Mike's Minute: New Zealand is consistently losing on the world stage

Are our economic chickens coming home to roost? Overnight, the Bank of England has put their cash rate up another 25 points. But they've also made what they suggest is their biggest upgrade ever. Britain, they think, will not be going into recession.   Australia this week, which is also not going into recession, are worried their growth is only going to be 1.25 percent. Ah, to be so pessimistic about growth and to even be able to talk about growth. As we heard in the budget, they also have a surplus. Figures this week out of America around inflation show material falls. The producer price index out this morning is the lowest since January of 2021. In the meantime, this week we have food inflation through the roof again, another record in the wrong direction   . It is widely accepted we are either in recession, or headed for one. We have an ever-increasing deficit and no sign of any sort of surplus. In a nutshell - we are losing. Our cash rate is higher than most other countries and it still hasn't stopped rising. Another 25 points is most likely coming in a week or so and that will put it at 5.5 percent. Mortgages are running at floating rates of over 7 percent. Grant Robertson is busy saying all of this is predictable. Is it? Actually, it is. Because the mistakes that were made were so gargantuan, the fall out was always going to be dramatic. There is no evidence here that inflation is on a downward path. It might have peaked, but we still don't know for sure. We still don't know if the Reserve Bank is finished with the rate rises. Our export returns, with the exception of a couple of products like beef, are not what they were. The tourists are not coming back in the numbers they should have, and yet, we know in some parts of the world numbers are above pre-Covid levels. In other words, in the so-called recovery stage post-Covid we are being outperformed by most of our trading partners - certainly America, certainly Australia and now Britain as well.   The trouble for the Government is the facts are increasingly alarming every day. The theory and the ideology, which is how they like to argue, is now dramatically undermined on a daily basis by the facts. We are being beaten economically, and badly, by most other countries. We are not, as Grant wants to mislead you, in a good position or anywhere close to it. Their only hope in this area is to pray most of us aren't alert to this. Most of us don't understand or don't care and the media aren't adept enough to cut through the spin of the press releases. They are hoping the sheep don't join the dots.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.