If National wins ...

[Daytr]

BP, Greenspan was an avid follower of Randism & convinced the likes of Clinton that with less regulation, market forces would ultimately be self correcting to create a balance. The lack of regulation as well as the non enforcement of regulatory controls were some of the main drivers of the GFC. Even Greenspan now admits he got that wrong. One of ACT's major pieces of policy is a to reduce regulation.
Luckily the ACT party isn't a political force so we don't really need to be concerned what there policies are or how naïve they are either.

[BlackPeter]

BP, Greenspan was an avid follower of Randism & convinced the likes of Clinton that with less regulation, market forces would ultimately be self correcting to create a balance. The lack of regulation as well as the non enforcement of regulatory controls were some of the main drivers of the GFC. Even Greenspan now admits he got that wrong. One of ACT's major pieces of policy is a to reduce regulation.
Luckily the ACT party isn't a political force so we don't really need to be concerned what there policies are or how naïve they are either.

Hi Daytr, you sound like a broken record ... but I don't really care whom Greenspan followed. Can't remember that I've been asked to approve his policies - and not sure either, how you want to make ACT responsible for his contribution to the GFC (hey, it was not just him alone ...).

You seem to think quite "linear" ... if there is something wrong with the current system, and if we can stop what's wrong with another regulation, than you just need to add them to the current ballast until it is right. Is this really NZF think?

Look - our economy is already now severely overburdened by unpredictable and tedious bureaucracy and useless red tape. Just some examples: Companies need to pay staff to fill out requests for grants to return to them (maybe) some of the taxes they originally paid. Stupid. Getting consents for anything in this country is a long drawn out, unpredictable and very expensive process. If you want e.g. to put a wee solar system onto your roof (we did), than the required resource consent is nearly as expensive as the solar system. However - we could apply for a grant (feeding more bureaucrats) which returned something like the GST on what the council charged us for permitting a system which had no impact whatsoever on any neighbours. Stupid. Try to build a wee shed and check with your local council what the consenting process would costs.

Sure, adding another bureaucratic straightjacket might help us to break the economies back, meaning it won't do anything undesirable anymore, but it won't do a lot of good either.

Instead of just adding more useless policies, laws, ministries, databases and taxes to all the ballast we already have ... maybe there is a better way: take all the ballast away and control the horse just with a light set of reigns. See - this would be an intelligent solution to the problem ...

[Major von Tempsky]

"Greenspan was an avid follower of Randism ". What a transparently ignorant quote! It's like saying Keynes was a follower of Michael Joseph Savage! Bizarre!

Greenspan was and is an eminent economist, eminent enough to be appointed as head of the Federal Reserve. Rand is/was (father and son) an ignorant US right winger unqualified in economics. I rather doubt that Greenspan even bothered to read media reports of what Rand was saying.

There is right wing and right wing and that part of it which is well qualified in economics is worth listening to. If you are going to make some startling way out of left field quotes lets have some that compute.

[Daytr]

I wasn't blaming ACT for the GFC, they are hardly a political force in NZ let alone globally ! haha
Quite a ridiculous assertion.
What I was saying is that their philosophy is similar to that of Randism in regards market forces & this is something that Greenspan bought into & its that sort of philosophy that took almost took the capitalist system to its knees.

Haven't you been saying the economy is just fine under National? Not that I agree with that, however its not the red tape that I am concerned with its the corporatization on anything and everything & the ever growing government debt that has spiraled to elevated levels under National.
I am sure there are some improvements that could be made in regards red tape, however letting people just do things willy-nilly is not a great idea either.
Anyway I was more referring to economic policy.
One light set of reigns would mean those with the might would take the system for all its worth and at the expense of others.
In egalitarian society or the perfect world I could actually agree with some of their philosophy, but unfortunately that is not the world we live in or what has been proven to be human nature & that is where this sort of agenda comes unstuck and is naïve, not intelligent as you suggest.

[Major von Tempsky]

Continuing wrong headed quotes "& this is something that Greenspan bought into" !!?? Au contraire Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Margaret Yellen && don't buy into any of "Randism"!

Here's one example for you if you can understand it, it is part of economic theory and practice that in certain limited and unusual occasions that quantitative easing is necessary i.e. printing of banknotes to keep it simple. However the Rands totally disagree that quantitative easing should ever be used and in fact talked of legal action to stop it! Because they thought it would automatically cause runaway inflation regardless of the economic circumstances of the time.
Also ACT has enough qualified economists such as Dr Brash that Randism whatever it is would not ever be consulted!

Let me tell you as a qualified and practicing economist of some decades standing that neither Rand has been used in any of the economics courses around the Western world. You give the Rands a vast overstated prominence - they are just not referred to in economic literature or practice.

[elZorro]

"Greenspan was an avid follower of Randism ". What a transparently ignorant quote! It's like saying Keynes was a follower of Michael Joseph Savage! Bizarre!

Greenspan was and is an eminent economist, eminent enough to be appointed as head of the Federal Reserve. Rand is/was (father and son) an ignorant US right winger unqualified in economics. I rather doubt that Greenspan even bothered to read media reports of what Rand was saying.

There is right wing and right wing and that part of it which is well qualified in economics is worth listening to. If you are going to make some startling way out of left field quotes lets have some that compute.

MVT: you're a bit off-beam here. Ayn Rand was a woman, and she certainly had an influence on Alan Greenspan in his formative years.

http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/greenspan-time.html

In the years following the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand received numerous letters from readers, some of whom it profoundly influenced. In 1951 Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers around her. This group (jokingly designated "The Collective") included future Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff.

According to Wikipedia anyway. Here endeth the lesson.

[Daytr]

Did I refer to QE MVT? As Greenspan didn't implement QE its hardly relevant. As an economist I would have thought you may know this. I also think you need to update your research on what Greenspan's influences were, Ayn Rand was certainly a significant one.

[elZorro]

MVT: Let me tell you as a qualified and practicing economist of some decades standing that neither Rand has been used in any of the economics courses around the Western world. You give the Rands a vast overstated prominence - they are just not referred to in economic literature or practice.

Never heard of Ayn Rand MVT? I hadn't until a year or so ago, but then I'm not an economist of long standing like yourself. Anyone interested in the economy of the USA would surely know of her work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/bu...tlas.html?_r=0

Bluster doesn't always work, does it. But I can see ACT voters liking her ideas. It's apparently quite justifiable to live only for yourself.

[Daytr]

EZ, perhaps our eminent resident economist MVT was referring to Rand Paul. haha.
Rand never used in economic texts, really!
Someone hasn't studies very widely as an economist.

[elZorro]

EZ, perhaps our eminent resident economist MVT was referring to Rand Paul. haha.
Rand never used in economic texts, really!
Someone hasn't studied very widely as an economist.

I think history has proven that unfettered capitalism doesn't work long term, and that a mix of progressive policies is better. The trickle-down theory doesn't work near as well as National/ACT people think, that's part of the story. Ayn Rand's ideas are quite extreme liberal right-wing, and she lived her life the same way.

More on the difficulty of renters to get ahead these days. NZHerald editorial on Auckland housing.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/n...y+30+July+2015