Here's our summary of key economic events over the weekend that affect New Zealand, with news there is no sign yet the pandemic is easing significantly.
The latest compilation of Covid-19 data is here. The global tally is now 2,954,100 and up +174,000 from this time on Saturday which is a rising rate.
Now, just over 32% of all cases globally are in the US, which is up +70,000 since this time Saturday to 956,300. This is a quickening rate of increase too. US deaths now exceed 54,000. Global deaths are about to exceed 205,000. Singapore is an unusual hotspot we should all keep an eye on. There are now 13,600 cases there in an explosive lack of control you wouldn't expect from the tiny island nation. They added more than 600 new cases yesterday. In contrast, Hong Kong has recorded only 1037 cases in total so far, and only 4 deaths. In China, all patients in Wuhan hospitals have now been discharged.
In Australia, there are now 6700 cases, 83 deaths and a recovery rate of 83% and rising. 115 people are in hospital there with 42 in ICU.
There are now 1470 Covid-19 cases identified in New Zealand, with 9 new cases yesterday and more than the prior day's +3 increase. Eighteen people have died, all geriatric patients. There are now seven people in hospital with the disease, with one in ICU. Our recovery rate is now up over 78% and rising.
In China, they are approving new construction as fast as they can. But among the approvals are for 10 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generation capacity in this year’s first quarter, roughly equal to the amount approved for all of last year. And their internal tourism market is showing renewed signs of life. However, these bright spots may not be enough. China's desperate race to restart its economy may be faltering already on a national basis. New orders are contracting, especially export orders.
Not all Chinese companies are struggling. Bright Dairy, the Shanghai listed company with significant interests in Synlait Milk, has posted sharply improved results in the year to December. It is a listed portion of Bright Foods, owned by the Shanghai local government, and another listed subsidiary is the 50% partner in Silver Fern Farms.
Japan is about to announce a program to subsidise the pay 100% for about 10 mln workers laid off by their SMEs.
Last week we mentioned the imminent South Korean election, but overlooked the results. The public's perception their government is handling the coronavirus pandemic well has powered the ruling Democratic Party to a landslide general election victory. Perhaps the central lesson for politicians, democratic ones at least, is that prioritising public health, even over economic interests can pay off at the ballot box.
In the US, their Congressional Budget Office has issued new projections that show that without further action, the American federal budget deficit would be -$3.7 tln in fiscal year 2020, and federal debt held by the public would equal 101% of GDP by the end of the fiscal year. In 2019 the deficit was -$984 bln and the debt 82% of GDP. What they are reporting is a stunningly quick deterioration.
Separately, new data shows US durable goods orders fell more than expected in March. A -12% fall was expected but a -14.4% fall was reported. April will show a sharper decline of course.
Consumer sentiment as measured in the University of Michigan survey was very negative, and a small uptick last week was snuffed out in this week's report.
The US domestic rig count has fallen again and by much more than expected. A -5% fall from its new low level was expected for the week, but it actually fell -12% to just 465 active rigs. There were 805 at the start of 2020 and 1083 at the start of 2019. Capacity is being extracted now, not oil. This latest decline is their worst on record.
In Canada, their government is to bail out commercial landlords via 'forgivable loans' provided they give at least 75% rent relief to tenants and promise not to evict them.
In Brazil, the country is facing a new political crisis and their financial markets are recoiling in the fallout.
The closely-watched IFO survey of German businesses managers was very negative, and more so than the already gloomy expectations.
In Europe, leaders have unexpectedly agreed to a €1 tln collective rescue for Europe's free-falling economies as key data showed much larger declines than in the GFC. That comes after the US Congress agreed an almost US$½ tln addition to their support measures, taking them up to US$3 tln. And Japan has rushed through additions taking their support package to US$1.1 tln.
The UST 10yr yield is little-changed at just under 0.61%. Their 2-10 curve is unchanged at +38 bps. Their 1-5 curve is slightly narrower at +20 bps, and their 3m-10yr curve is wider at just on +51 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr yield is now at 0.90% and up +1 bp over the weekend. The China Govt 10yr is unchanged at 2.51%. The NZ Govt 10 yr yield is also unchanged at 0.83%.
Gold is up +US$6 to US$1,730/oz.
Oil prices have slipped back marginally today. They are currently at just under US$17/bbl. International oil prices are soft too, with the Brent benchmark just over US$21/bbl. A major Chinese bank has had to take a US$1 bln loss from the oil price tumble. They won't be the only lender facing huge losses.
The Kiwi dollar has changed little over the weekend. We are now at 60.2 USc and a very similar level to a week ago. On the cross rates it's a different story; we are at 94.1 AUc and a -¾c retreat in a week. Against the euro we are up +¼c from our week-ago level at 55.7 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is at 66.4, and bang-on our four-week average.
Bitcoin is up +1.4% from this time on Saturday, now at US$7,624. The bitcoin rate is charted in the exchange rate set below.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
212 Comments
There is no evidence the RBNZ is officially constraining the availability of cash in the system - Link - LIABILITIES/currency in circulation.
Gold is a store of wealth without any counter party risk. It could be used to settle trades (as some are now asking for on advertisements in the US) but more likely to be salted away for later on. A bit of cash is liquidity just now. Heavens knows where to from here with that !!
At the risk of repetition, OBR = OPEN bank resolution.
It's a process to get any bank in trouble married to a stronger bank ( or the Government if push comes to shove). Depositors funds are going - nowhere, except to an account with another provider's name on it. (Have a look at what's happened over time in our neck of the woods. Any weak banks have been merged with another stronger one. ( eg BNZ 20 years ago with NAB) That's why we have a Big 4 policy by virtue of the Australian parents. RBNZ authorised banks aren't Hanover Finance etc. they are regulated banks that are so crucial to the financial system of New Zealand that our economy could not exist without them. And letting one fail is neither going to happen or probable. If it does, those notes you have squirrelled away will be worth - NOTHING)
Do we think that the Government/RBNZ is throwing untold billions of dollars at the current problem; subsidising idle workers wages etc just to throw it all away by letting a bank/ the banking system fail?
Not going to happen.
A bit of cash on hand may be useful if the ATM’s do stop working for any reason. I thought OBR was a plan to keep banks open during a crisis but put a hold on some depositors funds, as unsecured creditors pending bank support from somewhere. Anyway, we should all hold and trade in cash for some transactions to ensure cash remains a lawful means of exchange. I’m not in favour of this ‘cashless society’ talk.
Again, it's like BW hasn't actually read the policy. I encourage you to all read it, before taking BWs opinion as fact: https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/regulation-and-supervision/banks/open-bank-res…
Opening line is: Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is a long-standing Reserve Bank policy aimed at allowing a distressed bank to be kept open for business, while placing the cost of a bank failure primarily on the bank’s shareholders and creditors, rather than the taxpayer.
