TLDR & TLDL: Jacinda Ardern is in isolation this morning awaiting results of a PCR test after being a close contact of a Covid case on a flight from Kerikeri to Wellington, but she is feeling healthy and is expected to chair tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting.
However, she’ll do that as her personal popularity continues to fall, possibly even lower than Christopher Luxon’s. I dig deeper into a strange poll result from last night below the paywall fold.
Later this week, I’ll be covering:
Reserve Bank statistics on mortgage lending for December due at 3pm today to see how much of a credit crunch there was before of tighter LVR rules and the new CCCFA rules;
Tuesday’s post-Cabinet news conference, where we’re expecting an update on whether the border can open to New Zealanders returning from Australia to home-isolate outside of MIQ from the end of February, as currently scheduled;
jobs and wages figures for the December quarter due on Wednesday, with a lot of the focus on how much wages are rising and what that means for interest rates; and,
overseas, whether the Bank of England hikes interest rates for a second time and starts reversing its money printing on Thursday night, whether the European Central Bank retains it’s ‘transitory’ inflation view on Thursday night, and whether US jobs kept growing at a rate of 165,000 a month in January on Friday night.
Also, this morning I appeared on TVNZ Breakfast with John Campbell (below) to talk about my email sent to subscribers last week on the massive increase wealth inequality since Covid. Paying subscribers help me keep doing this work. We always welcome more members of the paid subscriber community, who get my daily podcasts, much more detail in these Dawn Choruses, and invites to weekly Ask Me Anything sessions and our weekly ‘hoon’ webinar with Peter Bale.
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