Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news beyond the headlines, the corrosive impacts in the consequences of keeping the Strait of Hormuz shut are starting to build and spread. The rise in the cost and availability of sulphur is an icon example. Inflation increases are coming for everything, from metals to fertiilisers.
But first in the US, they added +115,000 payroll jobs in April at the headline level, above expectations of a +62,000 gain and following a +185,000 increase in March. It was the first back-to-back monthly gain in nearly a year, and on an 'actual' payroll basis it was stronger again. Their jobless rate was stable at 4.3%.
We should remember that all this data comes from an agency where Trump fired its head because he didn't like the results and this latest data is under the 'new management'. An independent professional review has confirmed there are distortions growing from this agency.
Employment rose in health care, logistics, and in the retail trade while it fell in the manufacturing and government sectors.
But if you include those not in payroll employment (self-employed etc) there was no change on an 'actual' basis, a fall of -226,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis. Their underclass is really struggling.
And you can see that in the latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey for May which fell again and to a record low. The fall from April wasn't large, coming in a scant 1.6 index points below April’s reading but it was comparable to the pandemic trough reached in June 2022. Year-ahead inflation expectations are for 4.5%, a touch less than in April.
In Canada, their employment fell -18,000 in April, but more people entered their job market, raising their unemployment rate to 6.9%
In India, banks are lending freely, with loan growth up +16% from a year ago. For all its growth narrative, India's stock exchanges are reporting serious 2026 declines, unlike most other global markets.
The global FAO food price index was up in April, but driven by strong rises for vegetable oils. Prices for meat and dairy were little-changed from March. Still, meat prices were at record highs, all the same.
And we should note that the copper price has jumped to a record all-time high at US$13,750/tonne (NZ$23,000/tonne). Trump's Middle East adventure has disrupted shipments of sulphuric acid, a critical input in copper refining. In turn, China has banned sulphuric acid exports from May through to at least December. That alone is expected to remove around 3 mln tonnes from global supply. Copper is becoming a 'precious metal'. Aluminium and tine are also near record highs on supply uncertainty.
The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.36%, down -4 bps from this time yesterday, down -2 bps for the week. The key 2-10 yield curve is now at +47 bps (-1 bp). Their 1-5 curve is now at +28 bps (-1 bp) and the 3 mth-10yr curve is at +70 bps (-6 bps). The China 10 year bond rate is now at 1.76%, unchanged on the day and the week. The Japanese 10 year bond yield is down -1 bp at 2.47%, down -3 bps from a week ago. The Australian 10 year bond yield starts today at 4.97%, unchanged from Friday but down -3 bps for the week. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +7 bps at 4.72%, unchanged for the week.
Wall Street has ended its Friday with the S&P500 up +0.8% and up a net +2.3% for the week. Overnight, European markets were lower between London's -0.4% drop and Frankfurt's -1.3%. Yesterday Tokyo fell back -0.2% to be up +3.6% for the week. Hong Kong was down -0.9% on Friday, up +1.0% for the week. Shanghai unchanged on Friday, up +2.9% over its week. And Singapore was down -0.4% in Friday trade. The ASX200 ended down -1.5% on Friday for a small weekly gain of +0.2%. And the NZX50 fell -0.7% in Friday trade but was up +1.0% for the week.
The Fear & Greed index is still in the 'greed' zone, where it was for the last three weeks.
The price of gold will start today up +US$26 at US$4723/oz, up +US$123 for the week. Silver is up +US$1at just over US$80.50/oz, up +US$4.50 for the week.
American oil prices are down -50 USc at just on US$95.50/bbl, down -US$7 for the week, while the international Brent price is also down -50 USc today at US$101/bbl, down -US$7.50 for the week.
The Kiwi dollar is up +10 bps from yesterday at this time at 59.6 USc, up +60 bps for the week. Against the Aussie we are also unchanged at 82.3 AUc. Against the euro we are down -10 bps at just on 50.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just under 62.8 which is unchanged from yesterday but up +30 bps for the week.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$80,041 and up +0.3% from this time yesterday, up +1.9% from a week ago. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been low at just under +/- 0.6%.
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67 Comments
The statistical economic data that issues from the USA, as above recorded on a national base, is though a blanket analysis, the nation is enormous and of huge diversity . Ten states in their own right have economies in terms of GDP larger or in the vicinity of for example Russia. There will be a world of difference in the state of affairs between such as Texas and Montana and the difference between a New Englander and New Mexican is profound. A disaster in Florida doesn’t register much with someone in Idaho and vice versa. Seems to becoming more than obvious that the levers of federal command in Washington DC cannot possibly control and contain the vast array of elements and activities belting around from border to border. The whole damn shooting box has become too damn big.
