Here's our summary of key economic events overnight affecting New Zealand, with news commodity prices are buckling under the pressure of a global economic slowdown.
First up today, there was another dairy auction overnight, and another weak one and the second substantial fall in a row. Prices were down -4.6% in USD terms so between the two that is a drop of more than -8% and that takes prices back to where they were in January 2021. Making things worse, prices in NZD weren't absorbed as much because the NZD rose overnight. In local currency prices are down -3.4% from the prior event, and back to year-ago levels. The -4.4% retreat in WMP prices wasn't completely unexpected following the recent GDP Pulse event signal. But the -3.9% fall in cheese prices, and the -6.9% fall in SMP prices compounded the gloom. The overall shift lower will have analysts reassessing their new season payout forecasts.
Also underwhelming was the latest update for US retail sales. Last week's same-store survey has them only +8% higher than a year ago, barely matching American inflation.
But bringing a better economic attitude has been US industrial production in September. It rose much more than expected, up +5.3% (real) from the same month a year ago on a strong rise in the production of capital equipment, a healthy sign. Much higher mining output was also 'positive'.
Another better-than-expected indicator came from Canada where they reported very strong new housing starts in September, their best in a year.
In China, everything is on hold until the Party Congress is over. The tight control of all messaging just reinforces the rare but growing underground signs of pushback inside China. It is of no threat to Xi and his Beijing control, but it is an interesting development all the same.
German investor sentiment as recorded in their ZEW survey remains weak, but despite the building angst as they head into winter, it isn't getting worse. Germans can see a way through an energy shutoff from Russia and that is putting a floor on overall sentiment levels.
In the UK, the turmoil in their government and economy continues. Now its neighbours and friends are weighing in on the public policy debacle, and that now includes France and the US.
And we should note that giant French cement firm Lafarge has been hit with a huge American financial sanction for its "support" of the terror group ISIS in Syria. That follows similar French action. Lafarge owns the Holcim cement-making business in New Zealand.
Cement is one huge essential commodity. But production is falling in many countries now, including China. And it is part of a general fall in prices for key commodities underway as global economic growth slows. All the talk of a 'commodity super cycle' seems to have vanished.
The UST 10yr yield starts today at 4.02%, up +1 bp from this time yesterday. The UST 2-10 rate curve is slightly less inverted at -43 bps. And their 1-5 curve is little-changed at -25 bps. And their 30 day-10yr curve is marginally steeper at +85 bps. The Australian ten year bond is down -1 bp at 3.97%. The China Govt ten year bond is little-changed at 2.72%. The New Zealand Govt ten year will start today at 4.56% and up +3 bps after yesterday's CPI data.
Wholesale markets are suddenly pricing in a +75 bps rate hike from the RBNZ on November 23 in a sudden shift and over the coming weeks that even seems to have upside potential.
Wall Street has built on yesterday's impressive rise with another +1.3% gain in Tuesday's trade for the S&P500. Overnight, European markets rose about +0.5% on average, led by Frankfurt (+0.9%) and trailed by London (+0.2%). Yesterday, Tokyo ended up +1.4%, Hong Kong was up +1.8%, but Shanghai dipped -0.2%. The ASX200 ended its Tuesday session up +1.7% and the NZX50 was up +0.6%.
The price of gold will open today at US$1650/oz. This is down -US$7 from this time yesterday.
And oil prices start today down -US$3.50 from this time yesterday at just over US$82/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is just on US$89/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar will open today at 56.8 USc and up +¼c since this time yesterday. Against the Australian dollar we are up at 90.2 AUc and a +¾c rise. Against the euro we are also firm at 57.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at 67.4, up +50 bps and near a three week high.
The bitcoin price is now at US$19,422 and down a mere -0.5% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has however been quite modest at just +/- 1.0%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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161 Comments
"It is of no threat to Xi and his Beijing control". I'm sure you are right but what it's not too much of a stretch to imagine an "asian spring" due to Chinese citizens witnessing failed expansionist policies in autocratic Russia.
It is too much of a stretch, subservience is bred in and a few executions will bring the discontented back in line.
It is too much of a stretch, a lack of critical thinking is bred in and a few cancelled Prophets will bring the discontented back in line.
There, fify.
Is Mr Wayne Brown, the Mayor, making waves in Auckland.
Believe so! Auckland is the NZ’s political pivotal centrepiece.Every politician, every political party knows that. Mr Brown has not put a burr under the government’s saddle, he has put there instead, a great big jumping jack with a short fuse at the ready. Bravo! In my book.
I believe Aucklanders voted against bloated woke power hungry bureaucracies. Who produce little.
Central government bureaucracies take note.
Wayne will fix it all ..watch this space
Waiting to see-more politicians (pun intended) shake up the bureaucracy in Wellington. There is zero hope from Luxon who, much like his predecessors, would cut core spending and have the public sector outsource wasteful spending to consultants instead of reducing it.
He was on with Tova this morning,only heard a bit,but was banging on about how cutting the brightline & restoring tax deductions on interest for investors was going to put money back into renters pockets with reduced rents...what ever!
Brightlines has nothing to do with the kind of long term stable landlord that you actually want to rent a house from, reducing the cut off will only make it more likely you'll be kicked out of your home because the owner wants to realise some cash.
Wowsers...like an abusive partner, "This is for your own good, trust me."
But it's a real F-you to younger and following generations, cutting taxes on property speculators to leave working Kiwis carrying the load for all society.
