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The 2022 Interesties featuring inflation, Adrian Orr, Philip Lowe, Jacinda Ardern, Christopher Luxon, Liz Truss & Kwasi Kwarteng, FTX & Sam Bankman-Fried, the current account deficit, the NZ Herald, borrowers & savers and more

Business / opinion
The 2022 Interesties featuring inflation, Adrian Orr, Philip Lowe, Jacinda Ardern, Christopher Luxon, Liz Truss & Kwasi Kwarteng, FTX & Sam Bankman-Fried, the current account deficit, the NZ Herald, borrowers & savers and more
Adrian Orr as a hawk
Cartoon by Ross Payne. © interest.co.nz

Ho, ho, ho!

Yes, here comes the guy from the North Pole in his red suit again. But as you prepare for the festive season and summer holidays, remember you're not allowed to have too much fun. Your Reserve Bank Governor is trying to engineer a recession to rein in inflation after all. And if we spend too much money that won't help his cause.

Oh forget that. It has been another long and turbulent year so we all deserve to let our hair down. At least a little bit.

As we wish all our contributors, readers, listeners and viewers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, here are our annual Interesties Awards. This is where we take a mostly light hearted look at the year that was.

So without further ado, and with a decent dollop of recency bias - favouring recent events over ones earlier this year - here they are.

The "Cool the Jets" Grinch Award: Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr.

The Scream/Freddy Krueger Back to Haunt Us Award: Inflation.

Chart of The Year: The valuation of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The Services to the Vegan Cause Award: FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried. As reported by Bloomberg as Bankman-Fried is held in a Bahamas prison ahead of likely extradition to the United States to face wire fraud, money laundering and campaign finance charges.

Here's Bloomberg after detailing grim conditions in the Bahamas prison;

One person said Bankman-Fried’s relatives called the prison Tuesday night to ask whether vegan meals could be delivered to him. 

The Blink and You Missed Them Award: Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng.

The Mea Culpa After Painting Himself Into a Corner Award: Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe.

After hiking interest rates this year Lowe acknowledged the RBA spending much of 2020 and 2021 saying they wouldn't do this until 2024 was a mistake.

The Potty Mouth of Parliament Award: Jacinda Ardern.

The Generator of the Political Headline of the Year Award: Christopher Luxon for this gem on a Thomas Coughlin NZ Herald article; Christopher Luxon U-turns on U-turn, acknowledging he ‘misspoke’

The Grifter of the Year Award: Donald Trump. Even though he was late to the NFT party...

The Jurassic Park Return of the Dinosaur Award: Winston Peters.

The I'm in Power for as Long as I Want to Be Award: Xi Jinping.

The Warmonger Award: Despot Vladimir Putin.

The Causing a Share Market Trading Halt Political Gaffe Award: Wayne Brown.

The Public Relations (PR) Services Award: The NZ Herald for coverage of Max Key.

The I'm Still Not Quite Done With You Yet Award: COVID-19.

The Services to Their Shareholders Award: New Zealand's big four, Aussie owned banks with their combined annual dividends of $4.2 billion this year.

The Getting Acrophobia Award: People with home loans.

The Finally Putting Away the Limbo Bar Award: Savers with bank deposits.

The Big Inflating Balloon Award: New Zealand's now $29.7 billion annual current account deficit.

The Lurking Around a Dark Corner Ready to Kneecap Us Award: Recession.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

66 Comments

Great Cartoon! -       

Gareth - That Chris Trotter interview was next level, Loved it.

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8

Amen to the award to the NZ Herald for pumping Max Key.

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17

Can only imagine what the Keys are paying for these articles...

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11

Don't forget they share the cost with the Chow brothers of Stonewood...

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16

I think you mean Chow brothers of Calendar girls!

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12

Yes,I am aware of their past,although I think it was a brothel rather than Calendar girls......bet the office Christmas party is interesting...I bet those girls let JK pull anything he wants,ponytail or other wise...

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6

I think they're a little too old.  

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2

Brilliant.

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2

Key's former brothel owners businesses partners? This is what happens when PM give themselves Knighthoods. Classy John.

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10

Yes, the Surgeon is a reason we should not have knighthoods. How self serving/

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3

Their Belmont project looks to be on hold to me...

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The best economic news articles award: Interest.co.nz. Thank you all!

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26

Where's the prophet award? 

