Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news overnight data has actually been quite positive, showing the global expansion isn't done yet.
The American logistics sector is still expanding fast. The June report shows that growth is rising at an increasing rate for inventory levels still, while growth is increasing at a decreasing rate for inventory costs, warehouse utilisation, warehousing costs, and transportation capacity. It is still a very healthy rate of expansion, just not extreme like it was three months ago.
Even after adjusting for the short week ahead of their national holiday, American mortgage applications fell back rather sharply last week and this was despite a small rollback in mortgage interest rates.
The latest weekly survey for retail activity picked up last week from levels that were already quite buoyant. It was a gain that was better than expected.
The widely-watched American services PMI for June came in better than expected and only a trivial dip from May. If there is an issue with this, it is a slightly lower growth rate in new orders. The internationally-benchmarked version also reported weakness in new orders but otherwise came in better than expected
The level of job openings remained near record highs at 11.3 mln and coming in for May above the 11 mln expected. Their 'quit rate' fell to a four-month low of 2.8% and there are almost 2 openings for every unemployed person. Skill match is a problem however.
The latest US Fed minutes show their officials are concerned entrenched inflation poses a "significant risk" and a "more restrictive" policy stance may be needed (pg 9). They concluded they needed to raise rates faster and to levels designed to slow the economy because the inflation outlook had worsened. And broad inflation expectation surveys they watch most closely are about to get worse. Their key fear is inflation becoming entrenched. And that probably means a more muscular fight is ahead, even at the risk of lower economic activity.
We should also note that the Chinese and American foreign ministers are about to meet in an attempt to reset their relationship. It won't be easy. But the Americans may offer to roll back some tariffs (for their own inflation-fighting reasons), an idea that may attract China to help reinvigorate their stuttering economy. But you have to say, chances of any deal are not high.
In China, it looks like their police database has been hacked, with records of about 1 bln Chinese available for sale on the dark net.
And new flooding in the Pearl River basin is affecting logistics in the region.
German factory orders surprised with a small month-on-month rise when a sharpish fall was expected. This is just the latest data in a series that have been nowhere near as bad as you might think it would be. The pace of adaption in the German economy in the face of extreme stress is actually quite impressive.
In France, it looks like they are about to nationalise their big nuclear energy producer in an attempt to keep the lights on.
And in Australia, businesses there say they have a stark choice - either push through very sharp price increases from sharp hikes in energy costs, or close as insolvent. For consumers and businesses, either way they face huge jumps in energy costs.
And NSW flooding isn't getting better. The number of people under evacuation orders is huge, and rising.
Here's a service to while away an hour or three: the global marine traffic activity. You can zoom in on any port. It's 'live'. It's how we know about ship backlogs at key ports like Los Angeles, or the Yangtze River delta, or the Pearl River delta, and many others. It tells an incredible story of global interconnectedness, vessel by vessel.
The UST 10yr yield starts today back up at 2.90% and a +10 bps rise from this time yesterday. The UST 2-10 rate curve has stayed negative - just, at -2 bp. Their 1-5 curve is steeper however at +15 bps. Their 30 day-10yr curve is also steeper at +159 bps. The Australian ten year bond is +7 bps higher at 3.48%. The China Govt ten year bond is up +1 bp at 2.85%. But the New Zealand Govt ten year will actually start today down -11 bps at 3.69%.
Wall Street has opened its Wednesday session up +0.4% on the S&P500. Overnight, European markets all recovered with London up +1.2%, Frankfurt up +1.6% and Paris up +2.1%. Yesterday, Tokyo ended down -1.2%. Hong Kong was down the same, while Shanghai closed down -1.4%. The ASX200 closed its Wednesday session down -0.5% while the NZX50 was up strongly for a second day, up +1.6%.
The price of gold is down sharply again, down another -US$29 at US$1737/oz.
