OnPoint by Keith Ng

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OnPoint: Spending "Cap" is Fiscal Anorexia

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  • merc, in reply to Greg Dawson,

    Sensible investments in long term growth strategies (with proven histories of success, unlike say "trickle down") haven't really been tried.

    Amen

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    Except the stimulus programs didn't fail; they just weren't big enough.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Angus Robertson,

    With one small statement you wipe out a generation or two of economic wisdom?

    A stimulus package according to economists (and so eloquently expressed by yourself) does stimulate, which is a great and simple piece of wisdom with which I do tend to agree. If this were an economics blog my apologies and back-tracking would be endless.

    Unfortunately this is a political blog.

    That several $trillion the developed world spent on bailing out failled property investors, mortgage brokers, multi-nationals, towns, cities and small states, as well as building a few bridges. That was a stimulus package to stave of economic collapse, as expressed politically.

    Auckland • Since May 2007 • 984 posts Report Reply

  • Angus Robertson, in reply to Keir Leslie,

    Seriously angus, how is a stimulus like a gamble? Where is the risk? As far as I can tell you don't actually understand how counter cyclic spending works.

    The risk is in the tax-cuts, pork and feather-bedding for party political interests transforming it into an anchor. The risk is in the external enviroment delivering a price shock into a weak economy awash in government provided stimulus cash leading to stagflation.

    If we are at the beginnings of growth phase a [new] stimulus isn't actually counter cyclic.


    [edit]

    Auckland • Since May 2007 • 984 posts Report Reply

  • Moz, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    It might be symbolic, but amending the Renumeration Authority Act to link MPs pay to some combo of inflation, the CPI and/or average pay increases across the public secto

    Sod that, make it a fixed multiple of the dole. I'd even say link it to the gap between the poverty line and the dole - like "ten times the dole, plus ten times the % difference between poverty and dole". Yes, that means that on current figures MP's would have to pay to be in parliament. See this little violin?

    Sydney, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 1233 posts Report Reply

  • Amy Gale,

    I mean, sure, the schools losing their cherries (ahem) may not like it, but what about the cherries themselves? When you're a cherry, you may want to be able to learn in the company of other cherries, even if you weren't previously being marginalised by all the apples and tomatoes (the latter being unsure if they're even fruit at all).

    Well, for one thing, any cherries left behind are going to be even more of a minority, and thus even more marginalized, which cannot possibly be a good thing.

    There are destructive aspects to cherry picking that are completely independent of the definition of a cherry. It doesn't need to be a bright kid - it could be a pure Aryan, or the someone deemed likely to believe that aliens visited the earth in DC10s.

    One of the worst is resource erosion. From each of 6 schools, take 4 kids from each year level. Now you have a class at each year level and will be funded accordingly. On the other hand, each of those schools lost enough kids in total to fund one classroom+teacher+etc. But where can they drop one from their lineup? Nowhere.

    tha Ith • Since May 2007 • 471 posts Report Reply

  • HenryB, in reply to HenryB,

    Perhaps it will run one on the merits of fiscal caps soon.

    Well it did write one on fiscal caps this morning: Saturday (`Government cannnot be reduced to a formula' - can't find it on the online edition). At least it wasn't a simple echo of the Herald's. In spite of a deeply tendetious reading of the economic management of the last two governments, at least it comes out against the cap arguing that it is `a sop to ideologues', that `it militates against good government, as well as bad' and, of course, that - in the end - it is unenforceable.

    It still managed to make me choke on my breakfast cereal with this: `By increasing annual expediture by almost $4 billion in real terms, Mr Key's government has kept the economy ticking over and shielded the vulnerable form the worst effects of the GFC'... whilst, in the same breath almost, criticising Labour for giving `Welfare for families with six-figure incomes'. I would have thought that what Key's government gave in the way of tax cuts for the wealthy far outweighed any monies some families in the bracket referred to might have got from WFF.

    Palmerston North • Since Sep 2008 • 106 posts Report Reply

  • icehawk, in reply to Idiot Savant,

    not subject to the OIA...

    But the moment they become "Boards of Trustees constituted under Part 9 of the Education Act 1989" they are.

    I see your Boards of Trustees, and raise Commercial Sensitivity.

    Wellington • Since Sep 2008 • 49 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    And many were forced to retire because 65 was the limit.

    That's been tested and proven to be illegal for quite a few years now. Only lack of ability to do the job can force you out of your job now I believe.

    It seems to me that the only likely problems from this law are if National gets another term. Labour can just repeal the law. National would strike a political problem in doing so, having put it through three years earlier, so they might be stuck with it.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

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