90 seconds at 9 am: Trade tension

90 seconds at 9 am: EU tackles China mobile companies, solar panel makers, oil traders; gold and silver recover; NZ$1 = US$0.818 TWI = 77.0

21st May 13, 8:43am by David Chaston

Here's my summary of the key news over the weekend in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news of currencies, commodities and trade tensions.

The European Commission is poised to launch an anti-dumping probe against Chinese mobile companies Huawei and ZTE, opening a new front in its escalating trade clash with China.

Germany is not happy about this latest clash.

The EU is already arguing with the Chinese over solar panels, although there are reports of a settlement on that score with US 'encouragement'.

At the same time, the EU is widening its probe into how energy price indexes are set.

It has been 'working with' oil companies but now it has its sights set on energy traders like Glencore. This one is going to be bigger than Libor I reckon.

Gold rose overnight, snapping its longest losing streak since the financial crisis as some traders who had bet on lower prices during the metal's rout closed out those bets.

Silver also advanced, erasing losses that at one point had totaled more than 9%.

Stocks are holding their high levels with the Dow still well above the 15,000 level. Commodities are stronger, led by those precious metals advances, but oil is up too along with copper. Ag commodities rose overnight as well.

The NZ dollar starts today up at 81.8 USc, 83.3AUc and that is its highest since early 2009, four and a half years ago, and our TWI now stands at 77.0.

No chart with that title exists.

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13 Comments

by Kate | 21st May 13, 9:14am 1369084498

More abuse of executive power;

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-government/news/article.cfm?c_id=144&objectid=10884930

And not at all surprising - it's aimed at disadvantaging the already disadvantaged.

Have they no shame?

by Brendon | 21st May 13, 10:22am 1369088540

When you have an ideology that the state is useless and needs to be shrunk then why would you care about maintaining practices that 'supposedly' ensures quality state institutions? You just bulldoze in, appoint your own people in and do want you want. Rebuild a city while not raising taxes or going into debt, actually the government will return to surplus -no problem just call anyone who complains a whinger, over rule judges thats fine I'll just smile and get away with it, ignore Councils and let Wellington decide where new suburbs go -not an issue.

I am reliably informed by engineers in the electricity business that the Labour/Greens electricity plans do work well elsewhere but will not work well here. There is too much political interference, the regulator will not be independent. There are too many back room deals where the merit of the issue concerned is ignored. Really it is soft corruption that NZ refuses to acknowledge.

If the left want the public to accept a new ideology where the state is useful then it needs to do something about cleaning up Wellington and preventing this executive abuse and the soft corruption it generates. They cannot aspire to another administration like Helengrad.

I suggest that we create a neutral referee type position in NZ political scene. A Govenor General or Speaker appointed by 75% majority of Parliament who would appoint important positions, Supreme Court Judges, the electricity regulator, the head of the Commerce Commission etc.

Really our next election should be about Team NZ versus Team Key.

by steven | 21st May 13, 10:44am 1369089850

Really get over your political bias. In terms of soft corruption / Helingrad, from what I can see National is as bad if not worse, ergo drop the emotive bit and work on making it impossible for Pollies to interfer no matter whom they are.

What we have as "light regulation" seems to point to a failure, so really our only option is to correct that by moving to a system that has worked well / better.

In terms of appointments I think you will find that Pollies like to give "retired" pollies such positions and the expectation will be in turn that they will get cushy jobs when they "retire" Just how you get an independant regulator that wont pick up bias from having lunch with the PM or minister of the day I dont know.

regards

by Stephen Hulme | 21st May 13, 10:53am 1369090403

Really our next election should be about Team NZ versus Team Key.

It's needs to be more in depth than that - it's a matter of exposing who is behind Team Key.

Winston Peter's came close with the Winebox Inquiry.

by powerdownkiwi | 21st May 13, 11:02am 1369090947

Correct - we should issue school-sets of Wishart's Daylight Robbery.

The libor comment is exactly what I was on about in my 'I give journalism an F' piece.

Think the bits through: Firstly, we are down to fracking, deep-water, tar-sands, coal-to-oil and biofuels. So we're into stuff that only happens at some 'price'. Drop away from that 'price', and they don't happen. Firm goes bust. Somebody bids for the carcass. Demand forces price up (inflated $ confuse clarity there) and we start into the bad EROEI ones again. Rinse and repeat.

