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| Date | 2006-09-08 |
| Location |  |
| Message | Alas ... |
| Date | 2006-09-08 |
| Location | |
| Message | Democrats have no new ideas. They are all over the ballpark. One day they want to leave tomorrow. Then one wants to leave in 90 days. Then the same guy wants to change his mind. But at the end of the day, they unanimously vote for the Admin's policy. They have no policy to offer but "I hate Bush." I am not telling you Bush is smart, but they have yet to see any evidence that Democrats are any smarter. They lost the presidential election because they found a candidate that was worse than Bush, which must have been pretty hard to find; when you think about it. And now, who do they have? Harry Reid? Hillary Clinton? I think they are going to lose again. |
| Date | 2006-08-31 |
| Location | |
| Message | The mindless morons who run our government and that of Israel, to whom force is the means by which all desires are satisfied, will eventually lead their minions to the one inescapable end result they all desparately seek: total, complete and irremediable destruction. That is what they seek in their heart of hearts and nothing else will satisfy, nothing else will sate, and no other consequence of their endeavors is possible. We the minions, we who are led, need to rid ourselves of these sons-of-bitches. They serve at our pleasure and we are no longer pleased. Were this administration less incompetent, less morally bankcrupt, less thoroughly corrupt and were its actions less influential and the consequent devastation less strikingly tragic, you could make the case that it is a actually a comedy not to be missed, a Broadway play to be savored for the laughter it evokes, but, alas, that is not possible, and that is not the case. This is real. And it is a tragedy. How a country like ours can wind up with elected leaders like we have will be the subject matter of innumerable studies in times to come. They will begin soon and will not cease for a hundred years or more. |
| Date | 2006-03-23 |
| Location |  |
| Message | mate it just got ugly down here, our kiwi now 62c usd http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/03/23/1143083883048.html NZ net foreign debt expands to $A120b Every man, woman and child spent $NZ3,314 ($A2,891) more than was earned last year when New Zealand's financial dealings with the outside world were totted up. New Zealand's net foreign debt rose by $NZ10.5 billion ($A9.16 billion) in 2005 to $NZ136.5 billion ($A119.09 billion) - equal to $NZ27,293 ($A23,812.76) per person, Statistics New Zealand said. THERE'S THAT MAGICAL 30K PER PERSON COMING UP These numbers were extrapolated from national balance of payments data, also known as the current account, which showed a monster shortfall of $13.7 billion in 2005 - the worst dollar number since records began over 50 year ago. As a proportion of GDP, it was the second worst, at 8.9 per cent. That ratio, also touched 20 years ago, was not as dire as the 13.4 per cent nadir hit during the 1975 oil crisis. However, any deficit above 5 per cent of GDP normally sets the alarm bells ringing for international investors. More pressure will come on the New Zealand dollar, which has fallen 6 per cent this month and 12 per cent this year, partly in anticipation of the data. New Zealand has had a chronic structural problem balancing its accounts for decades - it hasn't posted an annual surplus since 1973. But the situation is getting worse. i'm off to the fridge....  |
| Date | 2006-02-17 |
| Location | |
| Message | Tony, at last I've read the Update on Eurokiwi and Uridashi bonds you referred to. And, versus the dollar the Kiwi has fallen to just under $.67 (having been as low as $.39 in 2001, and more recently as high as $.74). What a good writeup! The writers, including your niece, have done well! I find the following quote very similar to what good writers would say about our (U.S.) own blooming trade deficits. "Offshore issuance of New Zealand dollar bonds is likely to continue for as long as the conditions which have fostered it are sustained. Generally, if credit demand remains strong here (and therefore swap rates remain high), foreign interest rates stay relatively low, and investors continue to want to buy New Zealand dollar assets, then offshore bond issuance is likely to continue." That says nothing about "forever", does it? All best -- Roger |
| Date | 2005-12-23 |
| Location | |
| Message | that link should be http://www.google.com/ ;ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 it will take you to a pdf download entitled An update on Eurokiwi and Uridashi bonds |
| Date | 2005-12-23 |
