Markets celebrate after Fed hikes 75bps as expected and Powell eyes a slower tightening; Traders are betting on rate cuts next year as mild recessions in late 2022 do the Fed's inflation-fighting work
Stats NZ nos confirmed what we all know. We can’t afford 1m boomers getting NZ super from 65 to 90 (without a doubling in the working age popn through mega immigration or a baby boom) as well as the associated demand in health care costs. Super age needs to rise to 70, within a decade, and it needs stop being a universal benefit. There is no justification for taxing cleaners in order give the money to Winston Peters etc.
Hi Bernard, The stats data is interesting - especially the growing over 65+. Are you able to do some sessions on long term strategies and the pros and cons of the strategies for addressing the ageing population issue. My sense is that many people would prefer to kick the can down the road. It will have some big repercussions for us Gen Y and Gen X
Sometime in the future Kiwisaver's faults are going to come home to roost. Governments are going to start removing National Super's universality. Why should you get a full Super payment and have all that Kiwisaver money you've been setting aside since 2007?
And how 'generous' will Super be? Will it drop from 66% of the ‘average ordinary time wage’ to some lesser percentage or be set at a fixed amount and be left to each government to raise it if they feel like it, a bit like some other benefits.
So, Kiwisaver's faults. All governments have allowed it to be raided for non-retirement purposes, which pushes the burden back on to the state to provide higher retirement benefits - but hey that's someone else's problem as the can is kicked down the road.
It is a scheme that locks in income inequality: - if you've been living on struggle street in low paid work during your working life then once you have to retire (which may be well past the retirement age) you're still going to be on struggle street because there just isn't that much money in your Kiwisaver account.
But probably the worst aspect of it is how it treats women. (I'll say it for you Kath). Early working life is fine, except for that gender pay gap, but then she marries and along comes a kid, or two, or ... and she leaves work to raise the kids. No deposits going into her Kiwisaver account because she isn't working. Then once the kids are off to school it's a low paid / part time job which means a low contribution to her Kiwisaver account. Or maybe she opts out because she needs that money to feed, clothe and house the children.
"Nuclear is the rubicon yet to be crossed by Green parties here. We’re getting closer." Leaving aside the question of waste storage in a country consisting largely of tectonic fault lines, have you looked into uranium availability and then factored in rising demand as more and more governments decide this is their magic climate solution?
Once you've found someone to build your power plant (this will be easy, it isn't a tiny global industry with ferociously prohibitive safety standards fencing out new players) and found a place to put it (the key phrases here are "exclusion zone" and "nimby"), you'll be able to look forward to cheap, reliable power (with only the minor problem of safely storing the waste)... until the uranium reserves start to run down. There's a lot of the stuff in the ground, until you start looking at it as the replacement resource for fossil fuels. In those terms, factoring in our current energy needs, there's maybe five decades worth.
Nuclear is only an energy solution if you frame the problem as "please make this go away until I'm dead". Then the next generation gets to face exactly the same energy crisis, except they also have to find a way to stop climate-related disasters from compromising all those nuclear waste dumps.
I particularly don't feel like robbing from children for my future, so why should it continue with the generations today. If anything, I'd like my Superannuation now not later.
Retirement funded by property asset inflation is great for those who own property to start with, only downside is not everyone owns property and lately it's a pipe dream to even afford such an asset. So what becomes of the 30 year olds today, and when they are set to retire in 2057 when they don't have property, and may not have the prospect of superannuation or even enough in Kiwisaver to live off. Suppose kicking the can down the generational road is what has, and will continue to be kicked until someone is ballsy enough to say no. Currently no contenders by the looks of the political spectrum unless I've been living under a rented rock.
Perhaps 2073 is a bit too far away, but we can all envisage 2052 in 30 years. In that time most of the boomers will have gone, and their self-owned homes will one way or another be distributed among their off-spring. In this time (30 years) society must work out an equitable way of housing people that don't have the benefits of home owning parents. The European system of renting secure homes for life springs to mind, and these building could be owned by the state or by corporations. Meanwhile the state must build and build, to make up for the years of neglect.
Hi Bernard thanks so much for getting up at 4.00 and translating the biggies of the economic world into words and concepts I'm slowly becoming more familiar with. What I'm trying to do is link your economic perspectives with Marilyn Waring's. Do you see any connecting threads, however fine? I'm putting this link on because I found it a beautiful documentary and maybe some of the men on here are not familiar with it. https://aeon.co/videos/we-all-play-by-economic-rules-set-by-men-what-could-a-feminist-economics-look-like
Stats NZ nos confirmed what we all know. We can’t afford 1m boomers getting NZ super from 65 to 90 (without a doubling in the working age popn through mega immigration or a baby boom) as well as the associated demand in health care costs. Super age needs to rise to 70, within a decade, and it needs stop being a universal benefit. There is no justification for taxing cleaners in order give the money to Winston Peters etc.
