The hoon around the week to July 17
The Hoon - A podcast by Bernard Hickey - Thursdays
TLDR: This week, demands to loosen restrictions on bringing in migrant workers grew to a crescendo amid widespread delays, cancellations and employer concerns about wage inflation. In Thursday’s Chorus, I looked at whether a loosening is a good idea on its own, and what a bipartisan deal on migration along with infrastructure spending should look like.Also, the Reserve Bank hiked its official interest rate as expected and house prices kept falling, but I took a closer look in Wednesday’s Chorus at the central bank’s $12.7b worth of cheap loans for banks, which are diluting the effects of its tightening and giving already-very-profitable banks a taxpayer subsidy. I also challenged the assumptions about our ‘squeezed middle’ in Friday’s Chorus and detailed in Tuesday’s Chorus how our bi-partisan 30/30 mantra on public debt and the size of Government is sucking our future dry. In Monday’s Chorus, I looked at how a pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders living in Australia would expose employers here to much more ‘brain drain’ pressure.In Friday evening’s live hoon webinar for paid subscribers, which is in recorded form above for all subscribers, I took a lap around these issues and more in geopolitics and the global economy with co-host Peter Bale and special guest Professor Robert Patman from the University of Otago.We talked about:* Sri Lanka’s political and economic implosion;* what Boris Johnson’s departure might mean for Aotearoa-NZ; and,* How the Pacific Islands Forum went and why China may have over-played its hand in the Pacific.Here’s Peter’s Weekly World Bulletin email newsletter for more background.This is my weekly summary and sampler of the big news of the week we’ve covered on The Kākā for both free and paid subscribers. The public interest journalism I do daily on housing unaffordability, climate change inaction and poverty reduction is possible with the support of paid subscribers. Join our community by subscribing in full.A reminder to free subscribers reading here that we have a special $30 a year deal for under 30s and anyone on a benefit. We also have a new special $65 a year deal for over 65s who are renting and reliant on NZ Superannuation. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe