Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news all eyes will be on the 2pm RBNZ announcement of its Monetary Policy update where it is widely expected that a +50 bps rate increase will be announced.
But first up today there was another dairy auction earlier today and it was a lame affair. Overall prices fell -1.5% in USD terms, but were virtually unchanged in NZD terms (+0.3%) because of a shift lower in our exchange rate. The key WMP price fell -2.0% and SMP was down -2.4%. But there were offsetting gains for butter (-3.8%) and cheddar (+1.5%), indicating returning demand from the Chinese foodservice sector. The recent storms here that will curtail overall milk supply seemed to have very little impact on the attitude of buyers.
In the US there was a surprising improvement in their services PMI, shifting from contraction in January to and expansion in February according to the internationally-benchmarked Markit version. Their factory sector is still contracting however, but at a lesser rate this month than last. The growth in new orders is slowing, but just at a slower rate. This is more evidence they may either only have a soft landing, or possibly no recession at all.
Major retailer Walmart said it is gaining market share in the grocery sector. And that includes among higher-income households that are spending cautiously.
However their existing home sales market is still retreating. In January it fell -0.7% after a December -2.2% fall. That has been a disappointment because a +2.0% rise was anticipated. These volumes are -37% lower than a year ago now, and the January activity is now a 12th straight month of decline.
Canada release its inflation rate for January today, coming in lower at 5.9% when a 6.1% rate was expected and December was at 6.3%.
Canadian retail sales for December ran +7.3% ahead of year ago levels, so ahead of inflation there.
In Hong Kong, HSBC released a sharp rise in earnings for 2022. But it is also provisioning sharply higher for its exposure to the Chinese commercial property sector. They said that they expected credit losses and other impairment charges were raised to US$3.6 bln for 2022, sharply higher than the US$1.1 bln for the first half and a reversal from a positive US$928 mln for 2021.
There were flash PMI results out for the EU and Germany overnight too, and both were similar to the US, showing a strengthening services sector and a stable or slipping factory sector.
However, German economic sentiment is definitely improving.
In Australia, the latest RBA minutes show clearly that they never considered pausing their string of rate hikes in their campaign against their stubborn inflation impulse.
And staying in Australia, job site Seek has shifted its guidance for its full-year revenue and profit to the lower end of the forecast range, as the pandemic-fueled hiring spree loses steam.
The UST 10yr yield starts today at 3.94% and up +8 bps from yesterday and its highest since mid-November. The UST 2-10 rate curve is little-changed at -79 bps. But their 1-5 curve inversion is less inverted at -89 bps. Their 30 day-10yr curve is also less inverted at -67 bps. The Australian ten year bond is up at 3.89%. The China Govt ten year bond is up at 2.94%. The New Zealand Govt ten year is starting today at 4.44% and little-changed from yesterday.
Wall Street has started its Tuesday session with the S&P500 is down -1.8% near the close. Overnight, European markets were all lower by about -0.5%. Yesterday Tokyo finished down -0.2%. Hong Kong ended down -1.7%. Shanghai ended up +0.5%. The ASX200 ended down -0.2% and the NZX50 ended down -0.8%.
The price of gold will open today at US$1834/oz and down -US$7 from this time yesterday.
And oil prices start today little-changed US$76.50/bbl in the US. The international Brent price is still just over US$82.50/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar is at 62.2 USc, a tad lower than this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are little-changed at 90.5 AUc. Against the euro we are lower at 58.3 euro cents. However that all takes the TWI-5 below 70 for the first time since November, now at 69.9.
Bitcoin has stayed up over the US$25,000 level today and is now at US$25,243 and up +0.9% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 yours has been modest at +/-1.9%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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126 Comments
Canadian interest rates higher than inflation, and driving inflation down. Why cant we do that here?
Not only that, but theirs is dropping while the US' isn't so much.
Sounds like
*Dun dun dun*
There's more to the story
US and NZ has interest still somewhat behind inflation. That being the point.
It's behind in Canada also, and most of their provinces are running higher inflation than 5.9.
We haven't had much productivity here. Our "productivity" has been mostly in housing industry, by that, I mean trading houses...
Their interest rate is 4.5%, and inflation is 5.9%?