Hi Bernard, The stats data is interesting - especially the growing over 65+. Are you able to do some sessions on long term strategies and the pros and cons of the strategies for addressing the ageing population issue. My sense is that many people would prefer to kick the can down the road. It will have some big repercussions for us Gen Y and Gen X
Do you think humanity will look remotely like it does today in 2073?
Sometime in the future Kiwisaver's faults are going to come home to roost. Governments are going to start removing National Super's universality. Why should you get a full Super payment and have all that Kiwisaver money you've been setting aside since 2007?
And how 'generous' will Super be? Will it drop from 66% of the ‘average ordinary time wage’ to some lesser percentage or be set at a fixed amount and be left to each government to raise it if they feel like it, a bit like some other benefits.
So, Kiwisaver's faults. All governments have allowed it to be raided for non-retirement purposes, which pushes the burden back on to the state to provide higher retirement benefits - but hey that's someone else's problem as the can is kicked down the road.
It is a scheme that locks in income inequality: - if you've been living on struggle street in low paid work during your working life then once you have to retire (which may be well past the retirement age) you're still going to be on struggle street because there just isn't that much money in your Kiwisaver account.
But probably the worst aspect of it is how it treats women. (I'll say it for you Kath). Early working life is fine, except for that gender pay gap, but then she marries and along comes a kid, or two, or ... and she leaves work to raise the kids. No deposits going into her Kiwisaver account because she isn't working. Then once the kids are off to school it's a low paid / part time job which means a low contribution to her Kiwisaver account. Or maybe she opts out because she needs that money to feed, clothe and house the children.
"Nuclear is the rubicon yet to be crossed by Green parties here. We’re getting closer." Leaving aside the question of waste storage in a country consisting largely of tectonic fault lines, have you looked into uranium availability and then factored in rising demand as more and more governments decide this is their magic climate solution?
Once you've found someone to build your power plant (this will be easy, it isn't a tiny global industry with ferociously prohibitive safety standards fencing out new players) and found a place to put it (the key phrases here are "exclusion zone" and "nimby"), you'll be able to look forward to cheap, reliable power (with only the minor problem of safely storing the waste)... until the uranium reserves start to run down. There's a lot of the stuff in the ground, until you start looking at it as the replacement resource for fossil fuels. In those terms, factoring in our current energy needs, there's maybe five decades worth.
Nuclear is only an energy solution if you frame the problem as "please make this go away until I'm dead". Then the next generation gets to face exactly the same energy crisis, except they also have to find a way to stop climate-related disasters from compromising all those nuclear waste dumps.
“Nuclear is the rubicon yet to be crossed by Green parties here. We’re getting closer.”
What next reopen our Oil Refinery?
I can’t really see NZ needing a Nuclear plant, surely we can do more Geothermal?
I particularly don't feel like robbing from children for my future, so why should it continue with the generations today. If anything, I'd like my Superannuation now not later.
Retirement funded by property asset inflation is great for those who own property to start with, only downside is not everyone owns property and lately it's a pipe dream to even afford such an asset. So what becomes of the 30 year olds today, and when they are set to retire in 2057 when they don't have property, and may not have the prospect of superannuation or even enough in Kiwisaver to live off. Suppose kicking the can down the generational road is what has, and will continue to be kicked until someone is ballsy enough to say no. Currently no contenders by the looks of the political spectrum unless I've been living under a rented rock.
Time has rolled around again.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2022/07/tiwai-point-aluminium-smelter-begins-talks-with-power-companies-to-stay-open-after-2024.html
Once again.
Is the price of electricity to the aluminium smelter going to be partially tagged proportionally to the global price of aluminium? If not why not?
It would be nice if such a pricing scheme pass could pass along excess profits to lower wholesale electricity prices to households.
https://thekaka.substack.com/p/ask-me-anything-about-the-week-that-041/comment/5246763
Perhaps 2073 is a bit too far away, but we can all envisage 2052 in 30 years. In that time most of the boomers will have gone, and their self-owned homes will one way or another be distributed among their off-spring. In this time (30 years) society must work out an equitable way of housing people that don't have the benefits of home owning parents. The European system of renting secure homes for life springs to mind, and these building could be owned by the state or by corporations. Meanwhile the state must build and build, to make up for the years of neglect.
There is no such thing as a soft landing in aviation terms:
a good landing you can walk away
an excellent landing you can fly again
a crash landing you are unlikely to do either
buckle up NZ
Hi Bernard thanks so much for getting up at 4.00 and translating the biggies of the economic world into words and concepts I'm slowly becoming more familiar with. What I'm trying to do is link your economic perspectives with Marilyn Waring's. Do you see any connecting threads, however fine? I'm putting this link on because I found it a beautiful documentary and maybe some of the men on here are not familiar with it. https://aeon.co/videos/we-all-play-by-economic-rules-set-by-men-what-could-a-feminist-economics-look-like