Here's our summary of key economic events over the weekend that affect New Zealand, with news that jobs will be in focus this week.
In the week ahead, all eyes will be on the US Fed's interest rate decision on Wednesday, followed closely by their April labour market report on Saturday (NZT). And that comes after our own local labour market report for March on Wednesday.
The US ISM PMI will come out this week (recalling the internationally benchmarked one has already showed a slowdown). And similar PMIs will come for China, Canada, and South Korea among others. The US JOLTs job openings data, foreign trade figures, factory orders, and Conference Board consumer confidence index are also due this week and any one could be market-moving if it steps out of range. And the US Q1 earnings reporting season reaches its peak this week.
Finally, we will get inflation updated for the EU, South Korea, Switzerland, Indonesia, and Turkey.
But first, a weekend data release showed profits earned by China's industrial firms rose by +4.3% in the first three months of 2024, much slower than a +10.2% jump in the prior period. But they actually fell in the month of March from the same month a year ago, down -3.5% suggesting their economy’s stronger-than-expected growth early this year might be tough to maintain. The latest result underlined that the government has struggled to get a recovery momentum amid a prolonged property downturn, persistently weak domestic demand, and lingering deflation risks. Profits in state-owned companies fell while those in the private sector sharply slowed on the three-month basis they like to use. But it is masking building near-term weakness.
And it is not only the Japanese who have a 'currency problem'. The recent volatility of the yuan, depressed profits and unexpected shifts in external demand are combining to make some Chinese exporters less sure about their business prospects – and more likely to park their cash assets in anything but the yuan. The yuan's value has recovered somewhat since October but exports haven't, and business holders of the CNY are sensing a potential official depreciation is imminent.
Markets are also sensing a new official rate cut is imminent in China, and Chinese government 10 year bond yields dropped sharply on Friday - before recovering just as sharply as officials stepped in.
And staying in China, there are reports that property market sentiment is improving, and that has property-based equities rose sharply on the Hong Kong stock exchange - on Friday, but oddly, not yet on the Shanghai exchange. One to watch.
And in a new stimulatory action, China is offering trade-in subsidies for new car buyers. ICE car owners can get a ¥10,000 subsidy (NZ$2325) to buy a new NEV, or they can get ¥7000 (NZ$1625) for a new ICE car with engines of 2 liters and smaller. The world's largest car market is about to get larger and have its profitability problems 'solved'. But this is bringing louder international calls for action to push back on "Chinese overcapacity'. This issue worries the EU and Japan a lot.
The Bank of Japan kept its policy unchanged on Friday, as expectations mount for central bank action to deter further selling of the embattled yen. From the no-change position the yen has continued to fall, primarily against the USD but even against the NZD. At Friday's 93.8 Yen to the NZD, that is now it's 'lowest' since May 1986, thirty-eight years ago. Against the USD, the yen has sunk to 158 to the USD, its 'lowest' since March 1986. Markets are betting that Tokyo is going to have to intervene very soon. While Japanese exports are suddenly much more competitive, a depreciation like this (-15% in the past year) could bring an inflationary shock with it.
Across the Pacific, the American PCE inflation index came in at 2.7% for the year to March, back to levels they last had in November. It has now risen, modest as it might seem to us, for the past three months. Their 'core' rate has held at 2.8%. The financial market takeaway is that American inflation is uncomfortably sticky and that the Federal Reserve is right to be cautious about signaling a cut in its benchmark policy rates. (Again, it seems the Fed has called this correctly, and market analysts got ahead of themselves.)
The same data shows American consumers spending normally with personal consumption spending +2.7% higher than a year ago while disposable personal incomes were only up +1.4%.
The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.66% and down -1 bp from Saturday. The key 2-10 yield curve inversion is now at -33 bps and little-changed. And their 1-5 curve inversion is similar at -53 bps. Their 3 mth-10yr curve inversion is now at -72 bps and little-changed. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 4.54% and unchanged. The China 10 year bond rate has jumped back sharply to its prior level of 2.34% (with the official manipulator back on the job). The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 5.07% and holding its higher level.
The price of gold will start today a little softer, down -US$3 from this time Saturday at US$2337/oz.
Oil prices are little-changed from Saturday at just on US$83.50/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is now just on US$88/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar starts today marginally softer at just under 59.4 USc. But for last week it rose +½c. Against the Aussie we are softer at 90.9 AUc. Against the euro we are unchanged at 55.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today just under 69.2 and also little-changed from Saturday but up +40 bps for the week.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$63,733 and down -0.5% from this time Saturday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has remained modest at just on +/- 1.2%.
