NZers and Aussies: Switching it up

[Ompog]

The underfunding of postdoc positions in New Zealand has been a problem for decades. Though honestly, it’s so hard to get a faculty position in the country maybe it’s better to scare them off overseas earlier rather than later. It would be great if they could expand the current Rutherford scheme.

[The Anti-Targ]

Remember that time a few here on this board were quite pleased that all state Govts in Aus are now controlled by Labour?

This seems a bit unfortunate then.

 

[Paxter]

Not quite true - Tasmania is still governed by the Libs.

And now McGowan has surprisingly resigned in WA.

[Jeor]

Yes, no one saw that McGowan thing coming. He was invincible and could have gone on as long as he wanted, but I guess politicians are real people and get tired and exhausted after a while. Six years in the job, three of them COVID, would test anyone's nerves and McGowan picked a particularly combative path.

Still a long way back for the WA Liberals though.

[The Anti-Targ]

Doing a Jacinda I guess?

[The Anti-Targ]

Posted in the Ukraine thread, but posting here too, since it's relevant.

Prigozhin's next move

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300894281/putins-chef-confirms-plans-for-chatham-islands-in-cryptic-email-to-stuff

Quote

 'Putin's chef' confirms plans for Chatham Islands in cryptic email to Stuff

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s response follows Stuff revealing on Wednesday that the mercenary boss was pictured in front of a world map marked the group’s interests.

One of the pins was in the Chatham Islands.

In response to questions about what the group’s interest in the Chathams were, Prigozhin gave a short, cryptic response.

"We will not share this information, everything has its own time."

Stuff then asked if the pin was a mistake intended for another place, or if it was being used to hold the map on the wall.

A spokesperson for Prigozhin then said they would “not disclose the plans of the PMC ‘Wagner’ regarding Chatham Island.”

If you have no clue what or where Chatham Island is don't worry, most New Zealanders possibly don't know and definitely don't care. There's a bit of a world map meme where often in TV shows a map of the world is shown but New Zealand is missing. Chatham Islands is the Map of New Zealand version of that: you see a map of New Zealand, most of the time the Chatham Islands is missing.

It is as you might guess very remote. People say New Zealand is hard to get to and remote, Chatham Islands is the hard to get to remote part of New Zealand. It is so remote that Wagner could invade it with 5,000 soldiers and without international help it would be almost impossible for the NZ military to take back, and while I'm sure our friends would be very sympathetic to our plight they may decides it's not worth the time, cost and lives to do anything about it. NZ defence force has a total head count of 15,000 which includes civilian personnel. The Islands have a population of about 650.

Then again, Prigozhin may be just meme-ing himself.

[Jeor]

RBA lifts rates again and signals more to come. With inflation still at 6.8% it's bound to keep going.

I am very fortunate to have fixed my mortgage until August 2024 but goodness knows what the rate is going to jump to when I come off it! I'm hoping by then inflation will be under control and they will have cut by then.

[Paxter]

20 hours ago, Jeor said:

RBA lifts rates again and signals more to come. With inflation still at 6.8% it's bound to keep going.

I have thought for a long time that the RBA was living in a dream and needed to follow the rest of the central banking world higher. Last year, we were talking about them getting to 2-3% and then pausing - that was certainly way off. 

The reality is and remains that rates of 3-4% are still accommodative when headline inflation is running at 7% and core inflation (trimmed mean) at 6% (i.e., still translates to a negative real interest rate). This creates an incentive to borrow, not to save. But perhaps we will finally start seeing a slowdown effect this year.  

Edited June 7, 2023 by Paxter

[Skyrazer]

Historically, the average interest rate has been around 5%. Perhaps that's where it needs to settle to reign in inflation.

At the start of this upswing cycle, I was guessing (with my not so educated opinion) rates would get to around 4% before inflation starts settling. Well here we are and it looks like it needs to go further because inflation is remaining stubbornly high.

I'm just thankful I cleared my mortgage several years ago and have a decent amount of savings. Finally getting decent returns on my cash after years of getting below 3%.

[Jeor]

16 hours ago, Skyrazer said:

I'm just thankful I cleared my mortgage several years ago and have a decent amount of savings. Finally getting decent returns on my cash after years of getting below 3%.

Yes, you can get online savings accounts paying 5% nowadays which has been unheard of in the past 15 years.

