US housing stronger; Japan's economy contracts; EU posts modest growth; China ends devaluation; UST 10yr yield 2.16%; oil down; NZ$1 = 65.8 US¢, TWI-5 = 70.4

Perhaps this goes some way towards explaining why this is.

"Yet there is also evidence that many workers are not demanding high wages. Oddly, that may be down to a reform to America’s unemployment-insurance scheme taken at the end of 2013, which slashed the maximum time for which Americans could draw unemployment benefits. About 1.3m Americans were affected immediately. With nothing to fall back on, the wage expectations for many unemployed people fell. In economic parlance their "reservation wage"—or the threshold pay rate needed to coax them into and keep them in employment—declined precipitously. To take advantage of the growing pool of cheap workers, employers in certain sectors went on a hiring binge. Indeed, a big chunk of the 3m extra jobs created during 2014 were in low-wage sectors.

The biggest reason for sluggish wages, however, remains what it has been for most of recent history: America’s sickly labour market. Unemployment is low, but other measures of labour-market “slack” paint a much bleaker picture. The number of workers who work part-time but would rather be full-time (so-called “part-time for economic reasons”) is still much higher than before the recession hit. This is important: a recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that even after accounting for other measures of unemployment, the number of workers counted as “part-time for economic reasons” exerts a very strong effect on wage growth. (That is probably because such workers would rather push their employers for more hours than for higher pay)."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/04/economist-exp…

To use the parlance of the website's publisher - you are both being whiners. Which, by the way, makes me your king.

if you dont start happy singing I'll arrange daily beating to improve your moral.

Thanks, a very interesting link. The thing is what is the impact longer term? ie the assumption is an ever growing world population will demand and pay ever increasing prices so having high cost inputs made "sense" if you had a large profit margin, but going forward? Another of these costs is of course oil and fertilizer so within a decade these could be cripplingly expensive and not economic to do as ppl wont pay the price needed.

A failure of perception perhaps on Lancorp's behalf?

Nonetheless: - “The way to wealth in a bull market is debt. The way to oblivion in a bear market is also debt, and nobody rings a bell.” – James Grant Read more

Interesting

By reducing output, variable costs can be reduced by $0.50 per kg/ms

That says while dairy payout is at elevated levels it is worth incurring increased variable "unit" costs to chase the additional marginal revenue. Where second shift variable costs are higher than first shift variable costs.

That tells us that intensification plus supplementary feeding is only profitable while the additional per unit revenue exceeds the increased variable per unit costs at higher rates

The instant the farmgate unit price falls below the increased (second shift) unit variable costs it is imperative to cut back production to what I call "single shift" levels

While I have seen this alluded to in several articles over the past month I have never seen it stated as bluntly as this

Anyone contemplating buying a farm and paying a price based on double-shift production is dumb - expect farm prices to scale back significantly in the near future

Kate, the problem is that outfits like my farm really have no where to go. Eventually they take a hit to their equity, or should I say investors get taken out behind the woodshed to get the good news.
Landcorp get their land for free,still manage to rack up debts and face financial trouble( problem with high cost, low return business model.). Equity partners will get shafted.
That is what I've been trying to push for years, in a high cost system, when it hits the fan where the hell do you go? Options available in the past are no longer viable solutions, all the answers have consequences, that are unpalatable to investors and bankers.
Build your business on sand (tax free asset speculation) and eventually a day of reckoning will arrive.
In the UK farm Diesel is just over 30p a liter and there is no diesel tax, just a simple example of where we have gone wrong and why we are losing our 'edge'.

BTW, labour is any better?

Irrelevant - they are a diminished part of the opposition.

no. What they do is come up a "buy a specific skill license" name.
The family commits to paying the guys at home for their employment wages+fee, the staff get "hired" for their "specialty skills" but don't actually have to do much. They get "paid wages", get naturalised, rinse repeat. They only have to have a paper job for the duration. It's also why a lot of wages "get sent back home"...so the family can pay the people at that end.

JH .....THANKS FOR THE LINK , this is absolutely appalling news and if the figures are correct we should be outraged !

I have suspected this was the case for years now , how on earth can a COOK and a CHEF be on the critically skills shortage list ?

Where on earth is there such a shortage of Chefs?

We need real-skills , everything from aircraft fitters , aneathetists , engineers ( real ones) , to Zoologists not cooks masquerading as Chefs .

I need to talk a walk , this is outrageous and heads should roll