A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; more retail rate changes, PMI expansion softens, final Christchurch Trust grants?, Chinese inflation stays low, swaps up, NZD firms, & more

‘Labour’

Any non stopgap fix would require houses cost less money.

They care but they care about voters equity more.

Do you know what? They spend far too much time  ‘planning’ new redevelopment areas, like Mt Roskill, which don’t even increase the net amount of social housing. And don’t get me started about their excessive design review processes and requirements.

what they should have been doing, years ago, is using surplus crown land (there’s plenty of it) that wasn’t already developed, and building prefabricated villages of emergency housing ‘at pace and scale’ (to use one of Ardern’s great cliches)

And before I get lambasted - prefabrication is much more sophisticated than it used to be.

Not to worry. Labour signed their death warrant, yesterday with their opening of the borders, Who has 6 parents?

Siblings would also be able to co-sponsor applications, and joint applications would be able to apply for up to six parents

Maybe Christmas will be the time of retirement after all. Andrew Little redux, we reckon?

How to fix it?  TOP would;

• Establish a $3 billion development fund for Community Housing Associations with the goal of clearing the public housing waiting list within its first 3 years of operation
• Remove the current Bright Line Test and allow tax deductibility of interest for landlords, which is replaced by the land value tax.
• Require a deposit of 100% of the value of an existing home when purchased for investment purposes.
• Return the GST on new residential builds back to the local councils to fund further infrastructure development.
• Introduce an income tax-free threshold of $15,000 p.a.
• Replace the current income tax thresholds with three simple tax rates - 20% (for income between $15,000 and $80,000), 35% (for income between $80,000 and $180,000) and 39% (for income above $180,000).
• Remove unfair and unreasonable sanctions on benefits, such as your relationship status determining benefit allowances.
• Increase income support for people with disabilities ($400 million).
• Make it easier for those with disabilities to access the support they need by streamlining processes and improving their accessibility.
• Wipe all Ministry of Social Development debt ($2 billion) to ease the financial burden on low-income communities.
• Extend the In-Work Tax Credit (IWTC) to all children of low-income families ($500 million).

https://www.top.org.nz/higher-incomes-policy

I spent a couple of very challenging hours reading the ‘Rongowhakaata Claims Settlement Act 2012’ today. From 1865 we went from relative prosperity to poverty within 4 years. Due to my ancestors ability to manage our own territories for the benefit of the community in the Turanganui (Gisborne) area under the ‘community ownership” of land and resources model from 1840 to 1865 led to imprisonment without trial, starvation, cession of our land (confiscation by any other name) and murder of our people. We lost 43% of our male population over this period by following Te Kooti and losses at Waeranga a Hika trying to protect our families against Crown aggression. What could have been>

" And exactly the same scenario in  the matter of housing applies. Bill English called fairy dust politics, "

BE big mistake that there was no crisis. Crisis is too strong a word. He could have said its a serious problem and this is the way we are going to fix it. I'm not aware if he or the Nats had any real solution. They may have been frittering around the edges with their developer mates.

Apple card ""High yield" is apparently 3%."

Yes, but an indication of where we are heading. Shouldn't be any surprise Apple is moving into financial services. 

Been a big week:

-- Google partnering with Coinbase to allow payment for cloud services with ol' ratty and other digital assets

-- BNY Mellon announcing it will start offering custodial services for investment firms for digital assets 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-oldest-bank-bny-mellon-will-hold-…

Oh they probably never lower themselves to Cuba Street.

Although I once saw a Pre- PM Ardern walking Cuba Street wearing a high end trench coat, trying to be a hipster

They allocated $10m to a bungy operation  

More corporate welfare. Wonder if AJ Hackett or Henry van Asch stumped up any of their own personal assets to keep the business afloat. 

What a lot of rubbish Wrong John (apt username).

NZ's had a social welfare system since the 1930's, and we used to be the envy of the world.

When I went to the UK in the 1980's, I'd never seen a homeless person (and that was living in Auckland). People were employed and housed. A single blue-collar wage was enough to raise a family.

What's caused the harm is neoliberalism and housing becoming a speculative asset class.

The amount of people on welfare has decreased substantially since Labour entered power, BUT the amount of homelessness has increased dramatically. The problem isnt welfare - it’s the absolutely ridiculous cost of housing in NZ that is the problem. 

Indeed, this is the downside to turning investment property into NZs most generous welfare scheme rather than allowing price discovery in hard times. The whole economy has suffered the I'll effects. 

Moreover, over 50% of our welfare benefit budget goes to old folks regardless of need, and billions more to property speculators.

Good spotting.  Funny how I just read that and thought - gee wow awful.

It also looks like interest rates are breaking out of a 40 year trend. If you view government bond yields over that period, they are now breaking well above a channel they haven't done so for the past 4 decades. 

What does this mean?

'Things' in the financial system could start breaking and if you are basing asset pricing on the past 40 years of experience, that experience/knowledge could be an anomaly, not a norm/rule. 

Or a 1.5% rate rise by December. As per the link above. Crazy alright. As crazy as The Prophet saying 10% Interest Rates Next Year, Guaranteed.

Was David being sarcastic or genuine?

I turned it off within a minute when the narration said ‘Welcome to the country that cares’

Yep pretty pictures and words but a galaxy away from reality. It's almost as bad as the 100% Pure being rolled out again. 

Imagine doing a realistic version of this video. Homelessness, crime, gangs, crowded ER,...That would be fun.

Did not long to get here. And people believing expert's is a joke. Tony Alexander said 3 months ago rates could go 1% higher but that would be definitely it. One person who was right from the start is Max Keiser. He likes Bitcoin and might be right on that one soon too.

And now the transport companies want truck driving to be listed as a skilled category so they can import cheap labour hand over fist. 

FFS.

Because the last thing a truck driver should be able to do is afford to build a life for his/her family in NZ without WFF wage subsidies. No, what's most important is cheap labour supported by taxpayers so companies can enjoy higher profits.