Breakfast briefing: Recovery brings renewed climate risks

US inflation expectations rise; Canada struggles with surging house prices; IEA reports surging rebound in GHG emissions; UST 10yr at 1.60%; oil settles back and gold lower; NZ$1 = 71.4 USc; TWI-5 = 73.7

9th Mar 21, 7:19am by David Chaston

Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news the global economic recovery is coming with developing nations ignoring the opportunity to restrain their greenhouse gas emissions.

But first, American consumer inflation expectations rose again in February, up slightly to +3.1%. Expectations for petrol price increases rose sharply, up to +9.6% from +6.2% in January. Expectations for rent rises is also a very high +9.0% and up from +6.4% a month ago. Expectations for earning growth is much lower at +2.4%. US households are signaling they expect income pressure is ahead of them.

In Canada, they also have a hot housing market fueled by vast QE cheap money and spurring comparisons to earlier bubbles. Because those earlier events eventually turned bad, there are calls for cooling measures to let their markets down more gently this time. In Toronto, both February's sales volumes and prices leaped to dizzying heights. In Vancouver, the story is very similar.

The OECD is in the final stages of choosing its new chief. Actually, it should have been done by March 1, but the race is especially tight. There are two candidates; an ex EU trade Commissioner, Swedish diplomat Cecelia Malmström, and the ex-Australian Finance Minister, Mathias Corman, a West Australian conservative politician and relative lightweight. That he is still in the race is actually a surprise given his lack of international negotiating experience.

The IEA is noting that there has been a "strong rebound" in carbon dioxide emissions in 2021 after the nearly -6% fall in 2020. Global emissions plunged by almost -2 billion tonnes in 2020, the largest absolute decline in history. Most of this - around -1 billion tonnes, which is more than the annual emissions of Japan - was due to lower use of oil for road transport and aviation. China, Brazil and India are the main culprits for the resurgence; the US is the main large economy still reducing its GHG pollution.

In New York, the S&P500 has opened the week with a +1.0% rise in early afternoon trade. Overnight European markets closed with strong gains averaging +2.2%. Yesterday it was all the other way in Asian markets with Tokyo down -0.4%, and Hong Kong down -1.9%. Shanghai was down a substantial -2.3% and that takes it decline since the February 19 five-year high to -7.4%. The ASX200 ended its session yesterday up +0.4% while the NZX50 ended down -0.8%.

The latest global compilation of COVID-19 data is here. The global tally is still rising and at a fast pace, now at 116,967,000 and up +328,000 in one day, so no let-up globally. Global deaths reported now exceed 2,596,000 and +6,000 since Saturday. Vaccinations in the first world are rising however and in the US a quarter have now had this protection. That is quelling their daily death rate (under +1000 yesterday) and the number of active cases there is down to 8,822,000 (-24,000 fewer in one day).

The UST 10yr yield is up another +2 bps at 1.60% and its highest in more than a year. The US 2-10 rate curve is unchanged 144 bps. Their 1-5 curve is steeper at +77 bps, while their 3m-10 year curve is steeper too at +157 bps. The Australian Govt 10 year yield is up +3 bps at 1.81%. The China Govt 10 year yield is down -1 bp at 3.27%. The New Zealand Govt 10 year yield has also slipped overnight, down -4 bps to 1.90%.

The price of gold starts today down by another -US$20 from yesterday, now just on US$1680/oz. It seems to be one-way traffic for gold these days.

Oil prices have settled back overnight at US$65/bbl in the US, while the international price is up more to just over US$68/bbl. They spiked to over US$70/bbl on an apparent attack on a key Saudi crude oil terminal, but the impact has been minimal on the facility and the threat is diffused for now.

The Kiwi dollar opens today at 71.4 USc and a small slip overnight. Against the Australian dollar we are unchanged at 93.2 AUc. Against the euro we are at 60.3 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 is at 73.7 and only marginally lower overnight.

The bitcoin price will start today slightly lower at US$50,767 and -0.7% lower than this time yesterday. Volatility in the past 24 hours is a more modest +/- 2.4%. 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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Source: RBNZ

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131 Comments

by murray86 | 9th Mar 21, 7:44am 1615229057

Oil bounced off $70 yesterday, and i note that pump prices here in NZ are comparatively high, so we can see the drivers of inflation ticking up significantly. This can't be staved off indefinitely, if at all. The RBNZ must be quaking in their boots. I would have hoped they would try to get ahead of this, but it seems they persistently want to be late to the party and reactive. No leadership and no management!

by dictator | 9th Mar 21, 8:01am 1615230082

With RBNZ buying up bonds like there's no tomorrow I don't see any inflation other than house prices. RBNZ with try to talk up inflation but in a global economy that's slowed and plenty of shops shutting the inflationary pressure isn't going to be significant. We haven't even seen the fallout from last year trigger off other events.

by murray86 | 9th Mar 21, 8:18am 1615231110

So you're saying the increase in fuel prices will not be allowed to flow through to the rest of the economy? Rubbish. Most of us already see increased costs at the supermarket, so regardless of what the RBNZ and the Government tell us, inflation is alive and well out there.

by Fritz | 9th Mar 21, 8:21am 1615231276

I ate at my favourite Vietnamese yesterday and was s bit shocked to pay $17 for my old favourite. Prices are creeping up on us

by northman46 | 9th Mar 21, 8:28am 1615231699

Aint that right. I've been noticing a lot of price leaps. Cat litter +12%, haircut +10%, contact lenses +5%, rent +5%, etc. The only thing not going up is my income :/

by Foxglove. | 9th Mar 21, 8:37am 1615232248

yay, me too, even my budget choc biscuits up 1O%. Also selections are diminishing, meaning one brand not being offered on special as opposed to the other.

by gingerninja | 9th Mar 21, 10:27am 1615238877

My builder told me that the price of concrete is going up 20% in April.

by Audaxes | 9th Mar 21, 10:43am 1615239802

What will hedonic regression find as a cheaper CPI replacement - packed mud?

by Foxglove. | 9th Mar 21, 11:08am 1615241292

least the warning was in advance. our one sprung the surprise increases at the end. common practice apparently. can’t get possession till you pay in full, and the sum in dispute is calculated to be just small enough to not warrant court action. moral of the story. never sign a build contract unless you can hold back a good amount as retention.

by morphyoss | 9th Mar 21, 11:18am 1615241900

Remember the sunscreen song that came out in the 90's. A quote:

"Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old-- and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders"

by Halfway To Paradise | 9th Mar 21, 9:09am 1615234149

I am seeing this at a lot of small eateries that rely on minimum wage jobs. Unintended consequences of minimum wage increases.

by Theoracle | 9th Mar 21, 3:30pm 1615257000

Bought two large coffees last week... $13.50 unreal.

by dictator | 9th Mar 21, 9:35am 1615235702

Looking at anecdotal evidence from the comments in response indicate inflation is about 10%. RBNZ official inflation is 1.4%.