Aging, childless populations.
Since January 2025, the federal government has shed 345,000 civilian employees, or nearly 12% of its staff. Federal government employment is now down to 2.66 million, the lowest since 1966, accounting for just 1.7% of total nonfarm payrolls, the lowest in the history of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data going back to 1939.
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/05/08/weirdest-u-s-labor-market-ive-ever-se…
But experts say the biggest factor in declining enrollment is the record-low U.S. fertility rate. It most recently peaked in 2007, and has fallen 24 percent since then.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/upshot/public-schools-enrollment-cri…
As I’ve argued with PDK before, the next generations biggest problem will be a lack of (working) people, not energy. NZ can probably combat that through immigration, but many other countries are screwed
“Labour without energy is a corpse; capital without energy is a sculpture”
Steve Keen
Agree that would be the case if that does eventuate. An ageing population is almost guaranteed, lack of energy is just a maybe (for the current young).
If there's less people there will be less work needing done. Maybe even give the hamster wheel a break? The biosphere might even begin to repair itself, making the future of humanity viable for millennia rather than decades. Techbros/industrialists don't need "working people", they need dependent consumers. Of course less people may stymie technoutopian exponential growthist fantasies to populate the universe and spread the good word of neoliberalism to galaxies far beyond ours.
There will indeed be less work required for less people...but the work will still be required and without (or less) energy available the quantum of work each individual can perform reduces, perhaps to the point of no surplus or even insufficient.
The Chinese built the Great Wall without fossil fuels but they also had periods of starvation.
There's lots of people doing BS jobs. They might not be keen on building Great Walls after careers shining their bottoms, but necessity does wonders for motivation.
Even the "thinking outsourced to AI" and "labour outsourced to robotics" enthusiasts have no plan for what humans will actually do with all their "free time". Gluttony and debauchery every day would lose it's appeal after a month or two.
Technology has never really created more free time, it’s just increased our expectations.
It would be interesting to see how the definition of poverty has evolved over the last few centuries.
Less free time I would imagine. Excepting those society has cast aside of course.
Reminds me of high school in the seventies. There was a rich vein of techno optimism being taught, supposedly leading to fun filled lives of pure recreation.
When society was agrarian, poverty wasn't really much of a thing, ignoring the impositions of the hereditarily entitled. The industrial revolution and subsequent concentration of wealth really kicked off the stratification of society.
It’s easy to say wealth isn’t worthwhile when you’re wealthy and don’t know what real poverty is. I’m guessing a guy who east scraps from the dump in India may disagree with you though.
Even just access to the NZ education and health systems is a genuine privilege that we need to work hard to maintain.
If fossil power availability reduces by too much there will be no 'free time'...or bullshit jobs. We will be flat out trying to survive.
Have a look at your world and consider what your life would involve without the materials that fossil fuels (at scale) provide....then consider a life with greatly less of them.
Actually in my personal case, without FFs, I'd be ok. The only thing I'd miss really would be the chain saw. Totally sorted food wise. Good supply of firewood, even timber, if house needed repairs. Plenty of useful stuff to trade for goods and services. Certainly can do without the gadgets. Larger undertakings can be done at community scale. I can certainly provide food/fibre/firewood for a small community, as long as they were prepared to supply labour during peak times.
Flat out trying to survive? Some people would be. Those suffering the legacy of human overgrowth we've been brainwashed to accept as "normal".
I'm a bit like PDK, I've been prepping for a long time.
As PDK freely admits he is not self sufficient....he rides on the back of societies resources. Can you repair your house in a timely manner when you have to fell, mill and season your own timber....can you produce your own nails/screws, or do you have the tools and skills to build without them?
The list is endless....and then you need to consider that what you could do when you were 30 becomes even slower or impossible when you are in your 60s or 70s.
Legacy resources and repurposing can assist as can stockpiling but they only slow the downward trajectory.
Suppose it depends how far down the collapse trajectory you are considering? If it gets to the point nails aren't availible, I would guess humans would be functionally extinct and I would be 6 ft under.
