Warning! NZ disposable income down

Link received Mon, 6 Apr 2015 at 1:00 p.m.

█ Message: Wouldn’t read this in local media !!!

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### marketoracle.co.uk Apr 05, 2015 – 01:28 PM GMT
Economics / Asian Economies
New Zealand Economy – There’s Trouble Brewing In Middle Earth
By Raul I Meijer
For the second time in three years, I’m fortunate enough to spend some time in New Zealand (or Aotearoa). In 2012, it was all mostly a pretty crazy touring schedule, but this time is a bit quieter. Still get to meet tons of people though, in between the relentless Automatic Earth publishing schedule. And of course people want to ask, once they know what I do, how I think their country is doing.
My answer is I think New Zealand is much better off than most other countries, but not because they’re presently richer (disappointing for many). They’re better off because of the potential here. Which isn’t being used much at all right now. In fact, New Zealand does about everything wrong on a political and macro-economic scale. […] I’ve been going through some numbers today, and lots of articles, and I think I have an idea what’s going on. Thank you to my new best friend Grant here in Northland (is it Kerikeri or Kaikohe?) for providing much of the reading material and the initial spark.
To begin with, official government data. We love those, don’t we, wherever we turn our inquisitive heads. Because no government would ever not be fully open and truthful.

This is from Stuff.co.nz, March 19 2015:
New Zealand GDP grew 3.3% last year

New Zealand’s economy grew 3.3% last year, the fastest since 2007 before the global financial crisis, Statistics NZ said. Most forecasts expect the economy to keep growing this year and next, although slightly more slowly than in the past year. For the three months ended December 31, GDP grew 0.8%, in line with Reserve Bank and other forecasts. That was led by shop sales and accommodation. That sounds great compared to most other nations. But then we find out where the alleged growth has come from (I say alleged because other data cast a serious doubt on the ‘official’ numbers) […] while the economy ostensibly grew by 3.3%, disposable income was down. That’s what you call a warning sign.

….Meijer’s commentary continues in reference to recent New Zealand news stories:

Stuff: Dairy Slump Hits New Zealand Exports To China
Radio NZ: Export Drop Rattles Companies
NZ Herald: World Dairy Prices Slide 10.8% On Supply Concerns
Radio NZ: World ‘Awash With Milk’
NZ Herald: Stress Too Much For Farmers
NZ Herald: Hot Properties: Auckland Valuations Out Of Date Within Months

He ends by citing NZ Herald: New Zealand’s Economic Winds Of Change:

Chaos theory calls it the butterfly effect. It’s the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon could cause a tornado in Texas. The New Zealand economy has plenty of its own butterflies changing the weather for GDP growth, jobs, interest rates, inflation and house prices. [..] One of the flappiest at the moment is the global iron ore price. It’s barely noticed here but it’s an indicator of growing trouble inside our largest trading partner, China, and it is knocking our second-largest partner, Australia, for six. It fell to a 10-year low of almost US$50 a tonne this week and is down from a peak of more than US$170 a tonne in early 2011.
[…] President Xi has reinforced the contrasting effects of the changes in China on Australia and New Zealand by encouraging consumers and investors to spend more of China’s big trade surpluses overseas. Tourism from China was up 40% in the first two months of this year from a year ago, and there remains plenty of demand from investors in China for New Zealand assets.
The dark side of this tornado in New Zealand after the flapping of the butterfly’s wings in China was felt in Nelson this week. The region’s biggest logging trucking firm, Waimea Contract Carriers, was put into voluntary administration owing $14m, partly because of a slump in log exports to China in the past six months.
That’s because New Zealand’s logs are now mostly shipped to China to be timber boxing for the concrete being poured in its new “ghost” cities. The Chinese iron ore butterfly has flapped and now we’re seeing Gold Coast winter breaks become cheaper and logging contracts rarer.

█ Read full article

Website: http://theautomaticearth.com (provides unique analysis of economics, finance, politics and social dynamics in the context of Complexity Theory)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

WikiHouseNZ @ Christchurch #eqnz

Possible interior of a WikiHouseNZ project called the BackYarder
Photo: Tigran Haruyunyan, WikiHouse (via Stuff)

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The new prototype, called the Backyarder, is the “nucleus of a much larger house”. –Danny Squires, WikiHouseNZ

### Stuff.co.nz Last updated 08:20, April 6 2015
Business
WikiHouse project ‘a social enterprise’
A communal house-building network that started in the dark days after the Christchurch earthquake will be a reality this year. WikiHouse is an open hardware project, where experts design houses, or parts of them, and share their creations online for any house builder who wants to use them.
WikiHouseNZ co-founders and directors Danny Squires and Martin Luff will build a 25-30 square metre prototype house by the end of the year, they said at a launch event. The house will be fully enclosed, watertight, insulated, plumbed and wired for electricity and the internet. It would cost no more than a conventional house of the same size, Luff said.
The pair would seek consent for the building. It would initially be manufactured and assembled in WikiHouseNZ’s lab in Addington, but could be disassembled in hours and moved anywhere. WikiHouses are built from plywood shaped by a computer-controlled cutting machine. Components were fastened with plywood pegs rather than nails or screws.
The houses are more than “hobbyist prefab systems”, said Alastair Parvin, the London-based architect credited with launching the WikiHouse idea in 2011. The New Zealanders came aboard almost immediately and were in effect co-founders, Parvin told the launch via Skype. The New Zealand arm was a social enterprise. It generated profits but used them for a social good.
Read more

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█ WikiHouse/NZ developed by Space Craft Systems
Space Craft Systems is a social enterprise forged in the crucible of post earthquake Christchurch to develop the WikiHouse system in NZ and revolutionise the way we create our built environments. http://spacecraft.co.nz/wikihouse-news/

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Related Post and Comments:
23.4.14 WikiHouse.cc | open source construction set

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Energy, a little picture #wow

█ A short chain of correspondence was forwarded this morning. As far as I’m concerned Agenda 21 adherents with (fossilised) climate panic may fall off the Earth as soon as possible to good effect. Elizabeth Head-In-Sand, Site Admin

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From: Calvin Oaten
To: Jinty MacTavish
Subject: Energy
Date: 5 April 2015 12:56 pm NZST

Hi Jinty,

I thought you might be interested in reading this article. Eighty four pages, but I suspect the gist of it can be got from reading the last maybe twenty, if time is of the essence.

Jinty, I know your aversion to fossil fuels and can understand the argument. But it seems to me that we desperately need to continue to use energy to ‘sustain’ present needs of food and almost every detail of present day living. That, until technology can replace it is totally reliant on fossil fuels.

To suddenly turn off the taps so to speak, would almost destroy society as we know it. Buying time is the only option as I see it and precipitate action would be counterproductive. This might come as a surprise to you but I do care for the planet as well, but also the people on it. I am just frightened that the current moves, ostensibly to ‘save the planet’, might be premature. It is not as if the perceived disaster of Co2 increase in the atmosphere is a proven model, yet. One of the aspects that have been touted is that of imminent sea rise and runaway warming. It seems at present that neither have come to pass according to projections. That they might is still based on theories that while they could become valid (who am I to know) have yet to do so. We must wait.

Another claim is that we will be subjected to more and more ‘climatic events’ of disastrous moment like cyclone/hurricanes of increasing intensity due to this inherent warming. That I question as I have done some research into the history of ‘events’ past.

In no particular order this is what I found.

● 1900 Galveston Texas. Deadliest hurricane in US history, 8,000 killed, 145mph (233kph) winds.

● 1928 Okeechebee. 4,000 killed, category 5 160mph (260kph) winds.

● 1974 Darwin. Tracy, 240kmh winds, tremendous destruction.

● 1998 North American Ice Storm. Huge destruction.

● 1780 Great Hurricane of the Antilles. 20,000 – 22,000 deaths, winds probably exceeding 200mph (320kph). It ran from 10-16 October. Six continuous days! There were two other deadly events in that 1780 season.

Now for what it is worth in 1780 the industrial revolution had not started, coal as an industry was in its infancy and oil far in the future.
Further, 1780 was firmly in the Little Ice Age.

Oil was just found around 1900 when Galveston was hit. 1928 was still pre intense fossil fuel exploitation.

Jinty, I only want to make the point that just maybe we are jumping the gun here in the demonising of fossil fuels relative to our way of life. Which is it to be, destroy, or buy time till viable alternatives become feasible? A serious choice which ought not be made on whims or unsubstantiated theories.

Here is the attachment as suggested.*

Click to access Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf

Cheers,
Calvin

*‘Perfect Storm: Energy, finance and the end of growth’ by Tim Morgan, Head of Global Research, Tullett Prebon. -Eds

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On 5/04/2015, at 10:39 pm, Jinty MacTavish wrote:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/09/10-myths-about-fossil-fuel-divestment-put-to-the-sword

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On 5/04/2015, at 11:19 pm, “Calvin Oaten” wrote:

Hi Jinty,
Love the informality of your intro.

Read it, Bill McKibben is firstly not a scientist, he is a lobbyist or rabble rouser. That’s OK and I believe his heart is in what he espouses.
That doesn’t make it right or wrong, just his opinions. As I maintain all along it’s a matter of reason not emotion.

Notice of course there is absolutely no mention or consideration of the ramifications on society if his dreams were to come true even over the longer term. That is my worry, the “What now”, when the taps are turned down not off. First comes the shortages, next comes the cost increases, then comes the hardships for the poor and middle classes struggling to meet their power bills and put food on their tables. That, Jinty is what I am alluding to.

All before there has been shown a glimpse of truth in the speculations of disaster. That you as a public leader, will wantonly subscribe to these policies on the strength of your emotions without considering the effects on your constituents in real time disturbs me as does the whole pressure thing as manifested. It is developing into a sort of ‘mob cult’ movement and I see needless hardship down the track as the one-per-centers perversely destroy the lower and middle class life styles. In fact, one could be excused for thinking it was a type of conspiracy centred on the United Nations plans for world government. Dismiss that as madness if you like but if you study the implications of the “Agenda 21” manifesto you might have cause to ponder just a little.

You not care to comment on my findings re weather events?

Cheers,
Calvin

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From: Jinty MacTavish
To: Calvin Oaten
Subject: Re: Energy
Date: 6 April 2015 8:48:45 am NZST

Dear Mr. Oaten,
As I have previously commented, I do not wish to engage with you in correspondence on this matter. The reason being, we have previously explored the topic in detail, over a number of emails, with our differences coming down to the fact that I believe it immoral to sit on our hands whilst over 97% of climate scientists, all but a handful of the world’s governments, and international bodies like the United Nations, agree we urgently need to do something about the matter (and that if we don’t, we are consigning future generations to untold misery). You, on the other hand, prefer to believe the UN is running a conspiracy and that Agenda 21 is some kind of giant plot for it take over the planet, and hold onto the words of the very small minority of (generally fossil-fuel funded) scientists who continue to deny action is required. And then you tell me it is a matter of “reason not emotion”? Wow.
As such, as I have previously stated, I think our positions irreconcilable, and I do not think it worth my time or yours to continue to email back and forwards on the matter.
Best,
Jinty

[ends]

Links added.-Eds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WofRG0Pb5wQ

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Related Post and Comments:
14.7.15 DCC strategies needed like a hole in the head

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr