Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news China is struggling to attract new foreign direct investment.
But first, American new housing starts were expected to be a bit soft in June, but they fell more than expected, down -8.0% from May and down -15.3% below the June 2022 level. It was weak all round with single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, dropped by -7.0% and starts for multi-unit homebuilding went down by -11.6%. Building consent levels retraced too.
But there was a minor uptick in new mortgage applications last week, up +1.0% from a week earlier, but they are still -21% lower than year ago levels. Perhaps the weekly gain related to the fall-back in the benchmark mortgage interest rate which spiked to over 7% the week before last but fell back to levels it has broadly been at since early June.
China confirmed that its foreign direct investment fell in the six months to June by -2.7%. The rise in June from May was only +US$13.7 bln, the lowest increment since the pandemic for that period.
That continuing weakness underscores the overall lackluster direction of their economy. Yesterday they had to issue a pledge to improve conditions for private businesses in an attempt to reassure the business sector they are serious about finding ways to rekindle their economic momentum. It is going to take more that Beijing talk however. Its recent moves to limit access to data, court documents, and academic journals has cast a pall over how investors assess the world's second largest economy. Also toxic have been raids on industry networks that serve business knowledge also in the name of 'national security'. None of this enhances investor confidence, and so it should be no surprise foreign direct investment is languishing.
In the EU, their consumer price inflation rate was confirmed at 5.5% in June, the lowest level since January 2022, mainly due to the decline in energy prices. However, the core rate, which excludes volatile food and energy, picked up to 5.5%. But any way you look at this it is far lower than the ~9% rate of a year ago. Meanwhile in the UK, their CPI inflation rate fell to 7.9% in June from 8.7% in May (and 9.4% a year ago). They may not be making the progress that their EU neighbours are, but markets cheered the direction anyway. Their core rate is now down to 6.9%. (Remember, yesterday New Zealand recorded its June CPI rate at 6.0% and its comparative "core" (less food and energy) rate at 6.1%.)
The UST 10yr yield will start today at 3.75% and down -5 bps from this time yesterday. Their key 2-10 yield curve inversion is deeper at -101 bps. Their 1-5 curve is slightly more inverted at -135 bps. And their 3 mth-10yr curve is also deeper at -154 bps. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 3.91% and down -3 bps from yesterday. The China 10 year bond rate little-changed at 2.68%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +2 bps from yesterday to 4.56%.
Wholesale markets are building back a chance of another RBNZ OCR rate hike by the end of 2023, now a 50/50 chance in the latest pricing.
Wall Street in its Wednesday trading with the S&P500 is up +0.3%. Eyes are on the upcoming Tesla results. Overnight European markets were very mixed. London roared, up +1.8% on their CPI data. But at the other end of the scale, Frankfurt ended down -0.1%. Yesterday Tokyo ended its Wednesday session up +1.2%. Although Hong Kong fell a sharply at its open it clawed back most of the losses to end down only -0.3%. Shanghai ended little-changed The ASX200 ended up +0.6% and the NZX50 ended little-changed, up +0.1%.
The price of gold will start today at US$1978/oz and up +US$3 from yesterday.
And oil prices are little-changed from this time yesterday at just under US$75.50/bbl in the US. The international Brent price is still just under US$79.50/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar starts today down -¼c from yesterday at just under 62.5 USc. Against the Aussie we are little-changed at 92.3 AUc. Against the euro we are still at 55.9 euro cents. That all means the TWI-5 has stayed down at 70.0, unchanged from yesterday.
The bitcoin price is still in in its recent yoyo pattern and now is at US$30,057 and up +0.8% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has also been low at just over +/- 0.8%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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The Russian government has repeatedly accused the UN and the Ukrainians of refusing to honour the reciprocal export provisions of the food export initiative, so that Russian grain and fertilizers will not be blocked in the European ports, or at sea where vessels carrying the Russian cargoes have been denied Anglo-American insurance. The UN publications, statements and press releases published by Guterres’s staff have reported the full 26-paragraph text of the grain agreement; they have omitted the text of the fertilizer agreement. The combination of the two makes the difference between the grain deal and the real deal: for the Russians the latter was the precondition for their agreement to the former.
