Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news of problems with perspectives.
But first, in their latest Survey of Consumer Expectations, 21% of American told the NY Fed survey they expect to lose their job in the next year. This of course is a sharp rise and will fundamentally change the way household budgets are planned and spending patterns change. Those surveyed also thought interest rates would rise from here as the Federal deficit implications bite.
As the US public debt approaches US$24 tln and seems to be rising at the rate of almost $4 tln per year at present, it is wise to step back for a moment and just ensure we have these large numbers in perspective.
We toss around terms like million, billion and trillion easily, but we basically don't understand the scale of the concepts. Here are two perspectives.
If you stacked US dollar bills, a million of them would be a pile 109 metres high. While that is a lot, a billion of them would be 109 kms high, high enough to reach outer space. And a trillion would go a quarter of the way to the moon, up 109,220 kms high. Given the circumference of the earth is 40,000 kms, that stack would go around the world 2½ times. The scale of a trillion is a complete other league to a million.
Here's another perspective. If a dollar was a second, a million dollars equates to almost 12 days. A billion equates to 32 years. A trillion to 31,700 years and far, far longer than human history. A trillion dollars is an enormous amount of money. And the US Federal Government had a deficit in April alone of -US$737 bln or "23,400 years" at a dollar-a-second.
Enough. Enough to show that we are being overwhelmed by public debt from the world's largest economy. There is going to be a reckoning at some point.
And of course there is Japan, the EU, and China. Overnight the Chinese reported that their total debt levels grew faster than anticipated although at a lesser pace than in March.
China also reported a small but worrying resurgence of Covid-19 cases in Wuhan that has authorities on edge.
There are also fears of a coronavirus resurgence in the US as well, even before they have anything like a controlled curve.
The latest compilation of Covid-19 data is here. The global tally is now 4,148,000 and up +70,000 from this time yesterday which is slower level of increase.
Now, just over 32% of all cases globally are in the US, which is up +17,000 since this time yesterday to 1,337,500. This is a marginally slower rate of increase. US deaths are now almost 80,000. Global deaths now exceed 284,000. The infection rate is still rising fast in the UK (+4000/day) but it rising even faster in Russia (+12,000/day) and they are about to overtake the UK to become the second most infected country in the world.
In Australia, there are now 6948 cases (+7 since yesterday), 97 deaths (unchanged) and an unchanged recovery rate of just under 89%. 49 people are in hospital there (+6) with 16 in ICU (-1). There are now 769 active cases in Australia (-5).
There are 1497 Covid-19 cases identified in New Zealand, with three new cases yesterday, a rise from +2 the prior day. Twenty-one people have died (unchanged). There are now two people left in hospital with the disease (also unchanged), and none are in ICU. Our recovery rate is now just over 92% with 111 people known to be infected (-12) and 83 of those are in 12 active clusters. That means 28 cases are recovering in self isolation in the community (-8 from yesterday).
Wall Street like trillions of public stimulus. That boosts asset prices. The S&P500 is up +0.5% in afternoon trading today. That follows European markets that were generally lower overnight. Yesterday Shanghai was flat, Hong Kong rose +1.5% and Tokyo was up +1.0%. The NZX50 rose +0.6% and the ASX200 rose +1.3%.
The UST 10yr yield is now up to just on 0.72% and a +3 bps rise. Their 2-10 curve is marginally steeper at +54 bps. Their 1-5 curve is also steeper at +20 bps, and their 3m-10yr curve has followed the trend to +62 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr yield is up +3 bps to 0.98%. The China Govt 10yr is also up +3 bps to 2.66%. And the NZ Govt 10 yr yield has gained +2 bps to 0.59%.
Gold is lower again today, down -US$6 to US$1,697/oz.
Oil prices are lower today. In the US, they are currently just on US$24/bbl and a +US$1 dip. International oil prices are just on US$29.50/bbl and a slightly larger sag.
The Kiwi dollar is a lot lower this morning, down more than -½c to now be at 60.7 USc. On the cross rates we will also open lower at 93.6 AUc. Against the euro we are slightly firmer at 56.2 euro cents. These overall slippages mean the TWI-5 is now 66.8.
Bitcoin is lower as well, down another -1.3% to US$8,427. 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 ».
