Here's our summary of key economic events over the weekend with news various crises got worse, including Ukraine and the Chinese property sector.
China’s property developers started 2022 with weak sales, as many real-estate companies struggled to rekindle interest from home buyers despite Beijing’s recent attempts to ease some restrictions on the troubled sector. January contracted sales reports released in recent days by more than a dozen Chinese developers showed year-over-year declines ranging from about 10% to more than 80% for some companies. They also reflected price reductions by industry heavyweights such as Country Garden Holdings and Sunac.
And Zhenro Property Group, one of the few large property developers thought to be in ok shape has succumbed to the same liquidity stresses that have befallen its peers. After calling news reports about the company "untrue and fictitious", it has had to admit that "existing internal resources may be insufficient to address its upcoming debt maturities in March". The train-wreck that is China's property development sector rolls on.
And staying in China, total vehicle sales fell to a 25.3 mln annual rate, down from a 27.9 mln sales rate in December. For the month alone this was +0.9% rise from the same month a year ago. The slip was because NEVs (hybrids, battery and hydrogen) fell almost -20% after the country cut subsidies of NEVs by -30% starting in January. Prior to that, growth in this sector was very strong. It seems Chinese buyers ill buy NEVs, but only when incentivised by price. China is still the world's largest vehicle market, by far. (The US's annualised sales rate is only 15 mln, even if it is rising.)
Hong Kong's city-wide lockdown to test for COVID is the last straw for many expats there and an exodus is underway. First it was the protests which brought Chinese 'law' and authoritarian style to the city, now this. Hong Kong’s top market regulator has warned that the city’s development as an international financial center is at risk after the agency lost -12% of its employees last year. A recent report from the European Chamber of Commerce in the city said that Hong Kong’s isolation could last into 2024, and that it anticipates an unprecedented exodus of foreigners as a result.
Japanese consumer prices rose by just +0.5% in January from a year ago, easing from a +0.8% gain a month earlier which was the highest figure in 2 years. But the January rise is their fifth straight month of increase.
In the geopolitical front, Russian-backed separatists packed civilians onto buses out of the breakaway Donbas region in eastern Ukraine overnight, a shock turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow plans to use as justification for all-out invasion of its neighbour. But it turned out to be a farcical operation that collapsed early. However, the prospect of sanctions is hitting market risk appetite. Russia is now pouring more troops into Belarus, and close to the Ukraine capital.
US financial markets will be closed for Presidents Day (ex-Washington's Birthday) tomorrow, making this a long weekend holiday there.
In economic news, the American real estate market turned in a stronger result in January, selling homes at a 6.5 mln annualised rate, up +6.7% from the equivalent December rate and beating forecasts. Their median price is now US$350,300 (NZ$523,000) per dwelling, boosted by a record low inventory of houses for sale of just 7 weeks at the current sales rate.
Meanwhile the Conference Board's leading index tracking for the US slipped in January when a rise was expected.
Fed speakers were out in force over the weekend, all talking up the need to "make adjustments" to fight inflation. Evans (Chicago Fed), Bullard (St Louis Fed), Mester (Cleveland Fed), Williams (NY Fed) and Brainard (Fed Vice Chair) have all been on the hustings. Williams was less enthusiastic about an outsized hike.
And the White House Council of Economic Advisers told Congress that several factors in the coming months should help slow the recent steep rise in consumer prices.
Canada's retail sales rose more than expected in January compared to January 2021. They were up +8.6% on that basis, easily beating the inflation effect. However, the sales rate in the month slowed from December.
EU consumer sentiment got slightly worse in February, when it was expected to get slightly less bad. It is almost always negative, but the track isn't encouraging even if it is now at 'average' levels.
The Ukraine standoff is still pushing the aluminium price higher, yet another new record high. And nickel has hit a 10 year high. Meanwhile the lithium carbonate price rose even faster over the weekend, taking the weekly rise to almost +7%, but in this case not due to the Ukraine tensions.
At the current round of G20 meetings in Jakarta, they failed to endorse International Monetary Fund and World Bank proposals for an immediate debt service suspension for poor countries that seek restructurings and an expansion to include some middle-income countries. China doesn't want debt relief for countries that owe it money, and China is the largest creditor. China would rather hold the obligation over the debtors.
