Posts by nzlemming
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OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Now, if you want to say that “debt does matter, but priorities matter even more” I’m open to persuasion.
It's not even about priorities vs debt - it's about doing all the wrong things to assist the economy because you're not looking at the examples and experts all around you.
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to Russell Brown,
Excellent. I'll look forward to that. Rick can be an engaging sort, even if he is a loia ;-)
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OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Still, nice to know debt isn’t a problem – or is it only a problem when Bill English does it?
Debt’s a problem only if you can’t repay it.
If you reduce your capacity to pay, then you’re making it a problem.
Your capacity to pay is reduced if you reduce your potential for income and increase your outgoings.
By cutting staff from the public services, English reduces the amount of tax they pay and increases the amount of welfare the government has to pay. More, by reducing government spending, he reduces the amount of money flowing through the economy, which has a flow on effect of reducing the amount of GST as well as income and company tax, companies go bankrupt, which increases the drain on welfare etc.It’s not just a problem when English does it, but he persists in doing it even when the likes of Stiglitz and Krugman point out that it’s going to have the opposite effect and when the “more with less” meme that National pushed under Richardson et al in the 90’s was such a singular failure. National did not leave office last time with a surplus, Labour did.
What Hari is pointing out is that Cameron is attempting to get an agenda for smaller government through under the lie of “debt is so bad we have to take extraordinary measures”. Hari points out that it’s no different from most of the last 250 years.
It’s already been pointed out that NZ public debt (i.e government debt) is actually quite low in comparison with other countries. It’s servicable. Where NZ’s debt problem lies is in private debt (i.e. citizen and corporate debt). Nothing English does to government spending is going to reduce that and might easily exacerbate that by removing a significant amount of economic activity that is enabling SME’s to service their debt.
It’s a splendid example of why “NZ Inc” is a myth – you can’t run a country the way you run a company. A company can cut staff to reduce its costs, but those costs move out of the isolated “local economy” of the company and into the wider economy as welfare payments. Companies can do that because the country can pick up the slack, if it has such a structure in place. Look at countries where they don’t have social welfare to see what happens when there is no-one to pick up that slack. A country has no-one else to pick up its internal slack, but that slack must be taken care of somehow. That becomes increased cost to the country.
Being debt free is better than having debt, if you’re happy to remain stable rather than grow (not advocating growth as a strategy, here, just saying). But having debt is not a bad thing in itself, or none of us would have mortgages. Having so much debt that you can’t even pay the interest on it is a bad thing. NZ is not there yet, and the public accounts are nowhere near that position, yet English is talking about the big, scary debt monster in order to achieve a bunch of things within the state sector that, ideologically, National always try to do, or say they want to do. Just like Cameron. Which is why it is not bullshit for Rich to say “by extension” – it doesn’t mean Camoron’s decisions extend to NZ, but his example does.
[ETA] That was a totally unintentional typo, but I think I'll leave it there. I can't believe I'm the first person to call him that.
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Not a comparison I'd previously considered but, once thought, cannot be unthought. Damn you, Paul Campbell, and your low and adventurous associates!
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to Rob S,
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the USA wouldn’t be too worried about these free trade talks dragging on forever.
Don't rely on that. It's the copyright and patent law stuff that is driving this US involvement. The lobbyists have managed to capture US government thinking about these things and they're firm in their demands that US corporate interests be protected. They'll also have learned from the ACTA negotiations and protests - I expect the TPPA machinations to be tougher and more devious, as well as pushed as hard and fast as possible.
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OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Great line in that, worth repeating:
It’s as if tomorrow you became so panicked about your mortgage that you decided to pay it all off in one year, by ceasing to buy food and water. You get sick, and your house gets repossessed.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Sacha,
Great debunking of the debt crisis myth by Johann Hari, which Rich linked to on Keith’s thread. Sounds rather familiar..
Great analogy:
It’s as if tomorrow you became so panicked about your mortgage that you decided to pay it all off in one year, by ceasing to buy food and water. You get sick, and your house gets repossessed.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Che Tibby,
Democracy is still all about reps to me, and an urbane chap in oriental bay just doesn’t remind me of the middling classes I take the bus with
And Dunne does? If you don't want to vote for the Shovel, vote for Gareth Hughes. Kid's got chops.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Rex Widerstrom,
Yeah, I know, I was here. I meant that he took note of it there, but it doesn't mean he's had a visit.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Rex Widerstrom,
though I do wonder whether this part of his latest bout of flatulence doesn’t indicate a visit from the rozzers has been experienced
I think someone mentioned on Brian Edwards' blog that a complaint had been made to police (IIRC)