sign up log in
Want to go ad-free? Find out how, here.

Tuesday's Top 10 with NZ Mint: How bigger shadows caused the crisis; IEA says crude oil peaked in 2006; 10 reasons never to buy stocks; FTA threatens Pharmac; Dilbert

Tuesday's Top 10 with NZ Mint: How bigger shadows caused the crisis; IEA says crude oil peaked in 2006; 10 reasons never to buy stocks; FTA threatens Pharmac; Dilbert

Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 2 pm  in association with NZ Mint.

I'll pop the extras into the comment stream. See all previous Top 10s here.

I welcome your additions in the comments below or via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.

Nine Inch Nails and David Bowie my favourite today.

1. Today's must read - This piece from Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto at Bloomberg BusinessWeek is a fascinating and fresh insight into what went wrong in the global financial system.

He makes the point that the growth of various shadow financial markets and trading has undermined trust in the global banking and economic system.

He says nothing has been fixed and this is all underming the systems for credit creation, securities trading and capital allocation across the world.

De Soto also points out the use of off balance sheet vehicles is partially responsible for the crisis.

If you read one long story today, make it this one. HT Donald via email.

Here's a taste of his view that the common set of economic facts relied on for centuries is breaking down:

Over the past 20 years, Americans and Europeans have quietly gone about destroying these facts. The very systems that could have provided markets and governments with the means to understand the global financial crisis—and to prevent another one—are being eroded. Governments have allowed shadow markets to develop and reach a size beyond comprehension.

Mortgages have been granted and recorded with such inattention that homeowners and banks often don't know and can't prove who owns their homes. In a few short decades the West undercut 150 years of legal reforms that made the global economy possible.

The results are hardly surprising. In the U.S., trust has broken down between banks and subprime mortgage holders; between foreclosing agents and courts; between banks and their investors—even between banks and other banks. Overall, credit (from the Latin for "trust") continues to flow steadily, but closer examination shows that nongovernment credit has contracted. Private lending has dropped 21 percent since 2007.

Outstanding loans to small businesses dropped more than 6 percent over the past year, while lending to large businesses, measured in commercial loans of more than $1 million, fell nearly 9 percent.

2. Independent life forms? - Are corporates responsible for their actions? Are they responsible to the country they are based in? Do they have a responsibility to their customers and employees as well as their shareholders.

Questions such as this are increasingly being asked as a group of increasingly large and increasingly stateless corporates roam the planet looking for ways to cut costs and employee numbers in their home countries while boosting profits and not paying taxes.

Google, GE, Barclays, Vodafone and Tesco come to mind. For example, Google made over A$740 million in revenue in Australia last year, but paid just A$1 million in tax because it funnels much of its international revenue (including from New Zealand) through a tax haven in Ireland. See Jeffrey Sachs below for why this is so bad.

Here Barbara Ehrenreich at Alternet talks about how Wal-Mart won the rights of a citizen to lobby politicians but has avoided its rights as a citizen not to discriminate against women and others.

This is one of the reasons why I think the current version of multinationalist corporatism will struggle to win the hearts and minds of voters, employees and shareholders...in the long run. HT Troy via email.

Here's Ehrenreich: 

What is Wal-Mart -- in a strictly taxonomic sense, that is? Based on size alone, it would be easy to confuse it with a nation: In 2002, its annual revenue was equal to or exceeded that of all but 22 recognized nation-states. Or, if all its employees -- 1.4 million in the U.S. alone -- were to gather in one place, you might think you were looking at a major city. But there is also the possibility that Wal-Mart and other planet-spanning, centi-billion-dollar enterprises are not mere aggregations of people at all. They may be independent life-forms -- a species of super-organisms.

