BIG UPS TO BRYAN GOULD. Perhaps anticipating a disappointing choice from NZ First on 12 October, the former Vice-Chancellor of Waikato University has put the rhetorical boot into Labour’s fiscal and monetary caution.
Holding up the example of the First Labour Government’s radical solution to the problem of how to fund its ambitious state housing programme (Mickey Savage’s government hit upon the novel idea of simply borrowing the money from itself!) Gould is demanding an equal display of courage and innovation from Labour’s current crop of leaders. Politically, 2020 looms as a year of new departures. Gould wants the Centre-Left to be ready.
Even if NZ First turns left, Gould’s critique remains timely. Grant Robertson, guided by his patron, Sir Michael Cullen, will attempt to put the kibosh on Winston Peters’ expansive (and expensive!) economic programme. Waving the bright red flag of a NZ First-friendly alternative monetary and fiscal strategy in advance of coalition talks strikes me as a damn good idea. Gould just might convince the “Three-Headed-Beast” to do a little more thinking before binding itself in the chains of Robertson’s reactionary “Budget Responsibility Rules”.
In the simplest terms, Gould’s argument boils down to this. If the private banks are allowed to create money (by crediting us with the money to buy our houses and then charging us interest on our mortgages) then why shouldn’t the state? He then argues that not only isn’t there a good reason why the state shouldn’t do this, but that it already has. “Quantitative Easing”, says Gould, was all about northern hemisphere states crediting their private banks with the money they needed to remain solvent. What, then, stops our own state from funding crucial infrastructure projects: railway and port expansion; new state houses; fully-funded training for thousands of new doctors and teachers; with similar financial instruments?
In his own words:
“Our leaders, however, including luminaries of both right and left, some with experience of senior roles in managing our economy – and in case it is thought impolite to name them I leave it to you to guess who they are – prefer to remain in their fearful self-imposed shackles, ignoring not only the views of experts and the experience of braver leaders in other countries and earlier times, but – surprisingly enough – denying even our own home-grown New Zealand experience.”
Gould’s gentlemanly reticence is all very well, but sometimes a spade should be called a bloody Grant Robertson! Thousands of New Zealanders are pinning their hopes on Winston veering left – as if that’s all that needs to happen. These same people do not appear to have the slightest idea that Labour’s current economic policies would render a Labour-NZ First-Green government next-to-useless. Yes, there might be just enough money to keep health and education stumbling along for the next three years – but there’ll be bugger-all for anything, or anybody, else.
Gould may be too polite to state the matter so bluntly, but I’m not interested in politeness. The awful political truth that we all need to get our heads around, is that “orthodox economics” is how otherwise “decent” politicians deliver pain and suffering to the most vulnerable people in our society; and that, at the moment, just about all of the most senior figures in both the Labour Party and the Labour caucus are irrevocably wedded to orthodox economics.
If Winston is of a mind to veer left, therefore, he will first need to persuade Jacinda to abandon her opposition to any person other than Labour’s finance spokesperson taking on the role of Finance Minister. Labour’s intransigence on this matter is a strong indication of the party’s unwillingness to step away from economic orthodoxy. But the economic orthodoxy of neoliberalism is precisely what Winston has set his own, and his party’s, face against. He cannot possibly enter into a coalition with Labour and the Greens while they remain committed to their ultra-orthodox Budget Responsibility Rules.
Jacinda should interpret Gould’s latest blogpost as a last-minute appeal for her to think outside the conceptual box in which Labour has imprisoned itself. If life is to be made better for those New Zealanders on the receiving end of neoliberalism, then Labour must reach back into its collective memory and summon forth the courage and creativity which made this country the “social laboratory of the world”.
In this regard, Gould deserves the last word:
“Many of today’s generation will have forgotten or be unaware of the brave and successful initiative taken by our Prime Minister in the 1930s – the great Michael Joseph Savage. He created new money with which he built thousands of state houses, thereby bringing an end to the Great Depression in New Zealand and providing decent houses for young families (my own included) who needed them.
“Who among our current leaders would disown that hugely valuable legacy?”
So long as banks are allowed to create the money supply and governments are not we are (and will remain) slaves to the banks and their masters the 000.1%. This is how the Oligarchs and Plutocrats control governments via the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland. It is the new feudalism whereby us serfs pay to our masters in their banking castles a sizeable chunk of our income in our blood, sweat and tears for their blessings of allow us to carry on being alive. Their biggest tax of all being the endless wars they create to suck humanity dry of blood and treasure and don’t get me started on their next biggest scam of the pharmaceutical industry as their pills are a tax on being alive despite it being their toxic industries and food that make us sick in the first place.
