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China blocks Aussie coal imports; Japan's machine tool orders recover; Wall Street up strongly; Nobel prize in economics awarded; UST 10y at 0.78%; oil and gold down; NZ$1 = 66.5 USc; TWI-5 = 69.6

China blocks Aussie coal imports; Japan's machine tool orders recover; Wall Street up strongly; Nobel prize in economics awarded; UST 10y at 0.78%; oil and gold down; NZ$1 = 66.5 USc; TWI-5 = 69.6

Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news tensions with China are ramping up.

China is reported to have suspended imports of Australian coal in what is being seen as punishment for the Aussie's independent and critical positions taken on China's security, human rights and virus responses. A lot is at stake here. Coal exporters are China's 'friends' in Australia so it is a big move. Chinese power stations and steel mills have reportedly been told verbally to stop using Aussie coal, and port officials have been told to stop unloading. Australia exports about 4 mln tonnes of high-grade coking coal per month to China, a trade worth about NZ$8 bln per month.

In Japan, data out for machine tool orders for September was encouraging, rising +24% from August to be just -15% lower year-on-year. That is a big recovery in one month and is largely based on export growth. More general machinery orders are showing a similar recovery.

In England, their central bank has only just written to its trading banks asking if they are ready for negative policy interest rates. It will undoubtedly take them some considerable time to prepare. It is a preparation New Zealand started earlier this year.

Wall Street has opened up +2.0% to start their week on a positive note, but driven by stimulus expectations. Overnight, European equity markets were generally up about +0.6% (although London fell -0.3%). Yesterday Shanghai finished on a high, up a very strong +2.6% with Hong Kong not far behind, up +2.2%. Tokyo didn't share in these gains and fell -0.3%. Closer to home, the ASX200 was up +0.5% on the day while the NZX50 Capital Index ended up +0.6%.

Two Stanford University academics who designed the behavioural math behind a new way to run complex public auctions will share the 2020 Nobel Prize in economics. Theirs is a basis that has been widely applied for events like auctioning mobile phone spectrums, aircraft landing slots, fishing quota, and many environmental resource allocations.

The latest global compilation of COVID-19 data is here. The global tally is 37,615,000 and up at a faster pace of +314,000 in one day. The European second wave is particularly tough on the UK, France and Russia. Italy is being hit too. Global deaths reported now exceed 1,078,000 (+4,000) but clearly many are going unreported.

The largest number of reported cases globally are still in the US, which is up +39,000 in one day to 8,002,000. The number of active cases is at 2,644,000 so as many new cases as recoveries and not making real progress yet. Their death total is over 220,000 and still rising at +1000 per day.

In Australia, there have now been 27,286 COVID-19 cases reported, and that is +22 more cases than we reported yesterday. Deaths are unchanged at 898.

The UST 10yr yield is unchanged at 0.78% this morning. Their 2-10 rate curve is unchanged at +62 bps, their 1-5 curve is also stable at +21 bps, while their 3m-10 year curve is little-changed at +68 bps. The Australian Govt 10 year yield will start today at 0.85%. The China Govt 10 year yield is marginally firmer at 3.21%. The New Zealand Govt 10 year yield is up +3 bps at 0.58%.

The price of gold is down -US$9 this morning and now at US$1922/oz.

Oil prices are down by about -US$1.50 today, now just over US$39/bbl in the US, while the international price is down a bit less to just over US$41.50/bbl. The prospect of large new supply hitting the market, especially from Libya, is behind today's fall.

The Kiwi dollar starts today marginally lower at 66.5 USc. Against the Australian dollar we are holding at 92.2 AUc. Against the euro we are at 56.3 euro cents. And that means our TWI-5 is little-changed at 69.6.

The bitcoin price is higher yet again today, now at US$11,563 and +1.4% higher than this time yesterday. 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 ».

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76 Comments

Australia speaking out on the China issues: would NZ have the courage to do the same?
Any partnerships between NZ organisations and China companies always means close involvement of the State.

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From past experience I doubt it. Bridges and Parker both supported the belt and road philosophy.
However tactically it may be a good idea to allow (only) one export company to be owned by Chinese interests in NZ. By doing that, if/when they attack our exports to China, they also hurt their own company. To target all companies except their own one would show just how political the response is. And in which case we could add that company to the list!

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That is a tactic for commercial companies to consider. One issue is potential loss of IP and autonomy, e.g. the NZ Universities & Tertiary / Govt orgs that form partnerships with Chines universities and Chinese research bodies - then the risks and the opening up of CCP channels into NZ Govt apparatus.
Check out the work that Prof Brady doing in this area https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/118630157/christchurch-academ…

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Except that one small company in NZ would be inconsequential. Collateral damage.

