A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Monday; big banks move retail rates, terms of trade worsen, many auctions but low sales, water situation good, swaps on hold, NZD stable, & more

There are a lot of people around that are in limbo. The stress from the inability to move on is pretty tough.

Someone mentioned over the weekend that expensive houses are piling up. That is my experience too. Lots of >$3m houses that look like a maintenance nightmare. The older generation that need to downsize are going to be in for a bit of a surprise over the next 5 years.

And the market about to get flooded with new listings when the Bright line moves from 10 to 2 years. I personally know 2 people waiting to list.

"house and rentals" - not that bad then!

NZ has a crazy wealth distribution and it's entirely due to our treatment of investment property as an asset class over the last 30 years.

If we weren't so "she'll be right cuz", there would be riots.

Yeah there was an article on Bloomberg about that last week. I don't have access to it, but BusinessInsider shows wealth required to be in top 1% in US at US$5.8M (~$9.5M NZD). Monaco is up top, requiring US$12.9M.

He will love these types of socio-economic groupings, partly because he's likely to be a 1%er himself. That's fine. I'm sure his employer has an idea of what he's worth for advertisers. All power to him.

But see his performance when he got to be at the King's coronation. In reality, he was in the cheap seats. Nobody knew or cared who he was. 

I suppose he is desperate to make it, at least we are now all heading that way on this road 

Deteriorating Terms of Trade and falling productivity are a toxic combination for our standard of living.

The China terms of trade boost from 2008ish on is slowly but surely unwinding.

Gareth's podcast with David Mahon in China. David signed off with a bit of a cheer for Fonterror and Zespri going forward. No disrespect to David, but I think he doesn't understand shelf price pressures in China. Fonterra are not something special in China for 'value add' and Zespri has competition and ASEAN for China kiwifruit at price points 30-40% lower. They will struggle to maintain market share. 

Yeah, while vehicle relicencing fees have dropped over the years ($287 for a car in 2012 versus $109 last month) the changes were from ACC levies fluctuating wildly ("We've got a deficit!  No wait, we've got a massive surplus!").  So an increase here is not without merit.  But the rest of it is more uninspired effort by Simeon Brown.  I feel like a family member bought him his electorate seat.

On the other hand, increasing the cost of running a car usually means less cars on the road so there's a win for commute times and emission reduction.

Run those labour= tax tax tax campaign slogans again.

Brown is an absolute idiot, public transport money going to potholes ,ffs.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/transport-announcement-likely-as…

Interesting the timing of when it takes effect.

Asked how increases to registration would ease the cost of living which was another Govt priority, Luxon spoke of how the Auckland regional fuel tax was scrapped before talking about general moves to improve the economy.

Luxon reiterated his commitment not to increase fuel taxes this term but said a 12 per cent increase was planned during the second term once inflation was below 3 per cent.

He didn’t believe a staggered increase this term - like Labour had proposed - was the right approach, saying interest rates would be lower after 2026 and the cost of living will have eased, meaning low-income families had a better ability to absorb an increase in fuel prices.

The National party used to call that "a new tax"

When a government increases a flat tax like rego fees, it's called a regressive tax in that poor people have to use vastly more of their disposable income paying it than the rich.

Typical NACTF. Pack of heartless b'stards.

And it's to pay for fixing potholes?

Remind me again what vehicles do exponentially more damage to our roads? Oh. Right. Heavy goods vehicles!

Once again the lower income kiwis subsidizing the profits of the already rich. Anyone surprised?

Cam Wallace - CEO of Qantas (via Linkedin)

If you’ve flown through Auckland Airport recently, you’d probably agree that it’s in need of a renovation.



But Auckland Airport’s planned renovation is going to cost billions of dollars, which will ultimately be passed on to travellers and will drive up the cost of air travel when there’s already been a lot of upward pressure on fares.



The airport is keen to spend more on the renovation because it means they can charge people more to use it. A lot more.



There’s nothing wrong with Auckland Airport wanting to build something better and legitimately increase its revenue in the process. But that shouldn’t mean building the Taj Mahal and then expecting Kiwis to pay many times more for the privilege to travel through there.



The current system is clearly failing to keep airport over-investment in check. That’s why Qantas and Jetstar (along with other airlines) support the calls for urgent reform. We need better safeguards so that our customers and the broader New Zealand economy don’t pay the price.

Great stuff Wolfie. On the crypto front, if you can domicile in a tax-free jurisdiction, even better. 

Another National party "new tax". So 2 "new taxes" already. 

Your "going against us" is simply the periodic cycles of the volatile uncertain complex & ambiguous world we we live in. The swings & roundabouts of human endeavors have been thus for millenia & will continue infinitely.

Muldoons head in sand blinkered protectionist & socialist response,  on the other hand, was simply putting his arrogant Canute finger in the hole for several years until the entire NZ economic dam overflowed causing much more devastation & than might have been occasioned by a more enlightened and timely response.

What’s his basis for that comment? I mean, everyone knows I am a stock market bear, but I would like to see his rationale