It is always interesting reading David Farrar’s pitifully shallow analysis on most things as he parrots the National spin line. It is an exercise in how to spin the bad into a virtue. However Farrar did reach a new low when looking at our exports yesterday because he trumpeted the very flaw in our economy as being of value. As usual his analysis was a shallow as the press release from Statistics..
Look more closely and manufacturing is continuing its downward spiral, overall manufacturing is down 3.3% by value for the March year. Dairy exports are up massively. The problem is that dairy exports provide us with minimal jobs directly and indirectly and manufacturing provides a lot of jobs directly and indirectly. The nett effect is that we have a economy that is continuing to be completely moribund because people aren’t earning and there are few wage increases.
If you look more closely at the Table 10 in the Stats department Overseas Merchandise Trade that the press release came from this gives the gross figures on the international code basis. I’ve extracted from that table to give a better idea of what is growing and falling.
Exports and imports by Standard International Trade Classification. March results for 2014 are provisional.
| Exports (fob) | |||||
| Type | March 2013($million) | March 2014 ($million) | Month%change | Quarter %change | Year %change |
| Food and live animals | 2,286 | 2,866 | 25.4 | 28.1 | 16.0 |
| Beverages and tobacco | 124 | 159 | 27.9 | 19.3 | 7.0 |
| Crude materials (inedible, except fuels) | 584 | 617 | 5.6 | 9.6 | 14.1 |
| Mineral fuels (lubricants and related materials) | 167 | 143 | -14.1 | -12.5 | -19.0 |
| Animal and vegetable oils (fats and waxes) | 37 | 27 | -27.2 | 1.0 | -18.9 |
| Chemicals and related products | 206 | 219 | 6.7 | 11.2 | -0.4 |
| Manufactured goods (classified chiefly by material) | 378 | 316 | -16.5 | -6.1 | -3.1 |
| Machinery and transport equipment | 317 | 330 | 4.3 | 0.2 | -9.3 |
| Miscellaneous manufactured articles | 161 | 181 | 12.2 | 7.3 | 3.7 |
| Other | 147 | 221 | 49.6 | 9.6 | 4.1 |
| Total: | 4,408 | 5,079 | 15.2 | 17.4 | 8.5 |
| Total manufactures: | 1,062 | 1,046 | -1.5 | 1.6 | -3.3 |
So even after we look at the massive gains in dairy exports, the gains almost entirely from milk powder sold to China, we had a nett gain of 8.2% over the year in exports. However it was almost entirely in extracting resources, doing minimal processing on them, and shipping them off to other countries to add value. There are few jobs in doing that.
Anything that uses our local skills is falling because this government doesn’t give a damn about it. Instead of concentrating on things that will make all of us wealthy, they’re concentrating on the things that make themselves wealthy. Selling raw commodities offshore and having cheap imports. That is a get rich quick for a few strategy.
We have had these booms in raw and near raw commodities before. They always turn to a big bust when the prices plummet. Whatever jobs that they create disappear and the nett effect afterwards is that the country is worse off. But National’s MPs really don’t care. So many of them either own dairy land or have their noses stuffed into the trough of dairy companies that they really couldn’t give a damn about other kiwis or even their own kids. They’re just making money while the pigs trough is full.
National has had more than five years to show that they really aren’t interested in jobs in the economy. It shows in the export statistics that they really don’t care. They’re just after what makes them wealthy and to the hell with everyone else.
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