It turns out that I can't see a marked improvement in the equality of NZers during the last Labour term. Inequality (the Gini coefficient) trended down a bit, and there has been a small rise during the National term until 2013. But looking at the massive impact of Roger Douglas' globalisation theory in 1984, it probably took a year or two for businesses to fold, and for the new SOEs to shed staff. National carried on the work, and inequality in NZ rose quickly from around 1988 and peaked around 1997 or so. After 2008, National were obliged to keep interest free student loans and WFF tax rebates that were put in place by Labour. If they had not kept these, they would not be in office now.
The OECD average inequality has also been trending up towards the NZ figures, but remember we started the process first in the world, we were the guinea pigs.
Cuzzie, you can be sure that National will be talking to the Internet Party too (just in case) ... Wouldn't you look silly if National cuddle up to them ... [evil grin] ... You'll have to eat your words.
I agree that it's important for youths to have good work ethics. But it's hard for them to find part-time work in their interest areas, and with unemployment stubbornly higher at 6.2% compared with Labour's 3.7%, it's harder than it was. Many adults are already in part-time low-paid work. So my point is that unemployment is higher now, than it was under Labour.
You can't deny that food banks are getting more stretched, and I don't think much of it is due to a handout mentality. Energy and housing costs, schooling costs, clothing and food costs, they all add up. Right-wing people are too fond of simply saying "get a job". For some of these people, with their skills, presentation and location not being perfect, there are no spare jobs. Hence the impossible queues for unskilled jobs. I know some people are homeless by choice, but it's not a good look in central Auckland. There are a few scattered around Hamilton too. Homeless shelters are overstretched, again a lack of govt funding that would be in all of the taxpayers' interests.
SMEs have been neglected more than usual by the current National govt, as I frequently point out. Denied access to quote on govt contracts with the advantage of being taxpayers, chopped out of really big deals, R&D credits dropped. Many were upset about that, it made no difference. GST up, more cashflow to be careful about. Watching on while big (overseas sometimes) businesses get the larger govt grants (R&D etc), special deals (SKY), tax breaks (movies). No real action on tax haven companies, which only the wealthy bother about setting up.
In case you didn't notice or research it, the trickle down theory that the Nats and Act are so keen on, is a lie. It doesn't work here, it never has, and it has never worked anywhere else in the world. It widens the inequality gap, very similar to the trend caused by globalisation.
Faced with these facts, Labour did an about-turn in 1999 and set up sensible policy until 2008, that protected the average citizens of NZ, while encouraging SMEs. It worked really well, and you've seen the employment data, the increase in SMEs, the better tax take, the budget surpluses and the paid off old government debt.
You are very fond of the current account trend Cuzzie. It does trend quickly back towards zero just after National got in (2008). Now it's moving back towards where it was when Labour was in office. It was nothing to do with clever policy by National, you must know that.
After the GFC in mid 2008, the private sector stopped buying in overseas goods in a big way. We closed our chequebooks. Some even started saving. But as soon as things started coming right, we all (on average) started spending more than we were earning again. It's not all bad, those wanting to sell houses, cars, etc can spin them on, and it's not as extended as it was. But no govt can hope to change the buying behaviour of the whole country, that's just who we are. I'm more interested in the govt budget figures, and you haven't taken me to task on that.
Pushing long-term beneficiaries out into work is probably a good idea. 20 years should be long enough to find a job, or to train up for one. You'd probably find the jobs are subsidised for a term. But I challenge you to employ a few people yourself, if you want to be on higher moral ground. I'd like to see FP employ someone, for example.
As said by EZ. EZ I went and had a look at the Reserve Bank of NZ current accounts balance chart here: http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/k...rrent_account/ and those figures have not changed after your comments. I realise it is a massive inconvenient truth for you EZ, but the figures don't lie no matter how much you try to alter the facts contained or complain about them.
As for Labour's low unemployment rate between 2005/07, care to tell me how many University students took up Helen Clark's bribe which drove the unemployed rates down and the countries deficit up? I don't know myself, but that would be very interesting to find out.
EZ, basically I find your comments nothing more than Left Wing ramblings, nothing special or new.
Funny how you & belboy relied so heavily on the fat one to undermine National. I would like to know why you support a criminal over NZ's most successful P.M ever? Funny indeed. Even more hilarious is the infighting going on within the Internet party right now. Oh no what this - Alastair Thompson has quit as Internet Party general secretary amid rumours of infighting, here's a link: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/scoop-e...-interest-p-CK . The fat boy has felt the heat of running a political party in five minutes of no fame. What did you expect?
Move on to Russel Normans grand plain to dish out more time, money and food to poor kids at low decile schools and Labour supporting it. More evidence of turning NZ into a Nana state. Good-grief are they working for National now? That will drive votes towards National. I say how about Govt. handouts are only food vouchers and rent supplements towards families in need. Support them yes but take away the easy money to go out and buy booze, cigarettes and gambling money and then maybe they can feed their kids that they could not afford to have in the first place. I know that will fire you up, but I know I'm right.
