Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news that as tariffs kick in, the US gets higher prices and lower activity. The White House is signaling it wants to pull back from its bluster (whiff of panic?), although China is yet to respond.
But first in the US, mortgage applications fell sharply last week to be just +6% above the weak week a year ago. Benchmark interest rates rose, which seems to have choked off new purchase borrowers, and refinance borrowers.
Sales of new single-family homes rose +6.0% in March from a year ago at a seasonally adjusted annualised rate of 724,000 and the highest in six months, and much better than market expectations of 680,000 homes. But to be fair this latest level is still within the range it has been for the past 27 months. They still have unsold inventories of over 8 months of sales at the current rate, which is a lot for builders to carry.
The latest US Treasury bond auction, for the key 5yr Note, was well supported but delivered a yield of 3.93%, down from 4.04% at the prior equivalent event a month ago. This is the maturity that foreign institutions prefer so is a good indicator of foreign support of US debt instruments. More than a quarter of all US Treasury debt is owned by foreigners, more than a third in the 2-5 year maturities. If we see a pullback, it will be in these auctions, and evidenced by rising yields.
The S&P/Markit US Manufacturing PMI rose marginally in April from March to a small expansion, better than the market expectations of a small contraction. Although growth was modest, this marked the fourth consecutive month of expansion in factory activity. Meanwhile, the equivalent services PMI fell sharply to a two month low. There are warning signs here. Prices charged for goods and services rose in this latest month at the sharpest pace for 13 months, increasing especially steeply in manufacturing (where the rate of inflation hit a 29-month high) but also picking up further pace in services (where the rate of inflation struck a seven-month high). More generally, sentiment fell among the surveyed companies.
The US Fed's April Beige Book is out and it is picking up similar themes; lower sentiment, stuttering demand, and rising prices. They are more muted in the Beige Book surveys, but they are still being noted.
There were 'flash' PMIs out for other countries overnight too. The EU factory PMI contracted its least in 27 months, but their services PMI retreated a bit more. In India, both of their PMIs stayed very expansionary. In Japan, there was a "return to growth" in April. In Australia, the new order components are rising but most other aspects are not. Election uncertainty may be playing a role here.
In China, they said they will issue ¥1.3 tln (NZ$300 bln) in ultra-long-term special government bonds starting today (Thursday). Some of that liquidity will be used to fund consumption incentives as they try to speed their shift away from export dependency.
Coal prices hit a four year low yesterday as warm Autumn weather in Asia, and lower industrial demand is being swamped by high output. Prices are now back to where they were in 2016. Rising supply and stunted demand is having the same price impact on oil.
Global financial stability regulators are increasingly worried about the resilience of the financial sector, and have issued a warning about the consequences of dodgy and capricious public policy.
The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.38%, down -2 bps from this time yesterday. The key 2-10 yield curve has eased back further to +53 bps. Their 1-5 curve is still flat. And their 3 mth-10yr curve is a positive +10 bps. The Australian 10 year bond yield starts today at 4.30% and up +6 bps from yesterday. The China 10 year bond rate is now at 1.67% and up +1 bp. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -2 bps at 4.55%.
Wall Street is rising today, up +1.6% in Wednesday trade with a relief rally as the US president reverses some stances. But it is fading as thr trading day progresses. Overnight, European markets were all up, between +0.9% in London and +3.1% in Frankfurt. Tokyo ended its Wednesday session up +1.9%. Hong Kong was up +2.4% but Shanghai slipped -0.1%. Singapore rose another +1.0%. The ASX200 ended its Wednesday up +1.3% while the NZX50 was up +1.0%.
The price of gold will start today at US$3282/oz, and down -US$116 from yesterday.
Oil prices have fallen -US$2.50 from yesterday to be now just over US$61.50/bbl in the US and the international Brent price is now just on US$65.50/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar is now at 59.6 USc, down another -20 bps from yesterday at this time. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 93.6 AUc. Against the euro we up +30 bps at just on 52.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today still just at 68 and unchanged from yesterday.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$93,933 and up +2.7% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has again been modest at +/- 1.8%.
