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Thursday, April 11, 2024

Professor Robert MacCulloch: When will the Reserve Bank of NZ Stop Spinning


When will the Reserve Bank of NZ Stop Spinning and Stop Misleading Parliament and the Nation?

Yesterday the Reserve Bank kept the Official Cash Rate Unchanged. It released a statement saying, "The NZ economy continues to evolve as anticipated by the Monetary Policy Committee". What a line coming from a Governor who told Bloomberg News in the US in 2021, whilst he was busy printing $50 billion in cash, which is the primary cause of our current high inflation, that "The fear of the 70s, the 80s, stagflation, it is such a different world [now]".

How unamusing, given that stagnation, recession & inflation is exactly what we are now experiencing. How unamusing that the RBNZ says our economy continues to evolve as anticipated when its forecasts could not have been proved more wrong.

It gets worse. The RBNZ marketing-Comms-PR-Spin merchants have waged a multi-year misinformation campaign saying that what NZ is experiencing is the same as elsewhere, so it can't be blamed for anything. The takeaway from its Monetary Policy Propaganda Release yesterday was, "Globally, while there are differences across regions, economic growth remains below trend & is expected to remain subdued .. Economic growth in NZ remains weak". That's such a spun, misleading line that even Orwell's Ministry of Truth would struggle to come up with it. NZ's economy cannot remotely in a billion years be currently associated with other nations "growing below trend". There are few countries on the planet presently in recession - experiencing declines in GDP & plummeting GDP per capita like us. What's with the Marketing-PR-Comms line that "Economic growth in NZ remains weak". Its not weak. There is no growth. Duh. We're shrinking - in recession - contracting. GDP per capita is falling at around negative 2%. The IMF ranks us near bottom of 168 countries on these measures. Meanwhile, countries like the US are booming. It is growing above trend - in the third quarter of 2023 Gross domestic product increased at a 4.9% annualized rate.

Why is NZ in recession whilst the rest of the world grows? Because the RBNZ Governor said in 2022 he was "engineering a recession" to get himself out of the inflationary mess the Bank had created. This Blog argued back then that NZ should instead try avoiding recession & engineer a "soft landing"- which most others have successfully done. We're a worst-case outlier but you'd never know it from the Reserve Bank's Self-Promoting "We're the Best" taxpayer funded ad campaign. The RBNZ Spin Doctors are literally using the line they're a "Great Team" at the "Best Central Bank". Best Dog in Show. Do they look in the mirror & tell themselves so? Yet the Bank has officially become, on the objective criteria of NZ's recessionary hard landing which nearly every other Central Bank has avoided, the worst central bank from Mogadishu to Mongolia, run by a Team who seem to religiously believe their own spin as they look out from their lofty Wellington Terrace Offices. Maybe they should get out more to live the cost-of-living crisis they caused.

Sources:
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/hub/news/2024/04/official-cash-rate-remains-unchanged

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.

7 comments:

Rob Beechey said...

Recognising talent when he sees it, Finance Minister Grant Robertson happily said “the RBNZ board unanimously recommended Orr’s reappointment for a further term.”

Reggie said...

Thanks Robert. What you outline is truly bazaar! The RBNZ seems to operate in a different world these days. Gone are the days when it was a shining beacon of excellence. As a bank economist in the 80s we viewed RBNZ with enormous respect. The economic papers they published were studied by all of us and their innovation with inflation controls was viewed as world leading. Dr Rod Deane undertook some amazing research on econometric modelling and Governor Don Brash was highly respected. Actually it was muttered at one stage that Brash was being considered to be Governor of the Bank of England.

Today when I search through the RBNZ’s web site all I see is a raft of Maori concepts and an explanation of how our financial system is like Tane Mahuta the tree! It’s “Vision” is specified as being “In Te Ao Māori, we describe our vision on a deeper level as Matangirua ki Matangireia: working as one, towards our ultimate purpose.” Good grief, where does that fit with the organisation charged with managing the financial system?!

Keep going Robert. Call these guys out!

Anonymous said...

Quite. Our lickspittle lefty legacy media is busy discussing whether we will have a soft landing. This misunderstanding reflects their lack of knowledge and education.

New Zealand’s GDP per capita has fallen 4% from peak to the end of 2023. This is a massive blow. The first and second quarters of this year will see per capita GDP deteriorate still further. This recession will be deeper and longer than the 2008 financial crisis. Indeed, what all this means is that NZ is currently experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression. We already have a hard landing.

Unlike the 2008 financial crisis, this recession has been caused completely by local factors. In particular, three people - Cindy Ardern, Kommissar Robbo and Adrian Orr - are almost completely responsible for our crisis.

Alas, none of these rogues have been held to account for their treasons against the people. Cindy Ardern continues to be funded by the public. Robbo corruptly secured a highly paid position he was completely unqualified to do. Mr Orr continues in his position, despite being the worst Governor of the Reserve Bank in our history.

In the book “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith explained why the market economy works. The invisible hand – that mix of incentives and accountabilities – reward or punish market behavior as appropriate.

Alas, New Zealand has become the Socialist Republic of Aotearoa, where treasonous behaviour is rewarded. The final indignity is that the left has now taken over the National Party.

After the election, I wanted to become more hopeful about New Zealand's prospects. Alas, I must confess I am finding this to be a struggle.

We must see some responsibility and accountability for the failures of the past six years.

The way forward is Mr Orr must be fired. This would signal that New Zealand is returning to a system of responsibility and accountability.

Make it so.

Peter said...

Indeed, Anon@12.16. Yet another highly paid bureaucrat who is not held accountable in failing to meet their most basic of responsibilities and all too busy embracing mythology and a failed stone age culture.

Both Orr & Holsted need to be gone.

robert Arthur said...

For its rudimentary basic requirment and the rudimetary ways it attempts to ahandle matters the vast highly paod Reserve bank staff seems absurd.The Reserve Bank used to run a speech competition 9and may still do) where schools aimed to produce a speech as accompanies the regular cash rate announcements. The top outputs were fully as plausible as the governor's spin.Seems to me we would be no worse off if the whole money managemnt had been handed to the untrained novices. Or laft to AI.

Anonymous said...

This is straight talking of the best kind and so good to hear. The Reserve Bank, the Big Four banks and "politicians of all stripes" are responsible for the financial hole that NZ is sinking into.
I too am feeling that National are not doing enough or planning to do enough about our malaise.
I am grateful for people like you Robert who are able to clearly show up the Orwellian bumblespeak that is coming from people like Adrian Orr. He should be disappeared and shamed for his criminal duplicity but no, he is paid a sumptuos salary to gaslight us, year after bloody year.
MC

Anonymous said...

Central bank issued currency is owned by, and owed back to, the issuing central bank PLUS interest which they themselves create out of thin air.

This process alone is currency purchasing power negative. Moreover, it allows the issuing central bank to create more debt.

Debt creation is how ANY central bank keeps its power. The more debt they create, the stronger they become.

The fact of the matter is this… we are in a DELIBERATE central bank induced debt, death, spiral of which ONLY one thing is a guarantee… We The People who are forced to participate in THEIR SLAVE DEBT-BASED SYSTEM will continue to lose.

Do you want to know who YOUR REAL enemy is? Its central banks.

New Zealand’s central bank is one of 54 central banks that comprises the International Banking crime syndicate which are the front institutions for the much more surreptitious International Banking Cartel.