2023 is turning out much as expected and, no, that's not a good thing

This year didn't look like being a good one and now half-way through we are getting the confirmation. These have provided a hit to the economy that helped to propel us into a 'technical recession'. As an aside, it would be fairly interesting if there's any revisions to the March quarter figures done by Stats NZ once the June quarter figures are released in September. I've said before that at the moment the labour market figures are THE key ones to watch, for a number of reasons. That's when we will get the answers to a lot of the questions that have formed in the first half.