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69 Comments
No he, won't back down*
No he, won't back down
You can stand Trump up at the gates of hell
But he, won't back down
*actually, he'll fold like a bitch and then sell it as a win
What is he trying to achieve
It'd seem like he's trying to renegotiate America's economic and security agreements with the world, while freezing out China.
But rather than using wise statecraft and tact to achieve this, he's under resourced (both in the number and quality of his staff) and extremely erratic in his messaging and approach.
And he thinks he can rewind the clock to a hybrid of 1800s era tariffing and 1950s era manufacturing glory to achieve it
Jeffey Sachs (economist/professor etc) is s guy i stumbled across recently. His talks on Trump/Ukraine/US aggression etc are pretty revealing. Great speaker, but I'm sure he's a Russian plant of course.
Jeffrey Sachs Goes Off, Roasts Donald Trump’s Trade Talk, Says 'Mickey Mouse Is Smarter Than Him'
Patrimonialism aka The Godfather
Further enrichment of him and his wealthy sychophants.
What is he (Trump) trying to achieve
He has no idea, apart to try to make himself look like he's the top dog. (He's failing miserably)
Trump will probably achieve exactly what he wanted in the first place. Tariffs of 10 to 30%.... depending on the trade imbalance trajectory, tariff balance and how much they kneel.
In other words sow the seeds of confusion and reap what you will.
And all it cost is any credibility his administration had, all respect, and driving his closest allies into the open arms of his greatest enemy.
The wild card maybe China. Its next move is pivotal, as its rise and thousands of factories are under existential threat, without a willing and wealthy USA customer.
- Beware the actions of a cornered rat.
If you believe rumors then Xi may face internal challengers as well.
I'd say round one Xi 1, Trump -1. If this continues Xi's his position would get more not less secure?
Xi has an impressive background - easy to see why he can play Trump.
Japan in the late 30s.
But the US wasn't wealthy.
What is an IOU worth? More pertinently, what is an IOU worth when the shop you were planning on entering, is rapidly de-stocking?
The thing under threat, is the GROWTH of global production. That should come as no surprise; it was an exponential increase in the transformation of pieces of the Earth's crust, into entropy/dissipation. That was always going to be short-term. So factories, wherever, were going to be in oversupply - as indeed refineries were going to be ditto.
That all suggest to me that the growth-expecting proxy-circus - debt held in abeyance, assuming ever-more processed parts of Earth's crust - is in trouble. Bush Junior's comment comes to mind, re 'this sucker'. They kept it afloat artificially for longer than I thought possible, but longer and forever are different parameters.
But the US wasn't wealthy.
What is an IOU worth?
It's wealthy, but it's "High paid Doctor with millions of dollars of mortgage and luxury car payments" wealthy.
The problem is insatiable hunger, not need for growth.
Wealth is relative to the circumstances that it exists in. Way back a household that had a double garage and a TV aerial might be considered wealthier than its neighbours that had neither. All that is based on a pyramid like scheme with descriptions ranging from consumerism to status symbols. In the end though, as pdk often proclaims, it is in its final form, as per the mythological Ouroboros, a snake that devours itself. Perhaps the ancients were on to it.
Perhaps the ancients were on to it.
We've already worked this out many times.
And forgotten just as quickly.
Ouroboros represents eternal cyclic renewal, the cycle of life, death and rebirth so I see it as a positive symbol.
I'm pretty sure we haven't forgotten it.
Ah yes but don’t then overlook the curse. Admittedly had to look it up but to quote a source - “Ouroboros will reappear once every 1000 years to try and consume the world he sought to control.”
I'm pretty sure we haven't forgotten it.
We have a political philosophy that's heavily weighted towards people obtaining abundance, and then trying to keep hold of it (rather than passing it along).
Some of that's to do with a generation (or two) being incapable of reconciling their own demise, and passing the torch on.
Basically, it's all about me, rather than me being a fixed point in a long chain.
I listened to a few episodes of Critical Planet on you tube last night PDK.
Its more then possible that the GFC and QE was the first clear stagnation signal.
Planet Critical? Good on you.