Depositors are creditors. As a depositor, you have the cost of the bank failure placed on you. No amount of "this wouldn't happen in NZ" from bw should be believed while this policy stands. The government has NOT withdrawn the OBR.
Just checked the KiwiBonds prospectus…
"A Bond may be repaid at any time after one month from the Date of Commencement on receipt by the Registrar of at least seven Banking Days' notice in writing from the Bondholder. The notice of repayment may be given in respect of either the total amount of the Bond or for a minimum of $1,000.”
An early redemption charge applies of either the actual interest rate minus 2% per annum or 0% per annum, whichever is greater.
So with the OCR at 0.25% there is virtually no penalty for early withdrawal apart from forgoing the meagre earnings from that minuscule amount of interest...
BNZ, last Thursday, had a note saying $2000 limit withdrawal over the counter. Don't know what the ATM was as the line to get into the branch was right in front of it.
On a side note:
I had to play 20 questions with the security guard outside who was only letting one person in at a time - after trying politeness of 'not saying' and him still insisting that he had to know why I needed in the branch, I told him, loudly, to fuck off and it was none of his business as he didn't work for BNZ......the ladies behind me clapped and told him that that was their answer too. Unbelievable. The conversation amongst our end of the queue then descended to when did we lose our freedoms and democracy. A quick show of hands and everyone wanted the house arrest lifted completely, so I can't see "smile and wave" winning at the next election if the comments were anything to go by. That cross-section of society was very very annoyed with her.
Because the idiot guard in question didn't seem to get it his through his thick numbskull brain that I had no intention of telling him why I needed to sort out my banking in the actual frigging branch; no matter how politely I phrased the "I'm sorry, but you don't need to know that" answer. I did say that a phone call to BNZ's call center ended with a "yeah, I think you need to go to a branch to sort this". But no, that wasn't good enough for the little Hitler who just kept bagging away at it. I was actually waiting for him to basically tell me to go away as he'd decide who would go in or not. Hence the discussion at my end of the queue as to when exactly it was that we became a police state, when we were getting our freedoms back, and that Jacinda was toast at the election.
That guard had no authority over me, his sole purpose was to unlock and lock the sliding door, counting one person out and then the next person, in the outside queue, in. That was it. I did complain to the staff inside as to whether BNZ had a new policy of playing silly buggers with their customers, because if so I'd be changing banks as soon as possible. They apologised and I noticed one went out as I stepped up to the counter.....hopefully to tell the chap to tone it down.
As to what he was getting paid, who cares. He has a job and so many have lost theirs in 5 weeks, or will lose theirs by Christmas. The full horror story of shutting down an economy has years to play out.
Kirsty,
Just spell it out. How many deaths would you-and your friends- accept to have kept the economy open? That's what Sweden has done and with roughly double our population, they have over 2000 deaths. Can i assume therefore that you would have accepted some 1000 deaths as a reasonable price to pay? What if one of them was a close relative? Would that be ok?
My take is that the lady and the queue had no problem at all with the “doorman” operating the door as was required for controlled ingress and egress. What was upsetting, and that would have included me too, was having an unauthorised personnel enquiring , with everyone in earshot, into your exact personal financial purpose. Even a bank staff member shouldn’t do that in front of other customers. All that needed to happen was for any one customer be given entry and once inside let the counter staff deal with it as normal. Give someone a hat,whistle and white coat and they will rule the world! But I am right with you on your rationale otherwise.
It gets more interesting when you add up the preventable deaths caused by the lockdown. You know, the one's that get less publicity: Suicide, violent assault, the people who didn't get their lumps checked, sat on the couch, got a clot in their leg, tripped over the cat and down the stairs when they should have been out at the bridge club. If you die with Covid you get an honourable mention, if you died because you're old and nobody checked on you and you slipped in the shower, well, sucks to be you mate. So when it all comes out that Covid is a bad flu for the octogenarian with emphysema, and you're explaining to your kids why their future plans had to be scaled back 2 years because we needed to save lives, but Dad's out of work now, and we're in a damp motel, which is aggravating Suzie's asthma, then we'll talk.
And so when the culling of the old and infirm is complete you select then the mentally afflicted because most of them don’t know what’s going on anyway and after that, well certain religious sects, why not, they don’t fit the ideal society and thus the better welfare of the preferred population. That is where that sort of repugnant thinking can lead and history is full of it. No one in our society has the right to proclaim that others are disposable in the interests of themselves or anybody else, the supposedly “greater good,”regardless of age, colour, creed and anything else on the table. [ Unnecessary fragment removed. Ed ] Don’t belong in our country.
Sorry, I accidentally reported your comment, which I agree with btw. But the Read More button can be very close the the Report Comment button sometimes - fat fingers and all. Also it didn't let me unreport it like I used to be able to do - this isn't the first time, or even the 10th time for that matter, that I've accidentally reported a comment.
So if someone reads this maybe you can report this comment and they will have to read it, and possibly address the issues.
Linklater01 - I really don't care how many die of the virus - more are going to suffer and die over the next few years from the economic consequences of the lockdown than will ever die in NZ from this virus. If they don't take their lives as a means of escape then the mental suffering will eventually take its toll with physical side effects. Neither of my parents made 67, and even their docs put it down to the constant and ongoing stress of trying to save the businesses in the 1987 aftermath. They didn't. They managed to save the house - whoopee de doo daa - but the constant stress took their health and thus any chance of old age.
Basically, I was pissed off at the constant questioning as to my reasons for being outside my bank, hence my complaint when I finally got in. The common consensus from the people waiting to get in was that we were all over this lockdown and the feeling that it was unnecessary. Even the oldies, and they were about half the queue by the way, felt that the govt's response was over the top and they should have been told to stay in whilst everyone else continued on to keep the economy ticking over. So just normal Kiwis chatting amongst themselves as to how they were doing, how they were over it, how the response was over the top, and that it was none of the guard's business as to why we were all queuing to get into the single branch open in town for 4hrs on one day in that one week.
Interesting, I wonder of this preempts an announcement by Kiwibank or if it's a 'just in case' move. The February update was not good (margins falling, had to carry more lending and 'transformation' eating profits) but they hadn't actually done any cost cutting at that point.
Of all the banks I would have judged that Kiwibank would be most likely to be bailed out as "too Kiwi to fail" instead of going through OBR. All the same I have finds distributed between three banks with three banks for this very reason.
Just looked at their website, it doesn't seem planned because it's still got the old information up suggesting the cash withdrawal limit was higher:
"The maximum amount that you can withdraw from ATMs using your ATM/ EFTPOS card or Visa Debit Card. $2,500 per day."
