2 our median income multiple and are operating under the same general principles.
And we used to as well prior to 1993.
There is no reason for this distortion other than poor Govt. regulatory policy.
You can have your principle and way more affordable housing.
Rentals don’t solve the equation, a rental should cost more than owner situation because it has to pay the same costs and generate a return
They do, in theory, have the same cost: the landlord receives rent, and the homeowner saves having to pay rent. The homeowner's saving and the landlord's rental income should have roughly the same value.
Fundamentals? What fundamentals point to the current house prices. The only one I see is the banks are prepared to lend to this level.
So long as they don't blink it's all good.
Locally there were two mortgagee auctions, one dairy farm one house in town. Interesting part is this is not the first time they have been put up but the mortgagee in both cases wouldn't accept the rather low bids. The banks learnt a long time ago that mortgagee sales can set a low bar so are very careful. But how long can they continue passing them in?
Meanwhile, with the new coalition government planning to reduce government consumption aggressively, the reduction in the size of government "is going to be a headwind to New Zealand for some time to come."
= this coalition is going to make things worse, much worse than they need to be.
I'm not talking about the previous government. They f***d up quite a bit. The point is this government won the election and they are going to f*** things much worse than they need to.
I am a centrist voter and I'm seriously pissed that more of the centrist National voters aren't up in arms about the shit job this coalition is setting us up for. They are barely even trying to hide it (regulatory impact statement suppression excluded).
Just because they won and you voted for them doesn't mean you have to sit back and agree with what they are doing. Plenty of Labour voters were highly critical of government policies, they didn't just carry on saying Labour was great when they put up terrible policies.
Let's focus on the actions of the government that is in power and hold them to account.
Looks like they're probably going to run a fairly typical austerity play over the state sector, and a carrot induced play in the private sector. As happens, coming into a recession (we had a Labour government go hard in this realm, in the 80s).
They probably can't run too much more debt up, as we just spent 4 years doing that, and their tax revenue will likely take a hit.
If you voted National, none of this should be surprising at all.
"Looking back over recent recessions in New Zealand, real GDP per capita has already fallen by almost as much as it did in the 2008/09 recession. It isn’t that headline GDP is plummeting, but record non-citizen immigration inflows means the population has been growing at a rate not seen since 1947."
Finally the bank economists are talking some truth. (Not the full truth as they will have analyzed their customer's situations and will know full well what's coming.)
The big question now becomes - and nobody is really talking about it - is how bad unemployment is going to be.
From what I'm seeing the dominos are starting to fall and taking other dominos with them. The big employers (govt, retail, manufacturing, construction, etc) are all laying off workers and/or not handing out new contracts. Central government is retrenching, and cancelling big projects, and even more people will be out of work. Meanwhile, local governments across NZ Inc. have been contracting for months as they seek some resemblance of balance in their budgets.
Many people among the commentariat probably don't know that many organizations have been carrying a surplus employee or two because it's been hard to fill positions for a few years. These employees will be dumped now the employment market is awash with surplus workers. i.e. the next read of unemployment will show this with a step climb. People will be shocked. "What a surprise." "We didn't see that coming." I can hear them now. Like always, those fools were not looking in the right place. Expect to see even more of a brain drain as skilled workers head offshore.
At the consumer level, the cash buffers built up over covid are long gone and led to far too many economists (especially bank economists) predicting a rosy future where none was evident once those cash buffers were exhausted.
And we now have a central govt, the NACTF, preaching the best solution is cutting government spending and 'balancing books'? This is what happens when people are fooled into believing a government must behave like a private company.
We're screwed under such leadership. Totally screwed.
Have I mentioned that Kiwi voters aren't that bright? Getting everything they didn't vote for, in this case a severe recession.
Still ... On the plus side, we have an independent central bank.
In the face of government stupidity and ignorance I expect they'll be forced to come riding to the rescue far earlier than they'd wish. But they have no choice. Why? Financial stability is part of their remit and they will act to achieve it.