Ricky..we have spoken before,let this be the last time...remember,it's not "property speculators"...it's "hard working middle NZ kiwi mum & dad investors" who are trying to provide a service to put a roof over poor folks heads.
We need to give them folksy titles like "mum and dad" to take the heat off the social harm they collectively cause. They're only trying to "save" for their retirement, but instead of saving using their own money it's easier to just displace young people out of the chore of taking out a mortgage. Young people don't often have equity tied up in other homes that they can borrow against.
"ma and pa"
You mean pa won’t but marmite?
Indeed, and why should they have to pay tax on their profits, that is for those kiwi "daughter and son" PAYE earners to do isn't it?
Vman let this be the last time. You are a speculator in consumption, 'people that do not realize what investing is. Investing is a productive enterprise, ie producing something, to consume. You are a speculator.
National are stuck in a time warp. Frustrating for those of us who 'want' to vote that way. TOP again for me at this rate.
"Congratulations to Liz Truss on her election as Leader of the Conservative Party and imminent appointment as Prime Minister of the UK. Our two parties have many shared values and I hope we continue to build on that strong connection. All the very best for your new role!"
This Christopher Luxon tweet has not aged well. Surprised he hasn't deleted it yet. (Links removed as it was beyond my technical capability!)
WH - interestingly, I get a 404 with that
Same. I got a glimpse for about a second and then it vanished like it never existed.
The link seems to be overlapping the Read More and it's creating a weird redirect on the site here.
Luxon can apply lipstick on this housing pig by bringing back incentives for housing speculators but that won't bring our economy back to life.
A global economic downturn could reverse the fortunes of our low unemployment trend and that remains the single thread NZ's overheated housing market is hanging on at this moment.
It seems to me,for all the negative press in here,having an employment kpi for the RB is not such a bad thing,where would we be now or in the future if we threw a whole lot of folk on the unemployment scrapheap...just what we don't need,more beneficiaries...even worse social unrest.
Tova who?
Sorry RP,you may be surprised to know that you can get information from other sources than "Newstalk ZBoomer / NZME / One Roof Mike Hosking pulpit of truth"
Information or propaganda? I want the former. Hosking cuts to the chase, so much that Ardern won’t front his show. Tova was a gotcha lightweight hack. Probably still is.
I started to seriously doubt Mr Hosking when he had John Key on one morning to comment, when he had retired from politics...JK's greeting was "Hi Mikey..."
I think you might find Hosking cuts to the chase when it suits his narrative...his opinions around property especially have been veeeery biased,no matter what happens, it is always "just a softening,nothing to see here etc.." Remembering ZB,One Roof are all part of NZME.
I can't blame anyone for not going on his show,he says his piece,they respond,then as soon as they have signed off,he puts his spin on how he alone sees it,not allowing any right of reply.At least if was on later,folk could ring in and give their opinion of him as well.
An interesting fact is that although he has the highest rating morning show overall,he came second in every segment up to the 55 yo bracket,his core listeners come from the 55+ cohort,so he is driven by the numbers,so he is playing to his target audience,kind of the organ grinder whipping up a tune for the monkey.
Exactly. His view is considered to be significant just because he is number 1 to a bunch of oldies that listen to that type of media. Compared to say the most viewed TikTok political influencer for example, neither can claim to be representing the majority.
I flick between Tova and Mike. I disagree with Hosking on most things but he is still entertaining. I try to read and listen to media on both sides of the political spectrum, it guards against being in an echo chamber. I also find it more interesting to talk and listen to people I disagree with, as it helps me to test my opinions. That is why I like this forum.
Did you sob when the Queen passed as well Statler
I guarantee a lot more people were sobbing about Her Late Majesty than the self-centered blog post about your nana.
Smoking return
Mike Hosking
Best twat in living memory.
He's a grouchy old man who seems to have mistaken boomer levels of aggro with competency. Either he's actually able to do something and everything stagnates or gets worse, or he gets totally isolated like most blow-hard leaders and the CCOs find a way to side-step or ignore him.
I really hope it's the latter because entrenching the frankly stuffed status quo is a big middle finger to young Aucklanders, who don't have the time, money or energy to get as angry about road cones or mobile reception of whatever garbage he's been ranting about lately.
I don't follow politics too closely so had to google to see if it is the same Wayne Brown from the far North. He is a friend of a friend and so will be business friendly, which means your fears may be right. He was generally pretty competent in the Far North though, although some allege on the verge of corrupt. Way a polly works though isn't it? I think he might be a clip better than Auckland has had for a while. Good at making things happen. That of course assumes things need to happen. If he cuts waste then all good.
"He'll be fine, just ignore the corruption" yea, no thanks. He's going to have to convince an evenly-split council to get on board with his agenda and he may find it's a lot easier to put out press releases full of talking points and demanding resignations than it is to actually navigate the mechanisms for making things happen.
But I'm guessing at that point the excuse will be that it's someone else's fault, entrenched interests or whatever people dream up rather than accept their views represent a time that has passed and they're struggling to cling to relevance.
> some allege on the verge of corrupt
some allege? Like the auditor general you mean
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-body-elections/12970552…
Investigated and 'no corruption found'. Yep, he was an idiot to take that tack - but one would need to be experienced in dealing with Council ineptitude, to understand the depths of frustration that might drive one so nuts that they threw due process out the window (and let's be frank here, things operated very differently in the Far North, at that time). I myself have been driven completely around the bend by such sheer incompetence, that I have resorted to extreme measures to arrive at a reasonable result. He's operating in a very different environment now, and under the microscope - his team better fully onto it keeping him in order, as they sure will need to be.