Kunstler on fire and on task
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/turning-and-churning/
And the most thoughtful riposte to the Michael Moore film, to date:
https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/skepticism-is-healthy-but-plane…
"He offers no new solutions" is such a cop-out criticism. The fact of the matter is that there MAY BE NO SOLUTIONS to maintain our current consumerist way of existence. He more or less states that if humanity is to prosper, we seriously need to completely rethink the way that we co-exist with nature. I do not believe that this will happen until we reach the ultimate crisis point, which may ultimately result in the deaths of billions. I don't know how or when, but that's my (unfortunately pessimistic) opinion.
lots of things just don't make sense. Chinese new year saw millions leave Wuhan just before lockdown and then get shut out from returning. Yet the virus hasn't spread fast in other regions?
India /middle east/ Africa should have dead people everywhere by now. Hospitals are empty in many areas yet bailout money has been poured in. Im getting super cynical . Listen to the Senator on this link.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-med…
Maybe their heavy smoking has helped reduce infection rates? I heard of a credible sounding study the other day working off the basis that anecdotal evidence shows smokers are less susceptible to infection. It wasn't advocating smoking - it noted smokers tend to be worse off when they get it. But they are doing a study with nicotine patches, they theorize it could be nicotine.
Why Covid rates were so high in New York. "The coronavirus patients began arriving the last week of March, transferred to the Gurwin Jewish Nursing and Rehabilitation Center under a New York state mandate requiring nursing homes to accept those recovering from COVID-19, even if they still might be contagious."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-spreads-new-york-nursi…
"No resident shall be denied re-admissionor admissionto the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosisof COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized residentwho is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission."
https://nypost.com/2020/04/23/coronavirus-patients-admitted-to-queens-n…
https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/03/doh_co…
For some reason, the US has a greater propensity to believe than we do. Much greater residual classic religion, huge crowd-inciting religion.
I wonder if the belief in the religions of recent decades - globalism and growth-forever - is stronger there also?
It would stand to reason, if you'll forgive the oxymoron :)
Seems to me whilst living there they don’t really go looking for news and what they do get is full of partisan politics or a scandal, foremost . Quite complacent, for the most part they can be influenced en masse, and often get a hold of the wrong end of the stick. For instance in 200? the foot & mouth outbreak in UK, pyres of carcasses smoking etc on CNN, folk around us stopped eating beef.
They've also been dumbed down through the likes of Fox News and CNN in recent decades. As well as too miserly of funding of education, and exploitative higher education pricing.
The combination of high religiosity (and superstition in general), high propaganda, and lowering education is similar to what you see in some third world countries. With similar results.
The number of infections daily in NZ is not dropping, it is not contained, or even limited, and certainly not controlled.
No government with any moral backbone can move away from L4 lockdown in this scenario.
We need to get this under control and going to L3 tomorrow will simply unleash the Virus to decimate us completely, as it has done, and is doing again, to all those around the world who also thought they had it under control.
We don't have community transfer do we? As I understand it, could be wrong, cases now are recent arrivals and those associated with them. If that is the case and people are constantly returning it would be months before we got out of level 4. That is simply not possible.
The reality is most people are willing to risks their lives to keep their homes and have a standard of living. It's not going to "decimate us completely".
Lol.
How is it still spreading from existing cases after 5 weeks of isolation and lockdown.. 350 active cases can't be controlled and 5mil people put their lives on hold. You'd think with unlimited billions all 350 might be in a 5 star secure quarantine facility.. heck 10,000 if need be.
Again, what's the strategy here?
That’s the question alright. People in my area are pondering the same thing. The narrative is no longer convincing, the contra evidence is mounting around the world and people are finally doing their own research, instead of taking the Stuff headlines hook, line and sinker!
It may be nature, but perhaps Homer is alluding to the fear-stoking headlines, when if you read the serology studies, the CFR is 0.2 tops. Not a major problem unless you're old with pre-existing conditions. But even that perspective is deemed irresponsible. But you know what's really irresponsible? Giving a Mountain Dew to a toddler.
Trying hard
Last night, yesterday the Australians released the contact tracing App.
Based upon and improved from the Singapore App.
https://www.health.gov.au/resources/apps-and-tools/covidsafe-app
NZ MoH got the Singapore App same time as the Australians, not a peep.
There will be no travel to Australia until the tracing works on both sides.
Does MoH need help or get out of the way.
L3 tomorrow.
Some should send them a fax.
Who's got a telex.
1. spread of viruses is counted by R.0 and lockdowns do not reduce the spread of the virus to zero, more like an R.0 of 1 to 1.5
2. NZ has next to no community transmission this has now been validated by random testing and the current decline in active case rates
3. Had it not been for the lockdown we would have widespread community transmission by now, as it is though, with no community transmission, lockdown has done its job and will become more harm than good if continued much longer
4. four week lockdown bought time to put structures in place to drill down into exactly where the cases were, to prevent untraceable community transmission and understand the virus a bit better
5. with hard border controls and rigorous containment of the clusters there is no need for the whole country to be in lockdown at this stage
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/workers-urged-to-download-app-t…
Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said the organisation was working with members to encourage their staff to download the app, with industry hoping it will fast-track the reopening of businesses that have been forced to close.
"Our members employ millions of people, so if their staff download the app then employers have the confidence they need to ensure their workers and customers are safe," she told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
"This will also greatly extend the national reach of the app, ultimately making us all safer.”
Having this would could have been a great psychological boost for us to move into L3.
You want to read this, aside from being a rehash of fortnight ago.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/415214/covid-19-new-zealand-contact…
The little Extra bit here is...
The ministry said it would use mobile data to track the movements of people with the virus.
The first version of the app would allow voluntary pre-registration, giving the ministry up-to-date contact details for users.
The ministry was also looking into the use of QR codes to check into businesses or places.
If the App comes in 2weeks, (tui), we are then in level2.
Why this QR code check into places.
They will already have the contacts (trace), why do they need the place (track).
Could be an excuse for being late, but if such a good idea why have Singapore and Australia ignored & chosen not to.
First version.
Giving the ministry up to date contact details for users.
Q:
Who is happy to be tracked?
Who is happy to be traced?
Unfortunately the right-wing ranters I know on Facebook who have been yelling that we should be like South Korea or Taiwan (instead of locking down) are also the same ranters lambasting any such app with location tracking as Orwellian and something they will resist strongly.
Decimated? "In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 10 per 100,000. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000.
...If you do not already have an underlying chronic condition, your chances of dying are small, regardless of age. And young adults and children in normal health have almost no risk of any serious illness from COVID-19.
...Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.
We can learn about hospital utilization from data from New York City, the hotbed of COVID-19 with more than 34,600 hospitalizations to date. For those under 18 years of age, hospitalization from the virus is 0.01 percent, or 11 per 100,000 people; for those 18 to 44 years old, hospitalization is 0.1 percent. Even for people ages 65 to 74, only 1.7 percent were hospitalized. Of 4,103 confirmed COVID-19 patients with symptoms bad enough to seek medical care, Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Medical Center concluded "age is far and away the strongest risk factor for hospitalization."