We were already screwed, as of early 2020.
The unemployment was mostly also baked in, because our economy has performed as if nothing was going on, when as some of the factors you've highlighted are present, and more. I've been watching companies around me operate, and scratched my head at how the hell they can be remotely profitable in the last few years. Raising prices, I guess.
Most people have been clueless to this, evidenced by our increase in consumer spending post pandemic. People needed to be acting more conservatively than normal, not less.
We've achieved less, with more inputs.
re ... "We were already screwed, as of early 2020."
No.
We've been screwed since voters chose on the 14th October 2023 to elect a government that has no idea how to tackle a recession. NZ's center right governments have a fine history of making recessions far deeper than they need to be while dropping many more into the poverty zone while gutting the middle.
If this government continues with their rhetoric and persists with enacting it's policies (that may have been appropriate back in 2020) they'll be a single term government and despised for a generation.
From my observations over the last 25 years this rings very true. The 'middle' will get gutted by this government, yet they don't see it...
Luckily I don't fall into this category - our cosy 6-figure salaries (about to be increased with the unneeded but promised and I'll take it 'thank you very much' tax reduction) allow for private healthcare and schooling so won't need to worry about the degradation in our healthcare and other public services.
Our investment properties (which have recently substantially increased rent to meet demand and waiting for removal of interest tax deductibility) will set me up well in retirement - at the expense of the poor unfortunate souls who have to rent - will allow us to weather the storm too.
Why anyone from this 'middle' would have voted for this coalition is completely beyond me.
You don't need to worry for you directly... but it will impact social cohesion and crime so you'll still be impacted indirectly. So you still have a stake in making sure that safety nets for our most vulnerable exist.
Especially if planned "benefit sanctions" are enforced for people who are mentally unwell or disabled who already find it hard to get to doctors appointments to prove that yes, they still have the same chronic illness....
And yes. I honestly don't understand how the middle consistently votes for people working against their interests either, but there's research from the US showing that they don't consider themselves "the middle". Rather, they are simply "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" (which is such a great quote).
You're absolutely right - and I did forget to mention that I did NOT vote for anyone in this coalition - specifically due to the impacts on society that you mention.
Although welcome, I don't need their handouts and I'd rather see our country strive to be more equitable but politics is a cruel sociological game..
"Although welcome, I don't need their handouts and I'd rather see our country strive to be more equitable "
Good for you. You are very likely to be in a small minority of people prioritizing the good of the entire country over personal self interest.
Many who are in the lower socio-economic groups who are financially struggling don't have that luxury.
There are many in the high socio-economic group who still choose to prioritize their own financial self interest over the greater good of the whole country.
Each individual has some degree of self interest, it's innate to us as beings. I'd be lying if I said my own concerns and wellbeing didn't factor into my motivations at some level.
But fairly early on I could recognize that the quality of my own life and outcomes was dependent on the quality and health of wider relationships with others. Whether it's my family, romantic relationship, friends, employees and clients, the energy and consideration I can give to each one of those greater groups, ironically benefits me far better than being insular focused.
Right wing governments always rely on pulling the wool over people’s eyes so they vote against their own self interest. A meager tax cut in exchange for big reductions in public services and lots of user pays.
I’m hearing about big cuts to government services coming - and not the comms people that national promised us would get whacked or the population ministries ACT promised would get cancelled - I’m talking about the real services you care about and rely upon that employ people in homes, schools, and hospitals.
And it makes sense, the Govt needs to fund a $15B (or something like that tax cut package). How do you fund that off $100B odd of govt expenditure when you can’t cut NZ super. $5B a year - and that’s why the 6.5% that was promised to be 6.5% Wellington bureaucrats is going to be 6.5% of everything. It’s going to bite deep. And none of that was promised or explained to the public who think government services = office workers. Spoiler, it doesn’t.
Yeah I'm worried about the coming cuts to public services too. And you're right that was never explained to the average public.
