Latest / The SME Stream / Andrew Bascand: We've seen the bottom of the rate cycle
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend collective podcast from News Talks.
- 0:09Speaker 2: I'd be and that lovely piece of music is sort
- 0:12Speaker 2: of Christmas the music from Love actually, which is actually
- 0:15Speaker 2: it's a gorgeous little piece of music, isn't it. And
- 0:17Speaker 2: it's because it's the choice of my guest in the
- 0:19Speaker 2: studio now for smart Money, because he's actually also in Auckland.
- 0:24Speaker 2: He used to do the show and down the line
- 0:27Speaker 2: from Offenham, Wellington, but he's an awk little bit more
- 0:30Speaker 2: because he's a granddad again. And Andrew beskcan Andrew, how
- 0:34Speaker 2: you doing super?
- 0:35Speaker 3: Isn't it great? This time of the year it is
- 0:37Speaker 3: out of us? Gives it back to right?
- 0:40Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, it's funny. I love Actually, I still don't
- 0:43Speaker 2: think I'm sick of that movie yet. And how many
- 0:44Speaker 2: years do we watch it every year? And comes up
- 0:46Speaker 2: and you're like, sit down for love? Actually?
- 0:48Speaker 3: Yep, last Sunday night, that's what happened.
- 0:51Speaker 2: I gather actually one of the teachers at my daughter's
- 0:54Speaker 2: school showed the movie and forgot that there's a couple
- 0:55Speaker 2: of moments where this surprising nudity and she suddenly had
- 0:59Speaker 2: to very quickly reached for the fast forward like, oh,
- 1:02Speaker 2: forgot about that, but anyway, a lovely movie. Anyway, Andrew,
- 1:07Speaker 2: how's your year been?
- 1:08Speaker 3: By the way, Well, it's a bit of a surprise year,
- 1:10Speaker 3: isn't it. I Mean, who would have thought we sit
- 1:12Speaker 3: here this time of the year and things are feeling
- 1:14Speaker 3: a little bit better?
- 1:15Speaker 2: You know, Well, that's what's going to dig into. So
- 1:17Speaker 2: last week we had the Reserve Bank they dropped the
- 1:20Speaker 2: twenty five basis points. Gosh, it's something. It's an expression
- 1:23Speaker 2: everyone knows you those days, isn't it. And we've dropped
- 1:25Speaker 2: the ocr twenty five basis points to two point twenty five.
- 1:29Speaker 2: They've adopted a hawkish tone. Has it got there? I
- 1:34Speaker 2: don't know whether we've seen the bottom of the rate cycle,
- 1:36Speaker 2: but we're hoping we've seen the bottom of Have we
- 1:40Speaker 2: seen the worst of it? And you will have a
- 1:46Speaker 2: point of view of it because you are in touch
- 1:48Speaker 2: with things as opposed to what the average key is
- 1:51Speaker 2: in touch with who a lot of people are thinking.
- 1:52Speaker 2: I'm not sure have we seen the worst of it?
- 1:54Speaker 2: But anyway, what do you make of the year and
- 1:56Speaker 2: where we've got to and where we're going.
- 1:58Speaker 3: Yeah, if we had have started thinking about what this
- 2:01Speaker 3: year is going to look like about this time, we
- 2:04Speaker 3: would have said, going to we would have had a
- 2:05Speaker 3: bit of a pickup in the economy happening, you know,
- 2:08Speaker 3: in the first half of this year, and it was
- 2:10Speaker 3: feeling a little bit better, and in fact that didn't happen.
- 2:12Speaker 3: The first half of this year was still pretty miserable,
- 2:15Speaker 3: like for everyone. Maybe a couple of provinces farmers were okay, uh,
- 2:19Speaker 3: and the economy sort of felt really pretty awful in winter.
- 2:23Speaker 3: Then we've had the sequence of interest rate cuts, and
- 2:26Speaker 3: we've had eggin comes go okay. We coped a whole
- 2:30Speaker 3: lot of bad news globally, and it seems right now, however,
- 2:35Speaker 3: the sequence of good news is running well. And speaking
- 2:37Speaker 3: of you know, this interest rate cut, let's think about that.
- 2:40Speaker 3: We've been cutting interest rates.
- 2:41Speaker 2: For a while.
- 2:42Speaker 3: We're five and a half now they're half that quarter, and.
- 2:46Speaker 2: It's quite a big deal. Actually, it's quite a big
- 2:48Speaker 2: deal right now.
- 2:49Speaker 3: I mean, they could go lower, but they could. This
- 2:51Speaker 3: could be it. And the thing that the story about
- 2:53Speaker 3: last week, if we if we just hang on for
- 2:55Speaker 3: that for a second, Actually we cut interestrates by quarter
- 2:58Speaker 3: and no one said too much, which indicates to us
- 3:00Speaker 3: we are probably at the end of that rate cutting cycle, well, they.
- 3:05Speaker 2: Say this is did they say this is the last one?
- 3:08Speaker 3: Pretty much gave some optionality to cut again, but don't
- 3:12Speaker 3: play on it too much. And what we've seen is
- 3:13Speaker 3: though you know, those two year mortgage rates haven't changed.
- 3:16Speaker 3: I think that's the signal for borrowers out there, that
- 3:20Speaker 3: we cut interest rates the two and a quarter at
- 3:23Speaker 3: the two year rate, it's still for four and a half.
- 3:25Speaker 2: I think there were a lot of people who a
- 3:27Speaker 2: bit disappointed about that because they saw a chop and
- 3:28Speaker 2: they're like, oh, I'm going to be able to refix them.
- 3:30Speaker 2: What do you mean, hang on, nothing's changed. The banks
- 3:33Speaker 2: were ahead of it. Yeah.
- 3:35Speaker 3: Well, the thing is not just the banks, but the
- 3:37Speaker 3: whole interest rates structure. Is that a bank at a
- 3:40Speaker 3: bit off shore, it's a bit longer term. And we
- 3:43Speaker 3: expected a quarter of a point to come off. We
- 3:47Speaker 3: expected that twenty five basis points. And so if you
- 3:50Speaker 3: expect it, well that's it.
- 3:53Speaker 2: Because so we had. Interestingly, the new governor, I'm inclined
- 3:58Speaker 2: to like her because she's from Scandinavia. Probably, I don't know,
- 4:02Speaker 2: it's sort of you always think the Europeans, they seem
- 4:04Speaker 2: to have stuff, and every time we have something a
- 4:08Speaker 2: comment about politics and what they do, it's always well,
- 4:11Speaker 2: in Sweden, you know, they do this in Sweden, they
- 4:13Speaker 2: do this in Finland. Scandinavia seems to be the sort
- 4:16Speaker 2: of talkback model, like, oh if we can only be
- 4:17Speaker 2: like those countries, and we've got our own person from Scandinavia.
- 4:22Speaker 2: But she fronted the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee, didn't.
- 4:29Speaker 2: We were sort of all eyes on this.
- 4:30Speaker 3: Normally it wouldn't be the thing we tune into, right,
- 4:32Speaker 3: but here's our first chance of actually getting the body
- 4:34Speaker 3: language and the read. And there's some pretty tricky and
- 4:37Speaker 3: difficult questioning from you know, all different interested political parties
- 4:41Speaker 3: around the corner. You've probably watched one of these before.
