Coronavirus - New Zealand
-
-
@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Clark is a knob (what is it about Ministers of Health - Coleman was as bad?) but he couldn't face the press today because he was being grilled by the oversight Committee and looking quite ill on it too.
Health is a tough gig and tends to either make or break ministerial careers.
Another note on pricing - one could make a library of books just on that subject if one wishes...
-
@Kirwan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Crucial Media probably getting frustrated as the Minister of Health he was avoiding the press. Not the best time to be doing that.
You know, the opposite of open and transparent.
He fronted on radio this morning and Hoskings absolutely roasted him. I'm not saying he shouldn't front again, but jeez, it's hard to send a guy over the top again when he's just had his head blown off.....
One of his questions was when the Minister arrived at the beach car park and there weren't any other vehicles there, didn't he consider he shoudn't be there? To which Clark said something along the lines of "I don't see how that's relevant; I've already admitted to making a mistake and I'm, paying for it". But Hosking being Hosking (and good on him in this instance because he's spot on), then said something like "It's relevant because it speaks to whether you're just dumb, or think you have a sense of entitlement which would allow you to go". Ouch.
-
-
@Godder said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Or just thoughtless and not paying attention.
Exactly, he did something dumb and apologised. Cant we just move on??? We have much MUCH bigger issues.
This whole leading by example thing is bollox, nobody with a brain thinks politicians lead by example.
Hypocrisy is a different thing, but to me hypocrisy requires an intent to be a dishonest preaching douchbag. The guy just made a mistake, he has sincerely apologised (which is a much better example for young folks).
I am most annoyed at him because it has forced me to defend a Labour minister. -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I am most annoyed at him because it has forced me to defend a Labour minister.
Who are you and what have you done with the Baron?
-
How many of those jobs will disappear. If they are in international tourism, yes they will go, at least for the next 18 months to 2 years. That is about 100,000 jobs, or about 4% of the workforce. That will have a knock on effect, so probably another 50,000 jobs may go in the short term. Immigration will dry up, or perhaps more accurately will change. I suspect quite a few New Zealanders will come home, offsetting the usual immigration.
Some jobs which disappear in the short term will quickly come back as demand picks up.
Overall I would say unemployment by June will be 10 to 15%. Government funded infrastructure, both big and small (name your pet projects), will take time to absorb some of this. But by the end of the year it might have resulted in 20,000 to 30,000 new jobs.
In addition there will be incentives for more on shore processing. Not just incentives but also some controls. Maybe another 10,000 jobs.
So the big hit in the medium term is probably mostly in tourism, hospitality and retail. It is hard to see unemployment getting below 10% in less than a year, even with the govt infrastructure projects. Unemployment at that level has two big fiscal effects for government. Substantially increased welfare payments and substantially less taxes. So there will be government deficits for some years to come.
Government debt will be in excess of 40% of GDP within 12 months, which given the level of private debt in NZ is pushing up toward the limit. I reckon the government debt limit is somewhere around 60% of GDP. To put that in perspective, that is $120 billion extra borrowing. Government debt is currently $60 billion. So there is quite a lot of scope for government to do quite a lot. I suspect they may have to bail out local government, along with quite a lot else.
I would note that govt debt going to 60% of GDP gives very little scope to deal with the next emergency. The GFC and the Christchurch earthquake put govt debt up to around 35% of GDP by 2012. It has taken 8 years to get it back down to 20%. The govt will not want debt to go above 40% of GDP, so that they retain capacity to deal with the next massive emergency, which, who knows, may come a lot sooner than in another 10 years.
Hence it is my view the government should consider an Economic Recovery Summit, perhaps around mid to late June. The government will need to reach out to get the ideas to help New Zealand get going. It would need to be broad based so ideas can come in from all directions.
From Dr Mapp on the Standard.
(Edit - tidied up quote formatting, no changes to text)
-
@SynicBast said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I am most annoyed at him because it has forced me to defend a Labour minister.
Who are you and what have you done with the Baron?
Actually you haven't been paying attention, I have hated petty gotcha politics consistently, I dont care what side indulges in it.
-
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
The last 100 odd posts shows what the politics forum is missing. Some great discussion with good balance across the sides and little snide remarks.
Well played.
It's great having the lefties join in the fun for a change.
Edit - probably because we actually have something more meaningful to discuss than gender identity now.
-
@No-Quarter said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
The last 100 odd posts shows what the politics forum is missing. Some great discussion with good balance across the sides and little snide remarks.