Guterres’s office has acknowledged that the real deal was more than the grain deal, and that compliance also required the US, the UK and the European Union (EU) states to lift the sanctions they have imposed on Russian shipping, port access, vessel insurance, and commodity exports. “An agreement was also reached with the Russian Federation,” Guterres’s press office announced on July 22, 2022, “on the scope of engagement of the United Nations to facilitate the unimpeded exports to world markets of Russian food and fertilizer – including the raw materials required to produce fertilizers. This agreement is based on the principle that measures imposed on the Russian Federation do not apply to these products. Simultaneously, the Russian Federation has committed to facilitate the unimpeded export of food, sunflower oil and fertilizers from Ukrainian controlled Black Sea ports.”
Of the 43 releases which have followed from Guterres’s office since last July, not a single statement, press release, report, or update identifies the terms of agreement on Russian grain and fertilizer exports, or acknowledges Russian protests against Ukrainian, UN, EU, and US non-compliance. Link
The heatwave is reportedly killing crops across the US and expected to weigh down significantly on olive oil supply in Spain (world's largest producer) this year.
Much like the gas situation following the Russian invasion, Western countries will secure their food supplies by displacing poorer nations from being able to feed their populations.
War zone in downtown Auckland this morning. Shots fired. Never seen so many cop cars rushing down the motorway.
Things have changed a lot. In the eighties we often took our rifles to work on a Friday in preparation for a weekend hunting trip.
Sounds like someone's "gone postal".
I blame high carbohydrate diets.
Yesterday my trip to Rotorua was delayed by an hour because a pedestrian ran in front of a truck at 3:45am. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a suicide. At that time of the morning you would ordinarily be able to avoid being hit while crossing the motorway on foot.
Agreed. Many people are just scraping by (or actually no longer scraping by, just that they haven't fully run out of momentum yet). Go to Pak N Save and look at the faces of people putting food back because it's out of their budget, or people still putting $20 in their car at the pump but getting less fuel - it's little wonder why so many are so stressed.
It's a finance website and not a psychology forum, but I feel it's a combo of PTSD, and the cognitive ramifications for society being suddenly confronted by it's own fragility.
Possibly goes some part into explaining the resilience of markets though, ultimately most people want life as it was, so if everyone acts the same way, they presume eventually it'll return to normal.
But normal has left the building.
"It's a finance website and not a psychology forum"
I respectfully disagree with this view. Finance and psychology go hand in hand in my opinion. e.g. markets are driven by fear and greed - both of which are psychological conditions.
It is impossible to know if you are making rational financial decisions if you are unconscious to your own and others psychosis/irrationality.
This has been a theme of my posts on here for the past 5+ years - that a large part of our society was no longer rational - i.e. we were suffering from a collective delusion/mental irrationality. And these psychological issues, were causing people to act irrationally when making financial decisions (excessive fear/greed).
If society has become irrational, there is a good chance our financial markets have also. So if people keep saying that society is sick, there is a good chance that our financial markets are the same.
This will only force more consumers into changing their purchasing behaviours in the longer run and lead to poorer physical and mental health outcomes in the long run.
The looming heatwave is threatening crop yields across the world, particularly for fruits and veggies. One way or another, this will result in higher bills for Kiwis at the checkout despite being a surplus food producing nation.
I make it a 28% increase in minimum wage since 2018 vs 20% inflation for the lower quintile (based on March data). Over the last two years, the minimum wage failed to keep up with lower quintile inflation by 0.2% and 0.9%.
I suspect in percentage terms, things are worse for middle income earners, but obviously they have a lot more fat to trim from their budgets. This is pretty intuitive when you consider mortgage interest rates have increased so dramatically, which is only a problem for those rich enough to buy a house.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/household-living-costs-p…
Because the minimum wage increases are based on inflation that has already happened. By the time it goes up, you're months behind the 8 ball. Meanwhile, inflation keeps marching on.
This is what people don't get about salary increases. It's a square-up, then you go backwards until your next one, and if you're lucky, you get square on the 12 months of purchasing power you've already lost.
If you don't get squared up, you've just locked in the amount your pay is already backwards by. It's a relentless devaluation of labour and people's time and it's criminal we are so relaxed about it being 100% above the top end of the agreed window.