In Australia, JP Morgan analysts have been tracking listed company earnings and they report that we are in for a bumper set of December 2021 results. In fact, they are likely to be up more than +20% from a year ago, to a record for any period pre-or-post pandemic. Half will exceed broker expectations, and that includes two of the four big banks, some other financials, miners, surprisingly some retailers, and property companies invested in online distribution centers.
And an Aussie billionaire has teamed up with Canada's Brookfield (Mark Carney is a director) to make a serious bid for one of their largest power generators, AGL Energy, with the aim of getting them to shut their coal-fired capacity much sooner that currently planned and invest much more (AU$10 bln) in renewables.
In NSW, there has been 5,582 new community cases reported yesterday, now with 107,285 active locally-acquired cases, and another 21 daily deaths. There are now 1,280 in hospital there and continuing to fall away. In Victoria they reported 4,867 more new infections yesterday. There are now 46,703 active cases in that state and there were 9 deaths there. Queensland is reporting 4,265 new cases and 2 more deaths. In South Australia, new cases have fallen to 1336 yesterday and 3 more deaths. The ACT has 560 new cases and no deaths, and Tasmania 555 new cases and no deaths either. Overall in Australia, more than 17,000 new cases have been reported.
The UST 10yr yield opens the new week at 1.93% and unchanged. Recall, it started last week at 2.04%. The UST 2-10 rate curve starts today little-changed at +46 bps. Their 1-5 curve is unchanged at +82 bps and their 30 day-10yr curve is also little-changed at +190 bps. The Australian ten year bond is unchanged at 2.18%. The China Govt ten year bond is stable at 2.82%. And the New Zealand Govt ten year is the same as at the end of last week at 2.81%.
The price of gold starts today at US$1899/oz and up +US$2 from this time Saturday. Last week, gold was up +3% and is now at a 35 week high.
And oil prices are up +50 USc at just on US$90.50/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is still just over US$92/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar will open today little-changed at 66.9 USc. Against the Australian dollar we up slightly at 93.4 AUc. Against the euro we are marginally firmer at 59.2 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 71.5 and +40 bps firmer in a week.
The bitcoin price is down another -4.3% since this time Saturday and now at US$38,313. Volatility over the past 24 hours has moderate at +/- 2.9%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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149 Comments
Coster's comments quoted in Trotter's article come across as a pretty sensible approach too. He and others involved are obviously aware they're facing the results of Facebook outrage algorithms hitting people who are coping with the uncertainties of a pandemic (in some cases weaponised by malicious or profiteering folk), just as much if not even more than sincerely thought out objections from even-tempered protesters.
Wider ongoing responses will need to address the underlying cause - i.e. outrage-stoking algorithms and elements exploiting these. There certainly seem to be many amongst the affected for whom the current anger is only a continuation of similar feelings that were being expressed even before COVID-19 (e.g. against the MMR vaccine, QAnon etc).
NZ urgently needs to start some initiatives of Participatory Democracy - e.g. a "Citizens' Select Committee" of 100 people from all walks of life who are funded and supported to review all perspectives and information on an issue and report back to the citizenry. We will never be successful trying only to encourage engagement with more accurate information online, at least as long as technology and media business models rely on holding attention via outrage-stoking algorithms.
Hahaha.. We do not have cash mate. We only have debt. We look rich on paper but are so poor in heart.
The impact of capitalism society where profits are wanted every quarter. Doesn't matter how many lives are lost.
Boeing wanted to sell more, profits every quarter. Didn't matter the lives of those ~400 who lost lives in the process when two planes crashed because of this. The CEO still got 62 million when he resigned. Guess you will have a spin around it for why it was a good thing.
Pity what we have become.
Wow, I guess you have travelled extensively through China and seen it?
Ridiculous, China is a first world nation in all but name, they only like to keep their status as a "developing nation" for the benefits it brings. Their "per capita GDP" is only low because they don't have a true floating currency, it's pegged to the USD. There is pockets of poverty all over China, much like any first world nation, but it's mainly middle class and an absolute tonne of very, very well off families.
I've lived there. It's definitely a third world country with a very visible upper middle and upper class that are definitely the minority. Due to the sheer volume of people there that does account for a fair few people. But the poverty is overwhelming and unavoidable if you go anywhere besides the cbd's of major cities (or up into one of the apartment blocks in cbd's).
