The Hoon

TLDR: This week on the weekly hoon webinar, we talked about the Government’s GST U-turn, the likely election of Liz Truss as UK PM, Ukraine’s counter-attack in Ukraine, and National’s relaxed reaction to a UN report on China’s oppression of Uighurs. I’m keeping this short this week as I’ve been focused on getting out my interview with Adrian Orr earlier this morning. The audio from the webinar on...

TLDR: The five signals I picked out from the noise this week were: The Fed scared markets a bit US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in his hotly-anticipated speech at Jackson Hole at 2am this morning that the Fed must keep hiking interest rates “until the job is done,” which would probably lower economic growth for “a sustained period.” This was seen as tougher than traders and investors h...

TLDR: The five signals I picked out from the noise this week were: * Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr ’s second term is hanging in the balance as he scrambles to drag inflation down and have some sort of outside review before March; * A call from the Human Rights Commissioner for a rent freeze and an increase in the accommodation supplement exposed again the Government’s lack of a housing affordab...

TLDR: The five signals I picked out from the noise this week were: * China only rattled its sabres in the Taiwan Strait; * There was no inflation in the United States in July; * House prices are bottoming out in Auckland City and Wellington City; * Christopher Luxon failed his first candidate selection test; and, * An Auditor General ’s report exposed Three Waters’ democratic deficit. I co-hosted...

TLDR: This week, National called for an independent review of the Reserve Bank’s unleashing of a ‘tidal wave of cash’ during Covid after a former Governor joined a chorus of critics, which Finance Minister Grant Robertson dismissed as ‘hindsight economics’. Also in the news in global geo-politics and our political economy: * China warned the United States it was ‘playing with fire’ by planning to...

TLDR: This week, Aotearoa-NZ’s annual inflation rate rose more than expected to 7.3%, which restarted the debate about who was to blame and what should be done about it, as I wrote in Tuesday’s Chorus. Meanwhile, Europe finally tightened its monetary policy, but faces the potential for another debt crisis, as I wrote in Friday’s Chorus. In the climate crisis, I wrote in Monday’s Chorus about perfo...

TLDR: This week, demands to loosen restrictions on bringing in migrant workers grew to a crescendo amid widespread delays, cancellations and employer concerns about wage inflation. In Thursday’s Chorus , I looked at whether a loosening is a good idea on its own, and what a bipartisan deal on migration along with infrastructure spending should look like. Also, the Reserve Bank hiked its official in...

TLDR: This week PM Jacinda Ardern pushed back at talk Aotearoa-NZ has joined the ‘west’ too strongly in a new cold war between the United States and China, British PM Boris Johnson (finally) resigned (sort of) and former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was shot and killed. Closer to home, two-year mortgage rates were cut 30-40 basis points to around 5.45%, commodity prices fell again as global recession fe...

TLDR: This week PM Jacinda Ardern signed a trade deal with the European Union and gave an historic speech to NATO ’s summit in Madrid, which edged Aotearoa-NZ ever closer to the US-led alliance lining up against Russia and China. In response, our largest trading partner called the speech wrong and unhelpful. Also, business and consumer confidence here slumped again and the Reserve Bank ’s new Chie...

TLDR: This week the US Federal Reserve hiked its key interest rate by a super-sized 75 basis points to fight inflation running at 8.6%. That unleashed fresh mayhem on global markets, including another slump in shares into bear market territory and the collapse of crypto-lender Celcius . Bitcoin fell more than a third. Meanwhile, house prices in Aotearoa-NZ fell again, including Auckland City’s med...

TLDR: This week our Reserve Bank detailed its plans to slowly unwind its $55b of Covid-era money printing, the European Central Bank finally stopped its money printing to fight inflation of over 8%, the United Nations warned the war in Ukraine was unleashing a global hunger and poverty catastrophe, and Simplicity Living cancelled its orders to buy Gib from Fletcher Building. Elsewhere: US inflatio...

TLDR: In the podcast above of this week’s ‘hoon’ webinar for paid subscribers, co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale bring talk with special guests Robert Patman and Josie Pagani about China’s backlash against a strengthening of NZ’s security ties with the United States. This is our weekly sampler email for both free and paid subscribers. A reminder to free subscribers reading here that we have a...

TLDR: This week the Reserve Bank warned of a rise in mortgage rates to 6% and a peak-to-trough fall in house prices of 15%, but said the economy and homeowners could handle it without forcing the economy into recession. It also rejected Opposition claims that Labour’s fiscal policy and employment mandate had forced the Reserve Bank’s faster move to higher interest rates. Elsewhere, China launched...

TLDR: This week the Government released a tame Emissions Reduction Budget and presented a tighter Budget, while overseas, the United Nations warned 47m more people will starve within months if the war in Ukraine continues and Australian PM Scott Morrison faces an election loss this week. I discussed these events and more in our weekly ‘hoon’ live webinar for paid subscribers to The Kākā, which is...

TLDR: The Kākā’s hoon about the week that was in the podcast above included Peter Bale and me talking with special guest Professor Robert Patman about the latest geo-political and economic fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine, along with closer looks at Budget 2022 on Thursday, the week’s crypto-crash and double-digit house price deflation. This is our weekly sampler email for both free and paid s...

TDLR: This is a podcast of the live weekly ‘hoon’ webinar I do with Peter Bale most Friday afternoons for paid subscribers. This week we spoke about the wealth tax debate, National’s rise above Labour in the polls, the scale of our infrastructure deficit and what’s being done about it, what a higher debt ceiling means and how the war in Ukraine is going. Here’s more detail on what we talked about...