sign up log in
Want to go ad-free? Find out how, here.

Equity markets pull back; US capital-goods imports dive; US population stops growing; China tackles bond market reform; Aussie power system under fire threat; UST 10yr yield at 1.90%; oil and gold up; NZ$1 = 67 USc; TWI-5 = 72.1

Equity markets pull back; US capital-goods imports dive; US population stops growing; China tackles bond market reform; Aussie power system under fire threat; UST 10yr yield at 1.90%; oil and gold up; NZ$1 = 67 USc; TWI-5 = 72.1

Good morning, wherever you are on this New Year's Eve. Here's our summary of key events over the holiday break that affect New Zealand, with news markets are tailing off and in wind-down mode.

In global equity markets today, it is a sea of red as investors pull back at the end of the year. The one exception was Shanghai, which was up +1.2% yesterday.

Bond investors are pulling back too, with prices lower and yields higher.

According to the US White House, the United States and China will likely have a signing of the Phase 1 trade deal early in the new year. But it will unlikely be the photo-op the US President wants with President Xi. Rather officials will do the signing, or so says the Chinese.

The US posted a -US$63.2 bln merchandise trade deficit in November, lower than the October deficit of -US$66.8 bln and significantly lower than the -US$72.9 bln deficit one year ago. Although exports fell almost -2% year-on-year, the lower goods deficit was driven by sharply fewer imports, especially of industrial supplies and capital equipment. That decrease accounted for two thirds of the annual improvement. It is a sign that American companies are just not investing in productivity.

The closely-watched Chicago factory PMI in their industrial heartland is still contracting, although the December report says less so. And the latest Fed regional survey in the oil patch shows their expansion is very tame, rising less than expected.

Meanwhile, wholesale inventories rose +3.2% year-on-year and retail inventories rose +2.2%.

Rising were pending home sales in November, up +7.4% year-on-year. But the results were spotty, with two of the four broad regions reporting slippage from October.

We should also note that the US population seems to be stabilising at 328 mln, growing at its slowest rate in 2019 in almost a century. Slowing immigration and a very low birth rate put it on track to emulate Japan with a rapidly ageing population. Surprisingly, their death rate is rising. This is an unexpected development, because it had been widely expected that the United States would continue to expand and remain a relevant economic power well into the 2100s. But maybe not now. Demographics is destiny.

In China, they seem to be stepping up with some overdue mature bond market reforms, pushed by a wave of defaults. Defaults have been rare until this year and non-existent five years ago, because there was an expectation Beijing would bail out SOEs. But no more. There has been a raft of them this year. Their bond market is huge, second only to the US and larger than Europe with NZ$12.3 tln on issue. And as a part of this, outstanding corporate bonds total NZ$4.25 tln, also second only to the US. Beijing is rushing through a series of reforms and refusing to do any more bailouts. So now credit will be priced properly and real international-grade credit ratings are being issued. New laws on defaults, winding-up processes, on trustee obligations, are suddenly building a proper market, one that includes junk bonds and repricing.  It's a monumental change that will affect the global bond markets.

China seems to be still attracting foreign investment at a healthy clip. The number of overseas-funded projects with an outlay of at least US$100 mln were up to 722 in the year to November, a +15% rise on the same period in 2018.

And China imported 644,000 tons of meat last month, an +80% increase from November a year ago. They have greatly expanded the number of countries from where they source meat, from 4 to 21. Pork prices are now falling quickly.

In Australia, they had to make a sudden call on emergency power reserves in Victoria last night to fill a shortfall in supply, as power station outages and bushfires threatened the grid and hiked the risk of blackouts - just when households were winding up their air-conditioners after another scorcher.

The UST 10yr yield is up +2 bps at 1.92%. Their 2-10 curve is firmer overnight at +33 bps. Their 1-5 curve is stable at +18 bps. Their 3m-10yr curve is also steeper at +37 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr has leapt +8 bps and is now at 1.40%. The China Govt 10yr is unchanged at 3.18%. And the NZ Govt 10 yr is up +2 bps at 1.65%.

The gold is marginally firmer today, up +US$4, now at US$1,515/oz.

US oil prices are little-changed at just under US$61.60/bbl and the Brent benchmark is now just on US$68.50/bbl.

The Kiwi dollar is rising, now at 67.3 USc and a new five month high. On the cross rates we are also firm at 96.2 AUc. Against the euro we are likewise firm at 60.1 euro cents. That puts our TWI-5 at just on 72.1 and a new six-month high.