- 4:45Speaker 3: It's probably my first for a week while, and we
- 4:47Speaker 3: were all pretty much glued to it. And actually really
- 4:50Speaker 3: good account of herself, I thought, I mean quite honestly,
- 4:53Speaker 3: you know, coming here obviously well briefed, but pretty open
- 4:58Speaker 3: to thinking about her her job and next year he
- 5:01Speaker 3: actually looking back, she said, you know, we've done a
- 5:04Speaker 3: pretty pretty good job.
- 5:05Speaker 2: And was she nice to us?
- 5:07Speaker 3: Yeah, she pretty well, given the hard time we've had
- 5:10Speaker 3: in terms of I think she was pretty nice to us, really,
- 5:14Speaker 3: But when I think about what she was talking, I'm
- 5:16Speaker 3: really excited because you're talking about transparency. We're going to
- 5:19Speaker 3: see more of the inner workings.
- 5:21Speaker 2: And in fact, she's even said that. And again, I
- 5:24Speaker 2: can't believe how far we've got into these sorts of
- 5:27Speaker 2: things about the vote. But it was five five to one,
- 5:30Speaker 2: five one for the reduction by point two five. Somebody
- 5:33Speaker 2: wanted to keep it the same. But I think she's
- 5:35Speaker 2: indicated we're going to know who's voted what.
- 5:41Speaker 3: If you're watching and listen to what she said, she
- 5:43Speaker 3: didn't exactly say that, but she said I'm open to
- 5:46Speaker 3: more transparency, and she was questioning exactly, well, exactly what
- 5:50Speaker 3: you said.
- 5:50Speaker 2: She was asked.
- 5:50Speaker 3: She said, I still haven't discussed this with my staff
- 5:53Speaker 3: and my people. I'm open to more transparency. She repeated
- 5:56Speaker 3: that line, which is fine.
- 5:57Speaker 2: Can I ask you, hmm? Is I mean this is
- 6:03Speaker 2: not something necessarily slated to talk about it. But if
- 6:05Speaker 2: I was to give my quick reckon on that, I'm
- 6:08Speaker 2: not sure that having transparency on who voted what on
- 6:12Speaker 2: that committee is necessarily desirable because it acts as a
- 6:17Speaker 2: sensor to doing what, you know, what I mean, you
- 6:20Speaker 2: don't want all of a sudden somebody might be somebody
- 6:24Speaker 2: on that committee who's making that decision about the interest
- 6:26Speaker 2: rate is wondering how they are going to look or
- 6:29Speaker 2: could do because I don't know. I sort of like
- 6:32Speaker 2: the fact that it maybe should be anonymous how they're voted.
- 6:35Speaker 2: What do you think Two of.
- 6:36Speaker 3: The comments from the ministers and the contributors to the
- 6:40Speaker 3: FEC actually made that exact point. It is a committee,
- 6:43Speaker 3: but we still want more transparency, So could you sort
- 6:45Speaker 3: of sort out how we don't how do we spotlight
- 6:47Speaker 3: on someone, but give us more transparency?
- 6:49Speaker 2: So tell me what. So we don't know how they voted,
- 6:51Speaker 2: but we know what they said before they voted, or
- 6:53Speaker 2: said afterwards perhaps or.
- 6:56Speaker 3: But the story really is this is something she's obviously
- 7:01Speaker 3: thinking about, and we'll find out what the story is.
- 7:04Speaker 3: She likes all the defied opinions around the table. Good.
- 7:06Speaker 3: I'm sure that's always been the case. But that's one
- 7:09Speaker 3: thing I took. The other thing I took out of
- 7:10Speaker 3: it is how important it is. It's always been important
- 7:13Speaker 3: to be strongly connected internationally, and she is obviously.
- 7:17Speaker 2: Yeah, what does that mean for what does that mean
- 7:19Speaker 2: for her? Role in the as governory the Reserve Bank.
- 7:22Speaker 3: He I think there are two things you'd be worried about,
- 7:25Speaker 3: global stress points in the financial system, So you're really
- 7:28Speaker 3: worried about financial crises and how they might filter through
- 7:31Speaker 3: to our economy well connected, really well connected, and then
- 7:35Speaker 3: thinking about how global patterns of growth will impact eventually
- 7:40Speaker 3: upon our economy. And I think she'll be forward looking.
- 7:42Speaker 3: I think that to be truthful, My view would be
- 7:46Speaker 3: the Reserve Bank has been very forward looking, but I
- 7:48Speaker 3: think she strengthens that framework.
- 7:50Speaker 2: Can I just by the way, I'm probably going to
- 7:52Speaker 2: ask a few non sequit questions out of note. I
- 7:55Speaker 2: do remember that there's a guy as Michael Roddell who
- 7:57Speaker 2: writes about the Reserve Bank on his blog. But he
- 8:01Speaker 2: a while ago, it might have been a year or
- 8:03Speaker 2: two even was quite critical of the people who are
- 8:06Speaker 2: on whatever boards and things like that. Now that was
- 8:11Speaker 2: that's different his criticisms of certain personnel and their expertise.
- 8:15Speaker 2: I think there were people from the arts community or something.
- 8:17Speaker 2: Has this to do with the Board of the Reserve Bank,
- 8:19Speaker 2: but the Monetary Policy Committee itself, who are the people
- 8:23Speaker 2: who you know, who are the people on that in
- 8:25Speaker 2: terms of their They're all hardcore monetary policy experts, aren't they?
- 8:31Speaker 2: Is that right? If I asked you a curve ball
- 8:32Speaker 2: of a question, I might google that and I'll come
- 8:34Speaker 2: back with small substances.
- 8:35Speaker 3: I think sorry about I think we touched on this
- 8:38Speaker 3: topic about three months ago, and I think I wisely
- 8:41Speaker 3: avoided to answer, Oh.
- 8:43Speaker 2: I've forgot I've got a very short men. You're looking
- 8:45Speaker 2: at me, going have we talked about this before? Okay,
- 8:48Speaker 2: let's move on. So what we liked there was the
- 8:53Speaker 2: signal the rates rates might have bottomed, inflation is well anchored,
- 8:57Speaker 2: and the economy looks better in twenty twenty six. What
- 9:01Speaker 2: are the things that you I see the economy looks
- 9:06Speaker 2: better in twenty twenty six. I'll just be honest. I
- 9:08Speaker 2: think most people are took to go, well, I don't
- 9:09Speaker 2: feel it. When do you think we'll feel it? That's
- 9:12Speaker 2: absolutely right.
- 9:13Speaker 3: So most people would feel an economy getting better with
- 9:16Speaker 3: quite a leg because they feel it getting better in
- 9:19Speaker 3: their annual pay cycle. So I got a bit of
- 9:21Speaker 3: pay rise, they feel it and there's oh, there's more
- 9:23Speaker 3: opportunity for me to maybe think about changing my job
- 9:27Speaker 3: or lift what I'm doing. And they feel it in
- 9:30Speaker 3: terms of oh, my friends and colleagues, there's plenty of
- 9:33Speaker 3: other jobs out there. They're not losing their jobs, and
- 9:35Speaker 3: it just takes time for that capacity to run through.
- 9:39Speaker 3: At the moment, the economy is still running a fair
- 9:43Speaker 3: gap to its capacity. That means we've got a lot
- 9:45Speaker 3: of spare capacity in the economy and it takes some
- 9:47Speaker 3: time for that capacity to be utilized before we start
- 9:51Speaker 3: really getting the employment cycle going, so most people won't
- 9:54Speaker 3: be exactly feeling that pick up for some time.
