Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news supply-chain pressures are about to hit global trading patterns again.
But first, US jobless claims were relatively low last week. In fact, seasonally, new claims fell to levels we last saw in September 2022, and continuing claims down to October 2023 levels. Those losing jobs in the US are clearly having a relatively easier time in finding new positions. No sign of labour stress here yet.
US December housing starts have come in better than expected although not quite to the November levels. But they were +7.6% higher than year-ago levels. And there was a big jump (+6.1%) in residential building consents being issued, so the future looks ok for this sector.
But the latest Philly Fed factory survey was downbeat, a bit like from some other regions. New order levels are shrinking but perhaps at a slower pace than previously. But shrinking all the same. This report covers an important and very large heartland manufacturing region.
Yesterday the US Fed released its Beige Book summary of all these surveys for December and overall it reported little-change from an uninspiring position.
In China, analysts are waiting for the official December foreign direct investment data - to see how 'bad' it is. But we have to keep in mind it is not career-enhancing in China these days to report news that doesn't show the Party in a good light.
Australia shed -65,000 jobs in December from November, with a huge -107,000 retreat in full time jobs and only +41,000 extra part time jobs replacing them. Their December jobless rate stayed at 3.9%. (NZ releases its December quarter labour force data on Wednesday, February 7. The September level was 3.9%)
Australian inflation expectations have settled in at 4.5%, the same in December as November. It has been sticky between 4.5% and 5% since March 2023 - at a level that the RBA is unlikely to feel comfortable with given their target is "between 2% and 3%" and there is no evidence they are moving toward that.
The IEA has updated its forecasts for oil demand and they are higher for 2024, both from the Suez supply chain disruption, and from rising demand by China. Global inventories are lowish at present, especially in the US. This report, and a similar outlook from OPEC, raised oil prices today.
And in China, despite the official rhetoric about becoming carbon-neutral, their coal mining output hit a new record high again in 2023, and they have plans to boost it much larger than present levels.
The spreading of Middle-East tensions and fights has resulted in another very sharp rise in ocean container freight rates. They were up a stunning +23% last week and have now increased by +82% when compared with the same week last year. That is now even affecting outbound trans-Pacific routes where they rose +38% last week. Capacity demand for avoiding the Suez Canal and Red Sea have jerked things around a lot. China's factories won't be enjoying the cost consequences. Meanwhile, bulk cargo rates continue to ease.
The UST 10yr yield starts today at 4.14% and up another +2 bps from this time yesterday. The key 2-10 yield curve is less inverted, now by -20 bps. Their 1-5 curve inversion is little-changed, still by -80 bps. And their 3 mth-10yr curve inversion is less inverted, now by -123 bps. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 4.30% and up another +1 bp. The China 10 year bond rate is now at 2.52%, unchanged. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +6 bps at 4.76%.
Wall Street has opened on Thursday with the S&P500 up a minor +0.1% so far. Overnight European markets closed up between +0.2% (London) and +1.1% (Paris). Yesterday, Tokyo ended little-changed. Hong Kong bounced back +0.8% yesterday and Shanghai rose +0.4% (Bloomberg reports that the home team was out to stem the large recent falls). Singapore slipped a minor -0.1%. The ASX ended its Thursday session down another -0.3% while the NZX50 ended down -0.7% on the day.
The price of gold will start today up +US$9/oz from yesterday at just on US$2014/oz.
Oil prices are a lot firmer, up +US$2.50 at just under US$74/bbl in the US and the international Brent price is now at just over US$78.50/bbl and up US$2.
The Kiwi dollar starts today at 61.1 USc and little-changed from this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are down -¼c at 93 AUc. Against the euro we are unchanged at 56.2 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today just on 70.1 and virtually unchanged.
The bitcoin price starts today lower again, now at US$41,808 and down another -1.2% from yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours however has remained modest at +/-1.4%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
96 Comments
A real tinderbox in the Middle East at the moment. Pakistan sending missles into Iran last night the latest saga.