"The ends justify the means" sounds a lot like "I'm not capable of navigating the challenges of the job I took on voluntarily so I decided I was too good to follow the same rules everyone else has to".
After all, the most simple solution to reduce Auckland's traffic by ten percent is to shoot every tenth motorist. The ends justify the means, after all, right?
If it were only that simple. Which 10%?
After all, not all motorists are created equal, especially the ones that shoot back.
Well it's not going to be any from Epsom, Mt Eden, St Heliers or Kohi, that's for sure!
Pretty standard "Don't you know who I am" entitlement vibe going on there, really. Like an Aaron Gilmore, or a Gerry Brownlee exempting himself from airport security. The plebs just don't appreciate how important these folk are and how normal rules should not apply.
"He's a grouchy old man who seems to have mistaken boomer levels of aggro with competency." I accept that at times he comes across as grouchy, but ask yourself why. My perspective is that he is as frustrated with politicians as any who contribute here, but he is trying to do something about it. A bit like Winston. It's the mavericks who hold the mainstream pollies to account, call "bull shit!" when they see and smell it. Those mainstream pollies hate the mavericks, because they know they will be exposed.
Considering Auckland's history my view is give him a shot. He can't do much worse than any before him, and he has a huge task ahead, not the least as one here has pointed out, being able to gain a consensus in a divided council.
From what I understand of the history of his time in the Far North and at the DHB, is that he's so obnoxious it ends up that no-one will work with him.
Voters got rid pretty quickly at the next opportunity.
He might be considered 'grouchy', but not because he's old, but because that's his personality. He sure isn't a suave politician - he's a small-practice professional design engineer, who has made a living solving problems (or at least, shall we say 'empowering' others to solve problems for him) and that's what he brings to the table. Small practice engineers do what it takes to get the job done and done cost-effectively, which puts them at odds with larger corporates and government bodies, where there's a process to follow that can be stifling, but essential for such blundering behemoths.
He doesn't need the money and I trust he really has our City's best interests at heart. I fervently hope he's an effective Mayor and not an ineffective, isolated Hubbard. I'd suggest he only wants one term, to get Auckland on the right track. Because Central Govt have NFI and really need a serious rev-up. But what do we expect with inappropriately qualified career politicians running the show? Browny hit the nail on the head when he said it was Wellington's job to listen. If they do, then we'll see a real change for good.
> he only wants one term, to get Auckland on the right track.
But what is the 'right track'? He want to get rid of the cones from the CRL construction? Well guess what tunnelling just finished the other week so that is going the happen anyway.
He wants to get watercares central interceptor back 'on time and on budget'. Well guess what? It is already on time and on budget.
So i'm interested to see what he is actually going to acheive? Improve cellphone reception? Sorry but that's not the mayors job.
With watercare he has very little influence. He can make press releases all he wants, but the CCOs are run at arms length, and if he wants to change the Statement of Intent he needs to get a majority of the council on board. He wants to stop work on three waters but a majority of the last council voted to proceed with it. Watercare would be in trouble if they choose to ignore council resolutions and follow the mayors press releases instead.
Well, here's his election platform https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/my-promise-to-you-wayne-brown-on-how-he-w… . I'd say that's a good start to the 'right track'.
Let's acknowledge that AT is completely out of control. I experience their absolutely insane ideas put into practice, every day as a walker, cyclist motorcyclist and car driver. Seriously, most of their road-sharing cycle lane solutions are at best completely whacko. We don't even bother catching a bus anymore, as we know we'll be hours late - due to cancellations, roadworks or the occasional, legally parked car.
Let's acknowledge that Auckland infrastructure is highly problematic. We have 100-year old, unmaintained wastewater systems in high value neighbourhoods, that gush raw sewage into our harbours in a mild rainfall event. We have high value neighbourhoods that don't even have a stormwater system - rainfall just pisses downhill through everyone's property, often mixed with sewage (coz everyone used to hook their downpipes into the WW lines). Yet we have OK'd serious intensification because it looks good politically? Watercare can be an absolute nightmare deal with - well, one can't actually deal with them, one must go thru Auckland Council, who have not leverage, so simple projects take months if not years to get thru. And our recent water woes were entirely avoidable - how TF does one run Auckland out of water???? That guy they previously had running it, was advised by their own appropriately qualified engineers and I understand he chose to ignore good engineering advice. How did that turn out?
That's just the start.
I trust WB will apply simple problem solving techniques to Auckland. The first will be to define what the problem is - unlike Central Gov's light rail solution to an undefined problem. Then empowering others to investigate those problems and go about solving them. Unless you're an engineer who evaluates risk and solves problems for a living, I'd suggest you'll struggle to 'get' another engineer.
Funny, when I've been talking to waters engineers, they don't see an infrastructural problem with intensification. Waters infra was put in when people were using 200 litres a day per person, and designed for larger populations, and we're now averaging more like 70 litres a day.
Separating Watercare from council has enabled them to get on with addressing historic underinvestment from councils taking waters money and using it elsewhere. Sprawl is also significantly more expensive for councils to maintain than density, so liberalising zoning and giving more freedom from over-regulation will enable better use of existing transport and other infrastructure, and lower ongoing maintenance costs.