- 9:58Speaker 2: Isn't it amazing how quickly things did change. Remember when
- 10:01Speaker 2: there was a time where it's talk about, you know,
- 10:02Speaker 2: you have to pay your staff more and everything because
- 10:04Speaker 2: people so many choices and there was this fluidity and
- 10:07Speaker 2: the employment mark, and all of a sudden it's like,
- 10:09Speaker 2: whatever job you've got, you better hang on to it. Yeah,
- 10:10Speaker 2: I think amazing.
- 10:11Speaker 3: I think that's a bit like the Canterbury Northwest. You
- 10:13Speaker 3: know that following a big northwester coming in, you know
- 10:15Speaker 3: there's a sutherly coming but then following that subtly, you
- 10:18Speaker 3: know the way that's going to improve. There's always that
- 10:20Speaker 3: fluctuation happening. And here the legs are quite long. What
- 10:24Speaker 3: we know right now is coming from a position of
- 10:27Speaker 3: the economy going backwards in that dune quarter September is going.
- 10:29Speaker 2: To be a good quarter.
- 10:31Speaker 3: December right now, the current indicators are December quarter could
- 10:35Speaker 3: be one of our best for maybe two or three years,
- 10:37Speaker 3: and it feels like going into twenty twenty six, the
- 10:39Speaker 3: world economy is backing us a bit and we have
- 10:42Speaker 3: a better outlook.
- 10:44Speaker 2: Can you explain this to me? This described as an
- 10:47Speaker 2: all important wholesale bank two year swap rate, which even
- 10:51Speaker 2: just saying that makes my head kind of a little dizzy.
- 10:54Speaker 2: Lifted by about zero point two percent, that's twenty basis points.
- 10:58Speaker 2: Is it is? That? How it goes a little post anyway?
- 11:02Speaker 2: What's that all about? So what that's all.
- 11:04Speaker 3: About is the banks have when they lend money for
- 11:07Speaker 3: two years to be able to borrow money on a mortgage,
- 11:10Speaker 3: they have to get that money somewhere, and principally they
- 11:12Speaker 3: fund that through term deposits. That's fine, but at the
- 11:15Speaker 3: margin they're funding that out of the wholesale markets. They're
- 11:17Speaker 3: funding that from global institutions and local institutions, and the
- 11:22Speaker 3: swap rate is one of the indicators of the cost
- 11:24Speaker 3: of their financing at the margin has gone up a
- 11:28Speaker 3: little bit, so that I mean for some of their
- 11:30Speaker 3: balance sheet, some of their funding, it's got a little
- 11:33Speaker 3: bit more expensive, and that makes it tougher for them
- 11:36Speaker 3: to react to an interest rate gap.
- 11:38Speaker 2: Does that?
- 11:38Speaker 1: Ah?
- 11:39Speaker 2: So that also points towards maybe a stabilizing of interest
- 11:42Speaker 2: rates for a slightly longer term than what they might
- 11:45Speaker 2: be used to that one year and two year level.
- 11:48Speaker 2: And so mortgages haven't moved for the one and two year.
- 11:50Speaker 3: Now we're still sitting four point four five, four point
- 11:53Speaker 3: five a couple of specials beneath that. But that's where
- 11:56Speaker 3: we're at.
- 11:57Speaker 2: So when okay, so we're going to FI, do you
- 12:01Speaker 2: think we'll feel at most with the job market coming
- 12:05Speaker 2: more fluid? Because actually there was something else I want
- 12:07Speaker 2: to Oh, that's right. So mortgage rates are one thing,
- 12:09Speaker 2: but the other thing is council rates. How much have
- 12:13Speaker 2: they affected just in your sort of just estimate broad
- 12:18Speaker 2: estimation the way people feel because you get your rates bill.
- 12:20Speaker 2: I mean, some people are paying another fifteen hundred bucks
- 12:22Speaker 2: a year, another you know, or significantly another couple of
- 12:25Speaker 2: thousand or something. The rates rises have been in some
- 12:28Speaker 2: places quite hefty, haven't.
- 12:30Speaker 3: They haven't just happened one year, have happened two three
- 12:33Speaker 3: years in a row, and they've come on top of
- 12:35Speaker 3: higher insurance costs, higher costs for utility bills such as electricity,
- 12:40Speaker 3: and so have had this cost of living rise that's
- 12:42Speaker 3: been not really actually perfectly influenced by by the strength
- 12:49Speaker 3: of the economy, but influenced by the cost of actually
- 12:52Speaker 3: councils having to lift infrastructure which the under spent on
- 12:56Speaker 3: for a very long time.
- 12:57Speaker 2: I mean, you probably avoid political questions like this, so
- 12:59Speaker 2: you can just give me the look of like, don't
- 13:01Speaker 2: ask me that term. What do you think of the
- 13:03Speaker 2: idea of the capping the rates rises? And actually, even
- 13:06Speaker 2: regardless of what you think of it, does that have
- 13:10Speaker 2: any effect on just the whole financial sort of outlook
- 13:15Speaker 2: on it all the way the way things sort of
- 13:18Speaker 2: the way that the there's an expression I can't think
- 13:21Speaker 2: of what it is, the way the chips fall, I
- 13:24Speaker 2: guess comes.
- 13:26Speaker 3: I mean, clearly, I'm not perfectly in favor of the
- 13:29Speaker 3: enforcement of an artificial range of two to four, but
- 13:32Speaker 3: I guess on application you can counsels, if it was enforced,
- 13:36Speaker 3: could could could break through the top end of the
- 13:39Speaker 3: four if they needed to differ infrastructure reasons. However, we
- 13:42Speaker 3: have had in some areas these year on year double
- 13:47Speaker 3: digit rate rises that have been running through and to me,
- 13:50Speaker 3: at some point you've got to ask our rate pays
- 13:53Speaker 3: clearly getting value for money, and that's the question that
- 13:56Speaker 3: I think is being asked.
- 13:57Speaker 2: More of a political question, of course, But anyway, look,
- 14:00Speaker 2: we're gonna we're gonna be We're joined by Andrew Bascan.
- 14:03Speaker 2: He is from Harbor Asset Management. Were been grateful for
- 14:05Speaker 2: your support right throughout the year, Andrew, but we're going
- 14:07Speaker 2: to be back talking about housing because as we know,
- 14:10Speaker 2: you know, there's always you know, for a long time
- 14:12Speaker 2: was guaranteed the housing market was always going to be
- 14:15Speaker 2: moving in one direction that all of a sudden it
- 14:17Speaker 2: was in the other. But what is the long term
- 14:18Speaker 2: outlock for housing? We're going to dig into that shortly,
- 14:21Speaker 2: in just a moment. But we'll take your calls if
- 14:23Speaker 2: you want to offer your reckons, because apparently the worst
- 14:28Speaker 2: is over, what will it take. Are you feeling that
- 14:31Speaker 2: the worst is over emotionally or just you've reading the
- 14:33Speaker 2: headlines and you go, yeah, I agree with it. Sounds
- 14:35Speaker 2: like the worst is over. What is it going to
- 14:37Speaker 2: take for you to think, yeah, look the worst is over.
- 14:39Speaker 2: Things are looking out. Will it be a new job,
- 14:41Speaker 2: will it be a pay rise? Will it be oh
- 14:43Speaker 2: e one hundred and eighty ten eighty, You're welcome to
- 14:45Speaker 2: join us. We'd love you too. And but meanwhile, we'll
- 14:48Speaker 2: be back in just a moment with Andrew Baskin from
- 14:50Speaker 2: Harbor Asset Management. It's twenty two minutes past five news Talk,
- 14:53Speaker 2: said b We're with Andrew Baskin. Sorr. I was busy
- 14:56Speaker 2: gas bagging to Andrew off air there just before and
- 14:58Speaker 2: it's almost missed the coming out of the break. But
- 15:02Speaker 2: first before we do that, are you worried about funding
- 15:07Speaker 2: a comfortable retirement? Well you're not alone because the cost
- 15:09Speaker 2: of living crisis is hitting home for a lot of people.
