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Acting PM Winston Peters warned NZ that an economic slowdown was looming, Jason Walls says the NZ First leader now has the right to tell the country ‘I told you so’

Acting PM Winston Peters warned NZ that an economic slowdown was looming, Jason Walls says the NZ First leader now has the right to tell the country ‘I told you so’

By Jason Walls

October 19, 2017.

Winston “the King-Maker” Peters, steps up to a Beehive podium to address journalists and all New Zealand.

He is picking the Government and the nation is holding its breath in anticipation.

Everyone is watching, and he knows it.

With the eyes of New Zealand fixed on him, hanging off his every word, he issues a bleak warning.

“We in New Zealand First believe that an economic correction, or a slowdown, is looming,” he said.

He points to a slowing housing market, dropping consumer and retail confidence and “property ownership concerns” as some of the major issues the economy will face.  

Critics would attempt to place the blame of this slowdown on the Government he formed that day, he said.

“That’s why we are putting this scenario out front, right now, so that such attempts will fail.”

It has been nine months since his warning and it’s beginning to look like Winston was right.

There is no question the economy has shifted down a gear and, looking into the future, things look bleak.

Gross Domestic Product growth is a good indicator of New Zealand’s economic health.

In 2017, growth was 2.9% – a strong number when comparing it with the rest of the world, but 1.1 percentage points lower than in the year prior.

In the year-to-March, that growth figure had fallen to 2.7%.  

Although some economists are picking that figure to pick up next quarter, as the effects of the Government’s Families Package come into play, there are few that are predicting GDP growth levels will return to pre-2017 levels.

In fact, just this week Infometrics revealed its economic growth projections were for GDP growth of 2% per year between now at 2021.

The more you dig, the grimmer it gets

There are other indicators that tell the story of an economic cooling too.

In June, consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since August 2016. Business confidence recently fell to a seven-year low.

On Monday, the Performance Services Index – the measure of the performances in the services sector – was down to the lowest level since 2012, sinking six points since Peters’ October speech.

The housing market has clearly come off the boil too – REINZ figures this week show a 20% drop in home sales in June compared to the month prior.

Sure, there is some economic good news – such as the falling unemployment rate and healthy Government books – but Winston’s warnings of an economic “slowdown” look to be sound.

But what about an “economic correction?”

An exact definition of a “correction” is hard to pin down, but it’s usually seen as a decline or downward movement in growth.

In this instance, a decline in GDP growth. Keep in mind a recession is officially defined as two negative quarters of GDP growth.

This is obviously much more severe than a slowdown, but will it happen?

Two words – trade war.

The escalating tit-for-tat increases in tariffs between China and the US is a very worrying prospect for New Zealand.

The IMF, Reserve Bank, the Treasury and many other forecasting agencies have been saying for years one of the biggest risks to New Zealand’s economy comes from overseas.

As a small, trade-dependent island nation at the bottom of the world, any ripples in global trade can easily turn into waves on our front.

In his Coalition deciding speech, Peters made a point of highlighting New Zealand’s vulnerability to overseas shocks.

“Our negotiations have taken place against a backdrop of changing international and internal economic circumstances which we cannot ignore.”

Combine the escalating concerns of a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies with the slowing domestic economy and it’s not hard to see where Winston was coming from on that memorable October night.

Winston Peters, celebrating his party’s 25-year anniversary this week, has every right to tell New Zealand “I told you so.”

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118 Comments

Difficult to see that the current governments new policies and outspoken individuals have had no effect on confidence and the economy. Clearly it was part of Winston's plan/deal with Labour right from the start - why? because theyve got no idea about what makes this country tick...........

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As Minister of Racing the comment by WP was little more than a bob each way. If he was right he could say I told you so. If not who would care to remember and call him out on it. There have been plenty of commentators and contributors on this site predicting a slow down and worse much earlier than WP, and they still are, with quite genuine reason.

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To summarise. He called it, and he's right. Incoming worldwide property collapse.

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Haha, yep the sky is falling

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Ah nope. The sky will be just fine. It's your equity that's about to take a pounding.

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Oh no, it's my equity that's at risk, only mine, oh nooo.
I wonder how you found out about my financial position Ocelot?

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It may turn out well, though. My take is NZ could be sorting out its fundamental economic problems. The backlash against rising house prices augurs well for our future as it provides pressure on our institutions to adjust our underlying business model.