Bitcoin is down -2.2% from this time yesterday, now at US$7,237. The bitcoin rate is charted in the exchange rate set below.

This briefing will now take a small break over the New Year, and we will be back on Friday.

The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».

Daily exchange rates

Select chart tabs

Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
End of day UTC
Source: CoinDesk

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

64 Comments

The US seems to be hit badly with poverty. With 10% of people within health insurance, and many having their finances wiped out by the GFC in either equities/bonds or housing there isn't much left. The US is a country too poor to extend the lifespan of their population, and many will not be in the financial position to maintain a longer life with private funds.

Their economy also seems to be taking a hit from all the pension funds reducing payouts (low interest rates have hit them hard), and it's happened just as many are retiring. Expect the decline to continue as the US is in a depression that is just papered over by the Fed.

Up
0

Many of those pension funds were never going to be able to cover the flood of retirees they have now coming even with high returns. Amazing how the land of opportunity has caved in on itself in the space of a couple of decades. To make matters worse, their political discourse seems to be entirely accepting of the current state of affairs, and anyone who questions the sanity of it all is swiftly on the outer.

Up
0

So just like here?
No one with any weight is seriously questioning the current state of affairs here, either.

Up
0

Is it just me ... or are you guys getting a new year Google image showing the Gummster at Kirwee ?

...its not a delightfully glorious red sunset .... I'm watching the pub burn down .... SOB ... beer wasted .... oooohhhhhh ....

Up
0

. . it is a terrible thing the level of poverty in the US ... 11.8 % is the figure I have .....

But ... worse in France , 14.2% ... or Germany's 16.7 % ... wow , who saw that coming ! ... the UK's on 15 % , same as Sweden . . Italy 29.9 % ... Japan ? ... 16.1 % ... heck . .Russia 13.3 %.... and Mexico 46.2 %

.... no wonder Trumpy wants a wall ... most of the world is poverty stricken compared to the US ..

Up
0

Yes, they do seem to be in decline at the moment. Their politics is following the well worn path of the South American and African Republics, dividing into two competing oligarchic groups. Each side rewards its supporters with wealth stolen from the other lot. The corrupt but politically favoured and protected prosper. Essentially the same path as the Roman Republic. Economic civil war.

The key point is the polarisation of politics and the destruction of the middle ground and the middle classes. No politician is allowed to abstain or dissent from the Party line. Politics becomes an exercise in bribery and coercion.

Hopefully at some point soon, Kiwis will wake up to the reality that we are following the fashionable failed ideas of the US and EU. Decline starts slowly, then rapidly gathers momentum. Sad that our politics is presently between useless and worse than useless. I think there must be cyclical forces at work here, the interaction of generations seems to have a pattern. Be nice when it reverts to between good and even better.

Up
0

Well written, RW. Factor in ultimate depletion, though, and I doubt this one is cyclic. :)

Up
0

1% of USA population own about 60% of the wealth and the other 40% of wealth is scattered among the other 99% of the population.
History shows that the downtrodden that attempt to rebel against the ruling elite are rarely successful.
For example:
1381 English peasants' revolt. Result: Peasants slaughtered in large numbers after being double-crossed by the king.
1525 German peasants' revolt. Result: Aristocracies armies slaughtered hundreds of thousands of peasants.
1789 French revolution. Seemingly successful at first, but a couple of decades later Napoleon, a virtual dictator, arrived on the scene and
conscripted most of the male peasants into his army to attempt to create an Empire for himself.
1917 Russian Revolution. A lot of jockeying for position at first between rival groups until a cruel psychopathic dictator named Stalin came along
killed 20 million of his own people in episodes of paranoia.
Then there's the killing fields of Cambodia, Mao's 'cultural revolution in China, etc, etc.
In the USA right wing extremists have huge armouries, are spoiling for a fight, and would gravitate to the elite.
I can't see much hope for the future of the USA which is a shame because they have contributed so much to the advances in culture,medicine,
science, etc; I can't see anything even remotely equivalent coming from the likes of China and Russia except progressive military hardware.
These USA rivals offer a bleak alternative.