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494034-the-data-are-in-stop-the-…
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf
Strangely the young dying of virus related strokes seen elsewhere in the world, especially the states, hasn't been seen here, or Australia, YET. There is a lot not known atm.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/s…
Where are all the people with hypertension, diabetes and other condition that would be getting very ill if it was out there and spreading in the community?
Why has not a single positive result come back from the sentinel testing they are doing?
You've got nothing except your irrational fear.
CrispyKahawai - you have not evidence to support that assertion and there is mounting evidence to show that the fatality rate is around 0.1%. Antibody testing shows that 20% of New York City has already had the virus. WuFlu appears to be about a bad flu or even less. Stating that the lockdown is working is not the same thing as saying that the fatality rate is low for WuFlu.
“ WuFlu appears to be about a bad flu or even less.” oh really?
If that’s the case you’ll be able to provide a plethora of examples where the UK hospital systems have been completely overwhelmed with flu outbreaks to the point where they’ve had to build temporary hospitals to cope. For some reason I just can’t find any, not in the last century anyway.
Haha that's right - we've completely modified human social behaviour and medical effort and personal hygiene and achieved that number! From memory we didn't do that last winter for the seasonal flu....but yip, that seasonal flu is definitely deadlier!
Quite a few flat earther types around here who probably just want to get back to work so they can generate income so that the price of their housing portfolio doesn't drop.
by Pragmatist | 14th Mar 20, 6:43pm
no, one is a one off thing, once we get past the first 6 months of Covid-19, either we will have herd immunity, or we will have medical advances that make it managable. And its not a few hundred lives, its thousands in NZ, and 10s of millions worldwide.
Even with this action, NZ is still going to lose thousands of live to covid-19 most likely. It will get through.
by Merrydaze | 22nd Mar 20, 9:33pm
Prags I can't quite work you out. In this and other posts you have made you accuse others of effectively being alarmist. The other day it was YOU who predicted 5000 deaths to occur in NZ as a result of Corona virus?
by Pragmatist | 22nd Mar 20, 9:44pm
Yes, 5000 deaths is a drop in the bucket, ~0.1% of the population. That's not alarmist, that optimistic. Left unchecked 100,000 deaths would be realistic.
Well at least he/she has had the light bulb moment and admitted it. Some other identities, contributors here in fact who need not be named, remain rampantly obtuse and intransigent, It worries me deeply that in our society there are individuals that would appear to deem that the lives of others are expendable, for the purposes ostensibly, of themselves and their business, because statistically those said lives are of an advanced age and/or are disposable because they have had their time. That disposition is very very dangerous and is identical to the same perverse ideology of persecuting, certain religious creeds. That deadly and repugnant philosophy peaked under the Nazis and should be dead and buried with them.
Some experiences out of Asia to think about and consider in the discussion
1) FYI, Hong Kong had zero cases on one day - last Monday.
"Following a March spike that accompanied the return of numerous Hongkongers from abroad, the city’s daily tally of infections has dropped into the single digits, where it has held steady since April 12, with zero reported on Monday for the first time in nearly two months."
On Tuesday, despite the signs of improvement, officials announced the extension of most social distancing rules, including the shutting of bars, gyms, beauty salons, massage parlours and karaoke lounges, for at least two more weeks.
"Hong Kong confirmed four new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, including a child of two, bringing the city’s total infections to 1,033. All four had recently returned from Britain."
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3081068/c...
It's the incoming travellers that are taking it in and responsible for the new cases. It only takes one asymptomatic infection in the community to restart the infection count in the wider community.
2) Experience out of Harbin in China. It only takes one to restart infections ...
https://twitter.com/SGCFin/status/1253526963811016708/photo/1
Wells don't produce.
They extract :)
What we were about to see, and therefore have probably been tipped into, is the low-EROEI energy sources that are the only options ahead, being rendered permanently non-profitable. That was always going to be the case for a physics POV - only economists don't get EROEI. Society can no longer afford itself, energy-wise. If we were counting correctly, we have not been affording ourselves for a decade, and arguably it's been coming on for 4-5 decades. The Trump Admin will have to step in and apply unrepayable debt to prop up fracking. Where that ends who knows?
Think that is right and just about all in rest homes too. Those should have been quarantined here much much earlier. But seeing how they are now identified and located, under control, transmissions contained, then if the number of cases as such is deducted what is then the number left that is out in the wider community? Is that not the real size of the real problem for NZ now?
I would read "geriatric patients" as those that were geriatric and already in a care facility or hospital. Our youngest casualty was only 62 and living at home.
Maybe it would be better to write "all old people with co-morbiditiies" just to be precise. The patients bit is confusing.
Three month LIBOR fell below 1% yesterday for the first time since March 16. This is being held up as proof the Fed's "flood" of "liquidity" is working.
It is actually evidence, solid, hard evidence, that IT IS NOT WORKING.Link-scroll up
Next step is negative interest rate - USA will be the first to go in today's time.
Had sars, swine flu......earlier also though may be not as big as Corona Virus or may be Corona Virus has become big because of fed and government's policy after GFC - Good Intention.
Now one understand and experience the saying :
PATH TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTION
Funny you should say that, apparently the UK may have to encourage "furloughed workers" to become fruit and veg pickers. BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52435332
Somethings got to give.
In Oz you cant visit a dying relative but the NRL has told the govt they are starting training in a fortnight and playing by May28.
Arrogance or reality?
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/why-it-s-high-time-gladys-put-the-nrl-in-i…
Yeah, but we all need to grow some balls. I’m old enough to remember the Springbok Tour protest and the huge social unrest that that came from the challenge to the ‘holy cow’ of rugby. Those people stood up and were counted, rightly or wrongly, they walked the walk. Now we hide at our gates on ANZAC morning, lest we remember what we should be doing!!! Rural cenotaphs in our area were well patronised, loaded with flowers, a few old boys about with their medals gleaming. I guess they’d faced adversity a time or two before and had stood up and were counted then too !
Breaking the rules set is nothing to be proud of.
If one of those who did so happened to mean our shared sacrifice of shutting down the country for a month was a waste of time, would it really be patriotic?
You cant shoot a virus with guns, or punch it in its face. You have to isolate and hope it dies out.
BBC Coronavirus: Chile to introduce controversial 'virus-free' ID. "Chile is to go ahead with controversial plans to issue certificates to people who have recovered from Covid-19. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there is "no evidence" that people who contract coronavirus are immune from being infected again, and warned that "immunity" documents could even help the virus spread".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52436330
I'm pretty sure the WHO had to come back and re-word that to something less alarmist suggesting that most people would have immunity but that they didn't know how long it would last. Most recovered people HAVE immunity and there IS plenty of evidence. It just can't be assumed and testing at regular intervals would be required because there are a minority who do not have immunity or whose immunity doesn't last all that long. As this is a new virus, we can't know how long the antibodies last for yet.
