Here's my Top 10 items from around the Internet over the last week or so. 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 watch is #9 from John Oliver on the rise of fast fashion and cheap clothes. A compelling view of globalisation and what it means for inflation (and labour standards).
1. The problem with Air New Zealand - I'm a regular flier around the country and use Air New Zealand a lot, and Jetstar a bit too.
I often have to fly to regional airports, which means I don't have much of a choice. Even on the main Auckland-Wellington-Christchurch trunk line, it seems prices are not falling like they are in the rest of the economy. Jetstar has backed off its more cut throat pricing in recent years and has also dropped some routes.
Prices should be falling domestically, given lower fuel prices and the increasingly efficient nature of the new and bigger planes such as the latest A320.
So Donal Curtin has done us all a great favour by collecting the data from Statistics NZ that compares domestic and international air travel over a long period.
It shows domestic air travel prices have basically risen in line with inflation, while international travel prices have been consistently flat in nominal terms and down in real terms.
Domestic air travel prices only appeared to undershoot wider inflation during the Ansett days...
Here's Donal on his excellent blog and the chart is below:
In real terms, relative to the overall CPI, domestic prices are slightly higher than they were in 1981. International air travel prices, in real terms, are hugely lower. The numbers wobble around a bit, but you're paying a quarter or a third of what you would have paid back in 1981.
And I suppose there may be some good operational reasons, other than competition playing too weak a disciplinary role, why the domestic airlines haven't been able to match the falling international prices. They don't, for example, have the access to cheap secondary airports that the budget European and American carriers do: perhaps their fares have to reflect the market power of the airports. Or perhaps they've been lumbered with higher regulatory costs than your typical overseas operator.
But you're still left with the feeling that competition isn't restraining local air prices as well as it might. It might be a coincidence, but the only time that domestic air price inflation lagged behind CPI price inflation as a whole, as you can see on the graph, was in the late '80s and through most of the '90s - precisely the period when Ansett New Zealand was most active.
2. Big problems in big China - As the speculation grows about China starting to print money too, Reuters reports China's Ministry of Finance has warned of slowing tax revenue growth and told local authorities to speed up issuance of newly-approved municipal bond debt.
In a statement, the Ministry of Finance urged local finance bureaus to "speed up local government debt issuance and scheduling, rationally set debt issuance times, and urgently complete the work of issuing bonds." The direction to accelerate bond issuance comes as local government revenue from land sales is dropping sharply, and signs emerge that the ministry's plan to tap China's fledging local government bond market to make up for the loss of tax proceeds and off-balance sheet fundraising may be faltering.
Reports that banks are reluctant to purchase the new debt at the yields on offer have appeared in official media following the postponement, for unspecified reasons, of a Jiangsu provincial bond auction initially set for April 23.
3. Easy problem to solve - Just print money to buy the Local Government bonds. There's renewed speculation in recent days that the People's Bank of China will buy these hard to shift local government bonds with printed money.
And where might all that cash go once it's been printed in China?
Quite a lot is managing to squirt out under and over the various restrictions, which are also being relaxed as China looks to 'internationalise' the renminbi.
This Rabobank chart shows the accelerating capital flows out of China in orange.
4. Buy cheap houses in New Zealand - One answer for where some of that printed money might go is into New Zealand residential property, largely because it is so cheap and easy to get hold off. That's relative to property in China and the other hot spots such as Sydney, Vancouver, Singapore and Hong Kong, where Governments have cracked down on foreign buyers.
Juwai says New Zealand is the fifth most popular place for readers of its Chinese language listings site to look, but is only the 9th most expensive at (US$599,523) NZ$800,000.
Here's the detail courtesy of the WSJ and the chart that explains why we're so attractive.
5. When will they riot? - That's a question many have asked in the years since the bank bailouts and money printing exercises in the United States that led to a massive widening of the gap between the very rich and the very poor.
We certainly have had some riots in recent months.
Here's an interesting chart from Bloomberg showing the story counts on Bloomberg mentioning the word "riot" in white and the word "inequality". Many would say the police brutality and the large number of black men killed by police are the driving force. There is at least a correlation though.