This, anyway, seems to be the takeaway from the 2010 Citizens United decision, in which the Supreme Court, in a frenzy of anthropomorphism, ruled that corporations are actually persons and therefore entitled to freedom of speech and the right to make unlimited campaign contributions. You may object that the notion of personhood had already been degraded beyond recognition by its extension, in the minds of pro-life thinkers, to individual cells such as zygotes. But the court must have reasoned that it would be discriminatory to let size enter into the determination of personhood: If a microscopic cell can be a person, then why not a brontosaurus, a tsunami, or a multinational corporation?

But Wal-Mart's defense against a class action charging the company with discrimination against its female employees -- Dukes v. Wal-Mart -- throws an entirely new light on the biology of large corporations. The company argues that with "7 divisions, 41 regions, 3400 stores and over one million employees" (in the U.S., as of 2004, when the suit was first launched), it is "impossible" for any small group of plaintiffs to adequately represent a "class" in the legal sense. What with all those divisions, regions, and stores, the experiences of individual employees are just too variable to allow for a meaningful "class" to arise. Wal-Mart, in other words, is too big, too multifaceted and diverse, to be sued.

 

3. Oil production peaked in 2006 - ABC reporter Jonica Newby interviewed reclusive International Energy Authority (IEA) chief economist Faith Birol, who said that crude oil output peaked in 2006... HT Chris.

Here's the SMH version.

And here's the transcript of the interview

Dr Jonica Newby
This is the headquarters of the International Energy Agency. It puts together the forecasts on oil production over the next 20 years - and it's the body many governments, including our own, look to for accurate advice.

NARRATION
This multi- government agency is the voice of the mainstream. And I'm here to meet the man at the top ... 
.... who just 5 years ago was confidently saying oil production will rise to 120 million barrels a day by 2030. But now?

Dr Fatih Birol
When we look at the oil markets the news is not very bright. We think that the crude oil production has already peaked in 2006 

NARRATION
Hang on - did you get that? Crude oil production for the world peaked in 2006. 

Dr Fatih Birol
The existing fields are declining sharply in North sea, in United States, in Gulf of Mexico. Just to stay where we are today we have to find four new Saudi Arabia's, this is a tall order.

4. Remember this? - John Key told the Wall Street Journal in March 2009 that "You can't spend your way out of a crisis."

Here's what he said back then.

"We don't tell New Zealanders we can stop the global recession, because we can't," says Prime Minister John Key, leaning forward in his armchair at his office in the Beehive, the executive wing of New Zealand's parliament. "What we do tell them is we can use this time to transform the economy to make us stronger so that when the world starts growing again we can be running faster than other countries we compete with."

That idea -- growing a nation out of recession by improving productivity -- puts Mr. Key and his conservative National Party at odds with Washington, Tokyo and Canberra. Those capitals are rolling out billions of dollars in stimulus packages -- with taxpayers' money -- to try to prop up growth. That's "risky," Mr. Key says. "You've saddled future generations with an enormous amount of debt that then they have to repay," he explains. "There is actually a limit to what governments can do."

Two weeks ago the government borrowed a record NZ$1 billion in one week and is set for a budget deficit of around 8% of GDP. That's Portugal-Irish-UK-US size deficit. And only a third of it is linked to the earthquake.

5. Ten reasons never to buy stocks - Here they are from James Altucher.

Here's my favourite.

Some trading firms set up their operations right next to the buildings with the computers that process all the trades on the exchanges. They then pay for high speed cables to go right into these exchanges so their trades get their before yours. These guys make a lot of money in the markets by getting in the middle of every bid-ask faster than anyone else can. Its a race to the bottom but billions are made.

So we see now the way to huge wealth is to either trade in millionths of a second or to hold huge blocks of your net worth in one stock for years. This is not a good strategy for 99.9% of people.

6. It's started - The US pharmaceutical lobby has started applying pressure to castrate Pharmac in the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal talks with New Zealand. Here's a US Inside Trade newsletter report on the lobbying that has started.  

Regular readers will know I think there is no point in New Zealand even trying to do a 'free' trade deal with America. We won't get any extra dairy access (it may even be more restricted) and we will have to give up Pharmac and impose a whole bunch of intellectual property controls on internet usage.