Because the official measure of inflation is a crock of $hit, at least when it comes to its effects on those on lower incomes or with tighter household budgets.
Those in min. wage and/or benefits are going to spending an outsized proportion of their incomes on the necessities of life - food, transport, housing ... these are increasing in price (particularly food) at far higher than the overall inflation rate. Weren't fruit and vege prices up something like 15% YoY in the last release?
In other words, inflation overall might be 6% and maybe your min wage or benefit has gone up more than that BUT if you are spending all your income on filling the trolley, filling the car and lining the landlord bank's pocket to put a roof over your head, you won't be feeling that you are ahead of inflation because you won't be in a position to buy any of the stuff that has possibly come down in price or not risen so quickly, which is typically the 'nice to haves'.
Sure, you can go out and score a 75" 4k OLED TV for less than ever, or you can pick up a cheap laptop from PB Tech, or you can buy five pairs of jeans for $50 from Hallensteins, but that's only helpful if you have spare cash left over after paying for the actually important, critical-to-existing stuff first.
As others have commented, there is also the effect of needing basically compounding wage/benefit increases to keep up with inflation as well.
Rent only wet up 4% this year, so if that is half your expenses and you got a 7% inflationary increase in income you actually have a 10% increase in your income after rent.
When it comes to food the CPI basket is forced to buy things that are currently expensive while we can shop around. We may not buy tomatoes or cheese this month but the CPI basket doesn't get that choice. While the food CPI would average out correctly over time, it is subject to temporary supply shocks that consumers may not be.
Housing / rents are obviously a big issue, but that has been the case for a long time, nothing to do with this inflation. In fact inflation is making both cheaper. I would argue the real cause of poverty and inequality is decades of house price increases (effectively caused by low inflation) not one year of high inflation.
Your point here is unpopular but true - inflation has been lower for low income groups, this time. This is not always the case. Average inflation between March 22 and 23:
- all households was 7.7 percent
- beneficiary was 6.7 percent
- Māori was 7.5 percent
- superannuitant was 7.1 percent
- highest-spending households was 8.7 percent
- lowest-spending households was 6.9 percent.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/cost-of-living-remains-high-for-all-hous…
You can shop around if you have the time, or the fuel to go somewhere else. If you're working two jobs, that is going to be harder. And in many cases, I've seen fruit and vege stores be more expensive than supermarket goods. Multiple trips, more time, how much is the actual saving there? I'd argue that consumers ability to shop around cost increases is drastically overstated.
The cause of poverty is the devaluation of labour, both through increases in expenses like housing, but also by never allowing labour markets to reach equilibrium with huge migration-driven population growth - and businesses who do not have a regular culture of pay reviews with the view of being competitive, as opposed to just paying what they think people can get away with and acting shocked when they leave.
Yup - I am in my early 30s and am dead serious when I say that owning a house, having children and putting healthy food on the table are now considered luxuries in NZ among my peers. A few in my network migrated from Eastern Europe are starting to doubt whether they have traded up in life by moving here.
That Eastern Europe comment struck a chord. My other half came home last night and told me how one of her Ukrainian friends was crying yesterday, lamenting life here, the high cost of living and the fact that she really cannot do anything other than survive. She knows she is better off here at the moment but as soon as the war is over, she says she will move back to Ukraine.
It’s not just here.As posted before, not so long back from our old neighbourhood in USA, blue collar semi rural.Twenty three years ago, a community of patience, tolerance and good humour. No so now.All hardened up and if not quite fearful, folk are nevertheless very wary and alert to the meth/opiate fuelled crime that is spilling out on the streets, and in their houses. We were told that one of these crazed individuals will quite easily shoot you dead if it means removal of witness and a better chance of getting away. Actually scary. Sadly we probably won’t be back there again.
Quite sad really and difficult to understand how this turns around in NZ never mind the world. We live in a wealthy (lucky) country in a great part of the world but still cannot be civil to each other
The quality of leadership is to me a big part of the problem but the only one?
Inequality is touted as a cause - a component sure but doesnt appear to be a key driver
"Inequality is touted as a cause - a component sure but doesnt appear to be a key driver"
Inequality is the key driver. Inequality erodes the social contract, each step along that path leads to anarchy as an effect and authoritarianism as a solution.