6. Unlocking the equity in the family home - Australia's Centre for Independent Studies has released a report recommending Australia solve its pension cost blowout by ensuring rich pensioners start digging into the equity in the family home to pay for their retirement.
It's good to see these sorts of solutions discussed. Means testing is of course a third rail of New Zealand politics, but at some point in the future when the fiscal pain becomes intense this sort of debate will bubble up here too. Especially given the huge numbers involved in fiscal terms and of the value of property.
"As the population ages the pressure on the pension will only get worse," Cowan says. "The answer is for government to count the family home in the assets test, boost take-up rates for reverse mortgages and including that income in the pension income test.
"Australians are continually told they don't save enough for retirement, but there is $625 billion in pensioner housing assets that could be raising pensioner living standards. The potential benefits are enormous," Cowan says.
7. Slowing growth - This research published in VoxEu by Yunus Aksoy, Henrique Basso, Tobias Grasl and Ron Smith illustrates how ageing populations in the developed economies are slowing economic growth. The reckon New Zealand's growth rate will be dragged 1.14% lower.
The demographic structure may affect the long- and short-term macroeconomic conditions through several channels. Different age groups (i) have different savings behaviour, according to the lifecycle hypothesis; (ii) have different productivity levels, according to the age profile of wages; (iii) work different amounts – the very young and very old tend not to work, with implications for labour input; (iv) contribute differently to the innovation process, with young and middle age workers contributing the most; and (v) provide different investment opportunities, as firms target their different needs. Thus, demographic structure changes can be expected to influence real interest rates, inflation and real output in the long and short-term either directly or via their effects on expectations on the future course of key variables.
8. The problem of older business owners - This Westpac survey of the investment intentions and ownership intentions of small to medium business owners in New Zealand found more than half were either planning not to invest in their businesses or were scaling back because they wanted to have a better life style as they neared retirement.
This lack of enthusiasm for growth appears to be based around lifestyle goals, with 31% of respondents saying the biggest block to growth was their desire to maintain work/life balance or retire – a 10% increase on 2011.
“The economy is going better than 2011 and prospects are good,” says Westpac Chief Executive David McLean, “but for many SMEs the improved conditions are the cream on the lifestyle cake rather than looking to grow or expand.
10. Totally Clarke and Dawe on the prospect of a double dissolution of Australia's Parliament.
41 Comments
To whomever it was who said to me "agree to disagree" about houses being an asset: can't find your comment on the stupid search system on this site.
Here's a better idea: shut up and listen. Ask questions. learn something important.
A house isn't an asset. It's a liability.
1! Assets are almost invariably intangible. this is because they need to be transferable!! in part because for it to be an asset to anyone it has to be able to change, has to be able for one person/thing to provide, and the other to receive. Physical objects therefore are almost Always liabilites (for their owner).
This is a mistake that almost ALL of NZ makes. it's why Fonterra is failing, it is why the system is failing.
it is why those in the know get rich. it's because they have assets - they know about assets, and they know how to apply it. two intangibles.
good business aren't wealthy because of land. not because of resources. put the most informed university on top of the biggest oil field and store diamonds in it.... it will be worthless if no-one has a market for it.
You think I'm on here (interest.oc.nz) promoting the case of the poor person because I'm poor?? Because my families poor?
For an asset you have to have A NEED. _AND!!!!)_ a way top fufil it. IE MONEY (or tradable). That's why tax is such an incredible EVIL. It removes purchasing power.
The _services_ a council provides are ASSETS. The cost which accompanies it (rates, overheads, wastage) are Liabilities !!!!
Your house is a liability !!! If you couldn't rent them out how many would you want 1? 10? 1000? how many can you afford? They're liabilityes.
Now how many _paying_ customers do you want in those houses? 1? 10? fuck give me as many as will fit!!!
Someone who is willing, able and will timely pay is an asset.
Their NEED and desire is an asset. why do you think this site exists? To fill need (readers), to fill need (advertisers), to fill need (staff) !!! those intangibles are your assets.
