Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news Hong Kong has announced new curbs to limit borrowing at low interest rates to buy houses in the wake of the US Federal Reserve's unlimited money printing plan.
Hong Kong's exchange rate is pegged to the US dollar and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is worried this surge of liquidity with near 0% interest rates will fuel a further expansion in Hong Kong's property bubble.
Bloomberg reports the HKMA would limit the term of all mortgages to no more than 30 years. It would also reduce the maximum mortgage payment for investment properties to 40% of monthly income from 50% of monthly income. An influx of buyers from China and record low interest rates have helped fuel a 90% rise in Hong Kong property prices since 2009.
The New Zealand dollar was around 82.8 USc in morning trade, having hit a high of over 83.5 USc on Friday.
Meanwhile, tensions in China over a territorial dispute with Japan has bubbled over into riots and violence. Bloomberg reports a Panasonic factory and a Toyota dealership were torched in China over the weekend as tensions grew. State-run media have been running emotive anti-Japanese campaigns in recent weeks, which some critics argue is designed to distract the populace from a rapidly slowing economy.
Also in China, the missing politician expected to become China's next President, Xi Jingping, reappeared at an official function over the weekend. But the leadership change in China remains far from smooth. See more here at Bloomberg.
In Europe, however, Spain has announced plans for structural reforms that would pave the way for it to ask for a bailout, which would trigger unlimited European Central Bank bond buying.
Tens of thousands of people marched in Portugal and Spain against the reforms though, emphasising the European debt crisis will depend on political moves as much as economic ones. See more here at WSJ.
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28 Comments
Currencies in turmoil – losing value.
There are solutions to protect the NZ$.
To protect the nation from inflation (devaluation of NZ$), to stabilise our currency and to make it friendlier for exporters :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJuyL84cdWQ – go to 5:00min
Yep , me too , I wanna hear what he has to say on it.....or is it now, sub -judice......Because there is a roaring silence....over the apparent nit pic.
Bernard may be a bit more clever than it appears GBH.....Hugh..
Lets say...A. . He'd hoped to lead a rousing Vanguard of support for the lockout, restoring integrety and order to the process.....
or B. (the clever one) to expose a certain inside run being given to NBR if no action is taken over the breech, flushing out the crony moment and perp thereof.
Had the Fatman been doling out the scoop of poop to a favoured son. ...and giving him first licks.....?
we are left to ....hypothesise....
No Bernard, I see no harm in your publishing a copy of your correspondence in regard the Lockout......and go further, to request publication of your last five Tax returns, and documents relating to your Country of birth.
I learnt a saying a long time ago: "All Excuses are Equal"
What is really the worry is all the firepower being concentrated on exercises in the straight of Hormuz just because Israel 'might' lay down a pre-emptive strike. That means you have Israel controlling the military of all those countries invovled. Take that line of thinking further and you would say nonsense, that can't happen. That leads to the conclusion that this isn't a build up purely for exercises. Think about the build up to WW1 and the parallel's here. The claims at the moment at this these exercises are a display of strength and capability, but it only takes a little nudge somewhere for full mobilisation to occur.
When you accept that the growth curve has ended and resources have hit their peak, the economic woes are not going to disappear. War is always a good distraction and a good way of liquidating some of of the liabilites(hungry people).
Yes Kate....they certainly have taken a lot of mileage out of Ahaventhadmedinnerdad's throw away line, "Israel should be wiped from the face of the earth"...
I guess he was rallying the team at the time, and maybe just got a little carried away in the moment......still eh..?....Israel will never be free of the Politics of Paranoia, realistically , will they now.../ eventually the enemy is within.....as anybody with a persecution complex will tell you.
I mean ask yourself which is worse....Death to America...or ...Your Prophet's a Pedo...?
Not only will Israel be the aggressor but in this Orwellian world, it's the one with the nukes! Not just one but 2-300 of them! Yet not one TV station or newspaper in the west will ask a US President or British PM why Israel is fit to have those weapons but nobody else. It's a taboo topic.
Interestingly in a war simulation based on just this scenario in the Straits of Hormuz a few years a go, a US naval officer playing the part of Iran sank a US carrier group with swarm attacks of small patrol boats and missiles. Iranians have a "proud" history of martyrdom and enough numbers that could well overwhelm any technical superiority. They also have large numbers of Russian missles including the carrier killing Sunburn. Would not want to be a US or British sailor in such an enclosed sea space
Kate I will clarify where I sit a bit further. I am not interested in the blame game for the same reason I find politics a bore. I am interested and what will affect me, to do that you have to ignore the rhetoric and look at the underlying facts. The real trick is trying to find those facts. So this could all be posturing as the Count says, but I give a reason above as to why the actions taking place might mean a little more than rhetoric. If there is war then the resultant restriction in world oil supplies will have a dramatic impact on New Zealand, hence my interest.