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77 Comments
If USA inflation is sticky then NZ inflation is downright tacky. Our annual household budget is up 11.3%. That is groceries and other household essentials, fuel, power, phones, insurance, rates & sundry. Curled up in that real live disappointments. For instance favoured choc bics for morning coffee are up in price and down in size and ditto for breakfast marmalade. Winter of discontent looming for many NZrs I would suggest.
When I fixed at 6.75% for one year last July I was fairly certain the next time interest rates would be a lot lower. Now it’s almost certainly going to be higher. And I’m not even convinced it will be much lower another year later; we may be lucky to get one or two OCR cuts by then, who knows we may even get an increase.
Yeah
I still think the brown stuff is in the process of hitting the fan, and that will trigger at least one or two OCR cuts by early 2025. But it’s hard to call.
I am just in the process of fixing for one year. I weighed up 18 months but the rate was only very slightly lower than one year.
Housemouse
You would still have been on 2.99% if you hadn't rubbished bank economists as "fools" and predicting that rates would be back to 2 to 3% by last year.
You really need to recognise that bank economists are the ones that set their mortgage rates, and rather than continuing to dismissing them, I strongly recommend that you start to take notice of their comments.
"I weighed up 18 months but the rate was only very slightly lower than one year" is really very shallow and the type of reasoning as to why you have a track record of very poor predictions.
As your response is to call me a liar:
by HouseMouse | 16th Feb 22, 6:19pm
Mortgage rates will be back in the 2-3% range within 2 years.
Cheers :)
Jimbo
Rather than demonstrating a shallow simplistic understanding and spreading misinformation, you would be well advised to actually read and keep abreast of ANZ comments especially the caveats that they place on them.
Latest (March) ANZ Property Focus report:
As we discussed in our latest Property Focus, the outlook for the housing market over the year ahead is very mixed, and therefore very uncertain.
Key macroeconomic drivers are pushing in opposite directions with the unemployment rate expected to rise while fixed mortgage rates have scope to fall. Macroprudential and housing - related government policy changes appear broadly supportive for prices this year.
Meanwhile, rapid population growth is more than outpacing slowing construction activity, meaning New Zealand’s housing deficit is widening.
While that would typically be supportive for prices (all else equal), affordability remains very stretched and will be limiting the upside somewhat.
Overall, there are a lot of moving parts to factor into the outlook, and how they net out could end up being determined by market sentiment (which is very difficult to forecast).
Our forecast is for a modest (3%) rise in house prices over 2024 (similar to the BNZ’s). Today’s data hints at some mild downside risk to that, but it’s perhaps a little too early to call today’s data the beginning of a new and sustained downtrend.
It was last year they were predicting that, despite high interest rates, and it seemed like a very unusual prediction at the time. Yes they may have changed their mind since (as has HouseMouse), but they were still very wrong at that time.
No one can predict the future, if they could they would be very rich and not commenting here or even working for an NZ bank. The whole concept is pointless - if you could reliably predict the future and you told everyone about it, everyone would change their behaviour, the future would become different, and your prediction would be wrong.
Jimbo
As to you query as to having sold my properties. I posted well prior to 2000 that I had sold my rental properties in 2017/18 due to a lifestyle change (retirement and travel). However, a year to six months prior to the market peak I regularly posted that house prices were unsustainable and that my sons who owned properties were selling. I also posted that the then 2.99% rate would not last. I posted copies of these comments about a month ago in response to a query by Planter.
I do not claim to be a clairvoyant or particularly clever. However, I do appreciate that economic forecasting is not an exact science as it is dependent on a number of assumptions and continually changing data, but rather than outright ridiculing and dismissing all bank and other economists, RBNZ MPC, and other media commentators as Housemouse does, I value their experience, qualifications and considerable access to data in coming to decisions.
The comments on this site are undermined by those prolific posters who have over inflated egos and simply outright rubbish and dismiss those we should be taking note of to pamper their egos. Housemouse is the cheerleader of that group.
Why do you come back and troll me time after time? I am no saint, but I gave away taunting you a long time ago.
This website’s comments policy:
‘We certainly don’t want obscene, profane comment or swearing, NOT TAUNTING OR ABUSIVE POSTS.’
Why don’t you play ball?