Here's what the US lobbyists are up to behind the scenes.

U.S. drug companies are eager to include transparency and due process requirements found in the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS) in a final Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, partly in order to impose new disciplines on the New Zealand government and help them to sell drugs in New Zealand.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is flagging New Zealand's Pharmaceutical Management Agency -- which is responsible for negotiating pricing and managing reimbursement for drugs within New Zealand's national pharmaceutical budget -- as a problem that >needs to be addressed in the TPP talks.

This New Zealand agency -- known as PHARMAC -- has a "sole focus on driving down costs" that "comes at the expense of the respect for intellectual property, transparency to the public and patient access to >better health outcomes," PhRMA argues in an April 2011 lobbying document obtained by Inside U.S. Trade.

In its document, PhRMA goes so far as to state that New Zealand ranks >fourteenth out of the 19 countries that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) when it comes to deaths from >treatable conditions, implying that New Zealand could benefit from >greater access to U.S. brand-name drugs. The "deficiencies" of PHARMAC highlight the need for "transparency and >basic due process in the pricing, reimbursement and regulation of >pharmaceutical products and medical devices" in a final TPP deal, it adds. 

And here's Pharmac denying via RadioNZ that its policies lead to preventable deaths...

7. 'The world is drowning in corporate fraud' - Columbia University Economics Professor Jeffrey Sachs writes at Project Syndicate that corporate money is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.

Hardly a day passes without a new story of malfeasance. Every Wall Street firm has paid significant fines during the past decade for phony accounting, insider trading, securities fraud, Ponzi schemes, or outright embezzlement by CEOs. A massive insider-trading ring is currently on trial in New York, and has implicated some leading financial-industry figures. And it follows a series of fines paid by America’s biggest investment banks to settle charges of various securities violations.

There is, however, scant accountability. Two years after the biggest financial crisis in history, which was fueled by unscrupulous behavior by the biggest banks on Wall Street, not a single financial leader has faced jail. When companies are fined for malfeasance, their shareholders, not their CEOs and managers, pay the price. The fines are always a tiny fraction of the ill-gotten gains, implying to Wall Street that corrupt practices have a solid rate of return. Even today, the banking lobby runs roughshod over regulators and politicians.

We will also need a new kind of politician leading a new kind of political campaign, one based on free online media rather than paid media. When politicians can emancipate themselves from corporate donations, they will regain the ability to control corporate abuses.

Moreover, we will need to light the dark corners of international finance, especially tax havens like the Cayman Islands and secretive Swiss banks. Tax evasion, kickbacks, illegal payments, bribes, and other illegal transactions flow through these accounts. The wealth, power, and illegality enabled by this hidden system are now so vast as to threaten the global economy’s legitimacy, especially at a time of unprecedented income inequality and large budget deficits, owing to governments’ inability politically – and sometimes even operationally – to impose taxes on the wealthy.

8. Watch out for a European blowout - The drums are beating for more trouble in Europe. Bond yields in Portugal, Ireland and Greece are through the roof.

Now Reuters reports he ECB is talking about another attempt to 'extend and pretend' in Greece. My favourite quote is below: "Paying the bill hurts."

European Central Bank policymaker Nout Wellink said on Monday that he was open to the idea of extending maturities on Greek debt, becoming the first senior ECB official to admit that possibility publicly.

Wellink, a member of the ECB's Governing Council, said he opposed any cut in the principal of Greek bonds. But in contrast to other ECB policymakers, who have rejected any talk of debt restructuring as dangerous, he added that it might make sense to extend deadlines for repaying the principal.

"Restructuring is essentially saying: 'Send me the bill. We feel sorry for you.' You shouldn't do that. Paying the bill hurts," Wellink said, taking questions from students at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

  

9. China's ageing population - Caixin reports on fresh figures showing China's population is about to start ageing, and quite quickly. That could slow growth there unless there's a quick shift from production to consumption. One to watch for us. China dominates our economic outlook.

The emergence of negative growth in the total working-age population, which some demographers predict will happen as early as 2013, is likely to contribute to slower economic growth and higher inflation, according to analysts.

However, they said the demographic shift from a rural surplus of labor to a deficit will help to accelerate the transformation of the growth model from one which is export- and investment-led to one driven by services and consumption.

The latest census data, released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday, showed that the proportion of the population aged between 0 and 14 fell to 16.6 percent in 2010 from 22.9 percent in 2000. Meanwhile the number of people aged 60 and above grew to 13.3 percent from 10.3 percent.

10. Totally irrelevant video - Trent Reznor and David Bowie sing Hurt in 1995. This before the Johnny Cash version. The thin white duke knows a good song when he hears it.

I'm including it here simply because I like the song.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

50 Comments

H

Isn't that just a little disingenuous considering you have been suggesting we can built vast tracks of suburbia to increase our prosperity?

I can see for miles and miles...I can see for miles and miles...

Neven

Up
0

Neven - not to mention

Song is Over

and

Won't get fooled Again.

Who's next?

Up
0

Hugh

"Thats why Don Brash is required in there to get some clear thinking"

that's oxymoronic.

appropriately.

Up
0

Oh great so lets forget the 30 to 49% that will votd to the left of centre and the next large % that vote for a centre right Govn....lets pass the control to a party with maybe 5%...if they are lucky....

Democracy in action eh?

not...

The thinking is pretty clear actually....it just doesnt agree with yours.

regards

 

Up
0

Interesting fellow that James Altucher , a climate warming sceptic , and regular contributor to Yahoo Finance , and a hedge-fund manager ....... Yup , this guy who claims to know that the Dow will reach 20 000 in the next year or three , a 60 % bolt up , is telling us not to be involved ...... he knows best , we're just not good enough ........

........ He also has a 10 reasons to quit your job , thread , too ........

 OK    Jimbo ,     .......... yawn !

Up
0

 Hugh – I can see where you are coming from and you are absolutely right. The reason why I don’t believe in a recovery is following:

We are culturally to much depending on consumerism and not enough on production/ manufacturing. The uprising to change the trend from the public/ media is weak – to none existent.

Therefore our government has practically no resistance of mismanaging our economy, because often businesses families/ citizen do exactly the same – creating more and more debt.

Why is our government allowed to importing most everything and pushing New Zealand into more debt.

Where are incentives for more diverse production sectors coming from the government in support of skilful employment research and technical developments. Where are the incentives to make us weathltier ? There is no structure in our economy - wasting massive NZpotential - exported overseas.

Up
0

Guys , we are paying an extremely high price for having adopted MMP as the voting system . No major party dares to have a spine , and to take decisions that are needed , and are unpalatable ......

...... It is political suicide to attempt any of the reforms that Treasury / the IMF / and the 2025 Taskforce recommended ....... Yet oddly enough , all 3 of them were in broad agreement .

Hence we have Labour and National trying to out-do each other in extravagant promises to the electorate , such as WFF , and interest-free-student-loans , bail-outs , government guarantees , yacht races  ........ All seriously dopey shit , and all wasting great  swathes of taxpayers' munny .

....... Vote to repeal MMP in November .

Vote for STV in November 2014 ......... And by 2017 , she'll be sweet ...... MMP gone . Just 6 more years to stave off bankruptcy !

Up
0

GBH - all that's needed, regardless of the voting system, is an informed populace.

Your comment tells me heaps in that regard.....                              :)

And the IMF is actually - rapidly - changing it's tune.

Up
0

PDK : The legacy that we are saddling the younger generation with is a massive debt , because we are so self-indulgent that we are spending more on ourselves than we have a right to . As a country , and as individuals , we are living beyond our means ......

...... and it seems odd to me that the affable and mind mannered Don Brash is pilloried as being a far right hatchet-man , when his message simply is that we need to re-balance the economy , and to pay our way in the world .