And oil prices are down further, down -US$1 at just under US$96/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is just on US$99/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar will open today little-changed at 61.5 USc. Against the Australian dollar we are also barely-changed at 90.6 AUc. Against the euro we are firmer at 60.3 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today at just under 70.3 and +20 bps firmer.
The bitcoin price has risen since this time yesterday and is now at US$20,260 and up +2.8%. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been moderate at +/-2.7%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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140 Comments
GV 27: being anti-National doesn't make me pro-Labour.
In the last 4 elections I've voted Labour twice.
I'm anti-National because they repeatedly show they will make short term decisions at the expense of the future - National cancelling the superannuation scheme in the 70s destroyrd what this country could have been, and Bill English and Key did their best to replicate that again by pausing contributionsto the superannuation fund, costing us $32B and counting.
You only have to look at all the other underinvestment and sale of SoEs perpetrated under Key to see their motivations.
I'm also strongly pro-science, hence why I am perfectly happy to defend the government's 2020-21 COVID response. Again, that does not make me pro-Labour, although I do think JA is the best prime minister we've had in my life time.
Brock frequently complains and then states he's moving to Australia due to how badly this country is run. It reminds me of the 'I'll just move to Australia' comments people make on popular new sites whenever there's mention of a 'hot political topic' like tax / CGT / anti-smacking law / gay marriage / taxing the rich / rules on landlords etc. Most of it is just bluster, and it's a reminder not to take these people's claims too seriously as they'll never be happy.
Either this is a poor troll or you're legitimate a few weetbix short of a breakfast, so I'll spell it out for you.
Your dislike of National doesn't make pro-Labour. You thinking that any criticism at all of Labour can be ignored because of something you don't like about National did years ago does.
People who legitimately want the country to succeed are sick of hearing about National every time someone asks for some basic scrutiny of the government. They want to know why the things they were told were happening and would happen did not happen. There are plenty of instances of this during the Covid response too.
Your whataboutism as a shield from accountability is played-out, and if you were prepared to hold Labour to even half the standard you seem to want to hold National to, you'd be as disappointed as everyone else is.
People who legitimately want the country to succeed are sick of hearing about National every time someone asks for some basic scrutiny of the government.
I have no problem criticising the government when I think they deserve it. If this site actually had a decent search engine for comments, your be able to see this is true
A lot of the criticism around here is couched in the context that National would be somehow better. And that may be true for any individual issue - although as others have started National tends not to do anything at all - the petrol, grocery and building material investigations should have happened under National but didn't. Investing in hospitals should have happened but didn't.
Nationals biggest contribution to the housing situation in this country was evicting state housing tenants out over meth hysteria that has no basis in science - one of the first things Labour cleared up when they took office. So glad my rental never got caught up in the hysteria.
Oh, I forgot their other contribution: leaky buildings and the total overreaction by creating of BRANZ which has made our housing market unaffordable (but National's donors very wealthy).
So yeah, if we could have Labour's policies with National's execution were probably be doing very well. But we don't.
And I'd rather have governments that try to make the country better, than ones that try to make their mates wealthier.
For the record, I'm a landlord and a business owner and my partner and I together have household income that put us near the top of this pyramid.
you'd be as disappointed as everyone else is.
There's a reason I don't always vote Labour you know.
Also for any failings of this government, they're still an improvement over the alternative.
I don't think any political party could do it any better or worse. We have Government departments tasked with managing these things, E.g. the Commerce Commission for overseeing anti-competitive behavior who only in December 2020 started looking into the grocery industry on "direction" from the Government. Are these departments not capable of working autonomously?
"In November 2020 the Government directed us to conduct a market study into any factors that may affect competition for the supply or acquisition of groceries by retailers in Aotearoa New Zealand."
Wouldn't surprise me if Immigration NZ just goes ahead, middle finger to government, and approves as many visas as they can.
Are these departments not capable of working autonomously?
