Well, silly you then. Supply & demand dictate the outcome – so when you get govts of the left & right flooding Aotearoa with immigrants for many years, you get more people than available houses. Stopping the Chinese influx was just the first step, and it happened years later than it ought to have. Politicians ignored the problem for as long as they could, until voters started to notice it.
Given how thick voters are, that was always going to take years. So now the politicians want to cover all Ak's prime food-producing land with houses. We call this democracy in action. We could call it people-pollution.
The usual line – "Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?"
You mean, little to nothing apart from ending various aggravating factors National had allowed to continue, extending the bright-line test, changing rental laws, re-building the Housing ministry and emarking on a massive house-building programme that's currently seeing the most state houses being built since the 1970s? Sour grapes much?
My grapes are ripe yet and I'm not eating them for at least another month….
All that you said on one side of the equation, balanced with: refusing to implement a CGT, not altering the landlord subsidy and keeping the migration tap open.
I notice you avoided bringing Kiwibuild into the discussion…
So, they haven't been able to do every single thing you wanted, which in your mind equates to them having done "little to nothing." Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
I didn't mention Kiwibuild because it's just one part of the house-building programme I mentioned. It's not a very successful part, which I suppose is why you raised it, but the government's programme still has thousands of houses being built every year, something we haven't seen for a long time. How is that "doing little to nothing?"
They have done quite a few things that I am stoked about: moving minimum wage towards living wage, kept quiet during JLR vs Bennett/Bridges, led in an appropriately compassionate way following ChCh murders/ Whakaari, re-entry @ Pike River.
My grizzle is what I mentioned (CGT, accom. supplement, migration) are what I expect from the other mob. Which, by the way, Labour have had three terms to plan how they could avoid the Kiwibuild 'mis-steps'.
No sour grapes from me. I own my own home. my lemon trees aren't liking the haze and lack of summer, but that's another issue.
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises, when all the metrics and evidence point to a complete lack of control of the situation by this government.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises…
Did they promise to have this crisis that was 15 years in the making fixed within two years? That would have been very foolish of them, and it would have been very foolish of you to believe it if they had promised it.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
Again, having blind faith would be foolish. The question is, which of the alternatives in front of this election has policies more likely to improve the housing situation, and which has policies more likely to degrade it further? If you'd prefer the situation to improve, then yes you'd better support this government because the other lot will degrade it further.
Do I A) want the housing crises to worsen slowly so that there is no end in sight or B) do I want to ride unchecked until it’s inevitable crash and hope the government of the day is brave enough to not give bailouts to the enabling parties?
given a desire for either scenario, which major bloc do I vote for Milt? The answers aren’t there as no government of either colour is willing to admit they prefer the outcome of A as it kicks the can so far down the road it won’t be their problem.
Classic Trump / Hillary problem at the moment with the majors. Who do I not want to vote for the least
Jesus, this again. Bitching about a party with 8 MPs failing to dominate the legislative agenda just makes you look stupid. If you want to see more of their policies implemented, encourage more people to vote for them.
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric. Are we supposed to just believe that it will all change for the better if we blindly vote for another term despite current performance?
your exasperation is misplaced. Tell the pollies, the voters are sick of being told they’re stupid for not blindly agreeing
And where is labour on this? They had interventionist policies on housing too and between them and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
And when you look at the make up of this government and find that nz fist have to be placated on some issues, things like the CGT don't get done, which is exactly why the flavour numbers of mps in a coalition matter. It’s not having a simple majority that really counts under mmp.
As The Al1en pointed out already, that's exactly how politics works. If not enough people vote for parties with the kind of policies you'd like to see, those policies don't get enacted.
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric.
The achievements are substantial, especially when you take into account the scale of the problem and the fact the government is a coalition of three parties with sometimes-incompatible agendas. As mentioned already, if you want to see more progress, persuade more people to vote for the party with the policies you want to see enacted and discourage them from voting for parties that will only exacerbate the problem.
…between [Labour] and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
Between them they have 54 seats in a 120-seat Parliament. If you have some hitherto-unknown method of dominating the legislative agenda with a minority of the MPs, please do share it with them.
""Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?""
Classic Jamesisms, nicely captured by Psycho Milt.
Break the Wesfarmers / fletchers building materials supply duopoly, create a nationally funded apprentice college network similar to the old polytechnics and insist that master tradesmen engage at a guild level for apprentices for master accreditation, remove council fees beyond processing costs on consents and therefore the gst on council fees.
Now what do you suggest? Let me guess….kiwibuild reset?
No, strangely enough, I agree with your propositions in that area. Quite good ideas to my mind.
We may be on the same side. The thing is that you appeared to be suggesting that we dump current Govt and vote National again.
Voting National would never achieve what you propose, would it?
No. I’m just not defending this governments behaviour on the premise that National were worse. It’s binary and allows this government to abdicate any responsibility for contributing to the mess
Our over priced housing has multiple causes … all that's happened is one form of aggravation; hot Chinese money looking for a safe haven has been replaced by another aggravation … persistently low interest rates.
And as Dennis says … high migration. One factor everyone likes to pretend won't happen, what happens if the Australian economy/climate tanks and around 500,000 passport holding kiwis with limited access to welfare over the ditch decide to come home? Lowish likelihood, but potentially a big impact.
Yes the low interest rates are the latest tool' to defy market realities.
No Govt can withstand a large drop in property prices.
Hopefully the Coalition or Labour alone, can prevail in the next election and really bring about some programmes to make the Kiwi dream affordable again.
This steady as she goes term ,albeit with good intentions needs to transform into inspired action.
Add into the 500,000 plus New Zealand passport holders several million Australian passport holders who can reside, and buy property, in New Zealand and we could have an accomodation crisis of unimaginable proportions.
I'm not convinced it's likely … but it's a risk we rarely discuss. Given that almost 25% of people ever born in NZ are now living overseas, we are remarkably exposed on this.
The silver lining is that most ex-pats would return with some decent funds and much of it would go into building new housing.
Low interest rates are not driving house prices to any extent, just as high interest rates didn't proclude house price rises prior to the GFC. The reserve bank could raise interest rates to the extent of collapsing the housing market but would at the same time cause mass defaults and probably a recession. This is not a valid policy for an institution charged with promoting financial stability.
But directly there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. The theoretical economic concept of a natural interest rate (for the central bank to target) is also known to be pretty dubious.
The Reserve Bank is not there to "Fix" the current housing crisis. We were told during the election campaign that there this WAS an issue and that should we vote in Labour then this would be rectified. They had 9 years in Govt and 9 years in opposition to isolate the causes and implement fixes to these.
To date there is no evidence that any changes made have halted this issue and that there are signs of the housing crisis abating. To continue with the immigration policy of increasing Kiwis by 55k p.a. does nothing but place increased pressure.
and headlines like this "Rental squeeze: Easier to find a job in Wellington than a flat, says professional on $100,000 salary" does not give confidence that this crisis has been addressed, but has deteriorated.
Are any current or future govts just hoping that the Market Will correct of that there is a recession 🤢??
When historical house price to income ratios are compared with those today,there is an imbalance of concern.
Scrutiny of the sub prime fiasco in the U.S will reveal the frenzy of loan originators to peddle mortgages to anyone with a pulse.
(There was a corresponding increase in supply in the U.S too and non recourse.)
Whilst that has not happened to the same extent here,one feature is very evident and that is ,existing home owners have been increasing borrowing leverage ,ie the wealth effect.
The extension of the brightline test to 5 years appears to have stymied flipping and the foreign buyer rules are having effect. (screaming in Queenstown).
Orr is correct in increasing the banks cap ratios.
People should expect a correlation between house prices and wages and C.P.I
It is no wonder property is excluded from inflation assessments,it would blow them to kingdom come.
$650,000 homes are not affordable homes.
When the rubber hits the road(*recession)people will look to the Govt for a bail out,that's for sure.
We are clearly on different dimensions regarding the meaning of facts and logic. I am sticking to my conclusion that the rate of house price inflation can be measured as the percentage rate of those prices increasing.
So whats the primary cause of interest rate fluctuations for mortgages?
As far as facts and logic go….'there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. '
In your world cost and affordability are not aligned.
The most important factor in setting market interest rates appears to be the OCR. Eg its the interest rate the reserve bank wants. But obviously the reserve bank policy doesn't fluctuate much (and I don't see why that is a relevant thing here).
In the real world cost and affordability are not well aligned. Cost is related to the house price but affordability is a question of income which in a lot of cases doesn't even come from the asset or in other cases is a positive function of asset price appreciation. People buying into the housing market (esp for profit) seem mostly interested in which areas are going to appreciate next, not what the going interest rates are.
'For example, the Reserve Bank would tend to increase the OCR in response to an increase in inflation pressure. The rise in the OCR would tend to flow through to higher bank interest rates, which would offset the pressure by shifting preferences from consumption to saving, because the cost of borrowing has increased, and the return from savings is also higher. This translates into a lower demand for consumption and investment goods, easing the inflation pressure in the economy. When the OCR is raised, it also results in an appreciation of the New Zealand dollar because the demand for New Zealand interest-earning investments increases. As the demand for the New Zealand dollar increases, the value of the dollar appreciates. The higher dollar dampens exports and increases the demand for the relatively cheaper imports, also lowering demand and thus the inflation pressures.'
