labour gave 8 million taxpayer dollars to a rugby team

[harm_less]

Hmmmm, fewer as each day passes.

Indeed and as every new 'event' that Trump dreams up the US (and the world) gets increasingly nervous. Spoke to a trade customer of ours recently whose previously busy international (not only US bound) sales have fallen off a cliff in the past month. Internet interactions have also throttled back significantly as, I suspect, web surfing becomes just too challenging for many as the bad news just keeps on ramping up.

We are seeing this in our own NZ-centric trade but the extent that the same thing is happening internationally was an eye-opener. It's going to take a total sea change in geopolitics to kick start economic activity worldwide.