Economic apocalypse – not

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 29th, 2013 - 15 comments
Categories: energy, making shit up, spin - Tags: , , , ,

The Nats’ first reaction to NZ Power was hysterical nonsense about North Korea, the 1970s and communists (just like old times – remember when Key said Working for Families was “communism by stealth!”?). That didn’t get them very far. So more recently they (and their proxies) have been pushing the lie that the NZ Power announcement was “economic sabotage”, responsible for wiping out energy company share prizes, the NZ Stock Exchange, NZ Super eavings, etc etc etc.

Bollocks.

Danyl at Dimpost has done a great job of debunking this nonsense with posts graphing Contact Energy shares and the NZ Stock Exchange. Since lies are so often repeated by the political Right, there’s no harm repeating the truth in response. So with full acknowledgment to Danyl for leading the way, here are some relevant graphs. All data is from the NZX website, over a 2 year period, with a grey line showing the 50 day weighted average, and a red vertical line added to show the date of the Labour / Green NZ Power announcement.

The first graph is the Contact Energy Limited ordinary shares price. It takes a dip after the announcement, but nothing unusual, it lost about 7 weeks worth of gains. Hardly the end of the world.

nzx-contact-energy

The second graph is energy index measuring the performance of the energy sector as a whole. Same pattern, no apocalypse.

nzx-energy

The final graph is the NZX All Index for an overview of the whole “stock market”. Why look at that – still going up!

nzx-all

So hey reporters – next time you hear all this apocalyptic spin from the Nats (or some ranting right wing muppet on National Radio shouting that the NZ Power crashed the stock market) you’ll know it’s a lie. Go check the data for yourselves.

15 comments on “Economic apocalypse – not ”

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  1. One Anonymous Knucklehead 1
    29 April 2013 at 9:34 am

    Mathematics is a communist plot.

  2. Ad 2
    29 April 2013 at 9:54 am

    A really helpful post

  3. burt 3
    29 April 2013 at 10:07 am

    Hide the decline !!!!!!!!

  4. Dv 4
    29 April 2013 at 10:11 am

    Burt, what on earth did Rodney have to do with this????????

  5. Enough is Enough 5
    29 April 2013 at 11:30 am

    So what if the values do crash.

    If the value of these companies are artificially inflated because of the super profits being extracted, then a crash in their values as a result of fair profits being signalled is something to celebrate.

    It shows their values are high because they are stealing from us.

    The workers of New Zealand who are are paying too much for power should not be the ones holding up the value of these companies.

    Call it sobotage, call it whatever you want. Steve Pierson should have told Gareth ‘fuck yeah this is something we are happy about”

  6. ak 6
    29 April 2013 at 11:56 am

    Ask any tory who’s ever done a stick of real work in their life and they’ll agree that the millions going to these spivs is just plain disgusting: that greed is evil. And then in the very same breath they’ll defend Key to the hilt, thus ensuring it continues as surely as if they put their hand in their own pockets and donated straight the Heffernans et al there and then. Poor deluded loons, no hope for them, concentrate on the kids.

    • Tim 6.1
      29 April 2013 at 5:52 pm

      Yep, “…..in the very same breath they’ll defend Key to the hilt…….”, right up until the time they’re made redundant or lose part/all of their income, analyse their predicament and realise the missuse’s income is insufficeient to support the Pajero repayments; the 3 day a week pub/bar crawl; the choildcare; the morgidge; and that their NET Present Value = SFA. Then they’ll squeal loik pugs, disavow ever having supported the NActs, and scream poor
      Oh fukin dear! How sad!
      Then watch them react – THAT is ekshly the ‘right’s’ worst enema

  7. tarkwin 7
    29 April 2013 at 2:12 pm

    The way I see it, either the dynamic duo have failed yet again or people who buy shares don’t think they have a prayer in the next years election.

    • One Anonymous Knucklehead 7.1
      29 April 2013 at 2:20 pm

      …or they are objective enough to recognise a 12% return when they see one, and you are vainly spinning hollow drivel that you don’t even believe.

  8. ghostrider888 8
    29 April 2013 at 3:07 pm

    Yep. saw the NZX graph a few days ago; what more evidence do people need of the media being in the tories pockets permitting and enabling all their scare-mongering. ffs.

  9. Colonial Viper 9
    29 April 2013 at 3:42 pm

    A reminder that “the markets” have sweet f.a. to do with the real economy that the rest of us live in. Main St performance =! Wall St performance.

    Especially when the big investment houses keep shovelling newly printed central bank monies into the market inflating financials far ahead of the real world economy.