Pakistan doesn’t really have exactly peaceful borders does it. Tends to be overlooked they have nuclear armaments and are “non-signatory.”
They appear to only be hammering independent militant groups on either side of the border proving they can strike fairly accurately with missiles.
Sharing coordinates and cleaning up mutual ‘problems’ from outside of state.
Excellent summary there Audaxes.
Interesting point in the recognition of the heavy influence China wields in this region and not just these two subject nations. Therefore if China is actually suffering setbacks to its trade dependent on Red Sea/Suez passage then perhaps there is the prospect of Iran then being persuaded to intervene and rein its proxy Houthis and the missile attacks on the shipping?
Pakistan said it ....".fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and that the “sole objective of today’s act was in pursuit of Pakistan’s own security and national interest which is paramount and cannot be compromised.”
If our worry is the Arabs and Moslems uniting against "us", then we have nothing to fear. Check their history of uniting over the last 4000 years or so.
I think it is geo engineering time for the planet. With the latest doubling of warming due to removal of sulphur from shipping fuel there is no way we can meet our targets. 1.5 is gone with 2 not far behind. Jim Hansen says the next big tipping point is the Thwaites glacier in 20 years where it will slide into the sea. Only way out is artificially blocking some of the incoming sunlight and thus buying us some time through geo engineering. Much like we are doing with our burning of fossil fuel.
Fiddling while Rome burns you mean?
Ground burst atomic bombs over the Amazon jungle should do it. Also Siberia and Canada have large areas of sparsely populated forest that will produce significant smoke.
Yea sure, let's waste enormous energy and resources to fix an over use of energy and resources. Humans really aren't that intelligent are they.
Can't wait to see what the 'unintended consequences' of geo-engineering are when they almost inevitably occur down the track too.
Crikey. One Iceland volcano recently put more crap into the atmosphere than all our cars have done for the last few years. Maybe people should read science and facts instead of money making religious tracts concerning global warming.
Practice what you preach:
Which emits more carbon dioxide: volcanoes or human activities? | NOAA Climate.gov
Humans emit more CO2 than volcanoes | AP News
ScienceShot: Volcano CO2 Emissions No Match for Human Activity | Science | AAAS
Humanity's emissions '100-times greater' than volcanoes (phys.org)
The planet is getting hotter and oil prices are about to go through the roof. What do we do.
From a clean car discount to a clean car tax
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2024/01/from-clean-car-discount-to-cle…
Climate Change: Removing clean car discount a stupid move
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2023/12/climate-change-stupid-move.html
News Flash, people are not buying EV's to "Save the Planet" they are buying them to "Save Money". Its as I predicted running an EV will soon be no cheaper than an ICE and at which point people will stop buying them. Just watch the RUC creep up and don't be surprised if at some point you get hit with additional charges on your Electricity as well. In the end it will be no different to Diesel which used to be 1/4 of the cost of petrol.
Correct - and the rich people in this area were being subsidized by the poor people down the road
Here was me thinking EVs were being subsidised by burners, in their black 4wd double cab diesels with shiny chrome extras. The choice of the poverty stricken.
Now everyone can subsidise 18 wheelers, so that's got to be fair, I guess?
Correction. Good decision makers are subsidised by bad decision makers.
Is that why the smallest most economic ICE cars that the poor drive are now $1500 more expensive.
Petrol will keep going up in price. Batteries will keep coming down in price, as will solar panels (to add to your house to charge your EV). There is no way in 10years time that an ICE car will be cheaper to run than an EV
Press Release 2034: "The ACT Party's strong and stable alliance with Destiny Party, the Truth Alliance and National will again be increasing the subsidy on fuel this year. Also road user charges will be increased again, with anything efficient or battery powered raising the most in order to help share the load of fuel shortages and get this country moving again. And remember, stay alert regarding your areas wildfires and if air conditioning isn't in your budget, keep your clothes damp during the danger zone"
Solar panels are only cheap because of the coal price for the solar panel factory electricity plants.
