Bernard Hickey details the key news over the weekend in (slightly more than) 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news of New Zealand's biggest natural and financial disaster since the Hawkes Bay Earthquake of 1931.
The 7.1 magnitude earthquake on Saturday shattered houses, roads, water pipes, sewage systems and the Port of Lyttelton.
Treasury have estimated the cost of repairing the damage at over NZ$2 billion. The Insurance Council is expecting claims in the hundreds of millions of dollars. See more detail here.
Some have estimated up to 20% of housing is uninhabitable and will have to be rebuilt, along with roads, bridges, pipes and the ports.
The Earthquake Commission will pay the first NZ$100,000 to repair damaged houses and the first NZ$20,000 for damaged contents.
However, many small and medium businesses have suffered major disruption and not all will be covered by their insurance.
There will be an influx of spending and funds into Canterbury, which may boost economic activity in the short term.
But this doesn't disguise the loss of wealth accumulated in housing and infrastructure that will need to be replaced from national and local savings.
In many cases we will see a shuffling of savings into spending across time and between parts of New Zealand. See more here on the Paradox of the Broken Window.
The New Zealand dollar fell only slightly this morning to 71.8 USc despite the scale of the disaster.
The Earthquake Commission will have to liquidate some of its NZ$6 billion in savings, two thirds of which are in New Zealand government bonds. These sales of government bonds may pressure interest rates higher, although a Reserve Bank hike in the Official Cash Rate next Thursday is now seen as extremely unlikely.
Some have also suggested the surge of spending into Canterbury and the shortage of resources locally may push up inflation in the region.
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