Absolutely moronic?

From Morning Report, first Ganesh Nana on the state of the economy followed by Westpac's chief economist Brendan O'Donovan:

Nana: ...I don't see any reason for interest rates to increase. All we've got is a Reserve Bank and a policy environment that is fixated on preemptive strikes against inflation when the real problem has and has been for quite a while recovery of the New Zealand economy which, while in the textbooks appears to be coming through in the numbers, just isn't there out there in the regions or in activity in the export sector when people are claiming there's an export led recovery.

Sean Plunkett: Brendan O'Donovan, you disagree with that fundamentally?

O'Donovan: That's absolutely moronic. You can't say it's coming through in the numbers but it's not out there in the regions. The numbers are what actually quantify what's happening in the regions. It's not happening for every firm. You can't deny that our commodity prices are at multi-decade highs.

Plunkett: Well, that's Westpac's Brendan O'Donovan and BERL's Ganesh Nana; clearly the experts disagree.

New Zealand's OCR remains very stimulative; we're a quarter point above historic lows.

It's odd that Radio New Zealand keeps going back to Nana as an expert on the economy and what RBNZ ought to be doing without noting that BERL has been in a longer term campaign, along with the Manufacturer's and Exporters Association, to do away with New Zealand's inflation targeting regime. I put a lot more weight on NZIER warning against interest rate increases than on BERL making the same call: the latter's a bit of a stuck clock. It would have been interesting for Radio NZ to have had an NZIER economist on making the case rather than Nana.

iPredict says there's a 15% chance of no change in the OCR 29 July. I'm long, but bought at around 5 cents. I've a standing ask at $0.18.