Clearly they aren't capable. Just look at Waka Kotahi if you want to see a totally flailing department.
So rather than having a government sit on it's hands, it needs to kick these departments up the arse until they do their job.
Labour has given the commerce commission a kick up the arse. Along with funding to do the job expected of them - again something that is totally at odds with National's short term Tax Cuts platform that they run every election on - Judith was even promising tax cuts at the 2020 election.
I posted incessantly about the SCIENCE based COVID response because I was trying to educate people on this site about what was going on. So many people were saying things I knew not to be true because I had been following the situation very closely.
I don't work for government and never have, and do not belong to any political party and never have.
Oh Dear!
There it goes in a nutshell.
The four you list are NOT science, they are human constructs. Science - the physical realities - trumps them 100%. Classic example is the Titanic; you four 'sciences' were aboard. The physics - iceberg, hole, sinking - trumped them 100%.
Although I'll grant you that the higher proportion of First Class survivors might reflect survival of the fittest in a social context.
We need to be very clear about what constitutes science; please read the Murphy link I put up, this thread.
ooops...
"Evidence based medicine has been corrupted by corporate interests, failed regulation, and commercialisation of academia, argue these authors"
https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o702
The science is still far from conclusive.
Many of the "true" things have now been proven false, and many "untrue" things have now been proven true. It is likely that it will continue to change. It is equally likely that many of the more controversial things will never be definitively proven to be true or false, as ultimately they are subjective and/or based on clearly unreliable data.
Perhaps it's that some thing are proven beyond argument (planet is round, thus finite; goes around the sun, energy is required to do work, entropy is inexorable) and some have yet to be clarified.
Only the pseudo - as per Smith here - can be 'up for proving' .
It is easy to spot those who use the difference to inject spin; classics are conflating 'peak flow of' with ' running out of'.
For the last few billion years the Moon's gravity has been raising tides in Earth's oceans which the fast spinning Earth attempts to drag ahead of the sluggishly orbiting Moon. The result is that the Moon is being pushed away from Earth by 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) per year and our planet's rotation is slowing
Doesn't sound infinite.
From the above little treatise, agree it was greatly harmful for Muldoon to cancel Kirk’s compulsory super scheme but you can’t say that Muldoon didn’t campaign hard on exactly that issue and the electorate didn’t then agree with him. As usual one side is of the story is included and the other excluded. Bolger’s government sold assets, the troubled BNZ for one, and so did Key’s. But the Lange/Douglas government pioneered the policy didn’t they.
This "energy crunch" is self inflicted. A PM who makes the President of Indonesia wait while she meets with Greenpeace - then has to go crawling back to him to buy some jungle coal for when the windmills run at 3% of capacity like this morning.
https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-data
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-says-the-wo…
Bollocks. This energy crunch is self-inflicted; exponentially-increasing extraction (and resultant pollution) vs a finite resource.
Don't blame this or that social grouping - read the Do the math piece I linked upthread. Doesn't matter a tinker's cuss who is in charge, it's the rate of depletion is the problem.
And you are nothing but a troll/shill. Have a great day.
"Don't blame this or that social grouping"
Interesting take...
The math's may be perfect, and the point may be flawless. But all that is ultimately irrelevant if society don't give a flying f...
Simply being right, is not the panacea to humanity's looming demise.
The messengers presentation, style, and delivery of the message is often more influential than the message itself.
All nations who restricted energy options, like natural gas, and rabidly adopted QE are equally culpable for the "energy crunch" and inflation. There is not shortage of energy supplies out there. Proven oil reserves are sitting at 1.7 trillion odd barrels and Europe sits on more frackable gas than the US. For someone "pro science" you are remarkably ignorant about energy exploration and reserves. I love the smell of jungle coal in the morning.