I wonder when the COVID death numbers will match the hype? 200k deaths in the world - it sounds like a big number but its only a fraction of the 56 million that die every year. Also I’m sick of reading about number of deaths when the real meaningful statistic is number of living years lost. It may sound insensitive but surely a car accident that kills a 16 year old with 70+ years left to live is 70x worse than COVID taking the life of a 90 year old that only has 1 year left? I’m a bit 50/50 on the whole thing at the moment (which has been the case since it began), but it does seem that the amount of life lost from uncontrolled COVID could actually be less than common potentially preventable causes like car accidents that we ignore every year. In fact the lockdown may save more living years through car accidents than COVID!
You've fallen for several logical fallacies here.
* firstly the virus is so contagious and causes *enough* critical cases to overwhelm health facilities - that isn't speculation, it has happened in several places that were unable to flatten the curve quickly enough
* when hospitals are overwhelmed and riddled with Covid-19 it becomes a vicious cycle for the entire healthcare system because medical staff end up with higher rates of infection and people who need non-virus related treatment are at higher risk of either getting the virus or not receiving adequate treatment (or both). I have friends who work in oncology in both Australia and UK, their wards have been closed after cancer patients contacted the virus and died, their wards have been converted into Covid-19 wards and neither hospitals are able to offer cancer treatment currently... cancer is the biggest killer so i'm using it as an example for how the virus will cause deaths in the uninfected. Think of all the millions of people globally who will not be diagnosed with cancer in time, or will not receive cancer treatment because the healthcare system if overwhelmed with the virus for many months. NZ managed to stamp down the virus to the extent we have only had one month of reduced healthcare services. And the lockdown healthcare service was still a hell of a lot more functional than the places with major virus problems.
* now apply the above scenario to everything else.... how do labour wards run with Covid-19 infecting everyone? How do emergency services and ambulance services respond to car accidents save lives when the virus has compromised them too? This is also true, although to a lesser extent to non-health services. It's not *just* about the virus fatality rate.
*Also in NZ, if we had not contained the virus going into winter, we would be looking at the virus peaking at the same time as flu season. It would have been horrific.
*Also, and I am sick of repeating this, we don't know this virus. It's new. There is already strong evidence that the European mutation is more lethal. Just because it mostly kills OAP's now, does not mean it won't mutate to effect other groups. And let's say it did mutate and wiped out thousands of infants... how would we judge the decision to underestimate a novel virus? Is that worth the risk given how contagious the virus is and the ways that it has mutated already?
And who staffs the new hospitals, do medical staff grow on magic trees at the same time as their sickness rates are going through the roof?.
But also this is EXACTLY what HAS been happening the world over, everyone is trying their best to separate covid patients from non-covid patients. With an uncontrolled pandemic even that wouldn't be possible. UK has built numerous hospitals AND the private sector hospitals are taking all the other non-covid cases. My older sister is managing one of those wards. If there weren't lockdowns to keep numbers as low as they are.... it wouldn't be anywhere near enough. If the virus was allowed to run amok, there wouldn't be a country in the world that wouldn't be overwhelmed. Women would die at home from birthing complications unable to access emergency c-sections, more people would die of heart attacks because ambulances would not get to them in time... it's NOT COMPLICATED, think about all the deaths that are avoided every year by swift modern treatments, then understand the threat that the virus poses to our healthcare system and stop creating false narratives about the problem!!!!!
It's very simple. Flu or other viruses have NOWHERE NEAR the capacity to overwhelm healthcare systems because we have natural immunity to them across our populations, it's seasonal, we have hospital surge capacity experience to deal with it and we have vaccines, experience and treatments!!!! SARS-Cov-2 is highly contagious and around 20% of people who contract it will require medical attention. We have already seen how easily healthcare systems became overwhelmed in several places and that was WITH LOCKDOWNS.
Governments are not hysterically exaggerating the threat of the virus. It's NOT about the virus fatality rate on its own. It's about managing the strain the virus places on healthcare systems, that in many cases are strained already after decades of underfunding.
Once countries have the virus under control and have increased capacity in testing/tracing/treatment/beds/staff enough to prevent these healthcare system collapses, they are clearly going to reduce restrictions (which we are seeing already), but a balance will always need to exist between our restrictions and healthcare capacity/infection levels until we either have a vaccine, herd immunity or the virus just f&%ks off on its own (which could still happen).
There is zero point doing back of the napkin maths about the virus fatality rate, because that isn't the issue....it doesn't matter if the fatality rate is 0.1% or 3.9%, if its more or less than flu because flu doesn't overwhelm hospitals so that they have to parking freezer trucks outside to cope with the number of bodies!!!!!!!! It's about the number of people who will die from the virus PLUS all the people who need medical treatment for everything else and dying because they can't access it!
OK looking at Italian data it does seem that overall death rate is a lot higher than just the COVID deaths:
the total number of deaths recorded in the subset of towns in Lombardy we can see that there is a 144% increase in deaths in 2020 between 1–21 Mar 2020 with respect to 2019 (3520 deaths in 2019, 8587 deaths in 2020). So, 5067 more deaths.
Fully agree. It's a delicate dance, juggling healthcare availability, new cases, contact tracing (or lack of it), the Borders, the Economic damage, the Budget and an increasingly restive population, tired of being lab-rats locked in cages.
And we all need to remember that it's quite impossible to Get it All Right. Gubmints tend to go for one-size-fits-all, not especially fast, top-down actions. At any local level (take Rakiura, the SI West Coast from Westport north) some or many of these actions are logical and practical nonsense.
So it's not surprising that there's dissent at Imposed 'Unity' which may be quite unwarranted in such cases. It's a hard tightrope to walk, especially when so many of the Walkers are so visibly not Blondin-like....
Thanks everyone. False equivalence is EVERYWHERE.
The thing to remember is irrationality is our enemy. Never wed yourself to an idea. We all need to keep looking for best evidence, accepting and learning from mistakes....whilst also acknowledging that there is a paucity of evidence when it comes to a new virus, so everyone, (including governments) are just making best guesses. In the case of a new virus it is always better to be initially over cautious (like Taiwan). NZ didn't manage to be quite that early but still early enough to prevent a serious outbreak. Which we should all thank our lucky stars for (economically and psycho-socially.
The next steps will be almost as tricky. And unfortunately, as a small open nation, we will suffer economically regardless. Things will be unpredictable, the future is unknown and accepting the future uncertainty is the first step forward.
I’m just trying to find some facts that aren’t media driven anecdotes. I just can’t consider statements like “hospitals are overloaded” as useful facts (I’m sure they are but even the normal flu can cause that). And it feels like every article I read is trying to make the virus seem worse than it possibly is. For example I keep reading that many more people have it than tested/reported as if that is a scary fact; but if that is the case it’s actually really good news because it’s obviously no where near as deadly as we think. Then they say that a vaccine is at least 18 months away and probably not going to happen because of mutations - well if that is true we may as well just all get it (try and flatten the curve to prevent hospital overloads). Surely no one believes we can stay in isolation for 18 months or more? The articles that say we will probably never have a vaccine because we haven’t found one for HIV or common colds that ignore the fact that we do have a vaccine for the flu. The guy who runs the local cemetery who is supposedly 400x busier than normal - yet there aren’t actually that many more deaths. The articles and headlines exaggerating how many young people are dying of it when the actual stats show close to 0.