Until a good centre right party starts talking about redistributing wealth and opportunities more evenly across society instead of focusing on protecting and entrenching wealth in the already wealthy we will not see much change.
Plenty of middle class people out there copping it in all directions who don't resort to petty or violent crime. Relentless flogging those who do their best to follow rules and get by and being soft on people who can just basically do what they want is what erodes the social contract.
Pretty hard to feel good about 50 - 60 hour weeks to keep your family safe, warm and housed if people are able to live comfortably without meaningfully contributing to society or even bother raising their own kids.
I'd rather my tax went towards ensuring a kid whose parents are drop-kicks gets a decent shot of making something of themselves by providing the kid with basic human necessities like a dry home, food and access to education.
The alternative is the kid never has a chance and becomes a drop-kick too and then we have an ever increasing proportion of drop-kicks compared to people like you.
It may piss me off that a drop kick gets to sit around being a bum when I have to work but that is the price I am willing to pay to live in a functioning society.
Or people looking at society, feeling they have no place in it and they actually have nothing left to lose?
Whatever the real reasons are, we are well set on whatever path has gotten us to this stage.
And all I've heard so far from the major political parties leading up to the election doesn't convince me we're about to change direction any time soon.
Your tax dollars aren't going to that. They're going into telling you that they're going into that, and making it seem like not collecting that tax would make a difference. Well collecting it isn't leading to better frontline outcomes, and letting me have that tax back would mean I could at least put it into safely housing and feeding a family - namely mine.
Number of families fed and house your way: 0
Number of families fed and housed my way: 1.
I disagree.
Wehn you say collecting tax isn't leading to better frontline outcomes I would agree, but that is because the frontline needs are increasing and tax take isn't rising to cover them.
1 - Demographics. Loads of old people and more of them every year as a proportion of the population, not working or paying tax who have increasingly expensive needs.
2 - Increasing global resource and energy scarcity which makes providing those frontline services more expensive
3 - Rich people hogging more of the limited human and physical resources we have (e.g. multiple properties, lots of overseas holidays, multiple luxury vehicles, and think about the medical and dental professionals spending time on cosmetic enhancements instead of life-saving, health improving outcomes)
That is what is hitting frontline outcomes.
Anyway are you actually struggling? I don't think you were actually struggling, didn't you just buy a house? Maybe you paid too much and now you're feeling the pinch. I'm talking about kids who go to school hungry because there is no food on the table.
Tax is rising. People are getting to keep less and less of the pay bumps they get to keep up with living costs. There's just no one there to bail them out as things get tighter and tighter, and they don't start committing violent acts against other members of the public, so the assumption is they're 'comfortable'. The government is getting more and more revenue through higher income tax takes and more GST. How much more tax does the government need to collect? The government tax take is already at 30% of GDP and the workers they won't give indexing too have other living cost pressure too. How many of them are turning to violent crime?
As far as 'demographics' go, there's plenty of people who could be working but choose not to. I think you're missing a big factor here in that our systems actually dissuade people from getting up and working to better their lot - after 40 hours + a week, you're not making that much more than you were on a benefit , once you take tax and abatements into account. Hell, you've worked 40 hours, you've commuted probably 20 more, you've paid $300+ for daycare... are you any better off? For many the answer would be no. So, why would you work? Then kids don't see any working adults or have that as a role model and it becomes something that isn't normalised to them. Someone else picks up the tab, so why should they try?
As for trying to drag my personal circumstances into it - it doesn't seem to have stopped me from actually having an understanding of the issue that isn't just tired, played-out talking points that don't hold up to reality. There's plenty of actual, baked-in problems like the above you can address. Wildly, I don't need your permission to comment on those.
I'm sorry, your personal circumstances are not relevant, it was childish and petty. I apologise.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the tax take. I believe that as a country we are going to be moving towards a situation where there is less wealth to go around in absolute terms and that means that the tax take has to be higher to ensure that what little is left gets more evenly distributed to meet basic needs.