The term "pre-emptive strike" is a term and justification introduced most recently by the US invasion of Iraq. In that case the US claimed that there was an imminent threat posed to the US by Iraq before the UN. This was of course a flimsy excuse at best, but was the legal justification to begin the second invasion of Iraq, while supposidly avoiding UN prosecution for the international war crime of aggression.
Israel is trying to make the same claim, that they are under immediate threat of attack, given that Iran develops a nuclear weapon. However Israel are extremely unlikely to act with out the protection provided by the US.
Bernard reports - In Hong Kong - An influx of buyers from China and record low interest rates have helped fuel a 90% rise in Hong Kong property prices since 2009
Listen to the chatter :-
Meanwhile - WELL-HEELED Asian buyers spearhead property sales revival in Sydney
OFFSHORE buyers are the trailblazers of a Sydney property revival, say agents, snapping up apartments in Bondi, the central business district and the North Shore and houses in Mosman and Killara. It seems that from a distance, despite The Economist saying only last year that Australian property is overvalued, many admire Sydney's resilience.''The identical thing is happening and we're at the beginning of a five-year cycle. Buyers offshore can see value in our market.'' Mr Brown said that 20 per cent of sales at the Pacific Bondi Beach were offshore, with the project being launched simultaneously last weekend in Sydney and Hong Kong. All but two in the first stage of 76 apartments sold. Five of 19 penthouses also sold.
Although many of the offshore buyers in Bondi were Australian expatriates, most overseas buyers in CBRE's other projects in Chinatown, Chatswood and Macquarie Park are from China. Agents selling existing property are also changing the way they operate to cater for buyers who need Foreign Investment Review Board approval particularly those from China because of the increasing demand. Some are hiring interpreters and employing Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking assistants to help with negotiations.
Enough hot Chinese money already.
Time for a re-think. In Sydney they are restricted to new property for outright purchase and I believe they need approvals for buying anything on resale.
it is about time everything was referred to the OIO and most of them rejected unless they can prove a real advantage for NZ.
HOT MONEY. With the Chinese currency pegged to the USD and BennyBoy commmencing a never-ending program of depreciating the USD it's inevitable the astute will act, with increasing waves of the stuff looking for a "new home" here.
There is one Chinese export product that is seemingly unstoppable at the moment - millionaires. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18966261
Given the sheer size of the African incontinent , there's enough land area to fit in all of China , India , the USA & Alaska , plus Germany and France .........
...... what're the Nigerians' concerns about a few Indians & Chinese coming in ?
Might get the joint cracking along , at last .....
Iconoclast - Nigeria has been colonised already.
Anyone of us buying Shell petrol, was essentially gaining from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa
http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/1328-wikileaks-shell-and-nigeria
They were already being exploited, indirectly but traceably by us all. Be interesting to know how much of the 'resistance' is from vested (and extreme minority, one guesses) interests, who see their positions threatened. The average punter on the ground will probably echo Collingbourne's: "yet more trouble".
Kunst, do you think that it is plausible that our maori friends could potentially be the savior of our system?
By understanding there is no political or social sovereignty without economic sovereignty free of banksters and polititions and backing the issue of their own gold money, could this be the start of a sound national currency?
When do we start burning down the Sushi Bars John Boy..?..please tell us, as it is obvious we shall have to behave in a supportive manner when the interests of our new best friends are being defiled by our old new best freinds..... gosh it gets complicated...cause then there's our real freinds, close freinds, family.......I'm lost .....oh yeah that's right...burning down Honda....must be something on youtube..?
Isn't it great , now the Chinese are subscribing to the Rumsfeld theory of National Unification by means of a common enemy, out there plotting, plotting....Yet again the politics of fear keep the masses distracted....
It was after all Rumsfeld who led the charge back in the cold war days that the Soviets were plotting a nuclear attack on the United States, building up stockpiles of weapons of mass distruction....ah , and there was that line all those years ago.......by the very same man.
Of course things were going to hell in a handbasket at the time internaly in the US.....hmmmm now there's a similarity
Them Chinese are quick learners...on all fronts by golly..!
Stevo....A.J. put up a link well worth the look, partcularly in terms of just how far back the beginnings of the process were being implanted upon the masses through very simple , easy to understand , good vs evil propaganda purveying evey level of society, enabling a triggered response to take place..
It's called The Power of Nightmares( youtube it).....for the cynical or non cynical, it is cofirmation of what I could plainly see at age 10 reading Superman or the like....indoctrination into triggered response thought.
Not the stuff of Genius...but completely effective nevertheless.
let the chinese get rid of all japanese impoerts especially cars and electrical gear .
Then replace them with goods manufactured in china.
It won't belong until they will be begging the japanese to come back because most of the chinese made cars and electrical gear are CRAP.
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