So you are saying that the basis of this present government will likely go into a fourth term. Blimey, unless four year terms are going to be introduced, that has not been achieved since Holyoake’s second National government. Not sure that I would share your confidence.
I can imagine you sitting at your breakfast table reading the morning paper, all manner of horrible stories regarding global warming obliterating the planet causing death and destruction. Then looking at your partner and saying - "Oh look honey, Luxon did it! A fourth term right wing PM in NZ, what a truly amazing time we live in!".
Overlooks that as oil goes up everything else will go up with it.
in AFR - https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/family-forced-to-sell-three…
The nation’s property market is about halfway through a $350 billion wave of home loans moving from fixed to more expensive variable interest rates, according to RBA research.
In the first case, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) recently found that Westpac had breached its responsible lending obligations for providing a loan to a family unlikely to be able to service it.
The family’s $570,000 loan for their fourth property – their fourth mortgage – triggered the unwinding of their portfolio after interest rates increased at the end of the fixed-interest period. Details about the rate and term of the loan were not provided.
Is anything anyone’s fault anymore? Do whatever you like then blame someone else when it fails!
Stress caused me to invest between periods of shop lifting......
This basically makes taking a financial risk impossible just to make sure no one fails. How many businesses are risk free?
AFCA decided that the family should have known better:
AFCA, an independent financial disputes body, rejected the family’s demand that the bank write off the remaining debt and pay around $350,000 to cover capital losses on the grounds it was not responsible for the investment decisions.
Though
It ordered the bank to pay around $27,000 compensation for approving a loan without establishing that the complainants were able to repay without “substantial hardship”
Its way easier to use floor levelling compound to relevel a shop floor than lifting it by jacking it up
Jack and pack not so good either. EQ repair like that down the road. Now just discovered large cavity under the ring foundation. Apparently that was not noticed because the EQC inspector’s torch went out just when he got to that place.
Really, we had the same, it was causing water to take the path of least resistance into our garage. Fixed now, cost $50k
What happened was that the old ceramic sewer pipes were belatedly found to have gone. Quite an excavation to replace those and in so doing, close in to the foundation, the void was discovered. This is on an hill and water had been coursing through there. Elderly couple who didn’t need the drama after all this time.
an easy fix once you know the problem, just dig down to bedrock and build a cut off wall, our was 5m deep
Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu says he opposes Palestinian state in any postwar scenario
Such a nice man
The two state solution is the only solution. By once again rejecting that, he has condemned both his own people and the Palestinians to endless ongoing suffering.
Really sad. Power and pride condemn humanity yet again.
You are right in the sense that there is no other solution - however a "two state solution" is clearly impossible and would solve nothing anyway.
Really sad that you have not given this any thought before mindlessly repeating the usual slogans.
Why is a 2 state solution impossible? How was Israel created...weetbix giveaway?
Please elaborate on why it can’t work. It’s obviously very very hard. But surely this ongoing debacle suits no one.
You could well be right. So I Look forward to being positively educated rather than being thrown your usual darkly negative and passive aggressive barbs.
The fighting, the hatred, the vendettas are embedded. Too much violent destructive history to quell simply by emplacement of a hard border. As has been amply demonstrated of late, missiles and tunnels defeat walls. The sad irony is that up until the 11th century the mixture of races and religion had worked things into reasonably settled acceptance and understanding of one another. Enter the Christians, the Crusades and over went the apple cart, well and truly. That may have been left to sort itself out, tribally, regionally as it had for centuries, had not not much more than 100 years ago, the vast riches of oil been discovered and borders and friendly sheiks hastily arranged for its optimum exploitation. Families from the aristocracy of the region down cannot be expected to either forget or forgive , in just 100 years or so, centuries and centuries of abuse, disputed land ownership, atrocities and on and on. Heck even depicted in Hollywood land, the opening scene of Lawrence of Arabia the shooting dead of his guide because he wasn’t entitled to drink from that particular well.