My thinking goes as follows. The problem starts in the 1970s when Britain joins the Common Market as the final capitulation at the end of its empire. For us, the old Empire Free Trade system is shattered, replaced by the Tariff Wall around Europe. So our major export customer is lost. At the same time the old links to gold in the worldwide monetary system are severed. We move from an independent country that's part of the global British monetary system, based on a partially gold backed currency, to one that is part of the US dollar based monetary system.

The instability these two changes cause wash around the world causing rampant inflation. Eventually, in the 1990s we set up the RBNZ to manage the value of our money. However, we have adopted what I call a Junior Gold Miner business model by this point. Let me explain, a junior gold miner has, say, a small but profitable gold mine. It has two choices of business model, slow organic growth funded from cash flow, or aggressive expansion funded by selling more shares to new shareholders. Unfortunately the business is not run by a prudent owner, so the temptations of personal glory for the management win out. The business raises more money, thus diluting the ownership of the original owners. As the years pass, the process is repeated and the original owners own less and less of the equity of the business. The aggressive expansion plans never quite turn out as expected. The management is changed after each failure but the business model is not. The company survives because of the quality of its underlying asset, but there are now 4 million shareholders not 2 million. The profitability of the business has only gone up 25%. It is a clever management rort.

Back to the money. The world US dollar system changes into the Eurodollar system over time and this reaches its limits in 2007. Failures in the chain of payments cause its expansion to change into a steady contraction punctuated by periods of chaos. It took 30 years to expand to somewhere like $400 trillion in assets and so it will probably take 30 years to contract. During the expansion interest rates declined, causing house prices to rise worldwide. Presumably, as worldwide excess credit slowly contracts, house prices to income ratios will also slowly contract.

So, how is this playing out in New Zealand? The RBNZ, keen to not allow a second round of house price hyperinflation in Auckland, try to put interest rates up in 2014. The economy starts to stall, so they are forced to back off. Thus Auckland house prices take off again. The RBNZ regroup and, with the RBA, formulate a cunning plan; stealth capital controls on house lending. Unlike the cunning plans of lesser men, they appear to be working, at least for now.

So, with less excess capital pouring in and pushing up the exchange rate we find that exporting mysteriously becomes more profitable and starts to expand. House building and construction of ego projects for property magnates and central and local government decline. Shareholder dilution by immigration declines to a manageable level. The current account moves into a small but sustainable surplus.

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A good synopsis. I'd take issue with just one sentence - the penultimate one. The article notes " that (GDP) figure had fallen to 2.7%."....so, the answer to that is.....ramp up immigration! Ship in another 250,000 'workers' and voila! GDP, (the only metric that matters,apparently) heads in the right direction ( pun intended)

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I'm not sure people would turn a blind eye to that anymore. Even the deluded Labour party, international socialists every one, could see that it isn't exactly a vote winner. Excessive immigration causes homelessness and stuffs up the transport system. Excessive immigration keeps wages down, which reduces investment in mechanisation and thus holds back productivity growth, the engine of wealth creation. Excessive immigration brings in excess capital that pushes up house prices. Who knew? Actually the annoying thing is that we weren't allowed to even begin to think about possible downsides due to a fear of being labelled racist by the international socialists among us.

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It has taken a long time but you are right - the NZ voter now realises high rates of immigration hurts the average Kiwi and it doesn't matter where the immigrants are from. Pity the self-interested (businesses wanting docile workers and property investors) still have the ear of our politicians.

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RW,

"international socialists every one'. What an absurd comment. The ISO identifies with Trotskyism and Leninism and I have to assume that you are well aware of that.
All is does is demonstrate that you are a lazy thinker,happy to slap ludicrous labels on people in place of a reasoned argument. I shall quickly pass over your posts from now on.

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You must forgive Roger, I think he meant to write "European style socialist".

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If opening up the immigration taps were an option, the government would’ve done it at the first sign of a slowdown. It is safe to say that we have maxed our capacity to grow our population without further lowering our living standards to less than developed quality.

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We still have plenty of people arriving into NZ, What's changed is that lately more Kiwis are leaving for OZ, That's why total immigration numbers are down.

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The fact that WPand the COL came to power is enough to slow any economy............

