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6:00 am, April 7th, 2026 - 32 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
If anyone can cope with Dr David Skilling at his darkest, this is his take on the Iran+global re-ordering this week:
Iran and a new world economic order – by David Skilling
Steve Keen is even bleaker – Economics Has Lulled Us Into a False Sense of Security
"By now, everyone is worried about the impact on the global economy of losing the supplies of energy that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. But why weren’t we worried about it beforehand?
There are many reasons for our pre-War complacency, but one of them surely is that mainstream economic theory led us to believe that the global economy is robust.
…though a tyrant has put us in this position, the fact that he was able to do so reflects our own collective ignorance … of just how fragile the global economy is."
Nicola No Idea Willis : The purblind irony…from my (our) perspective, of living in NZ under the NACT1 administration !
And FFS, she again blows the Covid dogwhistle….no mention of course the NACT1 landlord tax
giftbreak etc etcI know which Government I would trust to get us through, and it aint NACT1 !
Ditch the pricks in '26!
NZ Government Debt as a percentage of GDP stands at 50%.
The average OECD is 110%.
Canada and China 97%
Singapore172%
Japan 237%
USA 122%
Very few countries are lower than NZ's 50%
So how can Willis keep saying "significant deficit already"???
Private Debt is much higher at over 100%
Your figures for Singapore are very misleading. In June 2025 New Zealand had a net Government debt to GDP ratio of 41.8%. For Singapore the value was zero. It was not the 173% you claim.
The borrowing that has taken place is largely used to finance the investments of the GIC and Temasek. Their assets represent about 300% of GDP and the net borrowing is in fact a negative amount.
We don't have sovereign wealth funds on their scale.
Ah yes, one thinks back to 1975 and Muldoon's dancing cossacks!
But hey, that's just another example of Natz fucking the NZ economy!
Our problems were all brought about far earlier than Muldoon.
I blame everything wrong with New Zealand today on Nordmeyer's Black Budget in 1958. Everything.
Surely the neo lib reforms of the '80's have compounded the bleak state of affairs.
Now we have welfare for working folk. Some of these folk are in 2 jobs and still going backwards.
I an only joking. At least I think I am joking.
I think you must be correct: in every subsequent election campaign Holyoake pointed to Nordmeyer's "black budget".
Fair enough alwyn.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Singapore+Government+Deby+as+a+percentage+of+GDP&oq=Singapore+Government+Deby+as+a+percentage+of+GDP&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yDQgCEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgDEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyCggFEAAYgAQYogQyCggGEAAYgAQYogQyCggHEAAYgAQYogQyBwgIEAAY7wUyBwgJEAAY7wXSAQo0MDUwMGowajE1qAIIsAIB8QV1kpjsgKsECvEFdZKY7ICrBAo&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
As the most isolated modern economy in the world and the most reliant on international trade, the deeper our public debt grows the weaker we get.
If New Zealand keeps getting disasters at a rate of about one every two to three years – which we've had for the last decade – we need to lower public debt and private debt every year as our public and private capacity to meet disasters gets harder and harder.
– Social welfare and NZSuper $47.5 billion and rising
– Health $30.3 billion and rising
Government expenses are continuing to grow much faster than rises in government revenue. None of this is pretty.
most people are still thinking modern capitalism and our growth economy is going to survive BAU. It’s a big conceptual leap to get past that to ‘we have to fundamentally change how we do things’
One of the ways to mitigate the impact of frequent extreme weather events, is to design society taking them as normal rather than aberrations. Relocalisation is a key concept. If every new build had passive solar, hot water and panels, communities become inherently more resilient to power loss from impacts on the grid. This is particularly important for the Shaky Isles.
I am likely to dela m intended retirement year by at least 2 given the sustained impact on both Kiwisaver and house prices.
New Zealand's growth rate since 1960 only really kicked off in 2003.
New Zealand GDP | Historical Chart & Data
Those with a 50+ year historic memory of New Zealand's economy may remember the recessions like this:
– 1929-1942 The Depression and its long hangover here
– 1974-1984 with Oil crisis then Muldoon;
– 1988-92 after the state selloffs, Cyclone Bola, and sharemarket crash
– 1996-2002 when social welfare was decreased across the board
– 2008-9 after the GFC
– 2017 a slowdown and then full stop and decline through COVID
– 2021 brief post COVID surge and plateau
So it's not like growth is New Zealand's BAU as you claim. We have fundamentally changed things many times already. And clearly weather events are only a part of our risks.
You mention the need to get past our growth economy and change how we do things but then you suggest that every new build should / could have passive solar, hot water and panels. Well that is exactly the sort of thing that contributes to economic growth because it costs more money so potentially more borrowing for these additions to new builds and new products and services added, new jobs, maintenance and repair work, etc. This all adds to economic growth. That's what good economic growth is supposed to look like, expanding the economy (more goods, services and jobs basically) and expanding the money supply to facilitate that growth
that's the theory.
