Ask Me Anything about the week to July 8

Bernard Hickey is on site for an hour from midday to shoot the breeze with paid subscribers about the week's news, including: falling mortgage rates; 'Team Transition's good week and the PM's speech

TLDR: It’s that time of the week where I invite paid subscribers to throw me your questions in the comments section below about the week’s news, including:

• the big four banks cutting their two year mortgage rates by around 30-40 basis points to around 5.45% after two year wholesale ‘swaps’ rates fell 80 basis points from their June 16 peak of 4.56% in response to cooling global economic growth and inflation expectations in recent weeks;

• the fall in commodity prices to pre-war levels as fears grow that the ‘demand destruction’ from inflation’s post-war spike and much-higher interest rates are doing the central banks’ work for them;

• the Government announced plans to appoint a single Grocery Commissioner inside the Commerce Commission in the hope of doing a ‘2 Degrees’ on the groceries duopoly of Foodstuffs (Pak’n’Save/New World/Four Square) and Woolworths (Countdown);

• the heads of MI5 and the FBI took the unprecedented speech of warning business leaders in London that Chinese state-back cyberespionage was a major threat; and,

• the Infrastructure Commission told the Government and Wellington’s Councils that their choice of $7.4b of tunnels for ‘Lets Get Wellington Moving’ was not the best option for reducing carbon emissions, although the Councils approved it nevertheless.

Fire away in the comments below. Remember also, paid subscribers are invited to join our weekly ‘hoon’ live webinar covering the events in geopolitics and the global economy at 5pm today. The link is below the paywall fold.