Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, February 23rd, 2009 - 20 comments
Brian Fallow has some extraordinarily good analysis of the economic situation in his piece today. Here’s some important passages (and my, unfortunately, extensive comments): “We are really talking about two recessions back to back,” AXA Global Investors chief economist Bevan Graham said. “Last year it was a domestic one, that we needed to have. There […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:55 am, February 18th, 2009 - 29 comments
We’ve been saying for some time that the $9 billion of fiscal stimulus that the Government claims it is putting into the economy in reaction to the global recession is no such thing. In fact, the Government is spending within the ordinary increase in spending allotted by the Budget back in May. And it is […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:53 pm, February 17th, 2009 - 13 comments
Just like petrol prices, the cost of fueling National’s PR machine is on the rise. Tracy Watkins reports that “National has employed 18 press secretaries on salaries of $100,000 or more. Seven are employed in the $10,000 band below $100,000”. In the past Winston dubbed the National Party PR machine “The ministry of National affairs”. No […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, February 17th, 2009 - 13 comments
An hour ago No Right Turn posted a piece citing what was apparently a Ministry of Social Development press release, which he says was “confirmation that the government is planning to slash 500 to 1000 people from the Ministry of Social Development”. He gives a link to scoop for the presser. But Scoop has since taken it down […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, February 17th, 2009 - 21 comments
“We are all socialists now”, or so says the cover of the latest Newsweek. And to be fair, you’ve got to start wondering when the United States is in the process of nationalising the means of exchange and a Tory Prime Minister of New Zealand is looking at effectively buying out a chunk of one […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:38 pm, February 16th, 2009 - 31 comments
Why does the Business Roundtable employ an economic illiterate to represent them to the public and argue their corner on macroeconomics? Here’s some of what Roger Kerr has to say in his op-ed in Granny Herald today: “What seems to be overlooked is that the huge rises in core Crown spending in recent years – […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:51 pm, February 16th, 2009 - 41 comments
When I heard Shell is looking at selling its service stations in NZ and its shares in Fulton Hogan, my initial thought was that the Government should look at buying – to keep profits in NZ, to help ensure competition in the market as Kiwibank has for banking, and so there is a publicly-owned network […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, February 15th, 2009 - 24 comments
It’s a bit late but I thought I’d draw people’s attention to the work Pundit’s Tim Watkin has been doing on the government’s stimulus package. Or more rather the work he’s been doing on the government’s re-releasing of already approved spending under the guise of a stimulus package. Because the interesting truth is they’re faking […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, February 15th, 2009 - 11 comments
Great video for the real victims of this recession, the ‘smartest men in the room’ who cocked everything up, the money-men. Bleed the World/ Let them know it’s credit crunch time
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, February 13th, 2009 - 32 comments
Bill English is living in a dream, and he may create a nightmare for the rest of us. Last week, he said the recession would be over in 6-12 months. He hasn’t bothered to announce any significant new spending in response to the recession – all the supposedly new spending he has announced so far […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, February 13th, 2009 - 24 comments
John Key and Tracey Watkins have both (completely by coincidence) said we must avoid responding to the recession with a ‘sugar rush’ of spending. They’re just making excuses for National’s hopelessly inadequate policies for dealing with the recession but they are right about the need to avoid a sugar rush we don’t want to just […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, February 11th, 2009 - 17 comments
As IrishBill has said, National’s so-called ‘kick-start’ is pretty underwhelming – bringing forward a few more roads and a bigger bridge so that a couple of times a year those Aucklanders that can afford to holiday in the Coromandel won’t create such a big traffic jam, 69 new State houses in six months (= bugger […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:36 pm, February 11th, 2009 - 19 comments
The kickstart package is out and it seems to be a mixture of work that was already going to happen and stuff that is worthy enough but not focused on much past the building industry. One of the concerns I have is with the fast-tracking of roading projects. For example just how much difference it […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, February 9th, 2009 - 28 comments
This year, the economy will shrink (at least) 1%. At the same time, the population will grow 1% (at least, growth may be stronger due to expats fleeing the UK). So, there’s going to be at least 2% less to go around (on top of a 2% reduction in GDP per capita last year). Now, […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, February 5th, 2009 - 10 comments
Across the Tasman Kevin Rudd has announced a huge recovery package. Here at home, National is merely tinkering around the edges. Key’s standard response to this criticism is that ‘his’ package puts us amongst the top few countries in the world in terms of spend to GDP. Someone needs to ask him how much of […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:37 pm, February 4th, 2009 - 28 comments
I’ve just had a read of John Key’s speech today announcing measures to help small and medium businesses through the recession. And my first reaction is ‘that’s it?’ 5% less provisional tax, whoopie. At the end of the year you get back any excess you’ve paid or have to pay any underpayment. At the end […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, February 4th, 2009 - 10 comments