- 15:12Speaker 2: So it's no surprise people are looking for ways to
- 15:15Speaker 2: make the most of their savings and to get a
- 15:16Speaker 2: little bit more income to supplement the New Zealand super
- 15:19Speaker 2: and One interesting solution is to invest in an income
- 15:22Speaker 2: fund like the Harbor Income Fund. It works by holding
- 15:25Speaker 2: a mix of interest paying securities and shares that have
- 15:28Speaker 2: been designed to generate a steady and sustainable income. No
- 15:33Speaker 2: matter the market. The Harbor Income Fund is actively managed
- 15:37Speaker 2: and currently it pays a distribution of four point five
- 15:40Speaker 2: percent per annum after fees and taxes paid out in
- 15:43Speaker 2: monthly installments. To find out more about Harbour's Income Fund,
- 15:48Speaker 2: just head to their website or speak with your financial advisor.
- 15:52Speaker 2: This is not intended as personalized advice. The product Disclosure
- 15:55Speaker 2: Statement for Harbor Investment Funds issued by Harbor Asset Management
- 16:00Speaker 2: is available at Harbor Asset dot co dot nz.
- 16:05Speaker 1: Insightful Entertaining and always Old Points. Tim Beverage on the
- 16:09Speaker 1: weekend Collective News Talks be macus.
- 16:11Speaker 2: It's funny when I was I was looking at some
- 16:14Speaker 2: online deposit rates because we're here we are with Andrew
- 16:17Speaker 2: Baskin from Harbor Asset Management, and I looked at something
- 16:20Speaker 2: on the rabo or something. I was like, what one
- 16:22Speaker 2: and a half percent? I was thinking, I've got to
- 16:24Speaker 2: go to the Harbor Asset Fund anyway, Hey, Andrew. Now
- 16:30Speaker 2: the housing outlook look, I host a property are and
- 16:36Speaker 2: I've become suspicious of headlines because you know, you see
- 16:40Speaker 2: a couple of good sales and oh massive result, unexpected result,
- 16:43Speaker 2: and there's a lot of headline hyperbole about where the
- 16:46Speaker 2: market might go and it I've spoken to other people
- 16:49Speaker 2: who just still think the housing markets long term sort
- 16:52Speaker 2: of overvalued and it's very expensive. And I have a
- 16:56Speaker 2: suspicion that the housing market may have had a bottom.
- 17:03Speaker 2: But as to you know, the implication that, oh it's
- 17:07Speaker 2: at the bottom now, it's all buckle up, I don't
- 17:11Speaker 2: feel that myself. But I'm no expert. So it does
- 17:15Speaker 2: look like it's going to lift. But without you know,
- 17:18Speaker 2: the experts, some experts, oh even me saying we'll rise
- 17:22Speaker 2: without big price gains. Why is that? Oh sorry, let
- 17:26Speaker 2: me turn your mic on. There we are help.
- 17:29Speaker 3: Let's roll back ten fifteen years ago. Ten to fifteen
- 17:32Speaker 3: years ago, most Kiwis would think if I had a
- 17:35Speaker 3: lot of money, the next best thing I could do
- 17:38Speaker 3: with it was actually buy a rental property, right.
- 17:41Speaker 2: Leverage the hell out of it. Let's go, let's go,
- 17:43Speaker 2: let's go.
- 17:43Speaker 3: And actually, even thirty years ago that could have been
- 17:46Speaker 3: a thing, but certainly fifteen years ago that was the
- 17:49Speaker 3: psych of the New Zealand saver. Lots of money, go
- 17:52Speaker 3: buy a rental property. Now I actually think we've broken that,
- 17:54Speaker 3: and we've broken that for good reasons.
- 17:56Speaker 2: We have. Oh, that's an interesting way you put that.
- 17:58Speaker 2: For good reason. We yeah, But when you say you've
- 18:01Speaker 2: broken that, have we broken it deliberately or it has
- 18:04Speaker 2: just become or who cares?
- 18:06Speaker 3: I think there must be a recognition amongst the next
- 18:08Speaker 3: generation that actually, we can't just build our way to
- 18:14Speaker 3: success for the next generation just by building rental properties
- 18:17Speaker 3: and renting them out. And having been this country of
- 18:20Speaker 3: landlords by landlords. I percent of us are landlords and
- 18:24Speaker 3: the rest are just renting.
- 18:25Speaker 2: Right.
- 18:27Speaker 3: The way to build a country sustainably in terms of
- 18:31Speaker 3: growth for the long term, of course, has have this
- 18:33Speaker 3: diversified portfolio of companies that are doing great things, and
- 18:35Speaker 3: we're exporting and creating jobs. Right, That's what we wanted it, right,
- 18:38Speaker 3: So that I reckon we're fortunately, I think we've broken
- 18:42Speaker 3: that psyche. Now now then this question, where's the housing
- 18:46Speaker 3: market today?
- 18:47Speaker 2: That psyche's broken?
- 18:50Speaker 3: I think there's still good reasons to be building social housing,
- 18:53Speaker 3: to be building infrastructure for housing. We need housing.
- 18:56Speaker 2: Chriss Bishop was singing that tune too.
- 18:58Speaker 3: We are absolutely housing and it's happening. You can see
- 19:01Speaker 3: social housing being built regionally, step by step.
- 19:05Speaker 2: Terrific.
- 19:05Speaker 3: When I'm not saying it's not an investment opportunity for
- 19:09Speaker 3: broad funds.
- 19:09Speaker 2: It is.
- 19:10Speaker 3: But as for what mum and dad should do next,
- 19:14Speaker 3: just personally, I think that PSICH has collapsed, and I
- 19:17Speaker 3: think it probably ought to stay that way.
- 19:20Speaker 2: I think you're right. I could get a property guest
- 19:24Speaker 2: to beyond who'd be like age. But it does feel
- 19:29Speaker 2: it's you know that just the conversations around the coffee
- 19:32Speaker 2: table and things like that, you know, with people who
- 19:34Speaker 2: have been that was seen to be I don't mean
- 19:36Speaker 2: that they get rich quick thing, but there were a
- 19:38Speaker 2: lot of people. Well, there was some people making a
- 19:40Speaker 2: lot of money very quickly because of the capital gains.
- 19:43Speaker 2: But it just feels that, you know, the equations changed.
- 19:45Speaker 2: We've seen rents having to slide and you know, to
- 19:48Speaker 2: meet the market and look, you never nothing's forever.
- 19:52Speaker 3: Yeah, construction costs going up, costs of doing remediation or.
- 19:56Speaker 2: Population behore, you know. So, but there's this.
- 19:59Speaker 3: Bat where are we now? A year and a bit ago,
- 20:02Speaker 3: the housing market only sold seventy two thousand houses and
- 20:05Speaker 3: we headed seventy two thousand sales of houses. Now, that
- 20:08Speaker 3: was a pretty low point, so it felt pretty ugly
- 20:10Speaker 3: in terms of turnover in the market. By March this year,
- 20:13Speaker 3: that lifted to eighty two thousand, and the last reading
- 20:16Speaker 3: is around ninety thousand houses have turned over or sold.
