Wall Street in tariff relief rally; Japan's trade balance rises; Italian fiscal prudence concerns; China to end birth rules; UST 10yr at 3.06%; oil firm, gold unchanged; NZ$1 = 69.3 USc; TWI-5 = 72.2

Money flowing back to the US, our banks too will find it harder to source money to fund the already highly indebted households

As I understand it, Argentina tried to borrow a bunch of money and then didn’t want to pay it back. So basically the strategy some people advocate in comments here.

NZ incurs a current account deficit due to a low saving environment and as a result, relies on foreign capital to fund all kinds of investments. As per RBNZ's paper, a sudden outflow of capital from NZ would have less of an impact on our exchange rate and inflation levels compared with a similar outflow from these developing nations.Mainly due to the nature of foreign capital in NZ, which is more so invested in equity and debt markets instead of key economic sectors.

So its US lending rates, as ever. Thanks for the explanations folks!

My reading of this is that Germany wants the EU to remain intact , it gives them a massive market and a uniform currency , and they are able to keep competition from outside the EU at bay

They are the only real winners in the long run .

The peripheral countries want to join in the belief they will get access to cheap money , and not have to manage their widely fluctuating currencies .

The problem is that not all Europeans are the same .

The work ethic differences between North and South are marked .

The financial discipline difference between North and South Europe is also very different , Germans , Scandanavians and the Dutch are savers , run surplusses , produce more food than they can eat and are careful with money .

The big fat hairy Greeks , the Slavics and other Latin European countries .......... not so much

The productivity of the land differs too , in terms rainfall , of land carrying capacity and production capacity.

I think the Brits have done the right thing exiting this party ........... its been gate-crashed by a bunch of drunkards

What do you mean by negative productivity? Despite perceptions, I think France has pretty high productivity, equal to Germany and the USA according this this:

http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2017/01/09/of-productivity-in-france-and…

and rather more productivity than the UK according to this:

https://www.ft.com/content/f372cbb8-4a96-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43

There's an opinion that the high productivity is a feature of having relatively short working days/weeks compared to other countries. In other words, the French get at least as much done and still get to go home earlier.

If you mean productivity is decreasing, I don't think that's true either, quite good growth over all timescales according to this:

https://tradingeconomics.com/france/productivity

I won't be mounting a defense of the other countries you mention.

Full disclose: I'll be visiting France in a couple of months to partake in their highly productive pastry, cheese and wine industry produce.