Folk in some places putting their stormwater into the sewer illegally is a problem to be dealt with on its own.
A lot of talk about this on the radio this morn,seems they will extract the water,put it into huge bladders and ship offshore...what was that argument against about "stealing our assets" ...seems to me more chance of a local mayor and a few business mates and an 'anonymous' offshore entity are more likely to steal our assets;
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300712391/weve-said-no-uproar-at-comm…
You've shot yourself on the foot right there, wrt potable water supply. IIRC, the whole of Auckland just about ran out of water, not so long ago. But rightyho, no problem increasing demand then.
The problem we do have, is with SW & WW. I know, as I deal with it every day, and I interface with AC & WSL. One can't even subdivide a property in Vermont St, without spending 1 year fighting AC + WSL and spending $100k, for a simple connection into a 100 year old brick tunnel that they're expecting to collapse if someone sneezes.
That demand, again, is the result of central government migration policies that don't line up with infrastructure to enable it. Again, that's beyond the remit of the Mayor of Auckland.
Whether people like it or not, Auckland needs more houses. That means more water connections. It is literally going to happen. The question is, do we let people keep ring-fencing the central suburbs off from it, or do we expect people to suck up mega-commutes and live on the fringes, and still pay through the nose for the privilege.
We tried it that way. It doesn't work. More of the same is not going to be the answer.
GV,according to Ashley you are incorrect about needing more houses :-)
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/ashley-church-heres-why-were-at-risk-of-…
Excerpt:
Over the next few years, the claim gathered momentum and by 2016 belief in a shortage of houses had taken absolute hold and attained the status of unchallengeable dogma. Even the National Government bought into it and came up with its own initiatives to address the problem.
But here’s the thing – if anybody had actually bothered to check the most simple indicators of housing numbers, back when the claim was gaining traction, they would have seen the whole thing for the nonsense that it was and could have nipped it in the bud early on.
You've shot yourself on the foot right there, wrt potable water supply. IIRC, the whole of Auckland just about ran out of water, not so long ago. But rightyho, no problem increasing demand then.
Not sure if you're aware, but you've made a population argument there. Not anything to do with intensification vs. sprawl. And there are no plans to reduce population inflows to Auckland, despite the fact droughts are likely to get worse in future. Folk might have to stop illegally putting stormwater into wasterwater traps and start putting it in tanks instead.
Moreover, hey, if waters engineers disagree with you then I'll probably go with what waters engineers say over property developers, to be honest. And if there's a brick tunnel it likely has to be redone at some stage anyway so is well-timed for intensification.
And ultimately, there is simply no entitlement for inner suburb NIMBYs to have the right to rule over what others around them can build on their own land. They might think they're that important of people, but they're simply not. They can choose what to build on their own land, but they don't need to rule over others. If they want to control what's on that land, let them buy it like normal folk do.
Fully aware. You however have missed my point, and have introduced elements that I had not mentioned.
WRT listening to WSL over a developer - I'd tend to agree, but I'm not a developer. WSL did what I told them they were going to do, it just took a massive effort, when it could and should have been simple.
I am fully in favour of intensification (done right) and recognize it as the way Auckland must grow. I'm not in favour of politicians point scoring, or piss poor planning by ideological Council planners fresh out of Uni. I am in favour of appropriately qualified persons doing a good job.
I see a lot of ZB-bait in there about efficiency and cutting costs. I see precisely zero actual things he's going to do to make that happen or generate the buy-in from Council to make that possible.
E: Oh, surprise surprise, 'intensification bad'. You know what else is bad? Hundreds of hours of lost productivity and family time in traffic a year because people have ring-fenced the inner city suburbs with the gold-plated services off from development, and are driving development out to the fringes where, guess what, it still gets intensified. Just conveniently not in your back yard. Now where have I heard that before?
Will he fix it or fux it?
It all depends on what you consider the fix. I think his fix is the same fix that got us into this mess: more sprawl, more roads, less houses. But many Aucklanders do believe that is the only "solution" so in their mind he will fix it.
Well apparently we should be scraping the dirt off out Kumeu way to build more houses...obviously Wayne has never been on the Kumeu Higway or the NW motorway during commute hours...does he realise most don't have a friend with a 'new' helicopter to get around in?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-auckland-mayor-wayne-brown-surveys-th…
excerpt:
Then it was time to "survey the realm" in a friend's new helicopter, heading west to Piha where the "surf was bloody good... and dozens of surfers everywhere".He flew to the edge of the Kaipara Harbour and followed the rail line back to Helensville and the growth areas of Kumeu and across Hobsonville Point, getting a bird's eye view of the "amazing growth in the northwest" with lots of spare land for more housing."And you think, what a shame we are putting houses on the Pukekohe soils. You look out around Kumeu, scrape off that much topsoil [he indicates a few inches] and it's yellow clay," Brown said.
That'd be the bit that flooded a few months ago from all the misplaced intensification. With no rapid transit. You know, the one that's already a buggered congested mess. And that he helpfully suggested we transit our road freight through for the whole district in a bid to strip a Council-owned asset from Aucklanders and send the jobs to Northland.
If this was as easy as Sim City, I'd be the mayor, not him. Wild how it isn't.