As far as property inflation goes ,it has been rampant for years and the opposite to the above is being implemented.
Sure, but you know that this conventional wisdom is wrong. This is because there is no such market for savings vs borrowing to trade off in. I have observed in your comments that you know that market doesn't exist because banks originate the funds during the lending process (eg nobody loses access to there savings when a new loan is created so the described trade off doesnt occur).
The inflation measure is the CPI and house prices are only nominally measured within the CPI (building cost increases excluding land) …existing housing asset (bubbles) dont form part of the CPI, some may say conveniently
Nic. You always make challenging replies. You are right that interest rates by themselves are not a direct predictor of house prices … but the ability to service a loan is. We are in quite a different position prior to the GFC, mortgages were typically small enough that interest rates in the 7-9% range could be tolerated.
But now with many households with over $500k of debt, or a lot more, they're a much more sensitive to even quite small interest rate rises.
This is an effect Steven Keen wrote a fair bit on, in the big picture Debt to GDP ratio was a critical parameter most economists didn't place enough importance on at the time. He's been proven right and we see a lot more attention on it now.
I saw what appears a quite enlightening comment by Warren Mosler recently. He describes the inflation process as a price setting mechanism occuring when new (higher) prices are accepted by the institution making payment.
That suggests that commercial banks have been driving house prices with the change to lower equity loans, which the reserve bank has had some influence on. The US had a significant issue with property valuers over valueing properties (at the behest of banks) and this also supports house price inflation.
I don't actually see it as a housing market issue however. Overall the government has not been as accomodating of public sector wages (same mechanism as Mosler describes, govt chooses what to pay public sector) and the shift to monetary policy has squeezed private sector wages for many as well. Its no wonder that housing costs are well above incomes after 20+ years of this pressure. The only surprising thing is that so many people expect a natural and automatic balance to exist between housing and other prices (including wages).
I had already identified during the last election that Labours Kiwi build policy could not 'fix' house prices and was at most hopeful that public sector housing stock would be built. Looking at the housing market as supply and demand driven will never suggest a workable solution to house prices. Asset markets are not remotely amenable to that because asset inflation generates passive income at the same time it adds cost to new market entrants.
I think I found and watched this discussion (June 2018).
At a later stage Mosler makes the same claim that a permanent zero interest rate central bank policy is not inflationary.
I thought Keen was a bit off in his disagreements there. But its probably relevant to understand that a trade surplus makes domestic policy easier to implement.
but that asset price MUST remain serviceable…. otherwise mass default a la GFC subprime mortgages. And the banks (including central) set the rates and create the lending with one eye on that at all times to their maximum perceived benefit…..and we all hope their judgement is not found wanting (again)
Also, I don't see the argument that interest rates of 7-9% were tolerable as saying anything meaningful. The model is not, the Reserve Bank sets interest rates as high as may be tolerated. The model is something like, the Reserve Bank sets an interest rate to bring inflation rate towards the target.
The (small) problems being that monetary policy has neglegible impact on inflation anyway and some key prices (wages and housing) are adjusting relatively to each other in problematic ways.
Socialism as yet undead: "Spain's caretaker socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has narrowly won a confidence vote in parliament, enabling him to govern in coalition with far-left Podemos." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51019358
"The dramatic open vote, by a simple majority of MPs, went 167 to 165 in his favour. Abstentions by Catalan and Basque MPs played a critical role. He will now form a minority government. It will be Spain's first coalition government since democracy was restored in 1978, after the Franco dictatorship."
Can socialists do consensus politics? This will be the test. "The new coalition plans to raise income taxes for those who earn more than €130,000 (£111,000; $145,000) annually. They also plan to reverse some labour market reforms passed by the previous conservative government, which made it easier and less expensive to fire workers."
"PSOE spokeswoman Adriana Lastra accused right-wing MPs of "bullying"." Combining complaint with virtue-signalling in a single word. "She said MP Tomás Guitarte of the small Teruel Existe party had suffered so much pressure that he concealed his whereabouts out of fear. She said he had received more than 8,000 emails urging him to vote "no" instead of "yes"." If 8000 emails arrived in your inbox one day would you run & hide?? Nah, get tough, don't wilt under pressure.
"The ERC decision came after Mr Sánchez agreed to open a formal dialogue on the future of Catalonia, if confirmed as prime minister, and to then submit the dialogue's conclusions to Catalan voters. The Catalan separatists' drive for independence overshadows Spanish politics, with the conservative and far-right opposition parties bitterly opposed to it. Mr Sánchez said he wanted to free Spanish politics of its "toxic atmosphere". He said dialogue was necessary to "overcome the territorial disputes, always in line with the constitution". The PSOE opposes granting Catalans a legal independence referendum, while recognising that both Catalonia and the Basque Country are nations within Spain, and not just regions. The Catalans and Basques already have a large degree of autonomy."
Another Catalan vote seems sensible. If he can design a compromise between enhanced autonomy & independence, and Catalans vote to support it, he will have proven his expertise – and socialism will get some regeneration via consensus politics.
Simon would have received a silky treatment to smoothen the path. He wouldn’t have to say much because, unlike Simon, they are masters in reading body language and would have read him like an open book. They saw him coming all the way from New Zealand.
The relevant principle being non-alignment. Being allied tends to look like non-conformity to the principle, huh? I don't see our help with peace-keeping overseas as making us allies with whatever else country is likewise helping. However, as regards being in the arena when the yanks launch attack drones, perception that we are allied with them could indeed be a problem.
I hope the Greens can get the coalition to see that. Golriz seems to have issued an appropriate message, muted and politic, well done. Now Iraq has called for us to head for the exit, let's do that asap.
But the time is rapidly coming when political leaders and former political leaders need to start sheeting home scathing criticisms directly to the persons responsible ie. Donald Trump and his inner sanctum heavies.
At the moment they act like they are treading oven broken egg shells. All that does is provide the Chump with further evidence he can get away with anything he likes.
This has shades of Lianne Dalziel circa 2002 all over it.
Iirc, Dalziel as Minister of Immigration about that time, sent back to Sri Lanka a young child whose parents were resident, but not citizens, and the child was neither? I could be wrong (probably am) but Lees-Galloway's decision here seems similar.
Labour ministers never seem to have a good record in the immigration portfolio.
Prior to new year's eve, BBC reported Putin "thanked US counterpart Donald Trump for intelligence that helped foil "acts of terrorism" on Russian soil, according to a Kremlin statement. Mr Putin and Mr Trump spoke on the phone on Sunday, it said. The Kremlin said the information came via intelligence services, but it provided no further details."
"Russian media is reporting the discovery of a plot to attack St Petersburg over the new year period. Tass news agency says two Russian nationals have been arrested and plans to attack a mass gathering were seized, according to a spokesperson from the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50941754
It would have been sensible for Trump to have sussed out how Putin felt about his option of taking out the Iranian general, during their discussion. However Trump is rarely sensible, and the option may have come up fast due to being sourced in observation – secret travel arrangements usually don't forewarn opponents.
"In December 2017, Mr Putin thanked Mr Trump for another warning from US intelligence agencies, which again apparently prevented a terrorist plot in St Petersburg, according to a White House account. During that call, the Kremlin said Mr Putin had promised to reciprocate with information about terrorist threats to the United States."
Never discount the value of a verbal contract between top leaders in geopolitics, however conditional they may be. I suspect the two have a reasonable understanding on a personal level. It's a question of how destabilising Putin feels the assassination actually is.
Looks like Putin is being sensible in getting an impartial perspective from the German leader, to avoid the knee-jerk response and optimise his options.
Very interesting. In my mind I've always painted Trump and Putin as 'about as bad as each other, but in very different ways'. What they do have in common is that both are nationalists, and neither man is a sociopath who wants nothing more than to visit devastation on the world.
Putin is first and foremost a Russian nationalist who has led his country to a remarkable recovery from the disaster of the 90's. He absolutely doesn't want a US-Iran confrontation on his southern border region.
Trump is similarly a US nationalist, but who has inherited an intolerable shambles from prior Administrations. He want’s out too, but is so entangled in the ME that he needs to slash and burn some crap first.
That they are talking is more reason to hope than not.
What are your thoughts on the Iran Nuclear agreement and the way Darth Drumpf trashed it, even though his own administration was certifying that Iran was fully complying with it?
N will have been briefed beforehand. Consulted, even, would be my guess. There's a good reason the top jew in the Trump team was put closest to the oval office. "Kushner's office is physically the closest to the Oval Office."
Trump spins on a dime. Here's his framing of the u-turn: "Mr Trump said that "according to various laws" the US should not target these cultural sites. "You know what, if that's what the law is, I like to obey the law," he said." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51027619
Notice the subtle caveat. Guiliani or someone gives him views on which laws it might be a good idea to obey, or when it may be timely to create that impression in the public mind.
Voters rejected Corbyn's socialism, so the Labour mandarins feel they must swing back to market forces and are waving an olive branch at the Blairites?