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Reason being. ..The National government failed miserably

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HO We all clearly have our own opinons but the COL with the best of intentions I guess, have caused alot of instability in the business world particularly around employment legislation proposed, forced union membership, industry wide pay scales etc etc. Spending up large on free tertiary education that has resulted in almost no extra uptake, WP splashing money around the Pacific, money for the boys Shane Jones etc I do not feel comfortable about any of this. The COL lack of follow thru on immigration, child poverty, pollution all this BIG stuff during the election has been hidden. National messed up in the end a common thing Governments seem to fall into in their 3rd term. My instinct is to have more confidence in professional business people rather than students and career politians running the country. NZF has extracted and wasted alot of our money already out of Ardern as has the Greens with their ban on oil and gas exploration. In short none of them deserve to stay in for a lengthy period but I have no faith in the COL not because they are not trying but because they are naive and NZ deserves better. Imagine if the COL had to face the GFC and a earthquake of our 2nd biggest city that would be a crisis beyond their competence.

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Perfectly put Shoreman ... But the heads in the sand have their eyes and ears clogged with sand.

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Eco Bird, waa-waa-waa (eye roll) ; https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12…

Considering how little you seem to know, all you need to know is that the country's in good hands ;-)

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Grapes are sour my friend, you'll seem frustrated that your biggest asset is eroding in value, so like wild bulls you'll are just rampaging at the current government

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Nothing to do with less credit available for businesses to expand and the 'turning off the tap' of cheap immigrant labour?
Politics aside - Mauldin has already alluded to the fact an economy cannot continue to grow simply on vast amounts of credit.
Similar to the UK, our unemployment is low 4.2%, employment rate higher but wage growth minimal.
"Lower numbers of people out of work should help workers demand higher pay, but some economists say the creation of low-paid and precarious jobs since the financial crisis has damaged the link between low levels of unemployment and wage growth."

There lies the problem.. if you're wage growth is less than the rate of inflation, in real terms an employee is worse off unless they have credit available to make up the shortfall.

If you don't have access to credit.. then effectively, you're becoming poorer by the day.

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Spending up large on free tertiary education that has resulted in almost no extra uptake,

If there is "almost no extra uptake", then there will have been no "spending up large".

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Succinct Kate, succinct.

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Semantics. Kids of financially comfortable parents got a gift from the tax payers.

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Kate - There has been almost no extra uptake but everyone is getting the first year free so it's a give away of tax payers money with NO gain to the country

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It's a much better investment in the future of the country than is handing out an unneeded social welfare benefit to wealthy over-65s.

Throw the kids a bone. You guys got free education, access to cheap housing with the help of government efforts.

We live in this weird world where rich old folks feel entitled to handouts while resenting contributing to providing anywhere near similar conditions to what they received when they were younger. And where we pretend that's standing on your own two feet.

And where first off, the policy is going to be a terrible thing because all and sundry will rush in for free education and things will spiral up...then, when that doesn't happen, the whining noise shifts to be about "Well, it hasn't resulted in any increase so it's a terrible thing!" Some consistency in either area would at least be more admirable.

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Rick, as a boomer i know of no one who resents the younger generation needing or getting a fair break. I know plenty who resent self-entitled politicians who have screwed the pooch in worship of the almighty dollar, and who have essentially undermined EVERYONES living standards except their own! This woe is me, I resent anyone who has more than me attitude serves you and everyone else no good, so please drop it? The world is a different one from the one I and my generation grew up, and today's generation need to work in today's world. Hopefully they will hold those responsible for the ills of it accountable. Perhaps they should ask exactly why John Key was handed a knighthood? Who nominated him, and why the public didn't get a vote?

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Murray, I am directly making the point here as a response to the posts that rest on an assumption that handing out money to wealthy old folks is good and just and something you can believe in while espousing standing on your own two feet and talking up right-leaning parties, while making education less costly for young people is some horrid example of communism. I am pointing out the absurdity of that double-standard.

And I'm pointing out that if measured as an investment from which the country should expect a return, it is far more useful than giving a benefit to rich people who have no need of it.

That is not "woe is me" (I received my low cost education a long time ago and have no qualms contributing to the same for others). It is pointing out the absurd and selfish double-standard and suggesting others who also received their well-funded education quit being so selfish now. It's suggesting people get real about the fact they received much, and stop whining when we give a little to younger Kiwis today in their turn.

Today's younger generations do face some new problems, yes - so they need to be aware of the history and context around these. Them having awareness of what assistance previous generations received from the governments of the day is certainly useful for them. E.g. the face that government involvement played a big part in creating affordable housing supply and a resultant high rate of home ownership is useful background info when a) confronting "own two feet" smashed avocado warriors, and b) driving public policy today.