My old man thinks the farfm is an asset. He thinks fixing fences, carting buckets, feeding animals is _farming)_. Yet who is taking care of the market? who is develoiping the need for the customers? Who is making sure those customers have a dollar in their pockets to spend some harvest time??????
The _farm_ is liability.
Having to shift my TV which is why I'm in a rush while it isn't rfaining. are all liabilities.
Fonterra - who the farmers delegated the development of the market to .... is selling for under rpoductive cost.
Fonterra who is supposed to making sure of 11,000 businesses' assets have managed to turn trillions of NZers $ and assets IN TRILLIONS of dollars of liability.
Biggest fault with NZ economics is the experts don't even know their assets from their liabilities !!! Why do you think I'm so pissed off at their constant incompetitance. This cowboy knows an asset. The "experts" don't even know the difference between a millienia old Chinese scam and the Chinese govenments ability to phase in a simple certification process over time (ask the Taiwanese about the scam they know it well).
But assets are what gives you _profit_. profit is what you generate wealth with.
If you get your asset mixed up with your liability...what dfo you thingk you will be generateing??
GTG, break in rain again.
But assets are what gives you _profit_. profit is what you generate wealth with.
If you get your asset mixed up with your liability...what dfo you thingk you will be generateing??
You could interpret what you are saying within this frame work.
Central for the understanding of the new approach, the new concept of
economics and finance, is to differentiate between physical possession and
abstract private property rights. Possession is to be defined by the rights of
disposal of material goods. Private property rights are characterised by the
rights of the proprietor to sell, lend, assign, securitize, collaterise, or pledge his
property, in brief by the proprietor’s abstract rights of private property.
Analysing the origins of private property in the Antique Polis and in the early
Renaissance of medieval Europe, interest is derived from the exclusivity of
private property rights. Money and credit are derived from interest and are
therefore subordinate to interest. In contrary conventional economic theories
derive interest from money and credit arguing that interest is function of
remuneration respectively compensation for utilisation or rent. The causality of
interest is thereby turned upside down.
Credit contracts generally fix legally the temporary assignment of property
rights. Credit contracts always bear implicitly interest, because the debtor
must compensate the creditor for the creditor’s opportunity costs of the
creditor’s foregone liquidity premium. Due to the nature of property, credit
contracts create for the debtor the pressure of adding value over time –
irrespectively, if interest and principal payments are contracted as payments in
money or as payments in goods or services.
If an economic subject and proprietor does not want his relative position of the
yield of his property rights to deteriorate, he attempts to earn a yield, which is
at least as high as his opportunity cost respectively his internal interest rate of
calculation. For the part of (partially) leveraged economic subjects, interests
enforce value-adding activities respectively the creation of new capital
allowing the subject to serve his interest payments as contracted in the credit
contract.
Interest does not derive from inherent value-adding process of production
(classic theories) or from the intertemporal preference of consumption
(neoclassic theories). Interest does not derive from the liquidity premium for
foregone possession of money (Keynesianism). Interest - with its mathematic
effect of compound interest - originates from the transfer and assignment of
property rights between creditor and debtor. According to the terms of
payment of a credit contract, interest is accounted for what it is to be paid in
and that is usually money. However, interest can also be accounted and paid
in physical goods such as precious metals, grain, wood, etc. Read more
I would be wary of using the term "interest" as "interest" is merely a specific term for rent paid on money (borrowed equity - ie credit). Likewise it could also be characterised as "profit", except many people have a kneeyerk response (either way towards that term). Terms like revenue and yield are a little more neutral, although yield is upside-down by most peoples "margin/markup" thinking. ie if the actual yield (profit) is static a rising yield% is not good news for the property owner or their tenant.
Also "money and credit" can perhaps be better described as "trade", thus "trade" is derived from "yield". Which makes sense as the reason we enter into a trade is to create that which we did not have before (yield), and the use of short term contracts become more reasonable. From that the yield of satisfying a need (personal) or satisfying a need (business) for any purpose can result in consideration given in either coin, trade credits, or barter. The value of which is entirely in the eyes of those entering into the agreement (and not necessarily 4% ;) )
- - -
Another quicker point I'd like people to think about:-
What use is a poor person to a capitalist?