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Haha.. mate where have you been for the last 10 years?? China has significant ownership or total ownership interests in a big chunk of our primary producers already - Meng Nui, Westport MP, Silver Fern, Synlait, Oceania Dairy, a 50% JV in a new Dairy processor in the Eastern Bay, to name a few. I'm afraid you're a bit late to the party.

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Ok so they are over-represented in many industries now.
That should be reduced. Ideally by govt decree.
PS. I very much hope that A2 are successful with Mataura Valley Milk. (And don't pay too much).

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Reducing overseas ownership of manufacturing by Govt decree would turn us into an international pariah overnight. How do you decide which country you are prepared to partnership with and which you're not without attracting well founded calls of xenophobia? Virtually all our large manufacturers are partially or completely offshore owned and controlled. Fletcher Building - a once iconic NZ owned company now has to get OIO approval to buy development land. A2 will be interesting - both from a purchase of MVM PoV but also execution, going from a marketer to a manufacturer will be tricky

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Thats why these NZ China Council articles that will appear on this site over the coming weeks should be marked as a promotion article as opposed to a news piece. Its posted as a news article on this website yet is written by the councils executive director.

Anything to the contrary is misleading, tacky and borderline patronising (not that China cares about borderlines).

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One of the things that stopped me voting ACT is the potential col between nats and ACT that would likely bring Bridges to foreign minister. He is a massive bendover for the CCP and would be spineless in terms of calling out anything China.

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You mean like how Labour has changed anything in regard to China since being in power ?
You mean like how Jacinda meet with the head of China and Simon meet with 25th in line ?
You mean like how Jacinda was head of the Youth Socialist Party aka Youth Communist Party ?

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i saw yesterday they were told to stop buying australian coal, if that happens that is massive for the australian economy
Industry news sources report that Beijing has told several state-owned steelmakers and power plants to stop imports with immediate effect
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/12/china-orders-hal…

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At the same time, DFA site reports that chinese investors are nervous about an Oz property Ponzi collapse and there is some evidence they are starting to pull out, with advice from Chinese media:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QoKRjy9gi0&feature=emb_rel_end

If this happens on scale, I wonder where that money will go? I don't think they will want to take it back to China because they are desperate to get their money out, so it may move into other real estate markets like NZ, Canada etc. But the same risks apply everywhere (Oz is just a bit ahead), and they must surely know that, so goodness knows what they will do.

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The AUS is a nut case.

The US led four country group with the AUS, India, and Japan, is now trying to contain China by spreading all sorts of false accusations, and dirty tricks.

Now the US and India both have the largest active and growing COVID 19 cases in the world. and post covid 19 recovering for both is like a pipe dream.

Paring up wisely with China is NZ's only way out.

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Well if you put it that way, can only agree CV19 has been a tremendously successful export from mainland China.

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"Paring up wisely with China is NZ's only way out."

The shorter version: Grease up. Bend Over.

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You mean along the lines of the Lord of advanced years asked in the House, around the mid 1870s, “If Russia should invade Turkey from behind, would Greece help?”

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What are the options? Forcing Haier to sell Fisher&Paykel Appliances and Facteon?

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Australia speaking out on the China issues: would NZ have the courage to do the same?

Germany’s ambassador to the UN, Christoph Heusgen, read out the statement on behalf of 39 countries including Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK and Japan – but not India – calling on China to respect “the rights of persons belonging to religious and ethnic minorities, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet”.Link

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4mln tons coal = $ 8 bln = $2000/ton? Might be a decimal point missing in there somewhere.

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It looks like Australia exports about 70 billion dollars worth of coal a year in total. That's about 83 million tons a month. Not all to China but those are huge amounts.

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That figure probably includes thermal coal. Just as well Australia is so damn big, they seem to send a lot of it overseas.

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Same old question if China as just one example is burning up billions, tonnes on tonnes of coal what global impact will the measures of little ol’ NZ way down under, have until China & others cease doing so.Would seem until that happens NZ is just farting at thunder? Just asking.

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Yes its an absolute joke NZ can make any difference, apart from improving our own air that is.
Same as Jacinda banning plastic bags that most were made of Corn starch and rapidly dissolved.
We use in 1 year what Japan uses in 1 DAY of plastic bags, But hey Jacinda got a nice headline out of it.

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One person can do what one person can do.

One country can do what one country can do.

