Here's our summary of key economic events overnight with hindsight news that the Fed has not moved fast enough to keep raging inflation in check.
The headline news today is that US CPI inflation hit 7.5% in January, a 40 year high. Although that was only just over analysts were expecting (+7.3%), markets felt they hadn't priced in enough so benchmark interest rates rose sharply, the USD slipped, and Wall Street is lower. Core inflation came in slightly higher than expectations too at 6.0% from a year ago, although it should be noted that the January month-on-month rises were pretty much the same as the month-on-month rises in December - and lower than for both October and November.
Driving these January rises are energy prices, and supply chain disruptions. They are across the board and include food which was up +7.0% - the only major category not showing large pressures were medical care costs.
The chances of an outsized rate hike at the Fed's March 17 (NZT) meeting is now high - maybe as high as +1% and taking it to 1.25%.
Meanwhile, US jobless claims came in lower than expected and lower than the prior week. There are now 2.0 mln people on these benefits, back at pre-pandemic levels.
The US budget is expected to show a small surplus for January when the data is released later this morning. We will update this item then. Any time it shows a surplus is actually 'real news' even if it is small. In January 2021 there was a -US$163 bln deficit, so their budget repair progress is actually quite impressive.
Japanese producer prices are still rising at a fast clip. They rose +0.6% in January from December and +8.6% in the year.
Also rising at a fast clip is new lending at Chinese banks. The word has clearly gone out to get loans out the door quickly. Since these statistics started being reported in 2004, there has never been anything quite like this flood of new lending. Chinese banks lent almost ¥4 tln in new loans in January, a new all-time record and easily beating market forecasts of almost ¥3.7 tln, and more than three times the ¥1.1 tln in December. Their central bank is moving very quickly to boost lending to shore up their slowing growth. China lacks new ideas on now to maintain their expansion - it certainly isn't self-sustaining. "Stability" is now their watchword.
In Hong Kong, their pandemic situation is far from stable, with hospitals overwhelmed by Omicron cases.
And China's commitment to its environmental targets is wavering. In 2021 it announced it wanted its steel industry bring forward its peak emissions target to 2025. But now it is relaxing that to 2030 because it can't stand the economic pain. This in turn probably means it will be buying much more iron ore to pump up its "growth stabilisation measures". The iron ore price fell from US$225/tonne in May 2020 to just US$83 by mid November 2021, almost a -65% fall. But on the news of the relaxation of those environmental standards, it has risen back to US$142/tonne, a +70% gain in 12 weeks. Australian miners are in fat city any time the price is over US$100/tonne. They are profitable over US$40/tonne.
The Reserve Bank of India left its benchmark repo rate at its record low 4% during its meeting late yesterday, saying it was maintaining an accommodative monetary policy stance "as long as necessary" to "revive and sustain" their wobbly economic recovery and to help mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic.
Indonesia also held their official benchmark interest rate, at 3½%.
Around the world, very dodgy carbon credit schemes are popping up to game the system, and large companies are using these opaque exchanges to cover themselves at relatively cheap prices.
Aussie inflation expectations rose to 4.6% in their February survey (paywalled), up from 4.4% in January. But this just maintains the higher levels that have been reported in this survey from September 2021 onwards. Still, it will add fuel to the expectations that the RBA will be forced to move earlier in raising rates in 2022. New Zealand inflation expectations survey results are due out this afternoon.
In NSW, there has been a rise to 10,130 new community cases reported yesterday, now with 69,603 active locally-acquired cases, and another 24 daily deaths. There are now 1,795 in hospital there, off their high. In Victoria they reported 9,391 more new infections yesterday. There are now 55,946 active cases in that state - and there were 16 more deaths there. Queensland is reporting 5,854 new cases and 8 more deaths. In South Australia, new cases have slipped to 1671 yesterday and 2 deaths. The ACT has 500 new cases and no deaths, and Tasmania 637 new cases and one death. Overall in Australia, about 28,200 new cases were reported yesterday.