So then why would we want to create poorer people, for whom is there benefit? (certainly not the capitalist or the merchant, definitely not the person or their family, not "the community"...so whom?)
Here's a question, are you richer, if you own a multi million dollar business ( that isn't making money) and have very high debt,. than someone that has nothing at all. ( but owes nothing). I think maybe this is what cowboy is saying. Overvalued assets that don't make money are a liability.
Right, houses are liabilities, that explains why so many people are fighting each other to buy them... seems like total nonsense to me!
Houses give you rent income streams and capital gains. Or at the very least they save you the cost of paying rent yourself. What part of that isn't profit? (Yes I recognise there can be s**t holes that cost more than they'll ever deliver, but the majority of houses generate profit)
There is a massive difference between a $3,000,000 property in France, and $599,000 property in NZ. It's pretty disingenuous to say NZ is cheaper, it's like saying $2 shop is cheaper then Rebel Sport. People go to different places for different things, there are plenty of 600k homes in France, very nice houses. The same for Singapore, $600k goes pretty far there as well.
#6 - totally agree. Why should taxpayers be funding a pension that is used by a decent chunk of the boomer generation (at least those that I know), to fund overseas trips in their retirement when they are sitting on massive amounts of housing equity? I'm not saying reducing super for the elderly most in need. Just cant see why we should be paying this to someone sitting on 2 million of housing equity. Means test super now.
I dont know where you get a decent chunk from but of the pensioners I know an overseas trip is not on their agenda. Some are even working part time in Bunnings etc to supplement their retirement income.
As for means testing there is moral hazard there, save nothing get full pension, have a small private pension and lose much of it to means testing.
That's true of the present approach to NZS as well.
TBH I do not know exactly how WFF works, but I can assure you that any form of means testing will entail a vast increase in bureaucracy, administration and enforcement costs plus confusion and pressure for old people now confronted with officials needing information about all of their income and assets so that they can work out what individual rate of NZS each individual is entitled to. And it creates a clear incentive to make sure you don't have any assets, or to get them hidden away in forms that don't affect the means test. Difficult to see the public benefit in encouraging older people in eaither of those directions.
Second point in effect if all you have is the OAP and lack some essential my understanding is you can go to WINZ and get extra money. If however you have some savings WINZ will tell you to use that first. Ergo we have means testing already.
On top of that a) more than a few OAPs are not in the best mental state I suspect and trying to justify a payment will probably mean they do without. b) we'd have more mandarins to pay to administrate this, bad idea IMHO. Or at least we should weight the cost / savings up, ie if the savings are mostly absorbed by costs to run then there is no point in doing it.
Totally agree.
Those lazy buggers putting in 50 hours a week, risking everything to build a business and provide employment in the process, and not holidaying so they can afford the dream house should hand it all over to the lazy gits being picked up by the cops on a Friday night from the gutter in main street.
Quite right; or did they try that before in er.. red communism... and that worked out well...
Its said to think most people look at rich politicians acting like children on TV are representative of someone trying to make Free Enterprise work in such a corrupt system.
His saying that beheadings in Saudi are ok because they are official actually made me feel sick in my stomach. This fawning, simpering dealing with these people must just about be his nadir. Not to specifically broach women's rights, frankly, is an insult to women, but then he was in the right place for and had practised up before he left NZ.
"Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax the man behind the tree" The couple that can afford to use some of their super to fund holidays are typically the types that have paid ships loads more tax than the average and at a higher proportional rate - those that decry them their equal share of what they've contributed are inevitably in the group at the other end of the spectrum that wants them to keep subsidising them forever.
Firstly they were promised it. The other part of it is that those with the most money will have most likely paid the most in taxes. The other issue is that people have to live somewhere. You can have a house worth $1M but very little income. Telling people they have to move because their house is worth too much is pretty rough. Another point is that cutting super to people that have provided for themselves encourages people to not provide for themselves. It would encourage them to use trusts etc to reduce their assessable assets. Raising the age and then having a provision for people unable to work to get it younger is the best way to keep the cost of it down.