Cos Orr has allowed chippy, robbingson, and donkeychops to put socialist mandates/rules in to a fiscal process thus allowing the economy to be compromised thru half arsed decisions.
Auckland Southern motorway is worse than ever this morning
We should all be on cycles ... not
How many 1 car - 1 person can you count...? (Double points for SUV's)
Back to the future, flying delorian oneday
For now its a smart decision not living in Auckland
Its far better than Wellington..even on a good day.
Both Auckland and Wellington have some really nice areas. I live in Auckland and like it very much, but the Wellington waterfront on a nice winter day is quite beautiful.
And I see the calls for "Buy us out!" are coming thick and fast.
No problem with that in the name of managed retreat. But the buy-out price should be something akin to *80% of the buy-in price - the original price paid - to give the current owners an option. They don't have to take it, and can make plans accordingly.
(* 80% of any price paid is likely to be better than $0 if the land is deemed as unusable in the future)
That's a big discussion. I can see points from both sides.
- Some properties have existed for 50+ years with no issues
- Some people will have recently bought or built on land where they should have realised there was some risk
- Insurance companies accepted policies for properties at risk
- Councils consented properties where risk was higher
- A number of towns and cities are fully built on 'flood plains', places where sometime in the last 500 years their river has flooded significantly. Does that mean we should never build there again?
How does that discussion get balanced? Too much risk aversion and nothing will get built, too little and we build in stupid places.
Article in Stuff of a couple who bought in Swanson two years ago, in a flood plain. Sorry, I have little sympathy. That’s just dumb/naive.
I have no sympathy for people who have no insurance and then suddenly want everyone to bail them out when something does eventually happen. You took the risk and it did'nt pay off. But I do have sympathy for the ones who have brought in areas consented by the council and the council infrastructure does not handle weather events, the council planners need some questions asked of them.
In this case they had an insurance payout for flooding eighteen months ago ... that for some reason their bank took to pay off some of the mortgage, and they couldn't move.
Why did the bank take it? There's more to the story than they let on.
If you buy in a flood plain, it’s going to flood regardless of how good (or not) infrastructure is.
So the deal surely needs to ensure people have to pay something for making a decision to live in a dodgy location.. and some strict rules this time with a means to recoup the taxpayer hard earmer dollars if needed (not like the pandemic business payments).
- for damaged properties the insurance company will pay the insured cost to rebuild (not taxpayer)
- the government will pay maybe 75% the cost of replacement land to build on of its choice of location. Optional for the owner to choose this option. The government will buy or requisition land in better locations for lower costs. We shouldnt fund nice locations.
- if its proven the landowner knew (or should have known) in advance of purchasing their current property that the land was liable to flood or slip..then they are liable to repay the full cost of the new land to the govt/tax payer. Or lose it and their property.
I guess i am kind of over the people who expect free bail outs.
If you look around the Auckland skyline in general
No one should be living there.
Because of dormant volcanoes?
I do..who rubber stamped that development?
Why? If there has been so much development in an area that nukes the permeable surfaces in the suburb around you and suddenly you have a flood problem where previously there was none, then that's not really a fair burden to place at an individual level. We're talking decades of zoning and planning failure, not to mention the NIMBYism in Central areas for opposing development and focusing it on the outer suburbs like we're seeing in West Auckland.
But you want to place all the blame at the foot of home-owners who couldn't afford to overcome all of the above obstacles in financial terms and move somewhere more central? Nah, that isn't it.
The GIS can't even show the flood plain data because so much of Auckland is affected that it's impractical to render the layer until you zoom in. You're talking tens of thousands of homes here. Until we get tens of thousands of new homes in the central suburbs then it's just blaming people for not being rich.
They bought knowing (or at least should have known if they did their homework) that the house was in a flood plain. It’s another issue around consenting. Is it a new house or older house? If it’s a new house I would have more sympathy for them, and more concern with Council’s actions.
Why would you have sympathy for the new houses? In many cases the new developments will be intensifying the flood risk for everyone if it means a loss of permeable land. Like I say, the GIS viewer has so many of these areas on them that just saying 'do your homework' would render huge numbers of homes supposedly unviable.