In Edinburgh, Scotland the council will not approve any new development of land and buildings until the developer has a plan that includes public transport flow as a priority and factoring the predicted traffic, as well as the flow on effect of said traffic on not only the surrounding areas but the rest of the city. Public transport there is fantastic and affordable, not only because it has to be, but because when you live in a tenement building you don't have room for a car, the street will only hold so many. NZ need to adopt this mentality at council level in AKL,WLG,CHCH so that we do not get any further sprawl because it is no longer a positive good for the public due to the effect on transit times and the removal of arable land.
Public transport can be amazing when done right - want to have a lovely dinner out with your spouse in the CBD but don't want to pay an insane taxi cost to get home after a couple of beers? No worries you can both get public transport. High fuel prices? No worries, take public transport.
Google Edinburgh Slums - plenty of hits.
Quote ""Many families are being forced into the facility because rent increases have forced them out of the private rented sector, making them homeless. Mum-of-three Ann Wedderburn was forced to move to the Abbots House Hotel from a private flat after falling into rent arrears due to a benefit cut. Ann and her three children were forced to sleep in the same room, which had a double bed and two singles. She claimed there were no laundry facilities or fridges and said occupants of the 70 rooms had access to only one filthy microwave. Ann told how the family had to share a bathroom at the end of a corridor with other guests – many of them single men.
A spokesman for the ECAP said: “Instead of building homes to solve the housing crisis once and for all, the council persist in funding private profit through public money against public interest. “The housing crisis has seen Edinburgh council paying out £120,000 a week to hostels and B&Bs. While the numbers of homeless continue to grow, Edinburgh council has been using rotten hostels and B&Bs as temporary accommodation. “Whole families are being put in one room – dirty and dilapidated rooms, filthy mattresses, disgusting shared bathrooms and toilets with no locks.
> Well, here's his election platform
The only insight that provided is that he is going to oppose three waters. Nothing else concrete, just cut costs, seek efficiencies, empower people blah blah blah. It's all meaningless political platitudes.
@ The Person, agree totally,I'll give him credit for timing,folk before him have done the heavy lifting,taken the flack for CRL disruption etc,but as you say,tunneling is finished,I walk past several of the central interceptor access sites,massive infrastructure for the future of AKL,but alas,both are mainly underground,so not much visual progress for those above ground...but sure as sh*t,Wayne,the Nats if they get in will all be lauding these projects if they get to cut the ribbons...and Akldrs will be asking "why oh why didn't we start this 20 years ago..."
Well hang on, are the career politicos ill-qualified or not? Because I fail to see how a professional engineer is more so than they, especially one who doesn't seem to understand where the Council starts and the Mayor's powers end.
If he wants to change Wellington's approach to dealing with Auckland issues (ignoring them has worked quite well for them so far, so why would they feel the need to change?) then he probably should have stood for central government.
Your question wrt 'are career politicos ill-qualified' is ill-defined: we could be in complete agreement, but the way you have worded it, could have us arguing at loggerheads, due to completely different interpretations.
By definition, a career politico is the most qualified to be a career politico, otherwise they wouldn't be. QED.
But, is a career politico holding a BA with a politics major, the most qualified person for a Minister of Finance role, or would this not be better reserved for someone who had appropriate financial and economics qualifications and in-depth real world experience and (previous) skin in the game?
Is an absolutely incredible, world-beating public speaker and crisis manager with little 'real-world' experience, who will win any and every argument, the right person to guide NZ through economic & social turmoil that they themselves have helped to cause?
NZ's current social & economic situation would indicate not.
Will others agree with me? We'll find out at the next election.
I would prefer people that understood what jobs entail stood for election into them. I fail to see what central govt figures have to do with this, unless you've made the same mistake as Wayne Brown and forgotten which one is which.
Don't conflate me with a politician.
Great to see you're a supporter of such persons as David Clark, once Health and now Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, who trained for these roles initially studying medicine which was abandoned in favour of theology and philosophy degrees.
You might want to try addressing the points I'm making instead of getting carried away with the ones you're dreaming up to get mad about.
Befuddled - my long experience with small-practice engineers is that they are used to laying laying down the (engineering) law so to speak, and so tend to think they are always right, do not like being questioned or challenged, are intolerant of other viewpoints, and not well suited to ambiguity, Especially older, male engineers, which I have come across lots in my field of work. Also, they often aren’t very good at dealing with women in the workforce. “Grey beards” or “long socks” is what some people used to call them lol.
That's my experience too, conistently a lack of flexibility in thinking, which I think is why many engineers are engineers. It's great for that role, running a city of over a million people democratically is quite a different beast.
Engineers apply standards, they don't really solve problems outside the standards they are trained in, that's exactly why they are attracted to the profession. The work they do is complicated but not particularly complex.
Leading a city is a whole different type of problem, cities and the problems they face are inherently complex, there is no standard to refer to. He'll come unstuck pretty quick I reckon. You can see him already barking at the clouds, and one week of meetings with Councillors and he needed the weekend off to rest.
Engineers are not good at working with women - well they mainly work with builders who are usually male. Primary school teachers may have a similar issue when working with men.
Wholesale markets are suddenly pricing in a +75 bps rate hike from the RBNZ on November 23
That is 5 weeks away and too long to react. If RBNZ want to be effective they need to have an emergency rate rise now of 50 basis points followed by further 50 point rises including an extra review review between nov and feb. Better for markets to price in 50 basis point rises but more timely regular reviews than the potential disruption from 75 or even 100 basis points rises less often to get to the same end result.
Not enough. Interest rates should be above the inflation rate to stop the speculation. And central bankers love speculation.