(Plenty have questioned Key being given a knighthood. I agree, hopefully they will start to hold politicians accountable.)

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Rick, purely as a matter of interest how would you exactly define “a wealthy old folk.” By that I mean in either of two categories. Net income stream or value of capital assets .

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You'd have to say that someone who has capital assets worth a large amount, as is someone who has a high income (though...there are people who at some points have high incomes who do not remain wealthy).

In possession of wealth? How would you define it?

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Well you would have to say it is much easier not to define it and that is the quandary. For example parents now in sole freehold possession of the family home of say 30 years occupancy, which now is worth over a $1 mill. But these are ordinary people who have worked their way up the seniority ladder & have some savings, perhaps the benefit of a private super an scheme and now retire each on the pension. I would wager they are reasonably comfortable but not much more than that, and they deserve to be. But if that means the “wealth” of their family home makes them wealthy, how then do they actually distribute that to the younger generations so to speak? The house itself may never have been anything more than modest, but it’s location is the value. Should they then give up the occupancy because of say a property tax they cannot cover out of their income? Regret that is not as clearly expressed as Inwould like & I think I am probably misunderstanding your point, because I would not see that as a fair reward for good citizenship.

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No, you're expressing yourself very well, Foxglove.

We have an assumption baked into our society that deserves questioning. People rant against helping people enter the workforce with less debt, but they never question us giving a welfare benefit to wealthy old people. And that's a strange assumption.

The question is, why is it society's responsibility to keep them in the life to which they've become accustomed?

If it's not society's job to make housing affordable to young Kiwis, why is it society's job to make a wealthy lifestyle affordable to old people where it wouldn't be without that handout?

Auckland is a global city, as people are wont to say on here, so it's not going to be very affordable for young Kiwis and they should be realistic. However, it's not cheap to live in global cities without an income...so why is there a blanket assumption we should be handing money out to older folks to enable them to do so where they otherwise might need to downsize, shift further out (or to another town), or use a reverse mortgage to free up equity?

Don't get me wrong - I'd like a pension from the government. But we need to question these base assumptions that (for example) starting young folk off in the workforce with less debt is bad, horrible, communism etc,, while giving money to wealthy old folk is just darn good and capitalist and not at all conflicting with "standing on your own two feet". We do live in a quid pro quo society - young and old - so I'm not a fan of arbitrarily cutting tax on the old while preserving their benefits untouched, while feeling perfectly justified cutting ever more provisions for the young in order to fund it. If you want your quid, give your quo.

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tks for expanding on your point & it is not difficult to appreciate what a challenge faces those leaving school and getting underway or hoping to acquire what older generations have achieved. My own children have been through it and my grandchildren are approaching it.Very difficult though to legislate fairly at the other end of the scale to provide some assistance to them. For a start there is the old bogey of penalising those who have been prudent and saved as opposed to those who have been spendthrift. But if you take my example of the retired couple, is it not fair to say that the equity they have in their house may well end up largely being consumed by rest home care, think the government takes all but $220K, and the ability to have the dignity of being able to do that independently, rather than being under the control of the government. Must declare a conflict of interest here, I am not all together elderly, but I can see it from here. But really at the end of the day you are going more or less in some shape or form, down the means testing option which of course is a political no mans land,

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Yeah, it's an interesting area, isn't it?

Is it penalising people who have been prudent and saved to simply not hand them more money when they don't need it? At previous points in NZ history, giving a benefit to the elderly was not universal...it was given to help out people in need, whether they were old or young.

(As an aside, perhaps we should have had something like KiwiSaver earlier, where people are directly contributing to their own retirement fund - and social welfare should stick to being given out to people in need.)

Yeah, it does end up heading towards means testing. But, per my earlier comments, I don't actually advocate for that per se, I merely advocate for quid pro quo and a measure of generational recognition that it's not an evil to provide for following generations what was provided to one in one's own turn. I.e. while it's a perhaps a little objectionable to hand out an unneeded benefit to very wealthy folk, it's far more objectionable for those same folk to be forgetting their free education, state-assisted affordable housing, and non-means-tested pension while waggling their finger and lambasting younger Kiwis as "avocado eating spendthrifts" and telling them to "stand on your own two feet, just like I did" - forgetting what they received from NZ's society. (Every generation works hard for what they get, and in every generation there are prudent folk and wasteful folk, lazy folk and hard-working folk.)

