Stats NZ data shows labour market in rude health; weekly earnings up 10.4% from a year ago; incomes rising faster than expected & faster than prices; households and banks flush; bad debts low
When she first entered parliament I found her refreshing. Now I just can't listen to her - Willis has the same generic talking points as Luxon, but it's quite worrying that a future Finance Minister's only consistent statement is that 'Grant Robertson is addicted to spending'.
I can't watch or listen to the oppositionanymore - I would like to engage with alternative viewpoints (like Bernard has presented here) but so much of what the opposition slings is hollow and generic statements, with no real solutions.
That's released now and able to read, listened to and shared in public. Many thanks. I have also re-recorded and republished the podcast that goes with it. The first one was truncated. My apologies.
I think you are onto it Bernard. Words. (tho I do hope you are okay only managing a minute's worth).
Great you challenge the distorted view of reality we are being bombarded with, but the misery is that so many people - voters! - don't question it.
On the subject of people and of words and in relation to my pet focus, the word 'consumer' - you make a perfectly normal comment - 'Anyone surprised by the ongoing strength of consumer spending need look no further.' What if we change it to citizen's spending so I don't see a mass of gobblers. How did someone illustrate as clearly as this game, what we (consumers) are meant to do? - 'Play PAC-MAN, the retro arcade game you know and love! Featuring new modes, mazes, power-ups, and more! Join millions of fans eating PAC-DOTS and chomping GHOSTS in this exciting arcade classic, updated for mobile!'
There’s a great study on the use of the word citizen vs consumer over the last 50+ years in the media. Around the time we all became individualised drones the word consumer had become more used by journos than citizen. It’s a problem. Words mean things. We’re very susceptible to internalising such things, seeing ourselves as consumers and forgetting foremost that we’re citizens. This is partly because of poor language choices. The cynic in me thinks it was editors choices back in the day to appease Murdoch, now it’s the norm. Anyway, I’m all for bringing back citizen and outcasting consumer! (I’ll try and find the study to link here when on my computer).
Great. Thanks Hammersley. Words are so powerful. Revolutions are made by words. The story of how terrible things are, is so Trumpian - the country is facing disaster and only we can fix it.
Interesting that the cross over in use of the words happened pre 1960. I imagine it was later in NZ? I've associated its use with neo-liberalism but maybe I'm wrong
The Mont Pelerin Society was founded post war, their ideas just took a few decades to gain political momentum, which might explain the earlier cross over and then the rapid change in language at the end of the 60s.
Thank you for keeping things in perspective. Interesting reading comments on your article on Interest.co.nz - a lot of people there seem to be set on the world entering the second great depression, and refuse to acknowledge any evidence that says otherwise.
I find Bernard sometimes relies too heavily on 'data-as-fact', without really delving into what this may mean as information e.g.
"wage payments averaged +10.4% from the same quarter a year ago”
- could well be driven by huge bonuses/increases for the top 10% of earners, with the middle indeed squeezed at significantly lower rates of increase. Would be good to see the distributions.
I have to say, categorically calling that there is no major pain ahead seems awfully premature to me. I think this graph sums it up best. Most mortgage holders are yet to feel the full pain of rate rises yet, so its far to early to call how this will play out
Great commentary, as usual. But it’s a very important point to keep making that there is indeed a “squeezed middle” that’s fast turning into the “working poor” & it’s those household above welfare eligibility thresholds who don’t own assets.
They’re the “hidden” squeezed middle that the NActs don’t give a damn about but who are showing up more & more with the community groups I work with on (energy) hardship. Except that by the time they show up at food banks or budget advisors, they’ve often already dug themselves a massive hole trying to hide the whakamā of not being able to service their “middle-class” status anymore...
I worry that that subtle difference may get missed when you say there ain’t no squeezed middle, Bernard (but then, the MSM isn’t talking about them either) 😞
Only 1 min of the podcast? Is that an error?
Talk about a cliff hanger!!
Sorry. On the road. My error. Fixing shortly.
Many thanks. I have re-recorded and republished the podcast that goes with it. The first one was truncated. My apologies.
Many thanks. I have re-recorded and republished the podcast that goes with it. The first one was truncated. My apologies.
Release please Bernard. Sick of the drivel from Nicola Willis on National radio this AM
Patrick Medlicott
When she first entered parliament I found her refreshing. Now I just can't listen to her - Willis has the same generic talking points as Luxon, but it's quite worrying that a future Finance Minister's only consistent statement is that 'Grant Robertson is addicted to spending'.
I can't watch or listen to the oppositionanymore - I would like to engage with alternative viewpoints (like Bernard has presented here) but so much of what the opposition slings is hollow and generic statements, with no real solutions.
That's released now and able to read, listened to and shared in public. Many thanks. I have also re-recorded and republished the podcast that goes with it. The first one was truncated. My apologies.
'3 That’s ‘t’ for trillion by the way. That’s 1,000 billion. You feeling it?'