157 Comments
Cue another West Auckland breakout
here is an account of the ongoing debacle
Frightening that we are 4 months into the pandemic and anyone would think Dr Trump is running the DHB
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300010034/coronavir…
that is why we were locked down, middle management at the DHB is shocking, you have the PM and doc bloomfield saying test test test then some numpty in middle management at a DHB thinking they know better.
you only had to go back a month when northland were not testing and when dr osullivan questioned it he was told we have no cases up here why worry.
it is time for a shakeup in our whole DHB system
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/coronavirus-northlan…
Contact.
This seems to be a problem.
The 185 as at now mentioned by PM was from 23 April.
Dr B said the gold standard that we will have is 300 to 500.
Dr Ayesha Verrall said 1,000.
Yesterday.....
A lot of work has gone into building up our contact tracing capability. Dr Ayesha Verrall’s report has been instrumental in this regard and the majority of the recommendations have been implemented.
We can now contact trace 185 cases a day and have capacity to contact 10,000 people a day through a new national call centre, established since the beginning of the outbreak.
Saturday night...
Dr Ayesha Verrall recommended that regional PHUs have a surge capacity of investigating 1000 new Covid-19 cases a day, an ambitious target Bloomfield has suggested should be set at between 300 and 500 cases a day.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121462745/coronavirus…
Further backend stuff.
Its painful.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/covid-19/2020/05/12/1167990/ministry-of-heal…
Tomorrow will be 75 days since New Zealand's first case and 24 days since Bloomfield said work was happening apace. If EpiSurv and data gathering has been improved, the results are not being shared with the public.
Because....
how to make a crisis far worse
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/05/11/how-to-make-a-crisis-far-far-w…
Very powerful. ""Can we expect such an apology in the UK? Well, with all the airlines going bust, there may be more opportunity for squadrons of flying pigs to fill the air. The reality is that Sweden has grown-up politicians, who have grown-up ways of dealing with things – including that rarest of things… apologising. In the UK we still have a bunch of overgrown schoolboys in charge.""
The article is about managing the NHS but the message is general: medical and ex-medical staff make the best managers for hospitals, journalists make the best editors, teachers and ex-teachers make the best school principals, builders & engineers the best site managers, etc. So why do we train so many school leavers in 'management studies'?
'I rarely feel sorry for professional politicians, especially powerful ones; after all, they have chosen their career and (especially in modern conditions) have generally pursued power to the exclusion of all other possible goals, which is not admirable. As often as not, they have not much cultural or psychological hinterland, as it is often called, for they have no time or energy for it, which is why they are mostly not very interesting people. The trouble is that they are important, though perhaps not as important as they think they are; and for the rest of us to have to think about people who are important but not interesting is a kind of torture, akin to that most unfortunate of mental states, that of being busy but bored.'
"" they have not much cultural or psychological hinterland "" - it makes you search for exceptions. Not approving of their politics but I would give Cullen and English a pass and worldwide Johnson and (yuk) Trump. A hinterland is needed but it is not always a good thing. But thinking harder I recalled Jami-Lee Ross - what a classic example of what you speak.
I watch my talented daughter struggle with her job as a social worker - it seems obvious to me that the origin of the problems she battles with are social that can only be tackled via politics - encouraging rather than weaking family ties, improving housing.
Commenting on this site gives a temporary warm feeling but achieves little - those damned politicians really do have an important job to do.
Agree about journalists making the best editors. But they make lousy newspaper managers. Been there, done that. And doctors are lousy at managing hospitals. They tend to look after their own. You need a hard nut who’ll make them put in 40 hours. No, not joking. Registrars may do hard yards, senior doctors don’t.
Agree totally. The heads of DHBs/Hospitals need to be ones who can canvass opinions build consensus and make decisions as well as take responsibility for them. The best are vulnerable to politics and health is riddled with them. I have seen an excellent DHB boss shafted and replaced with a dictator. I have seen dictators blame everyone else for their failings - Trump is an excellent example.
The big question is how it will all come home to roost. Getting rid of debt is an obvious one as a private individual but will that then mean I miss out? Companies shedding debt are often criticised, but COVID has shown that capital reserves are vital to survival through black swan events. Some talk about inflation being used as a tool to ease the debt burden. But whant happens if you do that at a time when 60% of the population has taken a serious income hit and most local Governments are still trying to raise their taxes?