They could go further. Tell the people that selling the right to vote to the highest bidder is a damn good idea. Have an auction. Middle class wannabes would love it. Get Simon Cowell to stage the thing for primetime tv – suddenly Labour would seem trendy to a huge swathe of voters. 🙄
I paid $5 to vote for Andrew Little as Labour leader. All cobwebs as regards social democracy in that party but present pricks, tho' more sellable, are worse. I hear the party in Britain is now firmly Corbynist in membership, and up the echelons a bit. Which is what I desired from and desire from Corbyn and Sanders respectively.
Sometimes you have to wonder how much the loony Christian fundamentalism within the US government want to see the world burn. Dick Cheney, being the one who opened the door.
Video is 25 minutes long, and good view from a former staffer in the Bush Presidency.
"The Pentagon said Iran fired more than a dozen missiles. "It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. military and coalition personnel at Al-Assad and Irbil," Jonathan Hoffman, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said in a statement." https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/us-iran-soleimani-tensions-intl-01-07-20/index.html
If Pompeo wasn't killed, Iran has failed to achieve parity. Mullahs failing to respond severely, after declaring they would, are likely to lose credibility in the opinions of their followers. Will the govt of Iraq declare war on Iran? An unprovoked attack on two of their bases merits the traditional response. Having told all foreigners to get out, these tough guys are dead keen to go it alone. Or maybe not…
What a puerile, childish and idiotic comment. The Iraqi government is powerless.
The two bases hit are effectively US territory, and they are unequivocally major US military installations being unequivocally attacked by the military of Iran.
The Greek chorus of Trumpian chumps who made light on this site of the assassination of Qassem Suleimani completely failed to grasp that by carrying out that killing the United States effectively declared war on Iran. No nation can sit back and allow another to assassinate it's top leaders with impunity. Iran is now taking the US at it's word and has struck back.
To make it clear – by any reasonable standard of international behaviour a state of war has existed between Iran and the United States since the 3rd of January 2020.
What the fuck did the US administration think Iran would do after that assassination?
Iran and the US have been in a state of conflict for a very long time … while it's true the Trump pushed events over an important threshold in the past week … none of this happened in a vacuum.
The theocratic thugs who run the Iranian regime are not nice innocent people, any more than any of the other cynical bastards tangled up in this.
Get a grip, lad. If they were US bases CNN would have described them as such. Or are you trying to subtly imply CNN journalists can't even get such elementary facts right??
How adequate the response from Iran has been remains to be seen from casualty figures. My point was re the court of public opinion in Iran. Loss of their top military commander, weighed in the balance against how many US soldiers?
Most people would view that as an ineffective response regardless. Think of it as a chess move: lose a Queen and retaliate by taking a few pawns. Doesn't rate.
Hey Sanctuary, in the interests of not increasing people's stress, can you please tone down the pejoratives? It's fine to point to perceived ignorance in comments with some analysis, but once you start aiming that at people and name calling, it becomes a problem for moderators.
I hear you, but at the same time if someone writes six plus posts of 600 odd words and then reveals he isn't even aware of what bases the US has in Iraq…
Well, being called an idiot I would have thought is as polite a reply as one should expect.
I bite my tongue on the internet all the time 😉 The choices we make about what we write after reacting are what determine whether a shit fight breaks out (and then whether the mods get involved).
I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?
The point being that the rockets were an offensive action against both countries – Iraq and USA. I get why leftists are addicted to demonising the USA. Spent much of my life feeling that way too! But political commentary is more effective when based on fact rather than misrepresentation.
"I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?"
No idea. I'm not reading much of the commentary on this, just enough to keep an eye on moderation and what might be developing. My main point here would be that tensions are high enough without us winding each other up 🙂 Where that line lies is on all of us.
The point being that the rockets were an offensive action against both countries – Iraq and USA.
Just as the US drone strike in the Iraqi airport was a offensive action against both Iraq and Iran. Looks to me like a proportionate response bearing in mind that the drone didn’t give radar warnings of have to go through have to go through anti-missile defenses.
Most people understand tit for tat. It's even in the Bible (`an eye for an eye'). But, as I pointed out in 12.1, re the effect on the credibility of the mullahs, those that count are in Iran.
The reason Sanctuary is doing his hysterical thing is that the truth hurts, so folks get emotional. Once the feelings subside, a cooler clearer appraisal becomes possible…
I think a “cooler clearer appraisal” might not apply to “most people” in Iran now. I think the Kiwis in Iraq might also have slightly heightened emotions.
Attention Jenny: noting a Moderation note is not sufficient. You need to respond to it in a way that shows that you understand and accept your moderation otherwise we’ll just go around in circles, which will lead to a lengthy ban.
Until I’ve seen a satisfactory response from you, you can stop posting comments because they will automatically end up in Trash and I have no means to restore them retrospectively (and this would take up more of my precious time).
Attention Ross: Please stop ‘testing’ because it won’t get you anywhere until you respond to the latest Moderation note that was left for you to respond to and satisfy the Moderator.
I only test when the reply button goes walkabout. Submitting a comment returns the reply option, and then I delete the test message (unless this sticky mouse button posts two entries, as it sometimes does, then only one test entry permits editing).
Nah, tried all options, including deleting browser data, ccleaning, purging, fasting and praying to the aliens. Only thing that fixes it (for me) is to make a test post.
Sorry for the troublesome desk rodent when it plays up, though. I should pick up a new key/mouse set at some stage, but at least the reason for my tests are out there now. lol
BREAKING: Iran launches missile attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq, according to Iranian state media
Al Asad air base in western Iraq, which houses U.S. troops, was hit by at least six rockets, according to a U.S. defense official. The White House said it was aware of reports of attacks on American facilities in Iraq and that President Trump is monitoring the situation and consulting with his national security team."
could be useful too. Consumption is the big driver of CC. The problem for NZ is that we choose not to protect vulnerable people. It won't hurt the middle classes to tighten their belts, but I wish they'd learn to share more.
on the contrary…if oil increases it will impact 'growth' and the expected reaction would be an interest rate cut to offset (if there were room to cut) the reduced economic activity
Depends what it does to inflation for the rbnz to cut.if there are pricing signals of an increase the rbnz wont cut.
Internal food costs are sensitive to transport (and a poor growing season at present due to colder weather) impacts the poor firstly on a day to day basis.
RBNZ has 'looked through' potential inflationary spikes for years now….any inflationary impact is likely to be temporary, remembering that fuel prices typically fluctuate through quite a wide range for various reasons….however as said the likely impact on interest rates (if any) would be expected to be down rather than up
Lucky Trump's actions were triggered by something irrelevant, something that doesn't mean anything to him – impeachment – an illegal action of course and without any evidence. (he reckons.)
Imagine how crazy he'd have gone if he was more personally challenged like his tax and financial records facing the usual open scrutiny and ensuing legal challenges. The claimant of the biggest dick being found to need a magnifying glass to be identified would have really set him off.
[Be careful typing your user name correctly, thanks]
The Iranians have made no attempt to hide their direct attack on US forces in Iraq. This is a state action, a response to what was basically a US declaration of war on them. The only hope now for peace is for Trump to panic and chicken out. I really hope Trump doesn't think this is a good war to help his re-election bid. A US president who loses a war won't be popular.
Shit Taji is where the ANZAC training team is atm, I hope Jandal’s tells Ronnie to get the troop asap and thank **** I’m no longer in the Forces and if they do ask me back to the colours it will be a f*** off sunshine etc as I’m not fighting for dumps silly little war / WW3 the Yanks started it so let them finish it without us.
All we need is Rocket man to throw something at Dump and Putin to do something in the Baltic, come to think I’ve read a novel by someone on this same scenario where a war kicks off in the Sandpit and rest fall like dominos.
Poission, I’m not too worried about the Russians in Syria as they have in Syria since late 50’s to early 60’s from memory. But it’s Baltic States that are the weak link to NATO and to EU, if I were a betting man that where I think Putin will strike nexts therefore splitting the western alliance/ economy.
Just watching Trump's son rabbiting on about great his father is. He hasn't said he agrees so much about sorting the Middle East out that he's putting his hand up to go there and help. Funny that.
Last time I was at Kiwiblog they had a regular 400 odd commenters. Versus Left blogs with a quarter of that. 'Kommon Zense' as per talkback radio? Appealing to know-nothingers with a near body to kick apparently beats reason, balance, Ballance, Savage and the whole of our corner of knowledge.
It's very hard to denie climate change global warming and Sealevels rising is our reality. All the intelligence people must keep up the Mana mahi and champion a clean and Green future for all of our mokopuna.
The 2010s were almost certainly the hottest decade on record — and it showed. The world burned, melted and flooded. Heat waves smashed temperature records around the globe. Glaciers lost ice at accelerating rates. Sea levels continued to swell.
At the same time, scientists have diligently worked to untangle the chaos of a rapidly warming planet.
In the past decade, scientists substantially improved their ability to draw connections between climate change and extreme weather events. They made breakthroughs in their understanding of ice sheets. They raised critical questions about the implications of Arctic warming. They honed their predictions about future climate change
The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, with temperatures rising at least twice as fast as the global average.
places like the United States, Europe and parts of Asia — for instance, a link between shrinking sea ice and cold winters in Siberia, or Arctic heat waves and extreme winter weather in the United States.