If new housing is making previously acceptable risk no longer acceptable, that's when you start getting into the problems of who is building what where.
More sympathy if it’s a new house because it would be a recent council decision, and home buyers could expect that flooding risk has been addressed. Lots of stuff was built 20 or 30 years ago when we had far less knowledge.
The flood plain should be on the LIM right? And they should have a lawyer right?
Again. The balance of what is acceptable and unacceptable risk vs. where people can actually afford to live. If the Council changes the dynamics and risk profile of an entire suburb because it's cramming in a city's worth of development at the behest of central city nimbies who don't want it near them, then that is not something that someone can reasonably be expected to balance at an individual level, especially in long-standing suburbs that are rapidly changing under existing residents.
We will have to agree to disagree then.
I add again that I am not absolving council of all responsibility, however I still maintain it’s simply dumb to buy a property in a flood plain, especially in more recent times with more info available.
The flood plain would have shown on the LIM.
Just like it’s dumb to buy houses on the edge of cliffs.
There's decades of planning issues with residents in areas that could handle more development making that impossible, hence housing ending up where it is.
Check out the GIS viewer of the flood maps. The scale of 'shouldn't have built there' logic just doesn't work at that point. Half the city would have been a write-off. We are far too far down this track to suddenly start assigning individual responsibility that people can reasonably avoid. People are very quick to forget we had a housing shortage and an affordability crisis. Choice only exists if you're in a position to actually make one.
It’s one thing buying now or in the last few years. It’s another having done that 30 years ago.
I am over this mentality of absolving individual responsibility and the expectation of tax payer funded bail outs.
I agree.
Nobody should expect state bail outs unless they have some form of disability or extreme age etc etc (the truly deserving).
If people look around them and see that the environment around their house/business has changed, or is changing then they can move location, vote for an alternate government or vote a different local government, lobby for chang etc etc. Up their insurance, change their own house design whatever. To realise its happening requires some education and reading of the news (environment, development, infrastructure etc) again its all individual choice whether or not to do that.
if people sit and do nothing - as when a crime is committed - then they are effectively complicit in their own problem - and in 99% of cases have zero rights to complain when their business/property is devalued or cant be insured. Any money in the emergency fund is for earthquakes, tsunamis etc.. and even then if you know you are close to a fault line/area prone to the event please dont expect those that werent to bail you out - move now.
Change is constant. How people report on, and respond to it is their personal decision, and the consequence of that decision are theirs. We need the country to take a hard look and get back to everyone realising their is no bail out and therefore they will again become personally accountable and likely to take action prior to problems occuring - that leads to better spent taxes, better infrastructiure, time/resources to improve the country for all.
You could also add in some blame to the caretakers of our lands. The ones who have managed the lands so badly that eroded hillsides and waste end up flooding and clogging our water systems and ruining homes and infrastructure.
For the cause and who should be blamed for this mess - look upstream.
But here were are providing grants to mitigate the damage inflicted upon themselves and us.
Farming and forestry practices are to blame and need to change.
You could repeat this endlessly for any sort of natural disaster?
"I have little sympathy for those that built near a faultline" - wait, that's every city in NZ right?
"I have little sympathy for those that build near a forest" - climate change driven forest fires?
"I have little sympathy for those that build on a slope" - large rain events causing slips?
"I have little sympathy for those that build near the sea" - sea level rise?
If we don't insure people building on flood plains, we can't insure most rural houses?
A floodplain is much more explicit and recorded on a LIM.
Very true blobbles, mother nature in a fit of power will soon make mockery of any historical description of “sound” land. For example evidence of ancient ocean fish skeletons was found during excavations in Harrisburg, I think, PA, USA. The gift of a tsunami in ancient times. If a certain fissure in a dormant volcano in the Canary Islands gives way into the sea, there will likely be another one.
You can build in a flood plain, but building on a floating slab 4" off the dirt is probably not the smartest way to do it. Get that house up on timber piles, timber subfloor, t and g flooring...
I imagine this would give the council multiple brain hemorrhages.
Auckland council bought out a property in Glen Eden (Woodglen Road) about 15 years ago due to flood risk and demolished it, they then sold the section to developers who built a new house 5 years later. Councils have short memories, a few dry years and they build back on the flood plains, or perhaps the Super City lost the old records?
