Investing for the long term - a wise choice right now?

[greater fool]

Leaving aside the politics, do you not think economies around the world could do with some Keynesian pump prime spending at the moment? Granted, the K word has been a naughty word since the 1980s, but I don't think even the most Ardent(!) supporters of monetarism would say that system has been a roaring success between 2008-2019. I'm in favour of a bit of Government spending at the moment, we've got the balance sheet to do it and a massive backlog of infrastructure projects to complete just to bring it up to first world standards. The key will be in ensuring robust business like decisions are made with the cash and also that the debt/gdp ratio is not breached.

The problem is not which school of economics has the answers. Politics is the problem,so leaving it aside ain't going to solve anything.
Read some of these books, starting with Empire of Democracy.
Then Democracy Betrayed, The future is Asian, and The end of Myth.

https://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showth...l=1#post767921

Since the second world war the politicians have screwed voters over by abandoning them to market forces.
The end of the Social Contract sees services such health, education, welfare, social housing etc massively underfunded
and the politicians say 'we've done the best we can, but there's not enough money to do everything'. Austerity, Austerity, Austerity!
Meantime, an almost unlimited budget for something like moving Ports of Auckland to Northland.
The whole scheme is predicated not on your 'robust business like decisions', instead, we can sell the Auckland waterfront to property
developers and they can make a fortune.
By all means build the Auckland to Northland rail line, extend commuter rail on it, reducing congestion and greenhouse gases and all
that virtue signalling. And, build the rail to a standard that it could used as a contingency to Marsden Point pipeline failure,
solving another infrastructure deficit. I'd build heavy rail from Puhinui to Auckland Airport as well, use as commuter rail, saving
all those greenhouse gas emissions and congestion, and to get all that contingency jet fuel to the atmosphere killing Boeing and Airbuses.
Save another few $billion NOT building light rail down Dominion Rd.
Now if shippers currently using Ports of Auckland, can see a benefit in voluntarily using Northport and the railway, then Ports of
Auckland will downsize by attrition, can sell off the waterfront to property developers, and the $12billion cost to tax and rate payers
could instead be spent on fixing many of the ills that afflict society. End of Austerity.

[greater fool]

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