Gotta feel sorry for them; they're pushing on a piece of spaghetti.
In a world of diminishing energy supply.
Ignorance piled upon ignorance.
Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen nailed it, some time ago. All long foretold.....
Yes the diminishing availability of energy is the real issue today. First we have inflation (as we compete financially for more of a finite resource..) then what ? Its not like we are magically going to discover more energy.
yep... and the vast reserves of enery we have are politically not viable...
concerning is the news that floods in Oz will affect grain harvests at a time when we have lost, through war and sanctions, 1/4 of global production.
what will that do to food price inflation?
We’ve hardly tapped the available solar or fissile potential of the resources on earth. Plenty of wind left to exploit plus the potential of tidal energy.
That may be true in theory. Speaking as someone who is approx 80% self sufficient for power of my house it is wonderful in that regard. It can not be relied upon as it depends on no clouds which in the land of the long white cloud is very hit and miss.
Wind and Solar are not an efficient replacement to oil for transportation. The energy generated by mass is inefficient when compared to the weight increase of the vehicle, so its a fools dream to believe that we can magically flip the switch and our problems will be solved. True you can electrify rail networks, but that still doesn't answer the question of how you get your products to consumers.
One could also make a serious case that solar is not a green technology when you consider disposing of the batteries and defunct panels.
Once you shift all cars to electric there will be a lot more oil available for ships/trucks where a battery isn’t viable. Long term it will be efficient to create hydrogen for heavy transport. I’m not a fan of “green” hydrogen but if everything else is electrified I’m happy to rely on it for those uses.
I have my doubts of personal car transport being financially viable at the same scale it is today, in future.
Agree. We are being sold a pup in believing that EV can just replace ICE in the same numbers and life goes on for the motorist as it always has.
Not doable.
We'll be happier and healthier once we're out of our individual metal boxes. The current system in NZ is insane.
Why not, EVs will only decrease in price as they reach scale. All the cost is in the battery and there are huge opportunities for innovation.
Spend some quiet time looking at the inputs to create an ICE car...then multiply that across the motoring public.
No EV's will increase in value. The huge opportunities for innovation are with fossil fuels, true energy.
No they will actually get more expensive as the raw materials required to make the batteries become more expensive to extract and more energy intensive.
There is no way we can possibly replace the existing fleet with EVs, ever and that doesn't even take into account developing countries who would also want a piece of the action.
EVs are a way for car companies to continue to turn a profit but they will only ever be a solution for a very few very rich people.
Rick. Why will cars not be viable ? Energywise at least, given I already send most of my household generation out the gate, my EV when I get it will be powered entirely by my household.
I get the impression that resource and energy scarcity will both bite. Resources include rubber, steel and bitumen, and the energy needed to turn those into cars and roads.
You can add the battery materials, which are very finite and getting harder to extract.
It's the same reason nuclear cannot replace current energy usage, it's the materials and energy and time required to build them. We run out of energy before they can come online.
This is precisely why the most profitable race right now is the race to develop an affordable, long-lasting and reliable power storage system. Lithium ion batteries have been the standard for decades and when a new reliable alternative is released and adopted en masse, wind and solar will be the norm. Currently the cost of any home turbine and storage, or solar and storage would take approximately 10yrs to pay off, however the same systems are much cheaper in Australia and Europe. This is expected to decrease in price over time as the market develops more and production increases.
The best affordable, long-lasting and reliable power storage system is fossil fuels. Period.
Diminishing availability of energy? So why are oil prices dropping? Have you never heard of wind, solar, hydro, fossil fuel, gas, or nuclear energy? What planet do you live on, literally! There is an immense and endless amount of energy sourced available on earth.
NZ has vast reserves of geothermal ... we've barely scratched the surface of it ... and , the new ultra sonic drill tech should let us get to it far cheaper and far deeper ...
... oodles of energy ... a planet abundant with potential ...
"So why are oil prices dropping" Heard of demand destruction? Joe has just promised to suck out the dregs from the SPR. That should be good for maintaining the illusion of "vast energy" for the wilfully blind. For a few more weeks anyhow.
There is an immense and endless amount of energy sourced available on earth
!!??
Hmm, but our societies are based on very finite sources of energy (oil, gas, coal) which by definition aren't replaceable so must be diminishing...
Diminishing, but finding more!
No energy is not diminishing, known reserves are increasing. We are finding more. Is it finite? Somehow, we 'magically' find more energy, as we magically found oil!
Seems to have been forgotten that China peaked in coal production in 2013.
US Tech stocks rallied and then plunged for a 3 hour period, now yo-yo. HK and China futures in the red. Bitcoin spiked to $22,000 on Friday, now struggling to stay above $19,000, might be a buy now for some.
Bitcoin spiked to $22,000 on Friday ..?? nope that did not happen
Oops, should be "nearly $20,000"
Wow so we now have Bitcoin spruikers on here now as well ?
Confession. I've just done my first 'test' buy. Seems to be taking an awfully long time to arrive in my wallet. Now I remember why I didn't buy when I first tried - it was $400 in those days.
The real pain of rising interest rate has not yet started :
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/home-buyers-potentially-paying-500-…
Wait and Watch
For Liam Patten the rate hikes will be "massive" but also "manageable" because he has options on how to deal with them.
He has already built an extra room and living area in the garage of his three-bedroom Pakuranga home, effectively converting it into a four-bedroom property.