When almost everything you read seems like blatant lies and exaggerations, it’s really hard to not go back to the raw numbers.
So a few things there.
Deaths will follow infections by a delay factor - people don't die straight away when they get it, they are sick until their bodies can't fight it anymore, then they die. The death rate will lag by a significant factor, what this is at the moment is unknown, but what we do know is that if you don't get the virus, you don't die from it. Apply the precautionary principle here and you can straight away see the lockdown actions are the best way forward, until your country has flattened the infection rate to an acceptable degree and has in place appropriate contact tracing. All of this is different between jurisdictions. In NZ this has worked well enough so far, we have to hope future flare-ups do not occur once we go down lockdown levels. If they do, prepare for re-raising of levels, though they may just be regional. We are lucky in NZ that we have an informed and intelligent advisers and a government in charge who seem to manage crises well. Listen to official advice here and we will all be safer for it.
Based on historical information, viruses of this nature can suddenly disappear from human populations or hang around for a long time. Who knows what is going to happen with this one. Vaccines have a long delay period because they need to have long human trials to ensure they are safe (usually 3 rounds to test safety and efficacy). We shouldn't put hope on one being developed in any reasonable time frame and we should prepare for the worst (in terms of how long it hangs around) but hope for the best.
Viruses mutate, it's just what they do. It is highly likely this virus will do the same and mutate into both more deadly and less deadly variants. It is likely what is happening in different places, who are reporting different symptoms. Again, best bet is to stop it's spread because humans are the vector and the source of mutations.
Foreign media are reporting different things for their jurisdictions. They may or may not apply locally and will be judged by authorities in this country as such. But make no mistakes, this is a very dangerous virus that you do not want to have spread through human populations uncontrolled. Where that has occurred has resulted in disaster.
it has also been linked to heart failure in young people now
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12327…
8 refrigerated trailer out the back of a NY hospitial and other smaller ones down the side.
We keep telling you this is not your typical flu and it need to be treated accordingly but you keep on flogging it off.
Ask yourself if this is just being staged or is it legit because it is one or the other. For me 8 bloody big trailer units our the back to store bodies isnt something that is your typical day at the office.
https://youtu.be/4WmJ-f3SB4c
Mass graves in NY. Fact or fiction?
Fact or fiction?
https://youtu.be/XHsfjnRB-uA
How many times has the maths been explained to you now? Honestly I don't understand how some of you people make it through the day with basic numeracy skills at this level. What age are exponentials taught at school, like first year of high school? Intermediate even? A fairly bright 11 year old could follow what's happening.
According to the world meter for coronvirus they still have some more new cases. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/
My favorite restaurant has closed, not that we eat out often.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=15034…
Nothing like the smell of nauseous drivel in the morning
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=15034…
I was made aware of the kiwibank cash withdrawal limit a couple of weeks ago at $1000.
While i did get a decent amount out previously i was also told to use an ATM.
I can see how this is going to play out.
We are already seeing on the news that we must use digital payments and even had retail staff on the news demanding it for health and safety. Australia banned cash transactions of over 10k against record senate submissions.
It all goes back to negative rates. IMF working paper recommended countries remove physical cash to implement negative rates and force in bail in and trap you in banks. They even suggested note serial number lotteries where if notes started in a specific number they become void. Giving you limited time to return them to the banks.
This will happen here. The Govt will have our "SAFETY" in mind and declare bank notes unsafe. A big media campaign will start first on all the breakfast shows saying we need to protect people. Retail staff will appear saying how frightening it is.
Then bang cash will be recalled and you will have limited time to return it. I'll switch to a credit union if this is the case. That's why when i gave my submission on the future of cash to the RBNZ, I suggested allowing digital block chain storage facilities for people to store outside the system. Obviously you would need banks to use payments etc. The digital deposit box would replace a physical safe. That way you eliminate conspiracy theories that you want us trapped in the system.
Cash will be banned I'm positive. .
That will indeed be a sad day for us all but it will also be a solid marker of how our masters truly regard us and a firm indication of what is in store for us in the future.
https://youtu.be/tf1B9ktRCkg
Now is when we really need you
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674007034/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0674007034
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Luttwak
And SKB, with Edward Luttwak.
As of yesterday
https://youtu.be/sEhuZmxPk6Q
Great China observations.
I agree with you too, I think cash will be removed from the system.
I read Road to Ruin by James Rickards years ago which talked about the next big financial crisis being liquidity-driven. No surprises there I think to all readers here.
The author, James Rickards is right into unpacking the detail. His book published last year, Aftermath, Seven Secrets of Wealth Preservation in the Coming Chaos, I haven't read... might be a bit late now anyway.
He said avoid bitcoin, there wont be a financial apocalypse, just radically different and active investors will have an advantage over passive ones.
He's on LondonReal as well, some cheery viewing for last day of lockdown!
Cash may very well become obsolete (which is totally different from "banks failing! Look at the looming OBR' etc).
Mediums of Exchange change over time - shells, to bead-and-blankets, to paper notes etc.
But here's the thing. There will always be a need for that exchange mechanism; something to enable convertibility of one form of goods and service into another.
It could even be a blockchain apparatus. But one thing's for sure - it won't be one outside of the control of those who levy and collect taxes.
So those who may want to hold Bitcoin may very well find themselves in a modern-day equivalent of today's "Black Economy" - where Bitcoin is exchanged between members who have been 'trapped inside' it when an Offical Register is sanctioned for general use. A bit like Bartercard if you like - traded at a massive discount if you really want to buy something real.
Convertibility from the Black Economy (bitcoin) to The Official System will come at a premium.
A good example? The South African Rand - that ran as a parallel set of currencies for some time during the worldwide sanctions; the Financial Rand ( for those who wanted to protect against the collapse of the RSA economy and traded offshore) and the Commercial Rand - for the actual intra system exchange of goods and services. Once the markets opened up, the financial Rand disappeared and the 40% premium that holders had been prepared to pay for 'safety' evaporated as a realised loss.
https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Financial+Rand
He's a goldbug of a certain age, of course he said to avoid bitcoin!
However, if the predicted Capital Controls come in and people lose faith in their currencies (as they are devalued via printing) I think there is a possibility that younger generations could flee to cryptos, especially across Asia. For the Crypto community, the narrative is about freedom from corruption, freedom from government surveillance, freedom from centralised control. Unless you have spent time with crypto enthusiasts it won't make sense to you but if you consider that every form of money, is only ever based on faith and is a value system, then you have to allow for the fact that there is a whole generation of investors have a belief based fervour for cryptos. All that is required is a stable and widespread enough consensus.