In the years pre 2018 I biked around much of the country, from the back blocks of Sichuan/Yunnan/Guanxi (probably the poorest) trying to follow the great wall then to much of the Eastern sea board and even through Xinjiang (also pretty poor) and beyond. Sure there are some poor people, but much of the rural communities are booming with the Go West policies enacted a couple of decades or so ago. Many places in the back blocks are living much as they did for centuries in communities where they share food (sha zhu fan!) and cultural practices, though that is in decline. Those places aren't in abject poverty but if you counted the number of TVs or pure currency exchange, sure they are "poor", but that gets back to what your definition of poor is, because they act like a real community - nobody starves and they all talk to each other. Even my family (married into) over there has gone from dirt poor through to middle class in the past decade or two.
Don't know where/when you visited to see these claims of poverty everywhere. Almost the entire Eastern Seaboard is incredibly wealthy and looks like any large city in the world, along with quite a few booming large cities in the interior.
Maybe you haven't seen a real third world country? Having travelled with NGO's before and seen many actual poor places first hand, China is waaay richer than you are making out.
The Chinese authorities have brought extreme poverty from 88 percent of their population in the 80s down to less than 1% in recent years.
I guess the first step to solving a crisis is of that scale is to not give it euphemisms such as "child poverty".
A close second will be to not just create working groups, so as to then disregard their advice later.
1% extreme poverty? Great result. Now just have to deal with the 43% that live on less than $10/day, rather than $1.90/day. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-rate-by-country
Judging by their TV dramas (a) there is stupendous wealth and it is greatly admired (b) you pay for medical services. Most dramas have plucky girls forced by their family's medical debts into contract marriages with tall CEOs. The contract marriage always ends up as true love (that's why it is called fiction). If China introduced free health services they would need new plots for most of their dramas.
High in the round tower, the Queen had returned. Vexed & surly, she reached for the copy of Byron’s Greatest Hits, opened at The Destruction of Sennacherib and read the stirring stanzas. And then frowning down witheringly at the ever gathering horde of the anti-vax unvaccinated and the few others, pursed her lips, pouted and muttered darkly it should have happened by now.
I was a poor student of verse but could though write a fair enough essay. Rhyme appealed, probably because somewhat easier to remember as required. Hence, Coleridge, Tennyson classics. Later though, well after school and rather strangely became interested in Matthew Arnold, and still have the volume of his works on the shelf.
In the geopolitical front, Russian-backed separatists packed civilians onto buses out of the breakaway Donbas region in eastern Ukraine overnight, a shock turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow plans to use as justification for all-out invasion of its neighbour.
Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?
German Chancellor Scholz’s visit to Moscow was not exactly a Porsche negotiating Nurburgring. One never gets away spewing out platitudes in front of Putin. Scholz: “For our generation, war in Europe is unimaginable”. Putin: “One has already been unleashed by NATO against Belgrade.” Link
The russian oligarchy thrashing around, trying to protect their patch. Putin is a perfect exponent of post truth. The authoritarian regimes of the iron curtain era have only begun to function as states run by humans, since they turned to the west. Not surprising Ukraine wants to join them, rather than being run by kremlin puppet gangsters.
Same as it ever was.
Which leads to the question, was democracy ever effective or were the masses sold a lie?
Is the imposition of a government by a monarchy holding the reins of power, simply so they didn't have to deal with the people's grievances, really democratic?
What's the difference now when it seems the entrenched politicians or the connected wealthy, who rule by ideology, are the only options to vote for?
I think you got it the wrong way around. Democracy came about to give the people more voice, taking power and control away from the monarchies. The problem is, as with most human endeavours, people with power and influence only try to enhance and entrench that. and that is the way this seems to be going. If we became a republic, dumping the Queen as HoS do you think we as the people would have more or less control over our government? I would strongly argue - LESS.
Well he basically owns Russia. Nothing happens without his approval. Keep the elites happy with look the other way corruption. Just execute any opposition, throw a few bones to the plebs, keep them entertained with mindless fact free media and nationalistic BS, and voila', the low expectations of the Russian public are satisfied and you get the largest country on the planet as your personal fiefdom.
In economic news, the American real estate market turned in a stronger result in January, selling homes at a 6.5 mln annualised rate, up +6.7% from the equivalent December rate and beating forecasts.
Our volatility measure is a crude and simplistic one. What we are using is the change between the low and high in the past 24 hours and dividing by 2 so that the resulting % is the range around 0% (ie +/-), and applying the following descriptors; 0-1% = low, 1-2% = modest, 2-3% = moderate, 3-4% = high, 4-5% = very high, over 5% = extreme.