Especially since those services are already so stretched and people already struggle to access them. :( (E.g. apparently the wait times on WINZ right now are 2 hours on hold then you reach the end of the queue callout time and call is disconnected. For many people, this is their only way to access services.)
Generally historically this goes along with reduced funding for charitable organisations - the double whammy of reduced Govt support and that ordinary people can't afford to chip in to help either. So it's made worse.
Three years ago I helped set up a small local social enterprise in this space, and a lot of similar orgs have started since. Charities are very reliant on an increasingly smaller pool of charitable funding - hence why this one is run as a social enterprise. It needs wider income than just grant funding.
Meanwhile we have the DHB suing the Wairarapa city council over their hospital, which was built then reached capacity in a couple of years.
https://times-age.co.nz/local-government/ldr/te-whatu-spends-3-5m-suing…
I can't wait for all those who protested against workers losing their jobs from government action (most of which I expect were government funded jobs) getting back into protesting again on the government lawns now that it will happening again. Mostly what I hear so far is from people who are happy that those jobs will be lost.
You'd likely find that we needed to keep nurses, teachers, police etc when the protests happened. They were essential jobs that benefit all. who and many got mandated out of their jobs. What we don't need is the level of policy analysts and HR that was taken on under the 6th Labour government with all the legislation that was hastily pushed through under the nose of the public.
here is another perspective of life
from the property investors page
"Hi, could anyone please recommend a financial advisor who would be able to provide advice on my situation. I bought an OO at the peak in 2021 in Wellington which has dropped in value by ~25%. I have had to move cities for work and as I am unable to sell the property for what I bought it for have had to rent it out. My interest rate is moving from 2.89 to the 7s in 6 months so I will be topping up the mortgage a lot. Will it be a better move financially to sell and accept a loss or continue topping up ~25k per year to maintain the property hoping for a price recovery. Thank you
I don't know how NZ is going to eat this s**tburger ,or should i say these s**tburgers
someone remind me how and why the whole country borrowed money for large loss making investments
oh that's right...to get ahead and have a gold plated retirement
show me the money!
"someone remind me how and why the whole country borrowed money for large loss making investments"
Motivated by expectations of tax free capital gain.
As they were focused on the tax free capital gain in the future, they were blind sided by one essential assumption in their calculations.
No.
Uhhh, yeah. Other economies got badly damaged during COVID. Some have since started feeling what we are about to feel. You cannot have something like COVID happen, and there not be a price to pay at some point.
Our centre right led government presided over us coming through the last recession less scathed, and faster than many others. Team Red (who i voted for, twice in a row) have a philosophy that's antithetical to new job creation, which we'll need over the next 12-36 months.
Some of what I do involves agriculture. The way it usually works out, every 7 years I'll get 4-5 good harvests, 1-2 average ones, and 1 non existent one.
We think there's somehow some magic way to have an entire economy that can just trot along, no matter what the weather, with no pain. We can try, for a time, but we can barely fund our aspirations at the best of times, and when times are tough have to borrow our way through them, or get out the scissors. Sometimes a bit of both.
Yes I agree with everything you've written here. I've seen this too and the consequences. But I've learnt that my ability to understand long-range consequences and spot patterns is unusual. It's one of the reasons I visit this site and read the comments. I usually amalgamate the public sentiment here as it gives me exposure to a few people who also think this way so I can cross-check my thinking.
The vast majority of people are not able to do this and make changes accordingly. It requires a lot of reading and observation in daily life, and then the ability to apply this into context.
I think next year's going to be challenging for many more than we've seen probably since the 1990s. There are still challenges in hiring in some sectors. But you're right about employers holding on to lower performing workers so the work gets done, and if better people are available they may look to take them on and reduce headcount on the low performers. The impact on the country too of bringing in the equivalent population of Wellington in 2017 in one year... I expect to see population outflows to the regions in about 6 months as a result.
I also think many are going to be hitting our welfare institutions for the first time next year (a pattern we usually see in recessions), and the papers will be full of formerly middle class people moaning about how impossible benefits are to live on, the unfair 'rules' applied and the amount of paperwork required.