And one person/country claiming the right to do nothing via smallness, is pathetic. Immature, basically. I always wonder what these people think if they have grandchildren? Presumably denial justifies obligation-avoidance and the snores are loud (they'll be old, probably of the lucky BB generation).

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Add to that the fact that the change was pretty damn painless bar the ringing in the ears and watering eyes from listening and reading the constant whine from those who simply do not like change no matter how good or logical.

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What are you talking about ?
How is banning recyclable plastic bags making a difference ?
I've got no issue with making NZ a better environmental place but banning recyclable and corn starch based bags helped how ?

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A small country making a strong example can be extremely helpful. What if we took strong action and 50 million Japanese people paid attention? Assuming most of them want to continue some kind of reasonable future for the species, they might start to push for their government to do the same.

Alternatively, you can sit at the back of the car plummeting towards a cliff and feel good that it's really the driver's fault because they have more control than you.

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Is that the same Japs that continue whaling in the southern ocean despite decades of our opposition and protest and pillaging the toothfish and pelagic fish stocks too? Those Japs?? I think many people need to actually realise NZs place in the world -an insignificant little backwater with reasonably pleasant scenery and a rather quaint outlook on life.

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That's right - the Japan which in the 60s was catching ~20,000 whales a year and is now down to a few hundred per year. Not perfect, but looks like progress. Immediately before the moratorium in 1986, they were still catching ~2,000 which quickly fell to a few hundred.

Job's not done yet, but if we saw similar stats on fossil fuel usage I'd be over the moon.

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Japan has reduced it's catch, that's true, however the "few hundred" you're referring to has slowly been rising again from around 450/yr to around 600/yr and they are still the majority harvester after Norway. The fact the whale harvest has reduced is because their target species is running out, note in the link how they have started harvesting their local waters. Anyway my point isn't about whaling per se but the delusional idea that NZ is or should be some sort of world leader. We're an annoying little gnat.
https://iwc.int/total-catches

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i remember when NZ banned nuclear, and went nuclear free, same arguments then what can one little country do

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That was a sovereign decision. Doesn't seem to have slowed the expansion of the industry much though has it?

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Actually my2c most were NOT made of corn starch. The single use ban was a good idea - one of the few things Labour has implemented that improves our own environment.

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At least by not contributing to the combustion fuelled extinction event, we can enjoy not being in the queue of mindless lemmings waiting for someone else to jump?

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We won't be in the queue cos we'll have to walk there in our sandals and sackcloth kaftans whilst tripping over our unkempt beards.

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Always a sign of a weak argument, is low-grade denigration.

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Haha.. always a sign of defensiveness when a metaphorical example is taken as denigration. Feeling a bit targeted PDK??

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Correct. Best price I could find was still under $200/tonne for high grade coking coal. Thermal coal is less than 1/2 that

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And coking coal makes Steel. which is used for - um - quite a lotta stuff, especially Infrastructure, Choo-choos and what-not.

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And your rather immature point being?

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Biden - "Running as a proud Democrat for the Senate". Somebody give that man a pipe, slippers and front porch.

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Profile,

Well yes, but when the alternative is a self-confessed abuser of women, an off the scale liar, narcissist, ignoramus, tax cheat, not to mention a climate change denier and what have I left out? Oh yes, someone who is intent on demolishing as many environmental protections as possible and who has utterly botched the US response to Covid-19. Well, faced with that choice, I would rather Biden put off retirement for a little while.

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...and yet Bill Clinton got a second term. Jo Jorgensen? At least she will remember the difference between a nurse button and nuke button.

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How about Joe Kennedy senior, sure not a president but schooled his boys and one was & all considered to be prospects, paraded most of all of those refinements, plus bootlegger, Nazi sympathiser, inside trader. Trump is different, not nice, but he is not completely novel.

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Have you actually looked at the Paris agreement ? It gives China and India a license to carry on producing the most waste of any countries till 2032 and getting funding from the West for that ?
If you actually looked at the facts "US CO2 emissions in 2019 were the lowest they have been since 1992".

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"and many environmental resource allocations".

Ah, so they go to the highest bidder and Economics is silly enough to give its major prize (ersatz Nobel) to folk who examine the bidding rather than the bidden-for.

Excellent. This will all turn out well.

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When are you being awarded your Nobel, PDK?

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After Stalin gets his for wiping out all those resource hungry people.
But there is hope for PDK since Obama got his after 11 days of doing nothing much.

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NZ has some of the best coking coal in the world, low Sulphur coal used for steel making. Where does our coal go?

