Hello Jay. Wassup here? Things are booming along. Property values zooming. But there is a whiff of fear in the wind with the NZ$ way up against the US$ and others who buy our goods and services. Way up means from a low of US38.5c to the Kiwi$ to US58c to the Kiwi$. That's a 50% increase. That's quite a shock to USA customers of NZ suppliers. Maybe it's time to sell the house which has had a 15% capital gain even in Kiwi$, let alone US$.
Admittedly the low was only for a few days, so the annual moving average isn't such a big difference, but it's still significant.
Overall, things look pretty good here. The government has huge surpluses, but they are not cutting taxes because they think things could decline next year and they'll have an election to buy so they'll need some funds.
For me, life is pretty good too. Though I'm envious of the gloating Aztecs having their day in the sun while QUALCOMM wallows versus Uncle Al's magical elixir. G350 vs Q300 is not my ideal.
With no inflation, it's obvious that Uncle Al can pixelate umpty $$billions with pixilated pleasure, handing King George II vast sums to buy the world. Demand for Uncle Al's $ is obviously huge and continuing to grow. If it was declining, the value of the $ against the stuff people want to buy would be going down. People would require MORE US$ for the same goods and services.
For some things, such as gold, Euros and Kiwi$, it's true that people do want more US$ for the same quantity of gold, Euro, Kiwi$. But overall, they don't.
Like you, I'm happy with Uncle Al cranking the machine flat out as it'll keep everything on an even keel. I do not desire mayhem. I want billions of people happily hooking up to wireless cyberspace while they're on the hoof. So even though he's diluting my US$, it's not too much. He's just collecting his reasonable management fees for Uncle Sam. He collects, as QUALCOMM does, by printing a few more share certificates for the management. The shareholders figure it's a reasonable amount being printed, so stick with the firm.
Sars has been defeated - it's all over bar the shouting, so that's a good thing.
I agree that India could well treat capital better than they have for the past half century of Marxian introspection and the creative energy released would be amazing. But they are struggling even to turn CDMA2000 loose in India, so it's still early days.
It will be interesting to see if Chinese go nuts over gold. Sufficient of them might that you could be having a lot of fun soon. Meanwhile, they are definitely going nuts over CDMA mobile phones and I'm sure will delight in mobile cyberspace too. I'll bet on their minds and not their lust for gold. When they look at their friend's swanky cyberphone, they'll feel silly without a phone, but wearing a gold fob chain around their neck. They'll be the village joke. Perhaps they could compromise by buying a CDMA2000 cyberphone with a gold case. A double exhibitionist opportunity.
Meanwhile, back in Kiwiland, a tsunami [from a comet making waves in the Pacific Ocean], a volcano [Taupo's caldera could go any minute, especially with the water at near-record lows], an earthquake or just a recession, could soon make everyone here very down in the mouth. At least one is bound to happen sooner rather than later.
Mqurice |