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17

They get awarded a nice shiny new account periodically.

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18

Yes The Prophet was clearly the most accurate economist of the year, bar none.

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13

The " We back our man / No we dont / Yes we do " award goes to the NZRU for their love-hate relationship with All Black coach Ian Foster ... 

The " Screw you guys , I'm taking my ball and going home " award goes to Spark , for dumping their grand plan to dominate live television sports coverage ....

The " Narcissistic of the year " award goes to Gurav Sharma ...." Gurav who ? " , you ask ... exactly !

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15

To be fair Sky are living in the last century.

Their on demand service is crap compared to Sparks.

That's the problem with a monopoly, no competitive pressure to evolve.

Oh the irony, with Spark/telecom teaching them this lesson.

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1

To a point , Sky are living in the last century ... but ... we're still paying to use their service in this century .... and , they've seen off the opposition ... well , who'd have thunk it , Spark were doing so well until they realised that the Sky's the limit  ...

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0

The " Dog & Lemon " award goes to My Food Bag ...the market was  sold a pup just 18 months ago , and the share price has collapsed from $ 1.85 , to 39 cents  ... the only food in that bag is lemons ... 

... a salient lesson for investors ... never go out on a Lim ... 

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37

A certain businessman was spot on about MyFoodBag but he expressed himself terribly badly about Nadja Lim

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10

Check out the situation in Aussie, their food delivery companies are dropping like flies.

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5

... the company listed solely for insiders to grab a money bag and to scarper ... since then , in excess of a third of a $ billion of market capitalisation has been lost  ... a fall from over $NZ 400 million in March 2021 , to less than  $NZ 100 million today  ... 

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9

What if the poster child of MyFoodBag was John Cena and someone made some snide comments about having some "Eurasion Bulk" to help sell shares?  

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My Food Bagholder

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8

The to hell with democracy award. A hard fought draw, between Mahuta & Jackson.

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14

The " Most Expensive Tinder Date of the Year " award goes to the Labour government , for the $ 380 million they're spending on getting TVNZ & RNZ into bed together  ... they can share carrot sticks after the shag , cigarettes are banned  ... 

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10

The useful idiot(s) award. Sage & the Greens, entrenched then hosed down in five waters.

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8

. . that sounds like a useful poultry  stuffing , Sage & the Green onions ... come the 2023 general election , these turkeys will be well & truly stuffed ...

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17

Best finisher award. GBH by a country mile for that one alone.

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11

Be a lot less dairy robberies if they were sold to the hardened addicts via a central government seller.

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2

Yes. Older investors of course saw it for what it was and steered well clear. A hard lesson for the young (Sharsies) investor.

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6

Never buy anything private equity is selling. 

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10

Exactly. Remember when private equity sold out of Sky Tv at $4.90, brokers sold it on for $6. Shareprice now, unadjusted, 24 cents......

 

 

 

 

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2

With Ryman hot on its heels for dog and lemon award.

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2

A2 Milk takes silver medal in the Dog & Lemon category ... not so much cats , lots more gory ...

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Yes Ryman extremely low now. A buy? SUM looks dangerously overpriced in this sector at $9. Next year will be interesting.

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The Public Relations service award cracked me up.  But concerningly true

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7

Pretty sure a whole bunch of people out there want the meals to Bankman-Fraud to be stopped completely.

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6

Right on the Money award: The Prophet

Couldn’t hit a barn door award: ANZ 

Financial Support from the Property Industry award: Tony the Comb

Lost my voice award: Ashley Church

The last man into the lifeboat award: TTP

Hostile takeover of a comments section award: Team DGM

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19

We have a saying in offshore sailing, always step up into the liferaft (too many people lost in rafts and the boat was found floating).

So TTP was right to wait until the ship went down!    All the best with the new venture.

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6

I believe ANZ was the best of the bank forecasters, they were the most hawkish on inflation and interest rates, especially Zollner.

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4

There will be a new award in 2023, due to expected demand there will only be electronic certificates.

The 2023 Come to Jesus Award

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1

The " I only have one gear , reverse " award  goes to Poto Williams ... a genuinely nice person , but completely out of her depth as police minister , sacked from that portfolio , now announced her retirement from politics next year ... 

The  " I dont care what you think , I do what I want " award goes to Nanaia Mahuta ... barrelling ahead with her 3 or 5 waters , co-governance , and even an underhand attempt to entrench some of it , regardless that the cabinet had said " No ! " ...