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Indonesia, Russia, US and Australia are the top 4 destinations. We should add China to the list ASAP

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They're the top 4 producers perhaps? Top 4 destinations for NZ coking coal is more likely India, China, Japan, Australia

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Yeah, my mistake - misread the chart

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Reasonable epitaph

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Well, the estimated 40 million tonnes which Pike River Coal Co was into, is still there, waiting for a steel-hungry future. Was destined for India, as an Indian company was part of the JV. We may yet need it, and there's only a few hundred metres of overburden over it......ripe for a big Electric dragline....sucking on ex-Tiwai power - one day.

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"...are (banks) ready for negative policy interest rates."
(Comment, below, from Australia today)

(the ) housing market is no longer a ‘market’ that responds to supply and demand.
It is more like a Centrally Planned economy run by the state that artificially manipulates supply and demand by regulating immigration flow and guaranteeing debt.
Because isn’t the debt being used to produce supply via a Central Planning of never-ending population growth effectively guaranteed by the same central government by covering the bank’s risk – produced by ballooning debt in a never ending Mobius loop?
Where’s the ‘market”?

Precisely. "Where is the market?" ...for ANYTHING
We are about to nationalise all and everything. The property market ( watch out 'investors'! They'll be coming for your stock. It will be quicker to assume your portfolio than build new stuff), banks, airlines, power companies....the wholes lot.
That is what Negative Interest Rates is telling us ( amongst other things - all of them bad) and the sad, sad thing is ....we now have no other choice.
The days of 'other options' are behind us. And who enabled this? Ask Adrian Orr.

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It's not Orr's fault. Nor anybody's really, individually. We just ran a ponzi on the planet. It suited our short-term comfort and sense of self-importance/worth.

But the ponzi is peaking and about to head for some maintainable floor-level - inevitably orders of magnitude lower. We are - to quote someone who was good at strategy - entering a period of consequences. Governments are merely trying to keep the ship afloat. In the process, they may well become the ship. That's a consequence, not an agenda. The 'market' has been on the drip in ICU for 12 years and is slipping into a coma.

At least we know now, how to bid for the blood-pressure monitor.....

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Adrian Orr could have chosen an alternative approach so sorting out and rebalancing our economy. He actually headed off in the right direction ( LVR caps etc to redirect what debt we took on into more productive areas of the economy) but he lost is nerve, for one reason or another as time progressed.
He has opted for the path we are on.
If it's not his fault, whose is it? ( the RBNZ being independent and all!). I'll agree that it's 'us' to the extent that 'we' elected who we did etc. but when 'we' trust those with a sole task of supervising our economy with unlimited power, we expect a good result. Is that we see around us today, it?
I don't think so.

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PDK of course it's Orr's fault he is the head of the bank ?
Could he have chosen a different path ?
However he has chosen to follow the failures of Europe and Japan.
He is doing what Labour and Jacinda want of course.

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Trying to change direction of a very large ship with a very small Orr doesn't work!

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In Auckland specially in last few months house prices have jumped by 20% to 30% plus. Earlier also had jumped but this rise from already high peak (wjich seemed to be a bubble/peak) is beyond and now that bubble/peaks looks cheap in comparison.

Many feels that are in hyper bubble but leave it to Mr Orr and in few months even this hyper bubble prices will look attractive. Not long before Auckland median touches 2 million and the way it is shooting with all out support of reserve bank and government that time is not far away and can be judged by their action on LVR took minutes to remove but need year to impliment.

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It would be commercially prudent to build our commercial links anywhere else but China.

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we have a lot of FTA being sort at the moment, the big one is britian, they are trying to resurrect their trading with the old commonwealth and the USA which is upsetting the EU as it makes them less reliant on them.
you think we would have learned when britian joined the EU and we lost our major market overnight yet almost 50 years later our politicians have put us back to where we were now with china being our biggest export/import market
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/goods-and-services-trade…

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Europe marks distance from Indo-Pacific strategy

Succinctly put, the EU summit has stuck to the established path of constructively engaging China in a mutually beneficial relationship with accent on trade and economic ties while also registering its differences with Beijing on the human rights issues and underscoring that China is an indispensable partner in meeting global challenges of vital interest to the European community.

The salience lies in the EU distancing itself from the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy as a realistic approach to meeting the challenges and opportunities posed by China’s rise. In the European estimation, it is simply impractical to try to isolate China and, importantly, China’s rise on the global stage is a compelling geopolitical reality that demands engagement to mutual benefit.

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wow, it's raining, i was getting really worried about how dry we were, I don't want to have to sell bulls till end of November and i wasn't going to reach that goal. Now we are getting proper rain and more due next week.
Jumped out of bed opened the french doors onto the deck and everything is a bright green, showed the wife a good time and down for breakfast outside.