I will give money to this website again once it takes more action on taunting (aka trolling)
Housemouse
This site "encourages robust debate."
My post was a reasonable response to your post as to your statement on your views as to mortgage rates. You continually make predictions without sound basis while continually outright rubbishing and dismissing all bank and other economists, RBNZ MPC, and media commentators so your comments can be rightly challenged.
I am really concerned at the way you don't like to be challenged and hope you don't behave like this in the office.
Cheers
Rates and insurance are the big kickers in our household.
I particularly enjoy paying even more rates for a special stadium to watch the Crusaders lose in. If I had my way, I'd make all the 'we need a world class stadium' brigade pay personally.
Car insurance has risen massively; we are actually going to go 'third party' on our older run about as comprehensive would be about 40% of the car's value at current pricing.
Food "feels" like it has stayed fairly consistent (in terms of what we buy) recently and even seeing some good deals on fruit and veggies at the local greengrocers e.g. 99c k/g apples.
"I'd make all the 'we need a world class stadium' brigade pay personally" - could have been done I guess. Each household could choose whether they pay the stadium rate and if not they can't use it or have to pay a ticket premium. I bet that would have led to a more sensible cost.
I'd suggest calculating the cost of building and maintaining the stadium over a certain period of time, divide that by expected occupancy, and then that becomes a surcharge on ticket sales.
If watching the Crusaders get thrashed is that important to you, then surely you'd be happy to pay an extra $20 or something per ticket. I go to the occasional concert and if I'm already paying $150 a ticket, then paying a surcharge wouldn't phase me.
I suspect, however, that the "we need a stadium" brigade really just want to have their cake and eat it too by having others pick up the tab for their pet project.
"divide that by expected occupancy" - they never do this because as they increase the cost the expected occupancy decreases. Then they need to increase the cost more and the expected occupancy decreases more. To the point where they have no users prepared to pay the real cost.
Its the same with toll roads; they don't charge anywhere near the full cost because not enough people would pay it. Which kind of implies it shouldn't be built!
"To the point where they have no users prepared to pay the real cost. "
To borrow from Rainier Wolfcastle from The Simpsons, "that's the joke".
The people who want the stadium would almost certainly not be willing to pay the real cost of having it built. Therefore, as it's not something that all ratepayers benefit from (versus say a library, which is open to all, or a cycleway which has the benefit of reducing traffic for motorists, for example) it shouldn't be built.
There's tons of council facilities that anybody can use (for either free or a very low cost) e.g. pools, libraries, parks. It's not like the options are a stadium or a desolate wasteland.
The issue with a stadium is the having to impose significant costs on all ratepayers for something that has a benefit only for those interested in using it and with sufficient means to do so (hopefully you are not one of those people who would retort by saying "oh well I don't go to the library so why should I have to pay for that?" ... because anybody can use the library for free or minimal cost, it's not dependent on there being an event that interests you and for which you can afford tickets)
We already have an open stadium for rugby/sport, and a covered one. Both of them rarely fill out to capacity as it is.
But if you are applying this logic to stadium, wouldn't you need to apply it to any non-essential council expense, whether that be a statue, artwork, event, town centre upgrade, etc (the so called vanity projects)? None of those things stack up on a user pays basis, but without all the nice stuff can a city compete with others that do invest in those things?
The convention centre provides a grotesque high wall of solid concrete thus concealing the former lovely view down Gloucester Street to the west, the flow of the Victorian bridge, the Edwardian housing and the gates of, and the Christs College quadrangle and historic stone buildings. Between that and the new sports stadium that has virtually curtailed any ability to travel by vehicle in a straight line between Linwood Ave & Rolleston Ave.
There were also some in Dunedin that chained themselves to the gates to try and stop the stadium when I lived there. Now Dunedin enjoys great concerts and sporting matches in a covered stadium that is close to the CBD enough to walk in between, bringing business for bars, restaurants, shops, accommodation providers and more. I wonder if those who chained themselves together still feel the same way, or if they simply go along to the many enjoyable events there and regret their prior opinions.
Oh, FFS. Learn something about REAL economics.
The Ratepayer has been saddled with that lemon, indefinitely. So any 'profit' made by individuals or local businesses - are a privatisation of the Commons. Pretty common, but not laudable.
Secondly, be aware that the total exercise - of a stadium event - is a net reduction in remaining resource stocks; less fossil energy being the main one. So, properly accounted, it's a negative exercise. If you choose to do that for the good of society (go into resource debt) then fine, but don't conflate that with 'making money'. That's just printed proxy, and a jostling as to who holds it.