And helicopter money can be a solution and a problem. I asked a question about the article on MMT on credit v money. With the trading banks creating credit, which we see as debt which must be paid back with money, these banks are effectively vacuuming up the helicopter money the Government is creating to support the economy. But the banks are not supporting business, so they are not supporting employment or people being able to borrow from them, but they WILL expect and demand payment irrespective of the economic circumstances. So all that helicopter money will just feed their profits and counter the distressed loans, and they will sit on it until the ban on dividends is lifted and then where will it go - off shore to their parent companies? From many angles they are their own worst enemy, as well as ours.
And the RBNZ exploring the future of money? My cynicism tells me that that cannot be a good thing!
It'll be a burden shared by many. The top 10% will find a way to avoid any consequence. The spenders will have their credit card debt cleared, their afterpay wiped and their Gucci bag and black window tinted SUVs put on a 'payment plan'. The savers will suffer horrendous returns on their diligent behaviour, and wonder why they bothered doing the 'right thing' at all.
I really really hope I'm wrong, and that lessons will be learnt by those who over extended themselves on the fantasy of never ending consumerism, basing their personal worth on keeping up with the Jones'. However, these people were just the product of an entire system geared to encourage high debt at low rates (oh look... rates are still dropping). I have no sympathy for them, but I can empathise with their choices.
It was back in 2015 when I started seeing young Mums (late 20's, early 30's) doing the school drop off and shopping at the Albany mall in their late model Range Rovers wearing their yoga/fitness gear and expensive sun glasses that cover their whole face, buying organic only food, that I thought gee we might be in big trouble here sometime soon. It doesn't stack up. Either a lot of people have won lotto, or they all married high paying executives in their 40 or 50's, or we're collectively taking on far to much debt if another economic shock happens and people lose jobs.
The number of supercars (is that the term) I noted at the Albany mall car park went up significantly as well over the years. You started seeing people doing the shopping in Ferrari sport cars - ordinary looking people, not CEO types.
Chuckle.
From the howls, I suspect there are folk around here who didn't prepare. Who though 'the economy' was a permanent 'given'. Just listen to Morning Report this morning: "the economy the economy the economy the economy". Not once, is it questioned. Yet it merely consists of people on some islands jostling for the right to access input resources.
DC has pointed to one issue - the unrepayable debt (which has been socialised, the profit having been privatised, thanks to Obama and since) - but the lack of remaining resource-stocks goes totally unmentioned. The system ends, the question is how?
As far as I can see big business and the stock market are getting trillions pumped into them while millions of average citizen lose their jobs. Just widening the gap between the haves and have-nots.
I can only see it ending in one of two ways. Either the Haves get the guillotine, or they start a war to keep the plebs busy and kill off a few million of them.
Tell me I'm wrong. Because in this case I'd prefer to be wrong.
It's a good question, and the line is never fixed, and can progress down to include more and more as the easy targets get dealt to.
Just so we're clear I'm not the architect of this. I would want for a better way - because my head could end up in a wicker basket too. I'm just trying to use history, and public sentiment to try and gauge where we are heading.
LOL. A couple of years ago I was touring Paris and as we come to Place de La Concorde, the tour guide explained that the obelisk sitting in the middle was on the place where the guillotine stood after the French Revolution, and where many of the French aristocracy met their maker. The guide indicated that the guillotine was in the Louvre. i suggested that it was getting close to the time when they needed to be swapped out again, to remind the politicians just who they worked for!
Yes I read the book about Napoleon by Adam Zamoyski a few years ago and his involvement in the Revolution (great read if anyone is getting bored in lockdown!). A pretty fascinating period of time. The origins of 'left' vs 'right' wing politics etc. Power of the people etc, heads coming off, political divide, wars, taxes, politics.
Haves and have nots? Michael Cullen brought in KiwiSaver so the average joe could benefit from the surplus value most of them create. The vast majority of working Kiwis will have a toe dipped in the equity pool, and a lot more of their anatomy as they near retirement.
I was thinking more specifically about America.
But regardless the sums people have in KS are paltry compared to the trillions being printed around the world. Also a lot have used their KS to buy overpriced houses, and I can see a lot more using KS for hardship over the next few years.