So you want all the infrastructural assets built up on NZ soil passed onto other generations and then limit any payments by means testing the generation of BB'er who contributed the most and made these assets a possibility !?!?!?
Look out BB'ers your equity in your house is shiny and the magpies are pecking!!!!
I think Paul Krugman did a graphical calculation of what the interest rate should be and it was -6% "and obviously you cannot go below 0%" (paraphrase - something like that). I cant get my head around this, but in effect at -6% the Fed gives you the capital and 6% of it ?? that sounds even more crazy than 0.25%?????????? Damn me if someone wanted to give me cash and pay me a real amount to take it I'd be hard pressed to say no.
there is a Spanish bank already doing that, you take out a mortgage, they deduct the interest off your principal each month. you don't have to make a payment and your loan gets smaller each month.
printed money anyone
Tumbling interest rates in Europe have put some banks in an inconceivable position: owing money on loans to borrowers.
At least one Spanish bank, Bankinter SA, the country’s seventh-largest lender by market value, has been paying some customers interest on mortgages by deducting that amount from the principal the borrower owes.
If the loan can be put towards productive employment/development of velocity of money/real productivity (eg solar capture) then it's a good thing and makes perfect system. The government pays the excess interest and a little principle, from the _small_ slice of revenue it gains each time wages or product are transacted,
How else do you think you're going to bootstrap a system?
We do it with direct grants and subsidies, the do it be sponsoring citizens who take leverage risk.
Main difference being NZ gives the lions share of it's grants to non-tax paying multinationals based in foreign countries. Because they're such an asset to NZ (paying us wages from our own money and taking a cut)
#6 but didnt you say you expected a substantial/severe correction in prices of BBs houses BH? are you with drawing that? Just looking at the demographics (Harry Dent?) it would seem pretty clear that spending etc follows demographics very well and then add in the number of BBs and it would point to a severe downsize in the value of houses and hence the abilty to use them for reverse mortgages. Of course if that is right then signing up for such a reverse mortgage puts the losses on the banks. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/harry-dent-demographic-cliff-2013-12
The theory goes that the BB's where supposed to sell off their one house to pay for downsizing/retirement.
That was silly assumption by economists. BB's either are broke and don't have a house, have downsized already, or have been financial savvy enough to transfer the property to Trusts or companies for their grandchildrens future and kicking back on the rental income from many more than one house - and lifting prices help them immensely is it keeps the yield rate climbing - which is always an issue with a Perpetuity (ie keeping up with inflation/opp cost)
#6 - Bernard - sounds good
I'm not convinced the detail contained in the report by the Centre for Independent Studies is accurate. You need to do a little more in-depth research and rigorous testing
It is true that while the pension is means tested, the "home" is excluded from the assets test. Be it a modest home or a $2 million palace. As inflation proceeds over time it would incentivise the retiree to keep up-sizing to a more expensive home and so invest (hide) more of the wealth in the family home. Trouble with that gambit is the "retiree" cops a stamp duty bill of $150,000 on purchase of a new "home" and a $20,000 bill to sell the old one, which is hardly worth the effort just to maintain a part pension of $5,000 pa. How many times can they afford to do that?
Complete nonsense. CIS are just trumpeting their wares. Just another scare merchant lobby-group
As for there being $625 billion tied up in pensioner housing, there is currently just under $2 trillion tied up in compulsory superannuation, which is included in the assets test, and as explained above will never be shifted into more luxurious homes. Anyone who tries that is dumb
"Prices should be falling domestically, given lower fuel prices and the increasingly efficient nature of the new and bigger planes such as the latest A320."
Why would prices fall when there's limited effective competition on trunk and no competition on regional routes?
Also: fuel prices are hedged (you knew that anyway..) and short-term price movements have limited impact on fuel bills plus efficiency gains of A320 vs B737-300 are there, but aren't massive
waymad,
Politicians are people just like you and me. We get what we deserve as they seek to please a population with extremely disparate backgrounds, goals, demands, agendas, beliefs, and expectations. Not to mention they are advised and served by people of vastly varying calibre.
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