"Had Germany spent $580 billion on nuclear instead of renewables, and the fossil plant upgrades and grid expansions they require, it would have had enough energy to both replace all fossil fuels and biomass in its electricity sector and replace all of the petroleum it uses for cars and light trucks."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had-they-b…
Proven oil reserves are sitting at 1.7 trillion odd barrels and Europe sits on more frackable gas than the US. For someone "pro science" you are remarkably ignorant about energy exploration and reserves.
Dunning Kruger in effect here, I see.
Do some research on proven reserves. Hint: proven reserves require someone to actually extract the oil and gas. That requires investment. It requires workers. It requires technology. Have you noticed anything about what is happening to investment in fossil fuels at the moment?
The problem with Peak Oil has NEVER been "running out". It has ALWAYS been "rate of extraction being unable to keep up with demand". If the world requires 105M barrels of oil per day but we can only extra 100M barrels of oil per day, what happens? The answer: you are seeing it unfold right now.
And why is the investment oil and gas being cut back? Uncertainty. Because you have the likes Captain Call Cindy running around saying she is going to be net zero and banning ICE cars, 10% Big Guy Biden cancelling pipeplines/leases/refineries the day he gets in to office, Germany preferring windmills and Russian gas to European natural gas. Why would anyone invest in oil and gas? The hand wringers and the politics of fear are reaping what they have sown - and the Indonesian jungles, and the people of Ukraine and your own poor kiwis are paying for it.
What is your excuse for not rolling out nuclear?
Why would anyone invest in oil and gas
To make a profit. Seems to be happening too: Oil & gas firms’ profits set to smash records reaching $834 billion in 2022
That is a demand story - not an investment story. "But the focus on ESG hasn’t had the same impact on demand. Oil demand — and energy demand in general — is extremely sticky. Fossil fuels accounted for 84 per cent of global energy demand in 2020, unchanged from 1980. The only real change was a slight shift from coal to gas."
https://www.ft.com/content/a15e7ade-dad0-4ed3-a172-1974ac9d5b23
She hasn't banned ICE cars but not that bad an idea given
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/470457/air-pollution-from-cars-kill…
"ESG considerations account for much of the decline in capital expenditure by international oil companies in recent years and the investor exodus out of oil and gas markets. It will not end with higher oil and gas prices. Today, investment in fossil fuel is vilified and financing has become sparse as big western banks withdraw. The International Energy Agency is calling for an end to all oil, gas and coal funding if the world is to reach net zero by 2050."
"Oil and gas exploration investments declined by half between 2011 and 2021, notes The Financial Times. New oilfield discoveries fell to historic lows between 2016 and 2020, not due to lack of oil, but lack of investment in exploration. Today firms are spending 25 percent less than they need to hold oil production steady.
The result of successful climate activism is, paradoxically, rising coal use and carbon emissions. That’s because because electricity produced from natural gas produces about half of the emissions of coal."
https://www.ft.com/content/a15e7ade-dad0-4ed3-a172-1974ac9d5b23
https://www.eurasiareview.com/27102021-how-climate-activists-caused-the…
Lanthanide's useful idiots - "Russian intelligence agencies are covertly funding and working with European environmental groups to campaign against fracking and maintain EU dependence on Russian gas, the head of Nato has claimed. Answering questions after a speech in London, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato secretary-general, said improving European energy security was of the “utmost importance” and accused Moscow of “blackmail” in its dealings with Europe. “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas,” Mr Rasmussen, former Danish prime minister, told an audience at Chatham House, the international affairs think-tank."
https://www.ft.com/content/20201c36-f7db-11e3-baf5-00144feabdc0
Everyone is forgetting that the reserves are nothing more that optimistic estimates. I have therefore adjusted your question accordingly.
"If the world requires 105M barrels of oil per day but we can only extra[ct] 100M barrels of oil per day today [and only 50M barrels tomorrow], what happens?"