So I don't advocate means testing the pension, I just advocate a little more realistic recognition of what we generations received, and a little less resentment of contributing to the same for those that follow while we receive what the younger Kiwis might not - a universal pension (albeit you and I not yet).

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Tks Rick, amongst that there is a salient point, very salient. The 1972 Kirk government foresaw this dilemma and introduced a less complex version of Kiwi Saver but it was compulsory and it was not popular. Muldoon dismantled it, it was one of the vote winners. Winston Peters tried valiantly and even got it to a referendum. Perhaps us oldies should be held to account, but you can’t change history. Have enjoyed our dialogue.

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I disagree with your comments. Free tertiary education was a daft headline as it is also about apprenticeships which we desperately need. Personally I would have made it Year 3 to reward those working hard and committed to their pathway. Splashing money around the Pacific is needed given the encroachment of China into the Pacific area. Immigration has fallen already with many heading back home. Big mistake not dumping the Paris Climate Agreement that is a carbon credit trading scheme costing us $14 billion over 10 years to achieve nothing, just to be seen to be doing something. National stopped R & D credits by hand picking through the Callahan Institute - how has that worked? Confidence with Professional business people? You mean like Fletchers, Fonterra etc? There are two sides to the story as regards a wage starved workforce; big business enjoying importing cheap labour etc. In reality out country has relied on Immigration, house price growth, tourism and Dairy which has made some rich and the rest have missed out. I am happy to see what eventuates from all the reviews at this stage without being uncomfortable.

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Shoreman can we raise the level a wee but please?

This yin/yang nonsense is a bit like watching an argument on the deck of the Titanic - between those who would take some cash from First Class pockets and put it in the hands of Steerage children, vs those with short arms and deep pockets.

True wealth is the ability to stay afloat - which neither crowd are addressing. A curse on both their houses, and it's time we progressed the debate.

.

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Exactly.
Winston knew that Labour and the Greens were very bad for NZ and yet he chose to form a government with them to oust National who had done a very good job running NZ.
The people who voted for these parties will get what they deserve and this COL will become the most despised incompetent government of all time.
Shame on you Winston

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Winston is a capable chap with the survival instincts of a cockroach. A Bill English / Winston Peters government would have been much more interesting, even excitingly unpredictable. Presumably Bill just couldn't bring himself to pay the price, whereas the desperate Deluded Labour and Limp Red Greens would give him almost anything he asked for. Pity really. Then again, National did clearly deserve a salutary smack in the face, perhaps the thrashing they got was necessary to force them to face the errors of their ways. Not that they have realised they deserved it, but they will in time.

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The three parties currently governing this country all campaigned on a change of government.

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They were previously in opposition, so thank you for your perspicacity.

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Yes Roger National got their comeuppance & deservedly so. Last term complacent, conceited and careless too. Like you I had voted for their first two terms. W C Fields exclaimed he never voted for, only against. Looks like nowadays, negative voting is more persuasive than positive voting unfortunately.

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Imagine a National led government until 2020 before a change of govt.. look ahead to 2021.. teachers and nurses striking, along with ACC and the IRD staff..

National policies certainly didn't take this into account while they were in government. If anything, they appear to stall wage growth where it is needed most.

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Your heading must be spinning, that your not getting your way

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Hey The Man 2, Aka George Gregan...
Congratulations you just got 9 votes for a comment that you made in barely decipherable English.... You're not alone by the looks of it.

Well done..

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They definitely grew up, evidence that they ditched the national party

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How do you ditch something you weren’t ever associated with?

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Geez, grow up man, I'm not here to educate you

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Asset bubble based on very low interest rate.... Sometime things have to change, for how long can one run an ecenomy on vey very low interest.

Wait and watch.

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I think you will find that Old Winnie was looking at the whole world when he made that prediction, particularly China. Not quite sure how the coalition has managed to affect that, but hats off to them if they did.

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"Not quite sure how the coalition has managed to affect that"
Read their numerous new policies, hopefully you will then know

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Waves hands, talks in vague generalities...

"Umm...it just has"

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Keep in mind a recession is officially defined as two negative quarters of GDP growth.

Isn't it two quarters of negative GDP growth?

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No

The technical indicator of a recession is two consecutive quarters of "negative economic growth" as measured by a country's gross domestic product (GDP),

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Yeah that's what I said, only the article refers to negative quarters. You can't have a negative quarter, that's like travelling backwards in time.