It wasn't that long ago that oil was $120 per barrel, the $65 it is at now isn't that big of a deal. Inflation adjusted it's like the days when it was $20 per barrel and petrol was cheap. There are other pressures that are far more interesting and will weight more heavily on inflation or deflation.

by Ptolemy | 9th Mar 21, 10:00am 1615237213

It spiked briefly to $120 a barrel in 2007 before it crashed along with the economy with the GFC. It has risen from a low of $40 to nearly $70 in the space of 14 months. If you don't think that will have an inflationary effect, you don't understand how the price of oil permeates the cost structure of almost any physical good you can purchase today.

by donny11 | 9th Mar 21, 12:34pm 1615246464

10% is too high. From my understanding it is 5-7% at the moment. May get a spike to 10%+ this year with all the money printing.

by Fritz | 9th Mar 21, 8:18am 1615231103

Actually, I am moving from bearish to bullish on inflation.

by Foxglove. | 9th Mar 21, 8:21am 1615231315

Another opportunity to peddle the saying from around the traps just pre GFC 2008, when Bollard had hiked up interest rates “ the RBNZ arrives at the party too late, does too much and stays too long.”

by dictator | 9th Mar 21, 9:38am 1615235892

I remember the interest rates going up to around 9%. Good return on my savings. Those paying mortgages were rapidly getting into trouble. All to try and control house prices.

by donny11 | 9th Mar 21, 12:36pm 1615246611

I remember being at university & being told that shares & property were high risk investments. Bank deposits were low risk investments. The world has changed my friend. Bank deposits are high risk (gambling on an unlikely crash), property & shares are low risk.

by Ezy | 9th Mar 21, 3:05pm 1615255543

Back then there was no crypto either, only gold to hedge. Now even gold is a risk and Bitcoin is the lowest risk of all.

by Yvil | 9th Mar 21, 3:08pm 1615255724

What catastrophic advice, I hope you didn't listen to your "teachers" if so it will have cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars by now

by Avocado | 9th Mar 21, 9:39am 1615235966

Exactly what the RBNZ and other central banks want. Inflation up and rates down. Inflate away all the debt including Govt debt.

by Rosenstein | 9th Mar 21, 10:31am 1615239081

We're all going to be poor millionaires

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 10:30am 1615239037

murray...exactly. No leadership and no management. I just saw the Hippo on TV this morning saying they are training thousands of vaccinators and advertising for more. For Gods sake. We should have found and trained all the vaccinators we could possibly need before Xmas. My prediction is that we will be one of the last three developed countries in the world to fully vaccinate our people. And that is even with the huge advantage of our health system not being overloaded by Covid cases. By summer the world will have left us behind. Vaccination update CNN tracker, 9 March 10am :-

New Zealand 16 days, 9000
South Korea 10 days, 316 000
South Africa 19 days, 101 000
Australia 14 days, 81 000
Columbia 19 days, 296 000
Lebanon 22 days, 61 000

by sparrow | 9th Mar 21, 12:01pm 1615244503

The slower we vaccinate, the longer the borders stay closed.
And although it has some disadvantages, IMO it's overall positive.

by Lapun | 9th Mar 21, 12:37pm 1615246653

Vaccination Passport will be globally accepted fairly soon. Then we will have an open border and it will be back to oodles of those foreign students who signup for pseudo-education with a work visa thrown in. NZ will end up vaccinating every Kiwi having a foreign holiday and a subset of the elderly.

by Lapun | 9th Mar 21, 12:38pm 1615246697

by iconoclast | 9th Mar 21, 12:38pm 1615246723

Closed Borders is certainly not negative

by Carlos67 | 9th Mar 21, 11:38am 1615243136

The prices at the pump are like house prices. Oil hit zero dollars a barrel at one point and none of the savings got passed on. The petrol prices never really went down. Whatever happened to that Labour investigation into us getting Fleeced ? anyway its going to be heading for $3 a liter for 98 before you know it.

by NoRegrets | 9th Mar 21, 7:50am 1615229458

She’s made another mistake going all in with the the Pfizer vaccine. It’s a new type of RNA vaccine with no long term effect testing that will scare people off vaccinating. It’s also by far the hardest to handle at minus 70 degrees which means many doses will be wasted.
Herd immunity by Xmas! Australia will get there by September. We will be the last country in the world to come out of controlled isolation?

by RealAgent | 9th Mar 21, 7:58am 1615229921

I like to know what deal she made with Pfizer for New Zealand. What has she agreed to? Price, terms, commitments, liability, the whole deal. Does anyone have any idea?

by dago | 9th Mar 21, 8:52am 1615233162

I don't know about that. But I do know they have an appalling track record of safety violations, false claims, bribery. See for yourselves https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/pfizer

by oldbloke1 | 9th Mar 21, 8:00am 1615230012

The worst part of the whole covid experience, in New Zealand, is having to endure the opinons of armchair experts in epidemiology, virology, vaccines, and medicine generally.

by theoutlawtorn | 9th Mar 21, 8:34am 1615232071

I have found the worst thing about the Covid experience is people's inability to think and reason. As well as the labeling
of people and tribalism.

There is nothing inherently wrong with acknowledging the fact that we don't know the long term risks of a new type of vaccine. It is true. We also don't know the long term effects of Covid i.e long covid or enough about the virus itself. We can't. We haven't had the time.

Is it good risk management practice to only use one vaccine? I'm not sure it is.

I still find it interesting the nobody on this site swallows the rhetoric of the so called economic and banking experts when it comes to bonds, interest rates and housing etc. Why are medical experts seen as god like? Untouchable?

by Independent_Observer | 9th Mar 21, 10:04am 1615237461

"I still find it interesting the nobody on this site swallows the rhetoric of the so called economic and banking experts when it comes to bonds, interest rates and housing etc. Why are medical experts seen as god like? Untouchable?"

Probably because this is a finance/economics website so many probably have finance/economic degrees and/or have had time to come up with an understanding of how bonds/interest rates and housing work (well and poorly based on past economic cycles/periods of prosperity and decline).

There are only a few (that I'm away of) that are medically trained and in a position to make an informed view. I'm not expert in the medical field nor have read large volumes of material on pandemics so don't pass my views on that topic. Nor bring opposing views to what the MoH are doing to respond to the virus.

I guess if you wanted valued opposed views to the pandemic response, you'd need to switch to a medical forum - not a finance/economics one. I avoid the threads about the pandemic and its response as I have no expertise in those areas.

by Fluffybunny | 9th Mar 21, 10:32am 1615239163

I'm no doctor.

But I can read the newspaper.

NZ is lagging behind most of the developed world on vaccination. So what's wrong with asking questions?