She's a journalist - there aren't many around.
It's perfectly reasonable to expect annual growth. Things aren't perfect so a bit of growth is planned for to cover improvements and development. We're not talking "exponential" just annual for a bunch of mortals. And as for entropy, well, I've explained it before, life wouldn't exist without the energy flow that comes with entropy. And what about those oil and coal prices reported on today - too much supply and not enough demand? It seems we have a way to go yet before we need to cancel growth.
"too much supply and not enough demand?"
And why is there a lack of demand?....because the system cannot support a 'price' that covers the 'cost ' of production.
Unless you can reduce the cost of that production to a price the system can support there will be no 'growth'.....and the 'cheap' and easy stuff is gone, only the 'expensive' and difficult remains.
Nothing like that. Just warm Autumn weather in Asia, and lower industrial demand. The suppliers just over estimated the demand. Still plenty of easily accessible coal and oil in the world.
You guys need to stop having existential crises whenever things ebb and flow.
You have yet to explain why there is lower demand.
The evidence is staring you in the face....the overwhelming proportion of people cannot afford to pay the cost of production....and industry cannot afford to pay labour at a rate that will enable them to afford that production (and remain profitable)
Something has to give, and it is.
Things ebb and flow, always have, always will. We'll cope.
Incorrect.
Finite stocks can only ebb.
Did you know, adjusted for inflation, petrol in the US is cheaper now than it was in 1980?
And yet they are heading into recession anyway.
Increased debt (credit) only works for so long.
Since its founding the US has been in recession close to fifty times.
But always previously in an environment of increased availability.
Or minimal competition.
Not too hard to thrive when most of your neer peers are on fire, or aren't at the same level of development.
In a world with neer parity, it's harder to feel exceptional.
Mistaking a stock for a price.
I'd call that somewhat short of...
And our global population was 1 billion in 1800 - we added the billion than went from from 7-8 billion, in the last 11 years.
And that's not exponential? Every graph of human endeavour - be it resource consumption or energy consumption or pollution emitted - is a hockey-stick.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/
Skim down that series of graphs and see that anyone thinking we are not in the end-phase of exponential growth, is thinking illogically.
Interesting read that. Thanks for sharing.
The first hockey stick showing human population growth is striking. But it would have helped to also include a mention of forecasted population growth.
Fertility rates are declining with most countries expected to be below replacement levels by 2050. Doesn’t that suggest we might see a reversal of that hockey stick curve over the long term?
More than half of countries are already below replacement level.
And dare I say, from my interaction with adolescents, their willingness and ability to be such prolific consumers as those before will be lower also.
"Doesn’t that suggest we might see a reversal of that hockey stick curve over the long term?"
Indeed it does, and not necessarily over the long term.....the gnarly question is what will be the cause(s).
You haven't 'explained' anything, ZS.
Life indeed would not exist without the energy-flow. But life is subject to entropy (all members of all species die, barring cell-division) and thus invented reproduction as a circumvention process; you simply cannot repeal the Laws of Thermodynamics.
And entropy in the material sense, is dissipation, degradation, corrosion. Our maintenance demand (for both materials and energy) is taking an increasing portion of the pie. Leaving a reduced portion for 'growth'.
Your last comment fails the 'doubling-time' test; grow exponentially based on a finite resource (or collection thereof) and the last half of the stock(s) is the last 'doubling-time'. Complacency at the half-way mark is, therefore, premature...
Your arguments would be much more persuasive if you stopped using the terms entropy and exponential. You may win given enough time and with vague values but we are discussing what's going on within normal human timeframes and using actual values.
It's really just a cheap trick. It reminds me of the time in my youth, when I was in a cult, where everything that happened was a "sign of the times".
We're not talking "exponential" just annual for a bunch of mortals
So if not exponential then do we assume you want linear growth? How is linear growth in the economy going to work when the interest on the debt is exponential?
Any percentage growth is "exponential" but only a worry if it goes on forever or a very long time without mitigation. When we calculate growth we are only thinking about a year or two or maybe ten. It would be as silly as your boss denying you an annual wage increase using the excuse that to do so would be to unleash the "exponential" demon and in ten thousand years he would have to pay you the entire company's yearly profit every payday.