One of the less well known things about certain funds during COVID is that they resourced a lot of community organisations to actively be able to do more good in the regions. This included being able to pay key people for their time instead of them only being able to volunteer and the state had to pick up the slack. When this funding ended, all the people who had jobs through that finding lost them and went back to doing that work unpaid (and on a benefit). This absolutely impacted those regions.
My wife and I have just come home from a cafe. It’s her birthday and we took close friends out for breakfast. We all remarked how quiet it was. We had our meals in front of us in ten minutes. I would hate to be in hospitality and retail currently. Come new year it will be worse. Bloody inflation.
That was vegans though. Vegans are a much smaller segment than vegetarians (and from what I can tell, are much more vocal!). I know heaps of vegetarians including myself (for about 15 years now), and heaps of people who mostly eat vegetarian in their daily lives but would never call themselves as such. Or they use 'flexitarian'.
The cost of a decent breakfast is now like $25 to $28 each plus a coffee, thats pretty horrendous but I am willing to pay it if it comes out better than what I can cook, problem is it seldom does these days as they have also lowered the quality of it at the same time. Prefer to do a few poached eggs on toast with loads of smoked salmon at home, cost $12.
You really wouldn't like to hear my try and sing while cooking, not my strong suit. Not sure where you are coming from. Cafe food prices are up, the quality is down and they are struggling to keep staff and people can cook a better brunch at home. Loads of Cafes are going to go to the wall, its discretionary spending and people are going to stop buying food and only buy coffee.
It’s I tough thing to say, but too much time and effort has been put into how to we prop up the hospitality sector, including ensuring there is a ready pool of cheap labour.
The reality is we don’t earn enough to eat out all the time. With the mortgages people are carrying on often underwhelming homes, that money just isn’t available. The generation who could afford it, or pretended they could afford it, are moving into retirement and the next generation know they aren’t lucky enough to routinely pop out for brunch.
Yes. I used to wonder why it was so important to have a bulked up hospitality sector, until I realised that it was closely linked to tourism and the 'image' of NZ. Making sure tourists are fed, and catering for a certain segment of the population who are used to fine dining from overseas. We're a first world country so we need to provide that too. And of course, it's fun to do occasionally if you're getting something that you can't or don't want to cook at home.
It's important that these things are provided. But it shouldn't be at the cost of our economy, and I don't think we need so many places. It's unsustainable in the long run.
Labor costs in hospitality are by far and away relatively minor costs.
The big costs are rents (huge increases in the last 5 years), input prices (excluding labor) and other operating costs, e.g. insurance, rates, and compliance costs (e.g. you can't live on-site!).
Other cities and countries have teaming, bustling hospitality sectors and they barely contract through tough times. We're doing it wrong (see rents above).
Hospo labour costs run around 25%, food 30-40%. Rent about 10%. Depends if by hospo you mean eateries, or lodging.
They'll do it tough in a recession, because the margins are fairly low, and as sales drop off, all their fixed and materials costs stay the same.
Anywhere you go, high traffic areas usually have expensive rents.
Anywhere you go, high traffic areas usually have expensive rents.
You mean 'high' rents. Expensive is a subjective adjective.
Anyway, not much point for commercial landlords having 'high rents' if they cannot attract tenants.
Commercial property is toast. Globally. And no, we are not diffrunt.
I owned a food business in central Auckland, and worked in hospo there also. So far you're batting about 0 from 10 attempts at trying to pigeonhole me. My actual personal philosophy is some of the hippiest shit anyone could hear, except it's not really practical in the society and economy we exist in.
The percentage may depend on the size of the business, this was a turnover of a couple mill a year - although lower turnover usually dictates a lower footprint, and lower rent (unless you're in a Mall). The rent was more like 7.5% (actually a lease, to keep JC happy), but I rounded it up to be a bit more generous to you.
But the raw material and labour cost stays fairly consistent - I can't actual envisage a food hospo business have a lease cost as the primary concern, as you have attested. Maybe in an Airport? Even then still not close to labour and materials.
