Posted on 09/16/2020 9:13:53 PM PDT by DoodleBob
New Zealand's economy plunged into recession for the first time in a decade on Thursday, posting a record contraction in the June quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern heads into next month's general election.
"The 12.2-percent fall in quarterly GDP is by far the largest on record in New Zealand," the national statistics agency said.
The reporting period covers April to June, coinciding with a strict lockdown that began in late March and began easing in late May.
Stats NZ spokesman Paul Pascoe said the closure of New Zealand's borders since March 19 had also had a huge impact of some sectors of the economy.
"Industries like retail, accommodation and restaurants, and transport saw significant declines in production because they were most directly affected by the international travel ban and strict nationwide lockdown," he said.
"Other industries, like food and beverage manufacturing, were essential services and fell much less."
The second-quarter decline follows a 1.6-percent contraction in the first three months of 2020, confirming widespread expectations that New Zealand is in recession.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...
| Country | 2Q GDP | Per Capital Fatalities 6/30/2020 | Modeled 2Q GDP | Actual-Modeled GDP change |
| Austria | (10.7) | 26,098 | (9.6) | (1.1) |
| Belgium | (12.2) | 278,728 | (14.8) | 2.6 |
| Brazil | (9.7) | 92,930 | (11.0) | 1.3 |
| Canada | (12.0) | 75,059 | (10.6) | (1.4) |
| Denmark | (7.4) | 34,242 | (9.8) | 2.4 |
| France | (13.8) | 146,639 | (12.1) | (1.7) |
| Germany | (10.1) | 35,631 | (9.8) | (0.3) |
| Ireland | (6.1) | 116,247 | (11.4) | 5.3 |
| Italy | (12.4) | 190,190 | (13.0) | 0.6 |
| Netherlands | (8.5) | 115,801 | (11.4) | 2.9 |
| New Zealand | (12.2) | 1,457 | (9.1) | (3.1) |
| Portugal | (14.1) | 50,540 | (10.1) | (4.0) |
| Spain | (18.5) | 198,397 | (13.1) | (5.4) |
| Sweden | (8.6) | 170,081 | (12.6) | 4.0 |
| Switzerland | (8.2) | 75,341 | (10.6) | 2.4 |
| United Kingdom | (20.4) | 217,346 | (13.5) | (6.9) |
| United States | (9.1) | 127,417 | (11.7) | 2.6 |
The big 'winner' here is Ireland: their economy only went down by about 6% in the second quarter, beating my simple model by 530 basis points. At the other end of the spectrum is the UK, which had a GDP decline that was 690 basis points higher than the model. The US outperformed by 240 basis points, and much-maligned Sweden outperformed the model by 400 basis points.
New Zealand is, of course, an isolated island and locked down hard (but they weren't baaaad people when they did it, unlike the Orange Man). They paraded themselves around the world as the smartest country for dealing with a pandemic. But that low fatality total came with an outsized economic cost.
**-the r2 was 0.178 but the p-value on the overall regression was 0.091 - there was simply a lot of dispersion; more variables and more countries could help this analysis.
New Zealand has had 1800 cases and 25 deaths so far.
Holy Pavlova! what is going on down there ?!
Right, but you can’t compare New Zealand’s raw totals with that of the US, which has 66x more people. So I size-adjust, which is basically taking the country’s fatalities, dividing that by the country’s population, then multiplying it by the US population (about 329MM) to put everyone on US terms/on an equal footing.
Crickey! perhaps a nice tall Fosters Lager will help
Per Capital?
Welll....it’s a long story. Basically, NZ shut off all travel and locked down the country hard. They successfully snuffed out COVID19 - until it came back a few weeks ago (imagine that...). This analysis suggests that their lockdown incrementally caused 3.1 percentage points of additional GDP decline in the second quarter. In contrast, the US’ lockdown incrementally forestalled 2.6 percentage points of additional GDP decline in the second quarter.
Thank you...capita. Spelling -1.
It isn’t worth it in the U.S., and it isn’t worth it in New Zealand.
The leftists at any level think that somehow if we just lock down for 2, er, 4 er, 6 weeks, wear a mask, etc. somehow the virus will just disappear forever and that the only reason it is still around is because soem idiot didn’t wear a mask when they took a walk.
These are the same people who demand we follow the science.
So, New Zealand had few COVID deaths allegedly. How many increased deaths did the shutdown result in (suicides, people who didn’t go to the hospital in time, cancers not detected in time, etc)??? How many businesses went bankrupt?
Pavlova ???
Yuck !!!
Monteiths or DB (Dominion Beer) ...Tui is good...tastes like Bud...
Fosters is an Aussie beer
“Fosters is an Aussie beer”
I know that, just trying to rile up some Kiwis
The prime minister of New Zealand is an avowed socialist and has been since her youth. She has seized dictatorial power over the country using fear and her false but firm belief that a total lockdown will stop the virus.
As long as this lunatic woman is prime minister, New Zealand will NOT recover economically. You cannot lock down a worldwide pandemic and only a delusional NUT would believe that.
She has deceived her 5 million citizens but they will ultimately realize she is a fool and they have given her total control over them and made them all her “subjects” who must obey her.
So, what was the actual cost per “saved” life?
(Keeping in mind that there are no “saved” lives...only postponed or delayed deaths)
Sounds crass, but insurance actuaries do this all the time.
As do the exec who calculate the cost of lawsuits vs. the cost of design changes, which may or may not be actual “improvements”.
“ Basically, NZ shut off all travel and locked down the country hard. ”
Yes. My Japanese niece was an au pair there and was stuck after New Zealand cut off contact with the rest of the world. She just got home at the beginning of September and then had to do a 14 day self-quarantine in Japan at her parents’ house. I haven’t had a chance to talk with her yet about how she got by all those months after her contract was up, but she was really happy to get home.
Nice.
Would like to see more countries with varied responses included: S. Korea and Taiwan being two.
I’ve wondered what the cost of NZ’s extreme response was.
Media has avoided that aspect.
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