Look at the link above (death by hockey-sticks) - you fail to understand the start-time, and where we are now.
Fail? Or choose because...?
When we calculate growth we are only thinking about a year or two or maybe ten.
Nonsense.
Do you think they calculate economic growth for hundreds of years ahead? How could they do that? Useful economic growth estimates are always near term. One to five years. We are allowed to grow for a few years, right? Circumstances change all the time so it wouldn't be of much value to estimate growth rates in the far future. Any forecast beyond ten years would be speculative.
This whole "ooh, it's exponential, we're all doomed" is a very flawed way of thinking.
You're embarrassing yourself here with a clear lack of understanding of basic high school math.
TAs latest property survey conclusions.
Key points of interest from this month’s survey
- The interest of existing investors in buying another property is falling away rapidly.
- For those who are planning another purchase there is decreasing interest in buying a new-build.
- Landlords are experiencing deep difficulties in finding good tenants.
FHBers and investors hate the newbuild townhouses, its going to need some deep discounting to shift them.
When Investor hesitation to add, turns to intent to list, it will get even more interesting.
Opportunities await fhb's though I'm quite sure the the system will move heaven and earth to save the market.
But the NZ Housing Markets, few remaining foundations, are repeatedly being kicked away.
Support is -30% less than the currently slow, constipated, market pricing/sales.
This sucker is going down!
the system will move heaven and earth to save the market.
I have seen no effort to save anything thus far, further falls will be due to more sellers then buyers. The average Kiwisaver balance for those aged 61-65 sits at around $54,000, arguably a small nest egg. Whereas the average NZ House is worth around $775k, Auckland much more.
The housing market is an order of magnitude more important to NZers then the share market. Most of our wealth is held in it.
They have been moving heaven and earth since 2008....and have run out of road.
One $ can be whatever they want it to be. It's not a unit anchored in physics.
I don't trust 'them' to let the market prevail without intervening in some way. I suspect it wont work, we will see.
What options are left to them?...nationalise the credit?
Anything they try will come with negative consequences.
Don't profess to know the answer to that. But I'll have a go -
Strangle land supply, open immigration doors further, first home loan grants, tax deductible mortgages, drop interest, require banks lend at say 1% interest to fhb's, govt guarantee on fhb mortgages, buy up excess ppty and onsell as right to buy rentals, adjust dti's etc, allow residency to home buyers.. Just let your imagination run wild.
I don't trust them.
I have let my imagination loose for some time and every 'solution' I can imagine creates more problems than it solves.
I don't trust them either and the lack of trust only makes the task more difficult.....it is a confidence game after all.
I can imagine creates more problems than it solves
Agreed.
Although it would fail, those that loose the most could be 'altered' by way of intervention.
Coal prices back to those in 2016 - great timing for Shane Jones' 'dig baby dig' initiative. Not.
.
And the $170 trillion dollar question asked by IT GUY...
"What on Earth are they trying to achieve?"
My take..
THE PLANNED TRANSITION TO A NEW GILDED AGE AND ABSOLUTISM
It looks to me as though, now that the U$ has finally accepted that they comprehensively lost their Plan A proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, a full-on hybrid war against China is their Plan B. This will end disastrously not just for Captain Chao$ and Bessent personally, but for the entire U$ economy and their reserve status as well.
The last few U$ regimes realised that in order for them to remain as the global military/financial hegemon, they could not tolerate Russia, with its immense military power, aligning ever more closely with its neighbour China which is now comprehensively the #1 economic power in the world.
China overtook the US GDP back in 2016, but even that doesn't reveal the real story when you take into account that the former is an industrial economy and the latter is so heavily financialised.
The whole point of the suicidal Ukraine war, a U$-inspired killing field where they co-opted the entrenched Neo-Nazi element with their presence dating back to the early 1930s, was to wreck the entire Russian economy, win the war, get rid of Putin, and subsequently render the country a disunified minor power that would be unable to challenge the U$ as they then went after their primary target China, the country that they view as their financial nemesis.