The trouble is models have a hard time capturing the causes driving these connections.
"No one argues that the Arctic meltdown will affect weather patterns, the question is exactly how," said Arctic climate expert Jennifer Francis, a researcher at Woods Hole Research Center. "So figuring out what's not right in the models will be a major focus. Without realistic models, it's hard to use them to separate Arctic influences from other possible factors."
Resolving the debate will require "a combination of data and modeling," according to NASA climatologist Claire Parkinson. Many scientists are already hard at work on this issue.
One ongoing project known as the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project is conducting a series of coordinated model experiments, all using the same standard methods, to investigate the Arctic climate and its connections to the rest of the globe. Experts say these kinds of projects may help explain why modeling studies conducted by different groups with different methods don't always get the same results.
At the same time, improving the way that physical processes are represented in Arctic climate models is also essential, according to Xiangdong Zhang, an Arctic and atmospheric scientist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Outside that debate, there are still big questions about the Arctic climate to resolve. Scientists know the Arctic is heating up at breakneck speed — but they're still investigating all the reasons why.
Researchers believe a combination of feedback processes are probably at play. Sea ice and snow help reflect sunlight away from the Earth. As they melt away, they allow more heat to reach the surface, warming the local climate and causing even more melting to occur.
One key question for the coming decade, Zhang said in an email, is "what relative role each of the physical processes plays and how these processes work together" to drive the accelerating warming.
Unraveling these feedbacks will help scientists better predict how fast the Arctic will warm in the future, according to Francis — and how quickly they should expect its consequences to occur. They include vanishing sea ice, thawing permafrost and melting on the Greenland ice sheet
Sea-level rise is one of the most serious consequences of climate change, with the potential to displace millions of people in coastal areas around the world.
There are many old technologically advanced societies around the world that have vanished. They have built structures that our modern society can not duplicate even with all our modern technology.???? So what caused the collapse of these old civilisation the same thing that is causing our world problems man taking mother nature for granted. Climate change and global warming sea level rising. Our scientists have waved a red flag for 40 years. The wealthiest people choose to ignore their warnings and worse they use their money to distort the reality of common people who some they know will be easily manipulated into believing there lies giving them power and in reality putting there own mokopuna in the jeopardy Wake up.
The environment in 2050: flooded cities, forced migration – and the Amazon turning to savannah
Unless we focus on shared solutions, violent storms and devastating blazes could be the least of the world’s troubles. Civilisation itself will be at risk
Good morning. Here is the shipping forecast for midday, 21 June, 2050. Seas will be rough, with violent storms and visibility ranging from poor to very poor for the next 24 hours. The outlook for tomorrow is less fair.”
All being well, this could be a weather bulletin released by the Met Office and broadcast by the BBC in the middle of this century. Destructive gales may not sound like good news, but they will be among the least of the world’s problems in the coming era of peak climate turbulence. With social collapse a very real threat in the next 30 years, it will be an achievement in 2050 if there are still institutions to make weather predictions, radio transmitters to share them and seafarers willing to listen to the archaic content.
I write this imaginary forecast with an apology to Tim Radford, the former Guardian science editor, who used the same device in 2004 to open a remarkably prescient prediction on the likely impacts of global warming on the world in 2020.
Journalists generally hate to go on record about the future. We are trained to report on the very recent past, not gaze into crystal balls. On those occasions when we have to venture ahead of the present, most of us play it safe by avoiding dates that could prove us wrong, or quoting others.
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent.
North land experienceing drought we have to listen to our scientists and plan for the weather conditions that they have forcast or else one will be in trouble.
A green turtle laying its eggs on a popular beach in Australia it good they have people with the knowledge to move the turtle eggs safely.
That's great Simaria getting The BBC to pay you the same putea as men Mana Wahine.
Trees grow much faster in Aotearoa than other countries maple syrup would be a great sestanable tree crop.
New technologies bowel cancer diegnosed with a mask it's the Ion age great new invention.
That's a excellent take of the hundreds of Sharks around the Great Barrier Islands. Sharks are a important part of Tangaroa environment and need to be protected and preserved.
Tyson was lucky to servive when his whare burnt down in the middle of winter.
The slide look cool A penguin but it slides the tamariki out to fast causeing injuries one would think they would test it before letting the public tamariki use it.???
I think thats a great move to ban exports of whitebait it will be awesome that in 30 years time everyone comes to Aotearoa to see our presteen wildlife and environment.
The Moana getting hot That's not good it doesn't take much temperatures to rise for life to get extremely difficult.
Bioluminesent sea creatures making Tangaroa look beautiful cool.
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
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Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
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https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2020/01/property-prices-largest-national-value-increase-in-years-auckland-dunedin-soaring.html
I thought banning Chineese sounding named people buying houses was going to keep prices down?
Well, silly you then. Supply & demand dictate the outcome – so when you get govts of the left & right flooding Aotearoa with immigrants for many years, you get more people than available houses. Stopping the Chinese influx was just the first step, and it happened years later than it ought to have. Politicians ignored the problem for as long as they could, until voters started to notice it.
Given how thick voters are, that was always going to take years. So now the politicians want to cover all Ak's prime food-producing land with houses. We call this democracy in action. We could call it people-pollution.
The usual line – "Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?"
The problem is that the Government has done little to nothing. No one expects a full fix, but progress is a fair expectation wouldn't you agree?
You mean, little to nothing apart from ending various aggravating factors National had allowed to continue, extending the bright-line test, changing rental laws, re-building the Housing ministry and emarking on a massive house-building programme that's currently seeing the most state houses being built since the 1970s? Sour grapes much?
My grapes are ripe yet and I'm not eating them for at least another month….
All that you said on one side of the equation, balanced with: refusing to implement a CGT, not altering the landlord subsidy and keeping the migration tap open.
I notice you avoided bringing Kiwibuild into the discussion…
So, they haven't been able to do every single thing you wanted, which in your mind equates to them having done "little to nothing." Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
I didn't mention Kiwibuild because it's just one part of the house-building programme I mentioned. It's not a very successful part, which I suppose is why you raised it, but the government's programme still has thousands of houses being built every year, something we haven't seen for a long time. How is that "doing little to nothing?"
They have done quite a few things that I am stoked about: moving minimum wage towards living wage, kept quiet during JLR vs Bennett/Bridges, led in an appropriately compassionate way following ChCh murders/ Whakaari, re-entry @ Pike River.
My grizzle is what I mentioned (CGT, accom. supplement, migration) are what I expect from the other mob. Which, by the way, Labour have had three terms to plan how they could avoid the Kiwibuild 'mis-steps'.
Next to nothing is far from my thinking.
BTW, I meant my grapes aren't ripe.
No sour grapes from me. I own my own home. my lemon trees aren't liking the haze and lack of summer, but that's another issue.
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises, when all the metrics and evidence point to a complete lack of control of the situation by this government.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises…
Did they promise to have this crisis that was 15 years in the making fixed within two years? That would have been very foolish of them, and it would have been very foolish of you to believe it if they had promised it.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
Again, having blind faith would be foolish. The question is, which of the alternatives in front of this election has policies more likely to improve the housing situation, and which has policies more likely to degrade it further? If you'd prefer the situation to improve, then yes you'd better support this government because the other lot will degrade it further.
Do I A) want the housing crises to worsen slowly so that there is no end in sight or B) do I want to ride unchecked until it’s inevitable crash and hope the government of the day is brave enough to not give bailouts to the enabling parties?
given a desire for either scenario, which major bloc do I vote for Milt? The answers aren’t there as no government of either colour is willing to admit they prefer the outcome of A as it kicks the can so far down the road it won’t be their problem.
Classic Trump / Hillary problem at the moment with the majors. Who do I not want to vote for the least
The Greens have interventionist housing policies.
Yet not the power to implement them. This is mmp, we have to think about power blocs.
If people don't vote for them they don't have the power to implement their policies, no. You can help rectify that situation by voting for them.
But they have been voted for, and they are in government. Yet the problems seem to be getting worse and not better.
Jesus, this again. Bitching about a party with 8 MPs failing to dominate the legislative agenda just makes you look stupid. If you want to see more of their policies implemented, encourage more people to vote for them.
not really how politics works is it though milt?
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric. Are we supposed to just believe that it will all change for the better if we blindly vote for another term despite current performance?
your exasperation is misplaced. Tell the pollies, the voters are sick of being told they’re stupid for not blindly agreeing
And where is labour on this? They had interventionist policies on housing too and between them and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
That's exactly how it works, that is, get more mps under mmp and you'll proportionally have more clout around a coalition table.
For example: 40 labour mps and 21 greens, will give you much more left of centre policy than what's offered currently.
30 labour seats and 31 greens would be totally different again.
What bit are you not getting?.
The current government has how many mps? Enough to govern correct?
And how many promises did they make on housing? enough to get voted in.
Now voters get to choose whether those promises were kept
And when you look at the make up of this government and find that nz fist have to be placated on some issues, things like the CGT don't get done, which is exactly why the flavour numbers of mps in a coalition matter. It’s not having a simple majority that really counts under mmp.
not really how politics works is it though milt?