That means +/- 2.9% is an overall range on the day of 5.8% (2.9% down and 2.9% up).
Over the weekend I posted this.
..............
The quality of some of the crazy conspiracy comments on this thread are depressing. The worst have been removed but there are plenty of awful ones remaining. This is not a place for people who have gone down the alt-right rabbit holes to surface and spout what amounts to mindless drivel. (Go to Alp's Counterspin if you want that.) Sadly, they are driving away those who wish a sensible discussion. Gresham's Law is at work here, and it is not a positive development.
Our moderation will be more direct from now on. Apply adult conversation standards, or don't bother.
We can disagree on issues, that is what this facility is for. But making up your own 'facts', or trolling-for-Trump is not meeting the standards we need. The latest seems to be inventing wild concepts about 'freedom' as a way to avoid dealing with serious public health issues - straight out of American evangelical pastors playbook, and a corruption of freedom, a fundamental concept that needs to be matched with responsibility. Separate the two and you have the type of stupidity on display around us, and in this comment thread by some. The worst worry is that those down-the-hole can't see it, or don't care.
...............
We are not going to be a distribution channel for nutty conspiracies. That is why we are being more direct at removing and blocking offenders.
"Then again, the Police may simply have been looking in the wrong place. The guiding intelligence behind this whole event may well be nowhere near Parliament Grounds. Indeed, it is even possible that the protest has been brought into existence for purposes unknown to all but a handful of hard-core participants.
Certainly, that is the impression Coster conveyed to Tame on Q+A. That he is holding-off on using more forceful methods to evict the protesters because those are precisely the tactics which faceless, online, string-pullers want him to employ. They want images of Police in riot-gear bloodying the heads of “ordinary Kiwi battlers” with their batons. They want to see people wincing under the sting of pepper-spray. They want to see tear-gas and water-cannons deployed for the first time in New Zealand history. They may even be hoping that in all the violence and chaos a protester – or a protester’s child – is killed."
Christ.
The guiding intelligence behind this whole event may well be nowhere near Parliament Grounds. Indeed, it is even possible that the protest has been brought into existence for purposes unknown to all but a handful of hard-core participants.
Lol. It's a nutty conspiracy theory!
Well there are nuts there. From a speaker at the protest about 20 minutes ago:
Luke King, former Outdoors Party candidate, also spoke. “You crawled out of bed at 3.25 this morning and you held the line,” he said to applause. “This must remain a peaceful movement so our benefactors continue to fund and support us.”
Mostly CT just discuss's Coster's responses to Tames questions during the Q&A interview. It is hardly worthy of the description of "nutter".
More concerning to me is that whenever media endeavour to penetrate the protesters to canvass a cross spectrum view of opinion, they just seem to get surrounded by the nutter brigade, get intimidated, threatened, pushed around and prevented from having the freedom of movement that those people claim to want themselves. And now there are enough interviews of people who live in the immediate vicinity, and others passing through to tell us what these people are really like.
Considering all that I find it hard to disagree with Coster. I certainly think there is an element, I'll call them anarchists, who are looking for a fight, for any excuse to create mayhem. To what percentage they are of the whole protest is anyone's guess as they make it difficult to determine it. But in the end they just undermine any legitimate premise the protest has.
I think Trotter has a point. There are probably people in the crowd who do want bad things to happen to other people because it helps their cause. Plenty of keyboard warriors do. This is human nature, and I'm sure there are people in Parliament who try not to think such forbidden things also.
I'm not so sure about the this point though.
Is it asking too much of the NZ Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau to tear their eyes away from Five Eyes scare stories about Russia and China for a moment, and give some professional support to a Police Intelligence operation that is clearly struggling?
The idea that the GCSB and SIS aren't involved already is silly. After all, their building is less than a block away from the fringes of the protest. It would be simple to send in an IO.
Never mind that in the aftermath of the 2019 massacre the SIS were blasted for ignoring white supremacists and the alt-right, and there are a few persons of likely interest attending the protest. They'll have eyes on the ground there. Whether they're talking to the police is a different question.
Each to their own. I was personally on the verge of deleting my subscription and going elsewhere due to the painful things I read in the comments, and I suspect that is primarily from the other side of the fence to you. Personal attacks on politicians on the daily, support for those that seek to undermine a stable civil society. I have no doubt there are others like me who are dead sick of it but there is no point engaging with those opinions because they are destructive and unreasonable.