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| Message | An update. We have been told this week that, here in NZ, our accumulated trade deficits, now total NZ$33,000 per head of population. Individuals & corporates, but not Government, have been spending more than we earn. We pay large sums in interest and dividends on capital introduced into our economy from overseas and these \"invisible\" costs are added in too. So we provide a private sector, small scale, lab experiment of what your Government is up to. The results that are starting to emerge are interesting. Interest rates on call deposits (our overnight cash rate) have risen to 7.25%pa to try to squash demand. Yet your own GE Capital has just bought a US$350 million book of unsecured blue collar household debt which yields over 30%pa true and has paid one of our weakest corporates almost US$100m goodwill to get it. We are told our currency is about to crash and Goldman Sachs has talked it down from US71c to 67c. Japanese investors have bought billions of dollars of our uridashi issues and the world at large is piling into eurokiwis. The effect of these financial transactions been to counterbalance the horrible trade picture. Our Reserve Bank (which now employs my first class honours winning niece) has issued a helpful document to explain it all. Hopefully she understands it all, because sooner or later Uncle Tony suspects gravity will take over :- www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/bulletin/ 2002_2006/2005sep68_3dragemunrosleeman.pdf |
| Date | 2005-11-26 |
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| Message | Tony, your excellent comment was not only thought provoking but it asks, to my mind, one of the most puzzling questions of our time: Why DID we let him do it? In poll after poll immediatly before the 2000 elections between 74% and 78% of the respondents said clearly they did not want a tax cut. They were proud of what the country had done to create budget surpluses and feared that no good would come from reversing the sound management policies that created them. Nevertheless, there were significant tax cuts. Not only is it puzzling to me that we just stood aside and let it happen but, frankly, it is infuriating to me that our wishes were so brazenly ignored. That guy works for us. I plan to comment on this issue shortly and will refer to some of what you have said in your much appreciated comment. Stay close. All best -- Roger |
| Date | 2005-11-25 |
| Location | |
| Message | I have been discussing your national deficit, now $8.1 trillion, with some friends who have US sharemarket investments. Your link to the US national debt clock and related articles is informative. Towards the end of the Clinton era, in 1998, the US deficit was 3.6 trillion and was projected to reduce by 1 trillion to 2.6 trillion by the end of 2005. Instead it increased by $4.5 trillion. The compounding rate of increase is of more concern, as any oil driven price inflation is sure to increase the cost of servicing that debt. In New Zealand we have high home ownership but poor household savings. But we have low national debt. Our budget surplus is about NZ$8 billion out of a gdp of under NZ$100 billion. Even our IRS & treasury say our taxes need to drop. Its a good position and we have worked hard to get here from near bankruptcy in 1984 and again in early 1990's. I can tell you two things. First our respective dollars are apples with apples & 30k per person of national debt, where you will be next year, is about as much as you can get away with. Secondly you have at least five hard years ahead of you once you decide to get to grips with the problem. The jury is out in most international media on whether your president knows what he is doing. I suspect that one day, probably during the darkest of those 5 years, you'll ask yourselves we knew he wasnt very smart, why did we let him do it? |
| Date | 2005-11-04 |
| Location | |
| Message | I have led a shareholder class action against Shell and the New Zealand plc it acquired here in 2001 Fletcher Challenge Energy (fce) since 1999. The insider trading case cl50/99 dates back to a 1995 takeover by fce of an oil junior called spnl. It owned 85% of it before its bid. The case has been fought with a vast disparity of resources (a la the mclibel case) albeit we have a court order that Shell pays our legal bills. So far they have spent over US$ 3million fighting us and our lawyers have had about US$750k out of costs over double that. The relevance of all this is that it has caused me to study the changing economics of the oil industry since 1995. The graph at this link shows the movement in the oil price and key eventsin recent decades:- http://www.atg.wa.gov/consumer/gasprices/images/graphs/Slide5.GIF It is hard to escape the conclusion that when Shell came down here to buy our biggest oil company, and were allowed to, but at the same time the Australian government told Shell no to their quest for Woodside over there, they knew something was brewing, and so did the Aussie government. But strangely ours didnt (or didnt care). Now is that just a coincidence or does it explain why the Aussies are in Iraq and we're not? If its not a coincidence isnt nice that Shell took the trouble to come down here and bargain hunt in 2000 and isnt nice they want to keep fce's ill gotten gains. |
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