Chart o’ the day: this brighter future

19 comments on “Chart o’ the day: this brighter future ”

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1. mickysavage 1

   13 July 2011 at 9:28 am

   As soon as world growth starts again petroleum consumption will increase, the current supply will be insufficient, the price will spike, recession will occur, then when growth starts again petroleum consumption will increase, the current supply will be insufficient, the price will spike, recession will occur, then when growth starts again petroleum consumption will increase, the current supply will be insufficient, the price will spike, recession will occur, then when growth starts again petroleum consumption will increase, the current supply will be insufficient, the price will spike, recession will occur …

   We need brave political leadership and forward thinkers to get us out of this mess.  Do I hold my breath? 
   • Colonial Viper 1.1

     13 July 2011 at 10:21 am

     We need brave political leadership and forward thinkers to get us out of this mess. Do I hold my breath?

     I thought **you** were working on that MS 🙂

     The other issue is that the US has been running their infrastructure down for decades in an economically extractive process.

     Now they are in so much debt and energy/ore prices are so high they may not have the capability to renew all that infrastructure, even if they wanted to. Material and energy costs will be worse in just a few years time.

     And maintaining their defense commitments is getting harder and harder, not from the standpoint of enemies (the US military is far superior to any enemy force they face today or in the next decade) but from the standpoint of energy.

     Remember one big reason the Germans lost the Western Front? They ran out of oil.

     http://www.dailytech.com/Running+on+Empty+US+Defense+Desperate+for+Biofuels/article22111.htm
     • Lanthanide 1.1.1

       13 July 2011 at 10:32 am

       America has an amazing system of interstate highways built during the 30s-50s. Be interesting to see what comes of them in 20-30 years time when traffic is much reduced, but so is the ability to maintain them.
       • travellerev 1.1.1.1

         13 July 2011 at 11:16 am

         Maybe they know something we don’t but I think you don’t have to wait that long!
     • Zaphod Beeblebrox 1.1.2

       13 July 2011 at 10:42 am

       I suspect the insanity of the ‘small government’ right wing ideology that has taken hold over there is to blame as well. On top of that Special Interest Groups control the agenda. If you want to keep giving tax cuts to the wealthiest and refuse to tax your richest companies, the consequences should be obvious (California’s bankruptcy for example).

       Countries like Germany and South Korea seem to have no difficulty maintaining their infrastructure.
     • Georgecom 1.1.3

       13 July 2011 at 9:21 pm

       And one of the reasons the Soviet Union collapsed, perhaps the chief underlying one on which everything else sat, was that it reached the maximum extractive limits of its oil fields. It reached a peak in extraction and then saw its oil flow start to decline.
   • prism 1.2

     13 July 2011 at 10:45 am

     ms Please don’t you might cark it before anything promising comes along. It looks increasingly urgent to get another government into power that doesn’t leave everything to the dead hand of the market – the one that squeezes the top of the moneybag tight choking any unfortunates in the way, and then scarpers.

     Interesting to watch a financial finangler accused of criminality wanting the state to pay for his defence argument while he apparently is playing shell games with his money swopping it around from trust to trust. This is how the free marketer behaves when he/she is called to account.

     Another way the free market behaves under pressure is like in the great NZ depression, when men were sent off to work on infrastructure in the snow without warm clothing and footwear from work camps. The mindset of the dedicated free marketer could cope with trading in slaves, they can rationalise anything if it keeps them on top even if it denies others having fair and good life conditions. If we leave this shower of pollies in power who knows what witches dark brew they will cook up for the country. Their magic is definitely from the dark side and tawdry as well.
2. Lanthanide 2

   13 July 2011 at 9:32 am

   What the hell is the x-axis on this graph? It’s not labelled. Is it months? Quarters? Years? It’s pretty hard to make any sort of sense out of it.
   • George D 2.1

     13 July 2011 at 10:20 am

     Yep, good work otherwise, but “Always label your axes!”
   • Phil 2.2

     14 July 2011 at 11:09 am

     What the hell is the x-axis on this graph? It’s not labelled. Is it months? Quarters? Years?

     It’s Quarters.
3. vto 3

   13 July 2011 at 9:39 am

   It seems to me we spend more time going backwards than we do going forwards.

   Maybe it’s a bit like technology – all a mirage. Technology rarely creates anything new it just speeds existing things up. Such as paying for things. We used to pay with cash. Then technology said ‘wait, use these eftpos cards, they’re fast and efficient’ with the result that the eftpos queue always moves slower than the cash only queue. Then just recently technology has said again ‘wait, lets use these chip debit cards, they’re fast and efficient’ with the result that the debit card moves slower than the eftpos card queue, and well, the cash queue is just filled with really oddball people who use cash…

   I mean, what does it all mean?
   • Colonial Viper 3.1

     13 July 2011 at 10:14 am

     Heh you better watch it, sounds like you have just taken the Red Pill 🙂
   • oscar 3.2

     13 July 2011 at 4:56 pm

     Speaking of Eftpos, I’d love to see a system whereby eftpos transactions are treated like cash, with the resulting rounding being a tax deduction.
     So you buy something for $27.27, it gets rounded to $27.30. The retailer gets the full amount, and .03c goes to govt.
     If it was $27.23, then round down to $27.20. Retailer loses .03c, no tax.
     It’s no different to how it works now with cash, with the result being a form of financial transaction tax.
4. Zaphod Beeblebrox 4

   13 July 2011 at 9:42 am

   You will need to change the scale on that chart. Treasury thinks we will have 4% gdp growth in 2 years and 170K new jobs. This (and some one off SOE sales) will rescue the NZs fiscal position, using our current taxation structures. Its going to be an economic miracle!
   • Craig Glen Eden 4.1

     13 July 2011 at 10:46 am

     Don’t forget the cycleway ZB when that kicks in their will be no holden NZ back.
     • Invervegas 4.1.1

       13 July 2011 at 11:02 am

       I voted National because of that cycleway.
     • mickysavage 4.1.2

       13 July 2011 at 11:19 am

       holden NZ back
        
       Very good play on words …
        
5. davidc 5

   13 July 2011 at 11:05 am

   That is a great chart!

   My son was born smack in the middle of that big red trough, construction industry was dead way worse than now.

   I am assuming the reason the blue through isnt as deep is that the farmers/exports are doing so well?
6. Invervegas 6

   13 July 2011 at 11:06 am

   please accept my apologies.

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