So the comments section here has become saturated with a self entitled portion of the population that is exhausting and ceaseless in their noise.
I am now hopeful that the moderation will restore some, well, moderation to this site.
This is not a location for promulgulation of political dissent, yes, they discuss political matters, but it's in relation to economics. Not inciting violence or wishing horrible things on the PM or police. It's always being taken a step too far here recently. There are alt right websites out there where people can eat their heart out. Seek your solace there.
You're in good company with the likes of Hugh Pavletich, who got banned for repeated posts on housing, even though he was 100% correct.
Too much of a good thing apparently. Phil Hayward is another that is sorely missed who left after the intellectual rigor declined and started to put feelings ahead of facts, and general trolling.
Accept the need for some censorship on this site. After all it is finance related. But the constant referral to an alt right protest also seems to be a bit on the propoganda side?
There are herb gardens appearing, yoga, and "wellness" tents. Then factor in the general demeanour and dare I say it, "look" of the bulk of the protesters, and Alt-right is not what comes to mind.
Curious why you have deleted your own ( rather vicious in my view ) attack on Michael Reddell and the responses to it from the other thread .
It is hard to be convinced by your description of what drives moderation here in the light of that sort of thing . Time and again whatever might be inconvenient to the left-leaning bent of the editorial team is removed , without notice or explanation .
It is of course your website and you can do whatever you please with it - but all appearance of objectivity has by now been lost.
The editor might like to clarify - we aren't able to express concerns with vaccinations and their side effects or vaccination mandates anymore?
Nothing I wrote was a conspiracy, I have several people close to.me who have had very bad reactions to the vaccination. One of them didn't get their second vaccination because of their reaction to the first. Result? Loss of job.
I don't see why this is not a valid concern.
Exactly. I know two people who claimed to have had 'reactions' to the immunization and wanted to report it to the New Zealand Pharmacovigilance Centre. In the end both ended up actually having other causes for their 'reaction', both had radiologic evidence of a rotator cuff injury (i.e. a shoulder problem) rather than a true 'reaction' to the vaccine. I wonder how many people are attributing 'reactions' to other complaints like this? I'd imagine a fair few.
The nocebo effect is probably in play thanks to social media and people's anecdotal stories like the above.
"Anecdata is not data."
Here's some data for you GV (January figures):
US VAERS system: 1,071,856 reports of adverse events following vaccination, 178,994 serious injuries, 22,607 deaths
UK Yellow Card system: 1,439,579 adverse events, 1,972 deaths
DAEN Australia: 104,214 adverse events, 746 deaths
Medsafe NZ: 51,710 adverse events, 2,447 serious, 147 deaths
I have a close friend that the vaccine caused a very serious autoimmune condition for (Sarcinoma). He has a genetic predilection (brother has had it for over 5 years), but it's very serious for him. He's wound up his business etc and can't work anymore.
He equally could have gotten tetanus or another infection and had this happen. He might have got through life without it had he not got the vax, he might have gotten it tomorrow without the vax.
He does have a medical exemption for getting the second dose (so I would ask why your friends don't).
Mandates are a blunt instrument. Implemented at speed to deal with a serious global pandemic. The government has said they will remove them in due course. Like everything to do with this pandemic the time will come but decisions need to be made in light of current relevant information, you can't make calls ahead of time, unless you can. They are the ones with that information.
He's sick now. There is a very small minority that had an adverse medical reaction. No medical procedure comes without its risks. However NZ has an incredibly low death rate from Covid.
The ends justify the means HM. That is my personal opinion and each person needs to come to their personal opinion on that on their own. So come to it and stop banging on about it. I'm not really talking about you specifically, you are quite moderate. Others on here are not. Life screws us over in all sorts of ways. It's not fair, but to accept that is to be an adult.
Do the ends justify the means? With that low death rate I find it hard to understand how not.
Finally the publishers are going to do something about some of the garbage that has taken over the comments section - I had pretty much stopped reading below the line as it had become an echo chamber for anti science/alt right rubbish (you might also take an axe to some of the climate change denier drivel while you are at it - if you are going to (finally) cull the anti-vax nonsense on the basis of it's total lack of scientific credibility you must also apply that to climate change denialism - it's way past time......).