Once upon a time Labour and Social Credit understood that governments need to control the creation of money particularly for social investment. The Greens with an HSBC banker at their head will never get it and refused to discuss it when I was a member many moons ago. There is no solution to the social and environmental ills that beset us without the government taking back the power to create the money it needs free of charge to deal with the many social and environmental issues that need solving.
Good to see that a few others understand the Ponzi nature of it all and are prepared to point out reality. That said, we -who understand- do represent a miniscule minority in this insane society in which truth and reality are shunned and it’s all about ‘aspirations’ that are detached completely from reality.
Here a nice new twist to it all:
‘The International Monetary Fund has issued a warning to governments that rely on debt-fuelled consumer spending to boost economic growth, telling them they run the risk of another major financial collapse.’
http://www.msn.com/en-nz/money/news/imf-warns-that-using-consumer-debt-to-fuel-growth-risks-crisis/ar-AAsRNgm?li=AAaUOAg&ocid=spartandhp
Fireworks ! , … fireworks on the horizon if what Mr Gould and Mr Trotter says is correct. But ,… NZ First does go with Labour , and Labour does go the orthodox way ,.. sooner or later the public that put them there will start demanding change.
They have been out of govt a very long time ,… would they remain pig headed and risk being a one term wonder?
There will be figurative ‘riots in the streets’ if some noticeable change does not occur. At worst there will be no change the the final neo liberal element in Labour will be discredited. At best ? … perhaps small changes , perhaps some ‘slightly’ significant …
It still seems the correct way to go and the Left thing has got to start somewheres , – even if its not with the most desirable and auspicious start.It may be the kickarse reality check they need if thrown into power. And while mass criticism isn’t the most honored way to start , … they better soon get up to scratch.
They get just one shot at this.
Maybe.
Neo-liberalism is not the same as monetarism. And monetarism is not the same as prudence.
The reason, according to the orthodoxy, why small countries do not resort to quantitative easing-style initiatives, is because the world financial system will pick them off.
Large economies, needed by the world financial order are given a little more latitude.
It isn’t fair, but who ever claimed it was?
However, New Zealand, thanks to the herein-maligned last Labour government, is still in good financial shape. So, much can be achieved without having recourse to risky innovations.
Personally, to be honest, I have absolutely no idea if Bryan Gould’s plan would work out well or not. But, then, I defy any of you to put his or her hand on his or her heart and assert that you do.
It is a contribution to the debate, but I await a somewhat heavier-hitter to weigh in before I commit.
It didn’t come out in what Chris quotes from Brian’s article, but QE as it is admitted to, i.e. buying govt. bonds with newly issued fiat money ,is not unusual in itself , only in it’s extent. Central banks have always managed the money supply by a range of means . One of which , when it needs to be increased is to do just that . it is a day to day activity for all central banks, not just those in large economies. At other times when there is deemed to be too much in circulation the central bank will sell those bonds on the open market , and cancel the money paid for them so it is no longer in circulation.
QE was unusual in it’s unprecedented volume, and the application not to manage the money supply but to prevent it’s complete collapse , and with it the collapse of the banks, the banking system and all commerce.
It was(is) also unusual in what isn’t talked about any more , that it also involved buying shaky mortgage-backed securities , and talked about less, the purchase of bonds of failing major companies such as general motors to rescue them from collapse. This is kept as quiet as possible for the obvious reason that ” why the hell can’t this be done for some humanitarian and social purposes ?” An d the only answer is that it would not advance the interests of bankers, and furthermore would erode their stranglehold on the nations and the people of the world.
The reason that QE wasn’t used here is that we are too small a player to have any effect on the world’s finances, but are we sure that the bailout of South Canterbury Finance did not involve just that. It is unlikely that it would have been explained if that was how it was dealt with.
Bank issued loans/ mortgages etc. multiply the money supply up from fiat money so created by the central bank. The multiplication factor was once restricted by the deposit reserve ratio which the reserve bank could alter as another tool in managing the total money supply. Allan Greenspan decided that bankers were responsible enough to limit their lending (debt money creation) to a safe level and removed that control, and central banks around the world followed suit. He seems to have failed to recognise that with no outside authority controlling them all simultaneously, they would all be in competition with each other to retain market share. So they were pretty much forced to create more and more shaky loans, which led to the 2008 situation.