Bernard is correct that a generation of our youngest , fittest , and brightest will leave ... They didn't rack up all of these debts .

Up
0

Thats because he is a far right wing hacket man...

regards

 

Up
0

Ive noticed the IMF seems to be singing a new tune, compared to the OECD say....its interesting....

regards

Up
0

Exactly Hugh, Key should be charged with going AWOL. I hope its not too late for The Don to turn things around. I have a feeling though that Key and Co will not have the spine to do the right thing. Cheers

Up
0

You mean ignore democracy?

Get 50+% of the vote and then do what 3% odd want?  that isnt spine...thats dishonest.

regards

Up
0

Hugh - if there's one thing worse that a slow learner, it's one who refuses to learn.

You had that Grantham article, with graphs and explanation. Clearly, the Brash approach is inappropriate, unless you can refute same. You admit you can't (you'll apparently leave it to 'the experts') but then you go right back to the cracked record. How can you possibly clainm to know what is right/best?

Also - and for the record, I've challenged you before on this - predicting trouble ahead, is entirely different from wishing it. 

The question I have for you, and the small band who think growth is a. forever. b smart. - is:

 Do you really believe something so obviously, provaby stupid?

or

Are you using the fable to perpetuate ignorance in the masses, while a small group mop up?

Up
0

Key didnt have a mandate to "unwind HC, the voters gave him a mandate of more of the same with a tax cut.  If you look at JK's actions over unwinding the over-dependance on property they have probably achieved as much as they can given the circumstances... too much and our economy could implode.....

Funny how the more extreme the person's views the more they are willing to throw democracy out the window even without a 1/2 way decent reason.

I dont just expect it to pop in OZ btw.

regards

 

Up
0

I certainly didn't give him a mandate of more of the same with a tax cut - did you?  I did expect him to follow through and walk the walk.  So the economy "could" implode, it could also drastically improve from a rebalanced starting position.  It's not like it's done any better over the past few years and could still implode.

 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27872.html

 To boil the entire 2008 financial collapse down to one word, it would be: DEBT.

Three decades of ever increasing levels of consumer, corporate, and government debt eventually led to an unprecedented implosion. It was as predictable in 2008, to those who understand the fiat monetary system, as it was to Ludwig von Mises decades ago:

 "There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved." 

Up
0

Seems that how his first term is described....I dont see anything radical in there?  did I miss something?

NZ is different in some ways, our Govn paid down debt unlike the US and the UK, however our private debt which was considered err "harmless" by most errr "economists" has proved otherwise...

yes I think the debt is way too much in the private arena....but the hands off attiude of the monertist amd free market disciples led to this....

Not just von Mises I think Minsky for instance....and I tend to agree with that view...however Greenspan whos idelogy would seem to have been closer to von mises / austrian than anyone I can think of (for a central banker) seems to have paid a pivital role.......so we had money expansion with abused keynes ideology in the 1970s~80s and abused monerterist in the 90s+....its taken longer the second time around but its sure is looking like an even bigger bang....

I dont think this is limited to just the currency system....its right through everything...fractional lending seems to imply that there is a whole load of paper claiming ownership of too few assets....its doesnt look pretty...then Peakoil thrown in...and BBs bulge, not looking like a good decade or 3.

regards

 

 

Up
0

"common sense" thats just it it isnt common, its in your head....it isnt in mine.

regards

Up
0

i see Direct caiptal is going to buy Scales Corp for $44 million, with NZ super fund and ACC..a bit less than government thought they were going to get...a lot less

Up
0

A tornado hit Auckland a short while ago. It lifted roofs, flipped cars, and a roof has collapsed at a mall in  Albany and the building is being evacuated, 

Up
0

So, that's what it was! The rain that came with it was ferocious.

Up
0

The New Zealand Transport Agency had planned to close the Auckland Harbour Bridge but that plan is understood to have since been dropped.