The UST 10yr yield opens today at 2.03% and +12 bps higher and taking it to a level we last had in July 2019, 30 months ago. The UST 2-10 rate curve starts today much flatter at +53 bps. Their 1-5 curve is a little flatter at +89 bps, while their 3m-10 year curve is very much steeper at +198 bps. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is up +10 bps at 2.19%. The China Govt ten year bond is +1 bps at 2.76%. The New Zealand Govt ten year is unchanged so far at 2.73% but sure to get a strong boost when trading opens here today.
On Wall Street, the S&P500 is down -0.9% in early afternoon Thursday trade. Overnight, European markets closed mixed between Paris' -0.4% drop and London's +0.4% rise. Yesterday, Tokyo ended up +0.4%, as did Hong Kong, and Shanghai was up +0.2%. The ASX200 ended up +0.3% while the NZX50 ended down -0.3%.
The price of gold starts today at US$1842/oz and up another +US$9 from this time yesterday.
However oil prices are up +US$2.50 at just over US$90.50/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is now just under US$92.50/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar will open today firmer again at 67.2 USc. Against the Australian dollar however we have slipped back to 92.9 AUc. Against the euro we are little-changed at 58.6 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today just over 71.4.
The bitcoin price is +2.9% higher since this time yesterday and now at US$45,425. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been moderate at +/- 2.8%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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Meanwhile, US jobless claims came in lower than expected and lower than the prior week. There are now 2.0 mln people on these benefits, back at pre-pandemic levels.
Not sure I understand that chart.
"Real average hourly earnings" being in the negative suggests people are paying their employers to work? But a more realistic perspective might be that the chart actually charts living costs v earnings suggesting that costs are rising at a faster rate than incomes, and debt increasing? I think we all already knew that?
And participation rate not so much:
In the 1960s, listening to the like of Rufus Dawes, it was explained over& over again the nations that over printed money for themselves were inviting an eventual inflation explosion. Examples of course Germany post WW1, Argentina, Italy. In later times Zimbabwe obviously. Well then here we all are now.
Except despite what the crypto bulls keep trying to tell us, we didn't print money, we monetised debt. As rates increase, this debt will either be paid down or defaulted on, both of which are highly deflationary.
Japan might be a more appropriate example to use here, although Japan had the distinct advantage of having a strong manufacturing base during what has probably been the biggest consumer boom in history. NZ doesn't produce much of anything anymore, and even if it did, people don't have the money to pay for it.
Meanwhile the BOJ has committed to unlimited buying of the 10y at 0.25% whilst having a debt to GDP of 260%
Bitcoin
https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/boj-announces-plan-buy-unli…
Sqishy - actually, those 3 are driven by scarcity (and note they are essentials, not discretionary buys).
Interest-rates cannot address scarcity; although their upping will result in the richer outlasting the poorer.
This was always going to happen; some of us even predicted it. :)
We still have to endure negative real interest rates. As I said elsewhere today, we have the "best democracy money can buy".
Robertson has maintained the Reserve Bank's monetary policy is working well.
Assistant Governor Hawkesby told Bloomberg that the RBNZ was thinking the same way as the Fed and would likely embrace a period of inflation above 2%. - sourceIt must be time to discuss:
Meanwhile Chief Powell blatantly fails to reveal that the biggest beneficiary of his reformed inflation target will be big government, for whom his institution is now a mammoth tax collector, with emphasis at first on monetary repression tax, and later on inflation tax.Link
This is the phenomenon we study. Financial repression (FR) is defined in Box 1, while Table 1 describes a selection of policies that defined the FR era in the United States but are representative for other countries, advanced and emerging alike. There is considerable cross country variation in the extent of financial repression and the magnitude of the financial repression tax. When controlled nominal interest rates coupled with inflation produce negative real interest rates, it liquidates (reduces) the stock of outstanding debt; we refer to this as the liquidation effect. However, even in years when real interest rates are positive, to the extent that these are kept lower than they otherwise would be via interest rate ceilings, large scale official intervention, or other regulations and policies, there is a saving in interest expense to the government. These savings are sometimes referred to as the financial repression tax. Link
Wages are too low in NZ, so I'm not opposed to minimum wage going up.
