Most people appear to be managing their money well against ongoing financial volatility. Centrix's August credit indicator shows expected seasonal uplifts in consumer and mortgage arrears, but an overarching easing pattern for both. Consumer arrears ticked up to 10.74% but remain 11.2% lower than a year ago. Company liquidations are up 14% on last year, but the indicator found demand is about the same as in 2025, and defaults are down 1%. Chief Operating Officer Monika Lacey told Mike Hosking

Oregon hemp suppliers wind down ahead of the December 11 federal hemp deadline; four senators ask DOJ to investigate criminal networks in cannabis and hemp; Virginia surveys medical patients ahead of its adult-use launch. For general information only — not legal advice.

Send us Fan Mail Episode 17 is here. And this one really got me thinking about the difference between having faith and actually letting your faith shape the way you live and lead. In this episode, Preston sits down with Ashley Smalley, founder and CEO of Smalley Consulting, to talk about what it really looks like to bring your faith into the workplace without making it forced, performative, or complicated. One thing that really stood out to me was Ashley's story about a truc...

"Trees for the Forest" is a new podcast focusing on the whole leader and exploring about those unexpected moments and ideas that shape who they are and how they lead. Join Rachel Nelms for these insightful, challenging, and inspiring conversations.

AI innovation thrives when employees are recognized, rewarded, and empowered to experiment. Building a culture that values their contributions encourages collaboration, adoption, and continuous improvement. That's the key take-away message of this episode of the Wise Decision Maker Show, which talks about igniting Gen AI innovation through recognition.This article forms the basis for this episode: https://disasteravoidanceexperts.com/igniting-gen-ai-innovation-through-recognition/📖 Dr. Gleb

The benefits of creative practice for lawyers aren’t based on the size of your commitment or what you produce. The benefits come from repetition — consistently showing up, even for five minutes at a time.This episode of Attorney at Work Today is brought to you by Answering Legal.Adapted from an article by Karen Skinner.Click here to read the full article. Head to Attorney at Work for more really good ideas.

Andy Norman from Antek Automation explains what Claude's invisible text watermark actually means for anyone publishing AI-assisted marketing content. This episode covers how the watermark works, why it matters more for AI answer engine trust than plagiarism detection, and the three-step editing workflow Antek Automation uses before any AI draft goes live. If you publish AI-assisted blog posts or chatbot scripts, this explains why the editing step just became non-optional.Short answer: Claude now

Labour's Finance spokesperson won't commit to delivering a surplus by 2029/30 if it's at the expense of restoring pay equity. Barbara Edmonds says she is confident Labour could deliver both. "For example, a choice that we would not make is $300 million for a tobacco excise tax cut." Labour will release its fiscal plan in coming weeks. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m all for pay equity for women, but. Which I’ll get to. First, though. At a public meeting in Christchurch last night, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was asked what the most important thing a Labour-led government would do for girls and women. He said reversing last year’s pay equity changes. And that he would do it within his government’s first 100 days in office. He said: "I think probably the most reprehensible thing I have seen in my time as a member of Parliament was the

Housing is set to be a buyer's market for a while longer. The Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update shows housing price growth will peak at 3% by March 2028, down slightly from 3.2% in the budget update. Cotality Chief Property Economist Kelvin Davidson told Mike Hosking the further out you go, the more uncertainty there is, but there's potentially a general change underway in the market at the moment, and so growth may look lower in the future. He says there's a variety of reasons why this

Why did Chris Hipkins choose to announce that he will restore the pay equity regime within the first 100 days of a Labour-led Government? Why did he do that? I'm really confused by it because it's not as if there was a special event or venue that he tied the announcement to. He was just at a public meeting in Spreydon and then seemed to blurt it out. This is hugely consequential for the Labour Party. What it's done is change the focus. It should be about the PREFU and about holding the Finance

How much cash will we get back from tax cuts? Nicola Willis will soon an announcement about their timing and potential value, if they get back to the Treasury benches. The good news out of yesterday's PREFU is that the books are out of structural deficit this year. That means when the government borrows new money going forward, it will be for capital spending, not to keep the lights on. We've essentially been borrowing money by issuing bonds to pay for day-to-day spending. Fixing potholes with a

Colorado logs illness reports tied to recalled Craft vaporizers, TTB opens 2027 CBMA import tax-benefit assignments, and Georgia's medical cannabis delivery rules await final sign-off. For general information only — not legal advice.

Send us Fan Mail What makes someone a good mentor? It may have less to do with having the right answers and more to do with asking the right questions. In this episode of The Management Minute, Dr. Donita Brown shares a lesson she learned from years of mentoring students and professionals: the mentor shouldn’t do the hard work for the mentee. It can be tempting to share your own experience and tell someone exactly what you think they should do. But your career isn’t their career, and simply h...

Signing a multi-year deal with a proposal AI vendor feels straightforward after a smooth demo — until the contract details reveal what you didn't ask. This episode draws on the RFP.co guide to vetting proposal AI vendors to map the diligence questions that matter most in the window between "deal looks done" and ink on paper. If your entire content library, win themes, and past performance records live inside a vendor's platform, the cost of a poorly negotiated agreement isn't just a bad

Public Procurement Change Agents Dustin Lanier reviews the curated procurement and public sector news of the week in audio, and also at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustin-lanier-cppo/

Training Contact Center Teams for Excellence in 2026 — a concise guide to building modern contact center training and agent onboarding programs. Based on https://www.focusservices.com/training-contact-center/, this episode covers structured onboarding programs, measuring time-to-proficiency, microlearning and continuous learning, AI-powered coaching with speech analytics, virtual reality simulation, QA-training integration, specialization across roles, and proving training ROI. Chapters walk

Our red meat sector appears to be sitting pretty amid a turbulent global market. The sector's gathering in Wellington today for a conference focusing on resilience to market shocks, export demand, and geopolitics in supply chains. Exports continue to surge, with combined receipts forecast around $12.6 billion across 2026 and 27. Special Agricultural Trade Envoy Nathan Guy told Mike Hosking it's a success story given exports are still flowing while two wars rage. He says the UK, China, US, and Europe

A former Finance Minister's hailing today as extremely important as Treasury opens the Government's books. This afternoon's Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update will show the levels of Crown debt, revenue, and expenditure. Budget 2026 predicted a return to operating surplus in the 2028/29 financial year – a year earlier than had been signalled. Steven Joyce told Mike Hosking things could change quickly, but it's a helpful snapshot. He says it's the best anchor, that shows where things are

Part I stayed inside the factory fence. Part II walks out the gate, onto hundreds of kilometres of transmission line, substation fencing and pipeline that was never a “plant,” and is simply too much infrastructure for too few people to walk.SP Energy Networks’ Project VOLT runs drone-in-a-box units at four substations across the Lake District and Cumbria, flown beyond visual line of sight from a Remote Operations Centre 200+ miles away in Buckinghamshire. But the drone isn’t the point: a camera