It’s been just over 100 days since the second Labour term landslide victory.
Jacinda stood on a platform of saving the entire country from a plague that connected New Zealanders in a universal solidarity experience with a shared sense of sacrifice that saw a once in a generation vote of gratitude that propelled Labour to a democratic majority under MMP.
So who have been the winners and losers of this unprecedented political tsunami in the first 100 days?
WINNERS:
Covid free NZ: The middle classes of NZ feel their shared sacrifice to work from home in their leafy suburbs with fast internet and plump larders is on par with what the ANZACs suffered at Gallipoli while the working classes got told they were ‘essential’ (but without an essential living wage), while the billionaire class laughed all the way to the bank. We see the horror overseas and we compare that with our lax can’t give a fuck attitude here and we love it! The Shire has finally come into its own and our tyranny of distance has become a blessing.
Property Speculators & Banks: They can not believe their luck with a Labour Government printing billions and allowing them to price entire generations out of ever owning a house. This is the second time in NZ history that a Labour Government tried to defend trickle down. Roger Douglas must be laughing and David Lange crying.
Māori: The fundamental changes to the bureaucracy of Māori Land that will allow vast self development, a deal at Ihumatao, blocking anti-Māori petitions and Matariki as a public holiday have cemented into place the Māori Caucus as the most powerful faction inside Cabinet. Radical reform will need to come from the Māori Caucus.
ACT: The looming hate speech law and cancel culture are helping ACT cannibalise National vote.
Economy: Closing the borders to stop hyper tourism, migrant worker exploitation and international student scams with a State that actually props up the Economy for the common good has seen unemployment fall and far less Government debt.
Nanaia Mahuta: Her appointment as Foreign Affairs Minister has been a master stroke in global diplomacy at a time when it is urgently needed. Her strength will be crucial in the coming years of geopolitical friction.
LOSERS:
Renters: Have been utterly betrayed by this government. I’m having to move just before the new rules come into place into a rental market that is red hot because of the speculators Labour gave billions to. Thanks Labour.
Beneficiaries: Have been as utterly betrayed by this government as renters have.
National: No one wants to hear about their small Government bullshit when everyone is rushing towards the State for protection. They have no idea what they philosophically stand for other than venal self interest. Splintered by internal grudges from the catastrophic Muller coup, Judith’s smile makes her look increasingly like Dolores Umbridge.
Greens: Some identity politics virtue signalling and that’s been about it. Because Labour only have to keep Covid out, nothing much progressive will pass which will make the Greens look like they are propping up tepid mediocrity.
Inequality: The Rich got richer, the poor got Covid. Jacinda has ruled out wealth taxes and welfare increases. But young women at schools will be able to get free tampons, so yay?
Environment: Becoming Carbon Neutral by 2050 is not a solution to the climate crisis and if you think it is, you are part of the problem. Declaring a climate emergency without actually triggering emergency act powers is an empty gesture fart.
Simeon Brown: Any NZ Political Winners & Losers list that doesn’t include Simeon Brown in the loser column is not to be trusted. His loser powers are so superhuman that he forces his inclusion, no matter the topic.
CONCLUSION:
All that matters is Covid is kept from our shores and as long as Labour keep us safe, Jacinda could eat a kitten live on ZB and the vast majority would blame Mike Hosking for her doing it.
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You could add the Labour Party and Jacinda. Faith in what an unshackled Labour government could do went into decline very early this time around with Jacinda arrogantly dismissing housing as a problem worth talking about to journalists at parliament late last year.
They and she are basing themselves as some sort of Holyoake National type government less the car assembly plants, major civil engineering and NZ centric policies. A kind of bland mix of MP’s picking up their pay cheque for being there.
3 more years of pretending. And Light Rail to Mt Roskill by ’21 anyone?
When you are living a life of luxury in a ‘castle’ and collecting more computer digits by the day, its quite easy to ignore all the fraud that underpins the system. And why bother to look out the window at the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding through the country ravaging everything when you have fairy tales to read and Netflix to watch?.
With the casinos that most markets are ‘going to the moon’ and all the fundamental factors being made worse by the second, Jacinda’s days are surely numbered. Severely numbered.
Not that any of the criminals and clowns that constitute the other political parties would do any better, of course.
That the nation with the third highest standard of living in the world, and a huge potential for sustainability, could be reduced to what we are witnessing now is truly staggering. The banksters have had more than a field day.
But now it is all coming to an ignominious end via collapse of the financial Ponzi scheme, via collapse of the energy system and via collapse of the environment.
The banksters have kept their Ponzi scheme on life support for over a decade via bailouts and lowering of interest rates (and general fraud), and in doing so have exacerbated every aspect of every other predicament.
Will we get though 2021 with current economic-political arrangements intact? The evidence indicates no.
The financial tsunami cometh now, it seems:
‘The UST 10yr yield is up +5 bps at 1.34% today from Friday and now its highest in a year. It has risen +15 bps in a week. Their 2-10 rate curve is a lot steeper at 123 bps and it hasn’t been this steep since March 2017. Their 1-5 curve is also steeper at +52 bps, while their 3m-10 year curve is steeper as well at +132 bps. The Australian Govt 10 year yield is at 1.50%. The China Govt 10 year yield is up at 3.30%, but the New Zealand Govt 10 year yield is up at just over 1.52%.
Economists are raising their expectations these benchmark rates will rise a lot further. Some have lifted their target for the US 10 year bond rate by end 2021 from 1.5% to 1.8%. In turn the expected rate by end 2022 has been increased from 1.75% to 2.40%.’
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/109150/growing-china-keeps-commodity-prices-high-us-factory-activity-rises-japanese-sentiment
The Fed will simply print more money to lower the interest on the bonds (bond yield is determined by “auctions” – the Fed will bid enough to supress the interest). When bonds are being mostly (sometimes entirely) purchased by the treasury, all the debt is owed to yourself. The next bond auction should see interest rates go back down.
Will watch with interest because little does what it ‘should’ in these hyper-manipulated markets.
I always point to Japan when it comes to this particular issue. They’ve been forcing interest rates to zero for around 30 years using MMT shenanigans with very little effect on the markets. It has resulted in an eye-watering 300% debt to GDP ratio – the highest in the world (not just developed, the actual entire world!).
The theory is you can’t default on debt you owe to yourself. The US is still in very early days when it comes to this (they’re “only” at around 140%), so there a lot of scope for many more years of magical monetary policy.
Will watch with interest because little does what it ‘should’ in these hyper-manipulated markets.
Unsurprisingly, Kunstler has a few words to say about the casino that Wall Street has been morphed into since naughty Bill deregulated the financial markets in 1997:
‘The absence of the big orange You-Know-Who at center stage of American life has changed the mood of the scene from a five-alarm fire to just another day in a collapsing civilization. Texas went medieval after an ice storm took the power down for millions, with ramifications accreting by the hour — especially the countless burst water pipes that will take forever to repair. (How many plumbers are there in San Antonio?) Food went scarce overnight. People died in their cars. The political blowback has barely registered yet, except for Senator Ted Cruz slinking back home from a luxury resort in Cancun, whoops, and Beto O’Rourke shooting his mouth off like a cholo with a Saturday night special at a low-rider parade on Cinco de Mayo.
Covid-19 cases are going down fast across the country. If it actually goes away, imagine the giant hole left in the national narrative. No more arguments over lockdowns, kids could go back to school to learn about the scourge of whiteness, and Americans could see each other’s faces again. The “progressives” in power would have to hunt up some new reasons to cancel the bill of rights. That shouldn’t be too difficult for a party adept at making shit up. Right wing extremism would be my bet, even if Antifa and BLM go back to partying in the streets like it’s 2020 when the weather warms up.
What won’t go away is the nation’s fantastic economic mess. In just a few months since Thanksgiving, the financial system has gone through an epic shift, barely noticed by citizens preoccupied with unpaid bills, skipped rents, and empty refrigerators: the stock markets are now based on Bitcoin, which is to say on less than nothing. A whole new dynamic has emerged with publicly-held companies buying the stuff hand-over-fist. An outfit like Tesla, rumored to manufacture electric cars, invested $1.5 billion in the crypto-currency, which has shot up to over $50,000-a-coin in recent weeks. The move was so splendidly shrewd that Tesla’s stock price also shot up, though they don’t make a profit on those cool cars. Of course, $1.5 billion is chump change for the charismatic Elon Musk, whose share of the American GDP can be seen from outer space, like the Great Wall of China.
Other companies are buying Bitcoin on margin, taking advantage of super-low interest rates to make a fast killing. What a great idea! Even better than borrowing to buy back your own company’s stock to jack-up the share value. Don’t be surprised if half of the S & P jumps into the Bitcoin frenzy, bidding it up to six figures. Won’t that do wonders for US productivity and working-class wages? None of that will escape the attention of a “progressive” Congress, which will see a great opportunity to try to compensate for its fiscal profligacy by passing new taxes on “excess wealth” or “windfall profits.” Then, watch the rush-to-the-exits by shareholders in those companies that loaded up on Bitcoin, aggravated by the margin calls on the dough they borrowed to buy the stuff… as well as Bitcoin itself plummeting back to its actual true value: around zero.
Meanwhile, Covid or no Covid, there is now a very large class of people across this land who either can’t or won’t earn a living, and we are seeing last year’s idle chat about “guaranteed basic income” (GBI) rapidly congeal into solid policy proposals to supply just that. It’s insane, you know, having nothing to do with producing things of value, but such is the new faith in monetary techno-magic — of which Bitcoin is the exemplar — that the reigning grand viziers and necromancers of economics are unanimous that it’s actually possible to get something for nothing now. I’m sure enough Republicans would go along with it — in terror of their broke and wrathful voters — to pass GBI.