However, this could be brutal for businesses like hospitality outlets and smaller retailers who rely on minimum wage staff.
6% increase overnight on one of your biggest costs, plus all the other increases e.g. fuel, ingredients, stock and so on. Then add to it the reduced revenue (combination of household wallet tightening and people electing to lock themselves down)
Uncertain times ahead. Honestly, what is the pathway out of this?
Wages are low, but the minimum wage increase on 1 April only really affects anyone already below $21.20. They are the only ones who will actually see a change.
What you don't see is a further devaluing of the middle class professions, many of whom amassed student debt, who have had pay increases that are lower than the increase in minimum wage as a percentage over time. There's no sudden increase for them, they just have to wait and see whether they get an increase at all this year. In fact, the additional cost pressure from an increase in minimum wages may well end up being a reason for them to be denied any adjustment at all. For some this will be the second year running, at a time of record inflation.
It doesn't automatically mean a pay increase for everyone and that's what I think gets lost in the minimum wage debate. A real solution would be wholesale tax rate reform, so that we're not saying people need to earn $44K to survive but then aggressively tax them at the same rate we did 10 years ago. But that's already been ruled out, presumably because the Govt wants that revenue to brag about their fiscal management credentials.
If someone new starts on a little less than a supervisor this would cause huge problems at this point everyone’s pay goes up.People on low wages just cannot afford 7% inflation the wheels are just about to fall of this economy when working people cannot afford rent food petrol and power the protests will come.With interest rates just about to blow up and inflation it is not looking good for anyone, housing will be hit so bad this is why people are trying to sell everything they can just a little late the smart investors sold end of last year at the top.
The problem is that in many instances pay parity is getting crushed.
We have benefit rates right up there (and often above) min wage.
We have min wage right up there with tertiary qualified and other great workers who have made an effort.
We have become a country that does not reward work, effort and qualifications - particularly in the Public sector.
We have an attitude that we have rights to everything and anything without earning that right.
Again, the only ones getting the 6% increase are those who are already at the current minimum wage level. If you're between that the proposed minimum wage, there's no requirement that your new payrate has to overshoot minimum wage by the same amount it does now. Chances are you'll just get the minimum wage.
There is no assurances that anyone else gets anything at all. A rising tide does not lift all boats in this exercise.
It does however create a real problem for experienced qualified workers, who now need to get at least 6% out of employers to maintain their earning power relative to the bare minimum price for labour. Many will find themselves going backwards.
GV, it's not only the one's on minimum wage that will get the increase. We like to keep the gap with minimum wage so everyone gets an increase when minimum wage goes up. We now pay an extra $43k per year in wages due to min wage increases with the current government. All that's before we give them a raise that has been well earned. Can't keep raising the minimum wage and think it's going to fix everything. It's killing them middle wage earners.
If you're more productive than a minimum wage worker then your wages will rise. If they don't, then find a new job and bank a 10%+ higher wage. (Unless you're a teacher, nurse, police - in which case bad luck unfortunately - pressure the Government and strike if you have to).
Yep, exactly. I know people who are now paid less than the workers they supervise! Go into many McDonalds and you will find exactly that. Despite some of these people having much greater experience and responsibility. Labour's irrational raising of the minimum wage is totally wrong, they are creating huge skewed issues around qualifications and skills in an idiotic attempt to get rid of poverty. It's idiotic because min wage increases are simply passed onto customers, making us an even higher cost economy. Essentially those on minimum wage end up no better off after a year or so.
Businesses like hospitality outlets and smaller retailers frequently relied on docile immigrants who were hoping for residency. Minimum wages were paid but hours fudged and some immigrants paid for the job. NZ has few labour inspectors. The businesses that broke the law were slapped with a wet bus ticket.
