I read Herald.co.nz regularly, so was unsurprised to see the following screen present itself to me.
What we have here in this very bad screen grab is a big heading saying, “Recession deepens with latest GDP result”. The article is here. Directly next to that is a cheery Christmas picture with the caption, “Lighting up the world for Christmas”.
You can bet all those lights were bought from China!
Who says you can’t have accidental irony.
(Oh, in case you’re wondering, the country is going broke because of the amount of crap we’re buying from overseas…)
27 December, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Ok Dr Keynes, if buying crap is the problem, how come the countries that make the crap are in the proverbial as well?
27 December, 2008 at 6:46 pm
the people buying the crap don’t have enough credit to keep spending beyond their limits.
27 December, 2008 at 8:54 pm
“Oh, in case you’re wondering, the country is going broke because of the amount of crap we’re buying from overseas…)”
I think the stats would say that it’s borrowin against property that’s been the cause of dis-saving rather than consumer goods. Unless I’m horribly mistaken most NZ property is sourced locally, like McDonalds’ ingredients which you don’t like either and are rarely bought on credit but I guess that’s another post on things that are the cause of the world’s ills (and coincidently not to the tastes of neo-bohemian chardonnay socialists).
28 December, 2008 at 6:10 am
interesting. now, arguing with me about economics is like arguing with a blind man about ‘green’, (especially when i confused this article with balance of trade figures) but…
are you seriously suggesting that gdp is down *solely* because people are spending on their mortgages?
and while we’re swapping petty political insults, how is a tight-fisted blue-lite like yourself going to spend us out of recession?
28 December, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I did not suggest such a thing either seriously or in jest (you can tell this from what I wrote). I provided a clear indicator as to why the assertion you made in your post was incorrect. Mortgage debt will be having a greater effect than consumer debt on the economy, given the relative size of the two sectors, if you are discussing things in terms of living beyond your means. We’re already at the stage where there are likely more people with negative housing equity than unmanagable credit card debt.
As for spending ourselves out of the recession, I am presently distributing money liberally to hoteliers and restauranters across the South Island (I would say from Golden Bay to Bluff but I’m only going as far south as Te Anau although I did go to the Paua Shell House reconstruction at the Chch museum yesterday – some of the shells are twice the length of the minimum size!)
29 December, 2008 at 7:47 am
crazy, innit. but… i think some of these people think they are saving… by buying houses larger than they can actually afford comfortably, “because it’s an investment”.
no. it’s a cost.