Stupid bloody rubbish.

Business confidence hits a decade high, says National Bank survey.

Survey was probably executed Friday evening 5pm after everyone had some beers.
...and now what about reality ?

@Walter,

Here's something a bit more 'forward thinking' for you.
Opinion?

Evan Thornley - CEO of A Better Place Australia is planning a network of electric car charging stations from 2012

http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/ntn/2010/02/25/electric_car_char...
http://www.betterplace.com/

I think thse surveys are a joke, or those they survey have no clue about whats really going on....it amazes me on how shallow these survey outputs suggest ppl are....gee wiz are they un-prepared for shocks me thinks...and seem oblivious to the mess out there..."it will be alright mate" really does not cut it...

these surveys and all other straw polls are a bloody joke?
last week biz. confidence had slumped according to some bank survey; the week before it was another one saying people didn't feel confident about housing..whats next week?
morris dancers are feeling uncertain about their future...very frustrating when you know the facts and the reality !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A lot of kiwis think like this person commenting in the NZH about the risk of a double dip recession -
"It is all about psychology and perception. If the populous chooses to think positively we will all prosper."
Nothing to do with debt or irrational exuberance at all. Its all in our minds.

""It is all about psychology and perception. If the populous chooses to think positively we will all prosper.""

If your happy and you know it clap your hands.... c'mon everybody, sing!

As an anecdote to this survey - our business is not confident, we are very concerned about the future and we are working hard to make certain that we are still in business in the future. Talking to my mates, their businesses are the same.

Just an insight in the real world.No.1 sons been made redundant for the 3rd time in a row-2 of them apprenticeships,what hope our future.Cambridge Wins had 190 new signings last month alone!!

check out the in depth questions in the survey questionnaire
http://www.nationalbank.co.nz/economics/outlook/pdf/Questionnaire_May09.pdf

@Emma

Is your reporting based on their press release, and/ is there raw data available?

"The National Bank Business Outlook surveys are watched by the Reserve Bank and others as an leading indicator of economic growth".

How 'watched' are they?

@KW John
http://www.nationalbank.co.nz/economics/outlook/100225/charts.aspx

"monthly survey of over 20,000 Weekly Overview readers"
555 respondents....
"a net 37% of respondents expect the economy will improve over the coming year"

Sorry Emma.... Agree with Wally

May have been more provocative to ask why only 555 of 20,000 people responded.

OOps.... wrong bank..... need a lie down.

@KW John: The obvious issue I have with Better Place is, its a 'lifetime" tie-in....I dont like to be locked to one company like this myself....its a monopoly/gouging potential....for instance why would I want their charger at my home? what advantage is that for me? ..its like only being allowed to buy petrol from say BP stations and they know it....and chargescrew me accordingly...

But its an interesting model/idea...

regards

Funny, everyone seems to want to decry the higher confidence survey result, but check out a correlation chart and notice how GDP historically follows it higher (or lower) - do we pray the survey's wrong (why would we want to?) or trust that the people filling it out actually know a little more about how their business outlook appears, than you or I do ?

Jack, many of us run businesses and KNOW business. You must think we all here are on benefits or something do you? My business has NO debts but many fundamental one's around the globe INCLUDING governments are so far in the red that it's like living on Mars.

check out a correlation chart and notice how GDP historically follows it higher (or lower) "“ do we pray the survey's wrong (why would we want to?) or trust that the people filling it out actually know a little more about how their business outlook appears, than you or I do ?

Correlation might mean there is a relationship. Doesn't guarrentee a relationship

To quote from "Your Money & Your Brain" by Jason Zweig. Page 80

In 1997, money manager David Leinweber wondered which statistics would have best predicted the performance of the U.S. stock market from 1981 through 1993. He sifted through thousands of publicly available numbers until he found one that had forecast U.S. stock returns with 75% accuracy; the total volume of butter produced each year in Bangladesh. Leinweber was able to improve the accuracy of his forecasting "model" by adding a couple of other variables, including the number of sheep in the United States. Abracadabra! He could now predict past stock returns with 99% accuracy. Leinweber meant his exercise as satire, but his point was serious: Financial marketers have such an immense volume of data to slice and dice that they can "prove" anything. And they never tell you about all the theories they tested and rejected - since that might give you a notion of how dangerous and dumb most of their ideas really are.

I have no idea whether, on this occaision, the correlation Jack has pointed out will hold true.

"The Black Swan" also points out some interesting stuff about the human need to pattern match and draw conclusions when patterns match... Until they don't

Justice, a little pessimistic for me, but the bit about how big a role the UK had in ruining the Iceland economy is interesting.

KW John 25/2/ 6:57pm in case we keep "status quo" and don't improve production in the real economy we are going to lose our standard of living very soon. As a nation the majority couldn't afford electric cars, but a nation of bicycles which means good quality of life for people.
I'm sure imported bicycles from China are very cheap - ha !
Walter

Pete, yes it's like someone telling us 2 and 2 makes 5 - easy isn't ?

I love surwys..had one the other day about cell phones
most questions I could answer like who did I use for my phone service
Got to the end as to what brand of phone I have? I dont own one!!!!!

It would have been far more sensible If they had asked If I had a phone as the 1st question.

The trouble with surveys is that the people who dream up the questions have no idea or have an agenda they want to prove an out come...
So next time you are asked to do a survey answer each question truthfully and exactly right as to what they ask...it screws up the people asking the questions lol.

I know a couple of clients that responded to this last survey, currently their businesses are doing well in their opinion because they currently have more forward work than they previuosly have had...three months forward work is hardly a base for an informed opinion.

i think the thinkers of what other thinkers are thinking have a lot to think about when thinking of thinking thinkers thinking of their thinking in relation to the thinkers thinking of thinking in relation to thinking thinkers thinking things of thinking thinking things of thinking

do you

A) Think so
B) Also Think So
C) Disagree to disagree
D) Agree
E) Unsure
F) All of the above

Results out soon -