D J S
“At other times when there is deemed to be too much in circulation the central bank will sell those bonds on the open market , and cancel the money paid for them so it is no longer in circulation.”
What? The very purpose of selling bonds (government backed paper money) is to raise the very extra funds needed by governments to finance themselves, and to also repay debt that is aged and due.
If there is too much around, that means, then inflation will hit. Only paper money and coins in circulation, that need replacement, as they may have become ‘worn off’ or cannot be deciphered for their values, get taken out and get destroyed, upon newly issued ones released.
How can they ‘cancel’ it? Strange fiscal management there.
“What? The very purpose of selling bonds (government backed paper money) is to raise the very extra funds needed by governments to finance themselves, and to also repay debt that is aged and due.”
Exactly. These bonds are then traded daily like shares on the stock exchange, traded between banks who are the usual buyers, but institutions like social security funds invest some of their money in them too. The reserve banks enter that market like any other investor. The government’s borrowing is unaffected as the bonds bought by the reserve bank have moved on. they aren’t bought direct from the government.
The money supply is made up of a little fiat money created in this bond purchase process , and the debt money created by the banks in issuing loans which appear in other banks as deposits as your loan to buy a car is spent by you to the car sales yard who then deposits it in their bank. So the loan from one bank soon becomes a deposit in another. thus the money supply is multiplied by transactions between the banking system and the public. Wikipedia explains it clearly under “Money Multiplier”.
This multiplied up debt money , in times of deflation like 2008 and continuing now , de-multiplies when businesses can’t repay loans and people sit on their savings , and the banks won’t lend to new projects for lack of confidence , and the public don’t want to borrow anyway for the same reason. So the debt aligned bank money shrinks like candy floss in your mouth. The QE has replaced it to a large extent to arrest the collapsing process , so now QE fiat money represents a much larger proportion of the overall money supply than it did pre 2008.
D J S
Sorry, you really lost it, your understanding is just more fake news and make-belief.
Fiat money is of course created, in the anticipation of a consideration in return, e.g. people working and thus creating value that then fulfills whatever is created or loaned for that sake.
The interest is the price of the risk, but as the risk is kept relatively low for major banks, they can lean back and simply hear the interest trickle into their cash box, so to say.
The true risk is the wrong assessment of future growth potential, and whether that meets the credit created and handed out, hence when the economic output does not match what was forecast and expected, the house of cards starts to crumble.
As for merchant banking and much else, that is the higher level of street trading rip off artists, or hawkers, and pawn shops.
One man’s death is another man’s bread, so to say. It gets ugly when it happens on the scale of nations going bust, and needing bail outs, it is like having a personal bad credit rating, you end up getting NO credit, not even a bank account in the end, and no employment, as nobody wants to deal with a person who does not even have a bank account.
And there the cycle starts again.
The old gold standard was thrown over board, as it was deemed too inflexible, unsuitable for future financial management.
The GFC was due to debt being traded on futures markets and so forth, in the form also of new instruments, that were totally detached from where the original debt came from, and what prospect there was to ever recover it.
Hence the bad banks, now sitting with accounts that were considered a write off, hence the monetary easing, to rescue banks and big business considered to big to fail, and so that cash was pumped in there, and in part went also into wider circulation.
Of course that has accrued to staggering amounts of debt now, sitting on the ledgers in the US, and also in many other nations, all hoping, in future some economic activity will enable enough earnings to pay off the interest and the principle of the total debt.
After all, we are screwed one way or another.
The alternative may be, and I do not say it lightly, maybe something a bit akin to former Cuba (before opening up) and North Korea, but try making that palatable to a consumerist, consumption addicted population, that has learned that living on debt is totally ok, just rely on real estate values to go up, hence more immigration, which will stress out finite resources.
Hi again Marc
I would urge you to identify for yourself where you don’t accept my explanations , and google . Wikipedia has pretty good explanations , and you’ll get some from “investopedia “.
A thought from a little book by J K Galbraith entitled “Money, Whence it came and where it went” ; “The process by which money is created is so simple that the mind is repelled”, it’s very true and effects a lot of minds.