Rate of extraction unable to keep up with demand? Lets see, just 2 years ago oil was negative $38 a barrel. Mmn. There are plenty of fossil fuels. Fossils fuels have increased life expectancy, increased our standard of living, increased productivity, increased CO2 levels (a good thing). Rate of extraction will certainly not keep up with a negative $38 per barrel.
Yep nothing worse than governments in office always blaming previous governments for failures. They do this as they trying to hide their incompetence. I have voted for various parties as well, but Labour has been in power (one as with NZ first I admit) for two election cycles, they have had plenty of time to deliver on some of the election promises. Kiwi build is just one example of a total flop, getting kids out of poverty another. If you employed someone for 5 years and they kept blaming there predecessor for incompetence in their work, would you keep them on.
It must be quite conflicting for Lanth to be pro science and pro Captain Jacinda the greatest PM evah.
"Often people are fiddling with their masks, and people have an opportunity to get the virus on their fingers and spread it in other ways," Dr Ashley Bloomfield explains.
"They're not very effective, after all the virus can also infect you via your eyes - it basically likes to land on mucus membranes - from your eyes it likes to go down your nose anyway - so I think people should not bother with facemasks," he says."
https://www.1news.co.nz/2020/02/29/face-masks-fly-off-shelves-as-worrie…
It is certain that this government right from the pandemic’s start encountered much difficulty and inefficiency emanating from the MoH. For instance directing that all border staff must be tested but for the MoH to know better, not do it, but say that they were. The entrenched obduracy over saliva testing & same for RATs another example. However the government had no choice but to accommodate these problems otherwise public confidence would have undermined even further, than the existing perception that hospital services were already generally struggling to cope with normal admissions.
You should worry less about what other people think, particularly on an anonymous site like this.
I agree with your resentment of National's short sighted decisions, I'm generally a National voter (never vote Labour) but Key's 8.5 years left me very disappointed. Labour's initial C19 response was "crisis management" due to limited information at the time, what Jacinda is good at. But it seems like we're still in "crisis mode". Only in December has the Government announced additional funding for ICU...WTF?
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/funding-extra-icu-capacity
Yip, there are increasingly puzzling signs about the lapses from the government.
But they inherited a badly run down health system and the MoH is famously incompetent (thank god Bloomfield's predecessor wasn't in charge) - which is why it has now been reformed. Hopefully the new structure will do better.
Overwhelmingly NZ simply needs higher taxes. The country has the population of Sydney spread over the size of England. We need higher taxes to live the lifestyles we aspire to.
Had the odd contradictory views but my god you are so right as to that previous director. Throughout our household remarked exactly that. For a start It would have been incongruous if not downright unpalatable to the public, for that identity to have appeared in same manner on a daily basis as Dr Bloomfield. If you read the papers written by Dr Powell concerning the virtual vendetta mounted against the Canterbury DHB you can easily visualise the inherent problems that existed in the MoH, and conveyed out into all the DHBs resultantly, which unfortunately the pandemic exposed pretty damn quickly.
Your say of course.But contradictory to the deeply researched, documented and explained facts published by Victoria University for Dr Ian Powell. It was interesting that as soon as the executive team walked out the government coughed up the $85 mill hole they said didn’t exist and unusual for such a CEO to receive a standing ovation from all hospital staff on departure. Still, be that as it may, won’t be getting my vote for mayor.
Absolutely regarding taxes. A restructure of our tax system is a must. There will no doubt be screeches and "reeees" from people who think our tax system is punitive, was seen with the idle threats that people will bugger off to Australia on the introduction of our $180k+ @ 39% bracket (Australia's is 45%).
People expect first world core services on a third world tax system.
"We need higher taxes to live the lifestyles we aspire to".
We can't help people who wont help themselves, nor should we extort more charity taxes from those who do help themselves.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/bay-of-plenty/300630725/you-could-sell-your-dogs-…
You are simply factually wrong. NZ could not have gotten vaccines any sooner than we did, given that we had successfully persued elimination.