Council doesn’t build on the floodplains, developers do. And how about consultant engineers? Not absolving councils, but there’s multiple actors and factors at play.
And didn’t the last National government override councils and approve Special Housing Areas in flood plains / flood prone areas?
Hang on. Some months ago Megan Woods proudly announced the acquisition in Napier or nearby, of a large tract of land for a government housing project. Yet private developers had been denied developing the area due to it being a known flood plain with far too much risk attached. Woods said that had been assessed, the risk mitigated. Can anybody from the locality advise how that particular land fared during the last week or so?
ps. NZH 16/11/2022 identifies the area as Maraenui, alongside Riverbend Road.
She’s an idiot.
yes it would be interesting to know how that land fared
That’s a sad comment. There was an equivalent idiot from the National Party yesterday making headlines. Woods though is in cabinet and viewed as one of the more capable. I have begun to realise that that word in parliament, whatever the party in power may be, applies to those that have the greatest capability to cover their backsides.
Apparently the ministry and government department she is responsible for is a shambles.
And don’t get me started on how bloody awful they are with Official Information Act requests.
They are either grossly incompetent or intentionally obfuscatory. Or perhaps both.
I got an awful letter from her last year that very briefly confirmed incompetence via provision of facts, it was then followed by 3 pages of propaganda as to why she/ they are so wonderful.
Wasn’t that Ngongotaha, Rotorua. They are planning to build 350 houses in a swamp that has already been rejected for private housing.
Doesn't the Council issue the consent? I would say they are ultimately responsible for the location of a house, particularly if they compulsory purchased and demolished the previous owners home due to wanting a flood corridor.
The real issue is going to be that we now need to redefine flood prone in light of the increasing amount of moisture in the atmosphere.
Side note, I see my climate denier colleagues have taken up the "bad town planning" mantle with enthusiasm.
It may be not so much denial but recognition that all the measures NZ is admirably undertaking, to decrease the ripples it is generating, are not making the slightest difference to the incoming tidal waves the great industrial powers are generating. Consequently, logically NZ needs some urgency to set its defences accordingly.
Buyouts need to be limited to buyout of the land only.
Value determination there needs to be worked out quite diligently however, RV's aren't representative, but in the absence of another starting point - RV minus % decrease for the region since 2021 peak would work. Arguably of course the land is worth much much less now, but we're not really talking about 'market' value anymore as who would buy a flood write-off?
Capital improvements should be covered by rebuild value agreed in whatever insurance policy the owner has. Uninsured - you would have not been able to rebuild your house anyway so the difference between what you get from the land and your mortgage obligations to the bank are yours to work out (* although how the heck do you get a mortgage without insurance?).
Of course the media will be flooded with woe-is-me stories - but remember also that there are millionaires who own many of these properties both landlords and clifftop view lovers who will be looking to lock in whatever COVID property price hike values they can - at taxpayers expense.
Buy outs should be on same terms as red stickered Christchurch houses. Government was happy enough to bail out SCF and AMI and save the day of those impacted by the quakes. Dick move to now stick it to North Islanders after opening the cheque book for South Islanders.
EQs and extreme weather are different, one is more predictable than the other. That is why we are more likely to see insurance retreat, they should only cover unforseen losses.
Which is a good reason to try and make sure your RV is as accurate as it needs to be even if that means getting its value up will increase your rates. Prior to the Canterbury EQs there was a formula that covered the value of you structure(s) and I think land to within 10 metres circumference of that. Believe initially for the first EQ some red sticker ed properties were paid out accordingly but for the next two big ones payouts we switched to RVs which were a windfall for some and a disaster for others.
I had to drive unfortunately today, rather than take the train. More than one person per car is rare…
School traffic is a massive part of the problem. We need to get back to going to your local school and the cotton wool generation walking/cycling to school.
Rain coats are also a thing.
There are even dedicated school buses now which take out of zone kids into sought after schools. And some public schools pay to advertise for enrolments - why? The schools should all be of the same (high) quality, no reason to want to send your kid elsewhere
Traffic is getting worse everywhere. I walk my dog every morning at the same time on a loop that takes me past a busy bit of commuting road in Christchurch. In the 2 years I've had the dog, I have observed the "average" backup of weekday traffic become progressively worse.
