One thing that has surprised me about the usual end of year wrap-up stories that we’re getting is the lack of acknowledgement that this isn’t just the end of the year, it’s also the end of the decade. The end of the first decade of the new millennium even. Thinking back to all of the frenzied excitement the turn of the millennium produced, I’m surprised the end of the decade is passing without anyone seeming to notice.
A few weeks ago Newsroom published their Top 10 news stories of the decade. I was going to blog on it at the time but never quite got around to it, so I saved it for the no-news-period between Christmas and New Year. Their Top 10 stories were:
- 2000 – New Zealand successfully defends the America’s Cup
- 2001 – Fonterra Co-operative is formed
- 2002 – Labour’s Helen Clark defeats National’s Bill English in a landslide
- 2003 – Peter Jackson wins 11 Oscars for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- 2003 – NZ bans smoking in bars.
- 2005 – NZ selected as the host for 2011 Rugby World Cup
- 2004 – Don Brash delivers the now infamous Orewa Speech on Race
- 2008 – Sir Edmund Hillary dies at the age of 88
- 2008 – NZ passes an emissions trading scheme
- 2008 – Winston Peters is defeated
They also published a list of their Top 10 international stories:
- 2000 – Bush v. Gore case decides the U.S. Presidential Election
- 2001 – 9/11 Attacks
- 2002 – Euro currency debuts
- 2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia Explodes
- 2003 – War in Iraq
- 2005 – London Bombings
- 2008 – Financial Meltdown/ Economic Crisis
- 2008 – First African American president – Barack Obama
- 2009 – Michael Jackson’s death
- 2009 – Outbreak of Swine Flu
Funny to think that we started the world started the decade led by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair (who was hugely popular at that stage), terrorism was something that happened in Northern Ireland, and travel around Europe required a calculator or a high level of numeracy for all of the currency conversions that were required. It’s been quite a decade…
Yeah a lot has changed, I wonder what 2020 will be like?
Missed one out. “2008 Clark Labour Government thrown out of office by huge margin”
@Richard – it was Newsroom’s list, not mine, and yep, for better or worse I would regard the 2008 election result as one of the top 10 political stories of the decade. Just goes to show how the political winds can change. From a landslide victory in 2002, Labour nearly lost in 2005 and then did lose in 2008 by a significant margin. Something the born to rule tories who think the natural order has been restored should think about.
Aw c’mon Chris it’s not that bad.
Something the born to rule tories who think the natural order has been restored should think about.
Bloody hell have you heard some of the comments from your party and supporters? Public failed to understand, public haven’t yet seen through slippery Key etc etc
I would say that 2002 removed any sense of “born to rule” from any National Party supporter dumb enough to believe that. It would seem that Labour is a long way from that.
An interesting bonus of being the duty Minister as the Euro launched was doing the first cash transaction in the world. Time zone advantage ! !
The Boxing Day Tsunami is missing from that list – I’d have put that in the top 10 International Stories. I would’ve bumped the Euro from the list. (Sorry Trev, but I think the list shows a ‘Euro’-bias) Plus the Columbia didn’t explode, it broke apart during re-entry.
I would bet that the top story of the twenty-tens will be the capture and/or death of Osama Bin Laden.
I guess nothing significant or even interesting happened in 2006 or 2007 either locally or internationally.
As a Democrat, I was happy in 2006 that my party took back the House and Senate after 12 years in the minority wilderness. This victory paved the way for Obama to have the massive majorities he has now.
Obama alone would not have been enough to make the changes. From a mandate point of view, he got a little fewer EC votes than Bill Clinton in his two elections (Clinton got 370 in ’92 and 379 in ’96, while Obama got 365 in ’08). The real difference is the size of the majorities in Congress. Without those majorities (enough to defeat a filibuster in the Senate), no liberal legislation would pass. The $787 billion stimulus package certainly would have gone nowhere if Republicans had had a couple more senators.
2007 was when the meltdown in the US started, not 2008. Take a look at the Dow:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^DJI#chart2:symbol=^dji;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
In October 2007, the DJIA was above 14,000. The Fed first started dropping interest rates in September, so they knew something was up. It dropped steadily until by January 7, it was down to 12,600. That is a 10% drop in 3 months.
The Fed slashed interest rates like crazy (for their standards) in January and kept busy until rates could be cut no more. From 2007-2008, US Fed interest rates went from 4.5% to 0%.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/statistics/dlyrates/fedrate.html
Notice that the Fed dropped rates 1% from September 2007 to January 2008.
My letter in the current Listener was a reminder that our own Reserve Bank was a bit misguided when he waited until July 2008 to act. By July, the Dow was down 20% from the 2007 high. By October it was down 40%. His concern with inflation early in 2008 was completely misplaced. The economy moves forwards, not backwards. He was actually 10 months behind the Fed.
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monpol/statements/0090630.html
Don’t think they were talking inflation in January 2008? Read this:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/our-high-interest-rates/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501157&objectid=10487335
“The Reserve Bank may be sharpening its pencil for more interest rate hikes.”
In the end, the RBNZ dropped rates by 1.5% a pop in a frantic attempt to do something. Overall, rates dropped by 5.5% before Bollard stopped. Too late–damage done. If he had started 10 months earlier, everyone would have had more money in their pockets. Mortgage holders, exporters, new businesses…
The dynamic duo of John Key and Mr Bollard did in Labour, but I suspect it was more Bollard.
2007 led to 2008.
Didn’t realise he was standing. What electorate was that again??
Bollard’s electorate is all of NZ. He is in charge at the Reserve Bank.
He could show some political contriteness and think prospectively about inflation in 2010 and forwards. He could crank those interest rates up really high in 2010 and 2011, and show John Key what it feels like.
Everyone could encourage National to raise taxes and cut spending to rein in the deficit.
Maybe we can prolong the recession here long enough that Labour can roar back in 2011…
I’m surprised and kind of offended that there’s not Boxing Day tsunami for international news.
Also think Sir Peter Blake’s death should be on NZ headlines.
Bush V Gore comes before 9/11 ??? Who was writing this . Al Gore ?
Not surprised that Fonterra is number 2 story of the decade. See also my blog http://www.greenbranz.org
I’m a bit late coming to this party, but I’ll just point out the numbering is chronological, not in order of importance!
Also, we did consider the stories mentioned by people throughout the thread – but after a fair bit of discussion around a fair few people, those were the ones chosen to leave out to keep it at ten.
The 2008 election is on there, we just decided that the loss of Winston was bigger than the election of Key. But yes, could easily have gone the other way!