News Room did a 2 part special investigation on this, you can read it here: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/buying-the-vaccine-was-new-zealand-too-slow
Educate yourself before you pass judgement.
Doesn’t address the situation re previous Health Minister Clark as explained by Kate MacNamara in the Herald 6/10/21 & 24/11/21 that Pfizer had undertaken “they had potential to supply millions of vaccine doses by end of 2020.” Nor why that advice was never tabled at cabinet as the then Deputy Prime Minister attests. The assertion that NZ did not need vaccines, as expounded by the PM interview Tame 11/04/21 because it had no cases was fallacious as the border could have been breeched, as it nearly had been at times, at any moment (recall we had an exchange about that re Christchurch where you made exactly that point) and then of course Delta proved precisely that,and made a mockery of that position.
The gene therapy did not work, as it did not stop infection or transmission. Hospitals were already full, people were already sick from poor lifestyle choices. Successfully pursued elimination! Good health of diet, exercise and sunlight will pursue elimination, not lockdowns, or experimental gene therapy, corporations (Pfizer) and their puppet governments, enforced in the pursuit of profit.
We compare pretty favourably on the lockdown front when compared to other countries, even the mythical Sweden. Have a play with the graph here.
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-lockdowns/
Easy to forget the full year we mostly had complete freedom within our borders while most of the rest of the world was heavily locked down.
Our tail is a little longer than others as we have had less time with the disease to build up immunity (and complacency).
I think the common mistake is comparing our response to a perfect response with full hindsight, rather than to an appropriate sample of other countries.
The world's response clearly shows this was a very difficult thing to manage. The fact that we did better than most is a big tick for the Government, even though we did a number of things imperfectly.
I clearly remember months and months of being embarrassed to tell my family in the UK and France how normal my life was in NZ, how I was still going on holidays, and to pubs, restaurants and gigs without masks or restrictions on numbers while they were essentially confined to their houses.
It's mostly just angry Facebook Feels more than deep engagement with the issue, that causes it. I thought most ministries and folk did a pretty decent job...clearly people were working under huge time pressure and adapting to changing circumstances and information from overseas, and they seemed to largely pull finger and get things done. I probably expected more failures and mistakes, especially as we watched overseas coverage too.
It will be a much studied event and response, and we will be able to learn a lot from it - at least, people who have not started over the last two years to rant that "scientists are all corrupt and paid for by Bill Gates" etc.
Same here, I had to be careful about posting pics of the kids taking part in sports, playing in playgrounds, swimming in the sea. My sister and her kids were confined to their house and garden. In Spain my parents were telling me that kids weren't even allowed to leave their apartments, people were lending their dogs out so their neighbours could go for a walk and avoid a fine. And all of this with people dying in huge numbers. We had it so much better. It's one of the reasons Jacinda is so popular abroad, they looked at the NZ response and leadership and said wish we had some of that. We were held up as what could be done with decisive leadership and a society that broadly respected the rule of law and authority of the state institutions.
People attribute too much to the Govt. response which has been both good and bad, and indifferent.
NZ was out of season when Covid broke out, which gave us a head start on preparing and we are a low population, low-density country.
And on the negative side, our health system prior to Covid was not coping in 'peacetime' let alone under a Covid strain, and we have done very little since then to prepare for what everyone knew was going to happen with our doctors and hospitals now.
Half the decisions look like someone threw a dart at a board.
No doubt about it the administration of the initial period was as necessary as it was effective. What was known was vastly outpaced by what was unknown. Border might have shut a little late and not making a mistake in not isolating rest homes would have halved the initial mortalities. The latter being a operation lapse by MoH, not exactly that of the government. Personally I supported the government’s performance right through most of 2020. I started to lose that confidence when it became obvious the government was sitting on its hands complacent about in elimination having worked even though that could easily have changed overnight. No great forward planning was taking place at the same time. Such as initiatives to bolster hospital capacity particularly ICU. Little canvassing of nurse and other clinical support to establish if this needed to be supplemented by fast tracking qualified international returnees or immigrants. Regardless of whether vaccines could have been here earlier the planning for administering them, who, where and how had hardly even been thought about when they did finally arrive.