Not necessarily. Have you considered why NZ (in poor shape as it is) is so appealing to migrants?....we are a first world country that has first call on the worlds resources so when rationing of those rersources occur we are the last to feel the impact. There are countries currently that have lost access to many of those resources because they cannot outbid the first world and things like some materials are not available to them. As energy declines so will availability of materials, and that may well include nails, but long before nails are not available our systems will fail due to a shortage of some material or another.
Nothing to disagree with there.
If Romans could produce nails 2000 years before Arrownail today, I don't see why they should be an issue to source going forward. Maybe not in the numbers needed to erect suburbs of McMansions. Timber? Community owned steam powered mobile mills?
As PDK says, he isn't an island. We all need community. Something neoliberalism has been working hard to destroy.
Yes very much like PDK. You’re fine because you’ve set yourself up via economic growth, but you expect future generations to accept economic decline which would ultimately end with them having nothing.
Did Maori, before the white man arrived with his economic text books, have nothing?
They didn’t have a very long life expectancy. That’s the main thing money buys you (no guarantees of course).
But man, did they have freedom.........
Take the 80000 working hours out of our current "superior" society and life expectancy, and you probably come up with something less than pre Euro Maori.
Basically anyone living in a built up area or city are buggered if supply lines of food etc stop. PDK thinks everyone could survive on a little piece of land. I doubt that. Looking back on history tells us we need supply chains to maintain civilizasion . Fertilizer for instance, without which your little piece of land would not thrive. Trade has to happen as no one can produce everything their family requires. Tools and everything else, even glass. Who can make a window if it breaks?.
Thing is we all need everyone else to survive. I think energy will continue in some form. I doubt fossil fuels will run out in the next 100 years or so. But run out they will. Our biggest threat is clowns who want to dominate the World.
OTOH a large proportion of those living in built up areas are just paid filling in time. In a collapse scenario no one is going to need real estate agents, marketers, advertising, admin, finance, influencers, or game developers. If they want to eat, they'll be needed down on the farm. Yes we will still need supply chains, just shorter ones and for essentials, i.e. not US butter and not Chinese plastic ducks.
Sure, without synthetic fertilisers you can't run productive land on steroids, but you can still produce plenty enough. Compost is magic stuff, as is pee. Everyone produces their own Nitrogen fertiliser. Can megalopolises survive? Nope! Which is why declining birth rates need to be celebrated and encouraged. Yes, we all need a community of skills to thrive, just not the ones currently celebrated by the clowns who want to dominate the world.
horse and cow shit help grow a big vege garden
In my experience...a year or two :()
Less working people, not less people. And every one of the retired requires a lot of work to be done, mainly at the taxpayers expense. Much more tax money needed, much less people paying it.
You are right, we don’t need growth, as long as we’re ok being poor.
Humans have been "poor" by your measure for 99.99% of human existence. They still lived, loved and had fulfilling lives, without spending the finite hours of their life somewhere they didn't want to be, doing something they didn't want to do, for an electronic gadget the advertising told them they needed. Sure peasants didn't have iphones, but they worked hard in spring, again at harvest and had the rest of the year socialising, sleeping and doing chores.
There is no shortage of people to look after the elderly. There's a longage of people filling seats, costing society money, merely because they have crowbared them selves it a position society is obliged to fund, serving no actual purpose! Just because.
Heaven forbid, families could even look after elderly at home, until needs become acute.
Imagine NZ decided to stop immigration and live with an ageing population and negative GDP growth, and Australia kept their immigration going and had positive GDP growth. Do you think working aged people would prefer to stay in NZ and wipe old people’s bums for a very basic living, or move to Aus and have a better job and decent life? I know which I’d choose, and many are already making that choice.
I guess those enjoying living in a petre dish are always free to move, at the moment.
We've had mass immigration and negative GDP growth/capita. So we're poorer and more crowded. Brilliant Watson. Then the Immigrants get older........so we need more immigrants.....at some point humans need not to physically grow, but intellectually grow up!
According to AI:
New Zealand's GDP per capita has grown from approximately NZ$37,685 in 2005 to over NZ$79,000 by 2024,
And according to the RBNZ:
NZ $37,685 in 2005 = $61398 in 2024. .
Even if NZ would be better off in the long term with a declining ageing population, less workers, more state dependent pensioners, and less GDP, I think you’d struggle to get young voters to agree.
"Since December 2019 the per capita growth rate in GDP has only been 0.75% per annum. In the last two years the inflation-adjusted per capita GDP has actually declined by just over 2%."
https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/133515/keith-woodford-traces-structu…
Of course the Australians may decide they dont wish to accept a flood of kiwi migrants.
