Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10.30 am today.
As always, we welcome your additions in the comments below or via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.
See all previous Top 10s here.
My must read today is #3 from the ODT on the need for regional development.
1. Take a botulism chill pill - The fevered and often panic-struck tone of the coverage around the Fonterra botulism scare is becoming detached from reality, I think.
Former Federated Farmers Chair Lachlan McKenzie has called for the resignation of Fonterra Chairman John Wilson.
Various media outlets are openly talking about an 'economic crisis' and worried whether it would hit the economic rebound.
Let's put some context around what we know right now. Less than 10% of Fonterra's exports to China has been suspended. The suspended portion represents less than 2% of New Zealand's overall dairy exports and less than 0.5% of total exports. The Russian ban applies to even less than that.
No one has been hurt and all the scientific commentary I've seen says that its unlikely given the length of time involved and types of products. Sure, Fonterra has been slow and inconsistent with its information release, it did announce pre-emptively.
The New Zealand dollar's reaction is a good measure of what the smart money is saying. It is now broadly back where it was before the announcement. Fonterra's unit price is flat today. Of course, all bets are off if someone gets botulism, but let's cool it a bit.
Just in case you might think I'm overstating the tone, here's the NZ Herald's thundering editorial full of dark and stormy nights.
The damage to New Zealand's reputation could hardly be worse. It will take more than testing to restore our food safety reputation in the rest of the world.
Countries where a scare makes headlines and subsequent checks find nothing will remember only the headlines. A lapse of hygiene on one pipe of one plant has put a cloud over our most successful export.
2. A taxonomy of the Middle Class in America - Here's a useful guide at The Atlantic.
3. A South Island party? - The Otago Daily Times published an impassioned editorial in favour of regional development on Saturday.
Enough is enough. Residents of the South have in recent months repeatedly heard myriad voices calling for regional development.
Time and again this newspaper has quoted MPs, government officials, local body politicians, business representatives and the like speaking about the importance of decentralisation and the advantages of economic growth in the provinces.
But as we said last Saturday, talk is cheap. There has been much talk; little real action.
Today, the ODT is calling on the people of the South to try to save jobs and services that are shifting out of regional New Zealand - and in many cases being transferred to two main centres.
4. 'Let me have a go' - Ian Taylor takes up the ODT call and suggests a political party.
Mr Taylor told the ODT public dissatisfaction meant any new party could snap up seats in Dunedin, Southland and Waitaki and ''bowl in'' to Parliament.
Once there, it could be a voice for regional development in the corridors of power.
''Now is the time to take our future in our own hands and do something about it ... [to] come together and force the politicians to take notice. No-one else will.
''It is up to us to stand up and be counted and the best way to do that is from the inside,'' he said.
6. Staying at home - Pew research shows a much larger percentage of American 'millenials' are now living at home in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.
In 2012, 36% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31—the so-called Millennial generation—were living in their parents’ home, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. This is the highest share in at least four decades and represents a slow but steady increase over the 32% of their same-aged counterparts who were living at home prior to the Great Recession in 2007 and the 34% doing so when it officially ended in 2009.
Daniel Alpert, a managing partner at Westwood Capital, pointed out in a note last week that nearly 70% of jobs created during the second quarter were in the lowest-paying sectors or subsectors such as retail trade or leisure and hospitality.
They account for just a third of overall jobs combined, so the jump is disproportionate. The average hourly pay for these jobs is $15.80, while that for the remaining two-thirds of jobs is $27.16 an hour.
8. Watch what they do, rather than what they say - Saudi Arabia's plans to spend US$109 billion on solar panels suggests they aren't that confident in the long term future of their oil reserves. HT PDK.
Saudi Arabia is planning to invest $ 109 billion over the next 20 years in order to take advantage of its excellent solar resources and diversify its energy mix, according to Alexander Lenz, president — the Middle East and Southeast Asia region, Conergy Asia & ME Pte. Ltd. This is because the “Kingdom believes sustainable energy is imperative for its future growth,” Lenz told Khalil Hanware of Arab News in an exclusive interview.
“They (the Kingdom) plan to purchase electricity generated not only from solar resources (PV and solar thermal) but also wind, geothermal and waste-to-energy plants. Their cumulative target of renewable capacity is anticipated to be more than 54,000 megawatts by 2032 with 41,000 coming from solar,” said Lenz, who previously held senior corporate management roles with Conergy AG as VP of business development.
