I think we're heading towards a "move it to the politics thread' moment. 

While being no fan of either National or Labour these days, I definitely support an inquiry into the RBNZ's actions during the period 2020 - 2022. It's clear Orr would not and could not examine alternative points of view and weigh the evidence, and his leadership of the RBNZ resulted in groupthink and bullying of dissenters. Independent experts were commenting from late 2020 that the economy had mostly recovered, and still the RBNZ continued with low interest rates, QE, and FLP. Even the average person could see by mid-2021 that the monetary response had been massively overcooked and that it would end in tears for the economy. 

cddt:

 

While being no fan of either National or Labour these days, I definitely support an inquiry into the RBNZ's actions during the period 2020 - 2022. It's clear Orr would not and could not examine alternative points of view and weigh the evidence, and his leadership of the RBNZ resulted in groupthink and bullying of dissenters. Independent experts were commenting from late 2020 that the economy had mostly recovered, and still the RBNZ continued with low interest rates, QE, and FLP. Even the average person could see by mid-2021 that the monetary response had been massively overcooked and that it would end in tears for the economy. 

 

The RBNZ had to "engineer a recession" - their own words - to get on top of inflation. That is an admissopm of fault and disaster that has cost people their livelihoods or worse. It must be reviewed.

Yes the timing smells. They're politicians so why would anyone expect different, regardless of the government's political stripes?

cddt:

 

Even the average person could see by mid-2021 that the monetary response had been massively overcooked and that it would end in tears for the economy. 

 

The counterfactual is would the outcome have been different if they had started in July 21 rather than OCtober?

Also. Stats NZ data is slow, June 21 CPI (3.3%) was released on 16 July , 

September 21 (4.9%) was released on 18 October, the RBNZ met on 6 October and begun increasing rates, 

Monetary policy is a slow beast, and pouring $55 billion into an economy of $400 billion was always going to be expansionary...

The big problem (which all central banks did) was to treat COVID as a demand shock (consumers not spending). when in fact it turned out to be a supply shock (global supply chains falling apart,  escalating shipping costs, production falling) 

While governments threw money at workers to keep them fed, in retrospect central banks were wrong to lower rates and pump prime liquidity because it just juiced up consumers to chase a scarce supply of goods (having a huge service sector like tourism closed made it even worse as consumer demand could only go into goods)

wellygary: The big problem (which all central banks did) was to treat COVID as a demand shock (consumers not spending). when in fact it turned out to be a supply shock (global supply chains falling apart,  escalating shipping costs, production falling)

gzt:
In NZ there were a fair number of exceptional price sales during the COVID period. It's fairly clear the supply side interruptions were variable and sometimes very specific. In other cases it is fairly clear manufacturers had excess stock to dispose of, resulting from low demand.

and we are still counting the cost of failures during manufacturing at that time.

eg works near new $3k dehumidifier is junk. holes in the coils due, from what i hear overseas, is the coil manufacture got a bad batch of metal or had no quality control. lots of manufactures got faulty coils and many don't have replacements. i have heard from a few that they have had to buy whole new machines.

a company i did some work for where in the middle of changing supplies. during covid they had to go find another supplier, whose quality is pretty poor. they are now having to find a better supplier as lack of quality is costing them.

My take is 2020 was an unknown. You do what you feel you need to do. Most countries failed by giving out $. They could have said, its not bad, suck itup, so you probably end up with the same issues in reverse. Mass unemployment, low spending due to that. Look at it from a single lens, no one knew the outcomes. 

johno1234:

 

I think we're heading towards a "move it to the politics thread' moment. 

 

No, this is just the impetus this thread needs to overtake the Trump thread and regain the lead for the "most posts".

Changing topic...

Rare, dangerous side effects of some COVID-19 vaccines explained | Science | AAAS

The article is based on an interesting study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. It shows there are some side effects (VITT) to adenovirus-based vaccines, based on generics and specific markers, but only for AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines. These were not used in the USA (AstraZeneca) or abandoned (J&J).

These types of vaccines are being tested for other diseases, like Ebola. Now that the mechanism of this side-effect is known, scientists can change it accordingly.

Of course anti-vax will cherrypick their favourite quotes and statistics...

Article: "Putting all the pieces together, the researchers hypothesize that patients who developed VITT had previously been infected with an adenovirus, which primed their B cells to recognize pVII. The vaccine then kicked those cells into action, starting a mutation-generating process that produces new variants of the antibodies. In a few people, this process generated an unlucky variant with the negatively charged amino acid—and that ultimately led to VITT."

gzt: New wave of COVID hospitalisations in NZ:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360946408/cases-rise-ninth-wave-covid-19

got to love the poll. like how would anyone know if you had covid, or is it flue, cold, hayfever?

tweake:

 

like how would anyone know if you had covid, or is it flue, cold, hayfever?

 

Because it's fairly trivial to test and get a conclusive result perhaps.

RunningMan:

 

tweake:

 

like how would anyone know if you had covid, or is it flu, cold, hayfever? 

 

Because it's fairly trivial to test and get a conclusive result perhaps.

A Covid-19 RAT kit (5 tests) costs around $15 - $20, and most people won't have an in-date test kit so they'd have to buy one. 
What proportion of the population are going to bother to go to a pharmacy that sells them and spend the money to find out? I'd guess hardly any. 
IMO the only way the vast majority of people would get a test and therefore know they have Covid-19 would be if they get sick enough to go to hospital and the test is part of the admission diagnosis procedure. Do A&E departments routinely administer a Covid-19 RAT on admission?