Ryan Bridge: We need to believe in our economy

We're cruising towards 2% growth off the back of these two bits of good news on the economy.

2% is not rocketing along but it's not stuck in a ditch, either.

And given the war and diesel and Trump, some (i.e. the government) might even say it's fantastic.

As you know we follow the data quite closely on this show - many of you are businesspeople, farmers, small business owners, do-ers in the economy and want to know what's going on.

Manufacturing hit it out the park and now services, two-thirds of our growth, is expanding.

The key missing ingredient is consumer spending - discretionary spending.

You see that in hospitality and other fine print from the services sector read yesterday.

And while an OCR hiking cycle doesn't help with confidence, most of it's priced in and at this point the rates are still technically wind at our backs, not our faces.

American consumers are far more robust and confident that us. They spend like tomorrow they'll win lotto. And they basically do that 99% of the time.

We're far more cautious, and often with good reason.

Not only does that demand help push their economy along, even when headlines suggest they shouldn't, but their ability to dream big, invent new things and create value is also important here.

The AI surge. The share prices. The investment it generates. The plants it builds. The jobs it creates.

If success is a positive mindset and unequivocal self-belief, the Americans have it bottled.

We have it too, but perhaps we can take a leaf out of their book and actually believe it.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.