Well played.
It's great having the lefties join in the fun for a change.
Edit - probably because we actually have something more meaningful to discuss than gender identity now.
I suspect that will be back when the Ministry of Truth gets set up with the new hate speech laws.
-
@shark said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Today was the worst I've seen. It seemed like every 'reporter' or 'journalist' there had the same question re David Clark, it was the only question they had gone in with, and they weren't satisfied until each and every one of these news hounds had asked it, or a very similar derivative of it. The PM trotted out pretty much exactly the same answer over, and over, and over. I'm not sure how many times she needed to say "He is paying a price for his actions, but we need his know-how whilst dealing with the pandemic", or something very similar. It was mind-numbingly hopeless journalistic tripe.
Did anybody ask him how he manages to maintain the Fat Duck through all of this?
-
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Did anybody ask him how he manages to maintain the Fat Duck through all of this?
That is some quality right there. Well done sir
-
@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
What I would like to see is the source data for Cindy's repeated assertion that 100 years ago those countries that locked down most severely came out better off economically in the medium term.
There is discussion on that subject here:
One of the links there is to a very recent paper on the subject:
Key summary from this paper:
Our analysis yields two main insights. First, we find that areas that were more severely affected by the 1918 Flu Pandemic see a sharp and persistent decline in real economic activity. Second, we find that early and extensive NPIs have no adverse effect on local economic outcomes. On the contrary, cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively experience a relative increase in real economic activity after the pandemic. Altogether, our findings suggest that pandemics can have substantial economic costs, and NPIs can have economic merits, beyond lowering mortality.
NPI = non-pharmaceutical interventions, of which social distancing is an example. Pharmaceutical interventions include vaccines, antivirals, hospital care etc.
This is all American stuff, so is more comparing cities and states to each other, but the USA is big enough that you can get some useful comparisons because state economic performance is measured in addition to federal economic performance so states can be compared to each other.
-
@Crucial said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@voodoo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@nzzp said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@canefan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I think in many places in the world it's just cheaper because the labour is cheaper. NZ is not a cheap country
We're not, and we'll never compete direclty with low cost labour countries.
The cost of living here though seems much higher than (say) Australia, or even the USA. I can't always get my head around why that is. A mate returned from Aus a year or so ago, and wound up going back - cost of living was one of the major factors in that decision
We always notice when we come back. Can anyone explain to me why a block of Colby cheese costs $9 and same brand of Vintage costs $16? It's $32/kg!!!
That's because 'Vintage' cheddar is deemed a specialty product for some odd reason. Pricing of that by major brands is actually way lower than an equivalent 'boutique' item.
Colby is shite that is very quickly produced and thrown on the shelf, much like 'Mild'. What they brand as 'Tasty' is marginally more expensive but costs more to produce (less water content, more storage time).
I get that there is then a big leap to what they call 'Vintage' that doesn't seem to equate to production cost but seeing as customers deem it to be in a different category to standard cheese they charge a premium price.I know that in the UK an equivalent product sits alongside 'standard' cheese and sells at half the NZ price per kg. However they also don't have a market of big 1kg blocks for people to compare against.
Couple of times ago when back in NZ, at New World in Warkworth I spent ten minutes trying to find cheddar, before I realised it wasn't in the 'Cheese' section!!
-
@Godder said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
What I would like to see is the source data for Cindy's repeated assertion that 100 years ago those countries that locked down most severely came out better off economically in the medium term.
There is discussion on that subject here:
One of the links there is to a very recent paper on the subject:
Key summary from this paper:
Our analysis yields two main insights. First, we find that areas that were more severely affected by the 1918 Flu Pandemic see a sharp and persistent decline in real economic activity. Second, we find that early and extensive NPIs have no adverse effect on local economic outcomes. On the contrary, cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively experience a relative increase in real economic activity after the pandemic. Altogether, our findings suggest that pandemics can have substantial economic costs, and NPIs can have economic merits, beyond lowering mortality.
NPI = non-pharmaceutical interventions, of which social distancing is an example. Pharmaceutical interventions include vaccines, antivirals, hospital care etc.
This is all American stuff, so is more comparing cities and states to each other, but the USA is big enough that you can get some useful comparisons because state economic performance is measured in addition to federal economic performance so states can be compared to each other.
Not sure I'd place huge reliance on century old management of an outbreak with substantially different infection and mortality characteristics!
Maybe I've just been on Fern too long?