Is this a deliberate strategy? Ie lower purchasing costs, or wanting to see which vaccine is the most effective? Or were we just shut out of initial vaccine deployment due to our size?

by gingerninja | 9th Mar 21, 10:34am 1615239270

Some of the armchair "experts" in these comments are worse than useless. Some of them are potentially dangerous.

I just hope that the average interest.co.nz reader is savvy enough not to be swayed on health/medical issues by comment keyboard warriors, with political and personal agendas.

Of course we need to question and challenge the actual experts. In general, it is wise to question and challenge everything. However, I'd still trust an expert in the field with years of training and experience over people who have got their info from youtube/parler/facebook et al or some random blog.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 10:45am 1615239936

gingerninja...do you feel it is unusual and breaks with standard protocol on the basic principle relating to spreading risk that we have ordered almost our whole supply from one provider? And if so do you think it is unreasonable to expect the Govt to clearly explain why it has done so?
I always base my level of trust (largely) on past actions and performance so with this lot.....

by Roger the dodger | 9th Mar 21, 8:41am 1615232518

Ignorant. Everyone, including the PM has the capacity to learn. She interrupts Bloomfield regularly on virus details. Since she is unqualified are you saying she should shut up?

by scarfie | 9th Mar 21, 8:46am 1615232811

Yeah me also. I prefer to display my youth and vitality, and healthy immune system, by winning races and surfing. Suck up your fear, the only fear I have is stupid old bastards that are willing to hang their children and grandchildren out to dry. But I'll get over that, it is just the way this is going to pan out. You can't change the tide of stupid people.

by Zachary Smith | 9th Mar 21, 9:11am 1615234282

It could be argued that experts were responsible for the early deaths of hundreds of thousands of AIDS patients with their lethal AZT cocktails.

by dago | 9th Mar 21, 12:40pm 1615246839

And experts also okayed thalidomide for pregnant woman. Pelvic mesh. The list goes on..

by linklater01 | 9th Mar 21, 10:54am 1615240478

oldbloke1,

From one old bloke to another-quite right. It's amazing how many people have become armchair experts recently. I get the distinct impression that much of the (often ill-informed) criticism of the government comes from the right of the political spectrum.
Of course the government has made mistakes and will no doubt make more. Some of these flow from their political beliefs(shock horror!) and some from simple errors of judgement. These are features of ALL governments. I talk to people in several countries, particularly in the UK and US and from their perspective, we are to be envied.

by morphyoss | 9th Mar 21, 11:40am 1615243221

Bang on - if National were in power right now they'd be doing pretty much exact same things, possibly minus the intuition that labour have had in their early decision making (Though i think English would be pretty much thinking along the same lines if he was still PM). For too long National couldn't decide if it was pro lockdown or pro border closures and kept changing position (as well as leaders). Today i think no-one is still actually clear what their position is other than opposing the government. Now they have even lost their credibility with the boardroom and being seen as economic good managers. Arguably that's got to hurt more than Gerry losing Ilam.

Anyway point is - National would still be making very similar decisions today, PM Bill English and Bloomfield would still be fronting the response, getting advice from the same experts on the response and Collins would still be plotting her next leadership campaign from the sidelines.

For those on the right they're simply people still depressed about the election result and thus they feel that dumping on the COVID response - which has been acknowledged as one of the best in the world seems to be their only response because the decisions were made by Labour. Its a sure sign that partisan politics has taken over your life and you really need to step back.

by Foxglove. | 9th Mar 21, 11:58am 1615244310

curled up in that though is a clear deficiency in acumen as to how an opposition should go about its responsibility to hold the government to account. National are still spoiling amongst themselves in the first instance, not looking like a credible team. There are issues and happenings that can be attacked certainly, but they seem to be going from scatter gun to pea shooter, on and off. On the other hand ACT are presenting a pretty good strike force and amongst the Greens, I have to admit, on general matters, some of the younger ladies are carrying the torch well too.

by morphyoss | 9th Mar 21, 1:08pm 1615248535

I agree, National are all over the place. They need to much better focus and stop being so reactive.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 12:57pm 1615247877

morphyoss... first of all I am a-political. I do feel, having business and real world experience, John Key or Judith Collins would have organized things such as the vaccine roll-out much better and faster. Having career politicians at the helm is a recipe for disaster. To lead our country, you should have proven that you can stand on your own performance and actions in the real world. People who have always only made decisions based on reputational value and have never had skin in the game in any type of real endeavour are so likely to make slow and sub-optimal decisions. A text book example of this would be Justin Trudeau, who ironically is somebody our own PM probably looks up to.

by morphyoss | 9th Mar 21, 1:19pm 1615249153

Trudeau is a pretty average PM. Certainly all about Style over Substance. No doubt before COVID Ardern was looking guilty of falling into the same trap and relying on the NZ First stopped us from doing things excuse.

There is no such excuse this term, so it will be one for delivery. If they can do it and can make genuine change, they will probably be in for a historic fourth term.

But i do disagree with you re Collins or Key doing differently. For one Key is well out of the picture so that point is moot and two Collins was totally missing in action with a credible alternate plan at the Election. Hence the general public just laughed at her and sent her packing. She is simply not up to the task and there is simply no proof that Collins right now would be in a better place (Remembering we started our vaccine program just before Australia.

The National Party were (and still are) seriously left wanting in Opposition when COVID took hold and they are to be honest still totally reactionary and cannot even spell an alternate plan, instead simply saying "we would have done this better/faster" after the fact, with no proof, or even plan in place to work to.

They are a joke and they will continue to be until they can get a credible leader who can actually engage with the public.

by Foxglove. | 9th Mar 21, 1:38pm 1615250289

Would suggest the Clark government too would have been more proactive in sourcing and the logistics of getting the vaccine out there expediently. But would suggest too, the actual culprit as being the MOH. They were lacking in the beginning, eg rest homes not being isolated, and lacking throughout to the point that misinformation was provided to the minister, and instructions from the government disregarded. No country can be well served by a bureaucracy that is opinionated, self serving and unaccountable. In fact it is a threat to both society and democracy. Chris Trotter’s column running alongside on here, explores this feature rather well in fact.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 1:14pm 1615248862

oldbloke... OK let us keep it simple. Let's just focus on results rather than opinions or excuses. Each month we can simply analyze our vaccine progress in comparison to other countries.

by morphyoss | 9th Mar 21, 1:30pm 1615249810

THis is very do-able

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-fully-vaccinated-covid?…

Fully vaccinated peeps

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 1:55pm 1615251332

morph... I prefer the CNN covid 19 vaccine tracker site.

by profile | 9th Mar 21, 1:48pm 1615250939

No hurry eh.
"Saliva testing for Covid-19 has yet to be substantially adopted in New Zealand, despite its use in countries like Australia and the United States.
A Government-appointed review in September said “saliva testing as a complementary methodology should be introduced as soon as possible”, and the ministry was in the early stages of a trial by February."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/124436787/covid19-m…

by frazz | 9th Mar 21, 8:00am 1615230030

I think its best we leave it to the experts when it comes to selecting the vaccine program for the country, I am sure they know a bit more than you do on the subject.

by powerdownkiwi | 9th Mar 21, 8:07am 1615230464

We can discount lightweights who begin with 'she'.

Because 'she' would listen to the experts, first.

So just denigration; not hard to guess where from.

by RealAgent | 9th Mar 21, 8:10am 1615230659

I'm not talking about whether it works or not I want to know what deal was struct. Maybe watch this https://youtu.be/2zoSSHx9QtA

by profile | 9th Mar 21, 8:52am 1615233157

Yes, what have we agreed to? Argentina baulked at Pfizer demands.
"They are responsible for the vaccine, not the state," said President Alberto Fernandez. "The state buys, and they sell. I do not understand why we should provide them with a standard that would absolve them of all civil and criminal liability."
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-vaccine-did-pfizer-put-profit-first/a…
https://batimes.com.ar/news/world/held-to-ransom-pfizer-demands-governm…

by dago | 9th Mar 21, 8:55am 1615233354

Yes, we should trust the government without question

by Zachary Smith | 9th Mar 21, 9:02am 1615233720

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

by dago | 9th Mar 21, 12:42pm 1615246958

Now relax, open wide..

by murray86 | 9th Mar 21, 1:03pm 1615248187

A no; don't you mean ..."bend over now ..."

Remember SNAFU, FUBAR and BOHICA?

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 1:09pm 1615248555

dago... I would not trust them to water my plants and feed my cat. I wonder how many of them would succeed in one of those reality shows where they are given a set amount of money and had a year to open and run a profitable business?

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 10:51am 1615240304

Frazz..we left the housing crisis to them and....
I am certain that with good, efficient organization every single person in NZ who wanted a jab would have one by the end of September at the latest. But with this lot I reckon it will be more like this time next year.

by frazz | 9th Mar 21, 12:49pm 1615247360

No Karl..the population of NZ created the housing crisis..(the government just went along with it)..

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 1:02pm 1615248135

Frazz... and there was no way to take steps to ensure NZ did not experience rapid and unnatural population growth. It is not a political statement. National are equally culpable IMO.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 10:36am 1615239410

Noregrets... probably the last in the developed world to vaccinate everyone who wants one.

by Uninterested | 9th Mar 21, 7:55am 1615229713

So, the reduced quantities of oil used in transport and aviation is now being unwound.
In a short period of time.
What was the missed opportunity? To buy hundreds of thousands of electric trucks and buses and to close coal and gas fired power stations, build new renewable power stations where possible and to build new transmission lines all within a period of say 1 year? Yeah right.

by powerdownkiwi | 9th Mar 21, 8:43am 1615232622

The world demands a certain amount of energy for BAU. There is some efficiency-possibility, countered by increasing entropy (of existing stuff, decaying at increasing speed).
The best stuff has already been burned, and we're down to needing to fracture rock to get at what's left; so less net energy available per energy extracted, coupled with said entropy. This puts energy in increasing contention.

The problem is measuring it with 'money'. Money is debt-issued, blindly. It is a bet that there will be energy in the future, the bigger the collection of forward bets, the more energy required to underwrite them. The issuance and energy-supply graphs inevitably cross, the amount not-underwritten must therefore increase.

In rough terms, we can't afford ourselves (as increasing debt suggests). In oil-price terms, the $$ needed to develop the 'next best' option is increasing, the $$ that society can pay is decreasing (even at zero interest-rates). Society can decide to subsidise oil developments using Government debt, but sooner or later there won't be believers in the ability of that to be repaid, it being taxes on work-done which does the repaying.

I used to think we would be in trouble soon after Peak Oil (which for conventional oil was 2005/6) but I didn't reckon with the mass indifference too debt (increase in amount incurred and increase in inability to repay) running parallel with a total belief in money. That beggars belief - or as a friend says; those who believe will soon be beggars.....

Someone has to join the dots; increasing debt, increasing inability to maintain infrastructure, growth increasingly virtual.......

by Uninterested | 9th Mar 21, 11:40am 1615243231

Though provoking writing.
But this solely focuses on debt underwriting oil/energy. Leaves out the component of debt which is being used to service those who have no particular value to society. And I am not talking about those who are infirm or who are retired.
And much money is going into questionable projects. Watercares' massive drain is one example. Why not separate the sewerage from rainwater at source?

by morphyoss | 9th Mar 21, 11:46am 1615243608

There is certainly a ceiling on Oil though, with E-cars and other options such as e-bikes, every dollar it goes up convinces more people globally to drop oil powered things.

It's just finding that price point where it becomes a serious consideration for a bulk of people, because once people jump away from oil they wont rush back and I am sure this is probably something that keeps the oil companies up at night. They know the profiteering of the past wont fly today, because there are now genuine options.

Take Christchurch for example, huge developments have sprung up out of the city in places that pretty much require a car for commuting. It the daily commute cost goes up from $10 - $20 per day driving in per car, it will push living out there to the brink of affordability for many people.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 2:32pm 1615253557

Except E-cars and other options such as e-bikes are oil powered things. The whole of their product lifecycle depends on oil to even exist at all.

by morphyoss | 9th Mar 21, 4:58pm 1615262310

True, but on nowhere near the scale a gas powered vehicle, so overall demand will drop dramatically.

Doesnt change my original point

by profile | 9th Mar 21, 8:06am 1615230368

Stark link between obesity and Covid deaths revealed
WHO-backed report concludes that 9 out of 10 fatalities have occurred in countries with high obesity levels …death rates were 10 times higher in countries where more than 50 per cent of the population were overweight. The increase in national death rates where countries exceeded the threshold of 50 per cent of population overweight was “dramatic”.
…Vietnam, for example, has the lowest recorded death rate in the world and the second lowest level of overweight people: just 0.04 per 100,000 deaths from Covid-19 and 18.3 per cent of adults overweight, according to WHO data.
In contrast, the UK has the third highest death rate in the world and the fourth highest obesity rate, at 184 deaths per 100,000 and 63.7 per cent of adults overweight. It is followed by the US with about 152 deaths per 100,000 and almost 68 per cent obese.”
https://www.ft.com/content/7db2b641-c831-4876-ba0c-0f815a42c8f0
https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/COVID-19-and-Obesity-T…

by 1986 | 9th Mar 21, 8:15am 1615230924

It’ll be interesting to see a prediction based on nz’s obesity rate if the virus swept through.

by profile | 9th Mar 21, 8:34am 1615232042

“The figures are affected by the ability of a country to control its borders and by the speed with which the virus and its variants spread through populations and into more remote areas.
…Countries that appear to run against the trend include New Zealand, Australia and several Gulf states, where overweight prevalence among adults is high (over 60%) but reported deaths from COVID-19 are relatively low (below 10 per 100,000). These figures are clearly affected by national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and will change as the pandemic unfolds and as vaccination programmes are extended”
https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/COVID-19-and-Obesity-T…

by Carlos67 | 9th Mar 21, 11:53am 1615244021

Shouldn't think we are any better than the UK. NZ must have 2 out of 3 adults over the age of 40 who are over weight or obese. Nobody beats the USA however, that place is just frightening when it comes to fat. The results are hardly a surprise, most of the pictures on TV had people so big they must have had trouble moving them. Fat people have poor cardio and Covid hits the lungs.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 1:29pm 1615249762

Carlos67... I spend at least a few months a year in Vegas. There are numerous Americans wobbling around on their mobility scooters. Their medical condition? They are fat, lazy and do not exercise. Nice people, although I wish (mainly for their sake) their loved ones had fat shamed them years before they got themselves into such a self-destructive mess. From time to time my daughter fat shames me and the positive result is that I dust off the running shoes and ease up on the amber liquid. When you care about somebody enough fat shaming is your duty. Thyroid problem? Slow metabolism? Yeah right.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 3:22pm 1615256540

Fun fact fat people tend to survive a lot longer than extremely thin people. The medical concerns from of severe malnutrition and excessive weight loss are far more deadly in a matter of a few years while those surrounding weight gain including results from poor diet, thyroidism, genetic diseases, medication use, illness etc often take decades to even have significant risk of death at all. The sad fact is when many have restricted intake and obsession with not being fat they do far more organ and bone damage significantly affecting future outcomes. I had many family at risk of death due to weight, some were unlucky due to odds of getting genetic diseases some starved themselves to the point of death. Guess how your messaging affects both. Have a serious medical concern and you can lose weight quickly while pilling in the most unhealthy food imaginable in fact for many people they are advised by medical professionals they need high calorie high fat diets, (myself included although it is really hard to do that because high calorie diets are difficult to maintain properly), yet for some they build up tissue and fat on liquid green diets (many find due to medical condition they unavoidably build up tissue and retain more weight regardless of intake and exercise). Hence weight is something I need to increase and aim upwards for basic health. Likewise being able to go outside or stand unaided is not something universal. Much like access to food, housing and appropriate medical care there are extreme levels of privilege and extreme levels of inaccessibility. Even within the last year there have been hundreds of thousands of cases of severe medical harm done to those institutionalized against their will for nothing more than the fact they were born at all. Many with my condition still are in Europe and NZ and places that should know better. The fact I can even have time outside once in a week or two is nothing more than luck. Thinking that everyone has the same condition, abilities and childhood living conditions is beyond ignorant of many medical realities, real ostracism and deadly practices in NZ. Where you can be lucky to see the age of 30 at all. Many do not. Meanwhile treatment to save lives is available in Aus but guess what if you have a medical concern you often cannot even get there or afford Aus treatment.

by Independent_Observer | 9th Mar 21, 4:26pm 1615260412

Fun fact - in the millions of years of human history - fat people did not survive longer than skinny people.

The fat person couldn't walk far enough to forage to eat enough calories (so couldn't get fat in the first place), nor run fast enough to stab wildebeest or escape the saber-tooth tiger.

by scarfie | 9th Mar 21, 5:37pm 1615264642

That is utter tripe. The evidence that links body fat to mortality is linear. The fatter you are the younger you die, simple. The advantages seem to stop at about 14%, which is pretty damn lean when you look at most of the population.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 8:57pm 1615276638

pacifica.. interesting post however I do suspect you are probably twisting things a little by comparing overweight people to the seriously underweight who are mainly made up of the mentally ill, the malnourished, the already very ill or drug addicted people. The malnourished will come from areas with a low life expectancy and the extremely underweight due to illness or drugs will obviously have a lower life expectancy than almost anyone else. It sounds like you may be one of the rare exceptions but in the vast majority of cases obesity is a lifestyle choice. I wish you well in your own personal challenge. It sounds like you have the right mindset.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 11:03pm 1615284185

Thank you for your post karl, always enjoy the discussion. Just seen a lot of harm done to many family members of multiple different genetic, illness and medication based problems and the reverse the fat shaming harm it has destroyed many other people's lives. I may not have the right mindset being cynical, overly medical evidence based focused but unlucky health for many family members and friends has killed many young. I could blame diseases but it was not the disease but the humans around who harmed the most. There is some small hope in looking for a cure or mitigation of symptoms if no cure exists but when other people express a severe lack of medical knowledge it is more harmful to medical health long term. The assumptions and bias are quite literally deadly and occur even amongst GPs who do not have enough specialist knowledge to be diagnostic. One member had harmful cysts that grew but were told "oh some exercise will cure those feelings", likewise deadly cancer was missed in a few others, MD was assumed to be taking drugs (but even a fool could see the back deformation no drugs could produce). Many diseases like mine result in being too undernourished so there is the reverse side but that causes more knock on incurable organ damage whereas cancer can be cured if picked up early enough. Plus we always would joke about the nuclear testing having an effect but that was only one member who underwent it and outside of genetic changes and linked issues for immediate descendants they seem relatively ok still. There is the chance of de novo cases from many environmental factors.

by Fritz | 9th Mar 21, 8:21am 1615231315

So in many ways obesity is the real health crisis

by murray86 | 9th Mar 21, 8:26am 1615231603

Has been for a long time now. But obesity is a consequence of lifestyle choice. It can be easily managed, but people are too lazy.

by JimboJones | 9th Mar 21, 8:41am 1615232492

Likewise most of us have had the opportunities to be a healthy educated law abiding doctor earning lots of money and owning 10 properties, but we were too lazy. It's very easy to blame individual choices...

by murray86 | 9th Mar 21, 9:04am 1615233898

Jimbo, I am 63 soon to be 64. I go to a gym four days a week, and train hard, and try to constrain the amount of food i eat to sensible quantities and quality. I train along side busy business people, young parents, old retirees, self employed, and people on benefits, people with artificial limbs, people in wheel chairs and on crutches, all who do the same thing. And I have done this for the last 30 years. I see and hear people offering myriad reasons why they cannot do that. But in the end they are just choosing not to do it.

And no, most of us did not have the opportunity to be a doctor, or earn lots of money and own 10 properties. That cynicism is unworthy of this forum because it simply is not true.

by blobbles | 9th Mar 21, 9:49am 1615236573

There is a place for both murray, you may be self disciplined enough to lead a healthy lifestyle, but not everyone is. To think everyone will do what you are doing is pretty silly, people are different. The cross section of people you are seeing are the ones that are motivated enough to do something. But motivation is not the same in everyone.

Unfortunately for the majority of people it looks like we actually need policies to encourage healthy eating. That means taxing sugar and anything highly refined and using that money to subsidise healthy foods. Anything else, espousing personal responsibility for instance, clearly isn't working as our obesity stats get worse and worse.

by murray86 | 9th Mar 21, 9:58am 1615237084

By your own comment then you see it is a choice. My motivation is a choice I make, others is their choice. The consequences are their own to own, not make excuses for. Yes people are different and i expressed that, but difference is not a justification as to why they cannot look after themselves. People want to have a choice as to how they live their life, but then they don't want to be responsible for the consequences of those choices. The world, life, and nature just doesn't work like that. This is what we need to teach people. They can be the best they can be, they just need to choose to do what is needed to get there. The alternative is that they loose the right to choose and do what they are told.

by blobbles | 9th Mar 21, 11:23am 1615242213

We have been telling people that it's their choice for the past few decades. Look at the results - mass obesity.

It's not working. Doubling down on telling people MORE that it's their choice is akin to Central Banks keeping on doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It simply isn't working, no matter how many times we tell people "be the best you can be!". And the result is high functioning people pay the price as well, through their tax bill supporting diabetes and all sorts of other health problems. YOU are paying for other peoples bad choices, that's how society works.

So it's past time to change it. For people NOT to lose the right to choose, but for them to be encouraged to make the right choice. When I see cauliflower at the supermarket for $5 a piece and 5 bags of chips for that same $5, it's easy to fall for temptation for the many people (the 31% of adults that are obese, remember that's growing). So let's encourage them to choose right, tax the chips to make them $10 and subsidise the cauliflower to make it $2. That will send strong encouragement to people and just as importantly, make healthy eating cheaper. At the same time we can subsidise healthy activities.

Anything else IMO, no matter the education, will result in people continually becoming obese at greater and greater rates and those of us that are healthy paying more and more at the other end, in the health system. You can shout from the rooftops as much as you want, but the problem is getting worse and worse without intervention.

by Independent_Observer | 9th Mar 21, 4:09pm 1615259356

Its only been very recent history - say the last few thousand years (with a few exceptions) - that we've had many fat people at all. Before that, if you couldn't stalk, catch and stab a wild animal (or walk 20+ Km a day foraging) - you died within a few days/weeks.

Now we cruise the isles of wallmart sipping on our gallon of extra sweet iced tea in our mobility scooters because we're too large to support our own weight (I used to see this on a daily basis while living in America).

by JimboJones | 9th Mar 21, 11:11am 1615241494

I don't see that there are many more barriers to education in NZ than going to the gym. If you have the time and money to go to the gym then you could do a useful degree or trade etc instead (granted becoming a doctor might be a bit too aspirational for many). By your logic there really is no reason that people should be poor, they are just choosing not to do it. And that may well be logically correct, but the reality is that a lot of people don't have that motivation.

by murray86 | 9th Mar 21, 12:42pm 1615246947

I largely agree with you that people don't have the motivation. I then think they should not cry the 'poor me, it's not my fault' card.

But it is not education, it is attitude and motivation. Better than 60% of the worlds billionaires have barely a high school education. This about getting out and doing something.

This begins as teenagers. they all are busting to have the choices that grown-ups get, like driving cars, partying etc, but they don't understand that those choices come with responsibilities, the first of which is having to accept the consequence of those choices. And every choice has a consequence no matter how big or small it is. People cannot demand their right to choose and then absolve themselves of the consequences of those choices.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 3:05pm 1615255521

Then everyone who started a business and had motivation should be millionaires... so why do over 90% fall over within two years. Are there elements of luck, opportunity, available resources and funding needed for businesses to maintain stable operation and grow. Your lack of understanding of survivorship bias is astounding.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 3:02pm 1615255361

Except gyms are not accessible or available to large swathes of the population, likewise being able to go outside or stand unaided is not something universal. Much like access to food, housing and appropriate medical care there are extreme levels of privilege and extreme levels of inaccessibility. Even within the last year there have been hundreds of thousands of cases of severe medical harm done to those institutionalized against their will for nothing more than the fact they were born at all. Many with my condition still are in Europe, NZ and places that should know better. The fact I can even have time outside once in a week or two is nothing more than luck. Most people are not that lucky, and many don't have the access to education at all (many schools deny disabled students access and tertiary institutes often deny access to disabled people altogether without pretending to be equal). Thinking that everyone has the same condition, abilities and childhood living conditions is beyond ignorant of many medical realities and real ostracism and deadly practices in NZ. Where you can be lucky to see the age of 30 at all. Many do not meanwhile treatment to save lives is available in Aus but guess what if you have a medical concern you often cannot even get there or afford Aus treatment.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 2:04pm 1615251877

JJ... if your BMI is over 25 and you weigh at least 75kgs I can guarantee you that you could lose at least 10kgs in 3 months if I controlled your diet and exercise program. Study and wealth opportunities are far from a level playing field, whereas, although some need to work a bit harder than others, obesity is a lifestyle choice and a fairly level playing field. Anybody who starts running 40 kms per week (or more) WILL lose weight.

by donny11 | 9th Mar 21, 9:32am 1615235525

Its been known since April/May last year that obesity is a significant factor when it comes to hospitalizations/deaths for those in the 50-70 age bracket. The fact that not one person from the govt (Bloomfield, Ardern or Hipkins) hasn't come out & stated this then attempted to implement polices to address this issue is incredibly disappointing. I guess they place a great value on "political correctness". Inevitably we will have some relatively young people die from the virus due to the fact they are obese. It is a shame these people were not forewarned at the very least.

by KH | 9th Mar 21, 11:44am 1615243478

Dead right donny. It's also a political viewpoint that people don't make poor decisions.
It's all the fault of poverty, racism, colonisation etc. Eg.. I thumped her because I was upset and drunk"..... or...... "I was upset and drunk but thumping is stupid"
Take your pick.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 2:42pm 1615254147

Many weight and obesity related cases are unavoidable from genetic diseases that alter the metabolism and build up of tissue to medication effects with medication that is critical to survival at all. It would be ignorant to think people could remove genetic diseases and cut vital medication as easily as you pick what to eat from a restaurant or enjoying a favoured pastime.

by Independent_Observer | 9th Mar 21, 4:22pm 1615260151

We've some how added the obesity gene to our human make up - so it must be possible therefore to also reverse that process.

Adam and Eve weren't suffering from diabetes because they had 'fat genes'. We've added those to our genetic make up the last few thousand years, out of the last few million of humans walking around upright. So being obese is a relative new concept. Look at the animal kingdom - I don't see many fat apes - why? They eat a natural diet and have to move to take in their calories. The agricultural revolution probably destroyed our health because we stopped foraging for food and started eating large quanties of a smaller subset of foods - and no longer need to catch and kill our prey. And that's only really happend in the last 10,000 years - out of the last many million that humans have been walking around. So before that - there were likely no 'fat genes' - that is a very very new concept of humans. I.e. an anomoly in the history of human health. If you were unhealthy in the past - you probably wouldn't have procreated.

by Lapun | 9th Mar 21, 5:56pm 1615265816

There are some fat dogs and cats.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 10:29pm 1615282182

Get your disease right for starters diabetes has long had genetic causes and autoimmune links, often is not related to weight or obesity at all and can be triggered instead by other illness. Or do you still think all diabetics can cure themselves with exercise. Several family members were born diabetic. Are you going to start blaming the unborn for something they literally cannot change or decide upon, their genes. Oh wait you just did.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 2:08pm 1615252098

donny... the toxic stench of our PC culture trumps everything these days. They would rather there was unnecessary death than draw the ire of the PC police.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 2:41pm 1615254093

Not medically correct murray86. Many weight and obesity related cases are unavoidable from genetic diseases that alter the metabolism and build up of tissue to medication effects with medication that is critical to survival at all. It would be ignorant to think people could remove genetic diseases and cut vital medication as easily as you pick what to eat from a restaurant or enjoying a favoured pastime. In fact many of the most common genetic diseases that affect weight and obesity have only just had basic genetic testing around for less than a decade even though it was a known and clearly classified medical genetic disease a long time before that. Finding the genetic cause of many diseases and isolating it for testing requires millions in research funding and the sad fact is most diseases cannot even get the time of day in most countries and especially in NZ. Medication has been long known to have serious negative side effects but how should I put this; you don't remove ribs and cut out your vital organs because it would make you weigh less and be thinner.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 9:01pm 1615276867

pacidica.. I always thought it was a small minority. Maybe I am wrong but there do not appear to be many sub-saharan Africans or Bangladeshis that are morbidly overweight.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 10:37pm 1615282660

You really then need to look further then because it is pretty obvious even amongst popular leaders and many media channels in those countries. However here is a fun fact many diseases are based on genetics and often many diseases are likely to occur more in some families than others. Even taking diseases like MD for example there are higher rates amongst those with European descent although here is another issue many with the disease in sub-saharan Africa or Bangladesh suffer extreme levels of harm, degrading living conditions and early death which changes the rates occurring amongst those populations. Now I am not bringing up Godwins law but there really should be another one that describes people fat shaming the disabled for tissue diseases where muscle cells are turned into useless scar tissue that cannot be exercised away like you can with fat or even muscle wasting, or morphs the spine so severely the stomach and gut protrudes with a severe crunching curve in the back.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 2:49pm 1615254563

Incorrect In many cases diseases have far more effect than intake levels. Have a serious medical concern and you can lose weight quickly while pilling in the most unhealthy food imaginable in fact for many people they are advised by medical professionals they need high calorie high fat diets, (myself included although it is really hard to do that because high calorie diets are difficult to maintain properly), yet for some they build up tissue and fat on liquid green diets (many find due to medical condition they unavoidably build up tissue and retain more weight regardless of intake and exercise). It would be ignorant to think people could remove genetic diseases and cut vital medication as easily as you pick what to eat from a restaurant or enjoying a favoured pastime. In fact many of the most common genetic diseases that affect weight and obesity have only just had basic genetic testing around for less than a decade even though it was a known and clearly classified medical genetic disease a long time before that. Finding the genetic cause of many diseases and isolating it for testing requires millions in research funding and the sad fact is most diseases cannot even get the time of day in most countries and especially in NZ. Medication has been long known to have serious negative side effects but how should I put this; you don't remove ribs and cut out your vital organs because it would make you weigh less and be thinner.

by theoutlawtorn | 9th Mar 21, 8:37am 1615232276

This crisis was the perfect opportunity to improve the health of so many by showing people the here and now consequences of being unhealthy. What a utterly wasted opportunity. I'd go far so to call it a tragedy.

by Zachary Smith | 9th Mar 21, 8:58am 1615233530

Yes I'm surprised the government didn't have a campaign to raise awareness in this regard.

by frazz | 9th Mar 21, 9:04am 1615233877

Farmers would be up in arms..imagine telling the population to eat less bacon and dairy?

by Wilco | 9th Mar 21, 9:24am 1615235065

Do you really believe obesity comes from eating what we grow in NZ?
Poor health is being driven by the increasing focus on processed foods not single ingredient items.
Look at the ingredients list on your average pack of biscuits or fizzy drink. Bet you can't pronounce half of them never mind know what they are doing to your body.

by JimboJones | 9th Mar 21, 11:17am 1615241833

Nah its all calories in / calories out.
Look at those celebrity chefs that always use "wholesome fresh local produce", a lot of them are overweight (or would be if they didn't do so much exercise).
I think for most of us it is just an extreme lack of exercise TBH.

by Carlos67 | 9th Mar 21, 12:00pm 1615244433

Correct you can basically eat whatever you want if your prepared to do the corresponding exercise to burn off those calories. The only thing I would add is its easier when your younger as your metabolism most definitely slows down with age. You simply have to be more careful with what you eat when your older.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 2:47pm 1615254422

by blobbles | 9th Mar 21, 9:37am 1615235864

It's only the sugar farmers that should be up in arms. Everything in moderation... except sugar! Avoid all processed sugars and you will shed kilo's like no tomorrow. Have seen this work for so many people, it's not funny.

Of course don't eat bacon and cheese like it's going out of fashion, but they aren't the main culprit of our obesity issues. It's sugar in almost all forms (even honey, keep away from it) and refined white flour products. Often these go together... get rid of it all from your diet (eat only whole grains, but less grains as you age) and increase veggie/fruit/protein intake and people will notice a massive change.

by JimboJones | 9th Mar 21, 8:59am 1615233553

I don't think either political party wants to do anything about it. Judith thinks it is just everyone's own fault and they should all fix themselves, and Labour are too scared of being called a nanny state even with 50% of the vote.
It all starts with the kids, its shocking what most of them are eating and the lack of exercise, and its not just poor families.
Some obvious fixes would be:
1) Taxes on bad foods
2) Improvements to walking and cycling
3) Government education / encouragement / advertising
4) Ban on junk food adverts to kids
5) Cars need to be more expensive / pay for their inverse health effects.
None of this is particularly difficult or expensive. And most of it is actually not that left wing: a right wing party should accept that companies making profit from making us fat should be required to pay for the associated externalities (health care costs) they are currently getting for free.

by GV 27 | 9th Mar 21, 9:17am 1615234653

Implementing those things isn't hard, but coming up with a plan so that those who are time-poor or who don't have the same level of flexibility around travel/work hours don't end up disproportionately affected is. You can make driving more expensive, but spare a thought for those in the South and West, who (as proved by motorway traffic) kept travelling to and from work under lockdowns because frequently, they didn't have a choice or were working in essential industries in jobs that can't be done from home. There's a tendency to look at a lot of these problems through a white-collar lens and that isn't realistic for a huge chunk of our population.

Advertising reform though seems like a bit of a given. Genuinely surprised that hasn't been put in place sooner, but could be something that's made easier by the new HSRs as the old ones were significantly flawed. Could be a good starting point.

by JimboJones | 9th Mar 21, 11:08am 1615241285

It is a bit odd that we think we have to subsidise transport as it is some kind of basic right but yet food, shelter, power etc are largely left to the open market.
They could make bad things more expensive but then use that extra tax money to offset good things. I particularly like the idea of the government taxing bad stuff (not nilly-willy but where there are costs to society that those industries are avoiding such as obesity, pollution, homelessness, etc) and then giving it all back equally to the people in the form of a UBI.

by GV 27 | 9th Mar 21, 11:44am 1615243454

Maybe when the government proves itself capable of following its own promises or basics of governance, then we can think about giving it the reigns of what would be the biggest re-distributive programme in history. Our experience to date suggests taxpayers will almost certainly get the costs but almost none of the benefits. Ask a few Aucklanders about the improvements in their city from the Regional Fuel Tax, see what they have to say about how effective it is or how many extra cycle lanes it funded.

by Ryu | 9th Mar 21, 9:35am 1615235719

We already had all this but we wanted more convenience. It used to be a regular outing on a Saturday to the grocers, bakers, butchers, candle stick maker, with shopping in arm walking at least a few km bearing the load. Why cook a meal in todays age when you can throw one ready made in the oven or get order one online. It's all about convenience to give us more time.....time to do what? sit on the couch and watch netflix!
Now we just drive to a supermarket! In fact we don't even drive now...we get it delivered to our door! The only way I can see an improvement reversing these conveniences.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 1:38pm 1615250300

Fritz.. exactly as it leads to so many other problems. When I feel a diet is needed I turn on to TLC Channel and watch My 600 Pound Life and try not to throw up. During the first lock down I lost 13kgs. How? Hard work and mental strength. I stopped drinking, stopped eating crap and ran 20km a day almost every day. Being fat is (in 99% of cases) a lifestyle choice. And we pay for other peoples bad choices through the health system.

by karl seastrand | 9th Mar 21, 11:04am 1615241090

profile,,, has been obvious for 6 or 8 months. Fat people are more likely to die from almost everything and surprise surprise that includes Covid.

by profile | 9th Mar 21, 11:25am 1615242324

Probably more the scale that is stark - 90% of deaths in countries with high obesity levels - and Vietnam with less than 10% of NZ's mortality rate when they have a land border with China.

by pacifica | 9th Mar 21, 3:15pm 1615256134

by Independent_Observer | 9th Mar 21, 4:03pm 1615258995

Fun fact - fat people didn't exist until recently because if you couldn't catch you food using your legs and a spear - you died.

This isn't any disrepct to any current condition you or you family may have - but its only been in very recent history (few thousand years out of a few million) that it was allowable to become obese, with the medical conditions that came with that. Prior to that, it wasn't possible to procreate and become obese because if you couldn't walk 20km a day foraging for food, or spend a day tracking an animal and killing it with a spear - you died. Look at the animal kingdom (where we come from) - unless the animal is in the zoo, its in prime condition. If not, it doesn't survive. We've broken Darwin's theory of evolution - where its not always the strong now that procreate - its also the very unhealthy (and that includes a large proportion of society if you look at our BMI profile and trends).

I've lived in the states and daily you would see numerous people cruising around in mobility scooters because we've become so large we can't walk.

by Audaxes | 9th Mar 21, 10:25am 1615238730

In Canada, they also have a hot housing market fueled by vast QE cheap money and spurring comparisons to earlier bubbles.
Hmmmm...A recent Bloomberg article described central bank easing with the phrase “pumping money into the economy.”

That’s a misconception. Monetary easing (QE) is actually an asset swap. The public was holding savings in one form, and now it holds it in another. The Fed buys Treasury securities from the public, and replaces them with currency and bank reserves (base money) that someone has to hold, at every point in time, until the Fed sells its bonds and retires the cash. All monetary policy does is to change the mix of government obligations held by the public. Only fiscal policy – specifically deficit spending – changes the total amount of those obligations.

The fuel is bank lending. Banks have migrated away from lending to productive business enterprises because the risk weights can be as high as 150%.

Thus around 60% of NZ bank lending is dedicated to residential property mortgages held by one third of already wealthy households.

Bank lending to housing rose from $50,788 million (48.36% of total lending) as of Jun 1998 to $295,957 million (60.02% of total lending) as of December 2020 - source.

by blobbles | 9th Mar 21, 9:32am 1615235578

Isn't this just semantics? If Central Banks don't do the asset swap, banks wouldn't lend more. Even though the accounting is different to what they are saying, it's still central banks causing the inflation in asset prices.

Completely agree regarding risk weighting (page 45 for residential mortgages for the document you linked). It's possible they should sharply increase the risk weightings on page 45 considering the bubble we are creating...

by Audaxes | 9th Mar 21, 10:23am 1615238614

Isn't this just semantics? If Central Banks don't do the asset swap, banks wouldn't lend more.

The OCR has been cut in half five times since July 2008, when it was 8.0% to 0.25% today. The already rich were accommodated by bank lending to migrate away from deposits to asset incomes (rent) associated with residential property investment. Rising discounted present values of future cash flows were capitalised for both assets and liabilities while interest rates fell. QE aims to reinforce the already falling trend of the term discount interest rate factor, nothing more. Except it didn't in NZ's case.

Nonetheless, ANZ cut its Serious Saver account -5 bps so that the top potential rate is now just 0.20%
A $5,000,000 deposit to save $10,000 annually is a a signature example of how to part the masses from the capacity to gather capital to meet expenses and save for assets..

by bw | 9th Mar 21, 9:04am 1615233862

At least the Aussies are honest about their plans.

Morrison plans recovery phase, migration critical

Our economies aren't about productive investment or output any more. They are simply a matter of numbers - on a spreadsheet and on the ground.

by EdwardD | 9th Mar 21, 11:02am 1615240937

Still watching GME - made great strides overnight and based on tweets from Keith Gill (DFV) and Cohen, tomorrow will go to the moon.

by iconoclast | 9th Mar 21, 12:14pm 1615245271

Lot of Shortsales of Mercury and Meridian

MCY MERCURY NZ LTD FPO NZX $1,362,023,932
MEZ MERIDIAN ENERGY LTD FPO NZX $1,255,003,958

https://www.asx.com.au/data/shortsell.txt

by Theoracle | 9th Mar 21, 4:05pm 1615259135

Genuine question to all contributors... just out of interest, has anyone got wind of banks looking to add an interest rate premium to property investors??

I've got a mate in lending at KB who claims this is coming. Just wondered if anyone heard anything about this happening soon, particularly relevant in relation to low 5 year fixed rates currently on offer.

Although banks could whack on any premium to that any time they wanted in theory.