Cheers D J S
I mean you somewhere lost it towards the end of your comment, but I presume you meant this, when referring to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_multiplier
There is no fool proof system, and if we had the gold standard, we would have other issues. And if we leave the money creating solely to the government, and restrict what trading or savings banks can do, we will also still reach times, where the system will go under stress and needs to adjust, the result being inflation, high interest rates, shortage of credit, low growth, or what else it may be.
Bartering will hardly be an option, the challenge is to limit risks, and to have more stability, also to achieve some more immunity from the global financial system, and to switch the system from exploiting resources, to a more sustainable management.
The Greens go on about green growth and so, but much is myth too, as what they propose is replace old ways with new ways of doing things, you do not magically create more growth by replacing fossil and finite resources with sustainable and environmentally friendlier resources. There would be growth in some areas, and decline in others, the end result may at best be the same, or maybe even less in living standards for people, in material terms that is.
Robertson needs the boot. To be punted to the back benches and made Minister for Song Revues and Tutus.He is useless as a Finance Minister and Gould is so right. Labour have to abandon economic orthodoxy (aka cruelty or Dickensian times reborn)
Gotta admit, you’ve hit the nail on the head , Shona,… just as I was starting to warm to Robertson ,… meh,… he’s still far too neo liberal.
But he is the ‘friend’ of Jacinda, close to her, and the one who nominated her as candidate to become Leader of Labour, after Andrew Little suggested he step down.
To assign Grant to the back rows, that may then perhaps also necessitate finding yet another new leader for Labour, as without Grant, it seems at least, Jacinda is not having the ‘advice’ she relies on.
Robertson is one of the knives that’s been in every Labour leaders back since Phil Goff. He was part of the ABC crowd that white-anted Cunliffe and ensured Labour’s vote tanked in the 2014 election. Not a person to be trusted IMO, and certainly not appropriate for MoF (albeit better than dildo baggins).
could not have said it better
just plain useless in actual fact
Chris Trotter
New Zealand is a Conservative country. It already has, in world terms, a low value Dollar. Also, we have recently seen the absolute scaremongering undertaken by three magnificent Liars – English, Joyce and Bennett.
If shafting Grant Robertson and the current Labour Party is the best you and Bryan Gould can do in this context then why not slope off.
You are vacuous. And you know it.
The 60% of New Zealanders who have been sliced, diced,degraded and despised by National and the Media (especially the NZ Herald) will support and support this Labour Government. Whether in power or in opposition.
The 60% now knows that National fawn and flatter the Wealthy. National abuse anyone else. Ask John Key and Billy the Liar.
Teachers, Nurses, even Doctors – are deserting the mess we call Auckland. Why? Because they cannot afford to live alongside National’s wealthy.
The Millionaires of the same sick city, will have no one to clean their houses soon. Or paint them. Or keep the sewage systems going.
The many have lost faith in the wealthy few.
I agree, but not reflected in the election result, and Gould and Trotter are encouraging Labour to go with your feelings and fix things.
That starts with everything they suggest. Bye Grant.
Couldnt agree with you more Observer T, well said.
I wonder if when Jacinda became leader she had boldly stated the intention of replicating Savages funding model for improving equity we wouldnt now be lööking at a Labour Green government ….or is it still too soon?
The effectiveness of Nationals dishonest campaign clearly shows a large rump within the electorate fearful of losing some perceived financial success, albeit a most precarious and likely short lived comfort.
should Winston form some arrangement with National to govern, what chance labour will then be bold?… or will they simply play it safe and await a perceived inevitability of success at the next election?….I suspect the later.
The big question, is does Jacinda want this? Or does she just appear to want this.
From Lange to Savage, there are vast unknown waters for an Ardern govt to drown in.
Why do you think she will drown, she could surprise you and others on here and swim the waters exceedingly well.
Back in the 1930’s, when John A Lee launched his state housing project, the country seemed to be overrun with unemployed carpenters which the project was able to put to work. Does the same thing apply today, or would a similar initiative today simply create a lot of inflation.
However, getting the Reserve Bank to create the money while restricting commercial bank lending may be appropriate.
Creating money when it is spent productively is not inflationary – what the banks are doing is inflating the housing market but spending money on building new housing would not be.
I don’t blame you for not knowing this – the standard of economic debate in the media in NZ is appalling. It’s a huge relief to finally see someone talking about this.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as productive or ‘productively’.