I normally bike (when not working from home) and on occasions when I do have to drive now it's just insufferable.
I'm off to do the walk now, so I'll check how bad the traffic is today.
Traffic is already unbearable… but let’s pump immigration! Got to keep those houses unaffordable…
You live in a city to benefit from the meat grinder action.
So the more the merrier.
NZ grew by a million or 25% in less than two decades, and somehow living costs shot up and our living standards got worse.
The only ones better off from this population ponzi are housing speculators, duopolies and low-wage migrants.
Depends what sort of place you want it to be.
If you want cities that compete on an international level, they need more bodies.
If you want more of an agrarian society with small service centres, shut the gates.
Compete on what? The way Auckland is bringing more bodies without urban planning or infra upgrades, the only cities it seems to be competing with perhaps are Mumbai, Beijing and Manila.
The US, Denmark and Switzerland have set high skill thresholds and have net migration rates only fractions of what NZ witnesses each year. By your logic, those places must all be primitive agrarian societies.
Can't believe I have to educate someone on quality of workforce over quantity on an economic news website!
Our cities are pretty sparsely populated, which makes infrastructure like decent public transport even less viable.
I know people hate the tyranny of distance view, but as a market we are so insignificant to international exporters and this helps attribute to price inflation of imported goods.
Our sparsely populated cities are due to poor urban planning norms.
Also, adding another 10 million to NZ's population won't attract more attention from international exporters either, especially if our purchasing power drops in the process.
Auckland's population for instance grew by 30% between 2000 and 2015, yet GDP growth per capita over the same period was behind all other regions barring Wellington and Hawke's Bay. Having more consumers but less economic output and purchasing power per consumer is actually taking us in the opposite direction.
Yep, suburbia is a bad model. But here now, cannot undo. But probably sprawl needs to end.
10 million would change things somewhat. At the moment we have this monopoly/duopoly issue because the size of the market doesn't warrant more players. It'd also make us better customers for larger suppliers, at the moment we are Australia's dregs.
Auckland's become a cheaper place to get things done than most of the rest of NZ. Good or bad, depends on the individual.
Agree with sentiment but not sure Sweden and Denmark have low net migration rates. They've taken in hundreds of thousands or refugees in recent years.
I read Penguin History of New Zealand over Waitangi weekend - it was really interesting reading that, as of 2003, NZ highest immigration year was ?1878? at 34,000 people.
That got absolutely blown out of the water only a decade later under the Key government.
The low-but-pretend-its-high-value immigration-plus-students-led model really isn't sustainable.
So we have too much demand and not enough supply (of roads). Wouldn't an economist tell you that the price needs to go up!
Most people are unaware how much their commutes actually costing them.
“Most people are unaware how much their commutes actually costing them”
Costing them precious time they never going to get back. 1 hour commute each way that’s 2 hours, going to bed 1 hour early so you can get up 1 hour early to join the morning traffic, that’s 4 hours gone. Time could’ve been spent with family or doing other things.
You forgot to account for the hidden costs of spending all that time slouched over your steering wheel locked in a metal box inhaling fumes from thousands of other boxes around you.
Countless research pieces out there that being stuck in traffic daily reduces overall job and life satisfaction. That's not good for economic productivity or mental wellbeing in a country where 84% of its population lives in urban centres.
Agreed. Plenty of my friends moved out to satellite towns like Rolleston, Lincoln etc to get a bigger house for the same money, but there's a cost to driving in every day both in terms of actual money (spent on petrol, wear and tear on the car) as well as lost time.
Out of my friend group, I have the most modestly-sized house, but I don't mind as I live less than a 10 minute bike from the centre of town. I can walk to town faster than any of them can drive.
There's value in convenience and saving time.
I would have thought working from home would have reduced commuting traffic significantly. I guess WFH is a bit of a luxury which most of the working population still do not have.
That and everyone's cherubs have to be dropped to school.
How else would a 40 kilo child get to school, if not for a 2 tonne SUV?
