Hard News: What Now?
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Which prompts the question, how come borrowing that would have utterly buggered our economy a week ago, is now perfectly acceptable? How can both be true and responsible?
With all due and sincere respect to Tim, perhaps he’d like to give Emma some time to hide all her sharps then drop in for a cup of tea. I’m certainly feeling a tad stabby.
FFS, I still think Western economies have a serious and unsustainable debt habit that we can’t decently keep pushing off to our children but it’s even more irresponsible (and unspeakably callous) to let Christchurch die on the altar of ideological purity. Sorry for ranting, but I’m still too raw to get fully into the spirit of this kind of thought experiment.
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you either have to cut or borrow.
Say what? There's at least 2 more options: Raise tax (and any other income) or sell assets. Also any mixture of all four.
Also, there's incentivizing reconstruction by lowering tax on it. Tax cuts targeted at reconstruction, rather than just income or profit. -
giovanni tiso, in reply to
Sorry for ranting, but I’m still too raw to get fully into the spirit of this kind of thought experiment.
Hang from the tapestry if you must, but Watkins had asked a perfectly sensible question: how come ratings agencies, who are not known on the whole as sentimental types, are so relaxed about the economic repercussions of the earthquake on our economy? What has changed that makes borrowing suddenly okay?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Tapestry? How la-de-dah. :) Damn you for being the voice of reason, but the methodology of ratings agencies makes my brain cry. Any insight appreciated.
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Sacha, in reply to
What has changed that makes borrowing suddenly okay?
The credit agencies were always OK with our public debt levels, just not when you add in the private sector. And this government conflated that distinction before the quake to try to justify its ideological preferences. Now showing through a bit. That's all that's 'changed'.
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Sacha, in reply to
I’m still too raw to get fully into the spirit of this kind of thought experiment
Hence the other thread whose purity you and I pushed for. :)
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James Butler, in reply to
And I’m thinking, sentiment aside, that a City that has suffered more than 5 major earthquakes in its 150 year history is in the wrong place.
If you really want to take that to the reductio ad absurdum, the billions of human beings living at the rim of the Pacific basin are “in the wrong place”.
This picture has been doing the rounds a bit. What gets me is how many of the regions totally obscured by little earthquake dots are also historically highly liveable, populous areas - the whole Mediterranean + middle east, south-east Asia, central America. Perhaps it's no coincidence.
Cf. the nice rich, fertile soil you get around active volcanoes.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
The credit agencies were always OK with our public debt levels, just not when you add in the private sector. And this government conflated that distinction before the quake to try to justify its ideological preferences. Now showing through a bit. That's all that's 'changed'.
Bingo.
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Lew has a post at Kiwipolitico about Peter Hyde's report.
A crew toured Aranui yesterday, talking with the residents and broadcasting their concerns — lack of facilities, lack of attention, breakdown of the rule of law. Breakdown of the rule of law. People fleeing their homes because, at twilight, groups of people roam around casing houses for burglary.
The media must report this, and in some cases it has: but ultimately it is for the government to undertake a response which mitigates against this inequitably-distributed misery. And a government who is reportedly considering policy changes which will weigh heavily upon lower-income New Zealanders would be well-advised to look after those citizens’ response.
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Gordon Campbell accuses Bill English of Playing Politics with the tragedy in Christchurch.
If it looks like English is trying to exploit the earthquake for party political purposes, that’s because it is exactly what he is doing. Barely a week after the quake – and while many people in Christchurch are still lacking basic services – the government has begun to play politics with their plight.
I have been told several times to "STFU" and that "Now is not the time or place" to mention such things. However. The game goes on and we should not let our eyes off the ball. We know what these people want and we know they will do all in their power to get it, let us not give them any more power by turning a blind eye in the name of sensitivity.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
I think the words you are looking for are "Sorry, Emma, that was uncalled for."
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
The audio of the Power interivew on Nine to Noon is now live.
Okay, let's talk about this. First of all: "At this stage I had to ask myself how best to serve my own interest"? REALLY?
And the whole I'm going to go at a time of my own choosing? That's insane. He's the minister of everything in a party that is about to get a strong second mandate at a very delicate time in the nation's history. He's 41. And he's in a rush to get a private sector job three years early?