- 20:19Speaker 3: Now that is a healthy thing. We want the housing
- 20:21Speaker 3: market turning over so first home buyers can come in,
- 20:25Speaker 3: those that are onto their second home can move forward,
- 20:27Speaker 3: and we can move through a life cycle of people's
- 20:31Speaker 3: ownership of houses to eventually, of course, people moving out
- 20:33Speaker 3: of housing into h GF facilities. When the housing market
- 20:37Speaker 3: locks as it did, it feels horrible for everyone in
- 20:41Speaker 3: that chain. So I think my gap feeling is we're
- 20:45Speaker 3: mostly through a very large correction or adjustment where now
- 20:50Speaker 3: in a phase where the housing market has some lubrication again.
- 20:54Speaker 2: It's working, which is and that's a good thing. Without
- 20:57Speaker 2: the runaway I guess the thing is people who own
- 21:00Speaker 2: property they don't mind the runway prices.
- 21:03Speaker 3: But here's another sign of health across New Zealand. First
- 21:07Speaker 3: home buyers were thirty percent of that turnover.
- 21:10Speaker 2: That's quite a lot and we.
- 21:11Speaker 3: Want that because we want people. Get the affordability number
- 21:16Speaker 3: right again, let's get back into it.
- 21:17Speaker 2: How much does so it goes back to our first
- 21:20Speaker 2: part of the conversation. About the cash rate. How much
- 21:24Speaker 2: does that figure in the Reserve banks consideration, Because you know,
- 21:27Speaker 2: we saw what happened when we incredibly cheap money and
- 21:30Speaker 2: the market went ridiculous. Funny thing is, I'm not sure
- 21:34Speaker 2: we would have quite the same reaction if the money
- 21:36Speaker 2: did get cheap. But it would be a problem if
- 21:38Speaker 2: money got too cheap, wouldn't it.
- 21:39Speaker 3: So let's look across to Australia. House prices have continued
- 21:43Speaker 3: to go up. They've just introduced these prudential limits on
- 21:48Speaker 3: certain parts of the housing market DEBTA and comes sort
- 21:51Speaker 3: of radiating couragios, and it doesn't feel like affordability is
- 21:56Speaker 3: great in Australia. Many parts of Aussie it's gone the
- 22:00Speaker 3: other way. In New Zealand. I think we've got this region,
- 22:02Speaker 3: we've had this correction, house prices, housing markets lubric I
- 22:05Speaker 3: think it's turning over again, and we've got first home
- 22:07Speaker 3: buyers for the most part able to at least go
- 22:11Speaker 3: and have a conversation with a bank again. Yeah, talk
- 22:14Speaker 3: can we get in? So why is Australia sort of
- 22:18Speaker 3: going well, let's talk about Ossie economy has been strong
- 22:21Speaker 3: if they haven't had this doubled up recession situation in AUSI.
- 22:25Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a funny one, isn't it. So, I mean
- 22:27Speaker 2: their economy is going strong, but the property is going.
- 22:30Speaker 3: Interest rates didn't go to five and a half percent.
- 22:31Speaker 3: In Australia. They didn't go as high. They haven't come
- 22:33Speaker 3: down as far, but they didn't go as high, so
- 22:35Speaker 3: they didn't constrain the whole situation. So those are the
- 22:37Speaker 3: two things mainly.
- 22:38Speaker 2: So well, I'm okay, if our economy suddenly really picks up,
- 22:43Speaker 2: why is that not going to be a problem for
- 22:44Speaker 2: the property market?
- 22:45Speaker 3: Game Buster, you need immigration to pick up significantly as well.
- 22:48Speaker 3: I'm not sure that we're no, we're not there on
- 22:51Speaker 3: board that. In fact, the opposite sort of dampling down.
- 22:53Speaker 3: And actually interest rates it's still four and a half
- 22:56Speaker 3: percent from a mortgage, which means actually you do a
- 22:58Speaker 3: stress test of another two percent on top of that,
- 23:01Speaker 3: so you've got a test being able to pay six
- 23:03Speaker 3: and a half or maybe a bit more. So it's
- 23:05Speaker 3: not free money, Rightah?
- 23:08Speaker 2: What about? Actually, can I run something past you? I
- 23:11Speaker 2: had a caller on my talk back show who I'm
- 23:16Speaker 2: not sure where I can tie this into the conversation.
- 23:18Speaker 2: It's amos going to toss it in there. He was
- 23:20Speaker 2: talking about you know where they're talking about the population
- 23:22Speaker 2: growth what we want to see in New Zealand, and
- 23:25Speaker 2: there have been people who think we need to be
- 23:26Speaker 2: up to ten million by twenty whatever it is, I
- 23:29Speaker 2: can't remember what it was, but he was saying that
- 23:33Speaker 2: the population growth is a challenge unless we can build
- 23:36Speaker 2: the economy in terms of our exports, because how does
- 23:41Speaker 2: how much how he was worried that we are, for instance,
- 23:44Speaker 2: Fonterra still make cheese and everything, but they've got rid
- 23:48Speaker 2: of the brands and we send our logs off for
- 23:52Speaker 2: other people to do things with them. And his point
- 23:55Speaker 2: was we need to be doing more in New Zealand
- 23:58Speaker 2: to be able to support a large population. You know,
- 24:00Speaker 2: there's an economic question which went beyond my C plus
- 24:02Speaker 2: at Itaga University.
- 24:05Speaker 3: Casey plus is fun, right, You've got to m I mean,
- 24:10Speaker 3: the truth is you've got to do a whole lot
- 24:11Speaker 3: of things to make an economy work. Exporting is part
- 24:13Speaker 3: of it, but the other part of it, if you
- 24:15Speaker 3: want to have a high population base, is a heap
- 24:17Speaker 3: of infrastructure we don't have today. Let's start with health, schooling, roading, ports, airports.
- 24:24Speaker 3: There's a whole lot of infrastructure you need if you
- 24:26Speaker 3: want to have a population growing more rapidly than what
- 24:29Speaker 3: we've got, and you've got to fund that. And so
- 24:31Speaker 3: we know those are constraints. Now how do you fund that?
- 24:34Speaker 3: You fund that partly through attracting global capital, but partly
- 24:36Speaker 3: those are public assets you've got to fund through having
- 24:40Speaker 3: a tax space. And so I think that the key
- 24:43Speaker 3: question there is you've got to have great companies then
- 24:45Speaker 3: to be able to be profitable, and those companies are
- 24:48Speaker 3: partly local and partly global. I'm not so pessimistic on
- 24:53Speaker 3: the growth of our economy in terms of exports and trading.
- 24:58Speaker 3: I think we're a very competitive economy. The technology sector
- 25:01Speaker 3: alone is the second largest sector in museum people forget
- 25:03Speaker 3: about that, but we export a lot of pretty good
- 25:06Speaker 3: tech and it's not all about just exporting agg So
- 25:10Speaker 3: you just put that out there. But we do have
- 25:13Speaker 3: a funding problem right in front of us. If we
- 25:16Speaker 3: want to have a larger population base.
- 25:19Speaker 2: What do you think what are the areas that New
- 25:21Speaker 2: Zealander is going to continue you're talking about technology. Is
- 25:24Speaker 2: that going to continue having an upward spiral from for
- 25:27Speaker 2: what we are producing?
- 25:29Speaker 3: Or we look for some reason MW Zealand over indexes
- 25:33Speaker 3: and creating great innovative companies that make it on the
- 25:35Speaker 3: world stage and over indexes.
- 25:39Speaker 2: We we are.