Up
0

Your comment is full of outdated propoganda from mid to late 20th century. In 1917 the revolution was sponsored by germany to stop russia helping western "allies". As a result all old elite has been wiped out completely. Efficient move as all assets been nationalised and togeather with industrialization this helped to survive and get thru ww2. Figures of 20million are extremely exodirated (its couple of million as per archives) as many other facts about russian civil war and ww1/2. Stalin was a cruel leader but he took ussr thru ww2 with 30-40mil killed by fascist Hitler who came into a power with a help from western countries. Suggest to update the fugures and distance from old brainwashing propoganda

Up
0

I've known since the 1970's that one day the death rate would start to accelerate in the West due to lifestyle choices. The early example was Japan, where a move to Western diets saw a corresponding increase in heart disease. Modern medicine is pretty darn good, but it can't undo a lot of the damage people do to themselves.

Of late I have become an athlete (gold medal at a National Champs earlier in the year) and the more I learn about training and nutrition the more I see how much these things affect both quality and quantity of life. For instance there is a close correlation between body fat percentage and life expectancy. Do the pinch test, any more than half an inch on your belly is above the threshold.

Up
0

Well done you. Interested to hear more. There seems to be a huge amount of progress going on behind the scenes in that area. Hard to get access to, though, as Google seem to intentionally protect the consensus science of their advertisers. "Science progresses one death at a time", as they say. Science is at its best when the paradigm shifts.

Up
0

If I could , Santa Gummy would gift every person on the planet a copy of John Yudkin's 1972 classic book , " Pure , White , and Deadly ! " ....

... little wonder vested interests in America shut down this brilliant British nutritionist .... he hit their sugar industry BAM BAM , with both barrels ...

Up
0

The 1972 book Limits to Growth, was somewhat more important.

There is a legitimate need to reduce the global population in a managed way, before nature reduces it for us. Maybe what we are seeing is the inevitable cresting of the longevity-curve. After all, it couldn't go on up forever, not hand-in-hand with overshoot.

Sugar is a somewhat irrelevant side-issue, but then, some posters seem to need to go that way......

Up
0

I'd have thought sugar being energy would fit nicely into your thinking somehow.

Up
0

Redcows - nice one, but don't laugh too hard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Community:_How_Cuba_Survived…

The other comment seems to be from a click-bait increaser - been with the site a long time and reminds me of one called Wally. The concept of chewing your way through a finite planet, exponentially, seems to be beyond him. Bacteria in a jar seem to have similar cranial curtailment.

Up
0

... oh lawdy ... not the Club of Rome again ... 47 years after it was published people still believe this academic claptrap ... the Malthusians have 200 years of being utterly wrong ... and still they peddle their doom and gloom .... haaaaaaaaa !

Up
0

If only Wellington had scholars rather than activists.
Here is a starting point.
Politicians: Don't blame the voting people for failed political policy.
People: Failed political policy needs be acted upon at the voting booth.

http://alexatsintolas.weebly.com/origins-from-club-of-rome-rhetoric.html

Song’s findings were popular with the Chinese Communist party and Deng Xiaoping, as they provided evidence that the cause of “China’s continued poverty was not 30 years of disastrous misrule, but the very existence of the Chinese people” (Zubrin). The government also realized that by limiting the nation’s population it could increase the size and scope of its power (Zubrin). Therefore, thanks to Song Jian, China’s one-child policy has deep roots in the Club of Rome’s rhetoric concerning limiting population growth and size to preserve the environment.

Up
0

. . which led to decades of the insane one child policy in China .. . and a consequence of that , many couples wishing for a male heir , would murder the baby soon after birth if it was a female ... no one knows the exact figure , 100's of thousands at least , killed for being a girl ...

Bravo , Club of Rome . .. twats !

Up
0

HT - China's one-child policy was the best move by any modern government, anywhere. Sure, the West saw it as brutal or sexist - all the usual stuff - but overpopulation ends in collapse, no exceptions. The longer you push it, the bigger the fall. The neoliberal-backing mainstream media - and, to be honest, our societal false narrative - seem incapable/unwilling to address this issue. Here's one of the original authors, talking to a modern commenter.

https://www.peakprosperity.com/dennis-meadows-the-limits-to-growth/?_

How did you go with that reading-list?

Up
0

OMG !!! .... are you shitting me ? .... you're condoning the murder of 100's of thousands of new born girl babies .... Seriously ???

Up
0

GBH - try reading cognitively first.

But then, that's not your forte, is it?

I said it was the correct move from a governmental POV. That it had societal spinoffs is a lesson to be learned, but this does not relate to the correctness of reducing population before it reduces you.