The other point about KS is that is in the hands of those at the top,the balance will rise and fall depending on the decisions they make, and it seems they can manipulate the markets as they please - which is dependency on them - which is just a modern form of serfdom.
https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/kiwisaver/datasets
This is only up to March, April data will be interesting.
Kiwisaver is nothing more than a collection of bets on the sharemarket and the future.
A conspiracy theorist would associate the way firms used to offer shares to employees instead of wages, as they were going down the gurgler. It was another way of not paying wages, double or quits. I occasionally wonder if Kiwisaver was instigated for the same reasons; divert their 'money' to a place it will never come back from.
But probably not. Cullen probably thought he was doing the orthodox Labour thing.
I dipped an index finger into my KS (with the good old Gareth Morgan fund, now KiwiWealth, which shows me to the cent exactly where the investments on my behalf are...none of this Unit Trust malarkey for me ta very much) and am gratified to see it is within a few hundy of when I last checked it in February. 100% cash/conservative, since you asked. I'm fascinated to see that I appear to 'own' tiny pieces of Tesco, Landeskreditbank Baden-Wuerttemberg Foerderbank, IBRD, Fonterra and Danone, amongst hundreds of others.
Yes the Central Banks and Treasuries remind me of King Louis and Marie Antoinette - both lost their heads after driving public debt too high while living lavish lifestyles.
I think if our housing market gets any further out of control (i.e. it goes higher) as a result of fiscal and monetary policy and we have generations locked out of the market and having to carry the tax burden, while those above them life lavish lifestyles while owning multiple properties, it wouldn't surprise me to see some form of revolution take place - perhaps lacking the force of the French Revolution, but perhaps with similar levels of change/reform.
Some thoughts:
1. Governments are in charge of the pump, not big business, if you yelled at anyone surely it would be the idiots misdirecting the flow.
2. Big business is going bankrupt the same as everybody else in NZ.
3. All citizens are average, there is no gold standard or other type of citizen.
4. In the French revolutionary wars a third of ALL France died, think about that when you pretend only the mythical group you label "haves" will be killed.
5. The Killing Fields also had huge numbers, killing one quarter of all the country. When they asked the guide, "Why would you do that, shoot someone and throw them into this cave just because they wore glasses?", the guide looked awkward and then said in his broken English, "We just wanted everyone to be equal."
These months are very interesting times.
Quite unique - the economic implications and reactions make this very, very different to 1918.
We will be both talking about and living with the consequences of the current situation for considerable time. Something our great, great grandchildren will be talking about.
Hopefully a time never to be repeated but unfortunately a significant risk of an other.
That and "The Inside Job" if you can find where to watch it now.
"The global financial meltdown that took place in Fall 2008 caused millions of job and home losses and plunged the United States into a deep economic recession. Matt Damon narrates a documentary that provides a detailed examination of the elements that led to the collapse and identifies keys financial and political players. Director Charles Ferguson conducts a wide range of interviews and traces the story from the United States to China to Iceland to several other global financial hot spots."
I have saved and stayed out of debt (other than mortgages) my entire life , and slept well , but now I wonder why.
Should have lived life to the hilt , devil-may-care and done everything I wanted to do , just had more fun with borrowed money ...............everyone else seems to have done it without consequence
Our current account deficit history over the last forty years suggests you could be unique. Others have regrettably tapped their unrealised residential property gains to finance foreign hoildays and exotic car imports. We will become tenants in our own country to settle this deficit.
same as you have no debt, and a nice nest egg so sailed through so far. but i know many leveraged up to their eye balls that have told me over and over debt is good, i guess they are not sleeping well now.
i think you have had to have gone through hard times to understand hard times, and many have not been through so are oblivious and look on people talking about their experience as a fairy tale
Ditto and so true. In this forum there has been some discussion of the likelihood of war, but I have heard it expressed that with to many years since a major war, (only "minor" conflicts in between) too many [generations] don't understand the carnage that comes from one. It is one of the reasons some film makers try to make their films very realistic, to try to educate the unthinking masses.
