User Profile

Bernard Hickey

The day the Fonterra dream finally died

Farmers will now debate a break-up to halve Fonterra’s size to around $6 billion, and to slash the $49 billion of debt owed by both farmers and the co-operative. Bernard Hickey analyses the latest big loss.

Aug 13 2019

Bernard Hickey

Economy

Why Orr prefers negative interest rates to QE

The Reserve Bank is more actively thinking about what it should do if the official cash rate gets to zero percent. What are its options?

Aug 12 2019

Bernard Hickey

Comment

A mounting fiscal stimulus problem

Central bankers around the world need their Governments to abandon austerity to both stimulate and re-engineer their economies to massively improve productivity, housing affordability and climate emissions. Bernard Hickey explains a global and local problem.

Aug 08 2019

Bernard Hickey

Newsroom Pro

Milestones: Shane to meet Shayne; RBNZ bill; Kensington Swan merger

Shane Jones to meet ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott; Whaleoil shuts down; RBNZ issues Financial Market Infrastructure draft bill; KensingtonSwan to merge with Dentons

Aug 02 2019

Bernard Hickey

Media monitoring

Bernard’s pick of the news links

NIMBYs blocking Dominion Rd flats; Why won’t Bridges and Robertson talk about productivity?; Westland Council’s secret crisis meeting; DHBs $264m in deficit; John Lanchester on the history of fractional reserve banking and fiat currencies My eight...

Aug 02 2019

Bernard Hickey

People moves

People on the move this week

Tevita Funaki named Pacific Business Trust Chair; Andrew Dallas named ERA Chief; Parker sees fewer QCs named this year

Aug 02 2019

Bernard Hickey

Diary

Coming up: US jobs; Rate cut; Jobs data; Brexit

US jobs data is on Saturday morning; Jacinda Ardern’s post-cabinet news conference is on Monday afternoon; NZ jobs and wages figures are on Tuesday morning; Parliament resumes on Tuesday afternoon; RBNZ is seen cutting the OCR on Wednesday afternoon.

Aug 02 2019

Bernard Hickey

One fun thing

One fun thing: Trump vs script

Donald Trump shouldn’t surprise us anymore, but somehow he does. This time it’s over his relationship with a teleprompter. It’s quite the thing.

Aug 02 2019

Bernard Hickey

Economic weather

Economic weather report

The Fed cuts for the first time since GFC, but not enough for markets; Australian house prices bottom out

Aug 02 2019

Bernard Hickey

Media

Bernard’s pick of the links

Five Eyes eyes spying on WhatsApp; Queenstown’s infrastructure financing problems; The man who built the retweet

Aug 01 2019

Bernard Hickey

Newsroom Pro

One fun thing: TV is lovely

Today’s one fun thing takes us all back to a simpler time. With accents.

Aug 01 2019

Bernard Hickey

Media

Bernard’s pick of the news mix on Wednesday

Here’s my selection of the eight best morning news and links, along with my comments in brackets, including a Crown Monitor for Westland, another very unhappy ANZ customer, Vodafone’s possible 5G move and the economics of Korea’s #nomarriage movement.

Jul 31 2019

Bernard Hickey

Government

Robertson eyes big Public Finance Act reform

Amid debate over infrastructure deficits and New Zealand’s low public debt, Grant Robertson wants to include wellbeing targets into the 30 year-old Act behind the Crown’s strong balance sheet.

Jul 30 2019

Bernard Hickey

Comment

Why ‘gold plating’ banking system is right

The big banks have accused the Reserve Bank of trying to ‘gold plate’ the system but Bernard Hickey argues the regulator is right to plan for a one-in-200 year crisis.

Jul 30 2019

Bernard Hickey

Week in Review

Let’s call the Australians’ bluff on bank capital

Australian banks have threatened to leave NZ if the Reserve Bank forces them to retain more of their dividends. Bernard Hickey argues we should back Adrian Orr and call their bluff.

Jul 29 2019

Bernard Hickey

Media

Bernard’s pick of the news mix on Friday

My selection of the eight best morning news links from here and overseas, along with eight lunchtime lean-back long reads. Also, the full list of links, including Jacinda Ardern’s trip to Australia, the big emissions report, Fonterra’s coal move and a new housing shortage forecast. My comments are in the brackets after each link.

Jul 19 2019

Bernard Hickey

Week in Review

Our armour-plated housing bubble

Bernard Hickey explains why New Zealand’s housing market bubble has become armour plated and why it is proving almost impossible to burst, despite the predictions of overseas experts.

Jul 18 2019

Bernard Hickey

Content partnership

Organic farming: When less is better

Pāmu is exploring how large scale organic dairy farming, using alternative animal health methods and sources of nutrients can make just as much profit as a normal farm, but with fewer cows and a smaller environmental footprint. Bernard Hickey reports.

Jul 11 2019

Bernard Hickey

Infrastructure

Beehive told to help councils out. A bit.

Infrastructure spending is throttled because councils lack the revenue tools needed to service extra debt. Bernard Hickey analyses the Productivity Commission report that tells them to use their existing tools more and suggests one or two little new ones.

Jul 08 2019

Bernard Hickey

Politics

Adrian Orr needs a monetary policy mate and fast

The Reserve Bank needs the Government to step up with fiscal stimulus, rather than its current contraction, Bernard Hickey argues.

Jul 04 2019

Bernard Hickey