Thanks for the pointer. But it would be easier reading simply to write it in full in the text, and dispense with abbreviations.
Fair enough John. I will spell it out in future in full sentences. But headlines and sub-headlines, will stick to b and t. Cheers
Yes, do I need to sign up to the app? That's a bit much for an old person like me! Ha ha.
Ah I hope not, I'm one of the 70% of the world running Android...
Me too, and don't want to have to change my phone and learn it all again.
It’s still one minute on the app, no need to change
Hi Andrew. I've re-recorded and reposted. It should be there now.
Podcast will always be here for all flavours of operating system. Cheers
Thanks Mr Anderson. No. We'll always have the podcast here in full for all.
Hopefully the re-posted and re-recorded version now on here works ok. Thanks for your patience.
Gotta be more 😊 or losing the will to live (entirely understandable)?
Thanks Glen Sorry. A tech snafu on my part. Have re-recorded and put it up here now.
I think you are onto it Bernard. Words. (tho I do hope you are okay only managing a minute's worth).
Great you challenge the distorted view of reality we are being bombarded with, but the misery is that so many people - voters! - don't question it.
On the subject of people and of words and in relation to my pet focus, the word 'consumer' - you make a perfectly normal comment - 'Anyone surprised by the ongoing strength of consumer spending need look no further.' What if we change it to citizen's spending so I don't see a mass of gobblers. How did someone illustrate as clearly as this game, what we (consumers) are meant to do? - 'Play PAC-MAN, the retro arcade game you know and love! Featuring new modes, mazes, power-ups, and more! Join millions of fans eating PAC-DOTS and chomping GHOSTS in this exciting arcade classic, updated for mobile!'
Our endless chomping is devouring the planet.
Hi Wendtk. I've re-recorded now and replaced the truncated version. My apologies. Cheers.
There’s a great study on the use of the word citizen vs consumer over the last 50+ years in the media. Around the time we all became individualised drones the word consumer had become more used by journos than citizen. It’s a problem. Words mean things. We’re very susceptible to internalising such things, seeing ourselves as consumers and forgetting foremost that we’re citizens. This is partly because of poor language choices. The cynic in me thinks it was editors choices back in the day to appease Murdoch, now it’s the norm. Anyway, I’m all for bringing back citizen and outcasting consumer! (I’ll try and find the study to link here when on my computer).
Great. Thanks Hammersley. Words are so powerful. Revolutions are made by words. The story of how terrible things are, is so Trumpian - the country is facing disaster and only we can fix it.
I can't find the study I was referring to (I read it about a decade ago) but this is an example of the frequency of the use of citizen vs. consumer, which became mostly interchangeable despite their obviously different meanings. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=citizen%2C+consumer&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccitizen%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cconsumer%3B%2Cc0t1
Interesting that the cross over in use of the words happened pre 1960. I imagine it was later in NZ? I've associated its use with neo-liberalism but maybe I'm wrong
The Mont Pelerin Society was founded post war, their ideas just took a few decades to gain political momentum, which might explain the earlier cross over and then the rapid change in language at the end of the 60s.
Ah, OK. Makes sense
This Ted talk (which I highly recommend) references it as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcD3lS3Utew
Thank you for keeping things in perspective. Interesting reading comments on your article on Interest.co.nz - a lot of people there seem to be set on the world entering the second great depression, and refuse to acknowledge any evidence that says otherwise.
Thanks Rory.
No worries at all. Your work rate is phenomenal. I worry you’ll implode at some point. 😊
“total weekly gross wage payments averaged $2.7b in the September quarter, up 10.4% from the same quarter a year ago;”
Didn’t an Auckland lockdown affect last year’s figures?
I find Bernard sometimes relies too heavily on 'data-as-fact', without really delving into what this may mean as information e.g.
"wage payments averaged +10.4% from the same quarter a year ago”
- could well be driven by huge bonuses/increases for the top 10% of earners, with the middle indeed squeezed at significantly lower rates of increase. Would be good to see the distributions.
Thank you for restoring my equilibrium.
I have to say, categorically calling that there is no major pain ahead seems awfully premature to me. I think this graph sums it up best. Most mortgage holders are yet to feel the full pain of rate rises yet, so its far to early to call how this will play out
https://imgur.com/a/Qx9049M
Great commentary, as usual. But it’s a very important point to keep making that there is indeed a “squeezed middle” that’s fast turning into the “working poor” & it’s those household above welfare eligibility thresholds who don’t own assets.
They’re the “hidden” squeezed middle that the NActs don’t give a damn about but who are showing up more & more with the community groups I work with on (energy) hardship. Except that by the time they show up at food banks or budget advisors, they’ve often already dug themselves a massive hole trying to hide the whakamā of not being able to service their “middle-class” status anymore...
I worry that that subtle difference may get missed when you say there ain’t no squeezed middle, Bernard (but then, the MSM isn’t talking about them either) 😞