Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

A fresh and intelligent start to your day - catch the very latest international and domestic news developments, sport, entertainment and business on Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, on Newstalk ZB.

  1. 5 hr ago

    Ryan Bridge: Standing still is not a strategy

    We've got another report from another ratings agency, Moody's.  They've taken a look at our credit, they've taken a look at our economy, much the same as the S & P one we spoke about last week. But here's a few things this country cannot afford to forget.  We are a trading nation; we have a small population.  Unless we sell stuff to the rest of the world, which the world then pays us for, we are a backwater. We are a money go round; we are a low-income poor cousin at the bottom of the Pacific. Dairy, meat, kiwifruit, honey, you name it. If we don't have strong export industries, we're basically buggered. We need more of them, of course.  We have tourism, let's not whinge too much about the campervans. The world's cooked at times and there'll be another Hormuz before long. Hell, the current Hormuz isn't over yet and that means we need storage for diesel, which we're doing, but we need more of, for gas, which Genesis is looking at, and Todd and Uncle Shane are trying to find, and data centres.  I know they're controversial, I know people hate them, but they shouldn't be.  If done well, and by well, I mean they wash their own faces, then tick tick.  The other thing we desperately need are roads that don't wash out when it rains. Petrol taxes pay for that, so let's maybe not cut our nose off to spite our face in that regard. It's pretty simple really, we need to keep doing what we're doing, we need roads to get our stuff to port, we need oil to keep the country moving, we need ships coming and going and we need something new on the horizon always.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  2. 1 day ago

    Ryan Bridge: The war in Iran isn't going anywhere

    Told you when this whole thing kicked off that it wouldn't end tomorrow, and it hasn't. This is the war between the US and Iran. It is still going on. The biggest problem was always going to be the Strait of Hormuz, and the Strait of Hormuz is not open. In fact, there were tankers going through the other day in a shoulder that the US should be said should be safe, and guess what, they weren't.  Now, over the weekend we've had Leon Panetta, this is the US former US Defence Secretary. He was also CIA Director under Obama. He's said, yeah, look, it's one of those things. It's at risk now becoming another forever war in the Middle East, which is exactly what everybody doesn't want. We've had these before, we've had many before, Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it. He says the likelihood is this war is going to continue for another six months without being resolved.  And at the same time, you've got chaos at the Pentagon. You've got Hegseth going after and firing people left, right, and centre, or senior military commanders leaving their posts. And just imagine if you were one of the frontline soldiers here, if you were on some Navy frigate in the middle of the Gulf, although they're having a wee holiday in Thailand at the moment, of course, but if you were on a Navy frigate in the middle of the Gulf and you were reading updates on your phone or you're reading updates from command going, oh, he's gone now. Oh, who's in charge here? And what exactly are we doing? Quite disconcerting. And I think Leon Panetta makes that point very well. This war is not going to end in a hurry, certainly not in the next six months.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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A fresh and intelligent start to your day - catch the very latest international and domestic news developments, sport, entertainment and business on Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, on Newstalk ZB.

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