I know when I write a post that if two statements in the post seem to disagree someone will quickly point out the apparent logical inconsistency to me and I’ll either have to explain it or fix it. Which is all well and good. So, I thought I would do the same for Vernon Small […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, February 4th, 2009 - 13 comments
Our guest RMA expert, offers an analysis of National’s proposed changes to our resource management framework: National’s phase one RMA review document looks good at a first glance, but after a detailed look fish hooks, and the right-wing agenda, are more and more evident. The phase one review is clearly set up to bulldoze through big development […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:42 pm, February 3rd, 2009 - 22 comments
We’ve got an expert guest post coming on National’s newly announced RMA changes. I’ve got a few brief(ish), non-expert thoughts first (which, hopefully won’t be totally contradicted by the expert making me look dumb) 1. It’s good to see that National has dropped its initial proposal of changing the definition of ‘environment’ in the RMA […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, January 31st, 2009 - 49 comments
The New Republic has a good article on Keynes that points out the tendency for governments (specifically in the US) to flock toward Keynesianism during the bad times and ignore it when things pick up and to implement the facets of Keynesianism that suited their own agenda rather than the nation as a whole: If […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, January 30th, 2009 - 12 comments
Last night, I heard something worrying. It was Gareth Morgan saying he can’t ‘see through’ this recession; that he can’t see the economic mechanism that will turn things around and get us growing again. He had already dismissed interest rate slashing and stimulus packages as ‘necessary but insufficent’. In the end he resorted to the […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, January 29th, 2009 - 33 comments
Despite very serious allegations from former Sanlu CEO Tian Wenhua that an unnamed Fonterra board member influenced her decision to not cease production of milk powder known to be contaminated, on RNZ’s Checkpoint Fonterra Chairman Henry van der Hayden was adamant Fonterra would not be disclosing documentation to prove it advised Sanlu only a 0% melamine content […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, January 29th, 2009 - 5 comments
Another review of the Official Cash Rate, another record cut. This time, it’s a 1.5% cut bringing the OCR to 3.5%. That’s the lowest rate since the OCR was introduced in 1999. Good news for those with floating rate mortgages (not so good for the 80% of mortgagees with a fixed rate) and an opportunity for me to feel […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, January 27th, 2009 - 46 comments
We have received information that National’s plan to change the definition of ‘environment’ under the RMA in their 100-day legislation roll out will consist of removing the legal protection of a range of important parts of NZ’s environment, such as eco-systems, amenity values (e.g. the look and appearance of a landscape or townscape) and the […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, January 23rd, 2009 - 17 comments
I’m the last person who’d criticise freezing the pay of our MPs but John Key’s cynical opportunism is at best a piece of pointless and time wasting PR and at worst a signal to attack Kiwi wages. Now before any of our regular right-wingers claim I’m reading too much into this it might pay to […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, January 22nd, 2009 - 9 comments
Under the full warmth of the summer sun those clouds that keep gathering on the horizon seem to have been quickly dismissed by many, with the hope that the new National-led government will sort it out. What are the signs of action so far? Not a lot of concrete ideas are to be found (as suggested here) but we gain […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, January 22nd, 2009 - 24 comments
Over at the Dim Post Danyl is complaining about our complaining again. In a classic piece of sophistry he seems to have decided the recession is going long and from that (not so absolute) absolute he has constructed a premise that we need “massive infrastructure projects” which are funded at the expense of nearly every […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:22 am, January 22nd, 2009 - 11 comments
After three years of solid growth, the latest stats show international tourist numbers collapsing 8% last November compared to November 2007 due to the global recession. Goldman Sachs forecasts a drop of over 5% this year and more in 2010. Like all economic projections since the world tipped into recession, these numbers are likely to be revised down […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 am, January 20th, 2009 - 11 comments
Inflation, predictably, plunged in the last quarter. With the international prices of oil and other commodities coming off their record highs following the super-spike last year which pushed the world into recession, it was inevitable that inflation would be lower than it had been when those mammoth price rises were underway. This was compounded by falling domestic […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, January 17th, 2009 - 25 comments
Oddly the Standard hasn’t received its invite to the “job summit” yet. I’m sure this is just an administrative error but just in case it’s not I’d like to offer the National/Act government a few ideas for their consideration. I’ll start with three of my favorites, none of which will surprise regular readers: 1. Home […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:46 pm, January 15th, 2009 - 61 comments
The National/Act government has announced its chair for the “job summit” and it’s stock exchange boss Mark Weldon. I may be missing something but I seem to remember this mess was started by the markets so it seems a bit strange to put someone who runs one in charge of cleaning it up. But after […]
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