- 25:40Speaker 3: I mean, it's absolutely case and you can run through
- 25:42Speaker 3: them all. I mean not just unicorns. Some of these
- 25:44Speaker 3: companies in Unicorn being worth more than a billion dollars.
- 25:47Speaker 3: There are companies that have gone on and be worth
- 25:49Speaker 3: a lot more than that. I mean, Zero is still
- 25:51Speaker 3: growing at thirty percent New Zealand company even though it's
- 25:54Speaker 3: the list, the disease of Rocket Labs. Similarly, but there
- 25:56Speaker 3: are other companies hold up, we can carry on that
- 25:59Speaker 3: are truly you know, have gone from fifty million to
- 26:02Speaker 3: one hundred million, to bigger companies employing kiwis and through
- 26:06Speaker 3: that wage bill, creating domestic economies.
- 26:10Speaker 2: Let's talk about let's move on to I mean, with
- 26:11Speaker 2: the talking about zero well and and the technology side
- 26:15Speaker 2: of things global AI. So AI is it's everywhere these days,
- 26:23Speaker 2: isn't it. I Mean everyone uses AI sometimes even if
- 26:26Speaker 2: you don't know now you're using it. But last week,
- 26:28Speaker 2: you know, Nasdak hit a high, a three week high.
- 26:33Speaker 2: But there's a lot going on. So what is going on?
- 26:35Speaker 2: Because it's completely beyond me, I see the numbers, and
- 26:38Speaker 2: I just look back and go, oh, that would have
- 26:39Speaker 2: been good to buy that stock then and watch that
- 26:42Speaker 2: invest in that activity. But what is going on with
- 26:44Speaker 2: global AI and the volatility?
- 26:46Speaker 3: I mean clearly a year ago, even a year before
- 26:49Speaker 3: that AI came on to the seventy year ago, we
- 26:51Speaker 3: were all talking about it, thanking goodness, what what are
- 26:53Speaker 3: we going to do with this AI? It all going
- 26:54Speaker 3: to work? Is Actually, if you ask me my Christmas
- 26:58Speaker 3: reading list, it's a book called The Thinking Machine. Yeah,
- 27:02Speaker 3: biography of Jinsen Huang. Yeah, seriously, very readable.
- 27:07Speaker 2: Everyone's thenking would just the Thinking Machine thinking, and it
- 27:10Speaker 2: about AI or about the investments of aiol.
- 27:12Speaker 3: It's about Jinsen Huang and I came him growing up.
- 27:15Speaker 3: But then the development of Nvidia. Okay, so we're talking
- 27:18Speaker 3: about in video.
- 27:19Speaker 2: Because they were their their share price went bonkers for
- 27:22Speaker 2: a while.
- 27:22Speaker 3: It has for two decades, honestly. Yeah, it's a two
- 27:25Speaker 3: decade stock. It's not just didn't just happen overnight, right, Yeah,
- 27:28Speaker 3: So what does in Vidia do? It creates the key
- 27:32Speaker 3: global chip that these AI models use have been trained on. Okay,
- 27:37Speaker 3: So the concept is you've got to make a chip,
- 27:40Speaker 3: you've got to train your AI model and you've got
- 27:43Speaker 3: to have data centers and distribution other things to go
- 27:46Speaker 3: with it. So in Nvidia absolutely had the chip, the
- 27:49Speaker 3: black World chip. It now is that ninety percent of
- 27:52Speaker 3: these models have been trained on, so it dominates, right,
- 27:55Speaker 3: But what happened around about the beginning of November along
- 27:59Speaker 3: walks in alphabet or Google and says, oh, actually we've
- 28:02Speaker 3: got a way of doing this as well with something
- 28:04Speaker 3: called TEA. You use tensor processing units, and actually we've
- 28:08Speaker 3: got a model called Gemini or Gemini three, and actually
- 28:13Speaker 3: that everyone does all the analytics on this, and it
- 28:15Speaker 3: turns out that it's just as good as GPG five,
- 28:18Speaker 3: which is one of the AI models, just as good
- 28:19Speaker 3: as these Blackwell chips. So competitions in the game, I
- 28:22Speaker 3: think it's a Formula one race. Think about a Formula
- 28:24Speaker 3: one race. For many seasons you have Ferrari at the top,
- 28:28Speaker 3: and then suddenly they've got a new they've got a
- 28:31Speaker 3: new braking system or a new hybrid engine or something,
- 28:34Speaker 3: and one over takes the other. And right now the
- 28:39Speaker 3: sheer market is saying, perhaps Google has overtaken.
- 28:44Speaker 2: Well, it's Nvidia and it's I mean, it's not like
- 28:47Speaker 2: you're talking about a bit player, is it. I mean,
- 28:48Speaker 2: you're talking about Google, which has.
- 28:50Speaker 3: Four trillion dollar giants here right now, not Wow, And
- 28:54Speaker 3: they're battling it out around this racetrack, and you're worried
- 28:57Speaker 3: about the next corner or the next race, and then
- 29:00Speaker 3: you're worried about your driver. Whatever one likes is they
- 29:02Speaker 3: like the driver in Nvidia, gents and one. Everything is good,
- 29:06Speaker 3: but they're worried right now that maybe it's not a one,
- 29:09Speaker 3: one car race anymore.
- 29:10Speaker 2: Yeah, And so what we had when video was down
- 29:13Speaker 2: ten there would have been a few people sick about
- 29:15Speaker 2: that ten percent a month.
- 29:17Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's been up. You know, it's tripled
- 29:19Speaker 3: in the last four or five years, right, Yeah, I
- 29:21Speaker 3: don't feel bad, but that volatility is typical of what
- 29:24Speaker 3: we are going to see in markets at an individual level.
- 29:29Speaker 3: But investors here shouldn't really worry. The diversified global portfolios.
- 29:32Speaker 3: There will be winners and losers. But if you're reading
- 29:34Speaker 3: the latest headline, you might see an over indexing of
- 29:38Speaker 3: negative news on one company, but they won't report about
- 29:41Speaker 3: that other stuff that's happening over here.
- 29:43Speaker 2: I mean that I mean, is that why if you
- 29:47Speaker 2: if you believe that tech is the future, then you
- 29:50Speaker 2: just invest in a broad sort of portfolio or what
- 29:52Speaker 2: are the actual indexed funds you can buy? Because there's
- 29:55Speaker 2: S and P, there's in terms of the tech stocks,
- 29:58Speaker 2: there's a selection of ways you can invest broadly in
- 30:02Speaker 2: the tech industry, isn't there? I'm cluding through you guys,
- 30:04Speaker 2: I think absolutely.
- 30:05Speaker 3: But I mean then the question is if you're just
- 30:08Speaker 3: investing passively in an index And this is the question
- 30:11Speaker 3: that people need to resolve. Am I just over indexing
- 30:15Speaker 3: and things that have done really well recently? Because then
- 30:17Speaker 3: Desey's working the way of if you've done really well,
- 30:20Speaker 3: I buy more of the stuff that's done really well.
- 30:22Speaker 3: And that's actually been a great strategy for the last
- 30:24Speaker 3: year or so. Yeah, for who all investors have just invested.
- 30:29Speaker 2: It's been pretty good.
- 30:30Speaker 3: It's been a pretty good strategy.