In the USA they have revised Soy and Corn harvest down, which will be great news for friends in Mid-west who were hanging out for better prices. The one who gets to win and the prize too, is always the one who thinks he can.

You can Listen here.
https://marketing.agrimoney.com/agrimoneys-verdin-view-october-wasde-su…

I got my track in, adjustment on the old bulldozer blade is showing its age, I should look about for a better one.
Ground is super slippery with clovers on top and hard ground underneath, as I found out to my detriment on the two wheeler while chasing a bull. I have most of my stream fenced and it's been an issue with what i call Cowcress, it's a meter tall and the stream is spreading out. I put a mob of bulls in for a week and they eat the top but it just grows back so quickly. We haven't had a fresh in the stream to wash it out for two years, so it's becoming permanent. The good news is the bulls love it and eat it first and the Council is ok with us chewing it back for short periods.

So now it's just a matter of putting two Kilos a day on bulls, for the next two months, should be on track for that. I spun some clover seed on with Kieserite, I am low on Mg and S, so i tried a ton of kieserite which is high in Mg and S, added clover, the clover has bolted but was drying off fast and would have been gone in a week.

The bee guys took the hives away for a month to the orchards, they were back Monday plus extra hives and happy with all the clover, they will be ecstatic about this rain.

If it looks like we will get more rain, I will try some cover crops and see how they go an interesting mix of about 12 different seeds. Need to fix the brakes on the Tractor, i have to pump them but they are getting worse and interesting if you actually need to stop.

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Fix those brakes, before you go anywhere without a grubber on the back to stop you. Worksafe wont be happy

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I have a mate in France looking for the bits today, don't know about freight speed. I am so used to brakes not working that it's fixed in my mind, never trust a handbrake.
One of my fathers friends had a newish Land Rover ,he parked it on a hill while he moved some sheep, went back and it was gone, thought the shepherd had taken it, walked home, no land rover, couldn't find it. Eventually realised the hand brake had come off, it had rolled down the hill and disappeared into the dam ot a sign of it above water.

I worked with a friend down south he farmed in the Richmond range only time I got vertigo. We had an old short wheelbase land rover that used to jump out of gear, i used to hold it in with my foot, we tooks the doors off in case we needed a quick exit, those were the good old day when i was still stupid.

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Speaking of brakes, parked the tractor up on the flat part of the hill after feeding out some bailage. Walked up the hill further to put up a fence and when I turned around it had rolled off (rather slowly i presume) down the hill and parked itself in the fence on top of a warratah. Didn't even break anything luckily! :D and missed all the beefies on the way down haha

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Of course, even a whisper of climate change conversation can trigger an immediate breakdown in logical discourse, particularly as the topic has become even more divisive over the course of the Trump administration.

But Josh insists that they’ve made an apolitical doc in covering their ground with interviews from scientists, farmers, and climate activists.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90553375/netflixs-regenerative-agriculture-…

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I am aiming for a very resilient system, It's a work in progress and will take me years if ever to perfect, that's what I like about it, the constant learning/challenge associated with change. It's why I am aiming for hardwood timber as part of my mix acting as shade/ shelter /biodiversity and income.

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So Negative Interest rates is the answer? Not likely!

Say's Law of Markets is a theory from classical economics arguing that the ability to purchase something depends on the ability to produce and thereby generate income.
Say reasoned that to have the means to buy, a buyer must first have produced something to sell. Thus, the source of demand is production, not money itself.
Say's Law implies that production is the key to economic growth and prosperity and the government policy should encourage (but not control) production rather than promoting consumption.

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Bitcoin looking interesting at the moment and potentially on the verge of something parabolic. Now up approx 57% this year in NZD but seems to be marking time with the price 'consistently higher for longer.'

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Approaching another solid area of resistance currently, so not out of the woods yet. Once it starts running parabolic thats when you go all in! In the mean time, keep stacking those sats, DCA is the way to go.

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Do you think everyone that jumped in last time and got bitten will do so again?

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Global deaths reported now exceed 1,078,000 (+4,000) but clearly many are going unreported.

Unlikely a lot are going unreported. The average age of death is high and it is highest among the obese. Most of the developing world does not have highly vulnerable populations. This disease is mostly a first world problem where there are many more overweight old people and the first world has good reporting practices.

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The UST 10yr yield is unchanged at 0.78% this morning

Indeed - it was a federal holiday today.

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Alternative title: "China makes moves to lead green energy revolution and lessen dependence on coal".

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