With our border almost closed it will be interesting to see these jobs (pump attendants, bottle shops, supermarket checkouts) filling with Kiwis.
That would have the biggest effect on the higher earners. People would cry foul that the rich are getting a way bigger taxcut.
They shuld still do it though - the extra annual tax revenue the government is getting could almost pay outright for the Auckland light rail.
Min wage is pushing some young into a life of poverty. If an unskilled worker is required to be paid more than the value he produces he will not be employed.
He does to get the opportunity to start out and gains skills and increase his income
We are saying - you are not allowed to work because you do not have the skills.
Bonkers.
2.55 million for a shack in Matapouri, it isn't even near the beach front.
Good luck to the buyer. I would prefer spending $100k per year on a holiday for 25 years. Could go away for months on end every year!
True, that's the only end thinking of everyone who's paying more than million for a house. Talked to 3 people yesterday who sold their existing property and just to buy another upscale property and top up their mortgage. Their thinking is to keep working till 70 and pay off their mortgage ( whatever they can) & then sell their property because it would have doubled or triple. Then move to a small place in retirement.
So all good assumptions I guess? But is that a life everyone wants to live? Work the ass off till 70 and then move to smaller place just for a bigger than current house they live in?
Know of a couple who sold in Auckland to move to Christchurch, buy a similar sized house and free up some capital. House sold in Auckland, start looking in Christchurch and quickly realised the prices in Christchurch had risen so much they wouldn't be materially any better off. Big fail.
International interest rates worldwide are set to go much higher, and this is going to affect NZ as well.
An OCR peak at 4% is very likely, but I would not discount an even higher peak now, up to 5%.
There is a good chance that mortgage rates at 7% will be seen in NZ before end of this year.
Depositors should invest on shorter term deposits, as interest rates are due to go and then stay higher for the foreseeable future.
Something has to break in order to put back under control the now out-of-hand inflation, and what is going to break is the NZ housing Ponzi.
Zero chance mortgage rates are at 7% this year.
OCR peak at 4% not likely at all.
I firmly believe they will take the tradeoff of higher persistent inflation and not nuking the housing market. It has been like this so far and they appear to be all in.
Rates will rise slightly to appease the inflation bad, OCR must rise crowd, but not significantly.
They are screwed either way, so may as well continue with the option that grows the wealth of the asset owning class.
Rate rises will not curb the underlying problem. As I've said forever here, energy is required to do anything; produce food, mine, process, transport, dispose.
The energy cost of energy is rising - we burnt the best/easiest stuff, first - and that is percolating through into the 'cost' of everything. We have no choice but to swallow it, food-wise. Or to put up with it, essential-wise. Petrol and potatoes are going to get 'dearer', as long as the system holds.
But we will discard discretionary items, increasingly, as interest-rates side with lowering profit-margins (all forced by a reduction in energy - looks like the global peak all-in was 2018).
In a rendezvous with credit, at some disputed interest-rate (to channel Alan Seeger) the system will break. In panic, they will back off. The result will be stagflation, is my pick - permanent and increasing. The problem is that the currently-held debt (plus the currently-held expectations, like pensions) cannot be meaningfully repaid (not enough remaining underwrite). They've kept the system artificially alive for 13 years - a heroic attempt - but it was doomed.
But we don't have any other tools to curb inflation rather than tightening up monetary policy. I agree energy cost is rising and part of it is because of supply chain disruption. But also another important factor is lack of investment due to lack of competition and cheap money investing in green energy and unproductive asset price. It might take years for energy cost to go down. But right now, it's obviously due to oversupplied money in this global pandemic. We have do deal with it now by tightening up monetary policy.
Might not be this year, unfortunately based on US CPI data, it's possible to get to 7% in near future. When that happens, you might get what you were predicting before about recession and OCR comes down again, HouseMouse. But timing it would be extremely difficult.