I see that you're ALWAYS coming from left field, with largely irrelevant views
Fair minded people who protested against the stadium would now admit they were wrong, that the covered stadium has been a raging success for Dunners. At far lower cost than today's replacement value
Interesting that NZ taxpayers are being expected to front up for $300 million to subsidise Christchurch ratepayers for the stadium, after paying ~$200 million for the convention centre.
This is a lot for taxpayers to be subsidising Christchurch ratepayers and private businesses.
"I particularly enjoy paying even more rates for a special stadium to watch the Crusaders lose in. If I had my way, I'd make all the 'we need a world class stadium' brigade pay personally."
I did put something similar into my submission to the CCC LTP consultation last week. My future contribution is $100/year for the stadium so I expect CCC arranges that Christchurch Ratepayers are at the front of the cue when the All Blacks are coming to town.
Here in the Hastings District our rates are looking to go up 25% this year, while indications for the following two years are 15% and 10%, so that's a cumulative 58% rise in 3 years. Granted we have a cyclone recovery to pay for but that's a decent slug in a short period of time.
Health insurance also going up 22.5% for the family.
We've also gone third party for one vehicle as it's mainly used in the paddocks now, but at least it's becoming a useful training ground for my children to learn to turn a wrench.
The price of gold will start today a little softer, down -US$3 from this time Saturday at US$2337/oz.
The Gold Price Surge is an Important Signal: The Endgame Has Begun
Analysing the likely reasons for the surge, we find it does send a key message. It is likely only the beginning of the re-emergence of gold as key asset
By Richard A. Werner
The price of gold has taken off since about February this year, reaching an all-time high of $ 2.448.8 per ounce on 12 April 2024. This is a 34% rise compared to the lowest price in the past 12 months, which was $ 1,823. This recent surge follows several years of relative calm, when the gold price remained largely range-bound between the beginning of 2020 and late 2023, in a band from ca. $1,700 to ca. $1,950.
What are we to make of the sudden surge in the gold price? Is this a warning signal of looming major events? The short answer is yes.
So how should individual investors react? We’ll come to that. First, we need to understand the cause of the surge in the gold price and what exactly it is signalling to us.
Throughout history, gold has been considered valuable in many societies and cultures. Why? Some scientists think that gold arrived on our planet from outer space, a kind of magic dust from the stars, created when two neutron stars collided. It certainly has captivated humanity as a highly valuable substance. It is special in many ways – it is wholly resistant to corrosion or other chemical reaction and so does not deteriorate. It is highly reflective (“shiny”, to put it simply), so that very thin gold films are used in applications where high reflectivity is crucial (including spectroscopy equipment and mirrors for lasers, telescopes, and optical instruments). It is malleable and a good conductor, hence finding many applications in electronics. Gold is the only element that can be thinned out to the level of merely one atom and yet stay coherent. Gold has many industrial uses and there is therefore always a certain industrial demand for it, even if humanity could be persuaded to drop gold as monetary instrument. Of course, we have not seen a surge in such industrial demand sufficient to explain the recent rise in the gold price. We need to look for other factors.
Inflation Hedge
In modern times, gold has long been considered a reliable store of value. In other words, it has been a sensible hedge against inflation.
The first hypothesis we should check is whether its function as inflation hedge explains the surge in the gold price. In the inflationary 1970s the gold price indeed recorded a dramatic surge. The rise started in late 1970. By early 1973, the price had doubled to almost $70 per ounce. By May 1974, the gold price had risen to $170. It then fell in 1975 and 1976, before resuming its surge as the second bout of inflation struck. It outdid its prior peaks and reach around $700 per ounce in 1980. After this it gradually declined again over the following two decades, hitting a temporary low of $ 260 in mid-1999...
Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Richard A. Werner, D.Phil..
The Police are moving towards Final Offer Arbitration. A different IR process applies to some organizations.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/explainer-police-pay-arbitration…
Ever since the introduction of 'free market' policies (Rogernomics) successive NZ Governments have privatised and outsourced virtually everything. Out major companies such as Fonterra have marketed the technology they use, essentially setting up their competition and a lot of that is coming on line. But aside from dairy produce, and a little lamb and beef produce we pretty much don't make much of anything that is exportable to develop income. Sure there are exceptions like Weta (now Weta Fx), but not many of them and not enough to make much of a difference. Thus our politicians have transformed our nation to an importer nation with very little vision for independent resilience. What they then have to spend to pay people like our police, health staff, Corrections staff, teachers and defence force is a lot less, especially after they've taken their own from the pot first.
