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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; Local 10-year swap rate below 2% for first time, trade surplus as annual goods exports to China hitting $15b, English calls banks' bluff

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; Local 10-year swap rate below 2% for first time, trade surplus as annual goods exports to China hitting $15b, English calls banks' bluff

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There were no changes today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
There were no changes today.

APRIL TRADE SURPLUS AS ANNUAL GOODS EXPORTS TO CHINA REACH $15 BILLION
New Zealand posted a $433 million trade surplus for April, close to economists' expectations for a $450 million surplus. According to Statistics NZ, annual goods exports to China have reached $15 billion for the first time, helped by rising demand for beef and lamb, plus logs and dairy products. In the April year, annual goods exports to China increased $2.7 billion, or 22%, versus the April 2018 year. ASB economists say they expect firm dairy export values to underpin the trade balance through 2019. They note dairy auction prices have risen more 20% in US dollar terms so far this year, with this expected to continue to flow through to dairy export values and broader trade balance data in coming months.

'WE GOT IT RIGHT'
In a pre-Budget speech Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern suggested the Government has got its plan to loosen its debt target about right given the mixed response to Thursday's announcement from Finance Minister Grant Robertson.

ENGLISH CALLS AUSSIE BANKS' BLUFF
Ardern's predecessor Bill English has made some interesting comments about the sabre rattling by the big four Australian owned banks over the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's bank capital proposals. According to The Australian Financial Review, English described threats to withdraw capital from NZ as "to a large extent, bluff." He says Australian shareholders and Australian banks do very well out of NZ, getting good returns. "I think they will stick around.” However, the AFR also reported him suggesting the RBNZ's plan could create moral hazard by dulling major banks’ management of risk.  

IRD'S 'MORE THAN $80 MILLION OF REFUNDS FOR TAXPAYERS'
The Inland Revenue Department says it has successfully issued its first two batches of automatic tax assessments this week, with more than $80 million of refunds for taxpayers, and just over $10 million of tax bills to pay. Further batches go out shortly with the process to be finished by the end of July. IRD says the sort of numbers the new system is dealing with far exceed expectations.

TEN YEAR NZ SWAP RATE BELOW 2% FOR FIRST TIME
One to 10 year New Zealand swap rates are down between three and five basis points. The 10 year, yes 10 year, rate is at 1.96%. According to BNZ's economists, it's the first time the 10 year rate has dropped below 2%. The 90 day bank bill rate is down one basis point at 1.70%.

RUMBOLD JOINS KIWIBANK
Kiwibank has appointed Hamish Rumbold as its chief digital and technology officer. Rumbold joins in August from digital experience and engineering firm ClearPoint. He’s also a Director at Fidelity Life and at a tech start-up called Fresho. Rumbold previously oversaw Air New Zealand’s global digital distribution channels, digital marketing capability and customer facing technology, Kiwibank says.

NZ DOLLAR LITTLE CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar is little changed on the day versus the greenback, the Aussie or euro. At the time of writing the NZ dollar was at US65.16 cents, AU94.63c, and €58.26c.

BITCOIN
At the time of writing the cryptocurrency was up 2.5% at US$7,848.

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Daily exchange rates

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19 Comments

The most important news today was the youngsters.

They make a few commentators here look a bit pathetic.

Go them

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And they will have the vote in a few years.
I characterise them as having great respect for environment issues and little respect for social issues.
We will find out..

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We learn best and fastest when young through trusting what we are told, but we become wise in adulthood through questioning beliefs. Children have the twinned religions of unleavened environmentalism and socialism shoved down their throats by impassioned teachers and media in their black-and-white youth, but steadily reject those teachings as they age and grow wise and start seeing the shades of grey that exist in the world.
"Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart. Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head."

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Total twaddle.

What happens is some folk start off selfless and choose to remain so. At 64, I count myself one such.

Others start selfless, but run into the rich man/eye of the needle thing (a parable which probably referred to a state of mind rather than a place above the clouds). They end up selfish, all take and no give.

Then there are those who were always selfish

I'm old enough to know second and third generations of all types. But socialist/capitalist isn't the problem - planet-trashing by and overshot species is the problem. I went to a lecture last night - full lecture theatre so 250-300, totall unreported by the MSM). Was on the fishing industry. The young folk understood what they're being handed alright. Mfish should hang their heads in shame.

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Older than you. Started selfish and stayed selfish. Meaning I'm rather normal. However I selfishly think of my children and especially my grandchildren. With age I've read enough history to realise the worst forms of govt are the ones where the leaders are most moralistic. Calvin having opponents burnt at the stake for heresy by the city council (Geneva), ISIS, Lenin, etc.
Agree with you about fish - it is the tragedy of the commons. Surely even our politicians with little knowledge of science can understand smaller catches of smaller fish.

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Shane Jones understands which way his bread is buttered.

The NZ commercial fishing lobby have the best politicians that can be bought.

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Can you give info on the fishing talk? I'm interested in this area. Is the talk online? i.e. was it recorded?

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He's Daniel Pauley - currently domiciled in BC.

I see there's a youtube clip of a lecture of his.

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Not total twaddle. There is a lot of preaching, but none of them do anything themselves.

Do these students reduce there own carbon footprint? do they shun buying the latest fad products covered in 50 different types of plastic packaging? do they come up with alternatives to using oil, coal, gas, nuclear? Do they opt to walk or ride a bike to school? Do they stop throwing out half their lunch because it isn't what they felt like that day?

Maybe they will in the future, but its going to be pretty hard with no education - because they now have a PM endorsed reason to skip school.

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Yes, but the young now have two social issues in conflict. These are the state of the planet and the state of their society.
They also have a global social network that can override what the older generation preaches.
I await the outcome with interest.

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That's a self-complementing bicycle some of us like to ride to feel smart, that take.

But strangely it seems to align with less exposure to diverse information and viewpoints, and greater confidence in one's own rightness without the need for wide-ranging thinking and analyses. Thus, states with high religiosity and low secular education being more conservative...versus places with higher levels of scientific method and critical thinking varying far more and being overall more progressive. Some "common sense" works nicely so long as it's not compared too thoroughly to start reality.

Prager "University" (land of phrases such as "unleavened environmentalism and socialism") vs Oxford University.

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They (youth) can protest all they like but until their anger is reflected at the polling booth they, like every other group that cant be bothered to vote, might as well STFU.

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Okay, so what party can these youth vote for that will tackle their issues? How many youth voted for National after promises of tackling house price inflation and promising not to raise GST? How many youth voted for Labour after promises of bringing mass scale affordable housing for First Home Buyers?

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Okay, so what party can these youth vote for that will tackle their issues? How many youth voted for National after promises of tackling house price inflation and promising not to raise GST? How many youth voted for Labour after promises of bringing mass scale affordable housing for First Home Buyers?

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Bonds are popular as rates decline.

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I got my tax refund; $2.22. It's not much but it's better in my bank account that the government's.

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Don't spend it all at once!

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Same here. Two emails, a text - all them Electrons getting shoved around to tell me what I already knew - I'm getting a decent refund. As a founding (and possibly only) member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Electrons (PETE) I am considering a class action.....

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you could perhaps just consider bonding?

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