Production is the conversion of natural resources into substances or objects that are temporarily useful to humans, plus waste -always in the form of carbon dioxide and frequently in the form of rather nasty substances.
Since we are already in gross population overshoot and the present dominant [industrial] lifestyle is rapidly degrading the capacity of the Earth to sustain life, construction of more houses (and everything else that goes with more houses -such as roads, sewage works, electricity systems etc. ) simply exacerbates the ‘progress trap’ we are in.
¨Creating money when it is spent productively is not inflationary – what the banks are doing is inflating the housing market but spending money on building new housing would not be.¨
True. We all know that.. However trying to spend money when there is not enough stuff to spend it on can be inflationary. This is true whether the money so spent is fiat or real, but creating money out of nothing doesn´t exactly help.
A little knowledge is sometimes a dangerous thing.
Spending money productively is possible only when there are sufficient resources available to spend it on, otherwise the spending will tend to be inflationary, whether fiat money or real money is employed. During the wool boom in the early fifties the government of the day froze farmers´ wool receipts for fear that spending them into the economy would cause inflation. This was despite the fact that the receipts were of ¨real¨ money.
Ah, advocating the proverbial “free lunch”. There is a cost to “printing money”. It’s called inflation. This time we have the non-argument of “the banks are doing it, so lets double down and let the government do it too!” Ironically, it’s the working poor who are hit hardest by inflation – food prices, petrol prices, electricity prices, house/rent prices etc, while the rich benefit the most (stock prices). Gould is an idiot: you can’t print your way to prosperity; it has literally NEVER succeeded ANYWHERE.
Money dosnt care who you are. If you are wrong money will punish you. If right money will reward you. It’s that simple. So attention to detail mutes hyperinflation.
I’m not talking about hyperinflation, but the GUARANTEED regular inflation ANY money printing by definition produces (and this obviously includes “fractional reserve banking”, a practice that imo should be banned with the exception of core infrastructure). ANY additional money introduced into an economy chasing the same amount of goods and services is inflationary by exactly the amount of money issued. You can advocate for the “free lunch” all you like, but you will be paying for it one way or another (and the poor always get hit hardest by inflation).
judicious use of ‘printed money’ need not be inflationary…the real test is the political restraint in the face of electorate pressure for ever increasing use of such a mechanism as a solution to every desire.
Nitrium
Inflation is held up a as risk to money printing when it is convenient to argue against it.
Thing is, that for all the quantitative easing across the world over the last decade there has been very little inflation ! Yellen of the US Fed was, last week, lamenting this fact. They deparately want some but can’t generate it.
The only reason it wasn’t inflationary for basic goods and services was because the US (and the rest of developed economies) were in a severely deflationary environment. So where did the inflation go?
Have you looked at the global stock markets, bond markets and house prices post QE? You can’t dictate WHERE inflation from money printing goes, but you can guarantee you’re going to get it. BTW, the global stock markets are even more highly leveraged now than they were in 2008. QE solved exactly nothing, and, if anything, only exacerbated the underlying systemic problems.
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/09/26/a-look-at-nyse-margin-debt-and-the-market
If there is insufficient money around to support the necessary level of economic activity then we will probably see deflation come into being. This may be even worse than inflation. In that situation printing money would seem to be be appropriate.
you cannot have inflation created by building a surplus of anything, maybe stupidity
Trouble is, Mr Gould is not an economist, nor is Mr Trotter, and proposing the internal printing of money to pay for big infrastructure projects, especially new, urgently needed housing and so forth, will lead to very high debt.
It can only be done if we change the framework we are operating in, i.e. our part in the so called global economy.
That means, we may need to change from being primarily export focused, to being a more national economy focused society.
As we are tied up in the present global system, which is NOT easy to opt out of, without serious consequences, we live by exporting much primary and some other products, and some services, while we import much else that we use, as we do not produce it here.
We need certain medical instruments, medication for instance, that we cannot even produce ourselves, as we lack the technology or scale of production needed. We need transport and other machinery, cars, and even foods and so, as we live at present.
To pay for what is needed, we need to radically move from the kind of US American consume, buy and turf away society, a drive to the mall and shop until you drop society, from urban living where we have massive urban sprawl where the majority live in bungalows, units and town houses scarred all over, with insufficient public transport and expensive, large infrastructure networks costing a hell of a lot to maintain.