Cuzzie, please read the official text under that Current Account graph again. It explains why you are incorrect in your interpretation of what would otherwise be a pretty enough chart for National to campaign with. (I wonder if they'll reproduce a chart of govt budget surpluses and deficits since, say, 1995, for voters to look at). In the 3-4 yr period before the GFC, things in NZ were humming along really well. I expect the large negative current account totals until 2009 are from large capital investments that businesses made, along with private consumption. After 2008 expansion plans were put on hold, and quite a few jobs were lost as businesses took the cue from the National govt's behaviour.
The student loan interest free "bribe" was nothing more than a move by Labour to redress the fact that students now pay a much bigger portion of their tertiary education than the generations before them. The govt gets this money at a low interest cost, in fact they could print it if they liked. 422,000 students were in tertiary courses in 2012, the figure has gone up strongly since about 2002. Partly because there are fewer jobs available. Students are moving from certificate courses to degree courses, and there were 147,000 graduates at bachelors level and above in 2012.
This is a big voting block (the students and their parents and families), and it's no wonder the Nats might suggest the interest free loans are a bribe that Labour hobbled them with, but they'll never take that away either.
Status quo on the Internet Party, it looks like Dotcom's latest ventures are losing money, and he's not that good at paying wages at the moment. So his fan club might quickly disperse.
I've looked at the data Cuzzie, it's a myth that the average family size in poor areas of NZ is very much above the norm. It's back a few pages somewhere.
Point is, you don't refute anything - you don't prove anything - other than the painfully obvious fact that you are on opposite sides of a fence that neither of you will ever be interested in crossing 'till the day you die. You search for and find fellow travellers who are then the goodies and the friends of the fellow on the other side of the fence are baddies. And all you do is waste vast amounts of time fortifying your position with large heaps of reused rubbish that only you and your fellow travellers believe or value. Sooner or later the public decide and you will not be able to have the grace to say that they were right if the do not deliver your verdict ,and if they do, you will crow like a rooster in the mistaken belief that the worm has turned and you are heading for paradise - but you're not - only as far as the next election.
Points noted Craic. I'm not being that selective in the facts that I post, these facts invariably telling me I'm on the right track regarding my voting choice if I want a fairer NZ to live in. And coincidentally, one in which my small business will prosper.
You're probably a fan of the Roger Douglas reforms. Here's an interview from about 2008. He is still completely confident he did the right things. One of his performance measures is not equality, that's for sure. While he, and later National, were conducting their experiment on us, Australia had measured and steady reforms going on, some protectionism. They raced ahead of us in the OECD rankings during those years. Roger Douglas reckons we should have gone at globalisation harder, and not stopped part way. I'm glad Lange and Cullen and others had the sense to halt some of the worst side-effects, and keep Douglas off the financial levers.
I'm not a fan of anyone. I arrived here, illegally, fifty odd years ago with the shirt on my back and nothing else. Of my three offspring, all adults long since, two have degrees, all paid and the third has a major business. Of my three grandchildren, two girls are doing exceptionally well and my only grandson, at nine years, has already passed the exam to go into Hampton (London) when he turns eleven. No one in my family has ever had to be fed by the state, in or out of school. And it didn't matter a stuff who was in power, left or right, I provide for my family.
I'm not a fan of anyone. I arrived here, illegally, fifty odd years ago with the shirt on my back and nothing else. Of my three offspring, all adults long since, two have degrees, all paid and the third has a major business. Of my three grandchildren, two girls are doing exceptionally well and my only grandson, at nine years, has already passed the exam to go into Hampton (London) when he turns eleven. No one in my family has ever had to be fed by the state, in or out of school. And it didn't matter a stuff who was in power, left or right, I provide for my family.
Yep, OK, that's fair enough. You've worked smart and hard, it has turned out well. My younger family is going fine too, on a smaller scale. But don't you think it would be a lot easier for all of us if there weren't so many economic disturbances, if things stayed on a more even keel?
I was having a look at the GDP/capita data for NZ and Aussie. There are other benchmarks, but this is a common one. We kept our trend with Aussie until 2008, and then we had a big problem for a few years. Now it's starting to recover, but the US$ GDP figures (note the colours, two ranges) are a long way different. $28,000 for us, $38,000 for Aussie.
My theory that Cuzzie helped out with, is that as staff were dropped in NZ, and imported capital equipment must have dropped back a lot from 2008, we lost all of our ability to improve our productivity. After all, the strong message from National was to hunker down. In fact, we are producing less per person now, than we were in 2008. A bright future indeed.
Treasury: After a record merchandise trade deficit of $7.3 billion in early 2006, strong growth in the terms of trade helped reduce the deficit to $5.0 billion in the year to September 2008. Weak domestic demand, uncertainty surrounding the global economic environment and a sharp depreciation in the New Zealand dollar produced a large drop in imported goods at the beginning of 2009. Domestic demand picked up again in 2010 as the domestic economy recovered from recession.
This was the excuse for the cuts to non-essential services, to defray the lower tax rate for high earners.