Meanwhile, China is aware that Trump has a very weak hand to play, apart from sanction/tariff threats, and a Mafia-style shakedown tactic of offering to abstain from damaging their economies. It is entirely reasonable for China, to announce that they refuse to negotiate with any country that points a gun at their head.
To make matters worse, Trump's bragging has now reached an outrageously infantile sandpit style level, with statements like...
"I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are dying to make a deal. Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir!"
BRICS BRI AND THEIR STANDING
Trump is hoping to intimidate most of the planet and to target trade sanctions against any nation that dares to conduct commerce and mutual investment with China, especially with any plans they may have to join the BRICS bloc.
The US plans to interrupt the entire BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), AKA the New Silk Road - a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by China in 2013, aimed at investing in more than 150 countries and international organizations.
Too late, Donald - this horse has already bolted and is headed for the hills. There is ongoing massive development in overland routes for road and rail transportation through landlocked Central Asia along the historical trade routes of the Western Regions. "Road" is short for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, but it also refers to the Indo-Pacific sea routes through Southeast Asia to South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
As of early 2024, more than 140 countries were part of the BRI. The participating countries already include almost 75% of the world's population.
BTW, NZ is a member, Ausy is not - the stated mission is to promote economic development and inter-regional connectivity.
THE PAPER TIGER
From Xi's perspective he knows that, financially, America is devolving into little more than a paper tiger. It no longer has much to offer, except the threat of tariffs/sanctions, and disrupting trade patterns that have been put in place over the last few decades - these are hard-won developments - China and the BRICS will not sacrifice these lightly, let alone to a deranged War$hington administration that may well have lost most of its clout by the mid-terms next year.
And so the most important consideration for China in all of this, is that it doesn’t need the US market to anywhere near the degree that the United States is dependent on them - especially for key metals and materials, plus key industrial products. In terms of China's immense GDP, its exports to Trump's famed US market amount to a minuscule ~1% of this total.
To give context to this 1%, perhaps we should bear in mind that China has just posted 5.4% GDP growth (up from a forecasted 5.1%) for the first quarter of 2025, and before the full force of Trump’s tariffs took effect - surely this is an omen as to how they plan to weather an ongoing trade war with Washington.
Given that China's middle class is growing dramatically, and is now larger than the entire US population, their domestic market is showing significant growth, and the Chinese are serious savers too - they do not carry the odious debt like Americans where the average taxpayer (there are only 114 million of them) owe around $1.3 million, including unfunded liabilities. Given these stats, Chinese consumers are likely to be much more active than their American counterparts.
Most newsworthy in terms of tariff effects, are the rare earths, ores that are refined to make magnets, and other alloys that are used in almost every high-tech manufacture today, from electric cars to military, and space exploration, etc.
Also, steel and aluminium are faced with enormous price rises as well as the key products that the American industries need both domestically and in their offshored industries. Then there are all of the consumer goods that Walmarts, etc import into the United States.
These tariffs are not just a huge blow to the working class, in terms of availability and prices of consumer essentials, but they hit the economy at all levels in terms of income cohorts.
The most enduring and devastating boomerang effects of these tariffs will be similar to what all of America's previous attempts have been, where they have tried to weaponise their trading/financial practices to their own mounting detriment.
LEADERS WITH LETTUCE-LIKE SHELF LIVES
The word is that Orange Clown ensconced in the Oval Office (he's flat out gilding that too) more than just blinked when the bond market warned him that if he persevered he was in danger of rivalling British PM Liz Truss. It brings to mind the enduring joke that she had the political shelf-life of a common garden variety lettuce.
Xi knows this and he also must save face - his country's new hobby is the ridiculing of Captain Chao$ and the eye-shadow of arch bigot come hatchetman, VP, J D Vance - and then there is the constant talk about pigs needing truckloads of lipstick - no doubt made in China too.
As Prof Michael Hudson recently stated...
"But you can imagine that European, Asian, African countries, Latin American countries, are all spending these next three months thinking, how are we going to create a world after August, that is going to enable us to keep on producing what we’re producing and importing what we’re importing, but not from the United States.