Up
0

PDK.

Thanks for thoroughly discrediting the position and actions you promote.
You gotta make sure everyone understands the basis of your thinking.

Hint: we live in a country, world and time of plenty.
Looking forward to seeing a brilliant 2020.

Up
0

Bollocks. We live in a mono-culture-farmed, soil-deadened ex-forest. Every finite resource, both local and global, has been depleted. Ghost gold-towns in Central being but one example.

And the action I promote, is less stocking of the planetary paddock, preferably by not having folk die. That means not having them born. It's not rocket science. The actions your kind - and you are a kind - promote, can only lead to collapse. Sorry, but ecology trumps money. You still eat, drink, defecate, procreate and die. None of that is related to money.

And you didn't answer my question, so I will. You read nothing. I call that, with all the respect I can muster, 'chosen ignorance'.

http://dieoff.com/page25.htm

Up
0

PDK. You are clear.
Your position is antihumanism.

This view, your view of the world has been debunked many times over. This is your massive blind spot. All you are doing is exhibiting cognitive dissonance.

Read this tomorrow.
https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Despair-Environmentalists-Pseudo-Scien…

https://youtu.be/ITQQlAdco1g

Up
0

Henry I sort of get what you mean, there are a lot of environmentalists that don't really have a clue. A bit like me Vegan friends, who holding the moral high ground in their single cause miss the big picture. Plenty of vegans claim you can save the world by giving up meat, thus also displaying their ignorance of exponential growth. But I worked out pretty early on that PDK is a "rational" personality, he further confirmed his INTJ type in MBTI typology. If you ever read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" you will see the author unwittingly refer to this type as "Experimentalist". Personally I prefer "The Empiricist" for this type for they make up the majority of engineers and scientists of this world. Same type as Rutherford. They, and the INTP "Thinker", do the heavy intellectual lifting of the world. They deal with numbers, not rhetoric. And sorry my friend, you don't have the ability to compete on that level. My advice to you is to listen a bit more, and ask more questions, you might learn something.

Up
0

Follow the links, and GBH's note.
You may be attracted to pdk's action, more fool you. Anti-humanism will be your ruin too.

Up
0

I do my own research thanks Henry, part of that is looking at the evidence and drawing conclusions from that evidence. That part is driving by the Intuition and Thinking parts of Jungian theory. You can see the evidence also, but you don't seem to be able to put the pieces together. Leading indicator for me is the slowing in population growth, thus following a perfect Seneca Curve. That says to me that catastrophic die off of humans is mathematically assured within two generations, possibly less, the numbers are baked in. I'm letting math guide me, not rhetoric or wishful thinking. Lowering of average height and IQ worldwide is part of the same pattern, less wealth per person already well in progress. That is called corroboration. Not sure what you have to counter that, but I have not seen any rigorous evidence to the contrary.

Let me put it another way to you. If you are going to do something as audacious as build an atomic bomb, then you hire the appropriate minds that can put the pieces together.

Here is an interesting one for you. I have a team mate (yep a fellow gold medalist and national champion) that is also a INTJ personality like PDK (I'm an INTP). While an apparent right wing advocate he is actually a very good scientist that has published papers on climate change. He has no formal training or degree, his personality just makes him a natural. We win medals because we use sports science to guide us. He is knows a hell of a lot more about climate change than I do, so much so he is defeatest about the current state and trends. Same conclusion as me in a different area, the numbers are baked in. What is interesting is seeing him argue with internet experts (read idiots) and seeing the same old fallacies of argument dragged out. But I actually think you are a somewhat capable thinker Henry, and often like your comments, which is why I take the time to write.

PS. I was just reading yesterday that Tasmania has had 95% of its kelp beds die off due to an increase in sea temperature. This happened ten years ago.

Up
0

No. It is not.

My position is anti-overshoot.

And overshoot has been the reason for collapse of EVERY civilisation to put it's head above the parapet. Note that they all happened within the last 10,000 years. Note that Sumer resulted in the dead area known as Southern Iraq. Google Tikal. Heck, read a little. It's all there in the list I sent you. The only thing that has been debunked many times over, is that growth can go on forever using a finite resource base. Nobody has pulled that off, and we are 100,000,000 burned barrels of oil a day from pulling it off ourselves, not to mention the coal, gas, forest, fish-stocks, aquifers etc, all in draw-down mode. (You seriously think a proxy valuation of intellectual property is going to do anything about that lot? Delusional).