- 30:31Speaker 2: Okay, hey, look we're going to dig into this a
- 30:33Speaker 2: bit more. God's fascinating all this stuff, isn't it? Anyway? Right,
- 30:35Speaker 2: We're going to be back in a moment with Andrew
- 30:37Speaker 2: Bascan from Harbor Asset Management. It is twenty to six already, goodness, mate,
- 30:42Speaker 2: backsone Yes News talk said b We're with Andrew Bascan
- 30:45Speaker 2: from Harbor Asset Management, and actually just before we're going
- 30:48Speaker 2: to talk about key, we say about Andrew, and before
- 30:50Speaker 2: we do, there was just another point where we're talking
- 30:52Speaker 2: about in the break about you can talk about stocks
- 30:54Speaker 2: and all sorts of things, but the whole tech and
- 30:56Speaker 2: the AI thing does tie into basic minerals, doesn't it,
- 30:59Speaker 2: because tell us about what's happened with copper.
- 31:01Speaker 3: When you think about AI, data centers require huge, huge
- 31:05Speaker 3: amount of power. This is the one bottleneck in the
- 31:08Speaker 3: whole development I think of AI. The amount of power
- 31:11Speaker 3: that goes into develop what called each token, and it's
- 31:15Speaker 3: the key measure of productivity, amount of power each AI
- 31:19Speaker 3: model uses to develop data centers. You've got to be
- 31:22Speaker 3: on the grid obviously, or we're got to be connected
- 31:24Speaker 3: to some form of electric power generation. And combined with
- 31:33Speaker 3: generalized growth, the additional demand for copper has seen the
- 31:38Speaker 3: copper price rise dramatically over the last year. In fact,
- 31:41Speaker 3: it's broken through to a level of like eleven five
- 31:43Speaker 3: hundred dollars a ton, with most analysts in the last
- 31:46Speaker 3: two or three weeks now calling it for to go
- 31:48Speaker 3: to thirteen or forteen thousand. Now that's not advice, but
- 31:51Speaker 3: I've got to say that the when you think about
- 31:54Speaker 3: AI and the growth in that area in sector, it's
- 31:58Speaker 3: having effects beyond, well beyond into the mining sector, well
- 32:04Speaker 3: beyond where you would think of technology growth vector.
- 32:07Speaker 2: To me, do many people see this stuff coming and
- 32:10Speaker 2: we're there be somebody's sitting smugly back. Yeah, I've invest
- 32:13Speaker 2: in ages Ago and new Copple was going to go gangbusters.
- 32:15Speaker 3: It's intriguing how many how many investors in the tech
- 32:18Speaker 3: sector have been thinking about, my goodness, that's data centers.
- 32:21Speaker 3: I need grad Therefore I might need Solar, I might
- 32:24Speaker 3: need Wind, I might need long term contracts for power. Actually,
- 32:28Speaker 3: this is what our own homegrown company Infratol is really
- 32:33Speaker 3: been really good at phenomenal created a whole lot of
- 32:36Speaker 3: wealth for key investors and their key we saver Once.
- 32:40Speaker 3: I'm not an advertisement for Infantol, but truly we have
- 32:43Speaker 3: homegrown talent here who have spotted this trend coming a
- 32:46Speaker 3: long time ago.
- 32:48Speaker 2: Now let's move because time is rushing by, but key
- 32:51Speaker 2: we saber changes are coming. We assume voluntary contributions rise
- 32:56Speaker 2: into three and a half and percent and twenty twenty six,
- 32:59Speaker 2: and there's talk of moving towards six plus six six
- 33:01Speaker 2: percent for the employee and six percent apparently for the
- 33:05Speaker 2: employer who probably just build it into the contracts. Are
- 33:07Speaker 2: you're really paying like Australia, What does it mean for savers?
- 33:12Speaker 2: Do you think your key point there is like Australia
- 33:15Speaker 2: who are moving to twelve percent? Right, So I think
- 33:18Speaker 2: this is the view.
- 33:19Speaker 3: What is an appropriate level of saving if you and
- 33:21Speaker 3: I are saving independently voluntarily for our retirement. I'm sorry,
- 33:25Speaker 3: the number somewhere between ten and twelve percent if you're
- 33:27Speaker 3: going to retain the same form of income that you
- 33:30Speaker 3: had in your time, that's over how many years actually
- 33:33Speaker 3: does that apply to? Yeah, somewhere around at thirty thirty
- 33:35Speaker 3: five years. Doesn't have to be the whole forty but
- 33:37Speaker 3: thirty thirty five years as a sort of general number
- 33:39Speaker 3: and a balanced book volio, that's what you need. And
- 33:43Speaker 3: so here's it. Imagine we went to that world. So
- 33:47Speaker 3: Australia four point five trillion dollars of capital in there
- 33:51Speaker 3: super today, that's something around one hundred and sixty percent
- 33:54Speaker 3: of their GDP or their economy. Our key we save
- 33:58Speaker 3: a pool today at one hundred and thirty bill is
- 34:00Speaker 3: something around thirty percent of economy steal, So the Aussie
- 34:04Speaker 3: super scheme it's five times larger in terms of the
- 34:07Speaker 3: size of their economy than ours. It's it's been an
- 34:10Speaker 3: important part of their growth story.
- 34:12Speaker 2: It's one thing. I mean, we've had a bit of
- 34:14Speaker 2: a chat about not you and I, but it has
- 34:15Speaker 2: been a bit of a talkback topic about the growth
- 34:19Speaker 2: of the contributions and with many people concluding it's going
- 34:22Speaker 2: to be fine if you can afford that, but we haven't.
- 34:25Speaker 2: People are not feeling it goes back to our first
- 34:28Speaker 2: our first part of the conversation about just the economy
- 34:31Speaker 2: about who's going to pay for, you know, to put
- 34:33Speaker 2: that those those contributions up, and a lot of people concluding, well,
- 34:38Speaker 2: it's fine if you're a middle upper income or wealthy
- 34:41Speaker 2: because you can afford to take a bit more and
- 34:43Speaker 2: shoved into retirement, whereas the average savor that's going to
- 34:47Speaker 2: be It's not money that's going to get conjured out
- 34:49Speaker 2: of any out of thin air, is it.
- 34:51Speaker 3: It's half a percent per annum increase. It's at a
- 34:54Speaker 3: reasonable pace. You know it is coming, and employers know
- 34:58Speaker 3: it is coming as well. When you think about annual
- 35:01Speaker 3: salary increases in line with productivity and inflation. It is
- 35:06Speaker 3: a meaningful and meaningful number. It's a half a percent
- 35:08Speaker 3: maybe on three three and a half percent salary rises. Okay,
- 35:11Speaker 3: but if you know it's coming, you can build it
- 35:15Speaker 3: into your thinking. The alternative is to think about this,
- 35:19Speaker 3: what if we do nothing? And when is the best
- 35:22Speaker 3: time to plant a tree?
- 35:23Speaker 2: Well?
- 35:24Speaker 3: Today, right, so let's do nothing. Let's imagine we do nothing.
- 35:28Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean analogy.
- 35:31Speaker 3: Thirty years time, our debt to GDP in New Zealand
- 35:34Speaker 3: will be unsustainable because we can on most projections, if
- 35:38Speaker 3: we do nothing, we will have one hundred and twenty
- 35:41Speaker 3: percent debt GDP if we do nothing. So doing nothing
- 35:46Speaker 3: is not the right story.
- 35:47Speaker 2: The debt to GDP.
- 35:49Speaker 3: Sorry, that's how much we'll have to borrow to continue
- 35:52Speaker 3: to fund our help. Here a superannuation. That's the story. Now,
- 35:56Speaker 3: that's a medium projection done and by independent people. It's
- 36:00Speaker 3: not a doomsday scenario. I campaign a doomsday scenario. I
- 36:03Speaker 3: don't want to do that because that's unfair. But that
- 36:06Speaker 3: is a redramatic scenario. It's just a scenario that's worth
- 36:10Speaker 3: while thinking about.