And I'm not a communist or a lefty. I understand that for a centre right leaning society to thrive the playing field has to be somewhat levelled or we will not be rewarding talent and meritocracy we'll continue towards wealth entrenchment along family lines and oligarchy
I agree, but how do you achieve that? Give more money to their drop-kick parents and hope it trickles down to the kids?
Schools are a good option, but that has already mostly been done, free breakfasts and lunches etc. Maybe the schools should look after them for more of the day? The schools could do better at teaching ambition, saving, etc rather then just the core subjects. Maybe economics should be taught at primary and compulsary in secondary.
That would be great, but my response to this is the same as it is to boomers who complain that schools "don't teach anything useful and should teach kids about tax or how to start a business" which is that more and more kids coming out of school can't read, write or understand basic maths. It's not that we're teaching too much of the wrong stuff, it's that we can't teach them the things that actually matter.
Normalised, as usual, under the premise that doing things any differently in education could be somehow worse, so best to just watch things get worse and worse and never question it.
You raise enough taxes to ensure you can provide families with access to a dry and healthy house.
You raise enough taxes to ensure you can provide decent teacher pay and conditions to attract good teachers to the profession.
You raise enough taxes to ensure you can provide a free health and dental service.
https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/revenue…
We already pay enough to do all of those things. There's just no political incentive to do so because people will always think it's an issue of how much money you have to spend and not what you spend it on. If you chosen party hasn't made those things happen, it's not because there's not enough money. It's because they don't actually think it's important enough to actually do. Stop believing otherwise.
The government could collect 100% of people's incomes and it would still find a way to stuff up delivering the very basics. Collecting more revenue won't make incompetent people suddenly competent. But it is a very convenient vehicle for class envy because you'll always have someone you think should be dragged down a bunch and there'll always be an excuse for why you can't make it happen.
I grew up in an average uninsulated house, it didn't make me a criminal. I'm happy that houses are being insulated and improved but it won't decrease crime.
Decent teacher pay and conditions may help. But I think these kids are part of the bad teaching conditions!
We already have free health, I doubt free dental will reduce crime.
Its the attitudes they learn from their parents that is the problem. Money wont fix it - unless that money takes the kids away from those parents.
Inequality creates need, both perceived and real, and if the only way on offer of getting something, is taking it off someone who has got it, then that in turn generates the crime. Been like that since before recorded time. Legends have been created, Dick Turpin, Jesse James, Ned Kelly. They were all robbers and killers. Trouble is that type of need and the resultant crime has proliferated through society and now has its roots in the very young who get to see it as the way life is and the only way it will be for them.
This article is from 9 months ago and didn't capture too many headlines here - $62B clean energy plan to make QLD renewable energy capital - Energy Magazine. The investment is now in kicking into full throttle.
Clearly, governments at various levels across the ditch are attempting to re-industrialise their economy. There is no concerted effort coming out of the Beehive to increase productivity in NZ, worse with the Opposition promising to scrap the few good things going for us.
The senior leadership at my workplace are running scared of the skill exodus such divergence in economic strategy could cause here.
I think the softness on crime over many generations is to blame. Petty crimes are basically just allowed, get burgled and the police don't have time to care, if you are convicted you get a huge discount because of your upbringing. The petty criminals end up doing more and more and getting in with the wrong crowds and drugs. Compare to most of Asia where the vast majority don't dare to break the law.
I'm a fairly progressive person but I'm also not stupid enough to know when something isn't working...
And its not just the deterrent aspect. The rotten apples are out in society doing crimes and convincing others to do the same, instead of being behind bars where they can't. It might not be their fault (bad upbringing etc), but is it best for society that they aren't out doing crime and making more children who will be the next lot of criminals.
How do you explain the low crime levels in say Japan?
Regardless it is much harder to commit a crime if you are behind bars. How many crimes are committed by career criminals? I'm happy to give people a second or third chance, but the current system gives them almost infinite chances.
An effective policing system, and a homogenous population with a remarkably strong culture of social harmony, observation of heirachy, and avoidance of conflict?
Google provides a number of articles and studies of the various theories on the point, none of which seem to point to sentencing as being a significant factor ... https://www.newthinking.com/culture/why-japan-is-one-of-the-worlds-safe….