Exactly:
Speaking of Russia, to the greatest credit of the former US military attache to Russia, Brigadier General Zwak, he tried to mitigate this Victory Day "history" piece on the White House web-site, which created a shitstorm not just in Russia. This is laudable (in Russian). Other related news, however, are a bit unnerving for Pentagon since Russia just tested a brand new hypersonic missile (specifically stated--NOT X-32, which is very high supersonic M=4.6) for updated version of TU-22M3M (in Russian). As was predicted--saturation of Russia's forces with hypersonic weapons continues apace and we will not recognize warfare as a whole very soon. So, TU-22M3M will be able to carry not just Kinzhal but new system tailored specifically to these bombers which can strike deep into the Europe or oceans. Link
And this demonstrates the limited thought processes of some hawks (and not all are military, more later) that even though a weapon may not be nuclear, the only defence against it may be nuclear. We are getting closer to this scenario. In this case airburst nukes to take out delivery aircraft and/or any already launched missiles or to target potential launch sites. Sometimes a weapon is so fearsome the only really effective defence is to assume the opposition has it widely distributed and immediately available and is preparing to use it so a preemptive strike is required. This was much of the thinking that lay behind the MAD principles of the cold war. Utter madness.
Yep- A flawed central bank RWA bank capital edict which favours extending bank capital leverage already confirmed by the RBNZ:
According to the Reserve Bank, the new capital requirements mean banks will need to contribute $12 of their shareholders' money for every $100 of lending up from $8 now, with depositors and creditors providing the rest.
Banks then proceed to extend around sixty percent of their lending to the most creditworthy one third of households to engage in leveraged residential property speculation, which in reality does not qualify for inclusion in the GDP statistics.
PS - There were two major evolutions in money and banking that seem to fall outside the orthodox narrative. The first was a shift of reserves and bank limitations from the liability side to the asset side. The second was the rise of interbank markets, ledger money, as a source of funding rather than required reserve balancing: replacing the old deposit/loan multiplier model. Courtesy of J. Snider from Alhambra
I'm afraid that I had a student loan back in the days when the interest rate was 10%. Starting out with a negative net worth and a high rate of interest isn't great but it was unavoidable. Other than that I didn't need debt.
I've seen people end up with debt just for consumer collectables through to excess partying at strip clubs. Paying interest on top of excesses is terrible. The US doesn't seem to be getting much partying done for the debt (except on Wall Street).
Boatman - Debt, I don't need debt but have it as it makes sense to use other peoples money and the tax system on property.
Many people will hate me saying this but if you have substancial assets borrowing money against them is a no brainer especially with rates so low !
IO - Are you RP undercover ? You have that similar negativity about you that the worlds going to end.
Elon Musk has borrowed US$550,000,000 over time against his Tesla shares to live/play with. Peanuts to his US$40 BILLION Tesla shares of course.
I limit my borrowing $500,000 less than 7% of my property portfolio mad not to !
@Shoreman this reminds me of the following video that gave me a bit of a laugh. A bit of casino money laundering and borrowing against assets to make use of money from a legitimate source.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmEvAk5LRko
All that debt. Massive stimulation packages. Equity markets trying to nose their way forward. There's been some speculation about an 'economic reset', but what might this look like? It's really just a general question, because it looks like the whole system is slowly imploding.. This talk of our Granchildren will be talking about this in years to come - and I know crystal ball gazing is somewhat haphazard - but it would be great to read some opinions on what they might be talking about... ?
Jolly - Ray Dalio is the best at explaining this that I've come across. Has some good stuff on Youtube or if you google him or his Linkedin page.
If countries can't pay their debts, we may see another Bretton Woods type situation that occured end of WW2 and set the scene for the last 75 years of our debt/monetary systems as we have known them. Currency devaluation, debt defaults.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changing-value-money-ray-dalio
The infection rate is still rising fast in the UK (+4000/day) but it rising even faster in Russia (+12,000/day) and they are about to overtake the UK to become the second most infected country in the world.
MOSCOW, May 11. /TASS/. The number of COVID-19 cases in Russia over the past day has risen by 11,656, reaching 221,344 in all regions, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Monday.
A total of 39,801 people have recovered and 2,009 people have died, the center reported.
The daily growth in COVID-19 cases is 5.6% against 5.5% a day earlier. Some 5,417 new cases (46.5%) are asymptomatic, according to the center. Link
We have still not got any decent rain, the forecast was for 5 mm over the weekend and we got nothing. Next event is in a week, that's heading to end of May which is outside our normal growth season.