"There is no shortage of people to look after the elderly. There's a longage of people filling seats, costing society money, merely because they have crowbared them selves it a position society is obliged to fund, serving no actual purpose! Just because."
Money is not the issue....time and resources are.
There is only much a person can do in a period of time....we have expanded that quantity through the use of stored energy....reduce that stored energy multiplier and the output has to reduce...then it becomes a question of priorities. What can we do without and what is vital.
OK, just take the money part out, although I thought however you measure it the same outcome can be deduced?
These people exist in "jobs" that require unnecessary work and resources to maintain in their positions. Energy sink "jobs".
You could argue that my job is unnecessary, but if instead I did something more necessary like wiping a pensioners bum, our household would probably pay no net tax. Where would money for NZ super, healthcare, etc come from?
People in the higher income brackets are very necessary.
"Where would the money come from?"
Probably spent into existence like all other money in the NZ financial system?
Jimbo, this isn't a personal attack on your own situation. I worked for an organisation running rest homes for 18 years. The ladies looking after the more infirm residents were real saints. It's not a job for everyone. Once you get to that stage of care, you've got about 2 years to live at most, from my observations of throughput. Some people never need that level of care. Most elderly are quite independent and fully capable of "wiping their own bum".
Yep I know people who care for elderly, you are right they are saints. It wasn’t meant to be an insult to them. But if we get to the point where almost everyone is providing care to an ageing population, we won’t actually be producing anything, and we’ll be incredibly poor. To the point where we won’t be able to afford even the necessities like healthcare. Immigration is essential IMO. We may still get negative growth even with immigration, but without it it will be diabolical. Agree it’s not a realistic long term solution.
You conflate, then conflate again.
Try thinking of the problem without turning it into money, then back again.
Shiny butts are not vital . Using the word energy instead of money would have helped.
"Money" is a euphemism for a promise of future energy expenditure. :-)
Thank you - nice to see someone else pointing it out.
Who knows, one day a reporter might be brave enough to articulate it - and therefore qualify as a journalist...
You might think you have argued - but you start from a false premise. And fiercely cling to it.
So I regard your comments as invalid.
And ask why the need?
Very simply, fossil energy does so much of our work compared to human labour (work requires energy, despite your glib throwaway mentioning of it in undefined manner) that labour is mere noise. Some of us were discussing this a long time ago: theoildrum_4315.pdf
"I would take 11 1/3 years to replace a barrel of oil (equivalent to 1700 kwh), while a top athlete would make it in about 5 2/3 years"
Those who obstinately obsess about 'labour productivity' while ignoring the FF/labour ratio - are somewhat ignorant.
Those who insist on being thusly ignorant, while claiming to be engineers, are incomprehensible to me - leading to the question: Is the occupation truly claimed?
HUMANITY DESPERATELY NEEDS REGIME CHANGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q57Q5sIKUC0
Canadian Journalist, Dimitri Lascaris...
... quoted...
"At 23:00... "I have never seen anything like what we have witnessed, not just under the Trump regime, but also what we saw under the Biden regime - I mean Joe Biden was and is a genocidal war criminal.
He was a barely functioning genocidal war criminal, and he was surrounded by people who had nothing but utter contempt for international law, and at the same time were stunningly incompetent - and the situation has only become worse, since Donald Trump came into the White House.
And it is not like American voters didn't know what they were getting - Trump had already served a term in office, and so they had a good glimpse of what was coming, and yet a significant percentage of the population voted for Donald Trump, none the less.........................................
....really, the question is not whether the US empire is coming to an end - that is clear to anyone who is looking at the evidence staring us in the face. The real question is whether the US Empire is going to take humanity down with it - that is what we should be truly concerned about.
The people at the helm of this sinking ship are perfectly capable of blowing up the world, and they are in the process of doing just that. They are hurtling humanity into a global economic depression, and perhaps much worse than that.
And so my message is that the world desperately needs a regime change in the US - we don't need regime change anywhere else as badly as we need it there..."
Chris Joyce cuts loose on the Aussie govt and its cunning plan to change capital gains tax and make Aussie the most uncompetitive economy in the world.
The government sector as a share of the total economy is the largest since World War II. It is a greedy python asphyxiating private activity. Why work hard when you can get a government-guaranteed income that is more than a real company will pay you?