As The Al1en pointed out already, that's exactly how politics works. If not enough people vote for parties with the kind of policies you'd like to see, those policies don't get enacted.
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric.
The achievements are substantial, especially when you take into account the scale of the problem and the fact the government is a coalition of three parties with sometimes-incompatible agendas. As mentioned already, if you want to see more progress, persuade more people to vote for the party with the policies you want to see enacted and discourage them from voting for parties that will only exacerbate the problem.
…between [Labour] and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
Between them they have 54 seats in a 120-seat Parliament. If you have some hitherto-unknown method of dominating the legislative agenda with a minority of the MPs, please do share it with them.
""Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?""
Classic Jamesisms, nicely captured by Psycho Milt.
a classic guytonism, assuming that because isn't fixed entirely, that it's in hand and will be fixed if we have enough faith in his chosen cause
Classic Climaction – decrying others' faith, but showing none of his/her own.
Pray tell us, Climaction – What should we all do in your depiction of our dire situation?
Break the Wesfarmers / fletchers building materials supply duopoly, create a nationally funded apprentice college network similar to the old polytechnics and insist that master tradesmen engage at a guild level for apprentices for master accreditation, remove council fees beyond processing costs on consents and therefore the gst on council fees.
Now what do you suggest? Let me guess….kiwibuild reset?
No, strangely enough, I agree with your propositions in that area. Quite good ideas to my mind.
We may be on the same side. The thing is that you appeared to be suggesting that we dump current Govt and vote National again.
Voting National would never achieve what you propose, would it?
No. I’m just not defending this governments behaviour on the premise that National were worse. It’s binary and allows this government to abdicate any responsibility for contributing to the mess
But if you thereby encourage people to vote National instead, what happens then?
Our over priced housing has multiple causes … all that's happened is one form of aggravation; hot Chinese money looking for a safe haven has been replaced by another aggravation … persistently low interest rates.
And as Dennis says … high migration. One factor everyone likes to pretend won't happen, what happens if the Australian economy/climate tanks and around 500,000 passport holding kiwis with limited access to welfare over the ditch decide to come home? Lowish likelihood, but potentially a big impact.
Yes I've been wondering how much these recent few seasons will be prompting kiwis to rethink Oz. I was always eyeing Tassie as a plan B.
I know many who are seriously considering it now their kids are self sufficient as living in those Ozzie cities is getting to be quite the grind.
There's also expats in the UK and Hong Kong looking for an escape from the political turmoil, plus Australians looking to escape the climate turmoil.
There was an opinion piece at the weekend from a real estate agent salivating at the prospect. He described NZ as having a glowing future.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/118569686/house-prices-will-continue-their-steady-growth-in-2020-but-lets-wait-and-see-about-this-election
Yes the low interest rates are the latest tool' to defy market realities.
No Govt can withstand a large drop in property prices.
Hopefully the Coalition or Labour alone, can prevail in the next election and really bring about some programmes to make the Kiwi dream affordable again.
This steady as she goes term ,albeit with good intentions needs to transform into inspired action.
Add into the 500,000 plus New Zealand passport holders several million Australian passport holders who can reside, and buy property, in New Zealand and we could have an accomodation crisis of unimaginable proportions.
I'm not convinced it's likely … but it's a risk we rarely discuss. Given that almost 25% of people ever born in NZ are now living overseas, we are remarkably exposed on this.
The silver lining is that most ex-pats would return with some decent funds and much of it would go into building new housing.
Low interest rates are not driving house prices to any extent, just as high interest rates didn't proclude house price rises prior to the GFC. The reserve bank could raise interest rates to the extent of collapsing the housing market but would at the same time cause mass defaults and probably a recession. This is not a valid policy for an institution charged with promoting financial stability.
But directly there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. The theoretical economic concept of a natural interest rate (for the central bank to target) is also known to be pretty dubious.
The Reserve Bank is not there to "Fix" the current housing crisis. We were told during the election campaign that there this WAS an issue and that should we vote in Labour then this would be rectified. They had 9 years in Govt and 9 years in opposition to isolate the causes and implement fixes to these.
To date there is no evidence that any changes made have halted this issue and that there are signs of the housing crisis abating. To continue with the immigration policy of increasing Kiwis by 55k p.a. does nothing but place increased pressure.
and headlines like this "Rental squeeze: Easier to find a job in Wellington than a flat, says professional on $100,000 salary" does not give confidence that this crisis has been addressed, but has deteriorated.
Are any current or future govts just hoping that the Market Will correct of that there is a recession 🤢??
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/103058/people-arriving-nz-work-and-long-term-visitor-visas-record-highs-12-months-october
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12298132
Does the inherent contradiction in your post escape you.
Look at house prices pre 2008 and now!
A 400k house @ 8% ,vs an 800k house @ 4%.
Savers have been getting their heads kicked in and RE has a reputation as an appreciating asset and the best 'bank' for funds compared to anything.
Interest rates and exchange rates are an artificial construct and do not reflect any supposed 'market' forces.
"Does the inherent contradiction in your post escape you.
Look at house prices pre 2008 and now!"
A quick look at the RBNZ house price index should demonstrate to you that house prices were rising faster prior to 2008 than since.
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/key-graphs/key-graph-house-price-values
The % rate of increase is not the point.
The total cost is.
When historical house price to income ratios are compared with those today,there is an imbalance of concern.
Scrutiny of the sub prime fiasco in the U.S will reveal the frenzy of loan originators to peddle mortgages to anyone with a pulse.
(There was a corresponding increase in supply in the U.S too and non recourse.)
Whilst that has not happened to the same extent here,one feature is very evident and that is ,existing home owners have been increasing borrowing leverage ,ie the wealth effect.
The extension of the brightline test to 5 years appears to have stymied flipping and the foreign buyer rules are having effect. (screaming in Queenstown).
Orr is correct in increasing the banks cap ratios.
People should expect a correlation between house prices and wages and C.P.I
It is no wonder property is excluded from inflation assessments,it would blow them to kingdom come.
$650,000 homes are not affordable homes.
When the rubber hits the road(*recession)people will look to the Govt for a bail out,that's for sure.
We are clearly on different dimensions regarding the meaning of facts and logic. I am sticking to my conclusion that the rate of house price inflation can be measured as the percentage rate of those prices increasing.
So whats the primary cause of interest rate fluctuations for mortgages?
As far as facts and logic go….'there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. '
In your world cost and affordability are not aligned.
The most important factor in setting market interest rates appears to be the OCR. Eg its the interest rate the reserve bank wants. But obviously the reserve bank policy doesn't fluctuate much (and I don't see why that is a relevant thing here).
In the real world cost and affordability are not well aligned. Cost is related to the house price but affordability is a question of income which in a lot of cases doesn't even come from the asset or in other cases is a positive function of asset price appreciation. People buying into the housing market (esp for profit) seem mostly interested in which areas are going to appreciate next, not what the going interest rates are.
Interesting given conventional wisdom…
'For example, the Reserve Bank would tend to increase the OCR in response to an increase in inflation pressure. The rise in the OCR would tend to flow through to higher bank interest rates, which would offset the pressure by shifting preferences from consumption to saving, because the cost of borrowing has increased, and the return from savings is also higher. This translates into a lower demand for consumption and investment goods, easing the inflation pressure in the economy. When the OCR is raised, it also results in an appreciation of the New Zealand dollar because the demand for New Zealand interest-earning investments increases. As the demand for the New Zealand dollar increases, the value of the dollar appreciates. The higher dollar dampens exports and increases the demand for the relatively cheaper imports, also lowering demand and thus the inflation pressures.'
As far as property inflation goes ,it has been rampant for years and the opposite to the above is being implemented.
Sure, but you know that this conventional wisdom is wrong. This is because there is no such market for savings vs borrowing to trade off in. I have observed in your comments that you know that market doesn't exist because banks originate the funds during the lending process (eg nobody loses access to there savings when a new loan is created so the described trade off doesnt occur).
@ Blazer
The inflation measure is the CPI and house prices are only nominally measured within the CPI (building cost increases excluding land) …existing housing asset (bubbles) dont form part of the CPI, some may say conveniently
Nic. You always make challenging replies. You are right that interest rates by themselves are not a direct predictor of house prices … but the ability to service a loan is. We are in quite a different position prior to the GFC, mortgages were typically small enough that interest rates in the 7-9% range could be tolerated.
But now with many households with over $500k of debt, or a lot more, they're a much more sensitive to even quite small interest rate rises.
This is an effect Steven Keen wrote a fair bit on, in the big picture Debt to GDP ratio was a critical parameter most economists didn't place enough importance on at the time. He's been proven right and we see a lot more attention on it now.
I saw what appears a quite enlightening comment by Warren Mosler recently. He describes the inflation process as a price setting mechanism occuring when new (higher) prices are accepted by the institution making payment.
That suggests that commercial banks have been driving house prices with the change to lower equity loans, which the reserve bank has had some influence on. The US had a significant issue with property valuers over valueing properties (at the behest of banks) and this also supports house price inflation.