That allows him to live in the garage and rent out the rest of the house and draw in extra income to pay the mortgage.
Living in the garage of your million dollar home while making almost $1k a week in mortgage payments is apparently a good option these days.
You've got to laugh.
Apparently the solution to debt stress is... ...get into even more debt (to pay for the minor dwelling on ya property, so you can rent it out). Righto...
the property bubble was always going to end badly.... what gets me is the foolish indignation of the reporting as the last Muppets to the party get fleeced...
very sad if you were one of those people... but to report this as a surprise when rates start to return to a normal level is close to criminal.
I wonder if the property collapse coming will be like the effects of the 1987 stock market reset on the nz investing landscape? the losses incurred forever changed the way the country viewed stock investing.
35th anniversary tomorrow. Shares here dropped 15% on the first day.
A lot of fools bought into the false promise that interest rates will remain lower for longer.
Why not make the biggest financial decision of your life as per the advice of an REA, mortgage broker, or a random property economist who monetises his content with paid advertising from developers?
They obviously have a vested interest in drowning you in debt but don't think for once that will cloud their professional judgement when giving you financial advice.
Yup, gotta laugh. Can be a good option when stretching a purchase to the Max ,at the bottom of a market cycle,but absolutely Desperation ,when holding on post-peak. Could become a common story theme. It has psychological consequences.
This reflects the mindset of most Kiwi, they do not want a home to live but for speculative gain, so home which is a basic necessity has been turned into casino chip for long thanks to politicians.
I tend to agree, but I can see the reasoning behind it.
Hard to elaborate my theory in a small comment section, but essentially no-one can afford retirement. You simply don't earn enough to save/invest for retirement, so the only viable answer was a house that you sold and then downsized to free up cash. But it wont work either, as someone needs to be able to buy it, and they can't.
Is it the "mindset of most Kiwi" or just the few who were prepared to take the risk to jump into the property market and the wealthy few? Some of those did it believing the hype that "property never falls" or "God ain't makin' anymore land", some did it against advice, but however you look at it all were taking big risks, but the vast majority of Kiwis are locked out of property ownership unless and/or until property prices significantly reset.
I'm not averse to people taking on risk rationally. I am strongly against them thinking the Government and taxpayers should cover their risk in any way. I would like us to get back to the position of housing being seen as a basic human right for everyone and not the rort that it has become these days.
67% of the population own a house.
Is it really that high? I thought it had fallen below 50%.
Edit; Just checked - I stand corrected. However I still believe it should be considered a basic human right. It seems it is primarily the lower socio-economic groups who suffer the most here. This to me is evidence that the economic impact of policies is effectively racist. In housing it is entrenching the wealth of more wealthy groups while forcing the lower socio-economic groups, primarily minorities, into poverty traps that impact especially on children.
That's the old misleading stat, isn't it? 67% of the population live in a house that is also owner-occupied, but it is not the case that 67% of the population own a house.
Human rights are population-dependent.
Just sayin'
Perhaps waving the UN human rights charter in front of an incoming planet killing asteroid will persuade it of the error of its ways?
Yes just a few comments up, the owner was happy to live in the converted garage and rent the rest of the house out.
He did say he was happy though
It would be relative happiness.
Happy that it would prevent the bank from foreclosing on him.
It includes children living in their parents home which seems questionable.
I didn't consider myself a homeowner during high school.
I would pick the bank owns 50% of those 67%. And heres us thinking slavery has been abolished. Alive and well in un zud !!
His dad is a mortgage broker too...
There is still potential to squeeze more juice here yet. Move into the garden shed and rent out the garage. Or maybe rent out the garden shed too and move into the car?
And put bunks in, and then hotbed those bunks. https://www.apia.org.nz/must-know/hot-bedding-what-landlords-need-to-kn…
Car...think big,I'm sure an old bus could be parked onsite,kit it out with bunks throughout...
In November 2021, the RBNZ released a statement to say that banks had been stress testing borrowers, with a weighted average test level of just over 6%.
Which means that a LOT of borrowers were stress tested UNDER 6%. Probably around half of them.
Seems pretty farking obvious at this point that the stress tests were set too low, and there must be thousands upon thousands of borrowers who are already now bumping up against their stress tested levels.
Its a clown show. A corrupt, stupid, economy wrecking clown show 🥸.
I've asked this question before, but what formula do the banks actually use to determine the 'stress?'
I bet it means an asset and lifestyle(including deferment of education and health costs, everyone in the house working longer hours etc.) strip for the homeowner and the forgoing of any equity, but still can make the payments to the bank.
None of that is stressful of course.
Stress tested at under 6%, and what inflation rate did that stress test factor in? It was only in the Jun 2021 Quarter that CPI increased from 1.5 to 3.3.
940 million withdrawal from crypto exchange overnight when large players start to remove money you know Bitcoin is going down.
LOL...or they were liquidated?
If a couple of the biggest players do a synchronized bail out it all over for Bitcoin. The longer it stays flat at $20K the worse its going to get, people are only in Bitcoin to make money.
LOL...luckily your Toyota is not diesel Carlos, -Toyota sued in Australia over popular diesel vehicles
Be the same Toyota vehicles as here. But in New Zealand officials don't protect New Zealanders.
940 million withdrawal from crypto exchange overnight when large players start to remove money you know Bitcoin is going down.