The $150k is an investment. Every year they are out they would cause millions of damage in ram raids, robberies, breeding more problem kids, or even murder: "the shooter was (not) sentenced in March on charges of injuring with intent to injure, wilful damage, male assaults female and impeding breathing".
And how's the status quo working out for us? Prison isn't just about punishment, it's about keeping the general public safe from people who can't function in society without endangering others.
At some point, the public's right to exist safely trumps the hypothetical chance that someone after a magical number of crimes, might not be a threat to them.
The blokes locked up in prison aren't out there committing crimes against the general population, which is the bit you seem to fail to get your head around. Law abiding people have a right to go about their business without having good reason to fear for their safety.
They shouldn't be considered collateral damage because people want to feel bad about locking up people for actively committing crimes that put others at risk. We can both agree that prisons aren't really working for actual rehabilitation, but there's generally a good reason people who pose a risk to the public should be locked up.
Actually IT IS the fear of punishment that stops crime, its just that we choose to measure the negative impact of prison on the people that have commited crime (tends to make them worse).
For kids (and adults) who are engaged with society - with good upbringing and socially engaged, there is an element of shame and loss of standing associated with being found guilty (or even suspected of) a crime. Thus people will do anything to avoid it.
For some people who grow up in - or associate in - the wrong circles (gangs, delinquent families etc) there is no shame in the outcome, and in fact i reckon its seen as a valid way to 'get ahead'.
removing or reducing the consequences is not the answer. We need rewards and consequences to maintain society. We also need to dismantle the parts of society where it is not looked down on where people break the rules and commit a crime or a injustice against their fellow citizens
Even in other parts of southeast Asia you don't have the rampant thuggery. If you were to drive through a road block or get caught breaking into a store your most likely get shot and for sure they will rough you up. When you watch the news, sometimes the reporter will ask why we're the perpetrators shot? The police simply say they were robbing the store and had weapons. There is no "they had a bad child hood" line. I really don't believe you about the punishment and prison doesn't work as Singapore is so safe. They have the population of NZ in such a small space. If you placed all us kiwi there with our current laws and ideals we would quickly descend into a mad Max movie.
I'd agree with this. Huge amounts of intervention needed all the way from school-levels to addiction therapy for adults, but it's going to be a total waste of time if there's never any incentive for people to clean up their act and the Courts are prepared to discount sentences by 80% in some cases.
Hyper-partisan opposition to doing things differently but never being prepared to adequately fund the current services and programmes to the extent they actually work is an approach that has failed. We have decades worth of evidence that this approach is producing crappy outcomes, but people defend on the basis that any other hypothetical alternative could be worse.
Oh cool, better not punish literally any crime until all adversity in the world is totally eliminated. To hell with the people seriously hurt or victims of crime along the way, right?
Much easier to just find some higher-level societal excuse for why people act like dickheads over and over again and put the public at risk rather than just accept that maybe head-pats aren't the answer to hardened offenders.
Get over it. The response to serious crime is not yet another university common room debate about the class war. I'm sure the meth addict standing at the foot of your bed with a knife at 3am will definitely care about how much you think it isn't his fault and he's the real victim here.
China over the last decades has increased overall citizen wealth more than any country in the history of the world, of a low base obviously but it is near miraculous. Things have been getting consistently better for the average Chinese person over the last decades. This hides/lessens the consequences of inequality, if you're getting much wealthier then you are more willing to accept other getting even wealthier than you.
We're entering a period of scarcity where we can't all get richer as energy and resources are being depleted. As people's situation stops improving they are less willing to accept others who have massive amounts of wealth. Hence Xi's recent comments on this. The Chinese ruling party know increasing inequality is the biggest danger they face.
Surely its because the Chinese poor aspire to be rich and work hard to get there. Our poor can get by with government handouts, there is little incentive to improve themselves, you can do no work at all in NZ and have a big gut from overeating, a state house, and a bit of piss money left over. Not saying I want to change to the Chinese model, but I don't believe our crime is a result of poverty or inequality, its just a bad parenting trap.