I don't actually see it as a housing market issue however. Overall the government has not been as accomodating of public sector wages (same mechanism as Mosler describes, govt chooses what to pay public sector) and the shift to monetary policy has squeezed private sector wages for many as well. Its no wonder that housing costs are well above incomes after 20+ years of this pressure. The only surprising thing is that so many people expect a natural and automatic balance to exist between housing and other prices (including wages).
I had already identified during the last election that Labours Kiwi build policy could not 'fix' house prices and was at most hopeful that public sector housing stock would be built. Looking at the housing market as supply and demand driven will never suggest a workable solution to house prices. Asset markets are not remotely amenable to that because asset inflation generates passive income at the same time it adds cost to new market entrants.
Good points; that all makes sense. Any chance of a link to Warren Mosler please?
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=44010
Its about a 26 minute video i think.
Ta.
I see Keen and Mosler have an interesting looking video on YT @ Real Progressives.
I think I found and watched this discussion (June 2018).
At a later stage Mosler makes the same claim that a permanent zero interest rate central bank policy is not inflationary.
I thought Keen was a bit off in his disagreements there. But its probably relevant to understand that a trade surplus makes domestic policy easier to implement.
but that asset price MUST remain serviceable…. otherwise mass default a la GFC subprime mortgages. And the banks (including central) set the rates and create the lending with one eye on that at all times to their maximum perceived benefit…..and we all hope their judgement is not found wanting (again)
I make the distinction between the individual and the systemic…banks (including central) are unconcerned with the individual
Also, I don't see the argument that interest rates of 7-9% were tolerable as saying anything meaningful. The model is not, the Reserve Bank sets interest rates as high as may be tolerated. The model is something like, the Reserve Bank sets an interest rate to bring inflation rate towards the target.
The (small) problems being that monetary policy has neglegible impact on inflation anyway and some key prices (wages and housing) are adjusting relatively to each other in problematic ways.
Socialism as yet undead: "Spain's caretaker socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has narrowly won a confidence vote in parliament, enabling him to govern in coalition with far-left Podemos." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51019358
"The dramatic open vote, by a simple majority of MPs, went 167 to 165 in his favour. Abstentions by Catalan and Basque MPs played a critical role. He will now form a minority government. It will be Spain's first coalition government since democracy was restored in 1978, after the Franco dictatorship."
Can socialists do consensus politics? This will be the test. "The new coalition plans to raise income taxes for those who earn more than €130,000 (£111,000; $145,000) annually. They also plan to reverse some labour market reforms passed by the previous conservative government, which made it easier and less expensive to fire workers."
"PSOE spokeswoman Adriana Lastra accused right-wing MPs of "bullying"." Combining complaint with virtue-signalling in a single word. "She said MP Tomás Guitarte of the small Teruel Existe party had suffered so much pressure that he concealed his whereabouts out of fear. She said he had received more than 8,000 emails urging him to vote "no" instead of "yes"." If 8000 emails arrived in your inbox one day would you run & hide?? Nah, get tough, don't wilt under pressure.
"The ERC decision came after Mr Sánchez agreed to open a formal dialogue on the future of Catalonia, if confirmed as prime minister, and to then submit the dialogue's conclusions to Catalan voters. The Catalan separatists' drive for independence overshadows Spanish politics, with the conservative and far-right opposition parties bitterly opposed to it. Mr Sánchez said he wanted to free Spanish politics of its "toxic atmosphere". He said dialogue was necessary to "overcome the territorial disputes, always in line with the constitution". The PSOE opposes granting Catalans a legal independence referendum, while recognising that both Catalonia and the Basque Country are nations within Spain, and not just regions. The Catalans and Basques already have a large degree of autonomy."
Another Catalan vote seems sensible. If he can design a compromise between enhanced autonomy & independence, and Catalans vote to support it, he will have proven his expertise – and socialism will get some regeneration via consensus politics.
So the Asia Editor of the Financial Times can’t help wondering what on earth Simon Bridges might have to say to the Head of China’s secret police?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/118419927/national-mp-jian-yang-organised-simon-bridges-controversial-china-trip-emails-show
simon would have had fuck all to say ,he was their to listen would be my guess
Simon would have received a silky treatment to smoothen the path. He wouldn’t have to say much because, unlike Simon, they are masters in reading body language and would have read him like an open book. They saw him coming all the way from New Zealand.
From the horses mouth (or at least their twittering): "to discuss the many areas our countries have in common and how we can strengthen ties."
As its the CCP secret police, I assume the ties are cable ties used on interviewees.
Croatians have ditched the far right:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/06/croatia-elects-leftist-zoran-milanovic-to-be-next-president?
Greens defence spokesperson: "I think that is a good place for New Zealand to be, that we stand as a principled voice on the international stage and we do call out our allies". https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/406869/new-zealand-should-be-a-principled-voice-as-us-iran-tensions-rise-golriz-ghahraman-says
The relevant principle being non-alignment. Being allied tends to look like non-conformity to the principle, huh? I don't see our help with peace-keeping overseas as making us allies with whatever else country is likewise helping. However, as regards being in the arena when the yanks launch attack drones, perception that we are allied with them could indeed be a problem.
I hope the Greens can get the coalition to see that. Golriz seems to have issued an appropriate message, muted and politic, well done. Now Iraq has called for us to head for the exit, let's do that asap.
Thanks Wayne. It needed to be said and a former Defence Minister with Foreign Affairs credentials was the right person to start the ball rolling:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/406882/like-throwing-a-match-on-tinder-paper-wayne-mapp-on-us-iran-tensions
But the time is rapidly coming when political leaders and former political leaders need to start sheeting home scathing criticisms directly to the persons responsible ie. Donald Trump and his inner sanctum heavies.
At the moment they act like they are treading oven broken egg shells. All that does is provide the Chump with further evidence he can get away with anything he likes.
Snap. Just popped that on another post.
'It's too expensive for us to allow you to stay here so we have to make sure you leave.'
Good on you, Lees-Galloway, good on you.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/118630641/brain-tumour-survivor-to-be-deported-to-the-philippines-over-medical-costs
This has shades of Lianne Dalziel circa 2002 all over it.
Iirc, Dalziel as Minister of Immigration about that time, sent back to Sri Lanka a young child whose parents were resident, but not citizens, and the child was neither? I could be wrong (probably am) but Lees-Galloway's decision here seems similar.
Labour ministers never seem to have a good record in the immigration portfolio.
Prior to new year's eve, BBC reported Putin "thanked US counterpart Donald Trump for intelligence that helped foil "acts of terrorism" on Russian soil, according to a Kremlin statement. Mr Putin and Mr Trump spoke on the phone on Sunday, it said. The Kremlin said the information came via intelligence services, but it provided no further details."
"Russian media is reporting the discovery of a plot to attack St Petersburg over the new year period. Tass news agency says two Russian nationals have been arrested and plans to attack a mass gathering were seized, according to a spokesperson from the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50941754
It would have been sensible for Trump to have sussed out how Putin felt about his option of taking out the Iranian general, during their discussion. However Trump is rarely sensible, and the option may have come up fast due to being sourced in observation – secret travel arrangements usually don't forewarn opponents.
"In December 2017, Mr Putin thanked Mr Trump for another warning from US intelligence agencies, which again apparently prevented a terrorist plot in St Petersburg, according to a White House account. During that call, the Kremlin said Mr Putin had promised to reciprocate with information about terrorist threats to the United States."
Never discount the value of a verbal contract between top leaders in geopolitics, however conditional they may be. I suspect the two have a reasonable understanding on a personal level. It's a question of how destabilising Putin feels the assassination actually is.
"The German chancellor will travel to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin this coming Saturday. The pair plan to discuss the Iran escalation as well as the conflicts in Ukraine, Libya and Syria." https://www.dw.com/en/putin-invites-merkel-to-russia-over-iran-crisis/a-51900382
Looks like Putin is being sensible in getting an impartial perspective from the German leader, to avoid the knee-jerk response and optimise his options.
Very interesting. In my mind I've always painted Trump and Putin as 'about as bad as each other, but in very different ways'. What they do have in common is that both are nationalists, and neither man is a sociopath who wants nothing more than to visit devastation on the world.
Putin is first and foremost a Russian nationalist who has led his country to a remarkable recovery from the disaster of the 90's. He absolutely doesn't want a US-Iran confrontation on his southern border region.
Trump is similarly a US nationalist, but who has inherited an intolerable shambles from prior Administrations. He want’s out too, but is so entangled in the ME that he needs to slash and burn some crap first.
That they are talking is more reason to hope than not.
What are your thoughts on the Iran Nuclear agreement and the way Darth Drumpf trashed it, even though his own administration was certifying that Iran was fully complying with it?
My first thoughts are that someone in Israel didn't give a fuck about compliance …
Israel? That's an interesting angle.
Nutty-yahoo has certainly been sending mixed messages in public about the Soleimani murder. Haaretz has an interesting piece about how he benefits …
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-for-trump-criticism-over-soleimani-assassination-was-better-than-inaction-1.8353402
N will have been briefed beforehand. Consulted, even, would be my guess. There's a good reason the top jew in the Trump team was put closest to the oval office. "Kushner's office is physically the closest to the Oval Office."