If you build a house you don't get to have everything you want unless you are very wealthy. So you choose the things that matter most. Size, location, materials, design.
Instead of needing more economic growth to build bigger and fancier houses, we could be building smaller, better designed houses. More resilient ones. Ones that cost us less money to live in, so we don't need to work so hard.
I know that wrecks the economy, people spending less. How would the power companies make profit to pay shareholders if everyone lived in a well designed house that didn't need much grid power?
But we can't have it both ways. If we have a growth economy, it costs us, dearly. If we want to live affordable and resilient lives, we need a different economic system.
Doughnut economics, regenerative economics, degrowth and steady state models. It's not like economists, academics, systems thinkers, business people haven't thought about this and developed models.
"we need to lower public debt and private debt every year…"
Right, so if both public and private debt are to be lowered every year that means the economy will go into recession (negative growth for 2 qtrs or whatever) followed by the economy actually not just growth getting smaller but no growth at all and the economy actually getting smaller every year then a nosedive. You could take it all the way I guess to zero public and private debt and zero economy.
So you're not a fan of economic growth?
You have to have debt to have money, that's how money is created unless all of your economic growth is paid for by international investors flooding the economy with money borrowed elsewhere, but borrowed none the less. A growing economy needs a growing money supply, new money can only be created by being borrowed into existence. Money = debt. No debt = no money
Deficit is a different thing unless the government is borrowing to fund deficit spending instead of sorting out the tax take.
$3 Billion Tax Break to Land Lords hasn't helped NZ's Financial Situation IMHO ???
It hasn't helped the government's books. The biggest problem in NZ is the level of private debt and it doesn't directly affect that, it's a hard nut to crack with our grossly over inflated housing market.
New Zealand shouldn't have the level of working poor it has, and much of that lands at the feet of housing (and renting)
We already have the answers. Yes, this is Auckland focused, but can apply to all the urban conglomerates.
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2026/04/07/we-already-have-a-plan-for-the-fuel-crisis/
“The good news is Auckland Council already has the blueprint to reduce our fuel use in transport. It’s called the Transport Emissions Reduction Pathway.
Because, lo and behold, it turns out what is required to rapidly reduce fossil fuel use in transport, is an exact mirror of the measures needed to rapidly reduce the emissions that cause climate change.”
Hoo boy, cyclone Vaianu's track. (toggle 8km)
tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/storm.php?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/northland-orange-warning-as-heavy-rain-spreads-across-upper-north-island/HQ3ZCOLCQJBKNOGI4KE5DF2XQ4/
Looks to be moving pretty quick so hopefully not so bad on the rain front but the wind looks problematic in the BOP
Seymour calls Damien O'Connor a Communist ???
No idea what you're referring to (link please?) but safe to say in Seymour's mind, anyone to the left of ACT is a Communist…
Maybe this from Question Time
I know Nicola Willis is all kinds of problematic, but she does seem to be one of the few people in any of the government parties who is aware of the realities of the oil crisis (even if she's not taking enough action).
Re Diesel Pricing Christopher Luxon quotes “We are acutely aware of the problem with pricing”. Thank God he is aware.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/591688/it-s-going-to-be-1975-again-diesel-prices-face-sharp-jump
And so it starts, Received several emails this week from building and construction related suppliers with lists of price increases, anything from 4% for timber to 12% for concrete, also skip bins etc that are being delivered to site now have a $40 surcharge which will be looked at weekly. I can see this getting very very bad, luckily we have a non panicked govt leading the way 🙂
Yep. Thanks to the frequent use of words such as Crisis and emergency and catastrophe the oil companies have a perfect justification for massively hiking fuel prices even though there doesn't appear to be any shortage in supply and demand wouldn't have changed (had a 'crisis' not been pushed and pushed and pushed by various actors)
Reality shows we have over 60 days of petrol and over 50 days of diesel and jet fuel available with no evidence to suggest supply will be curtailed beyond this timeline. But all of a sudden we're paying up to $4 for a liter of fuel…..why is that?
I would suggest, misleading scaremongering contributes to abnormal demand (but nothing so abnormal to justify such price increases and gives greedy fuel companies an opening (justifiable reason) for massive price gouging.
Shit is about to get very real….
How about that Public Transport,Cycleways, EV discounts,Rail , Coastal Shipping,Sustainable…things? Huh?
Fark, some say we might not have been perfect with Labour/Greens (IMO they were allgood by me !) but under NACT1 Christopher Loose Unit Luxon and Nicola No Idea Willis…we are screwed for years !
Ditch the pricks '26
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360961304/new-ministers-sworn-after-initially-being-mistaken-ushers
Idiot pm doesn't recognize his on mps and new ministers
I think the PM is entitled to the help, or that might be more of a description of his attitude to the help.