" But surely this ongoing debacle suits no one." - of course - but assumes ( as you do throughout ) that some kind of good solution must exist . Sadly real life does not always work like that - some things just cannot be resolved.
The by far the most popular Palestinian organization is Hamas - who are determined to wipe Israel of the face of the planet and make absolutely no secret of it. If in election was held today in outside Gaza ( in the West bank ) they would win easily. This reflects deeply ingrained hatred towards the Jews - in this generation of Palestinians and the next ( current bombing of Gaza does not create it .. it is already there and is not going away ).
All Israel can do is defend itself the best way it can . There is no willingness to make peace on the other side .
Ok fair points, however at least if there are separate states there’s clearer boundaries. And the rule of international law.
International law doesn't seem to apply in the Middle East (see Iran, Syria, and by extension Russia), unless there are Western military boots on the ground (see Saddam Hussein). It would be nice if it did on its own merits, wouldn't it?
Disestablish the UN and replace it with an identical organisation called the League of Nations that has no veto powers for the permanent members of the Security Council. Then we might see some meaningful changes, and hopefully won't repeat the fate of the original League of Nations.
You have matured a lot over the last 2 years HM, good on you !
And no willingness from Israel to make peace either.
Israel is the only party here that has options it can decide. One of which could be a single state with equal rights for all.
They won't do it.
It would be a very different story if the USA weren't sending them weapons!
More so than that and other military support though, Israel is nuclear armed. So what if, in theory only, they adopted Putin’s policy, the precedent he has set if you like, that in the face of an existential threat to their proclaimed territory, those weapons would be readily deployed. That would be a burning question wouldn’t it.
It still beggars belief that the cognitive dissonance doesn't explode peoples heads when they insist a quasi-state run by an organisation (voted into power by the inhabitants) sworn to the absolute destruction of the state of Israel, supported by other pariah states (Houthi-held Yemen, Iran) and other terrorist groups (Hezbollah) that have the same objective is somehow a victim. And they also believe the propaganda of said organisation about the death toll. Sure, there's a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but Hamas doesn't care about that. If they did, they'd surrender and ask for terms.
But they don't because the suffering of their people is the only currency they have in the court of world opinion. After having appeared to have been constructively engaging with Israel for 2 or 3 years, they were in fact planning a war, and explicitly planning war crimes such as civilian mass murder and sexual assault as part of that war.
Hamas could have used those 3 years of goodwill to do something constructive for the people of Gaza and build a future, including getting workers across the border to boost its economy but instead it poked the bear knowing that it would get mauled because it wants a one state solution - one without Israel existing.
The fable of the fox and the scorpion comes to mind here regarding Hamas. It's in its nature to be a terrorist organisation, and it reverts to form. But the fable falls down because Hamas was only pretending to want to cross the river. It actually just wanted to take the fox down with it.
It still beggars belief that the cognitive dissonance doesn't explode peoples heads when they insist a quasi-state run by an organisation (voted into power by the inhabitants) sworn to the absolute destruction of the state of Israel, supported by other pariah states (Houthi-held Yemen, Iran) and other terrorist groups (Hezbollah) that have the same objective is somehow a victim.
You overestimate the iq of the average New Zealander. The vast majority of us have never been to the ME, or studied history, or read anything remotely intellectual. I have just seen a request for the NZRFU to support South Africa in it's case against Israel and boycott rugby, their ignorance is depressing.
With a call like that its your ignorance that is depressing.
South Africa are a joke.
All true Mr whatwillhappen.
It also beggars belief that people consider Israel to be innocent in all this.
Just ignore them and let them duke it out till they’re both so thoroughly sick of war they find their own way to some sort of peace.