"Trump put Kushner in charge of brokering peace in Israeli–Palestinian conflict, as well as making deals with foreign countries, although in what way he is in charge is unclear. On August 24, 2017, Kushner traveled to Israel to talk to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (with whom Kushner has longstanding personal links and family ties".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Kushner
Need some laundering done..?
Trump spins on a dime. Here's his framing of the u-turn: "Mr Trump said that "according to various laws" the US should not target these cultural sites. "You know what, if that's what the law is, I like to obey the law," he said." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51027619
Notice the subtle caveat. Guiliani or someone gives him views on which laws it might be a good idea to obey, or when it may be timely to create that impression in the public mind.
"The ruling national executive committee (NEC) will meet on Monday to decide the timetable for electing Jeremy Corbyn’s successor, who can have a vote and how much they should pay to do so." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leadership-election-rebecca-long-bailey-kier-starmer-jess-phillips-a9271196.html
Voters rejected Corbyn's socialism, so the Labour mandarins feel they must swing back to market forces and are waving an olive branch at the Blairites?
They could go further. Tell the people that selling the right to vote to the highest bidder is a damn good idea. Have an auction. Middle class wannabes would love it. Get Simon Cowell to stage the thing for primetime tv – suddenly Labour would seem trendy to a huge swathe of voters. 🙄
I paid $5 to vote for Andrew Little as Labour leader. All cobwebs as regards social democracy in that party but present pricks, tho' more sellable, are worse. I hear the party in Britain is now firmly Corbynist in membership, and up the echelons a bit. Which is what I desired from and desire from Corbyn and Sanders respectively.
Sometimes you have to wonder how much the loony Christian fundamentalism within the US government want to see the world burn. Dick Cheney, being the one who opened the door.
Video is 25 minutes long, and good view from a former staffer in the Bush Presidency.
Great link, thanks Aaron. 😉
Aljazeera TV have just reported that multiple Iranian missiles have hit a U.S. airbase in Iraq.
"The Pentagon said Iran fired more than a dozen missiles. "It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. military and coalition personnel at Al-Assad and Irbil," Jonathan Hoffman, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said in a statement." https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/us-iran-soleimani-tensions-intl-01-07-20/index.html
If Pompeo wasn't killed, Iran has failed to achieve parity. Mullahs failing to respond severely, after declaring they would, are likely to lose credibility in the opinions of their followers. Will the govt of Iraq declare war on Iran? An unprovoked attack on two of their bases merits the traditional response. Having told all foreigners to get out, these tough guys are dead keen to go it alone. Or maybe not…
What a puerile, childish and idiotic comment. The Iraqi government is powerless.
The two bases hit are effectively US territory, and they are unequivocally major US military installations being unequivocally attacked by the military of Iran.
The Greek chorus of Trumpian chumps who made light on this site of the assassination of Qassem Suleimani completely failed to grasp that by carrying out that killing the United States effectively declared war on Iran. No nation can sit back and allow another to assassinate it's top leaders with impunity. Iran is now taking the US at it's word and has struck back.
To make it clear – by any reasonable standard of international behaviour a state of war has existed between Iran and the United States since the 3rd of January 2020.
What the fuck did the US administration think Iran would do after that assassination?
Iran and the US have been in a state of conflict for a very long time … while it's true the Trump pushed events over an important threshold in the past week … none of this happened in a vacuum.
The theocratic thugs who run the Iranian regime are not nice innocent people, any more than any of the other cynical bastards tangled up in this.
Get a grip, lad. If they were US bases CNN would have described them as such. Or are you trying to subtly imply CNN journalists can't even get such elementary facts right??
How adequate the response from Iran has been remains to be seen from casualty figures. My point was re the court of public opinion in Iran. Loss of their top military commander, weighed in the balance against how many US soldiers?
Most people would view that as an ineffective response regardless. Think of it as a chess move: lose a Queen and retaliate by taking a few pawns. Doesn't rate.
I think you are an uninformed idiot.
Hey Sanctuary, in the interests of not increasing people's stress, can you please tone down the pejoratives? It's fine to point to perceived ignorance in comments with some analysis, but once you start aiming that at people and name calling, it becomes a problem for moderators.
I hear you, but at the same time if someone writes six plus posts of 600 odd words and then reveals he isn't even aware of what bases the US has in Iraq…
Well, being called an idiot I would have thought is as polite a reply as one should expect.
I bite my tongue on the internet all the time 😉 The choices we make about what we write after reacting are what determine whether a shit fight breaks out (and then whether the mods get involved).
Think of it as practice for election year.
I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?
The point being that the rockets were an offensive action against both countries – Iraq and USA. I get why leftists are addicted to demonising the USA. Spent much of my life feeling that way too! But political commentary is more effective when based on fact rather than misrepresentation.
"I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?"
No idea. I'm not reading much of the commentary on this, just enough to keep an eye on moderation and what might be developing. My main point here would be that tensions are high enough without us winding each other up 🙂 Where that line lies is on all of us.
Just as the US drone strike in the Iraqi airport was a offensive action against both Iraq and Iran. Looks to me like a proportionate response bearing in mind that the drone didn’t give radar warnings of have to go through have to go through anti-missile defenses.
Who are those “most people”, Dennis? Where are they, mostly? In Iran, by any chance?
Most people understand tit for tat. It's even in the Bible (`an eye for an eye'). But, as I pointed out in 12.1, re the effect on the credibility of the mullahs, those that count are in Iran.
The reason Sanctuary is doing his hysterical thing is that the truth hurts, so folks get emotional. Once the feelings subside, a cooler clearer appraisal becomes possible…
I think a “cooler clearer appraisal” might not apply to “most people” in Iran now. I think the Kiwis in Iraq might also have slightly heightened emotions.
Attention Jenny: noting a Moderation note is not sufficient. You need to respond to it in a way that shows that you understand and accept your moderation otherwise we’ll just go around in circles, which will lead to a lengthy ban.
Until I’ve seen a satisfactory response from you, you can stop posting comments because they will automatically end up in Trash and I have no means to restore them retrospectively (and this would take up more of my precious time).
Attention Ross: Please stop ‘testing’ because it won’t get you anywhere until you respond to the latest Moderation note that was left for you to respond to and satisfy the Moderator.
Test
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Test reply to Test.
See? More than one of us can waste screenspace.
But only one of you is in Moderation 😉
I only test when the reply button goes walkabout. Submitting a comment returns the reply option, and then I delete the test message (unless this sticky mouse button posts two entries, as it sometimes does, then only one test entry permits editing).
I know you do 😉
Refreshing the browser sometimes helps.
Nah, tried all options, including deleting browser data, ccleaning, purging, fasting and praying to the aliens. Only thing that fixes it (for me) is to make a test post.
Sorry for the troublesome desk rodent when it plays up, though. I should pick up a new key/mouse set at some stage, but at least the reason for my tests are out there now. lol
A friend of mine lifes in Arkansas,
she send this text
Aljazeera TV are reporting at least two U.S. airbases have been hit and another wave of Iranian missiles have been launched.
https://twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS/status/1214701382068031488
https://www.twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS/status/1214710060754120705
Of course it's going cost us.
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/1214696126676393986
oil price increases are a useful thing.
and interest rates?
you'd need to be more specific.
shares fall,oil and gold and interest rates tend to move upwards.
could be useful too. Consumption is the big driver of CC. The problem for NZ is that we choose not to protect vulnerable people. It won't hurt the middle classes to tighten their belts, but I wish they'd learn to share more.
on the contrary…if oil increases it will impact 'growth' and the expected reaction would be an interest rate cut to offset (if there were room to cut) the reduced economic activity
Depends what it does to inflation for the rbnz to cut.if there are pricing signals of an increase the rbnz wont cut.
Internal food costs are sensitive to transport (and a poor growing season at present due to colder weather) impacts the poor firstly on a day to day basis.
RBNZ has 'looked through' potential inflationary spikes for years now….any inflationary impact is likely to be temporary, remembering that fuel prices typically fluctuate through quite a wide range for various reasons….however as said the likely impact on interest rates (if any) would be expected to be down rather than up
The reckless actions of Trump has given Iran a casus belli to act in self defence. They are acting on that. So it begins.
Lucky Trump's actions were triggered by something irrelevant, something that doesn't mean anything to him – impeachment – an illegal action of course and without any evidence. (he reckons.)
Imagine how crazy he'd have gone if he was more personally challenged like his tax and financial records facing the usual open scrutiny and ensuing legal challenges. The claimant of the biggest dick being found to need a magnifying glass to be identified would have really set him off.
[Be careful typing your user name correctly, thanks]
The Iranians have made no attempt to hide their direct attack on US forces in Iraq. This is a state action, a response to what was basically a US declaration of war on them. The only hope now for peace is for Trump to panic and chicken out. I really hope Trump doesn't think this is a good war to help his re-election bid. A US president who loses a war won't be popular.
someone needs to turn of this tv and the fox propaganda war. Cause literally Fox and Friends is giving him tips on whom to bomb next.
