Equities can't hold gains; Canada job growth impresses, EU data weak; Finland ends UBI experiment; China laps up PPPs; iron ore price leaps; UST 10yr 2.63%; oil unchanged, gold up; NZ$1 = 67.4 USc; TWI-5 = 72

I read all the links on that linked page and nowhere could I find any statement that the experiment was "not successful" - so not sure where that quote comes from. To my mind, the outcomes are extremely interesting, and in particular the statistical findings in relation to "quite high" and "very high" stress experienced between the control and the experimental groups.

Additionally, the statistical findings regarding the control vs experiment groups perceptions of bureaucracy involved when claiming social security benefits.

I read the whole press release as nothing but favourable findings with respect to a UBI - perhaps not as favourable as one might have expected with respect to potential to improve the prospects of finding work - but the point being - perhaps work for these people is simply very hard to find. The experiment group was marginally (very marginally) better in finding self-employment, but was paid marginally worse on the additional work they did find. That would imply to me that having greater security of income meant they were more flexible in relation to what their potential earnings would be.

All in all, I found the study findings hopeful. But I suppose if the only metric one is looking at relates to employment (as opposed to wellbeing and a sense of security) then the trial did not produce statistically significant, positive results in that regard. What that says to me is that the state needs to look further at what it might do to improve the employment prospects in its communities.

Yes ignorance is bliss.

Please tack on coders and financial websites to your .ist.

Judging the UBI's success by counting how many people found jobs is a bit weird. I would have thought measures of creativity would be better. Were more paintings painted, more skills learned, more books, poems, songs, YouTube channels, blogs, charity work, etc?

All good points - everyone above.

It wasn't a UBI.. it was not universal.

"On the basis of an analysis of register data on an annual level, we can say that during the first year of the experiment the recipients of a basic income were no better or worse than the control group at finding employment in the open labour market’, says Ohto Kanninen, Research Coordinator at the Labour Institute for Economic Research." No better or worse.. so blows your last sentence out of the water.

I'm not sure why you're happy that it failed (in the context of the defined failure). The result has wider reaching implications.

It means that people are ineffective at starting businesses when given the opportunity. Although that probably explains why QE doesn't produce productivity and is just a manipulation of GDP.

The claim of failure means that wellbeing doesn't matter. I'm fine with that definition but it seems like reasonable grounds for NZ's UBI to be scrapped. Those collecting superannuation are highly unlikely to work or start businesses, and given that wellbeing doesn't matter taking away superannuation is justifiable.

You just described the current situation in NZ - why work if you are on the dole because you don’t end up much better off. If there was a UBI instead people would be more encouraged to work because they keep most of what they earn.

If you always double your bet after losing a 50/50 game you will always win. The system is full proof provided you don’t reach the limit of your bankroll and there is no limit on how much you can wager.

A third of the median income would net you $16,333 - and the government taxes that benefit as well, so you'd gross about $13,000 pa, or 250 pw (probably not far off what the current unemployment benefit is). So it might be difficult sleeping in in anything other than a tent.

But to each his own with respect to what a desirable lifestyle is. For me, being idle isn't something I desire.

How is that different from the dole as it exists now?

Oh, wait a minute, didn't Ardern and Robertson just go to Davos to get their new instructions?

(Let me see, ah yes here it is, notes read:
Could Do Better if We Tried Harder. New Zealand needs more Debt. Debt makes you work. Work makes you Free. Therefore - Debt makes you Free. Ask Aussie banks for advice.)

Another 10% and bitcon will get to the value it had at the start of this year. It needs to gain 300% to get back to the value at the start of 2018.

And, your Calc is wrong, according to the data on the bitcoin chart above. I am guilty of a gratuitous roundup. The actual % needed is 7.9% to return to the value at the start of the year. Note that the starting value is the same number as the closing value of the previous period.

As to your comment about gold, nice cherry picked date. The inflation adjusted price was higher at the peak of the top of the bubble in 1981 but was lower both before and after, as per https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart

Sound like the Chinese weren't exactly accommodating either, some sort of ridiculous paperwork requirement by the sounds of it, possibly that particular aircraft lacking some permit to land in China (it was a relatively new to AirNZ airframe, only arrived in the country in Sept). Not sure why they couldn't sort it out after the plane had landed if it had an approved flight plan and was the same type of aircraft that always does that flight. The joys of pointless bureaucracy.