9. How China's leaders are listening - There's a misconception that China's leaders are technocrats who don't care about public opinion. Maybe New Zealand's political opinion polling firms could do some exporting of services? ;)
This Washington Post piece on how Chinese public opinion is measured is useful:
Every comment made by the 591 million Chinese “netizens” is analyzed at the People’s Daily Online Public Opinion Monitoring Center, with summaries sent in real time to party leaders
Thepractice of collecting information on its citizens is as old as China itself: The nation’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, maintained a massive network of spies. The Communist Party’s own journalists have long funneled to party leaders classified reports on what is really happening at ground level.
But now, the government is trying to understand public opinion on an unprecedented scale. In response to government demand, opinion monitoring centers have sprung up in state-run news organizations and universities to mine and interpret the vast rivers of chatter on the Internet. At the same time, the authorities are hiring firms to poll people about everything from traffic management to tax policy.
10. Totally John Oliver on the push by fast food workers for higher wages.
45 Comments
not sure if you follow the time line correctly.From what ive read..
2012 product tests ok.. no worries
March2013 some leftover(carryover product )of same batch is used and tested as matter of course
test comes back "bit dodgy" need to retest(quite common)
late july retest shows traces of Bot bacteria steps put in place to sort out
Aug ..media go nuts
@ 1
The statement by the Fonterra CEO is ridiculous we didn’t know what we were dealing with in March. but it was something. Well on this basis they are saying they may have similar issue with product at this very moment but until we are sure the product is contaiminated it is being distributed to customers so the supply chain is never safe. Their systems are flawed.
With Respect BH No. 1. you are mistaken. this is not just a local reality. Think through why we first called it as a "MKF a horse" situation and the story that came from...
Take a look at B Brush from last night:
here wold you go to see what is happening at Fonterra?
Would you try the NZ news media?
Why not go overseas instead?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/business-news-markets-live/10222418/Business-news-and-markets-live.html
Good,aye?
Look at the twitter pics showing the media scrum.....
https://twitter.com/MalcolmMoore
malcolmmoore @MalcolmMoore 18h
Fonterra presser over. Decent performance. Now the scrum... pic.twitter.com/xTkQIJnlWo
If its a big deal for them, it is a big deal for us...
The last time this happned in China, F was there, and People were shot...
Its just the way exporting works, it is not fair, and often less than free..
What we think what you are highlighting is the vaccum of media activity/in media space by F in the execution of their crisis mgt. This void has been filled by ever higher frequency comments, as each earlier comment goes unreplied...
#1 tend to agree the coverage has been a bit hyperbolic at times, though noting there is a serious issue with quality control and transparency that needs sorting (and not in a "we've got it sorted, trust our assurances" kind of way)
#6 to have any effect, you would need to flip some (about three by my estimation) of the rural blue Southern electorates (because flipping the red urban ones won't effect how National behaves) and I really, really don't see those electroates shifting that much.
I dont think we should take a chill pill Bernard. There is too much history now. Melamine, dcd, fracking fluid on upturned land, NZers rorted on milk products, lakes and rivers in decline. Now we find they dont give a rats about the end user of their products. I find it difficult to come to terms with that fact. And it has taken some debate since saturday to come to that conclusion. How long did it take before they folded on the melamine.....too long. DCD, the same. The fracking fiasco I dont know as I havent kept up with that story, but I understand it took a media story to get them to stop taking milk off that land. (correct me if I am wrong there). Clostridium diseases are vaccinated for on the farm, what I would like to know is how common is it to find it in our milk powder. THIS has gone unanswered. Is it common and not dangerous, or is it a no no no no no. What are they hiding. Why werent the batches of calf milk powder put out to media immediately? (let alone the infant mp) Dont calves count? Good lord Mr Romano on Campbell Live last night couldnt answer one question clearly. These people are paid a fortune to take the heat. So lets see them take it. Give us the answers and stop covering butts. Where is the chairman. Dead silence from him.
To think the Government feels the need to have advisors in situ at Fonterra to find out what they are up to. Wow. That says it all. Chill pill. Hah.
#1 - Nah, no problem, it's an amusement, it's the "tweety-pie syndrome"
Tweety Pie is a canary. Tweety Pie is alive and well. Tweety Pie's entire world begins and ends with her birdcage. Nobody else matters. Sylvester the cat simply exists to amuse her. Grandma simply exists to feed her. There's a bit of tweety-pie'ing going on round this
Yeah maybe your right Bernard..., after all it's the world we live in now...a symptom of things to come as we expand our dairy within cowshot of every run off that leads to a river somewhere.