I killed some ram lambs which came out just over 16kgs and got $101, way back on last year but beggars are not choosers.
I was back on the tractor yesterday planting oats, you never know, they may grow. I don't have a hectare meter on my drill so I'm guessing area, my flats are much bigger than I thought according to the amount of times I ran out of seed and had to head to town for three more bags, three times.
The other news is that the company doing research on Managed artesian recharge ( MAR) for the regional council let slip that bore tests had revealed Nitrate levels up to and over 20 in some bores, chart looks exponential, when max limit for human health is 10. Lots more Nitrates in the soil ready to leach there way into our water. A problem of over allocation of water by the Regional council, who just wrote out the consents with little or no knowledge of the aquifer, let's go with no knowledge.
I don't know if there is a plan to fix this, its a problem of large intensive dairy on light fragile free draining soils.
No one I talk to has confidence in Regional council to solve the problem and no one can give me an answer to what happens when Nitrates reach town water supplies which around here come from the shallow aquifer. The only answer that made sense was for people to only drink bottled water, especially pregnant women.
https://www.baybuzz.co.nz/2020/05/08/chbs-nitrate-bomb/comment-page-1/?…
So true waymad.
Bureaucracy (I've said it before) is like a cancer as it grows on itself.
Bureaucratic Castration of Local Government
https://www.facebook.com/pg/wwrra/posts/
Jolyon Firth was the Deputy Mayor of Auckland a few years ago. In an article titled “Bureaucratic Castration of Local Government” he wrote:
“There is a moment immediately after the council elections every three years when local government bureaucrats don’t want people to realise what is going on. This is when officers in each Council try to get a quick rubber-stamping of Standing Orders and the Manual of Delegated Authority by unsuspecting Councillors who are largely unaware of the contents or the implications of what they are endorsing.”
“When they delegate their powers to Officers the Councillors abdicate the authority they have been elected to exercise, but which is nevertheless essential to their responsibility and accountability. By approving the delegation they neuter themselves and all whom they were elected to represent.
In one fell swoop, their personal integrity and freedom of thought and action are subsumed into the bureaucratic morass. They become nothing more than obedient servants of the System and the bureaucrats who manipulate it.”
I have heard their has been a Facebook site set up to donate feed to HB (not that I have any feed to donate), heard about it at all?
It's what I've been saying for ages - farmers are just the scape goat for Govt, councils, fert companies, scientists. Farmers have been acting inside the guidelines and advice they have been given.
Of course this doesn't apply now because every farmer should be aware of the environmental issues facing the industry, and acting with responsibly.
I see councils as being run by management, councillors are not much more than 'goodwill ambassadors'. All my friends who have been on council have left in disgust.
Which comes back to ast Fridays book
'They thought they were free'
https://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans-ebook/dp/B078HVYH8...
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.'
To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.'
Run by unelected and unfireable staff, indeed. Councillors are viewed by staff as a set of interchangeable show-ponies, clustered around a very distant table. There's the odd exception to this sweeping generalisation, but the publicity-seeking buffoons easily outnumber 'em. Honourable exception amongst staff - Engineers.....
The science around nitrate intake is not at all clear. Nitrates have a lot of benefits for heart health, so much so that you can buy supplements in health food shops. And most of the nitrate we consume comes from vegetables, and a high intake of vegetables is associated with a reduction in bowel cancer. The Danish study that associated nitrate in water with bowel cancer had flaws, particularly that they didn't correct for other factors that influence dietary nitrate levels.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190311-what-are-nitrates-in-food-s…
Wishing you rain soon Aj.
On the radio today was a Kentucky farmer correspondent - said it is Sept 2021 - yes that's 2021 - before they can now get stock away to processors if it's not already booked in. Also said the temp dropped to 29F deg and wiped out all the soy crops. Meat is getting in short supply to consumers, but the farmers are been paid a pittance and yet the consumer prices are very high.
Folks calling for a reset in ag have their heads firmly in the sand - reset is already happening - just not in the way people who are calling for it, are expecting. Heard of farmers selling cull cows for 50c-$1 in Southland.
yep, many of my friends lost crops this last week, lots of pics of burnt beans. I suppose they will replant with gm, shorter term beans. Maize and wheat at a certain stage of growth got burnt too.