Recommend actually quoting your sources and trying to understand what's going on. I'll do it it for you (see below). Yes, a large amount of BTC was removed from Coinbase Pro. What does it mean? Unclear. Could be trying to sell OTC, which doesn't necessarily affect the exchange mkt price.
Suggesting that the "whales' are getting ready to dump all their coins can only be understood by looking at their behavior with onchain analytics (moving long-term holdings into to exchanges).
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/18/crypto-prices-are-little-changed-as-940…
J.C hope you enjoyed investigating my post, was not hard to find if you like I can give you a find the article challenge every day.
"Wall Street has built on yesterday's impressive rise..."
Which is exactly what The Fed wants and needs.
The last thing it wants to do is to have to raise % rates into a falling market. The stronger the markets, the more those will be able to absorb the necessary return to higher % rates.
This is convenient PR for the central planners, creating a great fake alibi now that the fruits of their money printing are becoming obvious; just like in the 1970s they will falsely claim to have merely followed government pressures... Link
Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis Oct 18
1/9 "The power to control the creation of money has moved from central banks to governments. By issuing state guarantees on bank credit, governments have effectively taken over the levers to control the creation of money." https://themarket.ch/interview/russell-napier-the-world-will-experience…
via @TheMarket_CH Show this thread
More than 76% of the monetary and financial world is making preparations for recession, too. Link
Well that confirms it, we are in for a prolonged Depression.
Sorry for bringing up Covid again, but I found this paper reported by the FT very interesting given the attempts to form a narrative that the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease. Since the vaccine became available, Republican excess deaths (not just 'deaths from Covid') have been disproportionally higher than Democrat excess deaths. Before the vaccine, they moved pretty much in tandem.
Republican vaccine hesitancy and hostility is killing their supporters. Not a surprising conclusion, but an interesting way to look at the data.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aft.com+Tragic+fallout+from+the+p…
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30512/w30512.pdf
Crikey,next years voting papers might have to have health warnings attached to each party like cigarettes...
The irony is that a lot of the anti-vax rhetoric and thinking has been fed to them from Russian troll farms.
But they have swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Yes, some of the misinformation out there was epic. Scary how these Russian troll farms manipulated the Pfizer CEO, Fauci and our very own kind "they won't get sick and they won't die" PM!
Fauci: Vaccinated people become ‘dead ends’ for the coronavirus
by Joseph Choi - 05/16/21
"Fauci added that vaccinated people essentially become “dead ends” for the virus to spread within their communities. “In other words, you become a dead end to the virus. And when there are a lot of dead ends around, the virus is not going to go anywhere. And that’s when you get a point that you have a markedly diminished rate of infection in the community.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-…
"Excited to share that updated analysis from our Phase 3 study with BioNTech also showed that our COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective in preventing #COVID19 cases in South Africa. 100%!"
What a fascinating twist!
Funny how the strictest of peer-reviewed evidence is required for any claims related to COVID-19, until something pops up which happens to fit a certain narrative.
Then all of a sudden, discussion papers from the NBER will suffice.
Yes, it's not peer reviewed so discount it accordingly and feel free to look into the analysis - they acknowledge some shortcomings (only covers 2x states and ~80% of mortality). Interesting approach though.
Even peer reviewed data is normally aligned to a narrative; you can keep trying different variations of stats until one suits and then get it reviewed. For example I bet I could "prove" that Broccoli is a killer if I compared Broccoli intake to every single disease that has ever occurred, at least one of them will show a higher rate in Broccoli users, but that is really just a statistical deviation not proof.
I do like these type of approaches though. Having tried to work out how unhealthy drinking is by reading studies I was shocked at how bad some of the studies were and how biased their conclusions seemed to be. Almost all stats show drinkers outlive non-drinkers but then they try and explain that away as they were wanting to prove the opposite to some health do gooders. In the end I just thought if alcohol was that bad, counties like Japan, Ireland, Australia, etc wouldn't be so high up the life expectancy list.
Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty
"...We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of research based on secondary data, we find that research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions.
Researchers’ expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 90% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after accounting for research decisions identified via qualitative coding of each team’s workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that is otherwise hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers’ results and conclusions varied is a new explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings."
Here are some great spurious correlations https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Maybe its Biden killing the republicans in some kind of QAnon twist?
They could be dying from a broken heart following the election 'steal'? Life without Trump is not worth living.
Or from starvation after spending all their money on Trump sponsorship, flags, hats and rallies.
I said at the outset of Covid that the only statistic that will reveal the truth is all cause mortality. I expected it would take 5 years for the smoke to clear.
However something is not right. After a pandemic there should be mortality displacement, and this is what I was expecting in the short term. But longer term I was expecting the death rate to rise. Firstly because the underlying trend changed and mortality is growing. Secondly because of the unintended consequences of lockdowns and vaccines. A friend of mine, a professor of applied statistics, is doing a long term study on the affects of covid management, which according to his existing knowledge is likely to kill more people than the virus.
What is not right is that mortality displacement has not shown up. In fact it has increased. Latest data I saw a few days ago is that for Australia there has been a 17% increase in mortality in the first half of 2022. Something like and extra 11,000 deaths. Deaths that are NOT covid. Questions need to be asked what is causing this.
I'd say your study is nonsense, they are manipulating the data.
On the other hand I've been going direct to the CDC and downloading the all cause mortality data myself. Something stinks there for sure.
If people truly believe that on some fundemental level money is underwritten by oil, why are lower oil prices considered deflationary rather than inflationary?
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