It did not matter if the gene therapy had arrived earlier, they did not work. How does a vaccine (as you like to call it) work if it does not stop transmission or infection. Please explain and don't mention, "oh you don't get as sick".
I have had Covid twice, once in the USA, once in NZ. Luckily I was unvaccinated or I could have got really sick and maybe even died!
Complete freedom within your borders but could not leave your house? Could not travel back to NZ? USA did not lock down. Period. I happen to know because I lived in both countries during this Big Pharma scandal. NZ was the most locked down, laughing stock, hermit kingdom in the world. Your freedom within your borders, was government subsidized, paid to fear, control, don't talk to your neighbors government knows best. I think they call that totalitarianism. I call it ignorance, indoctrinated by government sponsored media outlets.
Boris is toast https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-62048657
But Britain (England especially) might have bigger problems... https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/07/02/234-britain-on-the-brink/
'actually been quite positive, showing the global expansion isn't done yet'
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/07/the-ride-of-our-lives/
and most of this:
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2022/07/debt-rattle-july-6-2022/
We are looking at a new world order. Or perhaps disorder. Neoliberalism and 'free markets' are in the rearview mirror. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Best Churchillian utterance in a while today: "The ship is deserting the sinking rat". Good stuff.
Lanthanide,
Reading that, it struck me that it would be quite possible to substitute NZ for the UK. The latest Demographia International Housing Study shows us to be well 'ahead' of the UK in that market. Our Median Multiple is exceeded only by Hong Kong. I was fascinated to see that my old home Glasgow is now one of the most affordable cities of the 92 studied with a multiple of only 3.80(Auckland 11.20).
It was very different when we sold up and moved here in 2003. Then, I was able to sell and buy our much larger house here and a 2 bed. apartment.
Being a Commonwealth country, as was Hong Kong, we have followed the same basic poor land-use policies that the UK used, and having a Walter Mitty complex, we wanted to show how we can do things better, and in this case, we have been better at doing more of the wrong thing.
The below sounds true, in multiple ways. Much the same has been evident in our housing and tax policy, with any suggested changes of direction seemingly greeted by shrieks of "How dare you expect me to receive slightly less free wealth so society is more viable for more generations!?
Today, markets and financial systems obligate the victors of this world to pursue short term returns, robbing humanity of the opportunity to exercise wisdom or consider the far future. As an illustration, Bret Stephens of the New York Times disappointingly asserted that “Democrats need to figure out a set of climate-change policies that don’t threaten people’s wallets, jobs or businesses.” Those are indeed the elements firmly clutching the steering wheel, navigating a route to failure by naively inverting the hierarchy of artificial systems with respect to biophysical reality—as if proclaiming that nature dare not impose bounds on our ambitions and ideals.
USA is fearing that inflation is becoming entrenched. Thank heavens our Finance Minister is confident New Zealand’s is not the same and will peak at just over 7%. Well actually, he said in that particular interview that most people think that. So obviously most people are to blame and he is not, if it doesn’t and becomes entrenched?
He should have finished the sentence:
"...that most people who think that, aren't thinking".
The wave is breaking, but not many are realising they'll have to paddle, yet. How do we - as a community, because it's untenable to be dog-eat-dog during energy-descent - support those who though pensions and supermarkets and amazon were forever? How do we tabulate/recognise personal input/load, beyond the collapse of the fiat-issued ponzi?
Interesting times....
The question is simple: If this (or that) crowd had a mandate, could they succeed in achieving real sustainability, before this system collapses? (perhaps we should add 'completely'...).
Labour are too muddled, not energy-aware (note the shambles that was the hydrogen hype) and would probably waste time going prior-colonial (they weren't sustainable, either).