Our saleyards open on Friday and it's going to be an interesting sale. Had a local drop in wanting to graze stock on our farm, what he offered was way off the mark, compared to what I could make trading stock.
Happy bitcoin halvening day (a once in four year event).
Daily supply just halved: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/05/11/what-is-the-bitcoin…
James Grant. US Added More Debt in Last 27 Days Than Nation’s First 192 Years
https://thesoundingline.com/jim-grant-us-added-more-debt-in-last-27-day…
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changing-value-money-ray-dalio
The numbers here are scary...
The latest Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing. A follow up to yesterdays article and the tenuous relationship between New Zealand and China. Perhaps the Wuhan virus provides the opportunity for New Zealand
http://www.chinaconsulate.org.nz/eng/fyrth/t1777953.htm
Blinded by big numbers
The drawdown in revolving consumer credit is, like labor force drop, a potentially huge warning about big, negative 2d and 3d order effects.
How big? Twice the worst month of 2009.
https://alhambrapartners.com/2020/05/08/whats-on-second-i-dont-know-lef…
No I mean in the real world, with politics and taxes and less government spending and recessions. Who is going to vote for the party that will cripple society and the economy in the process of paying down government debt and with what earnings while people are losing jobs and taking pay cuts?
How do we pay the debt off - serious question?
The answer if you haven't realised it yet is that we don't and we can't. Decades of excessive 'living' and kicking the can down the road finds us trapped in a corner and the only available path is further into the corner. Each time we kick the can down the road it gets bigger and more likely to break our leg next time we try to kick it!
When National was in government selling it off to foreign ownership was seen as a good thing. I see that's also the answer they've suggested for next time...get rich foreigners to buy NZ. Guess if NZ is not for NZers at least the rich foreigners will still need a willing servant class, presumably?
You won't be a fan of the budget then.
The old adage about Labour governments running up debts might be the most apt. Although this rooster might be the largest in NZ history and the weight of it coming home will be felt by your great grandchildren.
It is possible this might the most remembered Labour government of all time, but not for the reasons they hope.
Following on from the PMs announcement that bars will remain closed until21 May, a member of the media tried calling
NZBARPresident
for her comment. See below. Enough said.
StrictlyObiter
https://mobile.twitter.com/NZBarAssoc/status/1259723124355903488
Michael Reddell on the difference between Fiscal and Monetary policy responses to the WuHuFlu reaction's economic damage. RTWT, but two aspects stood out for me:
heavy reliance on fiscal policy will hold up the real exchange rate and tends to advantage (a) urban consumers, and (b) inwards-focused New Zealand firms relative to those in the tradables sector. Given that foreign trade as a share of GDP has been falling this century, that skew would not seem well-aligned with what we might need to be a more highly productive economy longer-term.
and on the Fiscal Stimulus:
fiscal policy involves politicians’ grubby fingers all over choices about who benefits and how (for example, the proposed temporary RMA reform which might empower projects that get the imprimatur of the Minister, but do nothing for genuine private sector opportunities), and serious policies/projects often take rather a long time to implement, especially if done well. I was exchanging notes with Tony Burton, until last year deputy chief economist at The Treasury – and occupying a very different spot on the political/social spectrum than I do. He has a fairly brutal and succinct style when he chooses and his comment this morning (passed on with permission) on the notion of national-level “shovel-ready projects” as “complete drivel” caught my eye. It was hard to disagree.
Edit - Eric Crampton has a bit of fun with 'Shovel-ready' as well..(spoiler - even his Shovel is not shovel-ready) ..and argues that easing the ridiculous Consents overheads is a starter kit.
Reddell is from yesterday and Crampton is a sheep's clothing tout for yesterday too.
Sort of reminds me of this wee interchange: https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/two-cents-worth/story/2018710893/the-e…
Grimes comes off second best. (The saddest piece is the lame Hickey/Beckford stuff at the end - they're just plain wrong, yet have the biggest obligation to investigate/challenge.
Funny old world
Longer-term rates are, of course, free to move, but they are influenced not just be savings and investment preferences – the core fundamentals that drive where interest rates should be – but by what people think central banks will do.
I think not - The Fed's Not Pegging Bond Yields, the Yields Have the Fed Pegged
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.