Don't blame gougers; they spend their money on the merry-go-round, just different riders on different horses. This is a problem with the drive mechanism. Govt's are desperate, all see it as a 'cost' issue, and while they see things as 'money' not 'energy', they will fail to identify the basic problem.

As will all commentators/journos who persist in doing so too.

Sigh.

by Kate | 21st May 13, 11:23am 1369092215

You've got it, here's another on pundit pointing out same;

http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/kicking-the-tyres-from-beneath-new-zealand

Taken together with what follows, it’s indicative of a government economically desperate - also, drunk on power and growing in aggression and confidence. A government reckless as to convention and consequences, kicking the tyres right out from beneath New Zealand.

by Kate | 21st May 13, 11:11am 1369091467

I think it would be a VERY good election tactic for Labour, Greens and NZ First to put out a joint statement that any future government that they are a part of will not use urgency in the House unless it is for [and then give a valid set of reasons]. They really should reassure the NZ people that they agree these abuses of executive power have gone on too long. Geoffrey Palmer thought MMP would somewhat bridle such power - but clearly we do need more checks and balances.

I would dearly love to see Jerry Mateparae use his power a GG to refuse to give this piece of legislation royal assent. It is time that the tri-partite basis of our Parliamentary democracy was defended. Sir Jerry swore an oath to uphold our constitution. He must think very, very, very seriously about this.

Here is a fuller explanation of how serious this is;

http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/i-think-national-just-broke-our-constitution

by waymad | 21st May 13, 11:16am 1369091770

That would be even easier if we Had a full written Constitution.

In the absence of one, as was muttered darkly during the Mike'n'Hullin decade, there's absolutely nought to stop a Gubmint voting itself into a permanent position of power, overnight.

P'raps we could follow the lead of our major trading partner in this regard?

by Kate | 21st May 13, 11:27am 1369092445

Effectively what this legislation does is repeal the NZ Bill of Rights for a particular sector of the population.

No written constitution needed - just a Governor-General doing his job in defence of New Zealanders.

by notaneconomist | 21st May 13, 12:26pm 1369095981

Firstly the issue of paying family members to care for members with disabilities has been around for many years. According to the article below around 1999 and NO political party took any action.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/6917209/Appeal-courts-landmark-d…

Secondly the courts decision had probably opened up the process for family members of those with disabilities to take action against the Government for compensation payments whcih could have run into many millions of dollars.

While the current Government has rushed through legislative change using their urgency powers they may have ensured that affected parties cannot take action against the taxpayers. I am unsure at this point whether the affected parties could take action against the Ministry of Health. It is my understanding that it was the Ministry of Health who were found to be discriminating against family carers.

There are a quite a large number of people who are carers for family members with disability if they receive backdated weekly payments this will cost the country via the Ministry of Health budget considerably. What if compensation payments are also allowed large lump sum payments to be awarded for the personal discrimination that these carers had been subjected too? That could cost enormous amounts of dollars and every Politician past and present was well aware of that happening.

Ultimately it is the taxpayer who is discriminated against at all times as they have to bare the burdons of failure every step of the way.

Opposition parties may look unsoiled in all this but they have as much dirt on their hands as those Poiticians who have pushed through the legislative change under urgency.

by steven | 21st May 13, 11:19am 1369091954

Great just great on solar panels, here we have power being too expensive, yet panels 75% cheaper are not wanted as it costs some jobs. An opportunity to reduce CO2 being thrown out the window, like duh...shows up how clearly red v green clash and mix ends up a nasty brown colour.

regards

by waymad | 21st May 13, 12:18pm 1369095532

More on the Junker curse from the Torygraph.

Good, but not so much for the content (quite UK-specific) as for this para:

"The Junker curse has it that politicians know what needs to be done; they just don’t know how to get re-elected after they’ve done it. So they tend to duck serious structural reform, and prioritise spending on the past over investment in the future."

Sums it all up really, and is the reason that politics, democracy and all the other usual suspects, are more and more powerless to actually do useful stuff.

by Wolly | 21st May 13, 1:23pm 1369099408

Just not what Shearer wanted to hear...

"More people are arriving to live in New Zealand long-term than leaving the country, with April seeing the biggest net migration gain in two years."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/national/8698436/More-people-moving-to-New-Zealand