This inequality being the main driver of crime is total claptrap, in my opinion. I lived and worked in Thailand for many years, the country with the highest inequality in the world. Despite that, Thailand absolutely does not have the sort of crime we see in New Zealand these days.
https://ocindex.net/country/new_zealand/vietnam
Actual data would suggest your lived anecdata might not be quite correct
Looks like a very unpleasant situation. I was actually meant to be down across the road to Britomart this morning, but the client I was travelling to see called me up at late notice last night saying they were unwell and could we postpone so I cancelled my flight - I was a bit miffed at the time (as had done a lot of prep work for this session) but not so any more.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/300931378/live-multiple-shots-fired-as…
Two guys with shotguns at this stage. "A worker who was in the construction building said two men with shotguns came in at about 7:20am."
Edit: looking like just one at this stage instead.
We do need more gun rights. The new gun register just started by why you have years to register your guns on it is beyond me. The Cops need to start raiding places and checking for guns. If you are a known criminal you should get raided once in a while. WTF you say ? Well I have to have a gun audit and a visit from the firearms office now once a year so how come suspect illegal owners with criminal records get away scott free and then cause problems for licenced owners like me ? Its like letting drunk drivers just carry on and the cops paying YOU a visit and taking away your car.
Or do we need fewer car rights? When I got my driver licence, my grandfather said to me "So now you have a licence to kill - cars are deadly weapons."
If we treated driver licences like firearms licences:
- Police would inspect storage to ensure the car couldn't be stolen easily
- Cars would need to have immobilisers anytime they are out of storage (bye bye ram raids?)
- A licence may not be issued if there are people with access to the car (e.g. living with you) who are of uncertain/bad character
- To get a licence would require police interviews with two character referees, your GP, and background checks including substance/alcohol abuse, mental health issues. Any red flags would likely result in the non-issue of a licence
- Proof of bad character or unsafe/reckless use of a car would result in the withdrawal of the licence, potentially permanently.
The analogy can be taken further. The rules for safe firearms use, with minor modifications, could apply to cars, mostly:
- Treat every car as if it were dangerous
- Point your car in a safe direction at all times
- Check in front of your car before driving
- Avoid use of drugs and alcohol while driving
- Store/park cars safely.
No different to people who have a phobia of flying, when it is much safer than travelling by car.
Perhaps it's a control thing.
When you drive - even on crappy NZ roads with terrible driving from many and lots of unsafe vehicles - you are still 'in control'. On the other hand if you're on a plane and the plane starts tumbling from the sky there's nothing you can do. Same if someone shows up to work and starts blasting with the sawn off - it's out of your control (short of your ability to run away or hide)
Will depend on whether he obtained the firearm legally or illegally ... the fact he was on EMB suggests the latter.
I have no interest in guns, I've never owned one, couldn't tell you how to load one or shoot one - I wouldn't actually care if firearms were made completely illegal in NZ - BUT in some respects if it transpires that the shooter used a firearm he shouldn't have legally had, then that plays into ACT's position rather than taking away from it.
Has Western Democracy Now Failed?
Keir Starmer’s determination to use his refusal to alleviate child poverty as the issue with which to demonstrate his macho Thatcherite credentials, has provided one of those moments when blurred perceptions crystallise.
A Labour government in the UK under Starmer will bring no significant changes in economic or foreign policy and will make no difference whatsoever to the lives of working class people.
If dividends were taxed at the same rate as wages, that alone would bring in very many times the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap. But that would hurt the owners of capital and be redistributive, so it is firmly off Starmer’s agenda.
Starmer, Reeves and Streeting have no intention of attempting to bridge society’s stunning and ever-growing wealth gap.
Rather they seek to emphasise “wealth creation” and return to trickledown theory. Alongside “wealth creation” they talk of “reform”, by which they mean more deregulation and more private, for profit provision of public services.
Well, what does a post-industrial society mean? It meant a society without blue collar labor, really, service labor, which happened to be a society without labor unions. And the promise was that a post-industrial society was going to make everybody richer, and you’d have easier working conditions, and shorter working days, and productivity would rise, and everybody would have an easier, more prosperous life.