The " Teflon Coated " award goes to Nanaia Mahuta , see above ... she got away without a single censure or reprimand  ... I am impressed !

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12

Be patient, wait for the next election....

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2

I would seriously make a donation to charity if Interest organised a livestreamed debate between some of the more well known commenters on this site. $100 for TTP vs Retire Poppy. Make it happen.

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7

Hilarity would ensue if that live stream resulted in one person having a debate with themselves in the mirror.  

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12

Lets put Nifty and HW2 in the same team

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4

Will get awkward if there's 6 monikers in one seat.  
 

"H-h-hang on it's a 1 v 1 not 6 v 1".  

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4

👍

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2

Sure who's in your team IT GUY or would you go at it alone? Remember there's no I in team but I guess there is I in IT GUY...

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1

That'd be like Winston Peters talking to his lover ....  the conversation would stop if he fogged up the mirror ....

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10

Ha-ha :) Llama, your comment conjured up images of two well gagged commenters staring each other down intensely. All those things we are no longer allowed to say, all those comments that now get deleted! When times are tough its much much harder to outrun ones past. Right now, I think my nemesis is distracted by a housing downturn that he always anticipated on interest.co, yet an epic "down-trou" for him in real life....

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The Award for  Crisis what Crisis  until the reaction from the public forces us to react

Labour Party

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Dr Klaus Schwab's aka "The Darth Vader Voldemort Dr Evil Lookalike" for Engineering the New World Order since 1971 while using a gigantic list of Global Youth Leaders, Corporates and the SUPER Rich to Control Stakeholders into the Hands of a Few..... Award goes to:

Jacinda Ardern and Nanaia Mahuta

----

And here's a reminder of the Global Reset vision when the pandemic hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJTnkzl3K64

 

 

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Barry Crump's Kindness Engineering BS Award: 

Jacinda Ardern's Labour Government

 

 

The 5 seconds from 0:50 mins in is GOLD. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60MzTlrOCXQ

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You forgot an important award.

How to take over a company and trash it from within Award : Elon Musk for his Twitter handling. 

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He also gets my " FIFA : take your eyes off the ball " award .... Tesla , Elon ... remember Tesla ... aren't ya meant to be running that !

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2

Look, I'm vegan, but I'd just like to distance myself from the shaggy FTX guy, and express my hope that he is served a chicken, stuffed with pork, or something equally disgusting.

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... that  prison is renowned for rats , maggots & cockroaches in the cells   ... poor sanitary conditions ... overcrowding  ....

I have a sneaky feeling that vegan meals are not on the menu  ... still , no harm in asking ... ha haaaaa .... the guards probably need a good laugh  .... 

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0

International political try-hard award must surely go to one Monsieur Macron.

Zelensky shows up in jeans and a tight-fitting t shirt - so Macron starts doing the same to emulate the look.

France loses the WC final and he's storming the pitch quicker than a Celtic fan, ready to insert himself into everyone's commiserations and ensure he is photographed consoling their star player (who clearly didn't want a bar of it). Not to mention the cringeworthy locker-room speech.

Just two examples of a man who has literally no shame in exploiting any situation to his political advantage.

Let's not forget his appearance at Putin's clearly-compensating-for-something dinner table either. 

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The ‘laughing all the way to the Reserve Bank’ award goes to Adrian Orr.

Failed in all aspects of the role and gets a shiny new contract with a whopper of a payrise and an extra few years on the job. He may as well take his pants off on live TV at the next press conference as he’s got tenure 🤣

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2

Keys is wasting his own money... Arderns, Orrs, mayor's... is wasting yours 

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The effective death threats award to NZ's MAGA people who cleared out the Covid leadership and negated effective pandemic policies so that Covid can now rip through the country.

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1

And the majority of us are indifferent, looking forward to a lovely xmas new year whilst caring naught for any numbers or frankly anything to do with it. Merry Christmas all!

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. . as a committed MAGA ( Make Ardern Go Away ) , I've never threatened anyone  , and have followed the advice of medical science on Covid19 & vaccines ...

Covid was always going to let rip sooner or later ... viruses cannot be kept out ... only mitigated ...

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Change

The Potty Mouth  Award: Simon Henry

Leader  most NOT A  transparent government --- Jacinda

 

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