If National wins ...

[iceman]

Yet another proof we are slowly heading in the right direction while most other western economies are either stuck or going backwards



http://www.nzherald.co.nz/economy/ne...ectid=10881702

[slimwin]

If say they haven't started fixing things that aren't broken in dairy. Unlike the greens will.

[Major von Tempsky]

I think the lesson in that very interesting Herald article is for EZ and Possum who are always bewailing the state of NZ manufacturing.
It clearly shows that unlike Australia, NZ manufacturing is growing.

However I'm still not convinced that NZ manufacturing should grow apart from niche and hard to transport items.
I'd be happier, if it gave an overall higher standard of living to NZ, for manufacturing to nearly disappear so we could concentrate on our activities in which we have a comparative advantage - agriculture, horticulture, fishing, forestry, tourism and services. Let the Bangladeshis make our clothes and the Vietnamese our shoes....

[POSSUM THE CAT]

Major Von Tempsky what are the other 80% of the population going to be Employed. Even if you can export all the production as there will be nobody here with Money to buy more than a small portion of what is produced.

[elZorro]

I think the lesson in that very interesting Herald article is for EZ and Possum who are always bewailing the state of NZ manufacturing.
It clearly shows that unlike Australia, NZ manufacturing is growing.

However I'm still not convinced that NZ manufacturing should grow apart from niche and hard to transport items.
I'd be happier, if it gave an overall higher standard of living to NZ, for manufacturing to nearly disappear so we could concentrate on our activities in which we have a comparative advantage - agriculture, horticulture, fishing, forestry, tourism and services. Let the Bangladeshis make our clothes and the Vietnamese our shoes....

MVT, if dairying is so good, why are nearly half of all dairy farmers going to report a loss for the last season? Because their interest costs and other farm overheads swamped out their income during the drought. In any case, normal returns are modest. Looking at the smaller size of our country, how much longer will we have before the exporting of our technology overseas results in powerful competitors in low-waged economies? The data is worse for drystock farmers. As PTC states, these businesses are all low in employee count.

Where did we suggest our manufacturers should be making shoes and clothes? Only at the very top end. But if you use your imagination a bit more, you'd see there are a lot of other areas we should be having a go at.

Finally, I'd be interested in your figures on the number employed in manufacturing here since say, 2003. You might be right about it increasing lately, that's because the GFC effect was made worse by National's policy of removing a lot of assistance to struggling SMEs, to help fund the tax breaks. Only now is National realising that they may have put the brakes on too hard. Stephen Joyce was on TV the other day exhorting SMEs to gear up and take on staff. And we're looking at him and wondering if National's finished gutting the public sector yet.

We're getting two conflicting messages.

[craic]

Have a look at todays figures - reflected in a rampant sharemarket up over 40 points. Dairy farmers report a loss because many of them were not dairy farmers before and bought into this sector at nonsensical prices in the belief that inflation would bale them out. This is the same equation that investors use on the share market - sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

[iceman]

iceman - are you claiming the current, and very mediocre, National party invented diary farming and house price inflation?

Not sure how you read that from my post Belg ! But I do think the current Government has found a reasonably successful way in between extreme austerity which risks causing too much hardship for many and extreme and irresponsible borrow/spend/print money policies that are proving to be completely ineffectual around the World.
NZ is benefiting and slowly working itself out of the World recession quicker and better than most. That's just a simple fact, wherever you look, but of course we can and should do better.

I spend a lot of my time traveling all around the World and its easy to see (and people tell you) that most of the countries and people I visit, would love to have their economies as healthy as ours currently is.

The constant nagging and negativity about NZ from you Lefties annoys me ! Stop concentrating on the negative and wake up and smell the roses

[fungus pudding]

Not sure how you read that from my post Belg ! But I do think the current Government has found a reasonably successful way in between extreme austerity which risks causing too much hardship for many and extreme and irresponsible borrow/spend/print money policies that are proving to be completely ineffectual around the World.
NZ is benefiting and slowly working itself out of the World recession quicker and better than most. That's just a simple fact, wherever you look, but of course we can and should do better.

I spend a lot of my time traveling all around the World and its easy to see (and people tell you) that most of the countries and people I visit, would love to have their economies as healthy as ours currently is.

The constant nagging and negativity about NZ from you Lefties annoys me ! Stop concentrating on the negative and wake up and smell the roses

Exactly. A trip abroad does put things in perspective. The other comment often heard abroad is how lucky we are to have such a good Prime Minister. He's universally popular. Without a doubt he has drummed up huge publicity for New Zealand. Quite right about the negativity too. It gets pretty tiring. A change of attitude would certainly help in a lot of cases.

[Major von Tempsky]

He's doing a darn good job, the IMF and other countries think so, better now than Australia (which happens to be Labour) he is streets ahead of any other NZ politician in popular support.
Possum, you really really need a course in Economics and the advantages of specialisation and exchange through overseas trade.
Any decrease in manufacturing will be taken up by the expansion of the other sectors I mentioned and NZ's standard of living will be rather higher than it is now.

[iceman]

So the Green/Labour petition was found to have around 100,000 false or duplicated signatures. What a disgrace and they, particularly the Greens & Russel Norman who have lead and used tax payer funds for this fiasco, should hang their heads in shame. A ridiculous waste of tax payers money !
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=10882084