Most migrants are coming here as students or on working visas rather than to live, new figures show

So we dont know who is here , what they are doing , are they working illegally , or if they are staying ?

Jeez , we are lucky we dont share a border with Mexico , because forget ESOL we would all be attending evening SPASOL classes .

David Chaston....the game has changed.....Governments have to compete  against other Governments on the economic front....and interest rates worldwide reflect the past behaviour of Governments......so raising the interest rates in NZ when all other countries have low rates would be a stupid move.......I think perhaps you are living in the days of when interest rates were used to control inflation.......and just think about inflation rates as they stand at the moment......take housing inflation out and then tell me what the inflation rate is for NZ.

In regards the excess leverage..........perhaps consider whether that certain types of leverage are OK and needed......the leverage that we should all be concerned about is the leverage in the derivatives market and that is not OK.......and consider how that latter leverage shows up on the banks balance sheets...

Reading some of the banks disclosure statements is very enlightening.

David , I agree money is too cheap and there are just too many risks lurking out there. If Asia goes into a recession,  following Japan , it will impact on us , sure as night follows day .

As you rightly point out , there is now evidence of some irrational exuberance ( you call it speculation)  in the prices people are paying for residential property , and the WHAT IF's are too disasterous to contemplate

Here are just a few What If's .....

1) What if the IRD decide that losses arising from a shortfall of Rent : to : Mortgage  must be ringfenced ( and cannot be offset agaisnt other income ) as is the case elsewhere?

2) What if inflation goes up as a result of the Chch rebuild , or  some other sudden shock to the Kiwi $ ?

3) What if an Asian recession starting in Japan sees commodity ( Dairy ) prices fall further , resulting in a falling Kiwi $ ?

4) What if Auckland council penalises landbankers to force more land to be freed up ?

5) What if the buling of houses ramps up and there is an oversupply in two years from now ?

6) What if Government comes to its senses and slows down migration to levels that we can cope more comfortably with ? Right now migration is fueling the housing shortage problem

7) What if the US ( which seems to be recovering ) actually stops the QE , or worse , starts increasing interest rates , and we are all forced to tow the line with rates going up here

8) What if the Banks come to their senses and sensing the risks ,  actually enforce their in-house rules about Loan repayments TO  Income ratios ?

I dont agree with you here, the problem is,

a) not knowing how much pressure these specualtors can take before they implode and default.

b) More importantly what damage is done to other parts/sectors of the economy such as FHBs , retail and businesses while you try and shake out the speculators?  If all the above are weaker (and I suspect they are) then you could actually cause a recession. As I keep saying,  just look at Sweden.

c) Things have changed in an energy expensive world. It started in the 1970s but we switched to a "service economy" that was little more than a parasitic ponzi scheme racking up debt.  Now post peak oil we'll see the shake out you hope for, however its going to be a lot worse and longer than  you are expecting me thinks.

d) No, we went through a paradigm shift. In the new post peak oil world i) "current" interest rates are 2 or 3% too high not to low, ii) raising the OCR will be counter-productive in spades.

Like horror? got constipation? maybe try Kunstler,

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-instability-express/

"The global economy has caught the equivalent of financial Ebola: deflation, which is the recognition that debts can’t be repaid, obligations can’t be met, and contracts won’t be honored."

"The net result of all that foolish irresponsibility is that banks find themselves in a position of being unable to trust each other on virtually any transaction.

When that happens, the flow of credit, a.k.a. “liquidity,” dries up and you have a bona fide financial crisis. Nobody can pay anybody else. Nobody trusts anybody. Fortunes are lost. Elephants stomp around in distress, then keel over and die, and a lot of “little people” get crushed in the dusty ground."

regards

Hmm no, well follow yes, that doesnt mean its true and correct. So we have two statements both contradicting each other.  This is like having your cake and eating it.

So the first hypothesis,

Chicken and egg.  If we have unemployable people they are poor consumers, they have no money I would suggest this is a given.   If we bring in the un-employable, we dont cause direct inflation as such, more drag on the Govn purse (welfare) maybe, yes. Those unskilled also then "fight" for work with our indigenious unskilled driving down wages, this then would seem deflationary.  With less money the lucky employed ones are worse consumers and hence demand drops and hence is deflationary.

b) If we bring in skilled labour yes I can generally accept that this is counter-inflationary which contradicts Matt Nolan's first statement. ie I see no difference between one skill level and another within the context of what he is saying.

regards

Okay I know whats on the arrival forms I have left and entered so many times i have lost count  , but what do they do with the forms ?

Clearly , they are not capturing the info correctly or they would know who is coming and going and for what reason .

Now we dont even know who is staying , who is going , and so how do we plan if migration stats are up the pole ?