The wild card, though, is how quickly we will destroy the value of the dollar as all this occurs, that is, provoke a king-hell inflation, so the people will get their GBI in worthless money. Nobody believes it can happen after ten years of quantitative easing and other shucks-and-jives in the accounting thickets that seemed to hardly move the inflation needle, except on Wall Street. But anyone who sets foot in a supermarket these days must feel a little shocked at food prices. A dollar for one measly onion… eight bucks for a little flat of ground beef…? How do people with no jobs or lost businesses feed their families? Do they get a warm tingly feeling knowing that Tesla shares are also up? Or are they out in the old toolshed at midnight, sharpening the pitchforks and soaking rags in kerosene?
Perhaps Ol’ Woke Joe Biden will explain where all this is going in his upcoming State of the Union Address scheduled for next Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Oh, you didn’t know about that? I wouldn’t blame you. There is absolutely no buzz about it in the mainstream media, like, they’d rather not think about it. Yes, the alleged President goes before a joint session of Congress in a few days, with every other dignitary in government on hand in the chamber except the lone “designated survivor,” off in a secret bunker somewhere. Won’t that be something? With the whole world watching on TV, too, including, no doubt, a few foreign heads-of-state who Veep Kamala Harris confabbed with last week because the, ahem, president was too busy… or something like that.’
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/covid-or-no-covid/
Whilst few New Zealanders have direct involvement in the American ‘casino’ ,I do wonder about New Zealand’s exposure via KiwiSaver and other such ‘investments’ in fictional markets and fictional money.
Lol, “on Par with the ANZACs”. Who can ever forget our great victory as fast food drive thru opened across the Nation. A beacon of light in the covid darkness!
“Let them eat cake, I am busy saving the world (especially Hollywood)”
Labour’s motto should be “strong team, housing speculators”
Glad I’ve never voted for Aunty Jacinda.
Traitor, lier, fraud, pseudo academic, arrogant, fake, disingenuous, annoying and weak.
Can you name a politician that isnt one of any of those names?
We finally agree on something about politicians of all persuasion.
I remember talking to a newly elected woman who was one tough lady and she said after 6 months she could not wait until her time was up. All her dreams were shattered by the way things were done behind closed doors
4 years of neglect, no surprise to those who dont subscribe to a cult of personality politics.
The politicians’ big reassuring smile doesn’t really cover over the reality of biased, unfair, weak or nonexistent policy making so much these days.
it’s astounding how she is actually getting away with the “do nothing” option and is still popular and that says more about us than her.
Probably because doing nothing is better government for many NZ citizens, that what has been done to the people over the past 30 years in NZ.
Of course it would be Hosking’s fault, Jacinda is kind and wuvly.
‘The next bond auction should see interest rates go back down.’
Hmm? Apparently not.
‘SWAP & BONDS RATES TAKE OFF AT LONG END
We don’t have today’s closing swap rates yet. If there are movements today, we will note them here later when we get the data. It is likely they will be rising, especially at the long end. Today the 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp at 0.27%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is +6 bps higher at 1.56%. The China Govt ten year bond is unchanged at 3.30%. But the New Zealand Govt ten year is up +13 bps today to 1.65%. That is well above where the earlier RBNZ fix was, at 1.59% (+8 bps). The US Govt ten year is up +4 bps from this morning, pushing on up to 1.38%.’
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/109164/review-things-you-need-know-you-go-home-monday-strong-farm-sales-searing-mortgage-market
‘it’s astounding how she is actually getting away with the “do nothing” option and is still popular and that says more about us than her.’
It is not astounding, it is simple. For most of us there is no alternative.
Labour is unsatisfactory but National is terrible and National and ACT together are the apocalypse for anyone who is not wealthy.
The Green were a counterbalance to Labour but with the departure of their original leadership they disappeared up their own orifice in a welter of new age middle class confusion.
Labour remain because they are the lesser of evils and thus they will stay until National recovers under a new ‘charismatic’ leader and regains power.
I fear that day is inevitable.
If you do not think it can be done I am so old I remember when Labour wanted to dump Helen Clark because they were polling so low under her leadership.
She faced down her critics and won election and became Prime Minister. She also continued the position of the Labour Party as ‘National Lite’ which it has held ever since the 1980s.
Where is the Saint of Socialism that can save us? I despair.
+1,000,000,000,000
100 days of sweet bugger all.
Or
100 forgettable days
or
100 you got what sort of landslide, and you did nothing with it days.
and has anyone noticed lately the stink emanating from the cities ‘local body’ politic?
and has anyone noticed lately the stink emanating from the cities ‘local body’ politic?
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