But there are cracks of light coming through. I saw a video clip of Shane Jones being interviewed by the NBR over the weekend and he talked about a review of the refinery and the need to ensure we were resilient in our fuel reserves. His commentary indicated that NZF has the same concerns I and others expressed over the closure of the Marsden Point Refinery and the strategic gap that created. He indicated that since then national fuel supplies had fallen to five days worth a few times. looking at natural hydrogen too. Interesting interview.
"we pretty much don't make much of anything that is exportable to develop income". There is no capital market in New Zealand! All available money goes into residential property because that is the only manner bankmanagers do understand. Therefore every brilliant idea has to go overseas! See LanzaTech, RocketLab, Xero and all the others which will follow in the future.
To be honest, banks everywhere lost interest in funding economic prosperity a long time ago. Economies with deep business capital markets all have a strong network of institutional investors filling that gap.
There were about 230 billion NZD sitting in Kiwisaver, ACC and NZ Super combined in March 2024 (and billions more in managed funds), but these are passively invested in low risk debt and blue-chip equities with little incentive to take on risk and make the funds work hard.
I believe that would be due to having to be prudent with such large volumes of public funds and the good they stand for. Sounds great until there's a downturn which is a real possibility. I'd hate to see the NZ super lose a ton of value and the likes of ACC who need to have X times the predicted value of claims in reserve by legislation in case the company ever went belly up.
You forgot to mention tourism - the sector that requires us to do more and earn less.
I crunched some numbers publicly available on Infometrics and found tourism operating at 2019 arrivals peak would have to increase their revenue by ~50-60% with the same staffing levels for the sector to achieve the same economic contribution per worker as the rest of the economy. Unsurprisingly, the sheer majority of workers in the industry earn below median wage.
Yet the sector remains a poster child for political ambitions across the spectrum. We spend billions from our taxes propping up foreign tourism and allow employers to bring in tens of thousands of low-skilled migrants each year.
The refinery was closed as it is cheaper to import refined fuel. What is Shane Joneses plan to make people buy fuel from there to keep the place running? Raise taxes on imported refined fuel, or have the government running a loss making refinery business as a nice to have? I can't see either being popular.
The refinery was closed as it is more profitable to import refined fuel.
Fixed your statement.
Refiners have to offload all refining byproducts coming out of their operations at tidy margins alongside selling the desired products to be profitable overall. There is high demand in NZ for certain refined products such as petrol and diesel and not enough or variable demand for others.
Competing with larger and more complex refineries in Asia that have easier access to industrial markets is becoming harder.
Final Offer Arbitration. This is where the police and the police association put forward their final offer and an independant arbitrator considers both and then picks one.
The arbitrator has attended all past negotiations so is up to speed on any sticky points. The arbitrator is not able to mix and match. He fully accepts one and rejects the other.
Will be very interesting to see if Police take a reduced offer to the table as it's binding on all parties once the arbitrator chooses. The association has not released what it tends to ask for yes but it is speculated to be a 6% payrise backdated to June 2023 rather than what police offered which was 4% to Nov 2023 and some other changes that could amount to a difference of a few thousand dollars over and above that.
The police association won at FOA last pay rround.if I recall it was a difference of 2% vs 3% increase for the three year deal being the main point of co tention.
But essentially FOA encourages both to tighten up their offers and find a middle ground as such as the risk is you lose too much if you ask for too much and are rejected. It is somewhat of a good process I suppose but it does mean significant progress can be difficult to make as the association can't risk asking for something big. Likewise the police dont wont to risk proposing something big. It is a real handbrake on sorting out the broken policepay band system I think (takes 20 years to get to the top band of being a constable which is ridiculous).
But this is bringing louder international calls for action to push back on "Chinese overcapacity'. This issue worries the EU and Japan a lot.