They’re all trying to think of realignment. And the United States says - well, this is going to disrupt your economy for a year or so; and the other countries will make a calculation and they’ll say, yes, it’s going to disrupt our economy for a year or so, but then for the next decade or century, we won’t have to deal with US threats anymore.
The United States is the only country in the world that has weaponized its foreign trade; weaponized its foreign currency, the dollar; weaponized the international financial system; and treated every economic relationship in an adversarial way, to weaponize it.
Other countries say, how can we have a different approach, and treat trade as how can we mutually gain? How can we treat investment as something where the investor gains, but we also gain?
If China is going to build up ports and infrastructure for us, and we will pay China in the form of raw materials, or agricultural production, or whatever we’re producing; then we get the capital investment that China is providing, and we’re providing them with the trade that they’ve helped develop by putting in place ports, and roads, and railroads, and other means of transportation.
So you have two different views of what an alternative world trade system would look like."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE END OF THE ERA OF FREE LUNCHES
All of these countries have 90 days to get their heads together, whilst it is finally dawning on them that the very survival of the U$ hegemony is based on the free lunch of printing dollars, flooding the global economy with them, mainly through military (annually around $1.5 trillion) spending, and its 850 overseas military bases which they hoped would aid in holding the entire planet to ransom.
- (remember that China and Russia have a grand total of a minuscule 3.5 overseas bases between them)
Last week Mr Trump came up with yet another deranged and suicidal plan. One minute he was trying to force nations into using the dollar by bludgeoning them for using dollar alternatives, and the next thing he is wanting to impose taxes on Treasury and Govt agency securities - is it any wonder that the dollar is plummetting on the DXY, in relation to all the other key global currencies.
This too makes a mockery of these trading countries in essence "paying for the tariffs" as Trump has been bragging, supposedly through the "weakening of their currencies" - the exact reverse is happening, because Trump has irreversibly undermined confidence in his own currency, which like any fiat paper, confidence or the lack there-of is its entire backing, and apart from the petrodollar scam-backing, which has gone up in smoke too, that last vestige of confidence is running for cover now as well.
Great move Trump, set fire to this too, by imposing a tax on US treasury securities. Blimey - does it not look for all the world as though Regime #47 is doing its level best to come up with six ways to Sunday to put the finishing touches on Rome II?
And out of the wild blue yonder comes Trump's blanket 10% tariffs against the RoW, including on the poor little Penguins on a remote island that most of us had never 'Heard' of, with his outrageous 245% on China - was this the key clue as to what Trump/Bessent's real intention was.
It appears that the #47 regime had come to the realisation that their massively de-industrialised financial economy is simply unable to compete on a global scale with China's highly sophisticated mixed market industrial economy.
What they miss though is the reason why this is a one-horse race. It is simply because China had the presence of mind to study the history of successful industrial economies over the last 200 years and to cherry-pick the best policies from all of them - ironically most of the best ideas came directly from the Western sphere and even from the US itself.
BANKING CONDUCTED AS A PUBLIC UTILITY
This revolved around the careful choice of which particular public utilities should remain firmly in the public domain in order to serve society, to build sustainable wealth, and invest in infrastructure that gives the country a competitive edge in the global markets. This capital was not blown on starting wars all over the planet, a military budget that was more than the next 70 largest nation's military spends combined, and on lining the pockets of the rentier' gazillionaires.
Also, which ones should be allowed to be privatised, risking them ending up in the hands of the rentier' monopoly cartels which then profit enormously from unearned rent, or play out various versions of the disastrous Thames Water model?
This is the point that Trump and Bessent and the dancing billionaire brigade completely miss, as they try to bludgeon their way back to international supremacy - whether or not they miss it on purpose, is debatable.
Of course far and away the most important public utility that China kept out of the hands of the private kleptocrats was the ability to create 'money', NB remember it is not money, it is merely credit - portraits of long-dead presidents printed on fancy paper, and private banker's loans conjured up out of thin air - a vast difference.