Yes you used to see streams of primary school children walking to school. Ours did. Our grandchildren don’t and that sadly identifies another serious problem. How safe are our streets for unprotected small children. Near to where we lived in the USA, a good solid blue collar community, a parent or alternative adult would stand on every corner to oversee every child getting off the school bus. Sad to say, NZ has grown the same situation.
We had some child abductions in the 80s that I reckon accelerated the demise of kids getting to school independently.
The streets are statistically pretty safe, but I can't help but think parental over-protectiveness is adversely affecting our children.
Kids risk exposure today, most parents attempt to keep that to a zero. Its not normal, risk taking is part of growing.
That probably started it but I suspect what has made things a lot worse is the traffic as population has increased. More traffic on the roads means more people drive their kids because it's unsafe (or a lot less safe than yesteryear) to mix with so much traffic. It's a cyclical problem. Prioritising more safe separated bike lanes in a few km radius around schools would surely increase the amount of parents who feel safe letting their kids bike to school, which in turn would help reduce traffic.
There was a thing with walking buses led by parents a few years ago - each would take a route and pick up kids along the way.
Maybe Covid killed them.
What a pity. That is an ideal example of community self help and mutual cooperation. Perhaps lacking just time and opportunity, too many households have two working parents nowadays. But as a retired grandparent, I would have volunteered.
Mrs dumbthoughts is a teacher, and she reckons out of the kids in her class there would be less than 5% who regularly walk or bike to school (she teaches intermediate age). Plenty of the kids live local too, and it's a safe area to walk around in.
Shelf stacking, growing stuff, running 3 phase machinery to make stuff, building, quarrying, mining, refining, it's a very long list of stuff that cannot ever be done from the corner of the lounge....
So the last jobs to get destroyed by automation.
Yeah but there are a lot of jobs that can be done from the "corner of the lounge" so WFH should make congestion a little less severe, even if just 10% or workers did that.
Fat cats are demanding that we all return to work.
Time to put the tax back on (and hike it) - clearly fuel is too cheap.
No I think that argument is too easy. It is a lazy approach. We are struggling with a city design, culture and infrastructure that has forced populations away from business centres. A commute is necessary for everyone, but unlike big cities in other places of the world, little thought and effort has been directed to infrastructure. Singapore is a good example. their mass transit system is something to be admired. The expense of it did not deter them as they knew their economy depended on it, so the investment would pay for itself in time. NZ is yet to learn that attitude in our big cities.
I lived in Auckland in the mid 80s. People were rabidly against rates and paying for their own infrastructure and now that is coming back to bite them. they gifted their tamariki and moko with a city crippled by selfishness and a lack of foresight. Now they expect the rest of the country to pay for it.
Maybe we need to fast track to the15-20min city?
Price drives everything. It'll work quicker than anything else - overnight almost. Would you pay $300 for a tank of gas to drop the kids and school - nah --- on yer bike kids!
.
Agree. No need to see the worst example of this is the Albany business park area on North Shore Auckland. Cars, commuters from all over Auckland parked everywhere for people whose jobs could probably be carried out in an office tower somewhere in the city. All approved for development in the 1980's by North Shore city council without thought for public transport or practicality of location. Even Smales Farm is non sensical IMO.
Singapore have a population greater than NZ in an area 3/4 the size of Auckland city. If you want Aucklanders to pay massive rates, it's the only way to get a comparable transport system.
I tend to agree. It's difficult for me to understand why people complain about petrol price when so many are leadfoots...
In Europe young drivers get trained on "eco friendly" driving and that's part of the test too. We won't see that in NZ so soon.
The airport seems to be making more noise lately, and the speedway too.
Don't live at the beach if you don't like the ocean.
If you're not part of the solution...
Cameron Bagrie on TV this morning? Hit every nail right on the head.
I don’t watch tv apart from Sky Sport.
What did he say?
Independent economist Cameron Bagrie told AM on Wednesday there was no need for a flood tax.
"To me, it misses the big picture… what is highlighted is the failings across the infrastructure across New Zealand - so let's start to think about the 10, the 20, the 30-year picture on top of what we need to do in the near-term in regard to Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, etc," he said.
"There are three basic funding mechanisms the Government's got; one is tax rates… the second thing is the allocation of spending… and the third thing is, of course, debt. What's a comfortable level of debt going forward should we be debt-funding this?"