Per my comment below in this section – is it swaps or the OCR that is the biggest determinant of mortgage rate settings – ie how much sway does Orr actually have in this.
Yields on US2-YR jumping .267 to a yield of 1.615 overnight.
I don’t really understand the complexities of swaps but would this not have quite an impact in terms of NZ mortgage rate settings.
I hope you know what you are talking about regards to currency collapse. It will be 10 times worse than housing market crash. I think our Government and RBNZ are not that stupid to understand this. I agree they are incompetent to certain degree, but I seriously don't think they are incapable of understanding the damage of currency collapse and hyper inflation could do to our society.
We are walking that path with the Fed as I type this and there appears to be no desire to change tack - but even if we wanted to do something, what is it that we could do?
The US is in collapse (all of the signs are there), but that isn't new. Things will get very interesting if/when people lose faith in the USD as the reserve currency. The world that we have known, will not be the same.
They will continue to kick the can down the road for as long as possible. Not on my watch!
Until they impliment the "Great reset" plan and wipe all the debt and start things from scratch.
So to get a head in a fiat system, you really should be as close to bankruptcy as possible, squeeze as much as you can out of it.
Had a chat to a few of the Wellington protestors yesterday. Looks like almost all of them are anti vaccine mandate, but a bunch of them are there for weird reasons (anti vaxers they almost all are!).
Have to agree with them regarding mandates, now. I fully support the mandates when we had low vaccination rates, but with us up around 95% or so, it's time to remove mandates, IMO. I think it was fine to have them in place to pump that vaccination rate up, but now we are there, it's time to let the virus do it's work. Eventually it's unavoidable. Thoughts here are:
- Vaccination wanes with time, only way to keep the immune system primed is either more boosters or exposure to the virus. The latter is going to happen at some point, best to be exposed when we have the best chance of defeating the virus the first time we get it. That's now...
- Omicron doesn't have the same severe side effects as earlier variants
- Vaccines are a precious resource, send them to countries with low vaccination rates where they will be more effective
- We have vaccinated all the people we are going to get, more mandates now don't achieve anything except push those people more and more to the fringes. Dangerous for social cohesion
- We should flip the vaccine mandates now, so it becomes illegal to ask for vaccination status, except in special cases (e.g. MIQ workers, potentially rest homes)
- Essentially we have suspended patients rights to refuse medical treatment, which means when they do refuse a vaccination, a lot of them can't get jobs, i.e. exist in todays world. It's fine to do this in emergencies, but the emergency is inevitable and right now, we have the best protection we are likely to achieve
- Before these people become long term unemployed, they should be re-engaged into the work force, while their skills are still sharp
- Since our vaccination rates are so high, we aren't likely to get a mass death events that we have seen elsewhere and the spread will be quite slow. Remember we needed to get around 90%+ in models for this to be the case, we are now at ~95% double vaxxed
- Maybe we can wait until more children are vaccinated?
Unfortunately it means that a lot of people at the rally will get sick with COVID and some are likely to die. Having talked to them and asked if that's OK, they said it's their choice. OK, so in a free society with medical ethics being properly re-instated, we have to respect that. Thoughts?
I'm amending this comment, but if these people wish to remain unvaccinated, they should automatically be ineligible for emergency care. I simply cannot stand my family being put at risk because anti-masker Karens want to throw a tantrum about being told what to do.
We have extremely limited capacity to deal with any emergency care, as we also have the needs of the general population and other non-Covid emergencies to take care of. Sorry, but you aren't Nelson Mandela because you watched a YouTube video of someone ranting in their truck about how they had to wear a mask at a store.
Let's start with an easy target then. Ban motorcycles, immediately. Motorcyclists are 20-30 times more likely (depending on whose figures you trust) to be hospitalised in a crash. And because they tend to ride like lunatics with an insatiable death wish, they have big crashes when they inevitably push things too far.
