Last Updated: Mar 25th, 2013 - 16:46:15 Newsletters : 2006 Newsletters : 23 June 2006 Thought for the Day Brazilian cane-based ethanol becomes economical when oil is around $40 per barrel. This resource will go on forever and can be mixed with oil to make our oil resources go further. Why don't we stop panicing and peaking and let our politicians concentrate on getting steady economic growth of 4% or 5% per year. May 2, 2006, 06:46 Newsletters : 2006 Newsletters : 23 June 2006 Economy Grew 0.7 Percent in March Quarter This means that our economy has grown 0.6% during the previous three quarters. Hardly stellar! Will the current quarter produce growth of 0.4% to bring us up to 1% for the June year? Time will tell. Here is the press release from the Statistics Department that arrived at 11:00am: Economic activity increased 0.7 percent in the March 2006 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today. This follows a decrease of 0.1 percent in the December 2005 quarter. In the year ended March 2006 the economy grew 2.2 percent, down from the 3.7 percent growth recorded in the year ended March 2005. Service industries were the most significant contributors to growth, increasing 0.9 percent in the March 2006 quarter. This reflects continued growth in household spending coupled with strong growth in central government activity. The largest contributors to the increase in service industries this quarter were the finance, insurance and business services group (up 0.7 percent), and personal and community services (up 1.5 percent). Government administration and defence recorded its eighteenth consecutive quarter of growth (up 3.2 percent), and was up 9.3 percent for the year ended March 2006. Primary and goods-producing industries also recorded increases this quarter, up 1.3 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. Within goods-producing industries, construction activity increased 1.7 percent, mainly driven by non-residential building construction. Manufacturing activity increased marginally this quarter (up 0.3 percent), following two consecutive quarterly decreases. The expenditure-based measure of gross domestic product (GDP) recorded a 0.6 percent rise in the March 2006 quarter. A continued increase in household consumption expenditure (up 0.8 percent) and a build-up in inventories, following a decrease in inventories in the previous quarter, contributed to an increase in domestic demand of 1.2 percent this quarter. The rise in domestic demand was partially offset by a fall in net exports, with export volumes falling 2.6 percent, outweighing a 0.8 percent fall in import volumes. Business investment in fixed assets fell 1.4 percent in the March 2006 quarter, following a 0.3 percent fall the previous quarter. However, in the year ended March 2006, business investment rose 9.1 percent. Geoff Bascand Acting Government Statistician Jun 23, 2006, 11:35 Newsletters : 2006 Newsletters : 23 June 2006 Change of policy for State Owned Enterprises Socialists around the world last century nationalised industries and took control of the means of production within their economies. This experiment was a gigantic failure. The USSR forced 70 years of increasing misery on its people and then gave up. North Korea is still fighting on but its peasants eat grass to stay alive - or so I am told. Muldoon was the last of the great economic controllers and look at the mess he made. The New Zealand Labour Party is now preparing to expand the SOEs further into the private sector and the result will be, according to Trevor Mallard, the "economic transformation" of New Zealand. I am sure he is right! Labour policies have converted a steady middle of the road growth rate of around 3% from 1993 to 2004 into a negative growth rate - SHRINKAGE - of -0.1% in the second half of 2005. Isn't this transformation enough? Our future for the next few years is looking bleaker by the day. The socialists in power do not seem to understand that political decisions today mean economic growth or SHRINKAGE in two, three or five years down the track. Here is Trevor Mallard's press release followed by an opinion from Roger Kerr. Jun 21, 2006, 16:41 Newsletters : 2006 Newsletters : 23 June 2006 The Transformation of John Mackey Some people are capable of independent and rational thought! Jun 14, 2006, 09:30