Failure of infrastructure..........maybe.
How about failure of the farming and forestry companies to manage the land.
Why the heck should we spend billions for the failures of these groups!
Time to change the narrative, the vested interest groups are in control here.
From the surrounded Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China:
China has to be careful not to become Russia.
China's game was traditionally "we're China, we're awesome" and they tried playing to that.
Russia's angle is "West is decadent and corrupt, look how bad West is" as a diversionary gaslight tactic.
The TLDR is you don't want too many pointy finger states out there.
This would have been a better comment if you had done the accents!
"We China! We awesome"
"De Vest is decadent and corrupt, just look how bad ze Vest is"
Also I agree, China has to be very careful as it grows and becomes more powerful. Supporting Russia militarily would be a huge mistake, I doubt they will do so. Buying their fuel etc though will be how they support them, along with India, of the major powers.
Can you believe it? Flippers in this market?
Developers snapped up the two most popular properties auctioned at Ray White Manukau on Tuesday, but there was also strong interest from people wanting to renovate and flip them.
They must have bought one of those online courses..
Reading the news today I see a couple of people have been let off without conviction for quite serious crimes by judges. In other news criminals are stealing crucial safety equipment from Piha lifeguard club rooms.
I see also that:
El Salvador has halved its homicide rate.
Perhaps we could learn lessons from El Salvador?
Looters should be remanded in custody. . Why has a journalist not asked the question or an MP not suggested it?
I think Seymour suggested calling in the military to support police (which I recall happening in Christchurch after the quakes, I remember mum doing some baking and giving it to some army lads down the road from us) but I don't know if anybody has suggested remanding in custody.
Chippy says there isn't a problem so who are we to question that anyway.
Using military against your own popn is a legal issue (remember the Napier shooter and they couldn't use an army bullet proof vehicle). And the law is there for a very good reason. Slippery slope when you set military on your own people.
But not a slippery slope when you're a decimated population trying to cope during a national emergency and facing essential supplies and infrastructure getting pinched?
The 'slippery slope' stuff works both ways.
That's how creep occurs. Bring in change, be it tax, loss of 'right's, more bureaucracy behind the 'crisis'.
This is a flood..a big one, but something but we have a Police to handle.
Our Police force is one of the best in the world. Give then the tools and they will handle it.
Remanding without bail would be a god start.
I think you will find there is a shortage of remand space, and judicial spine.
Is there space to house them and spare cops to watch over them?
Possibly they're low priority.
You wont need much space if the message gets out that you are going to be sitting around on remand for the next 12 - 18 months.
Waiouru military camp with some barbed wire thrown up and some tents. Job done. Make it bloody miserable.
.
and they probably don't use kid gloves on the prisoners either to keep order.
As the RB MPC slinks back today from its extended summer holiday don't forget the billions of dollars of taxpayers' money they lost, to no useful end, thru the LSAP programme. As ever, money rashly wasted can't be used later for more pressing calls - eg flood repairs etc. Link
This is what they're going to be doing at the Fed for decades just like Japan has already, and we're stuck paying for all this fiction. https://youtube.com/watch?v=dTeQYC Link
Things do not go to shut in a straight line
Don't rush to judgement
Remember the time between action and effect
Wishful thinking will not prevent recession
Which will be clear by May, and not just in NZ
sell NZ to China for $5million trillion the give everybody in NZ a trillon bucka and boom! We are all happy!...
or are we...
Yikes NZDX50 down already 0.70%
Heaps of scope to raise the OCR 1%?
"Secret mortgage war: BNZ offers 4.99% one-year rate"
I remember someone commented on here the other day about being offered that rate by a broker and everyone pooh-poohed them for being a spruiker and making things up. In my view, it gives the opposite impression about what is in store for the market...
Could be. But the last thing the RBNZ needs to do right now is add fuel to the smouldering property market and set it on fire.
But they get to decide who gets it, right? I'm still holding the position the banks are fighting for the higher quality mortgages - those with low balances and plenty of equity. No one wants to be left holding onto bad debts when the client has the option to never pay it back via bankruptcy - those will cost the banks money eventually..
Agreed.
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