If the emergency system is that pressured, then the government should be taking immediate steps to restrict any activity that places undue risk of requiring hospital care - at least until the threat of Omicron/Covid has passed.
The extra ACC levies motorcyclists pay aren't enough to justify letting them indulge in their unnecessarily risky behaviour.
Both groups (motorcyclists and anti-vaxxers) choose deliberately engage in scientifically-proven, risky behaviour.
Where would you draw the line?
Should people who choose to drive around in older cars without sufficient airbags and safety features be bumped down the emergency care list? (maybe if you can't afford a safe car, you can't afford to drive at all. I drive a 5-star safety car, maybe I could demand everyone else has to as well?)
Should people who go downhill mountain biking at breakneck speed be prevented from getting hospital care if they crash and injure themselves? (after all, you can sit on a spin bike in the gym and get a workout with far less risk).
How about drug addicts who overdose and wind up in the emergency room? (they could just - I dunno - not take drugs. Others seem to manage).
What about rugby? (there are plenty of other sports you can play that don't involve running into each other at full tilt)
I get where you're coming from. I understand the frustration of seeing people do dumb, illogical things and the "costs" being socialised to people like you and me who maybe make more sensible choices. It sucks. But it is part of society; always has been, always will be.
Anti-vaxxers are an admittedly easy target here (and they don't help their cause when they start rolling in other, more generalised complaints/protests) but if the emergency is so severe, then we need to take drastic action and stop anything activity-wise that might place undue pressure on the health system.
Isn't that why it's getting harder to look both ways turning out of a side street these days?
Because of all those safer SUV/UTEs that especially with full tinted windows don't give you any visibility of the 'I was only doing 5kph over the limit' drivers barreling along the road.
Can't agree with this. We have already partially suspended the medical ethics surrounding the right to choose medical treatment. Suspending more medical ethics (here that triaging patients is not done solely on a patient need basis) and asking doctors to essentially betray more of their ethics, is starting to go down slippery slope. Better to say something like "If you aren't vaxxed and receive treatment for COVID, you have to pay for it", which affects people after the fact, rather when they need immediate medical treatment.
GV 27 Omicron is here vaccines do not stop it . Over 90% of people have had jabs and they seem to help stop severe illness not much more anyone can do, if you and your family don’t think vaccines are good enough stay at home and stop criticising other people for doing what they consider best for their family.
I don't think I'll ever be ok with the mandates from a moral perspective. I accept they worked (we've got a very high vaccination rate now) and I can understand the argument for their necessity for public health.
However, I've seen the mental health impacts on several people I know, and it's been unpleasant to watch unfold as they lose their jobs or comply at what feels to them like the end of a gun. For example, I know a new father in his late 20s who folded in the end to get the vaccination to keep his government job. He's had four trips to the emergency room at goodness only knows what cost to the taxpayer, and has been on sick leave since his first dose, because of reactions (I suspect they are psychosomatic, brought on by anxiety about having been jabbed, but at the end of the day that's a lot of cost in terms of ambulance time, doctor assessments and being off work). It's been horrible for his wife too, who has to deal with a newborn and a husband in and out of hospital.
I guess what I'm asking is whether the juice was worth the squeeze?
Modelling of anything through this pandemic has been unreliable to say the least, so it seems impossible to determine how much worse the health outcomes would have been if we had topped out at say 80% voluntary uptake versus 95% forced uptake, or whatever we are at now.
But that's all in the past anyway. What's been done is done. As you say, we have the highest vax uptake we are likely to see. I suppose the inevitable booster mandate will be coming for the general population (even if it's just so the government can claim bragging rights on the highest % boosted) but Omicron will probably have swept through by that point anyway.
Anybody who isn't yet vaccinated is very unlikely to get vaccinated. There was some good research out of Germany - can't find the link unfortunately - that concluded nothing short of holding people down and forcing jabs into their arms will convince the genuine anti-vaxxers to get vaccinated.
