The Hoon

TLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and Aotearoa’s political economy covered on The Kākā for paying subscribers included: * Council staff in Wellington going rogue on their council, quietly reinserted 797 villas into the Council’s district plan, despite express instructions from Council after a heated debate and vote last year that character zones stopping building be cut by 72%; Monday’s email...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thekaka.substack.com TLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and Aotearoa’s political economy covered on The Kākā for paying subscribers included: * Treasury estimating the Government could have to spend from $3 billion to $24 billion buying carbon credits overseas to meet our Paris climate obligations, depending on the scale of our failu...

TLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and Aotearoa’s political economy covered on The Kākā for paying subscribers included: * revelations that the Reserve Bank (Te Pūtea Matua) is paying billions per year in interest to the big four Australian-owned banks, as well as providing $19 billion of subsidised loans to them at a time when the Government more broadly is refusing requests for extra spending...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thekaka.substack.com TLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and Aotearoa’s political economy covered on The Kākā included: * The runs on Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank on the west coast of the United States that forced the US Treasury, FDIC and Federal Reserve to intervene to promise full payouts to depositors, over and abov...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thekaka.substack.com TLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included: * PM Chris Hipkins’ announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but which blew up the Emissions Trading Scheme (Thursday’s email ), upset the Greens and was overshadowed somewhat by Stuart...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thekaka.substack.com TLDR: This week’s news in geo-politics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included: * National proposed a select committee inquiry into bank profits, which prompted the Government to say it was considering a full market study of the banking sector by the Commerce Commission (Thursday’s email ); * National...

TLDR: This week’s news in geo-politics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included: * National released its plan to repeal Three Waters and push the responsibility, the bill and the blame for building infrastructure back down to councils, with Christopher Luxon pledging the plan would not increase rates, although he acknowledged councils may lift water charges; Monday’s email and podcas...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thekaka.substack.com TLDR: This week, the clean up after cyclone Gabrielle forced the Government into a last-minute rewrite of its pre-election Budget 2023 set for May 18, but the Reserve Bank warned it against spending with extra tax or less spending to ensure the rebuild doesn’t generate more inflation in an economy straining at full...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thekaka.substack.com TLDR: This week, Cyclone Gabrielle wrecked the Hawkes Bay, Gisborne and parts of Coromandel and Northland, killing at least 10 people, cutting off power to 225,000 homes and making 10,000 homeless in what appears to be Aotearoa’s biggest natural disaster since the Christchurch Earthquakes of 2011 and our worst clima...

TLDR: This week in the podcast of our weekly hoon webinar for paying subscribers, Peter Bale and myself talked with Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick and Auckland City Councillor for the Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa ward, Julie Fairey, about Auckland’s floods, climate change and what might (and should) happen next. This week’s five big things The climate changed - Auckland’s heaviest ever downpour aft...

TLDR: Chris Hipkins signalled in his first week as PM he was open to loosening migration settings and would ‘rein in’ unnecessary Government spending to focus on ‘bread and butter’ cost-of-living issues once he picks his full Cabinet next week. Also in our political economy, the global economy and geo-politics this week: * December quarter inflation was softer than the Reserve Bank (Te Pūtea Matua...

TLDR: Jacinda Ardern shocked almost everyone by returning from a summer break this week and resigning as Prime Minister because she said had “nothing left in the tank.” Perhaps even more surprising, Deputy PM and Finance Minister Grant Robertson said he did not want the top job, having tried and failed twice to become Labour Leader in 2011 and 2014. Within 48 hours, the Labour Caucus settled on Ch...

TLDR: This year the long effects of covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine generated global labour and energy supply shocks that fired up already-hot demand-led inflation from 2020 and 2021. That forced central banks to slam on the interest rate brakes, which is forecast to create recessions next year, just as inflation comes off the boil. In Aotearoa, the Labour Government’s popularity cratered a...