I wouldn't be surprised if the official cash rate does get around 5%. The RBA's dual mandate is to curb inflation and promote full employment. Those two aims can often be at cross purposes but in today's economy, where unemployment is still a very good 3.7%, they can really go after inflation and not worry too much about affecting employment. I think so long as unemployment stays below 5% historically that's a very good result and it gives the RBA a fair bit of room to hike. So the market should be pricing in more interest rate rises.

[The Anti-Targ]

The RBNZ has said it's hitting pause at 5.25%. The immediate effect was for the NZD to drop below 60c US, but it went back above 60c and should stay above 60 now that the word is US interest rates are going to come down. I guess we'll see what inflation does.

At the same time the RBNZ is pausing interest rate increases it's also allowed banks to make more >90% mortgages available to try to get some life back into the housing market. Prices have dropped a lot in the last year or two and I guess the RBNZ has decided it wants that to stop even though for about the last 10 years everyone has been saying the housing market is overheated. I guess with inflation a $1 million isn't what it used to be back in 2021.

Also what a hilariously stupid and totally avoidable own goal by a govt Minister. For the sake of $13,000 of shares in Auckland Airport that Min. Michael woods should have sold just to clean his slate, the opposition are in full on attack mode demanding that the minister be given the heave ho, and of course seeking to further erode public trust of the govt. $13,000 is a lot of money for most people, but it's a tiny stake in the Airport, and not such a big amount for a govt minister on almost an $300K salary who also gets a lot of free shit for being an MP, any actions by Woods taken to try to make financial gains from those shares is of negligible real benefit to him. But it's all about the perception and this is a bad look. A scandal that never needed to happen. Politicians can be so dumb, even the smart and reasonably competent ones.

Edited June 8, 2023 by The Anti-Targ

[Makk]

The RBNZ rolling back the restrictions on low equity loans doesn't have anything to do with stabilising house prices. The restrictions were put in place to protect the banking system from stupid banks when interest rates were very low but expected to rise. That is the time you get a large number of defaults and I do think that was one of the RBNZs better moves but the conditions mean they are no longer as important (assuming interest rates have or are close to peaking).

[Paxter]

According to a recent Resolve poll:

Quote

Support for the Indigenous Voice has fallen below a majority on the Yes or No question that will decide the referendum, dropping from 53 to 49 per cent ahead of a crucial Senate decision on the wording of the change to the constitution.

Voters have swung against the proposal for the third month in a row and are backing the No case in three states – Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia – when asked the federal government’s proposed question.

So yeah. Things not looking good from my perspective. 

And the above was confirmed by the sentiment on my extended family WhatsApp group...

[karaddin]

Tale as old as time, Australians getting spooked and voting no on referendums. What I've been expecting but not wanting

[The Anti-Targ]

Colonists afraid the natives will do to them what the colonists did to the natives, if they give them a toe in the door of influence.

[Paxter]

22 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Colonists afraid the natives will do to them what the colonists did to the natives, if they give them a toe in the door of influence.

Or just racism?

It can't be a coincidence that the states less in favour are those with a greater tradition of intolerance. 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Paxter

[The Anti-Targ]

5 minutes ago, Paxter said:

Or just racism?

It can't be a coincidence that the states less in favour are those with a greater tradition of intolerance. 

That too, but I think fear of retribution is part of it.

[Paxter]

The Senate cross-benches keep growing, this time as Dutton expels SA Senator David Van from the Liberal party. Seems like there are at least two further allegations against him so far, in addition to those made under privilege by Thorpe. 

[Jeor]

On 6/15/2023 at 2:09 PM, Paxter said:

The Senate cross-benches keep growing, this time as Dutton expels SA Senator David Van from the Liberal party. Seems like there are at least two further allegations against him so far, in addition to those made under privilege by Thorpe. 

It sounds like the Amanda Stoker incident was well-documented, but Dutton must have some more information about the issue with Thorpe or other allegations, otherwise I can't imagine he would have taken action.

I must admit when Thorpe first went public I was a bit meh given her reputation for outlandish statements and crazy grandstanding, but obviously bad things can still happen to people like her and the more that comes out about Van the worse it seems.

At least from a theoretical point of view, I think he really should resign as a Senator altogether rather than just from the Liberals. As should Thorpe have at the time of her split from the Greens, ironically. Senate tickets, more than Rep ones, are highly dependent on the party rather than the personality given the above-the-line voting, and no one can really claim a personal mandate. The number of truly independent senators is very limited and tends to come from small states (Xenophon, Harradine).

[Paxter]

It’s definitely a flaw in the system. I think expulsion from the party should trigger a vacancy in the Senate that the party can fill.