Up
0

see? a second harbour crossing would be a stupid waste of money

 

http://eyeonauckland.com/2011/05/a-mayor-his-vision/

 

 

Up
0

Auckland council activates emergency co-ordination centre following tornado

Up
0

Just saw this

Far more concerning those was Moody’s warning that the May 19th budget would be very important to stabilizing the country’s financial health – making allusions to the kiwi’s sovereign credit rating.

Not sure of the original source but I am sure you can find it Bernard:)

Up
0

First ever Pulitzer for Non-Print series for Eisinger and Bernstein's 'The Wall Street Money Machine,' which described how hedge funds and financiers profited from the collapse of the economy.


http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-pulitzer-special-jake-bernstein-and-jesse-eisinger/

Up
0

gummo i reckon its more to do with politicians not having the balls to stand by their convictions even if it means getting voted out next time rather than mmp. you've got a scapegoat by the tail there bucko

Up
0

Does anyone actually believe in free markets anymore?

If it wasn't for Pharmac we would have stupidly high drug charges

If it wasn't for Kiwibank we would have a lot higher bank fees

The mobile phone 'free market' is meaning we pay a lot more for phone calls and is stifling competion.

The US health industry is a free market yet the average US citizen pays 3x as much for health per year than we pay in tax for ours.

Up
0

"The US health industry is a free market yet the average US citizen pays 3x as much for health per year than we pay in tax for ours. ""

Its not all "beer & skittles" with our system though....

My brother needs some new galsses for his son

he qulifies for a subsudy of about $280 and the total cost for the galsses through a nz optomotrist is in excess of $500nz.

or he can scan the perscription to an American retailer and get the SAME glasses for $nz80 delivered to his door!

 

 

Up
0

I think as usual it is just because we aren't big enough to have enough competition. Specsavers seems to have got the price for glasses way down on a few years ago, did you try there? OPSM etc have been ripping us off for years!!

Up
0

"if it wasn't for Kiwibank we would have a lot higher bank fees ....."

....umm wernt they leading the charge with no deposit mortgages for home buyers?

not a great move in hindsight..also i heard that kiwibank are very agressive when it come to mortgagee sales and bankrupcy.

also..Pharmac sell you cheaper drugs but they are not necessarily the most effective ones.Possibly they get them cheaper because they are obsolete?

Up
0

"no deposit mortgages"  "agressive" Can you cite evidence? URLs?  For the former Im not aware they were, think they used to not look above 80% when I moved to them some years back....

Agressive, evidence they are worse than others? these are really claims I'd like to see some evidence to substantiate please.

Even if thats the case, these comments dont answer the previous comments do they?

In my case with kiwibank Ive saved on my mortgage payments over 8 years....I also hardly pay any bank fees, so compared to ASB I would consider Ive done OK with them ....Ive also found that their customer service when phoning in has gone from OK to the best Ive ever had off any bank...

No, Pharmac uses evidence of the success of drugs as part of the criteria for subsidising them....  In terms of obsolete I have a single drug they now have subsidized to replace the two I had before, its simply a combination of both given at once to guarantee they are in the right proportions....

Another the brest cancer one (I forget its name) showed signs of being 1 to 4% effective over 12 weeks and it then dropped off but the side effects when taking it for a year showed a bigger risk of heart problems than helping the fight against cancer....so the risk of death was bigger than that from cancer...statisically it made sense to give it for 12 weeks in specific cases...given its expense that made sense.

In terms of effective drugs many of the drugs coming out now are known as "me too" drugs and often are not just more expensive but can carry significant side effects for negligable gain but at significant costs. Its simple though ultimately want any drug be prepared to pay for it via taxes or private health care....few ppl are unless they need that particualr drug of course.

regards

 

 

 

 

 

Up
0

newer drugs, try this about 32 to 36 mins in...