I don't know what the behind-the-scene is in all this, but what's in front of the scene is pathetic.
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Paul Williams, in reply to
Peter Hyde (Vicki's partner) has written this pretty good summary of the situation right now, especially in the Eastern suburbs.
Wow. That's quite an account and largely what I'd heard on the w/e.
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Sacha, in reply to
I have been told several times to "STFU" and that "Now is not the time or place" to mention such things.
That's what this thread is for, now. Not last week.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
That's what this thread is for, now.
Suggesting that people should leave the region or move into bouncy castles is still going to be frowned upon, I would hope, now and forever.
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People fleeing their homes because, at twilight, groups of people roam around casing houses for burglary.
Yet the Police seem to be concentrating on the CBD and have been stopping concerned family members from searching for their loved ones, I know these people are "Not Qualified" and "Maybe a danger to themselves and others" but the breakdown of public order at the fringes of society are a greater problem. We do not want a free for all instead of an organised response but neither do we need further disempowerment of the local populace, the feelings of helplessness are turning to desperation in the poorer parts of town and the people would be better served by increased aid and protection where it is needed right now rather than the blanket shutdown of society by the police, as seems to be their reaction to all situations where they feel they need to be in charge.
We remember the outcry over their control over the Pike River disaster, the feeling that the families and friends, in fact the entire country, were shut out of the information loop, we know that a lack of clear information leads to speculation and distrust so why the heavy hand?. The Police would do well to remember that they are empowered to serve not control, to protect not persecute.
Unless this situation is addressed by the Government then I see the social damage from this horrendous set of events becoming a nightmare of its own. -
Sacha, in reply to
Gordon Campbell accuses Bill English of Playing Politics with the tragedy in Christchurch.
Campbell makes some clear points, as usual.
Every candidate for spending restraint and revenue relief that has surfaced in the past 48 hours (Working for Families criteria, interest free student loans, postponing or scrapping the CBD rail loop in Auckland, the partial privatisation of state energy companies etc) was on the government’s political wish list well before the earthquake.
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Government spending is, after all, only one half of the revenue equation. If English wants this to be a genuine process, all forms and all rates of revenue gathering should also be back on the table, including (a) the possibility of a special national tax levy for Christchurch and (b) a review of the government’s highly skewed tax cuts programme.
The principle behind reviewing the criteria for Working for Families is supposedly that certain upper middle class families have little need for the WFF subsidy. Well, if means testing is to become the new norm, the same principle should be applied to the tax cuts programme – given that its benefits were showered disproportionately on the least needy income earners in New Zealand.
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Why should WFF middle income earners, students and Aucklanders be selected out to shoulder the main burden of the quake, and of the government’s related borrowing programme? Last year, no such restraint was in evidence when nearly $2 billion was magically found to bail out the investors in Alan Hubbard’s business empire.
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Sacha, in reply to
Suggesting that people should leave the region or move into bouncy castles is still going to be frowned upon, I would hope, now and forever.
Respect applies, yes
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Suggesting that people should leave the region or move into bouncy castles is still going to be frowned upon, I would hope, now and forever.
Then frown on.
Examples of inflatable shelters.
The 40 Second
Inflatable Shelter
Airshelter
LifeCube -
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
REDACTED
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Sacha, in reply to
shut out of the information loop
Reading that Peter Hyde piece, it sounds like an urgent investment in door-to-door circulation of clear printed material is warranted - and asking at the same time what each household needs. Then repeating the process regularly.
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Sacha, in reply to
frown on
not helpful - and you do want to help, right?
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Damn these multiple posts!!!! Have put Peter Hydes link on the other thread as well.
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Islander, in reply to
Sacha - those pages of inflatable shelters (with other links to other kinds of emergency shelters) - are a good & helpful idea. Marae & hall/school emergency
shelters are good for a night or so, but in the Otautahi instance, there should be serious contemplation of other forms of temporary emergency accomodation. -
Sacha, in reply to
Damn these multiple posts!!!! Have put Peter Hydes link on the other thread as well.
This thread is about what to do, the politics. There's another thread about media coverage. And the original about personal experiences.
Naturally, around here they'll all get mixed together. :)
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