Yeah , let's just be thankful Fonterra can manage the economic fallout, restore that oh so clean green image ...eh.( think I'll go back and look at that hardtalk episode again) ha ha.
That said once upon a time you could drink water from the Waikato, spin the barrel, squeeze the trigger if you do so now...largely thanks to white gold's waste.
oh yeah....it's just a symptom of progress after all.....n Mummy should just take a prozac n have a lie down
deary me.
Unfortunately, as someone else noted, we are pissing on our chips in all facets of our interaction with the world to please a few domestic flat earth type crony capitalists. Read more
NEW ZEALAND is making a hash of its legal structures, tinkering with legislation and losing its reputation as a place where the legal system can be trusted to produce authoritative and internationally respected judgements, Tony Molloy, QC, said last week.
And that combination could torpedo any ambition John Key's government has left to promote New Zealand as an international financial services centre.
"It is making New Zealand an international laughing stock at a time when we are aspiring to recognition as a recognised international trust and funds jurisdiction," Molloy said in a paper presented to a forensic accounting conference in Auckland.
In his "Trust Busting" paper, Molloy cited a series of cases that he said "raise disturbing questions of systemic integrity".
Fonterra and Fed Farmers need a good boot up the bum. Obsessed by the $ the have taken their eye off the big time. This latest episode will seem is nothing compared to the risk that is currently being taken by importing palm kernal..
The Ministry for Primary Industries said an 18cm piece of a lower leg from an exotic goat or deer species has been found by a Bay of Plenty farmer in a shipment of palm kernel expeller.
New Zealand imports the majority of its PKE from Malaysia where foot and mouth disease is rampant
This is not new news and is well known. How much more needs to go wrong before we learn...wakey wakey Fed Farmers...
Rastus you are wrong..again
typical of illinformed comment bandied around.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/8844824/Palm-kernel-bone-scare-a-fizzer
go back to your campfire and sing a couple of kumbye ya,s
stand corrected on the leg. But does that make it okay? This stuff is sterilised in Malaya but lies around in warehouses before being exported.....ever seen a warehouse secured from rodents? The day will arrive...just as it did with the kiwifrut virus. On a risk versus reward the practice measure, it fails.
#3 & #4
Back in the 70's a Timaru accountant felt the same way - South Island being screwed by North Island. So he set up the "South Island Movement". It quickly gained popularity throughout the whole South Island.
It was on Talk Back radio and there was even a South Island Movement song
The movements popularity grew quite strong and so it was decided to set up a commitee and head office in Christchurch. I attended that meeting. held in Riccarton.
At that time some people were a bit iffy about the SIS (Ring a GCSB bell?). At the time other movements were destroyed simply by taking over the executive and doing nothing.
Nominations were called for people to be elected to the committee. I raised the issue that it was difficult to nomiate someone we had only just met. It was agreed that all those who put their name forward as candidates would be seconded. Each candidate gave a short speach and we voted.
I also expressed concern to some of the attendies that we could be electing members of the SIS for all we know and they would do nothing and the whole thing would die.
Anyway the committee was elected, it went all quiet and the Movement died. Was it the SIS? i don't know.
There was a South Island Party here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZ_South_Island_Party
As a former member of the South Island Movement (Dunedin) and occasional speech-giver on its behalf I can tell you with certainty we existed from 1980-81.
Our aims were a modest full independence of the South Island from the North. At the time the idea of a second set of bureaucrats did not sit well with many people. Having made a little splash SIM died a natural death.
If they do successfully re-launch a South Island Party ( SIP ) do you think they could also include North Islanders ....
..... 'cos I've gotten this feeling in me Gummy water that there's a few folk up north also disenfranchised by both Johnny & the Gnats and by Shear Labour ...
#1 - we can chill all we want but only time will tell, the auction on Wednesday will tell us what the wholesalers think and the next 3 - 6 months will tell us what the consumers in China think. The Chinese dairy companies are already bombarding the media there with anti-Fonterra statements and 'facts' which will effect all NZ products to some degree or another.
#7
It should be realised that a balanced economy is when supply and demand are in equalibrium.
What we must not overlook is that the supply side is made up of goods and services. That ratio of goods and services can be anywhere. For instance the supply side could be made up of 30% goods (manufacturing) and 70% services (mostly shops).
So long as supply = demand it does not matter if all of the supply is service and low paid jobs.