So the people need to be convinced to forget their private motor vehicles, that is most, to forget their wasteful, western middle class lifestyles, wasting resources, based on plundering resources.
Can that be done, that is the question? Can the average convenience addicted, consumerist, selfish individual Kiwi be convinced quickly enough, that radical change is needed for long term survival, or can he or she not be convinced.
On that may hinge the future, and the ability for such major, radical approaches to get to the future. To be damned blunt and honest, I cannot presently see any party, not Nats or Labour, not even the Greens achieve what is needed.
To do what is suggested by Bryan Gould could ruin the NZ economy, unless we also bring in controls on the currency and exchange rate, a new approach to fiscal policy, and unless we renegotiate some of our many trade agreements.
People living in NZ have been lied to so thoroughly and for so long the majority actually believe they are entitled to squander energy and resources. Such is the power of the propaganda promulgated by the mainstream media and local government, the average person living in NZ believes they are entitled to 100 ‘energy slaves’ working continuously for them, and entitled to a disproportionate portion of global resources, many of them acquired by the ‘advanced nations’ via currency manipulation, modern-day slavery, and actual wars.
A programme of education of the masses with respect to reality would be bitterly opposed by both the international money-lenders and local opportunists. Indeed, any country or group of people that does not comply with the TINA (there is no alternative) rammed down the throats of practically all populations by the globalists since the late 1970s would be subjected to sanctions, invasion and even annihilation.
One saving grace for NZ is that it is seen to be a bolt-hole, place for the ultra-rich to run to should things turn nasty for them. And, as long as the global system does hold together, NZ is a playground for the ultra-rich, a place not quite as overpopulated and fucked up as most others. It should never be forgotten that Helen Clark was 100% behind the ultra-rich coming to NZ to play with their yachts, and even organised taxpayer money to be donated to the cause of the ultra-rich yachting regatta ($30 million, from memory).
Anyone who thinks there is a way out of the current mess is deluded because the current mess has been developing for centuries, and numerous laws and regulations that have been put in place to protect those who loot and pollute, and to denigrate or disempower those who oppose such policies.
^^^^ this.
so for the last 30 or more years we have been heeding the economists and look at what we have created, jerry builders of finance boot them out to the caymans
It all sounds good, but there are caveats to consider. Read this for instance, re the housing boom in the 1930’s under Labour:
https://www.teara.govt.nz/en/housing-and-government/page-2
“Backlash
At the end of the 1940s there was a backlash against state housing. Rents were now covering only half the cost of new state houses – that meant that middle-income state housing tenants received hefty subsidies, while the poor, who could not afford to rent state houses, paid market rates for private rentals of lower quality. Labour said that raising rents would breach its security-of-tenure promise, but the wider public saw the situation as warped and unfair. During the 1949 general election the National Party exploited this discontent by promising to reform the system and provide tenants with the opportunity to buy their state houses. It won in a landslide.”
So anything that needs doing can only be done with careful thought and with a smart approach, as otherwise it will come back to bite you.
As I have hinted before, the Nats have now left this country in such a mess, it will not even be possible to remedy the many problems and crisis just by doing what Bryan Gould and some others propose. The horse has bolted, to be honest, whatever government we will get, it will be very difficult years, painful years ahead, with much hard work, and NO easy solutions.
http://www.wpma.org.nz/CDF_ModuleNews/Display/Details/260?NewsSetId=83
“Mr Stanley concluded that, “30 years after New Zealand took the radical step to privatise the industry we are now at the end of one growing rotation of our trees. We need to know where this “privatisation experiment” has landed us. It’s for this reason that I am, today, calling for an urgent review of the industry. This joint government/industry Rotation Review needs to start in Northland now and extend nationwide”.”
Also have we allowed overseas and local forest owners and processors to EXPORT much of our local forest logs and timber:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/297391/foreign-companies-%27shipping-whole-nz-forests-overseas%27
http://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/86032/2017-has-brought-sharply-higher-export-prices-logs-and-strong-demand-continues
We will not even have the timber needed to build the new homes needed, that is just ONE of many resources in SHORT SUPPLY:
https://www.teara.govt.nz/en/radiata-pine/page-4
“With a harvest age of 25–35 years, and final tree numbers of around 300 stems per hectare, two thirds of the trees planted are usually cut down during the early stages of the growing cycle to make more room for the others. The felled trees are either left on the ground to rot, or sometimes harvested as posts, poles or pulpwood.”
