Warnings from the government and the Reserve Bank that first home buyers are taking on too much debt. Prices are too high, wages are too low, interest rates are rising. These warnings are effectively telling the average first home buyer to give up.
Andrew Little was on RNZ this morning talking housing affordability. “The amount people are having to borrow for their first home has increased 43 percent in the last two years.”
The bright orange trigger for a sharp rise in mortgage interest rates may have just arrived. Our over-indebted home owners are highly vulnerable.
It isn’t a new ploy from National or its supporters. “Mortgage rate rises under National: Good. Mortgage rate rises under Labour: Dreadful!”. I’ve seen David Farrar argue both that a recession is the perfect time to cut taxes because it stimulates the economy, and a recovery is also the perfect time to cut taxes to provide a dividend. It reminds me of that old chestnut, most recently applied to Don Brash: “The answer is tax cuts. What is the question again?”
I came across this blog called Howdaft written by Darkhorse recently. It consists of five posts written in June. Five of the best pieces of leftwing economic thinking you’ll see anywhere – something we’ve been short on recently. I’ve tried to contact Darkhorse, but no luck. If you’re out there, drop us a line. In the mean time, here’s one of the posts.
Unique in the world, we task our Reserve Bank with only one goal – keeping inflation in the target range – and give it one blunt tool to achieve it. Adding other objectives would bring us into line with other countries and giving the Bank better tools is long overdue. We need a smarter, more sophisticated approach to monetary policy. It is great to see the Left pushing for it.
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 […]
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Discovering National’s policy is a bit like the old art of Kremlinology, when Western intelligence agencies would attempt to discover the inner workings […]
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Today, ANZ and National Bank announced they are lifting their variable mortgage rates another quarter of a percent to 10.95%. That comes a […]