Also, if you study google trends and Narrative Economics, as I do, then you would note something there too. Cryptos did bubble (and burst) late 2017 but interest in cryptos has still stabilised post bubble at a position around twice as high as it was prior to the bubble.
There's nothing new Under the Sun! We've seen 'bitcoin' before.
Even Australia 'had a go' at its own unofficial currency 40 years back, and where is today? Became extinct, circa 1985!
" At various points, financial markets in Australia developed ways to circumvent the regulatory framework. A good example was the formation of the so-called foreign currency hedge market in the mid-1970s, established entirely by private sector market participants, which operated alongside the physical foreign exchange market but was outside the direct control of the authorities. This was a nondeliverable forward market ... with settlement of contracts taking place in Australian dollars. The authorities were aware of the formation of this market but chose not to interfere with its development
I think you'll find that rum was Australians first and more enduring "unofficial" currency hahaha. But we can also apply that to anything. Saffron was once a store of wealth. Some things have longevity, some things don't. All I was stating is that cryptos have endured several major busts over the last decade and keep resetting at both a higher value (than before the boom/bust) and that the pattern in interest (ie google trends) has followed the same pattern. And that some people believe in cryptos *beyond* a trading or investment vehicle. It's a new system and an ideology. I follow ideological trends whether they be in finance, politics or religion. I think history suggests strongly that it is unwise to underestimate such trends. I did so with Brexit and Trump and had my arse handed to me, so lesson learned.
Niall Ferguson: Money is ....Trust inscribed...'
What we can know:
1. Stats are unreliable and different acc to who compiled them, under what circs and by whose orders
2. hence deaths and case numbers are under-reporting, by a lot.
3. Economic effects are leveraged but also un-knowable until varied lockdowns been in place at least 3m
4. Credit is key as is consumer spending. Both arena severe difficulty world-wide
5. The poorer nations with shit health systems, will do worst
6. World globalisation is stuffed for minimum of 5 years
7. Suspicion is rising and international trust gone.
Just to clarify, those numbers are for central government debt to GDP. Japan's government debt to GDP is also high (however there is a key structural difference between Japan and other nations above)
There are also other sectors of the economy to consider
1) household debt to GDP
2) corporate debt to GDP
I am in the news today. Killed her husband, whacked him.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&…
Just the start of things to come - tenants doing a runner!
Queenstown's previously strained rental market is being flooded with new properties as a big dip in property values is predicted.
The number of Queenstown rental property listings on Trade Me jumped about 80 per cent from February to March..... the shift was driven by tenants doing "runners" as the tourism industry shut down and landlords pulling their property from the visitor accommodation market into long term rentals....the median weekly rental across the district was $665 in March, a well below the median price of $800, set in January.... the increase in rental properties would be the first wave in a shift in the property market, which would include the loss of hospitality and tourism jobs.
The second wave would hit once the Government's wage subsidy and moves by retail banks to allow mortgage holidays expired.
NAB, BNZ going for the doctor.
Bank of New Zealand parent.
Financial results out early. 2020 half year.
51% fall in half year net profit after tax.
Cash earnings down 24%
Shares in trading halt,
3.5 Bn raise underway
3.0 Bn from institutions
https://youtu.be/GUAg-x5aV70
Big surprise.
A pre-emptive move it seems - detail at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-27/nab-goes-to-share-market-for-mor… seems informative. They're raising capacity for the fallout that will come. And a lot of the profit drop came from provisioning for future loss and accounting writedown for software changes. Still paid a dividend (???)
More surprises.
An article written by:
Luke Malpass is political editor at Stuff, Nine's New Zealand publishing arm. Thomas Coughlan is a political reporter at Stuff.
But not for local consumption.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/world/oceania/saint-jacinda…
The low ICU capacity perhaps bolstered the government’s case for swift action, lest the nation’s hospitals be overrun.
Yet because of this, New Zealand’s entire public health system has come under fire. The system is highly devolved, with power largely ceded to 20 elected District Health Boards.
As the crisis wore on, these health districts - and the government - copped flak for not knowing how many ventilators they had and mismanaging the distribution of crucial PPE to frontline health workers, among other problems.
The problem became so acute, the Auditor-General was hauled in to investigate.
And that was before the largely invisible Health Minister David Clark was demoted by Ardern after admitting he took his family to the beach during the lockdown.
Then on Monday the government quietly released a report slamming its early contact tracing efforts. The report found a system so threadbare that it became overloaded by fewer than 100 daily cases in the early days of the pandemic. "The timeliness of the process was poor," the report said, detailing a two-day average lag between a positive COVID-19 test and contacts being told to self-isolate.
Politically, none of this is helped by the fact that Australia seems to have tackled COVID-19 just as well as New Zealand without closing down every Bunnings, McDonald’s drive-through and takeaway coffee cart in the country.
I believe the difference between NZ and Australia's management of lockdown and the virus and subsequent economic recovery will lock in even bigger and permanently lasting economic disparity between the two countries now. Not that it is a competition, although the Aussies love to bet.
Any previous notion to close the gap, something Key I think famously talked about I believe can never occur now due to the distinctly different (socialist) path NZ are about to embark on.
I don't buy the line that NZ will become an appealing safe haven and therefore attract people to come and live in our high priced socialist eco nirvana. And I don't believe Aus won't manage to live with a warming climate if you believe that's even a thing (which I don't).
So I think we are at a permanent juncture now in terms of NZ going down a permanently much poorer route for its citizens as compared to Aus. We've always been the poor country cousins, now that's about to become much worse.
* disclaimer, it's well known among thinking people that wealthier nations have better health outcomes, better education opportunities, better access to capital, better environmental protections and outcomes. Hell... wealth counts for a lot doesn't it.
I did wonder whether this was the case. The biggest criticism of modeling Tailrisk made (of models used to decide to lock down) was the assumption that NZ would not be able to isolate and contact trace effectively, with infections and mortality then modeled off that.
My suggestion when we were discussing it on here was that...it doesn't seem that unrealistic and assumption to me. I wondered whether it was an assumption based on a realistic assessment of our capacity at the time.
Thanks, HT. Great article by Ozzies. Have our media been bought? Pulls no punches.
"Ardern has essentially bet the farm on being able to eliminate the virus more or less entirely, which – combined with strict quarantine measures – would allow New Zealand’s domestic economy to return quickly so some degree of normality, tourism excepted.
But as Singapore has shown, keeping the virus out can be more difficult than getting rid of it in the first place."
Except that's not what happened. Singapore never had a downtrend in the first place, just a slower growth rate. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/singapore/
Bitcoin's recovery has been impressive. Had you bought on black friday in the dip, you would be up around 110% in five weeks (or so). In total, up around 8% since New Year. Ethereum much more so - up 40% or so since Jan 1. With the halvening coming up in 2 weeks, prepare for fire works
Rickards is a genius, explaining complex matters in simplified terms. I read his 2014 book, "the end of money". Today it reads like a guidebook.