Sorry to hear you're a woman receiving death, and sexual violence threats?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-19/land-tax-on-more-queensland-prop…
Land tax bracket creep is not helping. It also goes some way to explain severe underbuilding leading to the shortage of rentals & massive rent increases in SE Queensland over the last few years.
Are you referring to the individuals taking the the too big loan or the banks lending to already over extended borrowers.
I've never understood why financial institutions have no responsibility for where they lend as well as the borrower.
No recourse loans, as USA. The banks have skin in the game.
The financial institutions need to ensure they will get their money back. The individual should determine if they can make the repayment.
If the bank is responsible for the risk to the individual then the individual has no opportunity to take risk even if they have plenty of equity to back it up. What if I want a loan, I know it may fail and I may have to sell the house to pay it back, but I am prepared to do that?
Sure the bank should tell the individual of the risk and have them sign something if it is risky.
But the repercussions are not equal. The financial institutions will get their money back, by selling the houses and setting up a repayment plan for the balance.
The borrower will be financially ruined, potentially still paying for something they no longer possess. Also, what are the chances of Govt bail out of financial institutions vs borrowers?
I mean yeah it's tempting to go tall poppy at the greedy overleveraged landlords, but if you think about it, how many less greedy overleveraged landlords would there be if Banks had more skin in these decisions?
We have the consumer guarantees act. Why should the retailer be on the hook because someone skimped and bought the cheapest fridge? People should know a cheap fridge might not last more than 2 years.
Say I engage a registered electrician that's 40% cheaper, they wire up my new oven using 10amp cable I supplied and my house burns down. The electrician is still on the hook for my stupidity.
While I agree these people are morons, do we want to allow companies to prey on muppets? Not every borrower is a financial genius, yet most people working at a bank should be qualified to make rational decisions on people's behalf. That's why they rake in billions of dollars a year in profit isn't it?
Why should the retailer be on the hook because someone skimped and bought the cheapest fridge?
If a retailer sold a crap product, why shouldn't the onus be on them?
My point exactly, if a retailer sold a crap product or service then they should most certainly be on the hook. If a financial institute gives bad financial advice they can be held liable to the FMA. A bank selling a mortgage to someone already heavily indebted?
Well their decision ("advice") was the person could take out the loan, that's implied in accepting the application. But for some reason out of all the goods or service based industries, a mortgage seems to be the only product where consumer "personal responsibility" trumps the responsibility of commercial enterprise.
re ... "Is anything anyone’s fault anymore? Do whatever you like then blame someone else when it fails!"
Are you suggesting that these people didn't end up paying for the financial advice? I.e. the financial services all came for free?
When you pay experts and those experts screw things up, are you suggesting those experts bear no responsibility at all?
C'mon JJ. Get real.
Financial advice dwindled as the incentive to sell bigger loans and more of them became the primary goal. This is why financially responsible measures such as mortgage test rates chased the carded rates down.
It would be a bit like us dropping our Warrant of Fitness standards for cars or removing mandatory seat belts because we had a lower road toll for a few years
GFC made that point abundantly clear with the level of can kicking all knowing what would eventually happen, but the human ability to detract and absolve ones' self from all responsibility is strong when there are heavy profits as an incentive.
The family claimed it did not understand there would be higher payments at the end of the fixed term, or the impact of cross-collateralisation of properties – when collateral for one loan is also used as collateral for another.
I struggle to believe that someone with numerous investment properties would not have spoken to either the bank, or had their lawyer explain the risk factors involved in borrowing against one house to buy another numerous times. If they got this far without seemingly knowing that or doing the sums, then they are simply fools banking on low interest rates and capital gains.
If they got this far without seemingly knowing that or doing the sums, then they are simply fools banking on low interest rates and capital gains.