- 36:11Speaker 2: What do you I mean, where do you see the
- 36:14Speaker 2: growth of New Zealand economy over the next few years? Really?
- 36:17Speaker 2: I mean because we you know, as we've said, the
- 36:19Speaker 2: worst is apparently behind us.
- 36:22Speaker 3: But do you know, I said, as an optimist on
- 36:24Speaker 3: the spectrum, I love it and I think once again
- 36:27Speaker 3: kV companies highly innovative. We're focused on doing good. By
- 36:33Speaker 3: doing good, we're actually producing stuff people want in the world,
- 36:37Speaker 3: and we've been doing it for a very long time frame.
- 36:40Speaker 3: I think we're back on the road of thinking about
- 36:41Speaker 3: how we get everyone involved in this economy. It's going
- 36:45Speaker 3: to take time. You don't build that in a year
- 36:47Speaker 3: or two. You build it over a generation. I think
- 36:49Speaker 3: we're back on that road. There's another reading book I
- 36:52Speaker 3: want people to think about that.
- 36:53Speaker 2: What was it? Remind us what the other one was called.
- 36:55Speaker 2: It was The Thinking Thinking Machine.
- 36:57Speaker 3: The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt, The biography of Jensen Huang.
- 37:00Speaker 3: He's the guy which is going to the world here,
- 37:02Speaker 3: but he's the Nvidio guy. Came from Thailand when he
- 37:05Speaker 3: was ten, went to a boarding school. He had nothing,
- 37:07Speaker 3: complete poverty. It's quite amazing, complete body. It's a great story.
- 37:10Speaker 3: People have heard me talk about this book before it's
- 37:12Speaker 3: called progress by Johann Norman's progress. It sits there looking
- 37:17Speaker 3: back in time, thinking, in decades have we added to
- 37:22Speaker 3: our technology? Are we better off today than we were
- 37:24Speaker 3: a decade ago? Now, if you do that in one
- 37:27Speaker 3: year slices, it doesn't look great, right, we always remember
- 37:30Speaker 3: one year slice. But there is some truth to the fact.
- 37:33Speaker 3: I remember when we had black and white TV.
- 37:37Speaker 2: Sadly I do. We talked about this the other night,
- 37:40Speaker 2: but it is true. So you cast.
- 37:42Speaker 3: Forward, what do you think New Zealand will be? Yeah,
- 37:45Speaker 3: and we have choices. We could go back to a
- 37:48Speaker 3: black and white TV. It's unlikely, right.
- 37:53Speaker 2: Yeah, actually fitly enough, this is a completely random thing.
- 37:56Speaker 2: But somebody reminded me when there was some talk about
- 37:59Speaker 2: black and white TV. Do you remember those those screens
- 38:02Speaker 2: you could attach to the front of your back and
- 38:04Speaker 2: white tea? It was it was a blue strip at
- 38:10Speaker 2: the top. It was a green and a sort of beige,
- 38:13Speaker 2: and people fell for that. Anyway, let's let's get back
- 38:15Speaker 2: to Q saving. Let's imagine this world. Let's imagine this world.
- 38:18Speaker 2: We have slowly gone to the six plus six world.
- 38:22Speaker 2: I sadly think it'll be more like not everyone contributing
- 38:26Speaker 2: because some people have to holiday. That's what I mean.
- 38:28Speaker 3: My modeling will be. It will be a nine nine
- 38:31Speaker 3: and a half.
- 38:31Speaker 2: And a four and a half. It sort of will.
- 38:34Speaker 3: But even that is better than where we are. I
- 38:36Speaker 3: am aspirational twelve. But let's say it's that sort of
- 38:39Speaker 3: Do you think that's going to be a team world?
- 38:41Speaker 2: Do you think it's going to be accompanied by a
- 38:42Speaker 2: change in the retirement age as well?
- 38:44Speaker 3: I do not, because I don't think it then becomes necessary.
- 38:47Speaker 3: I'm not going to get political, but I think there's
- 38:49Speaker 3: other ways of solving that issue.
- 38:51Speaker 2: There are other ways of solving that.
- 38:52Speaker 3: Shue Now, there are other ways of solving that issue.
- 38:56Speaker 3: And the answer is, yes, it probably ought to rise
- 39:00Speaker 3: through time. Well shield it ought to because you and
- 39:02Speaker 3: I are going to live to one hundred, so absolutely
- 39:05Speaker 3: ought to. But you can you imagine how that's that's
- 39:09Speaker 3: not the easiest thing to get through.
- 39:10Speaker 2: But let me think you'll tell you what. We'll come
- 39:12Speaker 2: back with the closing thoughts in just a moment, because
- 39:14Speaker 2: I have to steal a break you do otherwise to
- 39:16Speaker 2: get in trouble, and Tyra gets quite grumpy and you
- 39:18Speaker 2: don't want to see that we'll be back in just
- 39:20Speaker 2: a moment. It's eight minutes to see and yes, right.
- 39:22Speaker 2: Final thoughts from Andrewbaesque and of Harbor Raccic Management. Andrew, Yeah,
- 39:26Speaker 2: it looks been a terrific hour. I'm just hoping people
- 39:29Speaker 2: are going to have a great Christmas and they're going
- 39:31Speaker 2: to run into it worth a bit more joy than
- 39:33Speaker 2: they did last year. I think that joy is going
- 39:34Speaker 2: to come from the fact that the economy generally is
- 39:37Speaker 2: going to feel better even even next year than it
- 39:41Speaker 2: is right now, which I think it's feeling a bit better.
- 39:44Speaker 3: So that's the first point. Second point, you know, I
- 39:46Speaker 3: think I think the housing market it's stabilized. I think
- 39:49Speaker 3: for people to know that it stabilized and it's okay,
- 39:51Speaker 3: it feels okay. But that's not where I would place
- 39:54Speaker 3: my next on it being a race horse. Yeah, correct,
- 39:57Speaker 3: not race AI. It is a race horse. Don't worry
- 39:59Speaker 3: about that. It's fine. It's it's it's not not a
- 40:01Speaker 3: destructive influence. It's a positive influence. But there's going to
- 40:05Speaker 3: be a lot of noise in that sector, I think.
- 40:07Speaker 3: And finally, this key we saver changes that are coming.
- 40:10Speaker 3: They're not frightening, it's what we need for the productive
- 40:13Speaker 3: capacity of our economy and our people in a generation's time.
- 40:17Speaker 2: Excellent Christmas, looking forward to it. You've got a book
- 40:21Speaker 2: sorted out.
- 40:22Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to continue looking forward to continue reading
- 40:26Speaker 3: the Jensen Wang biography. I've nearly finished it, and then
- 40:29Speaker 3: I'll find a next one. It's going to be busy
- 40:30Speaker 3: with three grandchildren.
- 40:31Speaker 2: Yes, lovely. Oh, you're going to have a wonderful Christmas. Andrew,
- 40:34Speaker 2: thank you so much for being on the show and
- 40:36Speaker 2: your team appearing on the show during the course of
- 40:38Speaker 2: the air and your support of it. We really appreciate it.
- 40:41Speaker 2: And have a merry Christmas. Mate. We'll catch you next weekend.
- 40:51Speaker 1: For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
- 40:53Speaker 1: Talk said Be weekends from three pm, or follow the
- 40:57Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.