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clever - you edited your original comment to correct it - look at the time stamps

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I think we will see the NZ economy move forward in a steady but unspectacular way. Everything will be a lot flatter - growth, house prices etc.

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I challenge this CoLs to hold an election today to see if it has the support and trust of the majority to continue...

Well, how about holding a new election in 3 months and the new Gov or Coalition reverses all the BS this CoL has done , measure business and consumer sentiments/ confidence and then we see if he was right or wrong!!

This sort of BS that this CoLs had little or nothing to do with this downturn is food for idiots and pulling the wool over people's eyes.

If housing slowdown was the reason for lower GDP, well that is easily fixed , eh?

No one is talking about the bigger elephant in the room anymore, the $11.5B hole National warned about - that wasn't a prediction that became a fact seen only by the wise and honest people in this country.

Throwing predictions and gazing crystal balls is a cocherage tactics , was funny and wicked then and still is ...

Just pray that we don't end up with a massive mess in 2020 to clean after these losers are gone.

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You sound really pissed off and angry. Hope you are ok EcoB.

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I am fine , but I cannot take this BS of justifying failure to be an international event without looking in our backyard first and clean the rort.

Its Sunday, German beer time ...

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Any idea where to get hold of Lowenbrau?? Have hunger pains.

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Dp

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Yeah, you know the more I think about it, I look at what this govt has done and I think this is pretty much how the Nazis started, right? Whaddya think?

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I think. Which is why I don't make silly comments like that one.

Come on folks, can we raise it out of the gutter?

Neither Labour nor National have the formula for what's ahead, and in their present guise neither do the Greens. The media forcibly avoid going anywhere near it, and bury complaints about that while pretending not to (proof on request). Academia are still peddling - apparently - the growth is possible, growth is forever mantra, and forward borrowing their presently-spent incomes (via student ' loans').

But we are already overdue the mature societal discussion as to how we are to manage the descent. Someone like Jason - having read, say, A Short History of Progress, The Long Emergency and Overshoot (shouldn't take a journo more than a night or two) - should interview Winston, indeed all politicians, and see how many are future-relevant.

For sure, the old-guard of National were too far gone ideologically to morph, but that's ancient history now. How about our current PM? How about asking her the elephant-in-the-room question?

Or Jason could start with Clare Curran - I explained all this to her years ago - told her that if she didn't address it she was a wasted space. How many of the current House are not wasted spaces?

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pdk. Regret to have to say that resonates only too truly. Where is the dynamism, acumen and future thinking. It’s all about the status quo and protective self interest. In all honesty I would struggle to nominate one current MP of any party that I would like to employ, or be employed by or with. This is not a new situation unfortunately. Last MP I can think of positively in this regard was Simon Power when he was Minister of Justice. And he moved on and up, if I could suggest, perhaps with the same sort of thinking.

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Cheers. I think Jeanette Fitzsimmons got it all, and I suspect Cullen has the intellect to be useful in a war-cabinet scenario (which it would be) but that's where my list ends.

But it takes a selfless and informed voting public to put good folk in there, and we certainly don't tick either box currently.

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Haha, I was testing the limits of Poe’s law and Godwin’s law, I thought I did well to formulate a test that would affirm both, a bit troll like I know but eco bird is like an exotic caged animal in a Victorian zoo that you just can’t resist poking with a stick to see what happens. He never fails to please

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Bobster boy , you are the same yesterday's idiot, will never grow any brains even on a good weekend ... lol

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Though it is becoming obvious to many of us, it is still political cyanide. Admitting that we have to face this and the sooner the better will scare the living bejesus out of most of a population. It is uncharted territory we enter, but we are going to have to. I would prefer we did it in an intelligent way otherwise we will end up blowing each other to bits again. It won't be left or right that brings that on, it will merely be the inevitability of the more, more, more path we follow

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Release your anger, let the hate flow through you.

I do enjoy the way you call people idiots and yet you can't even get basic idioms right - you pull the wool over people's eyes, and what the hell is a "cocherage"?

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Signs of someone losing the plot. It's it's going to be a drain on our mental system. Eco bird let us know when you're ready to be admitted

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Eco bird is the best advertisement for medical marijuana that I have seen for a long time

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Only if you and the Man 2, promise to accept by the result this time, oh and promise to spare us the eco bird lectures, for at least 3 terms.

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https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/114209/america-insolvent

"And while that fury often takes a partisan bent, our predicaments have nothing whatsoever to do with any particular political party. All are the same when it comes to fostering business as usual. All are identical in their support for endless growth. They merely argue over which misguided steps to take in pursuit of those doomed goals".

