Posts by Gareth Ward
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Kyle, the difference is borrowing an additional two billion dollars NOW. You still have to pay the piper at some point.
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Of course Gareth Morgan reckons we should just gut the Super Fund now and transfer it to compulsory KiwiSaver accounts... in funds like the one he makes money from managing.
Awful conflict of interest (yet again from that guy on Kiwisaver) but I actually agree with him.
If you're going to gut it like that, now's the time to reinvest in Kiwisaver and that should be made compulsory at 4% of pay (given that the 2% from employers is already coming out of your pay increases under this Govt those already in it won't get a paycut) -
I don't think Treasury's forecasts are worth shit
At which point, there assumptions around the cost of borrowing to pay for that super bulge are equally shit. As are their assumptions around fiscal position in 2030. As are...
They have to make the best call with what they know. Obviously there are risk management assumptions around that as well, but investing the money (please note that it's NOT "in the stockmarket, it's balanced across multiple asset classes) based on realistic assumptions is just as valid as making a decision to debt-fund it down the track.
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What's a DCM and when did Worth get one?
According to Wiki he's an Officer of the British Empire for services to NZ. Looks like it might have been from his naval career?
And yes, Wiki already has the 2009 criminal investigation matter.
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While I'd be quite happy if Keith won Lotto, I doubt he'd share it around us all.
Yes, that is one fatal flaw in my otherwise flawless plan.
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I always feel like I should be standing behind him as a hype-person, with one white towel over my shoulder, going 'yeeeeah!' and 'DAMN right!'
If Keith would just kneel on the steps of Parliament you could cape him (ala Bobby Byrd) and lead him off stage shaking with mathematical exhaustion, before he shakes it off and runs back shouting "can I get a statistical assumption up in this m**%^f(*&r!"
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Criminal matter? Ouchy...
And particularly necessary for full disclosure in that case. Hiding a criminal case against a Minister behind "personal matters" is really not up to scratch...
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Magnificent. Just... magnificent.
I was actually awake at 2am last night thinking through key points for how to rebut the general absurdity of the "borrowing to save" and the "YOU do it then" lines.
I'd written the following this morning on a notepad to try and create a story around it:
- NZ Super operational costs = super payments + capital contribution (i.e. contributions are part of the surplus or deficit, not subsequent to)
- If we're not borrowing now, then we have to borrow later to pay for this. But apparently it's only borrowing if you do it now
- Borrowing to invest in productive fund > borrowing for direct spending??
- Funding (through tax or debt) in 2030 is going to have a bunch more pressure on it because of the baby boomers. Not just super, but health as well.
- Contributions go up in 2020 such that we only pay $6.5b (?) less with this "holiday"
Then I popped in here and you'd done it all for me! Perhaps I should lie awake at 2am thinking about winning Lotto... -
Good point - I'll brief our teams to start highlighting this in our business communications going forward - thanks for the advice.
Something like a Lite plan, a Smartphone plan and a Laptop plan (or plans). Would make more sense to someone like me who has no idea how many Mb I'd need :>
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Having this discussion somewhere else, but thought it may be useful to bring to the attention of Telecom marketing peeps.
You have a bunch of very neato smartphones with email, surfing etc etc. The top Data Extra (240Mb) is apparently plenty of data to use, say, an E71 or Treo Pro for email and pretty heavy internet surfing. So maybe brand it as such?
Call it the SmartphoneXT Data Extra? Subline: All the data you'll need to email and surf on the go. Details: 240Mb, most users average xxx, based on xxx emails, surfing x pages every day etc.I know with me at least there is some confusion around data usage and fear about suddenly going in to overage...