Shit Taji is where the ANZAC training team is atm, I hope Jandal’s tells Ronnie to get the troop asap and thank **** I’m no longer in the Forces and if they do ask me back to the colours it will be a f*** off sunshine etc as I’m not fighting for dumps silly little war / WW3 the Yanks started it so let them finish it without us.
All we need is Rocket man to throw something at Dump and Putin to do something in the Baltic, come to think I’ve read a novel by someone on this same scenario where a war kicks off in the Sandpit and rest fall like dominos.
Yup. You nail it so often. While many of us contribute here in a cool, detached way … your down to it comments keep us grounded.
Putin is in syria at the moment.
https://twitter.com/rnz_news/status/1214704988686913537
https://twitter.com/Tofazzal_Alam/status/1214730282923892736
Poission, I’m not too worried about the Russians in Syria as they have in Syria since late 50’s to early 60’s from memory. But it’s Baltic States that are the weak link to NATO and to EU, if I were a betting man that where I think Putin will strike nexts therefore splitting the western alliance/ economy.
just no words
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7863359/Ukrainian-passenger-plane-carrying-180-people-crashes-near-Tehran-local-media.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR38k4Xw07vRjHb6crZ9DhR27yHCiAHf4neNeEc4gXnig15hXHUoGPYrUQk&fbclid=IwAR0fvKsm0IqarybIrx66844SqlMfMnLItPLihmfoFZTOUD5Hxcrorcnenlo&fbclid=IwAR0EUwrWaP8jFFbsM0GCflp70skFWe_woHbbrDkFJCWaTihfMeK-L2ZOUX8
Just watching Trump's son rabbiting on about great his father is. He hasn't said he agrees so much about sorting the Middle East out that he's putting his hand up to go there and help. Funny that.
Last time I was at Kiwiblog they had a regular 400 odd commenters. Versus Left blogs with a quarter of that. 'Kommon Zense' as per talkback radio? Appealing to know-nothingers with a near body to kick apparently beats reason, balance, Ballance, Savage and the whole of our corner of knowledge.
It's very hard to denie climate change global warming and Sealevels rising is our reality. All the intelligence people must keep up the Mana mahi and champion a clean and Green future for all of our mokopuna.
The 2010s were almost certainly the hottest decade on record — and it showed. The world burned, melted and flooded. Heat waves smashed temperature records around the globe. Glaciers lost ice at accelerating rates. Sea levels continued to swell.
At the same time, scientists have diligently worked to untangle the chaos of a rapidly warming planet.
In the past decade, scientists substantially improved their ability to draw connections between climate change and extreme weather events. They made breakthroughs in their understanding of ice sheets. They raised critical questions about the implications of Arctic warming. They honed their predictions about future climate change
The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, with temperatures rising at least twice as fast as the global average.
places like the United States, Europe and parts of Asia — for instance, a link between shrinking sea ice and cold winters in Siberia, or Arctic heat waves and extreme winter weather in the United States.
The trouble is models have a hard time capturing the causes driving these connections.
"No one argues that the Arctic meltdown will affect weather patterns, the question is exactly how," said Arctic climate expert Jennifer Francis, a researcher at Woods Hole Research Center. "So figuring out what's not right in the models will be a major focus. Without realistic models, it's hard to use them to separate Arctic influences from other possible factors."
Resolving the debate will require "a combination of data and modeling," according to NASA climatologist Claire Parkinson. Many scientists are already hard at work on this issue.
One ongoing project known as the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project is conducting a series of coordinated model experiments, all using the same standard methods, to investigate the Arctic climate and its connections to the rest of the globe. Experts say these kinds of projects may help explain why modeling studies conducted by different groups with different methods don't always get the same results.
At the same time, improving the way that physical processes are represented in Arctic climate models is also essential, according to Xiangdong Zhang, an Arctic and atmospheric scientist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Outside that debate, there are still big questions about the Arctic climate to resolve. Scientists know the Arctic is heating up at breakneck speed — but they're still investigating all the reasons why.
Researchers believe a combination of feedback processes are probably at play. Sea ice and snow help reflect sunlight away from the Earth. As they melt away, they allow more heat to reach the surface, warming the local climate and causing even more melting to occur.
One key question for the coming decade, Zhang said in an email, is "what relative role each of the physical processes plays and how these processes work together" to drive the accelerating warming.
Unraveling these feedbacks will help scientists better predict how fast the Arctic will warm in the future, according to Francis — and how quickly they should expect its consequences to occur. They include vanishing sea ice, thawing permafrost and melting on the Greenland ice sheet
Sea-level rise is one of the most serious consequences of climate change, with the potential to displace millions of people in coastal areas around the world.
Ka kite Ano link below.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/these-are-the-biggest-climate-questions-for-the-new-decade/
Kia Ora Newshub.
It is not on that a student can be left dead in a room unnoticed for that long there needs to be checks on students.
That's good that the Hawke's Bay health board change the move to stop home help for 600 elderly people.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Someone in Watties had a brain fart thinking it is OK to belittle Te reo Maori for putea.
I read that some one passed on Maunga Tongariro Condolences to Te Whanau.
Great to see more Tangata Whenua doctors and nurses graduates.
Golf is a good game for tangata to play and make a mahi out of the sport.
Ka kite Ano
Looks like the sis sandflys have finished their new year holiday they were swarming again today.
There are many old technologically advanced societies around the world that have vanished. They have built structures that our modern society can not duplicate even with all our modern technology.???? So what caused the collapse of these old civilisation the same thing that is causing our world problems man taking mother nature for granted. Climate change and global warming sea level rising. Our scientists have waved a red flag for 40 years. The wealthiest people choose to ignore their warnings and worse they use their money to distort the reality of common people who some they know will be easily manipulated into believing there lies giving them power and in reality putting there own mokopuna in the jeopardy Wake up.
The environment in 2050: flooded cities, forced migration – and the Amazon turning to savannah
Unless we focus on shared solutions, violent storms and devastating blazes could be the least of the world’s troubles. Civilisation itself will be at risk
Good morning. Here is the shipping forecast for midday, 21 June, 2050. Seas will be rough, with violent storms and visibility ranging from poor to very poor for the next 24 hours. The outlook for tomorrow is less fair.”
All being well, this could be a weather bulletin released by the Met Office and broadcast by the BBC in the middle of this century. Destructive gales may not sound like good news, but they will be among the least of the world’s problems in the coming era of peak climate turbulence. With social collapse a very real threat in the next 30 years, it will be an achievement in 2050 if there are still institutions to make weather predictions, radio transmitters to share them and seafarers willing to listen to the archaic content.
I write this imaginary forecast with an apology to Tim Radford, the former Guardian science editor, who used the same device in 2004 to open a remarkably prescient prediction on the likely impacts of global warming on the world in 2020.
Journalists generally hate to go on record about the future. We are trained to report on the very recent past, not gaze into crystal balls. On those occasions when we have to venture ahead of the present, most of us play it safe by avoiding dates that could prove us wrong, or quoting others.
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent.
Ka kite Ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/30/environment-2050-flooded-cities-forced-migration-amazon-turning-savannah
Kia Ora Newshub.
North land experienceing drought we have to listen to our scientists and plan for the weather conditions that they have forcast or else one will be in trouble.
A green turtle laying its eggs on a popular beach in Australia it good they have people with the knowledge to move the turtle eggs safely.
That's great Simaria getting The BBC to pay you the same putea as men Mana Wahine.
Trees grow much faster in Aotearoa than other countries maple syrup would be a great sestanable tree crop.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Hinewai great mahi to get on the Hawke's Bay Regional Council first tangata whenua and a Wahine at that.
Mama donuts looks like it going great franchise to Ka pai just like making fry bread.
Mana Wahine Indigenous Rugby league.
Cool the Kurakaupapa teaching there tamariki about the Maori marama Callander and time to collect Kai
Ka kite Ano.
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora Newshub.
New technologies bowel cancer diegnosed with a mask it's the Ion age great new invention.
That's a excellent take of the hundreds of Sharks around the Great Barrier Islands. Sharks are a important part of Tangaroa environment and need to be protected and preserved.
Tyson was lucky to servive when his whare burnt down in the middle of winter.
The slide look cool A penguin but it slides the tamariki out to fast causeing injuries one would think they would test it before letting the public tamariki use it.???
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Watties should not have made fun of Te reo Maori it show how racist there management is.
The old saying is don't go to war unless you are going to win Camp Kawarau.
That's is cool getting the whanau and comunity to fund rising for a young Wahine treatment of a rear form of cancer.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Newshub.
I think thats a great move to ban exports of whitebait it will be awesome that in 30 years time everyone comes to Aotearoa to see our presteen wildlife and environment.
The Moana getting hot That's not good it doesn't take much temperatures to rise for life to get extremely difficult.
Bioluminesent sea creatures making Tangaroa look beautiful cool.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Taramaki whanui That's the way of the future building sestanable whare beautiful whare to.
That's sad a Tangaroa taonga passing and being washed up in Te Taitokerau.
Cool Te wharepora traditionally Maori weaving in flaxmere Ka pai E hoa.
Those 2 roopu are both from home I have links to both and they are quite awesome Wakarma.
Ka kite Ano