Seems I have company......

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Even if what Peters said was wrong,he would still be right,just ask him.

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That reminds me of the master sergeant in Battlecry or similar who said he had only ever been wrong once in his life and that was when he thought he was wrong but found out he was right after all.

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Winston just echoed what other economists have been saying since 2016. Big Deal!

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He knew it, but did nothing as a REAL prime minister?

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Yes he knew it ... he is not as stupid as some like to think ... he is an astute old hand , much more experienced than the bunch of Noobs running the show now ... He could see all this (and worse) will be happening when he took his decision ( or in fact when the 13 unelected annonomyse directors of NZF made the call for him!!).

It was obvious that Unions will seek power after 9 years of waiting, change employment laws, increase min wage, spend the surplus " Spoils" on least important needs, and the list goes on ... He was dead certain that business will not like it ( under the auspices of the lot of activists running the Gov ) and knew things will turn to custard ....

His silence on immigration decisions and other withdrawals from his promises came as a result of facing reality. Now it is explained as " coalition agreement "

We are only 9 months into this drama , wait another year and then shake your heads in disbelief ... Business sentiment did not drop because of US-China trade war, or much to do with international trade deals , it started dropping since Sept last year when the CoLs came in - even Taxenda Knows that too well.

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I no longer bother to read the verbal garbage of the property spruikers. Indeed, I now follow very little on this site as it is evidently falling under the influence of narrow minded advertisers and possibly one (or more?) under-informed journalists. It is a shame because there are some contributors to these pages that do understand what our future holds. PDK and Steven are good examples. Andrewj also shows hints that he is aware of vitally important issues that stupid political correctness supresses in much of the 'western' world. IQ and race being one. As the Jews continue to leave Europe for Israel, you can be assured that the continents average IQ will fall but there are other inputs.
On another subject, one of the most important pundits for humanity's future is Professor Alan Savory but such names are unlikely to be found herein. His research could be enormously beneficial to our planet, while the mere guessing game that is economics has not a snowflakes hope in hell of doing so.

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IQ is more strongly correlated with access to education and your parent's wealth (with health being ancillary) during formative years. You're not doing the Hasbara any favours with that comment...

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As we are on that subject again, part of the Bilbo reference suggested IQ is the random result of having several factors in your favour such as a sucessul uneventful birth
But Didge can go on dreaming..

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IQ goes up a few points every decade. Ethnicity doesn't change every decade. Therefore the two are (a) unrelated (b) any relationship if it existed would be so minor as to be equivalent to blonds being taller than redheads (or is it the other way round).
There are far more important factors leading to success - for example nethanderals had bigger brains and are extinct. Come to that men have bigger brains than women but 3 women achieve university entrance for every 2 men - which is roughly the opposite to 50 years ago. Maybe Didge's Jews are only having female babies??

Happy for admin to remove all comments containing 'IQ' including this one.

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I suggest you study the subject in far more depth. Start with Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. I have been astonished how the pc brigade has kept far too many of us ignorant about this subject.

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I suggest you study the subject in far more depth. Start with Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. I have been astonished how the pc brigade has kept far too many of us ignorant about this subject.

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No.
"IQ goes up a few points every decade."
That's just categorically wrong.
IQ does not increase over time. It in fact, if anything, it declines after the peak during adolescence.

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IQ is a subjective term for a measure that is based on both intelligence and age - if your intelligence scores remain the same as you age - then your IQ increases - therefore even if you are able to minimise the degradation of your brain as opposed to your age it will increase over time

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IQ is a subjective term for a measure that is based on both intelligence and age - if your intelligence scores remain the same as you age - then your IQ increases - therefore even if you are able to minimise the degradation of your brain as opposed to your age it will increase over time

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No. IQ is normalised by age.
Hence why it shouldn't (in theory increase over time).
The only reason we see increases over time are due to anomalous testiing (the rates of volatility) in the formative years. This naturally smoothes out as we get older.
This is pretty well established in the psychology literature.

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How's that zimmer-frame working out, Nymad?

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...So you think your IQ score magically increases over time?
Your naivity isn't limited to the realm of economics only, then.

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Read Jim Flynn. The concept is named after him: 'the Flynn Effect'. Every Kiwi ought to know about our only living inhabitant who is world famous among serious scientists (from Pinker to Jensen sing his praises).

