Liam Dann’s vacant green shoots of recovery optimism vs strongest El Niño in 1000 years
Please, Donald Trump: Fresh petrol pump pain threatens NZ’s fragile recovery – Liam Dann
It’s great that US President Donald Trump is a fan of Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox.
But it’s a shame that his erratic foreign policy approach continues to undermine our recovery.
Perhaps Ryan could have a word.
“Could you please end the conflict in Iran, Mr Trump … ”
The bottom line is that New Zealand – with the rest of the world – has just been hit with another inflationary oil shock.
It might not be as shocking this time as it was in March. There is less reason to fear that we’re actually going to run out of fuel.
But Kiwis will have been feeling the pinch as they fill up their tanks this school holidays, with prices in many places topping $3.50 a litre for 91.
This presents a very real threat to what remains a very fragile economic recovery in this country.
Given that high fuel prices are also undermining Trump’s Republican colleagues in the upcoming US midterm elections, I don’t think he is about to soften his strategy for our benefit.
Quite what his strategy is continues to baffle US political pundits.
Early last week, there were positive signs for oil prices with reports of increased traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices fell below US$100 ($178) a barrel for the first time in a month.
But hopes that this might be the start of something good for the global economy were dashed on Friday. The Wall Street Journal reported Trump had told aides that he expects to start bombing Iran again after the US midterm elections in November.
US officials also told the Journal that an additional 10,000 troops are also being deployed to the region. A third aircraft carrier has also been deployed.
Benchmark Brent crude oil prices immediately rose back above the US$100 mark.
Is Trump about to expand the military operation? Or by the time you read this, will he already have said something to calm markets?
Who knows? Does he?
It seems safe to say he plans to keep the whole world guessing.
But the uncertainty that he sows with this strategy is not good for us.
Last week, Treasury’s better-than-expected pre-election fiscal and economic update (Prefu) served as a kind of official recognition that some sort of recovery is underway.
The economy is still growing … just.
But confidence in the recovery’s sustainability is the missing piece of the puzzle.
What’s needed is for businesses to start investing for growth – that means hiring, as well as upgrading machinery and technology.
And for businesses to start investing, they need to see that consumers are starting to spend.
This can be somewhat self-fulfilling.
With good export earnings coming from the primary sector and a relatively solid rebound in tourism, there is money in the economy.
So why can’t we just get on with it? Maybe we should all just believe in ourselves.
Or maybe it’s my fault (and the rest of the media) for running negative headlines?
NZME
I love how wildly Liam Dann is spiralling now.
Capitalism’s greatest cheerleader was popping the green shoots of recovery champagne last November and has been blaming Donald Trump ever since.
The reason this Government’s austerity programme didn’t work the way previous austerity programmes have is because people’s private debt is far higher. People can’t pick up the extra costs the Government are dropping on them because they are already up to their eyeballs in debt.
Liam is so desperate to find something to be optimistic about, he’s pretending Nicola Willis’ Prefu, which predicts a surplus in 3 years. is probable.
Imagine being an Adult and believing all the social carnage of the last 3years is somehow justifiable because Nicola might make a surplus by the end of the decade.
Sure.
Here’s the reality.
Capitalism loves to fuck, but it’s a really nervous rooter and requires a choir of Economists and Commentators to constantly be cheering to keep the animal spirts of capitalism in the orgy.
One negative word and Capitalism loses its boner.
Consumerism is a religion of faith that always promises tomorrow what today never brings.
Here’s the problem for Liam and his fellow preachers of Capitalism.
El Niño.
This years El Niño is now predicted to be the most extreme in 1000 years!
1000 fucking years!
The last 3 El Nino’s cost NZ about $12billion in Economic damage, so what the hell will the worst in 1000 years cost us?
WE DON’T KNOW!
The Banks acknowledge the looming El Niño, but they are so worried about including it into the economic models, they are excluding it so that they can manufacture a slither of silver lining to hope for.
At this stage most Economic Journalists and Economists are just faith healers for Capitalism.
Independent Media is more important than ever, especially in the lead up to the Election. TDB is the largest Left Wing Blog in NZ and we have been operating for 13 years. We get zero funding from NZonAir and we don’t have no rich backers. If you can donate please do so here or directly into our account –12-3065-0133561-56
Liam Dann is doing a good impersonation of an AI chatbot with his
Delusional Sycophancy …..just like Paul Henry’s current preachings around the country….apparently…we all just have to think more positively about the massive debt that many have had to undertake just t
o keep their heads above water.
Why do such dumb, stoltifyingly boring, undereducated, one dimensional money grabbing, narrow minded small thinking robotic regurgitators get to have so much say to the public at large…….and…is that all they have to live for…talking garbage to their silos ….who are these weird people?
like Liam Dann and Paul Henry… get to have their pathetiic ill- conceived opinions voiced to the public at large
As the price of petrol and diesal to run a car goes up, or even runs short, the Greens plan for more trains makes more and more sense.
Better air quality, less road congestion, less green house gas emissions.
Three goods in one.
And with Labour’s $20 fare cap a week, for both buses and trains a huge reduction a huge chunk out of the cost of living crisis. What’s not to like?
And leaving the car in the garages avoids National’s planned petrol tax, oops I meant levy, not a tax. Cos National is the “No New Taxes” party, and a levy is not a tax, definietly not a tax, it may look like a tax, it might even feel like a tax, but it’s a levy., not a tax, and anyone who tells you it is a tax is a lying communist/terrorist who should go back to where they came from.