National are obsolete.
Act is even more obsolete.
And the Greens have become early Labour; J.T.Paul and John.A.Lee territory. Even with a mandate, they've become socialist, not existentialist.
You'd have to go back to the Values Party, circa 1975, to find fully future-appropriate thinkers. Methinks we will not see another iteration though; too little time left and too many false narratives.
Interesting research out of the University of Waikato, just published in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
Contrary to our predictions, our SEMs found no relationship between rat and cat relative abundance and native bird species richness or total abundance. We did, however, find non-significant negative effects of possum abundance on both native bird species richness and total abundance.
Habitat restoration is by far the most important factor.
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1365-2656…
Very interesting.
Although, their results primarily seem to encompass five types of native flying birds that seem to typically be around these predators, from the looks of it, not flightless native birds or ones people might typically associate with being highly vulnerable to predators. Fantail, grey warbler, silvereye, tui etc.
They do note: "Although predation by invasive mammals in large tracts of native forest may be the main agent of decline for native forest birds in New Zealand, our results suggest that in cities, especially poorly vegetated ones, lack of habitat is the most important limiting factor for native forest bird species still remaining in urban areas."
Not disagreeing with the idea of habitat restoration. Very much needed, incl urban forest space.
Sure, flightless birds have no chance against predators, I hate to think what the packs of feral dogs are doing to remaining Kiwi populations in Northland forests, and feral cats need to be controlled along with stoats, rats, possums etc.
I do think the vitriol directed at fat, urban moggies that generally don't range more than 50 metres from home is overdone.
Parliament, all sides of the house, can only ever be to the calibre and integrity, of the sitting members. Therein lies the problem. NZ has too many for a start. Good way to test it for yourself by asking, who in parliament would you like to employ, be employed by or employed with. Personally I have to go back quite some way to gather just a handful.
We all know that if our present system does not adapt fast enough that PDK is 100% right and irrespective of any political system in the world, we are consuming resources in a way that is not working long term.
What we need to do is probably more certain than if we have enough time to do it. And this has nothing to do about climate change but rather resource use.
Do we need less population, yes to a point, but it's hard when the economy only vaguely works by promoting the growth of numbers but without changing anything else all it would give us is more time for the same inevitable result.
It's interesting we talk about peak oil, but it used to be about peak horse shit, https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manu…
and that was one of the main motivators for changing to automobiles, which took place over a 50-year period at great expense, but was underwritten in that it helped greatly reduce the cost of other things like land for housing.
I'm not sure what the underwriting cost is this time around, how many would benefit from it, and for how long, but I think need to start with a model that does not need to continually increase the population (immigration?) as a baseline.
In the USA
Senator Lindsey Graham subpoenaed by Georgia grand jury, he is expected to challenge this.
Pat C to testify before Jan 6 Committee, on Friday, not in public.
Don Trump has few defenders, unlike whilst he was President. And no lawsuit filed against Jan 6 Committee, indicating that evidence presented is reliable.
Liz Cheney is facing a Trump endorsed candidate, polls show her trailing badly in Wyoming.
I agree more people,more crime but it's whats happening to them when they get caught that should be of a concern.
Every body poo pooz the US judicial system but for what its worth i have never heard of a criminal thats jailed for life with no parole, ever hurting a member of the public again,unless they escape.
That is pretty meaningless to be of any use.
Other countries have higher populations but less crime.
Do more police equal less crime, or are they just being increased to keep pace with increasing crime?
This is the problem with Stat., you can never take them at face value. There is always another question that is asked for every answer they suggest.
If anyone knows who hacked the Chinese police database can you please get them to contact me. I'm in the market for a decent globe changing database. Imagine turning heads & hearts on the Chinese streets. Imagine if they rose up as one against the CCP machine. Yes, probably plenty of blood spilt, I accept, but imagine if they won. That would truly change global dynamics.
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