Climate Change Denier. That certainly shouldn't describe me since the carbon dioxide levels measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii scares the shit out of me. However some of the people who are demanding action are simply not being scientific since anyone pointing to contrary data is immediately labelled a denier. Science is all about questioning. For example the assertion so frequently made that climate change is causing more extreme weather events - the evidence is worthy of debate. Specifically after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans Climate Change devotees promised an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes hitting the USA but the opposite happened but rarely made public. It is worthwhile looking at the predictions and seeing how accurate they are (for example sea level rise has been consistent with predictions).
Those who deny the increase in greenhouse gases are deniers of facts and needn't be published. But querying the details is reasonable especially when the costs of moving to Carbon Zero are high.
I think one has to look at the context of "climate change denier." If someone labels you as a climate changer denier it's usually because they think you don't believe in man made climate change, not that you really believe the climate is not changing. I like to consider myself as a skeptic to wholly put the blame on made made climate change. There is some contribution from man made and its likely to be very much lower than is generally accepted by many. After all the climate's been changing for 1000's of years. To much politics, the UN as one of the main culprits whom most MSM slavishly follow.
I like the skeptic tag. I'm probably more convinced of man made climate change than you are of " its likely to be very much lower than is generally accepted". We can attempt to resolve our differences by discussion. However those who postulate a premature extinction of the human race will label our discussion as 'denial' and close us down. I'd argue my belief by asking you to look at the CO2 figures detected in Hawaii and the recent data for ocean warming at depth (admittedly so small as to only recently being detectable but there is an awful lot of thermal capacity in our oceans). I'd agree with you that the climate has always been changeable since long before man evolved but we are now a significant factor - take another look at those Hawiian figures - from 320 parts per million to 420 in the last 60 years; 3% increase in the last five years; no change of that growth despite all the green policies and technologies of the last two decades. Scary.
CO2 figures measured in Hawaii so significantly higher annual mean rate of growth in PPM in the recent years, compared to earlier decades. Sobering indeed, as you point out. 1959-62: between 0.5 and 0.96 growth (PPM) ...2018-20: between 2.31 and 2.89 growth (PPM).
Really just highlights that despite the attempts of scientists to get some action, most political and industrial action seems to have gone in to avoiding action. Talk, but no action.
I've not seen anything much in mainstream scientific sources to support such a view (human contributions being negligible). I have seen quite a few folk holding the view who formerly held more outright denialist beliefs. Unfortunately, it's also widely identified as one of the five stages of climate change denial focused commentary pushes people toward:
- Climate change is not real
- Humans are not to blame (followed by "ok, but only a little")
- Climate change will be a positive force
- It is too expensive to address it
- It's too late to tackle it so let's just carry on.
If things had been technologically as they are now back in the 1970s - social media etc. - we probably would've had the very same arguments about CFCs that scientists showed were destroying the ozone layer, and things would have been far slower to change and with more denialism.
Happy to support a greener way of life, but why are the largest corporations and countries in the world the top carbon emitters and yet we (the ordinary people) are the (seemingly only) ones who are supposed to change and pay for the changes?
Meanwhile, the ETS appears as nothing but just another money-making scheme that enriches the wealthy (corporations or countries) and disadvantages the middle-class and poor everywhere? Why are we made... "encouraged" to switch to EVs but the cost of one is still prohibitive and the technology not "green" enough yet (emissions making one and the batteries, plus the batteries when they have to be changed)?
Why all the focus on carbon but not on the huge amount of plastic pollution in the sea? Why all the doom and gloom of no ice, rising sea levels and few of the predictions have come true? Are the Maldives, Manhattan and Micronesia underwater? Such predictions with a 10-12 year lifespan have been repeated since the 1930s and here we are...
Why aren't the recycling industries in NZ bolstered and invested in by govt but instead outsourced to China until even they said "No thanks"?
Should we who are already struggling with slow-rising wages and rapidly rising inflation be the ones to foot the bill? Why not shut down cryptocurrency, for example? They are huge carbon emitters and place huge demands on the power grid a heck lot more than we the ordinary people do.
To your first point: just tax carbon.
Your second point: personal car travel will reduce over time - we do really need to plan for intensification and more viable public transport too.
Third: there is a huge mount of focus on plastics pollution, microplastics, and removing plastics from the environment. Huge..Yuge.
Fourth: You are absolutely right. We need to be rewarding recycling, especially given future resource constraints we'll face. Cradle to Cradle is an interesting initiative (Europe).