What is the point now in keeping the vaccine passports for internal use? Anyone who was going to get vaccinated has done so. Everybody else will not be getting vaxxed. They are going to be exposed to Covid one way or another as it becomes endemic, and we will just have to accept the pressure they place on the health system, whether that's fair or not to the rest of us.
So let them reintegrate into society and move forward before they are pushed even further to the fringes and greater violence is risked.
I think a lot of people just like seeing the anti-vax crowd punished, and take a sick kind of pleasure in it. They don't help themselves, but what good is actually coming from punishing them at this point apart from an ultimately fruitless catharsis?
The amount of hate I'm seeing at work for these people is ugly. They should be pitied. I also admire them in a way for sticking to their principles, however misguided. I'm vaccinated but have always opposed mandates, even going out on a limb at work to oppose them. I haven't taken the principled approach and refused to show my vaccine pass however. I'm slightly ashamed of that, but I would be even more ashamed of threatening the wellbeing of my family (as the sole breadwinner)
You make no mention of the long term adverse health effects of COVID. These will still likely impact the vaccinated but to what degree is currently unknown.
My issue with the village idiots is that they are really selfish. They do not stay home when they are ill, so they put their individual freedoms above others rights to remain virus free. I would be more amenable towards them if they behaved responsibly such as isolating when ill (irrespective of the virus) and actively trying to prevent it's spread, but they are so stupid as to believe that everyone is better off if they catch it. So no, keep the mandates on. These people are exercising their freedoms, and as in all freedoms they get to accept the consequences of their choices.
You have to laugh.
Mandates are a apparently a consequence of people exercising their freedom not to get vaccinated. If the consequence of exercising your freedom is to have that freedom removed, is it really a freedom?
Meanwhile, vaccinated people exercising their freedom to mingle shouldn't have to face the consequences of their actions, i.e. risk having their "right to remain virus free" (what?) violated in the middle of a global pandemic.
I wouldn't normally comment, but the mental gymnastics involved here is just astounding.
What mental gymnastics? No one is holding you down and forcing you to be vaccinated. If you choose not to get it, there are flow-on effects.
Actions, consequences. Or is that not how this works, suddenly, when it comes to people taking responsibility for their own decisions? How convenient.
I think you're missing something here though GV. While yes, we aren't forcing people down and jabbing them, we are saying that you can't work, if you don't get vaxxed, for many people. This is partially trampling our Bill of Rights and partially trampling our medical ethics. Which is OK in an emergency, but IMO that time has now passed.
The Bill of Rights get trampled all the time. It's a legal formality which can be over-riden with a simple parliamentary majority. Many other laws ride roughshod over supposedly enshrined rights. It happens. It's not the trump card some people think it is.
What I think most people don't get is that our hospitals and health systems are so woeful that the emergency long-tail is going to be a lot longer for us. We already have ambulances leaving 90 year olds having heart-attacks to fend for themselves for an hour, and god help you if your child has an incident involving a reaction or choking on something.
I appreciate that it is not ideal for anyone, but my sole concern is the ability of my family to access medical care on an urgent basis which is already being compromised, pre-Omicron peak. I do not for a second have any reservation about people who have opted-out of protecting themselves having to live with the consequences of doing so. That is their decision. My infant son, my elderly grandparents, have done all they can. No one has an enshrined right to compromise their ability to access healthcare. Your rights end where theirs begin.
I do not understand why those people trespassing on the parliamentary grounds think they should be free to live without consequences for a choice they are free to make. Being compliant has been no picnic for me either, so I fail to see why these self-styled freedom fighters should be given any more leeway. I have done my part. Why are you too good to do yours?
A lot of people have done their part GV, it's the vax mandates people are protesting about.
I'm getting this thing just like you are, if the health system is struggling at the moment it's nothing to do with omicron, that hasn't even kicked off yet, unless the testing is so absurdly low we really do have 10,000+ cases floating around.