Trump's delusional mind resides in fairy-tale land, the gilded-age of the US, and the absolutism of the King Louis XIV era.
Perhaps the BRICS bloc and 80-90% of the world's population have some grim news for the would-be-if-he-could-be King Donald - so too for his dancing billionaire brigade of sycophantic courtiers.
Regards to all and many thanks to the ICN team for keeping us informed
Col
If only there was a way to appraise things that didn't involve myopia in one direction or the other.
Well, Pa1nter, the Chinese civilisation could hardly be accused of "myopia".
They think and plan in terms of a minimum of a century. The emergence of the Xia Dynasty dates to around 2070 BCE.
Interestingly, using that date, it works out that their culture is exactly 2025 years older than the American state.
In stark contrast, the 'planning' of Admin #47 appears to be based on how long ago the last idiotic billionaire courtier mumbled into Orange Man's ear - IOWs anything from a minute to a maximum of a few days 'planning'.
The Chinese, after the abject failure of communism, cherry-picked from a banquet of the most productive economic models from the last two centuries. If Westerners could only put their pride and prejudices aside, we could do that too.
NZ took the first step when we joined the BRI - now all we need is the gumption to board the principal peace train which could provide both economic and security in general at the same time.
https://globalsouth.co/2025/04/21/brics-the-reports-of-my-death-are-gre…
However, the omens are not good - especially since the NZ govt recently chose to financially back the Ukrainian Nazi killing machine through to at least 2026.
In doing so we essentially demonstrated our myopic subservience to the global MIC, our lack of national sovereignty, and added to the risk of half of Europe being turned into molten glass in a nuclear escalation.
Never have I been more profoundly ashamed of my country than when that mindless decision was announced.
Your beliefs would make that an understandable reaction.
Good thing Russia stopped Ukraine from planting Swastikas all over Europe. Everyone else should be thankful!
Although super weird how even Putin has backed off from the whole Nazi thing.
"... even Putin has backed off from the whole Nazi thing."
How so???
I'm becoming more pro China as each news cycle progresses.
The US just cant accept they are where they are because of themselves, it ain't China's on anyone else's fault.
The US chose to spend billions to disrupt countries, China chose to invest in itself.
not a lot of high speed trains in the USA
Be all that as it may, at the end of the day, I for one would choose, with respect to being under the current regimes in place, to live under those of London or Washington than those of Moscow and Beijing. Doesn’t seem to be either thousands of would be immigrants attempting to cross the borders of the latter daily as there are the English Channel or from Mexico.
Like it or not the London/Washington mob have been flaming the fire of conflict for donkeys years.
We are located in Asia (pretty much) and have a very diverse population. Thus we have divided loyalty within, poor leadership from the traditional allies and a very large trading partner who could swat us away any sec if they chose to - you think Trump would care?
So do we really have a choice?
Granted the question in itself seeks an hypothetical answer in so much that folk will usually gravitate to what is comfortably known, their historical conditioning if you like. But even so, and regardless of how the respective nations have arrived at where they are at, I would wager 99% of NZr’s would answer the question in favour of the Western sides on offer and that too, in itself, could hardly be without reason.
Have you ever wondered what predatory economic forces caused these humanitarian tragedies, and the resulting mass exodus - also which particular global entities orchestrated their resultant poverty in the first place, Foxglove?
Hint... you mentioned both of them in your comment
"...thousands of would be immigrants attempting to cross the borders of the latter daily as there are the English Channel or from Mexico."
Well it might be modern times but it is historically hardly unique for migrations to be caused by economic pressures and/or deprivation. For instance why was it necessary for the Helvetii to move en masse towards the Atlantic only to be intercepted and destroyed by Caesar himself en route. Or if you like, more recently, similar occurrences during the post WW2 partition of the sub continent. It is scarcely difficult for historians to explain faults and blame that have lead to humanitarian tragedies and that would obviously go back to before recorded time. However whatever that might be, rightly or wrongly, the question posed is simply, to ask oneself today, with regard to what’s on offer, what would be the preferred lifestyle, security and livelihood under the respective regimes as suggested..
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