This time, for the first and only possible time, we are running the resource-consuming growth experiment at global scale. There won't be enough stored energy for a re-boot (we didnt scale up until we tapped into fossil fuels'- does that register at all?), let alone other stuff. And the other stuff won't be in concentrated pockets, it'll be in scattered landfills - to disparate to be worked by the remaining energy. And anyway - try reading Catton's Overshoot - we've probably been too late in overshoot terms, for 40-50 years. China's leadership got it.

There ARE 'best moves from here on'. But they don't involve more of what got us into this predicament - that much is blindingly obvious.

Who do you represent? Which growth-requiring activity? Which 'currently winning' growth-requiring activity?

Up
0

Possibly religion

Up
0

I was thinking FF, Fonterra or irrigation. Something earthy...

Up
0

Identity politics, brilliant play.

Anti-humanism, your position, has failed time and again over the past 200 years.
Your thinking is failing you.

Up
0

Happy New Year , Henry ... your thinking is OK by me .... can you recall the horror stories from India , when the government experimented with the forced sterilization of young women of " lower caste " in remote villages ... appalling .... and , this is the sort of ghastly population control PDK advocates or condones . .. YUCK !!!

Up
0

I still laugh at the time when PDK called me a zealot.

From that day on, I knew he was a troll account.

Up
0

... you're onto it , nymad ... happy new year !

Off for my training run ....

Scarfie's got me enthused ... gonna start with the 6 metres sprint ... about the length of a pub bar . . Wish me luck !

Up
0

Just get your craft beer served in bigger glasses GBH.

Up
0

HT - fossil-fuelled energy is all that has sustained us for 200 years.

You got another plan?

Thank you for acknowledging that I think. Sorry, but so far I find myself unable to return the compliment.

Good luck with it all.

Up
0

Your thinking is failing you.

You wish to see population reduced in a managed way, and your cheerful support of China one child policy places you in an extraordinary position.
Your wishes are holocaust in nature.
You have been offered opportunity to make correction or apology.
Your attempt to be shielded in the veil of ecology and environment is shameful.

Up
0

I think that's an oxymoron.

And you sound like a troll.

Up
0

Scarifie, well done on becoming an athlete and winning a gold medal at National champs at age 60ish, you'd have to be about that age since you "ve known since the 1970's that…"

Up
0

Will that be as accurate as your other predictions Yvil?

Btw how many chin ups can you do? My PB, which is recent, is 31. I can slap 30kg on my back and still manage a few. Most people here are chasing money, I want to make sure I live long enough to enjoy mine. Funny thing is some of the best things you can't buy, like being a National Champion. You have to work for it though. To win gold you have to bring be strong in all facets, to total package you could say.

Up
0

... I did a chin up once ... 1 ...

After the paramedics revived me , I determined to do fewer in a set , next time ...

... contemplating doing another one .... in 2025 or so ... no sense rushing in to it ...

Up
0

Scarfie; the man, the myth, the legend.
Revolutionary inventor, revered economic theorist, and now legendary athlete.

We should be perpetually in awe.

Up
0

.. finest seniors athlete going around ... second only to Snell ... actually , he should be catching him about now ..

A Scarfarific Year awaits .... JOY !

Up
0

Scarfie; the man, the myth, the legend.
Revolutionary inventor, revered economic theorist, and now legendary athlete.

We should be perpetually in awe.

Up
0

... you would think that with all those credentials , Mr S ought to be a household name ... famous for being on the steering committee of the Taihape Dairy & Fencing Games , or something ...

But no ... it beggars belief .... I am in awe ...

Up
0

... the Coca Colafication of the world has led to unprecedented obesity across the planet .. and a phenomenal rise in type 2 diabetes ... we have allowed McDonaldlisation to seep into every nook and cranny of our lands ...

American food processors got rich / we got sick / hospitals got flooded ...

Up
0

Win-win

Up
0

... a new industry was spawned : weight watching ... and madcap diets .... liver cleansing... Atkins ... cabbage water .... keto ... low fat ... fasting ... fruitarinism ...

It's been a blast ... and yet .... folks keep sucking and chomping themselves into poor health.... and early death ...

