Hard News: Prospects
780 Responses
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Craig regarding your extended middle finger and reaction to "Kat's" hyperbolic discourse about a stupid country deserving a right-wing government: don't be too precious, there must be a hundred comments a day to this effect directed against Labour between KB and Your Views.
Its tiresome, unhelpful and exaggerated - but it's been the stock and trade of NZ rightwing discourse online for years.
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Jim - re debt I agree that it's a disaster for us, but you're laying it at Labour's feet?
National will take certainly us even further the wrong way on that by handing out tax for consumption, and funding it by slashing at savings. So you've got both major groups largely ignoring it, but National is the one that is actively going to make it worse...
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Bryan Gould's Rescuing the New Zealand Economy has quite a bit to say about this.
What's his suggestion?
Most of the joint inflation/growth mandates given to central banks (e.g. in the US) use employment as the growth figure for measurement. If we'd adopted a similar approach here we would have seen no change in the moves from the Reserve Bank as we've had record employment - there's been no need to cut interest rates to stimulate "growth" (as measured by employment) -
Gareth,
No, I'm not laying it at their feet. What am I trying to point out is that for all their vision and tinkering, they were unable to do anything about it. But did they ever have the intention to? I don't know because it was never openly debated in the public domain or talked bout with any gravity.
As for National making it worse, I don't really think it can get any worse.
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They mean to DNA test innocent people for the police database
Cool.
Not to hard to arrange for most of parliament to be charged with something a bit vague, but carrying a prison sentence. Tax evasion perhaps.
That should sort out such piffle. Anyone fancy joining me to start a private-prosecution fund?
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Ok Here's my prediction.
NZ First will make 5%+ Winston will get Tauranga
Greens will be around 13%
Labour will get 38%
Act will not get a seat
National will get 40%
Maori will go with Labour
Progressives will retain Wigram
Labour forms the next Govt.
We all get a Pony. :-) -
Steve, you're a gem.
Except you missed this: if you don't vote Green, you're stoopiderist of all, because they can do everything all the other parties do, only fairer and in a way that ensures there'll be more of it to go round in the future.
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I'm with you that someone (of whatever political ilk) needs to stand up and say "our current account deficit and international debt is appalling and we need to do something serious to fix it up".
Labour have not done a good job on it at all, although I think it's fair to say both Kiwisaver and the SuperFund will directly reduce private debt in the longer-run.
You talk about Skilling et al - if you read their papers they are all very very much in favour of compulsory savings as a vehicle to improve our savings and our subsequent debt position - i.e. Kiwisaver.
A short-term debt-reducing policy of Nationals will be the legislated overweighting in NZ of the SuperFund I suppose - but it has longer-term growth implications and distortion impacts that I don't like. -
Greens will be around 13%
That puts me in parliament.
I guess I owe you a beer, then !
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I guess I owe you a beer, then !
Is that the Green's version of KFC ? ;-)
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What's worse:
- National alone
- National + Act
- National + Act + MaoriObviously, from any opposition's point of view, the government is automatically compromised, and therefore improved with the presence of Winnie.
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@ James.
I thought about the Greens but couldnt use the term stupid, in any form, in the same sentance. They're just too cuddly, sensible and nice. ;-)
I'm thinking of giving my party vote to NZF just to see the look on JK's face when Winnie gives him a big cheesy grin and tells him to F@%* off. -
What's his suggestion?
Credit controls, and more government intervention in the macro-economy generally.
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I voted today - I am busy tomorrow so I am not sure if I'll have time.
Two thoughts after voting at AUT.
1/ I queued for 40 minutes to vote. I was outraged, and 30 minutes into the wait I pulled out my piece of voting paper and made a call to the chief returning officier and asked the lovely who answered if she considered 40+ minutes acceptable??? She said no, and she would dispatch reinforcements post-haste to the polling station.
What a wonderful country we live in, no queueing for hours like the disgraceful system in the USA, and a disgruntled citizen can whip out his mobile and phone the chief returning officer direct to organise reinforcements.
2/ Given that with special voting and hui and coalition forming etc etc forming a government takes a reasonably liesurely amount of time, who do we just have a single voting day? Why can't we vote over a weekend? Apparently the ealry voting thing was a raging success in the US election.
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Thought I'd refresh my memory
2005 Morgan poll just prior to the election
Labour 38.5%
National 37 %Now, how does grand coalition sound? Maybe Helen & John could do an announcement just so we could see the look on the faces of Dunne et al, knowing they have just been made completely irrelevant!
I can dream.
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I guess I owe you a beer, then !
I shall hold you to that. Cheers.
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Why can't we vote over a weekend?
You've been able to cast early votes for weeks, does that count ?. I did that last time and it was a breeze, so am interested to here that AUT was oversubscribed.
I like the single general polling day approach because it means you get a result that night.
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"Labour have not done a good job on it at all, although I think it's fair to say both Kiwisaver and the SuperFund will directly reduce private debt in the longer-run."
Well I'm not sure about that because the amount that we collectively save will grow at a rate that will not grow as fast as debt servicing. Secondly, given that Kiwisaver and the SF are heavily focused on equities, we have a long, long haul to actually build any wealth.
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I pulled out my piece of voting paper and made a call to the chief returning officier and asked the lovely who answered if she considered 40+ minutes acceptable??? She said no, and she would dispatch reinforcements post-haste to the polling station.
Tom, that is awesome! I love this country's electoral system, and that's just one of the reasons.
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Credit controls, and more government intervention in the macro-economy generally.
Credit controls? Yikes, they've been out of fashion for a very long time...
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My major gripe is that the incumbent government has done nothing to warn people that their borrowings are funded offshore and the implications of that when it all turns to custard (as we're seeing now).
Only a nanny state would do something like that.
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It looks like a National Government would be poised to rip up climate legislation, with "the UN says global warming stopped in 1998" Rodney around the table, and a lot of National MPs who privately agree with him on doing nothing.
Business uber alles, it isn't happening, and even if it is we'll find solutions and invent our way out, and it will be much cheaper in 50 years when the economy is much much bigger. Never mind that this is close to the opposite of the position of highly respected economists and scientists.
(However, the Greens overreaction to GE wins them few friends and squanders their credibility.)
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Well I'm not sure about that because the amount that we collectively save will grow at a rate that will not grow as fast as debt servicing.
So you think Kiwisaver plans need to be made compulsory and slowly ramped up to some level above 5%?
ME TOO! :> -
Now, how does grand coalition sound?
Terrifying and disastrous all at once?
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However, the Greens overreaction to GE wins them few friends and squanders their credibility
Ya know what I like about the Greens this time round? My wife said the other day "but they've said nothing on economic policy", to which I replied "thank God" (all due respect to our Green members of course)
If the Greens specifically stick to sustainability, Kyoto-responses, environmental cleanliness etc I'd certainly be ticking them just to try and overweight those views - and this time round they seem to be more in that mode. Sticking to their organic, put-on-this-jumper-instead-of-the-heater knitting if you will...
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