TLDR: This week in geo-politics, the global economy and Aotearoa’s political economy, we learned: * the Government’s RMA replacement will take 10 years and keep distracting us all from the magical thinking of the last 30 years that low taxes and investment co-exist with high population growth; Thursday’s Deep Dive * a new report showed the big electricity gentailers paid out $3.7b in excess divide...

TLDR: This week in geo-politics, the global economy and Aotearoa’s political economy, we learned: * Te Putea Matua (The Reserve Bank) found in its review of its own performance over the last five years it complied with its own act couldn’t have done much different to stop inflation jumping to 7% or house prices surging 45% in 18 months; * The Opposition was “shocked and appalled” at the reappointm...

TLDR: This week in geo-politics, the global economy and Aotearoa’s political economy, we learned: * PM Jacinda Ardern didn’t take the Three Waters offramp offered to her by the new mayors of Auckland and Christchurch; * Aotearoa kept growing jobs and real incomes at faster-than-expected rates in the September quarter; * Reserve Bank stress tests found banks were so profitable and well stocked with...

TLDR: This week in geo-politics, the global economy and Aotearoa’s political economy, we learned: * China is retreating further into itself under a now completely dominant Xi Jinping ; * global investors think central banks are about to do a ‘dovish pivot’ on interest rates; * but Adrian Orr isn’t ready to pivot yet and wants unemployment to rise first; * our Employment Court ruled Uber drivers ar...

TLDR: This week in geo-politics, the global economy and our local political economy, our inflation was hotter than expected as profit margins rose, Xi Jinping doubled down on China’s zero Covid strategy, the Government loosened migration settings without a population plan or enough infrastructure, and Liz Truss resigned. The podcast above is a recording of our weekly ‘hoon’ (plural for Kaka) webin...

TLDR: This week on the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Friday at 5pm for an hour, myself and co-host Peter Bale , along with economist Rodney Jones and University of Canterbury -based and Ukrainian-born political communications scientist Natalia Chaban discussed the news of the week in geo-politics, the global economy and Aotearoa’s political economy, including: * the anti-Labour b...

TLDR: This week in the news in geo-politics, the global economy and Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy: * Te Pūtea Matua (The Reserve Bank) hiked its interest rates again to control inflation (Thursday’s email ); * the Government revealed a robust set of accounts that will allow room for competing tax cut offers in next year’s election (Thursday’s email ); * local elections came to a close with a rev...

TLDR: I spoke this week in the podcast above to NZ Herald senior writer Simon Wilson about the election campaign for the Auckland Council that ends this weekend. In particular, we looked at the potential makeup of the new council and the attributes of Mayoralty contenders Efeso Collins and Wayne Brown. This election is crucial for Auckland’s future, given the huge decisions needed in the next coup...

TLDR: This week the financial and geo-political outlooks darkened in Britain and northern Europe after Britain’s plans for unfunded tax cuts were trashed by financial markets and sabotage of gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea aggravated tensions between NATO and Russia. Closer to home, National’s leaders Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis were forced to deny their tax cuts were similar to Britain’s...

TLDR: This week The Kākā had its first anniversary as a paid subscription email newsletter and podcast. We marked the occasion at midday for an hour on Friday by having a special ‘hoon’ webinar for all subscribers to discuss the events of the week in geo-politics and Aotearoa-NZ. Popular special guests Professor Robert Patman from the University of Otago , ANZ Chief Economist Sharon Zollner and Do...

TLDR: The podcast above is a recording of our Weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers. We do this every Friday for an hour at 5pm and it’s one of our most popular features, along with my Ask Me Anything session from midday on a Friday. Yesterday’s was a cracker. This week’s guests on the ‘hoon’ were University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor Robert Patman and Kiwibank Chief Economist Jar...

TLDR: In this week’s ‘hoon’ webinar in podcast form above, Peter Bale and myself invited on ANZ Chief Economist Sharon Zollner and talked about: * Europe’s energy crisis and how Governments were intervening in markets to impose windfall taxes and pay hundreds of billions in energy subsidies to households; * the European Central Bank’s biggest rate hike in 24 years and why this meant Peter would fi...