Up
0

Strictly for those with an interest in their Viking ancestors and a visceral distrust of the Kool-Aid of fashionable ideas:

Clearly, the climate was turning much colder inspiring the barbarian invasions from the north. As the solar activity turned down, volcanic activity began to rise. The Byzantine historian Procopius wrote: “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.” Temperatures in the summer plummeted creating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell as far east as China during the summer causing starvation as crops failed. The Irish chronicles recorded that “a failure of bread from the years 536–539” took place.

The mysterious clouds which engulfed the world contributed to the era being called the Dark Ages in Western Europe. From a Swiss glacier, ice core samples were obtained at the Climate Change Institute of The University of Maine. They determined that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere during early in 536AD. Two other massive eruptions followed in subsequent years during 540AD and again during 547AD. What appears to have been three successive major volcanic eruptions, the Dark Ages entered a volcanic winter which plunged Europe into famine which lasted for nearly 100 years into 640AD. This was also solar minimum which seems to correlate to an increase in volcanic activity.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/history/ancient-economies/charlemagn…

Up
0
Up
0

"qe stops"? when and under what circumstances do you imagine that might happen?

When it's decided to start a major financial crisis, as eg. the Bank of Japan knowingly did in late 1989. It subsequently did all it could to ensure an artificially long, 20-year recession, in order to pursue political goals. See my book Princes of the Yen http://www.quantumpublishers.com Link

Up
0

If one wrongly assumes that all money is used for the real economy, as MV=PY does, then the trend of greater amounts of money going into non-GDP transactions (real estate, financial, none of which are part of GDP) creates the illusion of a velocity decline https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/36569/ Link

Up
0

I never could quite cope with the flawed logic of that equation. It doesn't mean it's not true. It seems very plausible, but the concept of a variable, V, that you can't measure directly and that makes everything work is just too bizarre.

I can predict more or less anything from any data with such a variable. For example, the number of chairs in any room with people in it, is the product of the number of people in the room times R, the Room Factorial, which is a varible that cannot be independently measured that has the exact value it needs to have to predict the number of chairs in the room.

It just does my head in.

Up
0

If you think back to my long standing prediction on interest rates(think what were they when I made that prediction?), I also included the prediction that velocity will drop. This is because a greater portion of the money supply is dedicated to servicing interest, or other financial costs, rather than consumption. Just saying this makes me think velocity and consumption could be correlated. A few months back I was digging around in an encyclopedia and discovered that Milton Friedman was the first to theorise a decoupled velocity. He proposed it has two components, fixed and variable.

Up
0

Of course the difference between you and Milton Friedman is that he knew what he was talking about.

Up
0

My prediction on both interest rates and velocity ares looking pretty good so far, how are yours looking? Oh that is right, you admit you are not smart enough to make them. Makes me better than you right there. Choose a sport, any sport, and I'll beat you there also. My guess is you are a weekend warrior at best, just like you are a weekend economist.

Up
0

Chuckle. It would be funny, but these folk and their 'we can grow forever' story still hold sway. To support their thesis, an ever-increasing amount of spin has to be spun, and it has to be regurgitated by the media. Just search for Queensland sources of comment on Climate Change - and then remember that CC is only the exhaust-gases of our energy-use. It's not the prime problem, which is replacement of the finite energy resource we all rely on. I also think it's time pressure was brought to bear on academia - besides the media and politicians. Even the pointy-end of academia only discusses climate change as if we can morph seamlessly. Few seem to want to acknowledge that paying a lecturer with student debt, is a way of enabling the present to buy what the future will no longer be able to supply. I think that's fraud, but maybe academia has enough legal clout to avoid the charge.....

I've stopped 'debating' with the Nymad one, because it wasn't debating; it got into ideology and at that point there's no point. The Tull one and the GBH one (have you guessed who he is?) just twist things in spin fashion, the old Jenny Shipley era 'throw what you're guilty of at the opposition' approach. The good thing is that more and more folk are 'getting it'. I had Xmas lunch with a distant 'rellie'- a retired car salesman and not one I thought I had much in common with. "I think we're f--ked", he said, after asking what I did nowadays (which is write about real sustainability). Last person I'd have expected it from, and it's getting more and more common. The laggards will those who were economics-trained.

Go well, Scarfie. I won a Masters gold medal once, but if the good ones had been there I wouldn't have. :)

Up
0

Agree. And yes I am seeing the penny drop with more people now. Perhaps it is akin to the technology adoption curve. A lot of what I read from is a bit like the comment I once saw in relation to late adopters on this curve. The only reason they use a push button phone is because a dial one is no longer available. I mean why throw out a perfectly good idealology that has got them this far in life right?