That's why your hear about "overcapacity": they aren't afraid that China is producing too many cars for the demand, they're afraid China is becoming too competitive. This car, the Xiaomi SU7, when released in China, sold out for the whole of 2024 in less than 24 hours. So it's definitely not in "overcapacity": it produces FAR too little for the demand it generates. Why so popular? Its starting price is less than $30k (215,900 yuan) with a better performance (and a very similar design) than a Porsche Taycan, which costs north of $100k. You're essentially buying a top-of-the-range Porsche at Chevy bolt prices... The main reason they can do it? This fully automated factory : they churn a car out every 76 seconds. Link
This is explosive stuff. A new study by RAND, by far the most influential policy Think Tank in the US, concludes (as shared in this WaPo article by David Ignatius): "The United States might be stumbling toward a decline from which few great powers have ever recovered." Link
Global greening.
"We present a novel methodology to estimate the CO₂ fertilization effect using data from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite. Our study complements the many field experiments by regressing county yields on local CO₂ levels across the majority of US cropland under actual growing conditions.
We consistently find a large CO₂ fertilization effect: a 1 ppm increase in CO₂ equates to a 0.4%, 0.6%, 1% yield increase for corn, soybeans, and wheat, respectively."
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29320/w29320.pdf
Thanks for the hot takes chaps. Looking like another record harvest for wheat and cereals overall this year. Perhaps the sky will fall on our head next year?
"Regarding the 2024 crops, FAO’s forecast for global wheat production has been scaled back slightly compared to the previous month, now standing at 796 million tonnes, but still marking an expected 1‑percent growth over the 2023 output."
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/
To be honest, a bigger concern for me is that ~50% of that yield is based on fossil-fuel derived nitrogen fertiliser - we'll have even more of a shock when this becomes uneconomical as we fritter away our energy taking half a ton of metal with us to pick up milk from the shop.
I see an increase in popularity of cheap to run mopeds in the next 5 years or less due to sheer cost savings. Buy now, and for the distance travelled it will pay itself off in 3-4months compared to the value of petrol or diesel spent lugging a car around for small single-person trips.
That time mfd showed his ignorance about legumes and crop yields. Perhaps allay your concerns by learning about nuclear ammonia production?
"Four Danish companies – Topsoe, Copenhagen Atomics, Alfa Laval and Aalborg CSP – and two state-owned Indonesian companies – Pupuk Kaltim and Pertamina New & Renewable Energy – have signed an MoU for the development of a 1 million tonnes per year, nuclear-powered ammonia project for fertiliser production in Bontang, Indonesia.
The proposed project will have a 1 GW electrolysis capacity, powered by Copenhagen Atomics’ thorium molten salt reactors (twenty-five small modular units). Topsoe’s solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) technology and its ammonia synthesis technology will both be used in the project."
Yep, it's been a good year for the cropping farmers down here in my part of the world. Although not so great trying to feed livestock on bone dry soil.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/09/farmers-warn-food-shortages…
The quality of fruit and veg in NZ took a dive after this, along with affordability.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/an-industry-on-its-kne…
Global greening
Worth keeping in mind that many recent mass extinctions have been caused by 'global greening' (as far as I can recall the mechanism is anaerobic decay of plant matter producing very nasty gases). It's not a good thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eM1aakTzMw
Paleobiologist Peter Ward on the subject. It's an interview covering some interesting history of the earth.
03:00 - We need a little bit of CO2, but it’s easy to have too much CO2
04:20 - Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (co-written with Dan Brownlee)
04:40 - Excessive heat and mortality
05:12 - Volcanic activity responsible for past CO2 spikes
05:40 - Previous mass extinctions
05:57 - Non-animal mass extinctions
07:18 - Uneven atmospheric heating
and more...
A bob (or a billion or so) either way on climate change in India
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/19/business/india-adani-green-energy-pl…
Profile, how does your human-induced climate change denial anti-science feel about the fact the insurance companies have now also got on board with the whole of the science community?
https://www.interest.co.nz/insurance/127495/rbnz-says-dwelling-insuranc…
I wonder if we will have stagflation.
My view is that last year we had the flation without much of the stag, and this year we will have the stag without much of the flation.
I think CPI will come down to ~3% fairly soon which I don't consider to be high inflation. But I don't see it coming down to a level where the RBNZ can make a significant dent in OCR.
This is roughly my expectation.
No real relief for the heavily indebted. The only hope is to sell up and ditch the debt or accept that the new normal for the household budget is going to require some serious lifestyle changes while very slowly digging your way out of a deep hole (if that is even possible).
It will be difficult for many to accept that they have fallen victim to a long con (i.e. a scam in which the scammer takes a long period of time (usually weeks, months or longer) to defraud the victim, by first slowly gaining their trust.)
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