Well, that hasn’t happened, so the question is: Why did the United States decide to de-industrialize? And I think it was done as a combination between two parties. You had the Democrats with a pro-financial anti-labor policy, and the Republicans with a pro-financial, pro-landlord, pro-1% policy, wanting tax cuts; and the real objective of de-industrialization from Clinton on, was an anti-labor policy, because de-industrialization meant essentially lowering employment, and thereby lowering the demand for labor, and lowering the wages. And the question that everyone was asking from 1980 on was, why were wages having to be reduced, and why are wages lower right now? Well, for years, American dominance, as an industrial power in the late 19th century, was a result of low wages, as a result of low housing costs, low debt, free education, public services, and this had created a very prosperous US economy, from right after the Civil War, down through Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Really good article. The same applies to much of the Anglosphere who were quick to drop their industrial sectors on the promise of high-paid service jobs. Turns out the bulk of the service jobs that were created aren't high-paid and are more manually intensive (less knowledge) than those blue-collar jobs we offshored.
There are articles doing round on NZ's poor productivity outcomes where experts have concluded that the solution is for the government to introduce policies to encourage value-added manufacturing.
Good luck achieving that without the availability of skills, capital or knowledge in NZ to support high-value manufacturing.
Not sure Govt's can be "blamed" though - individuals are responsible
We buy stuff made in Asia because its cheaper and/or better quality
NZ Govt use to protect NZ manufacturers with import controls and tariffs which resulted in inferior over priced goods and was ultimately a failure - and the biggest impact was on the lower income "blue collar" workers
The govt's failure is lack of focus on quality education, education and more education
Protectionism in manufacturing is always a bad idea, especially in NZ's context where the only jobs those policies protected were mundane assembly ones while the higher-paying jobs associated with R&D, product design and tooling were all offshore.
What doesn't help either is our lopsided tax system that taxes productive efforts harder than speculation. We didn't have an R&D tax incentive regime until 2018 and is still considered poorly designed by higher value sectors.
You're right about education - the entire sector is facing funding and quality crises right from ECE to universities and polytechnics. We're one of the worst in the OECD at training our young in technology and engineering domains (9% of all high school grads compared to 24% in Germany).
Absolutely the opposite. Protectionism is how the British, Americans and Germans industrialised by significant protectionism towards their manufacturing base in its nascent and early stages. They only relieved protectionist relief in the form of tariffs after the industries had significantly developed. It is also how China industrialised recently.
Tax land, property and wealth heavily, do not tax productive wealth generation. Very simple, the contemporary astrology of economics completely lies about how the economy really worked historically.
So our government should engage in strategic protectionism in manufacturing industries where we could have systematic and natural advantages such as:
- Shoemaking/shoes (derivative of the meat/leather industry)
- Leather derived industries (bags, wallets etc)
- Wine/Alcohol/Spirits
- Wool based manufacturing (clothes, insulation etc)
- Timber derived industries (turning time into lumber, papermaking etc)
Give it 20 years to build some local businesses.
Advisor's post above included the insight that is quite striking. ".....Turns out the bulk of the service jobs that were created aren't high-paid and are more manually intensive (less knowledge) than those blue-collar jobs we offshored....."
The drive has been to the generic jobs rather than the skilled. We are the poorer for it.
Yes it is a really good article. And the answer for the US and NZ I would suggest is yes we can re-industrialise. But it will take time. One of the early steps though is that the parasitic parts of the economy must be properly restrained (i.e. social housing). But I suggest a significant lesson from COVID is the need for national resilience, and reliance on a globalisation principle does not deliver that. We need to build a manufacturing capacity to provide the essentials we need for a successful functioning economy, and that means we also need to build the skills base, promote and support innovation while protecting what we have and develop. A secondary effect of this will be to create the opportunities that build the economy and ultimately reduce crime and all its effects and consequences.
But this is big. Some trade agreements seek to limit what we can achieve in this, and we should perhaps roll those back for re-negotiation or just dump them. We also need to have a balanced view and approach to climate change, and a firm understanding of where we sit in this. Virtue signalling does nothing for the country, but costs dearly.
"We need to build a manufacturing capacity to provide the essentials we need for a successful functioning economy"
Depends what you define as essential. It is also impractical for NZ to manufacture all for it's essential needs (i.e. specialised medical technology to name just one). We do not have enough skilled people to design and run the manufacturing process and never would.
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