So as a point of interest, how'd you get this
Labor costs in hospitality are by far and away relatively minor costs.
The big costs are rents
Because the Labour costs are 2nd behind food, and actually increase fairly regularly, via minimum wage hikes (even if you pay more than minimum, you're compelled to raise them inline with minimum hikes), and increased worker friendly legislation. They shifted up way more frequently than a lease anyway, which is usually on a fixed schedule.
The killer was actually the financing of it. Business loans are high interest, short duration, and due no matter how you're trading.
The burden of proof usually lies with the initial claimant (you, in this case). I'm a direct source, so don't need to provide links. I can probably dig out some old P and L reports, if you're prepared to concede ignorance on this one. Fixed costs in these sorts of businesses are usually collectively lower than labour alone, and raw materials is the highest. If the desired margin is 10-20%, raw materials average out at 35, labour 25, rent cannot be the highest cost, or even close.
Where did you gather rents lieing so high on the cost structure, and labour so low?
Edit: thinking about it more thoroughly, perhaps the other exception to a higher rent, is if the lease actually enveloped the tenancy fitout cost - i.e. rather than just renting the space, you're renting out the space, and the landlord has also developed the kitchen/dining/public areas, for you to rent from them. Rents are usually for the shell only though.
re ... "The generation who could afford it, or pretended they could afford it, are moving into retirement ...."
... leaving the next generation to pick up the billions of dollars needing to be spent to correct the infrastructure deficit that that the previous generation successfully transferred into their own pockets.
I suspect history will not treat the boomer generation kindly.
They will be seen as a selfish plague that undid a lot of the good work their parents did following the war for personal enrichment, resisted any attempt to regulate personal behaviour that harmed the environment or social cohesion, squandered our precious and limited fossil fuel energy on building (or not building) appropriate infrastructure and oversaw a human induced mass extinction event / biodiversity collapse.
They'll be dead so won't care but I suspect having a rich boomer ancestor will be looked on in similar way slave and plantation barons are now.
Lol, you're about a standard deviation or so away from invoking Godwin's Law. Try switching out Rage Against The Machine for some Enya.
Boomers typically had early lives that were incredibly austere by today's standards. Basic food items were rationed even through the 50s. Consumer items as we take for granted weren't even considered, or highly prized. There was no TV or Internet (the boomers gave us satellite communications and the internet).
The social cohesion went, as we ditched the last remnants of mystic religiosity, in favour of hard materialism (both philosophically and via material goods), and the promotion of individual rights. The women of their generation were liberated, at the cost of our current natural population woes.
They also built a great deal of the infrastructure that people are complaining they didn't build enough of.
I can't really see the generations today being any less self centered if anything worse - the boomers were given almost nothing by their parents, and had to make their own way. People are now miffed they haven't been handed slightly more than almost everything.
The partisan tribalism will get nowhere.
I actually rewrite my comment so as not to invoke Godwin's law :).
Pretty hard to stay calm when we're literally destroying our biosphere (you know the thing that allows us to actually live) because boomers don't realise they got unbelievably lucky by living though a massive energy boon as oil was discovered. Also pretty hard to stay calm when that same generation is one of the main barriers to progress. They want to light the barbie up while we're mid-flight because they got used to the taste of steak.
Is this unfair on all boomers? Yes, not all are like that but they will be judged as a generation and unfortunately the clueless libertarian folks who think they "earned" their wealth rather than got lucky by living through the energy boom are very loud and still working hard to fu*** up everyone else's future.
There is certainly a partial amount of luck and happenstance to everyone's situation, sure.
Some of it's also bad luck being younger, the workforce you're competing with is now global in scale. Someone's always available to work harder, for less. Much of our economy is matured, making it hard for younger new players to start a new enterprise. We now have a system where the record of what you're doing, is actually more important than doing it.