Fifth: Re crypto, just tax carbon. Re why we should suffer, demand better from politicians. It's absurd we have sky-high housing costs to enrich the few, NIMBYism that prevents accessible and viable public transport, zoning that prevents local businesses to thrive, and economic policy focusing on keeping overall wages low and rewarding asset speculation.
Just went to get a covid test. Many drive through testing centers are now closed. Found the local one, waited in line in the car for about 30mins then calculated it was 3-4 hour wait minimum. Tried a walk in to our GP, line was out the door and around the corner. Decided to not bother. I'd say they are 100% correct, real numbers are FAR higher than reported. Extremely difficult to even get a test, we refuse to waste half a day in a line with a young child. What a circus.
Local testing station near our place was removed pre-Dovi, just never came back. Given the baked in testing delays, the actual spread is probably huge. If there really is a lag time on hospital admissions, things could get real silly, real quick. Our saving grace will be people who have defaulted back to L4 settings while this all unfolds - I'm soon to do the same.
Yep, I'm due in 3 weeks and we aren't going out much at all. Even preparing for a home birth, as unsure what services will realistically be available as we move into peak pandemic mode. I live within 20 minutes of our DHB's major hospital but they are already at zero ICU capacity (they basically operate at this level) and you have to be pretty serious to be seen at the A&E dept in anything less than 4-5 hours. And we don't have any covid cases in there yet.
Next time we build a parliament, presumably after the next major event hits Wellington, let's leave a couple of blocks of parkland around the building in all directions so that when we have a protest it doesn't disrupt the surrounding city.
In 1914 when the current parliament building opened (the prior one burned down in 1907) New Zealand had a population of just one million people so I imagine having limited space outside wouldn't likely have been an issue. However in the interim we must accomodate as best we can protests.
Let's remember that protesters could be undertaking activities that are far more disruptive like gluing themselves to roads or, heaven forbid, even violent acts. Mostly the protests have remained civil even if they inconvenience those who live in the area.
Respect should be duly given by both sides to avoid further escalation. People on either side calling for measures that might antagonise the other should be completely ignored in favour of calmer, more reasonable approaches.
Force is not the key to resolving this... Engagement is the way forward, and good leadership means some from government need to talk to some from the protesters.
Police intelligence needs to identify who the key groups are, who to really talk to, and govt people then go talk to these people.
If the PM, DPM and ministers deem it too risky to meet them, then pick someone with some b@lls who will. Someone with ambition, courage and hungry for political points for their future political ambitions.
Then a final announcement of when tentatively some of the restrictions will be lifted, and design a plan how the protesters can pack up and go home.
I think most of the protesters haven't thought that far and don't have a clue how to end this situation, only how to start it.
The PM and Trudeau are doing both the wrong things - one took the path of forceful reaction and the other inaction by burying her head in the sand.
(Before any of you feminists out there accuse me of being sexist, I have nothing against JA and can see she is and has been in a difficult position the past two years. She's always been actively seeking solutions, so this current stance of hers just seems counter to her usual MO and counter-productive).
It's more than just a one-off going to talk to them too, because many of them will be straight back on social media imbibing more outrage porn straight after. It has to be the start of a prolonged engagement model (e.g. Participatory Democracy initiatives) that gets people out of their outrage echo chambers and into actual human connection and dialogue.
Just went for a stroll around and through the protest in full office attire, with two ladies wearing masks. It felt really risky at first, but not a word of abuse or a sideways glance came our way. The aggressive ones were probably up the front giving speeches. But it was a really nice atmosphere - a bit like an A&P show. Certainly the only place that smelled bad was downwind of the portaloos. No 'river of filth', either metaphorical or literal in evidence. And there's no fecal matter in the gardens simply because there's no available space.
Yes, what’s happening there? Comments disabled? I wonder why that may be. Trotter has gone off the rails on this one, into full conspiracy mode. I would say talk of foreign interference is a red herring. People are protesting because of the unfairness of the mandates, not because they are part of some right wing conspiracy. A few may be, but so what, they have a right to protest don’t they....
Problem is that it's both. Much as I support the right to protest and that many are expressing genuine personal grievances, it's clear that international social media has created a bubble of misinformation that people can live within. There's a whole galaxy of alternative facts, alternative experts and alternative history, and it has buy-in from the disaffected across the world. The protesters -- if the things they believe were true, then their protest would be entirely justified -- but too many of the things they believe are simply not true.
It's a severe problem for democracy. How do you discourage people from retreating into mutually fearful, self-reinforcing bubbles?
