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Sugar rush

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 â€˜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 […]

What we should be doing

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

Less a kickstart than a wee nudge with a soft shoe

Written By: IrishBill - 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 […]

Es ist mein teil

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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, […]

Half truths

Written By: all_your_base - 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 […]

Better than nothing

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

Does that make sense?

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

A view from the coalface on RMA reforms

Written By: Guest post - 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 […]

First thoughts on RMA changes

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

Lest we forget

Written By: IrishBill - 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 […]

The long game

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

Fonterra’s Corporate Accountability

Written By: the sprout - 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 […]

Pedal to the metal but still no traction

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

Paving paradise

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

A pointless symbolic distraction. At best.

Written By: IrishBill - 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 […]

What lies around the corner?

Written By: Dancer - 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 […]

Let’s see the options

Written By: IrishBill - 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 […]

Time to pony up with some policy

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

Deflation rears its ugly head here and around the world

Written By: Steve Pierson - 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 […]

A little help

Written By: IrishBill - 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 […]

Fox to guard the henhouse

Written By: IrishBill - 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 […]

Easily impressed

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:31 am, January 15th, 2009 - 24 comments

John Key in person is extremely amiable; talking to him face to face, it’s hard not to like the bugger. I guess that he hasn’t lost any of that magic on his holiday. How else could one explain John Armstrong’s piece in the Herald today? The guy sounds like he’s in love. All it takes […]

How peak oil can devastate the rest of the economy

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 1:15 pm, January 14th, 2009 - 24 comments

We all know the story of the sub-prime crisis that had developed into the credit crisis – a flood of credit saw mortgage lenders lending to anyone, including people who couldn’t really afford the repayments. To get these potentially bad loans off their books, the banks pooled them together into new, unregulated instruments and sold […]

Govt creaks into inaction

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:41 am, January 13th, 2009 - 29 comments

Only four weeks into a well-deserved holiday following two frantic weeks stripping Kiwis of their work rights, the National/ACT Government has been spurred back into action by an emerging crisis. No, not the international financial meltdown. Nup, not peak oil, nor climate change, nor the recession. The crisis that has seen the Government suddenly announce […]

When will oil peak?

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 1:54 pm, January 12th, 2009 - 40 comments

We’ve seen that oil production in oil fields and countries peaks long before the oil actually runs out, and as individual countries go, so must, inevitably go the world. Once the amount of oil the world is capable of producing starts to fall, things are going to get difficult. Our economy is the use of […]

The supply of oil must peak, get used to it

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 3:24 pm, January 9th, 2009 - 27 comments

There is only so much oil in the world. It was all formed when, over the course of a few hundred million years, creatures living in shallow seas died and their remains accumulated and were subjected to a very particular combination of heat and pressure for hundreds of millions of years. We know where all the sedimentary […]

Anger, that’ll solve our problems

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 2:05 pm, January 9th, 2009 - 11 comments

Yesterday, Labour leader Phil Goff challenged National to present its plan for getting the economy through the global downturn. Halfway through National/ACT’s much-hyped first 100 days and, Goff pointed out, while Obama and the UK are pushing ahead with a ‘Green New Deal’ we’ve seen nothing from National/ACT except the cancelation of the one Green […]

What’s the economy? or why energy matters

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 4:08 pm, January 8th, 2009 - 35 comments

The more I learn about energy, and peak oil in particular, the more concerned I get. So, in the spirit of the season, I thought I would share some of it with you. I’ll get to some concrete things we need to start doing now to mitigate as much as we can the impact of falling […]

For richer

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:17 pm, December 30th, 2008 - 27 comments

I’ve spent the last week touring around the provinces and catching up with old friends and family I haven’t seen for years and part of this has meant traveling to places I haven’t been in over a decade. Nearly every town big or small that I’ve past through has been bigger and seemed far more […]

Debt

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:19 am, December 27th, 2008 - 11 comments

A couple of good but not quite satisfying articles today. The first is Brian Gaynor’s analysis of the economy in which he lays out where we stand financially as a nation and blames the housing boom for our current account deficit: But the message from both the GDP and current account figures is that New […]

Homegrown

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:09 pm, December 26th, 2008 - 11 comments

At the end of my post a couple of days ago I touched on the notion of a new Zealand identity and a Left nationalism. Since then I’ve been thinking about the value of the last government’s moves to foster national identity and their remarkable success in doing so and concluded that this is quite […]