I'm not a fan of anyone. I arrived here, illegally, fifty odd years ago with the shirt on my back and nothing else. Of my three offspring, all adults long since, two have degrees, all paid and the third has a major business. Of my three grandchildren, two girls are doing exceptionally well and my only grandson, at nine years, has already passed the exam to go into Hampton (London) when he turns eleven. No one in my family has ever had to be fed by the state, in or out of school. And it didn't matter a stuff who was in power, left or right, I provide for my family.
Good on you craic, you remind me of my in-laws. They came legally from England in the early 70s with bugger all. Talk about the father-in-law work hard. He worked his a** off as he had to. That carried on when he got ahead and now enjoys an early retirement, well sort of as he still keeps his hand in bits and pieces. He is a wealthy man. I'm 7th generation Kiwi and proud of it. My wife and I worked hard right from the start and got ahead the hard way. Always brought everything for cash except for our first house and that mortgage was paid off within the decade. I worked 14 hour days for 7 years without any holidays to achieve that self employed and my wife was pulling in a good wage as a reg. nurse. There was no way my in-laws where ever going to be Labour voters and no way I would support the bulging party and help them support the lazy and useless. Lets come back into the present day and I can see a big problem for Labour and the Greenies in the next election. The new crop of immigrants into NZ. Like the English, Dutch and others in the 60s, 70s & 80s, the newest New Zealanders are hard workers. South Africans, Asians and Indians(Fiji & mainland). There are more Asians than Maoris in NZ now and they mostly vote to the right of center. Why? Because they are hard working and don't want their money ending up in the hands that think Manual Labour was a Bull Fighter. Get the picture E.Z? I see Labour as a swear word as do quite a few, I can assure you of that. Help yourself get ahead and work towards a future, or stick your hand out and expect others to do everything for you. If you take the 2nd option then then you have set your sights too low and will always find yourself left of center.
Cuzzie, please read the official text under that Current Account graph again. It explains why you are incorrect in your interpretation of what would otherwise be a pretty enough chart for National to campaign with.
Thanks EZ and this is what it states. "The Balance of Payments statements set out a country’s transactions with the rest of the world. The current account balance is the sum of the balances of trade in goods and services, current transfers, and investment income. More simply, the current account measures what a country saves minus what it spends or invests. The graph shows that since 1990, New Zealand has been a net borrower. Thus, the current account deficit has reflected the amounts of other countries’ savings that New Zealand has had to borrow, in order to finance spending. The last time that New Zealand was a net saver — that is, had a current account surplus — was 1973." Thanks for pointing me in that direction EZ, your making my replies oh too easy.
So if Cullen & Clark did so well during their tender as you are always going on about, they must of spent and incredible amount more money than I thought. Thanks for pointing this out too EZ. As stated, "More simply, the current account measures what a country saves minus what it spends or invests." I'll spell that out to you EZ, when we take off the spending from the last three terms by Labour per year from the amount of earnings plus savings we get a final figure. Maybe if Cullen had not gambled our money away in the NZ Super Fund they would of been $880.75 million better off. Here is a link to hopeless Cullen burning 8.8 million of the NZ public money. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/650238 Looks like you will have to knock the stuff.co website too now and state they meant to say something else too. For Labour that is the worst ever since records began and the reason 70% of NZers voted Helen Clark and her mad men/women out of Parliament.I've come to the conclusion that you need to do quite a bit of fact altering EZ, that must be a lefty thing to and is total foreign to me.
Thanks EZ and this is what it states. "The Balance of Payments statements set out a country’s transactions with the rest of the world. The current account balance is the sum of the balances of trade in goods and services, current transfers, and investment income. More simply, the current account measures what a country saves minus what it spends or invests. The graph shows that since 1990, New Zealand has been a net borrower. Thus, the current account deficit has reflected the amounts of other countries’ savings that New Zealand has had to borrow, in order to finance spending. The last time that New Zealand was a net saver — that is, had a current account surplus — was 1973." Thanks for pointing me in that direction EZ, your making my replies oh too easy.
So if Cullen & Clark did so well during their tender as you are always going on about, they must of spent and incredible amount more money than I thought. Thanks for pointing this out too EZ. As stated, "More simply, the current account measures what a country saves minus what it spends or invests." I'll spell that out to you EZ, when we take off the spending from the last three terms by Labour per year from the amount of earnings plus savings we get a final figure. Maybe if Cullen had not gambled our money away in the NZ Super Fund they would of been $880.75 million better off. Here is a link to hopeless Cullen burning 8.8 million of the NZ public money. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/650238 Looks like you will have to knock the stuff.co website too now and state they meant to say something else too. For Labour that is the worst ever since records began and the reason 70% of NZers voted Helen Clark and her mad men/women out of Parliament.I've come to the conclusion that you need to do quite a bit of fact altering EZ, that must be a lefty thing to and is total foreign to me.
Cussie, Do you work on the principle if you say something often enough it will become fact?
The NZ superannuation fund established by Labour has shown an 9.57% return since inception and now stands at $25.2 billion. Incidently National stopped contributions but still holds thier hands out for tax.
Since John Key was elected Govt borrowing averages $27 million per day and is now over $60 billion
In 2007 Govt debt was 17.45% of GDP It is now 36%
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Originally Posted by belgarion
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