Personally I want to get it sooner rather than later, while it's warm and while I still have some immunity from my first two jabs.
I see why the govt wants to slow the spread, but I'm not sure the virus is listening.
No little pass on your phone is going to make a blind bit of difference.
Just for note, I am double vaxxed, booster on Saturday. I have also had to be compliant AND it's been no picnic.
Sure, the Bill of Rights is more of a guide, but it's a guide about how to run an orderly society where people are free to make their own choices and aren't discriminated against for those choices. Just because we have trampled some rights recently does not justify the ongoing trampling of said rights.
You are still failing to see that this is going to be endemic. Elimination isn't a strategy anymore. Understand that first. Because it's going to become endemic, you want to be exposed to it close to when your vaccinations are most effective. That's from now and for the next month or two.
These people are experiencing real hardship, to the point where they are becoming violent. And they have a point, that this is imposed by government, removing some of their rights. They aren't going away, continuing the mandates will push them further onto the fringe, potentially making them more violent. I don't hear you offering solutions for this other than the current "keep ignoring them".
We can't escape long term effects forever. COVID will become endemic, it's inevitable. Omicrons long term effects appear to be considerably less than earlier variants.
So the best chance to escape long term effects is for us to be exposed to the virus, while vaccinated, to build up our immunity, so we don't get long term effects. If we do it in say 6 months when everyones vaccination immunity is lower (because booster vaccination rates will likely drop), then we will get more long term effects as the virus will hit more people harder. So, as vaccination wanes with time, it's best that we are exposed earlier than later, when our immunity from being double vaxxed (and boosted) is higher. That should mean less long term side effects.
We have to accept elimination isn't an option anymore, at some point endemic effects of the virus are inevitable. The best we can do is choose our time wisely to minimise the endemic effects of the virus.
Bang on, think the other problem is they have used excessive restrictions when they did'nt need to and now people, vaxx and unvaxx, are over it. the Red light system is perfect example. Even under their conditions for the lights, they overrode those and imposed Red on us. The hospitals are not overloaded with cases and the case numbers do not justify Red. If we up at around 2-3k a day yep. So now people are ignoring the rules, not scanning in and bugga the testing even with a sniffle, poorly managed again.
Agree, the graphics dept did a good job on the first 1 pager with some criteria for each. Accepting that covid would spread through the community but trying to limit this when the hospital system was under severe pressure was the goal and made sense. It seems they have done such a good job whipping people up into a fear frenzy previously that this wasn't politically paletable, so we're just back to winging it with an abundance of caution now.
But for a while it's been illegal to discriminate employment oppourtunities based on medical history. You can't ask someone "When was your last MMR vaccine?" or "Do you have syphylis?" or any number of medical questions that don't relate to their ability to do the job. This has been suspended during COVID for good reason... but those reasons start to pale in comparison to having a potential underground insurgent group who are severely disaffected by these changes. And who model themselves as "freedom fighters", the catch call of any potential terrorist.
At some point we have to re-integrate these people, I would suggest going back to what we had previously, being unable to ask for medical status. Sure, you are allowed to protect YOURSELF, you have likely got vaccinated for that reason and have the greatest individual protection available. While having unvaccinated people running around your workplace might seem scary, they are the ones that are going to suffer the severe consequences. If you do get COVID from them, well you were going to get it at some point anyway. We are past the elimination stage, we are into the management phase. And as we likely won't be vaccinating forever, it's better if you catch it early while your immunity is still primed for a response, not in a few years when your immunity is waning.
It's time to think about this in more complex terms, not the simple "vaccine mandate & elimination" strategy. Omicrons going to get us all as it becomes endemic, this means we need to change our thinking.
It's good you take the time to explain this B.
Way too many people are still stuck in the fearmongering mindset of 18 months ago when we had the first case detected.
Fortunately for us, the virus has done what virusses do, they become more infectious but less deadly as they mutate.
It's 100% clear that we can't vaccinate our way out of this.
Thank goodness for nature.
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