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/food-matters/

regards

Up
0

Haha, couldn't watch the vid, but the blurb is enough to see where it is going. Makes me think of a saying of my dads. "Outlive your enemies"

I am planning on it:)

Up
0

I think most drugs have an equivelent from each drug company, so Pharmac gets a good price by playing them off against each other for a big order. It seems in a free market they don't bother competing, the all just copy each others stupidly high price.

Up
0

I reckon that Kiwibank saves the average Kiwi more in bank fees than say the recent tax cuts save us. Can you imagine what a group of 4 Aussie banks would be charging without Kiwibank?

When I was looking at buying a house Kiwibank would lend me a lot less than the other Aussie banks would...

Up
0

Jimbo- Jones

Not only pay US citizen much more for health, the pharmaceutical  industry is investigated for outright fraud. Shocking video:

http://www.wimp.com/pharmaceuticalindustry/

Up
0

Do we have viable alternatives to John Key and Phil Goff ? 

Up
0

ummm, really good question!!!

we have....Don Brash, Winston Peters, Hone "Give me money" Something, The leaders of the traffic light party,  etc etc

Up
0

Wolly & GBH ! .............

Walley & Les Rudd ..........

Walter K. & Christov .........

steven & PDK .............

St. Nick & David B.........

Bernard & Alex.........

Amanda & Gareth ........ take your pick , choose anyone at random , and I bet you'd get a better outcome for New Zealanders than you will with JK & Goofy .

Up
0

Nope and they are not viable either...

;]

regards

Up
0

Don't worry yourself steven...I did enough work in the pms office to last me two lifetimes.

Up
0

I reckon I could have a fair crack at it, but bugger that I wouldn't want the job.

Up
0

Hernando de Soto is dead right, these dreamers that think the market will solve everything are on cloud nine.

If things like banks and markets aren't well regulated, we've seen every time in ends in a massive mess.

Yeah Jonny Cash's version of Hurt is legendary, better than Reznors.

Up
0

#3   Does anyone know if Steven J & John K would believe what the IEA are saying???

Up
0

There was a Parlimentary briefing paper written last year on Peak Oil I think....its really simple it needs a journalist to ask JK at a suitable moment while recording on camera.  The reality is the second JK & PG accepts Peal Oil, and what the IEA is saying is its here then really both parties ideas for growth etc are out the window.....they have nothing but to pass us bad news....and if you have watched JK never passes bad news....

So its the elephant in the show box...

regards

 

Up
0

Alex, aren't you the parliamental reporter?

Up
0

Here she comes...no stopping it now....but we're different....we don't have higher fuel costs filtering into every bloody corner of the ponzi scheme....

 "European producer-price inflation unexpectedly accelerated to the fastest in 2 1/2 years in March, adding to concerns that surging energy costs will feed through to consumers and prompt the European Central Bank to raise interest rates further"

 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-03/europe-producer-price-inflation-accelerates-to-6-7-on-higher-energy-costs.html

My money is on the unions preparing for some serious disruption leading up to the election....demands for 10% wage rises due to rampant cost rises....seems pretty well a certainty. Key has said there is a skills shortage..senior SOE bosses have received an average 14% rise on their already bloated salaries..and we do have inflation....and Bollard does not have control over it.....the only question is which union is likely to take the lead......!

Up
0

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487044731045762935900044895…

To counter that,

"The months-long rally in commodity prices has sparked fears it could ignite inflation or cripple consumer spending. But a surprising trend is now sweeping the markets for some key materials: Prices are falling.

Goods from cotton to zinc that were highfliers late last year have turned into laggards in recent weeks. Several have logged double-digit-percentage declines in futures markets.

Cotton has pulled back 17% from the all-time record set in early March, and sugar is down 34% from its multidecade high in February. Lead and zinc have tumbled in recent weeks after shooting up in the second half of 2010. ..."

Unions here can try, the problem for me is the public service has some union clout, private industry does not.....they are being un-realistic.....IMHO.

regards

 

Up
0

Mmm, I've loved that song since I first heard it on an episode of "House".

Up
0