To be honest, we are damned SCREWED NOW!
Is Jacinda the new Lange, and Robertson the new Douglas?
By the way, the property affordability crisis in places like Auckland looks set to be remedied through intervention by forces at the helm in Beijing, before Labour and Greens and NZ First, or whosoever in government in Wellington, will ever get around to take action:
‘ That whoosh? It’s the Great Chinese Property Pullback’, SMH, Australia, 8 Aug. 2017:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/that-whoosh-its-the-great-chinese-property-pullback-20170807-gxrfbc.html
“Reflecting tighter regulations, China overseas direct property investment could drop 84 per cent to $US1.7 billion ($2.15 billion) this year and about another 15 per cent to $US1.4 billion in 2018, according to Morgan Stanley.”
It will have repercussion for local property developments, commercial and residential, and even more so in Australia and elsewhere!
Read this also:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-25/chinese-investors-pull-out-of-melbourne-apartment-market/8557182
“Another reason for the downturn relates to the Chinese government’s restrictions on its citizens’ ability to move money offshore.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-31/chinese-property-investment-starts-to-cool/8858866
We have been landed with net immigration gains of over 70 thousand per year for a while, and National in government has left us with ‘growth’ based on that, based on rebuilding Christchurch over recent years, based on the dairy boom and log exports and the likes. Construction was their hope to continue for years to come, but with shortages of logs, of other building materials, of labour and so much more, we have a slowing of construction in Auckland and other places, while prices remain high, as demand is still there, but supply does not keep up.
Even that demand may finally ebb off, with fewer coming here, but for now, we are in a situation between a rock and a hard place, economically and in parts of the population socially.
Prepare for a rocky ride ahead for the coming few years, doing ‘quantitative easing’ will not solve the challenges, unless a whole set of other measures is taken.
@ Chris Trotter. Please bear with…? God only knows I’m no rocket surgeon.
I want to point out a couple of things.
Thing One.
“Mickey Savage’s government hit upon the novel idea of simply borrowing the money from itself!”
That, is why democracy. Anything else is fascism at best. That’s also why voting must be made compulsory. Otherwise those lazy non voting bastards we must rub shoulders with will drag us all down with them. Which they have done.
Thing Two.
“If the private banks are allowed to create money (by crediting us with the money to buy our houses and then charging us interest on our mortgages) then why shouldn’t the state?”
Ah…? That’s why, burn the Banks. They’ve spun our reality into their wet dream fantasy and in so doing, have created mayhem in our society leading to virtually every single societal dysfunction I can name.
Thing Three.
“But the economic orthodoxy of neoliberalism is precisely what Winston has set his own, and his party’s, face against. ”
The cheap old crook peters can now rail against ‘neo liberalism’ because WE HAVE NOTHING LEFT OF ANY VALUE TO SELL WHICH WOULD LINE THE POCKETS OF THE CROOKS WHO BENEFITED MOST FROM THOSE SELL-OFF’s. I mean…? WTF…?
The only thing left to sell is the very land upon which we stand and Land Corp have a cunning plan for that. And it DOES NOT involve misty eyed ‘ young farmers’ buying farms off Land Corp to grow promised five ton carrots on. No. Not. Nyet.
Labour, like National are pondering what to do with the carcass that is Nu Zillind now that the parasites have sucked their host dry. Is there a market for a dead thing? If there is, you can bet Labour/National will find it then blame the brain dead Masses for it’s unsavoury post-mortem condition, and sorry about the Chinese flies.
By the way…
Why is my browser having kittens re insecurity of TDB?
I’d have expected the precise opposite.
I… I can’t help myself.
“Grant Robertson, guided by his patron, Sir Michael Cullen”
michael fucking cullen…? !!!!!
Another greasy, geriatric shark floundering in the shit-pond that is now Nu Zillind.
Masses? You been punk’d.
And how come jimbo ‘ Fuck You’ bolger’s all over RNZ like a rash after too many boozy nights finished off with chocolate deserts? ( Don’t ask how I know about rashes. )
Yes a slump is iminent in the global ecoomic structure so that is why we need the National traitors thrown out forthwith for their plundering of our country,
Then we need to borrow from our own reserve bank again at low interest and not pay $6 Billion to the foriegn sharks in interest on the crown bedt national has grown us from 2008 while they flogged off every last asset we owned.
Any other way is to just become another Greece.
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