Indeed:
“Ultimately there’s no natural income streams to be able to service and repay loans. What you have is capital gains which are contingent on the game continuing. So it’s a Ponzi scheme. says Werner. - https://wire.insiderfinance.io/richard-werner-qe-infinity-707e2c627e03
Federal Reserve rate cuts will amplify already-burgeoning inflation pressures, leaving duration-heavy portfolios exposed to mounting risks. Link
Inflation fears are on the rise again, with the Fed's talk of rate cuts causing worries about a price surge. But is this really inflation and is there anything to a revival? Let's dive deep in
Commodities up across the board, US 10-YR above 4.1%. Deflationists on suicide watch.
There are a number of countries experiencing deflation. It's a reality.
BREAKING: The office vacancy rate in the US jumped to a record 19.6% in Q4 2023. This marks the largest quarterly increase since Q1 2021 and a higher vacancy rate than the previous record of 19.3%. As a result, new office construction just hit its lowest levels since 2012. Office building prices in the US are currently down ~40% from the highs. Commercial real estate is beyond bear market territory. Link
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/real-estate-owners-saddled-with-half-empty…
"Prof. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh: So commercial real estate is a huge part of the book of business of your typical bank. And I'm talking mostly about these smaller and medium size, maybe regional banks. They have a lot of exposure. That is their bread-and-butter activity. About 30% of all their loans are commercial real estate loans. And here we are, sort of seeing weakness in office that is something like-- that we have never seen before. And banks need to come to grips with that.
Jon Wertheim: Are you comfortable calling this a crisis?
Prof. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh: I think we're at the beginning. There is a potential crisis here.
In December, nationwide office loan delinquency rates crowded 6% - almost four times what they were a year ago. But banks have been reluctant to write down those losses.
Enter David Aviram from Maverick Real Estate, a firm he and his partner founded after the 2008 financial crisis. Their specialty: buying distressed debt on the cheap. Aviram keeps tabs on the debt on every office building in the city. He says New York is awash in billions worth of commercial real estate loans at risk of not being paid.
David Aviram: We know that there's this buildup of bad debt in the system, but it's not being dealt with just yet. And it's in large part because the banks have been kicking the can down the road as best they can, trying to push this off as far as they can.
Jon Wertheim: What does that mean?
David Aviram: It means that banks are entering into extensions on a lot of their bad loans, which essentially-- changed their classification from a nonperforming loan, a loan that's in distress, to a performing loan, a healthy loan, even though they haven't received a pay down on the loan and the collateral value on that loan continues to drop.
Jon Wertheim: Extend and pretend.
David Aviram: That's right. And it works really well when interest rates are low because the banks can just keep the status quo going. But once rates are high, it doesn't really work anymore."
So the Big Short ... I'll have to watch it for the 3rd time.
You mean disinflation I assume. Only 2 countries have deflation YoY. https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1747020020981338272/photo/1
So, Black Swan, you're saying central banks are lining up a global recession?
Yes. I agree. Not exactly a black swan event though.
The wise can see it coming. Whether the 'great minds' in central banks will change tack soon enough to avert it is something the wise are waiting for ... and time is running out.
That time the MSM and the security complex ran cover for the Biden's. It was fun while it lasted.
...Just this week, the DOJ confirmed in a new filing in Delaware on the gun charge that Hunter’s laptop is real, that he left it at a computer store, and that the contents matched what the feds obtained from a search warrant of his iCloud account.
“In August 2019, IRS and FBI investigators obtained a search warrant for tax violations for the defendant’s [Hunter’s] Apple iCloud account. In response to that warrant, in September 2019, Apple produced backups of data from various of the defendant’s electronic devices that he had backed up to his iCloud account.”
“Investigators also later came into possession of the defendant’s Apple MacBook Pro, which he had left at a computer store. A search warrant was also obtained for his laptop and the results of the search were largely duplicative of information investigators had already obtained from Apple.”