Heard Talk that Frmer Shareholders were told Wednesday last week, Not Late Friday along with everyone else. Has anyone else heard about timing issues and possible insider trading of shares in the Fonterra Shareholders Fund? Just wondering The people I was with seemed pretty upset about it
#3 and #4 The drums are beating at Business New Zealand. Instructions have been sent. The word to spread to the networks is not to rock the boat with Ag Research. Being an important member and all.
Can we gather that Bz NZ is not interested at all in its smaller members and also that it does not bother about the regions..
From The Herald
Fonterra had test results confirmed last Wednesday indicating the potential presence of a strain of clostridium in a sample, which can cause botulism.
The company has said it immediately contacted its customers and the authorities. The New Zealand Government was informed on Friday afternoon.
But it took until Monday morning for Fonterra to release an announcement to the New Zealand stock exchange where units in Fonterra Shareholders Fund are listed.
But word is they told farmer shareholders by email on Wed- can anyone confirm this?
how unbelievably stupid can Fonterra be
If that is so, it is corruption of the first order
Dealing insider information to a select few
They have failed the "good corporate citizen test"
If it was in NY the SEC would be up them like a rat-up-a-drain-pipe
Fine them $500 million
Any Fonterra shareholder who acted on that advice should account for the proceeds
Bet the FMA and NZX will achieve nothing
I am a Fonterra supplier and shareholder. The first email about the botulism scare I received from Fonterra was on Sunday afternoon. There are approximately 14000 farmers supplying Fonterra and I very much doubt every single supplier shareholder could have been told 3 days in advance of everyone else and kept it quiet.
I am a Fonterra supplier and shareholder. The first email about the botulism scare I received from Fonterra was on Sunday afternoon. ...
Shareholders here too...The first we heard of it was via email from John Wilson on August 3rd at 12.19am...well that's the date on the email. When we read it is something else. We have had regular updates as more info has been made available.
Pity he hasn't fronted the media yet, but looks like Sky Channel 950 (3pm to 10pm on the hour every hour) tomorrow - Thursday - will see Mr Wilson, Tio and plod Brown. Send your questions in! We will be most interested to hear from stock exchange if any "suspicious" trading went on...
Look obviously this is serious - BUT when you look at the scale and volume of what is processed and produced via NZ's dairy factories it really is miniscule. What is apparent is that when a tall poppy like Fonterra get's something wrong the competition is going to launch in with spit and daggers because to do so would undermine (even slightly) their huge monopoly. These are marketing opportunities waiting to be exploited by all contenders - including the Chinese Government - hence the desire to really over-do (unfairly!) this lapse in hygiene at a NZ dairy factory,
Now to tar all of NZ's dairy food producers and processors with the same brush is slanderous, and to do so officially via a government controlled media is in complete bad faith.
This will do little to mend anti-chinese sentiment and wreaks of double standards. If these harsh opinions would have been aired in NZ's media, the chinese trade ministries would have been thumping their chests and loading sanctions in the breach,
Totally agree about the Fonterra issue being blown out of proportion. The initial results that caused them to do further testing indicated Clostridium spp. contamination at a level BELOW the accepted limit but they chose to investigate it further because safety is very important to them. At no point would they consider it would be C. botulinum as it is so obscure and much more likely to be C. diff. (found just about everywhere including almost all toddler's intestines, rarely if ever causing disease in this population). But as soon as they discovered it was C. botulinum they announced it without delay. They didn't try to cover it up, and this is not lost on the Chinese market. This is nothing like the melamine scandal where it was hidden until the weight of cases made it impossible to deny. In this case there are NO affected children, and given the length of time since the contamination we will be very unlikely to see any. Well done Fonterra for coming out with this, but I feel you could have emphasised the above points more clearly in the media. But the media will do what they do and hype till they reach a fever pitch, and hopefully the consumer will see through it.
Thanks drmatt84.Some perspective at least.
For me this "saga" prooves what a shallow/complaining/uninformed country we live in.Sure Fonterra could of handled the pr a bit better but the situation was changing by the minute..
As a whole this country likes to ride off the coattails of the dairy industry(well all farming actually) and as soon as the weather gets a bit choppy they cant wait to put the boot in..
With the greens and the leftie media leading the charge..
No kids have been sick let alone died...yet according to them we need heads to roll ,inquiries and bemoaning the fact that our clean green image has somehow been tarnished.
Pity they cant have the same enthusiasm when the whanau kill some kid in their own home...
#1. Its certainly a great opportunity to force down the prices of our products for their population's ever increasing thirst for them. You could say that between the FTA, Yuan settlements and our economy teterring on recession theyve got us right where they want us.
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