Events at CME, comex futures, extremely interesting, after the fiasco with negative oil prices. The comex gold futures along with lbma are sailing very close to the wind, with the perth mint flying gold to New York over the weekend. 200 oz of paper gold for every 1 oz of physical, incredible. With demand for delivery at high volume ( given that comex futures are rarely ever settled with delivery) and the market fix looks like it's not short of complete collapse. Reminiscent of the London gold pool 1968. Of course this will bring an end to market manipulation in the precious metals markets. The prices will go through the roof should it happen. Which of course, it may not. Either way, peoples confidence in fiat can only be measured by everyone else's degree of confidence, and just like the london gold pool, they said everything was a ok right up to the hour that it collapsed.
Digital currencies, are digital currencies, and the major point is they are decentralised, and already widely accepted as a medium of exchange. The unseen issues are far further reaching. Blockchain will blow away the current financial services sector, and there is little doubt about that. This is like losing two sectors at the same time, tourism, and then financial services.
China releasing a central bank digital currency, already being trialled in cities (3 I think) in China, using Starbucks and McDonald's as a primary focus, the audacity and irony is amazing. 5 to 6 years research and testing, and western central banks are just starting out. The possible implications of this are astounding. Central bank digital currencies will hollow out the present banks, and reduce them to nothing more than service centres.
The power of a central bank digital currency, combined with an existing fiat, it really makes the mind boggle, yet it really is worth full consideration, as it is already happening.
My main concern with bitcoin is that due to its deflationary and decentralized attributes, governments will sooner or later deem it to be too much of a risk to their legacy fiat system. Although they could not eliminate it, they could coordinate to shut down the main exchanges, which serve as the normal on/off ramps between fiat and crypto.
I think you are right to have such concerns. For me personally, I stumbled into digital currencies in the search for digital gold, and was amazed once I started learning about the entire field, which can be overwhelming. For a while, I have been slowly, and cautiously buying into cryptocurrencies, and I use gold as my stable coin. I couldn't be further from a "trader", and yet I have been surprised at how this has worked out. The on/off ramps are a big issue, and i decided to find and establish as many as I feasibly could. Apart from fiat to crypto, and vice versa, I found gold dealers that will accept fiat and crypto, which is a two way ramp.
With regards use of cryptocurrencies, it's quite interesting. You can buy cars, boats and even houses in some parts of the world, yet the demographic reporting most use is among the young in Europe.
I agree about the legacy system, yet the use of digital currency at present is still small. I see them as so tied up in resistance, that they have already missed the opportunity to close the barn door, so to speak. Having said that, google have largely put a stop on educational videos regards digital currencies, ironically causing an up swell in digital websites, like brave, and search engines like duckduckgo. My fear is that the west is waking up to all of this too late, as established monetary leaders try to maintain the status quo.
No wonder they stook an axe to the dividend and announced a capital raising this morning!
NAB's unsettling coronavirus scenarios range from the severe to the horrific.
The “severe downside” scenario would still see GDP fall three per cent this year but it would shrink again, by 2.5 per cent, next year and the economy emerge from the recession in 2022 with weak two per cent growth.
Unemployment would be lower this year, at 7.4 per cent, than in the base case but would be 10 per cent in 2021 and 10.4 per cent in 2022. House prices would fall 20.9 per cent this year and another 11.8 per cent in 2021 before 2.5 per cent growth in 2022.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/nab-s-unsettling-co…
Here is something worth thinking about in terms of their house price assumptions
1) Base case - house prices fall 10%
2) Severe downside case - house prices fall by 30% over 2 years. - " House prices would fall 20.9 per cent this year and another 11.8 per cent in 2021"
Page 20 - https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nabrwd/documents/reports/corporate/1…
Meanwhile the public in NZ are being reminded that there is an underlying housing shortage in NZ by the property promoters and those with a vested financial interest.
A reminder for all potential owner occupier buyers and current owner occupiers - choose your scenario and act accordingly.
Which will the owner occupier regret most:
1) missing out on future potential gains in equity?
2) potential loss of their savings invested as the initial deposit for purchase of the house or even potential negative equity?
For owner occupiers, a reminder of the impact of leverage (it amplifies property price changes both on the up and down):
Scenarios of financial impact of leverage on equity, assuming an 80% LVR for owner occupier, for a recent $100 property purchase, $20 initial deposit, mortgage $80.
A) Scenario - property price rise:
1) property price rises 5% to 105, mortgage 80, equity 25, so 25% gain in equity value from 20.
2) property price rises 10% to 110, mortgage 80, equity 30, so 50% gain in equity value from 20.
3) property price rises 15% to 115, mortgage 80, equity 35, so 75% gain in equity value from 20.
4) property price rises 20% to 120, mortgage 80, equity 40, so 100% gain in equity value from 20.
5) property price rises 25% to 125, mortgage 80, equity 45, so 125% gain in equity value from 20.
6) property price rises 30% to 130, mortgage 80, equity 50, so 150% gain in equity value from 20.
7) property price rises 35% to 135, mortgage 80, equity 55, so 175% gain in equity value from 20.
8) property price rises 40% to 140, mortgage 80, equity 60, so 200% gain in equity value from 20.
9) property price rises 50% to 150, mortgage 80, equity 70, so 250% gain in equity value from 20.
10) property price rises 100% to 200, mortgage 80, equity 120, so 500% gain in equity value from 20. (i.e if they believe that the property price doubles every 10 years)
Remember, the owner occupier must be able to hold on under ALL economic environments (including any potential significant reduction in household income).
B) Scenario - property price falls:
1) property price falls 5% to 95, mortgage 80, equity 15, so 25% loss in equity value from 20.
2) property price falls 10% to 90, mortgage 80, equity 10, so 50% loss in equity value from 20.
3) property price falls 15% to 85, mortgage 80, equity 5, so 75% loss in equity value from 20.
4) property price falls 20% to 80, mortgage 80, equity is zero, so 100% loss in equity value from 20.
5) property price falls 25% to 75, mortgage 80, equity is NEGATIVE 5, so 125% loss in equity value from 20.
6) property price falls 30% to 70, mortgage 80, equity is NEGATIVE 10, so 150% loss in equity value from 20.
7) property price falls 35% to 65, mortgage 80, equity is NEGATIVE 15, so 175% loss in equity value from 20.
8) property price falls 40% to 60, mortgage 80, equity is NEGATIVE 20, so 200% loss in equity value from 20.
CCP ambassador in Oz telling the Australians to back off, you don't want to know anything about the virus.
Saying this line of questioning will bring an economic hit to Australia.
https://youtu.be/0pX6PBf3xco
Sky news
Claiming that tourists and students will be pulled.
As the young folk say, dm bro.
Here we go, Queenstown crashing as predicted. Median rents down 11%.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/property/121132672/queenstown-property-m…
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