But don’t hold your breath for a retraction from the president, who lied during the 2020 campaign that the laptop was a “Russian plant,” nor from the “Dirty 51” former intelligence officials or myriad dishonest Democrats who also blamed Russia when the Bidens knew all along it was Hunter’s laptop — and so did the FBI, which had taken possession of the MacBook and quietly authenticated it in December 2019.
None of this would have come to light or been prosecuted if it were not for the integrity and tenacity of the IRS agents, Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler, who exposed the two-tiered justice system protecting the Bidens that has helped undermine the public’s faith in the justice system."
https://nypost.com/2024/01/17/opinion/firing-back-at-hunter-bidens-bs-g…
Whats on the laptop Profile...? Never seen a laptop like it..some say its the best laptop they have ever seen. We had the best laptop in the polls - fake news media, they would never report on my laptop winning in the polls..we will make our laptops great again!
Just gives more fuel to voters that are sick of the status quo corruption and want a wrecking ball taken to them. Enter Trump (wrong person at the right time).
Даниел Иванджийски still working overtime to install a Putin puppet government in the US?
"....even though Zero Hedge is written in English, this disinformation narrative was picked up by Russian-language media, demonstrating “the synergy between conspiracy outlets in English and pro-Kremlin fringe media in Russian.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-trojan-horse
If only we could trust the press to be impartial and lack bias. If only the press wasn't consolidated under single ownership. Read what you want and make your own mind up.
Example. Must be time for another property pump article from the herald, all the while fundamentals point elsewhere...
You need to look to Bloomberg and Reuters for unbiased news, check against Al Jezerra and the AFR... There is a reason why banks pay so much to these news agencys
Yes, it is a bit rich to have a crack at ZeroHedge when the NY Times, Washington Post, Twitter, Facebook, intelligence community were actively suppressing the true nature of the Hunter laptop so it didn't sink Biden's campaign.
"...New York Times has finally come clean and admitted Hunter Biden’s laptop saga is not Russian disinformation.
This old bombshell was buried in the 24th paragraph of a story buried on page 20 of the newspaper, but at least the Grey Lady’s readers now know something that readers of The Daily Telegraph and the New York Post knew 17 months ago.
It is an indictment of the Times and a betrayal of their readers who were kept in the dark about the true nature of Joe Biden before the 2020 election."
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/miranda-devine-new-york-…
The Daily Telegraph? Seriously? What you linked to has about as much substance as jelly in the rain!
Yet this crap news paper was 17 months ahead of the NY Times and didn't run cover for the FBI and the Biden family. Surely, in this case, you prefer to read fact than political propaganda?
I'm sure orange Jeesus will get to the truth of the matter. "God gave us Trump"
I imagine they'd be horrified to learn that some non-American Christians think the US could be the Babylon or perhaps the harlot in the book of Revelation. What would that make Trump?
=D
Haha. Bible belt is big over there. Is this just targeted campaigning?
It's just Trump taking advantage of their misguided faith in him. A bit like the working class who adore him despite his economic policies actually making things worse for them.
Been crunching the numbers on the NACTF first tax increases ... Yes. RUC for EVs and PHEVs.
In a nutshell, it is a tax increase for owners as they'll be paying more tax than an equivalent ICE vehicle.
Bit of an own goal from the simian guy. But the NACTF's will have many more.
As an aside - I've been looking at whether a pure hybrid (not subject to RUC), if converted to a PHEV (subject to RUC), how would Waka Kotahi even know?
(Yes. I have a delightfully economical Toyota Yaris hybrid bought 2nd hand. Next to the 7, the best car I've ever owned. Tiny battery tho and not practical as a PHEV. The Prius is another story as a PHEV.)
NZ December manufacturing PMI plunges to 43.1 from 46.5. Contracting for 10 consecutive months.
https://www.forexlive.com/news/new-zealand-data-december-manufacturing-…
And bouncing from contraction to small expansions for even longer before those 10 months. It's tough out there. But hey - the RBNZ doesn't care - we can import all the manufactured stuff if our home grown manufacturers all go bust.
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