New Zealanders joke that some of their smartest students move to Australia to earn more than $200,000 a year holding a stop sign on a worksite. By 2028, Aussie politicians at the federal and state levels will have spent and borrowed $1 trillion of extra taxpayer money since 2019. That is the real-world value of their borrowings.
The media lets politicians off the hook by relentlessly citing “net debt” figures. Nobody in the real world cares about net debt. They care about actual, or real-world, borrowings: how much you owe.
If you have a 45 per cent mortgage against the value of your home, do you tell everyone that you have “negative net debt” because your home is worth more than the mortgage? No. What you worry about is the debt that you have to pay interest on every day.
I've long wished to hear a NZ Chris Joyce speak blunt truths to our politicians and media, a couple of decades ago I had hopes for Gareth Morgan in the role.
I hear you. Robert McCulloch is special. The NZ ruling elite's way to deal with hammering down nails that stick out like McCulloch is to simply ignore than and block from engagement.
Similarly, Gareth Morgan was largely ignored. Coincidentally, had the pleasure of spending time talking with Raf Manji recently.
Cam Bagrie is as close as we have, but he does not seek media attention.
followed that link this is great
Canberra is transforming the lucky country into the lazy land.
They should do what the coalition in NZ did and sack loads of people? Our debt to GDP has gone up truckloads since.
National is going to cut final year student free fee, my daughter will now likely vote Labour
National will raise super age, old people will vote for NZF
Funny we gave boomers interest deduction on rentals but we cannot give unit students a break, as she says good luck with 2 young people support 5 by 2050, as she will be offshore. Luxy as CEO is cool, the staff did not have a vote, not so much in politics.
Would have thought the "Boomers interest deduction" was more of a "GenX interest deduction", seeing as they have more rentals than "Boomers"?
Boomers have probably gone debt free on their rentals by retirement, otherwise, what's the point?
the boomers will not be able to sell the debt free houses to the next cohort of the Ponzi without int deduct... houses would need to fall SO MUCH further then they already have to...
Or rents would have to rise. House prices can’t fall much further, they are almost below replacement value now. If prices drop any more it would probably result in no building being done.
This is an expected economic result in a world where the population falls.... especially if repairs are cheaper then rebuild.
"boomers will not be able to sell the debt free houses" "houses would need to fall"
Will it matter? If they need to sell, the money will mainly go to rest home care and if they don't need to sell, to their millennial, or Gen Z kids. Humans aren't eternal you know? Once you hit seventies you don't need massive spending power, just security.
I have some sympathy for this view. It actually starts to matter if the debt lent by banks cannot be repaid. If debt free house prices fall enough, this starts to matter a lot.
Our current society is set up so banks are at the centre of everything, taking a cut from any and all work, for distribution to their owners. House prices are high because banks create credit from nothing and make sure they're skimming off every deal for the transfer of property and goods. It's in their interest that demand for their money creation is continuously increasing, with politicians in their pocket to ensure policy smooths the gravy train. They want to impose themselves as a valueless middleman in every transaction and like a boiling frog, society is trained to believe this is normal.
Banks need to be put back in their box as safe places to store surplus funds that can be accessed when needed, nothing more.
I also believe we are starting down a new reserve asset path from USD , people will place wealth in gold until its clear what the new reserve asset will be.... it maybe a construct.
trade accordingly
I'm sure all those pensions will be piling up in the wrinklies accoutns, not being spent on actual things in the economy and supporting jobs.
Investing in education is an investment in the future. National voters prefer to take all they can now.
Although raising the super age is both gutsy and much needed. Maybe they did a deal with NZF to get them some more votes.
I hear Rod Drury has retuned NZer of the year, while still looking likely to get peoples choice dickhead of the year.
Note I did not use the word Sir above.....
No one is above the law (although former Prince Andrew seems to be)
I hear Rod Drury has retuned NZer of the year, while still looking likely to get peoples choice dickhead of the year.
Not reported by the media, but some others have come out on social media about being the target of Drury's behavior.
mmmm i thought i heard something on the HDA show on friday after winnie told us no more uni free final year (350mil)..... sadly cannot be afforded after the 3bill gift to rich resi investors....
No one is above the law (although former Prince Andrew seems to be)
Remember "I do not.... sweat" XD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVscFuogp1E
Project freedom!...ye hah!
Mallens commentary is always good value. I can't believe that comment Trump made about MBS. All the diplomacy of a week old turd!
He is amusingly accurate.
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