Without banning free speech and the right to question authority?
I think the action taken by the Interest team here is the right one. They're taking control of the discourse in the space that they *can* control, and exercising their judgment about which discussions are simply not going to go anywhere, which topics will just end in the usual shit-fight. That allows for a civil space where at least *some* things can continue to be discussed openly and in good faith.
Ignore people calling for extreme measures.
Within the belligerents protesters still only represent concerns a minority of New Zealanders have and parliamentarians don't want to be seen to lose face or offer legitimacy by addressing protesters concerns. In the absence of meaningful dialogue between groups their views will be limited to their personal perspectives so we may well be here for the long haul.
What most of us don't realise is that there are extremists on all sides. On the anti-protester side there are those who would happily have the police wade in and crack heads, all because they're offended or inconvenienced. On the anti-mandate side, there are those who want more than just a lifting of the vaccine pass and mandate, and add on the resignation of the PM.
On the counter-cultural/revolutionary-wannabe side, these are the ones to watch out for and weed out.
Anarchists are on all sides, who are out of touch with the people, issues or reality. The thing is, we live in a democratic country - we are diverse, and we are inclusive. That means we may hear things we may not like, but shutting down those voices is not a solution, it will be a cause and the effect will be resentment, festering extremism and anarchy.
A democracy is messy, sometimes disorderly and most of all, noisy. A session of parliament is a testament to that... Only a truly authoritarian regime would resort to violence using state instruments such as the police and military.
Engagement is the solution, but that's something the government has not done. The more the protesters are ignored and demonised, the stronger the anger and frustration will be and THAT will be the powerkeg to set off worse outcomes.
Bang on Tigadee
Soon enough the current protest will be over and we will be living in a post covid world. What we don't want is a legacy of a more polarized society where the anarchists can multiply to a critical mass. It is clear Andrew Coster has this in mind. He is doing an excellent job taking the calm approach.
You don't have to have much knowledge of history to know how 'comments disabled' would have applied in the past. Anything radical supported by a noisy passionate minority would never be permitted - ideas such as giving women the vote, not equating gay with pervert and putting them in jail, allowing African colonies self-rule, allowing Catholics into university, etc.
Moderators - well they moderate but sometimes things are not moderate. I've always been pro modern abortion laws but if you seriously and passionately believe it is murder then you don't want to be moderated into silence. Similarly I drink milk but prof Singer makes a very strong case that all mammals are as emotionally attached to their young as we are and are badly distressed when their offspring are taken away. That argument cannot be moderated only censored.
Carefully avoiding any mention of the C-word, mostly peaceful protests, and Occupy Wall, no, Bowen St, how's about running a thread rating Wednesday's OCR likely delta, whoops, Change?
Could be Interesting. Being of a Contrary sort, as well as having a weakness for repeating fractions, I predict a 33.333 bps rise...
People are sick of everything that's gone on in the last 2 years. Blown out of all proportion by the mainstream media, who in turn had their viewer numbers multiply during the 'pandemic' backed up by the socialists running our tertiary institutions & gratefully accepted by incompetent left leaning govts across the planet. You have to wonder where all the right-wing stuff comes from. Perhaps we should be looking at our own television sets & newspapers with more objective, rather than subjective, eyes & ears?
"People are sick of everything that's gone on in the last 2 years."
Yep and some are openly protesting.
Judging by many comments here a large number are sick of everything that's gone on in the last 20 years - financial bubbles, home affordability, infrastructure issues, green washing etc, etc. And still they think a protest vote at election time will make a difference.
I'm surprised there isn't a bigger protest at parliament if people joined with these added grievances.
See, this is a perfect example of a 'low effort' post. It has the classic alt-right dog whistles:
- 'Socialist'.
- 'Left governments world-wide' (ignoring the fact many countries having right-wing governments...)
- Slagging tertiary institutions and those with qualifications
You lose points though for failing to mention Agenda 21, Bill Gates, the NWO and you also missed the opportunity for some climate change denial while complaining about 'Greenies'.
Christopher Luxon is live today on Facebook at 2:30pm re the protests in Wellington. Speaking of censorship, kind of strange you have to resort to social media and not the MSM to get your message out ?
11mins in - this is GREAT!! It just keeps getting better - I'm liking Luxon today. :) 6mins to go though
I have the link as:
https://www.facebook.com/NZNATS/videos/507394861002972/
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