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Okay. Sorry, I misinterpreted your comment.
I thought you were referring to individualised scores over time. Not general population moments.

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That used to be the case (Flynn effect), but in many parts of the west that trend has now measurably reversed, and we are getting dumber on average.

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Absolute rubbish, NZ is projected to slow down as a result of the new governments policies.

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That's the kind of drivel I was suggesting we raise ourselves above. Try some corroboration, some linking or a bit of rational dissemination.

Try learning something, perhaps. Here's a simple wee one - an oldie but a goodie:
https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/trouble-money/73469

'Everyone currently in a position of power honed their skill sets during a period of time when the pie was reliably growing and the skirmishes centered around how best to lay claim to one's own portion of the expansion".

Obviously there were others living in the same period who honed very little ....

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Government's policies is what influence business confidence and GDP and they are both slowing down. This is a result of the new government's policies.
No need to be more complicated.

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Keep telling yourself that, but I'm still not sure how they managed to affect the Chinese economy, from the opposition benches even.

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Are you debating that Government's policies influence business confidence and GDP ? Only a fool would.

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Make no mistake, Business confidence being at the lowest level for years, GDP about to decline and more Kiwis leaving for OZ is a result of the new policies introduced in the last 9 months. Winston was simply shrewd enough to hedge his bets 9 months ago.

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Crap Yvil. I have been losing younger family members to Perth for a couple of years now. The attraction is affordable housing and a better standard of living. Plus the climate is enormously superior.

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Yvil, your contradictions do you no favours. It was you who predicted another Asian crisis and that the world is sliding towards another Great Depression. Is this something to blame the Coalition for too?

If you make posts at strange hours of the night, you're destined to make little sense. Just ask Eco Bird.

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My posts are at strange NZ hours because I have been in Europe for the last 5 weeks. It helps to get good perspective of the world

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Business confidence and GDP growth are a direct result of government policies. More Kiwis leaving for OZ as OZ GDP is about to overtake NZ GDP. Educate yourself Didge.

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Yawn. Massive asset bubble globally, and QE is winding down. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that the days of easy cash/lazy lending are closing down. Doubling the population with immigration, turning NZ into a cow toilet, and stacking cheap property debt is not the Govt policy NZ wanted to see maintained. It was voted down at the last election. Anyone long on any or all of those activities, get the blinkers off.

And then there is the reliable bell weather of economic doom. Bugatti has just released another "the fastest, most expensive etc...". No really. Bugatti Royalle (before the wall street crash late 20s), Bugatti ED110 (just post 87 crash), Veyron (GFC) and now the just released Chiron....

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Saying "I predict it's going to get hot in here" before setting the room on fire does not excuse the arsonist from responsibility. Winston put personal aggrandisement ahead of sound government, and we will all pay the price for his Narcissism.

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every time WP comes up on stuff its very very negative. every time!! As to no oil and gas exploration been a fail , every one wants a electric car everyone ! Russia had to hire a expert to get some late cycle product price gouging.

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Kiwis leaving to Aussie as its a much better standard of living than what they are getting in AKL. I dont know many parents left who still have all their adult kids in Auckland and dont say they all come back because they dont.

Then you have Chinese and Indians leaving their countries to come to AKL as its a much better standard of living and it doesn't matter how bad it gets in AKL, it will always be miles ahead of where they are from.

Whats common in all of this? Its all one way immigration.

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You are correct Tui.
I don’t live in Auckland and never will, however have been to Auckland several times over the years and from my times there, there is no way I would want to live there.
The posters that keep going on about the unaffordable housing should be looking elsewhere as there are far more liveable and affordable places.
Not going to name any at this stage but it begins with C and ends in H!

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.

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We're mortgage free near a city which begins with C and ends with H. Don't tell too many people but there are hundreds if not thousands of new homes and empty sections near us. The weather is good, the sport is good, the fishing is good, the skiing is good, the life is good.

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Vivid where near Christchurch is there thousands of new empty homes?
Pegasus hasn’t got thousands of empty homes at all!!
Why are you mortgage free, you should be using your equity in your home, by buying assets that produce income!

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Yeah where are all the empty house near CHCH..empty sections... yes i can find those :-)

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Why live in Auckland if you are young..salaries are low vs cost of living..a mugs game..

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The rest of the world is hitting a sweet spot. Winston on the other hand is pessimistic. All this tells me is that he a financial imbecile, who has no idea how to generate growth. I hope for NZs sake I’m wrong.

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