My gold was for a team event, and categorised as "Iron", or long distance. In a few weeks I get to try my hand in sprints going solo. So I'm heavy into training and little into drinking. Looking forward to benchmarking myself though, and have had already had to race to qualify with that current national champ in that race. Of course the real win goes back to my opening comment, a long lived and healthy lifestyle. As my Dad says: "Outlive your enemies". And I will :-)

PS. I was thinking I have gold medal at a national level, and a working predictive theory. Nymad will never have either so there is probably a bit of envy at play. I certainly don't have to justify either to him.

Up
0

"A working predictive theory"
Riiiight...sure you do. Best you work out the difference between a hypothesis and a theory.

Nope. You are correct! I dont have a gold medal to my name. Attacking my character on the basis of the lack of a masters games accolade is quite pathetic, though.

Up
0

The Henry Tull link is a piece of spin, cynically parodying this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

Up
0

Pdk you are in the weeds, look up.
The problem you have is antihumanism. Antihumanism is driving everything you do. That's the bit you gotta address.

It was a big surprise when you came out here, came out supporting managed population decline and cheerfully supporting china one child policy. It was a big surprise to everyone.

https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Despair-Environmentalists-Pseudo-Scien…

Review
The book is replete with scientific studies and facts, though it is Zubrin's view on the people and history behind antihumanist movements that is the most disturbing. Whether pointing out that the first Green Party was founded under the leadership of August Haussleiter, a former Nazi SS officer; that Fujimori's genocide in Peru was funded by international aid; or that Qian Xinzhong was given the first United Nations Population Award (together with Indira Gandhi) after forcing thousands of Chinese women to abort their children, Zubrin paints a dark and disturbing picture of antihumanism that's worth everyone's time to read. --Publishers Weekly

Robert Zubrin's masterful study makes for riveting reading. Merchants of Despair is a cautionary tale of what happens when powerful, unprincipled elites are not only alienated from the mass of their fellow men, but come to see them as a barrier to imagined social, evolutionary, or environmental progress. --Steven W. Mosher, President, Population Research Institute

Up
0

Listen to yourself. Read what you wrote.

You're sounding like a neoliberal priest - disseminating the gospel of unlimited growth (based on physical extraction, obviously, or is it just virtual?) within a bounded system.

I doubt if came as any surprise, to anyone, that an ecologist/systems thinker, would advocate less people. You, on the other hand, mentioned holocaust, and your bar-fly offsider rabbits on about Malthusian. Both are attempts to obfuscate/denigrate. There is no need to do so, if you have the factual high-ground. Every farmer knows there's a maximum stocking rate for any given paddock, and the planet is nothing more than a paddock. Every farmer also knows, that the more crowded the paddock gets, the slower his/her stock put on weight. Your way - overstock forever - has the operation closed down and the farmer in court.

One of the books in the list I gave you - the one you will have studiously avoided - was Catton's 'Overshoot'. Come up with a rebuttal, why don't you? The rest of us are thinking about two, three and more generations ahead.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/18/17886974/science-technolo…

"We keep building and expanding, and we’re demanding more energy and more resources, and we’re on what appears to be an unsustainable path. My concerns about this have only grown since 2003 when I wrote Our Final Hour".

And he's unquestionably smarter than most of us.

Up
0

What is carrying capacity.

Since the 1980s there has been a 25% increase in lambing percentage and carcass weight and a 50-gram-a-day improvement in lamb growth rate without changes in stocking rate. These gains have occurred at a time when labour inputs have been reducing as sheep productivity per labour unit has also improved by at least 35%. Much of the sheep and beef cattle in New Zealand are farmed on hill or high country at low stocking rates and hence often biodiversity is maintained in such habitats. The pastoral landscape is becoming more dynamic and sophisticated, with greater movement of animals between farms and the boundaries between sheep, beef, and dairy farms
becoming increasingly blurred.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.landca…

Nth Island Hill country, the guys are getting 140% plus, almost double 40 years ago. Brilliant to see

Up
0

Pdk, I am helping you here.

Try formulating proposals that do not require population control, one child policies or otherwise murdering people. Try something away from antihumanism.

Fun fact to find:
PDK how many women agree with your population control measures.
How many women would wish the china one child or similar policy to be enacted in New Zealand.

Up
0