As to an actual answer, very hard to offer much that'd be remotely voteable. People need to ditch consumerism. Retail probably needs to die a death for the most part. Land titles need to change. Housing construction need a huge overhaul. The indigenous work force needs to be allocated towards vocations we really need. Tax probably needs to be a bit higher, and/or we need to increase our debt thresholds. We need to get our basic central services well resourced and well run.
Instead, we're wasting what scarce resources we have trying to put our undies on over our jeans, or trying to.
You are correct. I am a boomer and I gave them advice for 30 years as a professional. And I was never an agent. The boomers had the equity at the right time and when assets were cheap many of them went for it. They gorged themselves on rentals and helped push up the cost of housing in New Zealand. Who needs 20 houses, 45 houses, 85 houses? It makes me laugh when they worry about how their children and grandchildren will buy houses. Talk about hypocrisy. Yes some have been greedy and we as a nation are paying for it. As a boomer I haven given considerable help to my children to get on the housing ladder. I did that because my generation had it easier than their children today in terms of housing. I have had three houses through 41 years of marriage, my current one is worth around $3m and my biggest housing loan was $100k. I have been very fortunate.
I too greatly enjoy the boomers exclaiming how their children and grandchildren are struggling. I often wonder what they see when they pull the ladder up after benefiting from so many advantages. I admire them greatly it's a significant skill to blind yourself to advantage so much your surprised at the pile of crap you handed to you next generation .
You forgot to talk about the massive standard of living improvement for the poorest people on the planet (thanks mainly to China) as well as the fact that mankind's highly fruitful success going from 1 billion to 8 billion population in just 200 short years. That is the undeniable and irreplaceable power and utility of fossil fuels. Note most projections see global population safely flattening off over the next 80 years. As for mass extinction events - Earth has had several before and always bounced back. We won't be around to see that though.
re ... "Bloody inflation."
Yup. Bloody RBNZ throwing cheap money into the system when supply chains were rooted.
Yup. Bloody Pootin and other megalomaniacs.
Yup. Bloody governments - too weak to use windfall taxes and so weak so they let the RBNZ do all the heavy lifting.
Yup. Bloody RBNZ and their continued use of the OCR - a 30 year tool based on pub economics.
Yup. Bloody businesses layering up their profits because, you know, they can ... Inflation, don't cha know. (Greedflation.)
Quick note that Putin has consistently acted in the interests of his country and his people. Western leaders don't like the fact that he stopped them from breaking up Russia for its resources or breaking up its values system and traditional family structure with the trendy 72 genders stuff. Just note that Russia was heading the way of corrupt, bankrupt Ukraine in the 1990s under Yeltsin before he stepped in. And of course today Russia is now an industrial, energy, military and diplomatic superpower. A far cry from the days when Russian life expectancy collapsed into a hole along with its economy by six years in just three years. Just think - if the corporate media were telling you house prices are about to start rocketing up you'd be right to question their intentions and veracity. But if they tell you that the Russia economy is rocketing down - would you suddenly start trusting them?
Fortunately, those in possession of education, qualifications, skills and experience can simply move to Australia should they find themselves unemployed. The Lucky Country is still ticking along nicely and illustrates that NZ's problem was not Covid but complete mismanagement over the last 3 years.
The last sheriff run out of town herself
the next sheriff was run out of town
The three new Sheriff's are in town and are making their election known.
The last clown show could not continue, ask the auditor general..... it was a ship-show.
These sheriffs are not scared of a good hanging.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The NACTF doing what they do best ...
Nominally, the Interisland Resilient Connection would cost an average $19.55 per person, per year, over its 50-year lifetime. After adjusting for inflation over the 50 years, this would fall to an average $11.12 per person, per year, in 2025 dollars.
The landlord tax cut costs an average of $232 per person, per year, before inflation adjustment. After inflation adjustment, each New Zealander would be paying an average of $139 per person, per year, in 2025 dollars.
Source: https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/nz-news/350132969/kiwirail-ferry-costs-prio…
(queue the "they don't know what they're talking about" rhetoric.)
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