Govt chooses to cut debt & whittle down cash pile ahead of investing more heavily to improve housing & climate for future generations, just as it's done since 1989; Fed blinks and will tighten faster
A question for my paying subscribers. Should I open this up to the public now, in order to spread this around more? I'm happy to if this comment gets more than 10 likes. I try to keep plenty exclusive for those who have paid good hard money. But I wonder if opening it up would be useful to keep the debate going. Thoughts?
I subscribe to support your work, because I see the vein of your analysis as important. I'd be very happy if incisive pieces like this that could influence the public Overton Window were made publicly available.
I'd be happy to see your column and thoughts spread out to everyone. That video of you and John Campbell should be seen by every Kiwi who cares about their country, and the government's twisted priorities have to be exposed and stopped. The gov is directly attacking the poor and increasing inequality, and justifying it all with some nebulous concepts like "balance" and "fiscal responsibility". Sickening.
Ah, this is Thursday's podcast, which I'm listen to today (Friday). Bernard I wonder if everyone has moved onto today's (Friday) podcast & comments and thus will miss your question above?
Just subscribed yesterday after following for a while. The occasional opening up reminded me of the excellent analysis I was missing out on. So I subscribed to support the work and therefore hopefully make it more common in the discourse. Open it up I say!
Kant famously said ‘Ought implies can.’ I think that applies viscerally here. The govt can only do what it has the social licence and political capital to do. Actually doing what needs to be done to fix the housing crisis and tackle climate change is political suicide, and if they are not in power, then they cannot do anything at all, which makes it a self-defeating action.
The political capital generated by the public narrative is in such a dire state because the largest portion of the demographic bell-curve has, inevitably, succumbed to a century of public-relations and marketing sophistry... The public have no idea what is real anymore, no one is taking Epistemic responsibility for what they believe, and given that what we believe informs what we do, it is therefore impossible for them to take moral responsibility for their actions (such as the political capital their flaccid epistemology creates in the voting booth).
I fear the balance between our positive-rights (our freedom to do) and negative-rights (our freedom from the actions of others) is being lost in this society-wide epistemic cascade failure, with positive rights (”My freedom!”) trumping negative rights (”Everyone elses freedom!”) far too often (which is logically self-defeating)! There is only one of you to enjoy your positive-rights to act, but seven billion enjoy their negative-rights to be free from your action. Framed like this, the moral calculus is obvious.
The solution is popularising the notion of epistemic responsibility in the public narrative. But as with all feedback loops in any complex and highly contextual system, if that process takes too long, the solution arrives too late :(
I congratulate Bernard on his work expanding the public’s epistemic armoury, his arrows see perhaps the straightest around at the moment, but I feel any kind of upwards blame upon government is fundamental attribution-bias. Such blame is better levelled out into the community generating the political capital determining the politicians actions, and especially at the media who ‘inform’ that public narrative. If anybody should be taking moral responsibility for their lack of epistemic responsibility, it is our sensationalist revenue-driven media, whose actions are first driven by our consumption habits. So I guess we can only blame ourselves! That’s never going to sell enough advertising to catch on though is it :(
Chris. This is a thoughtful and insightful comment. Many thanks. I would have made it comment of the day but my email was too long for it to fit today. You make great points, many of which I agree with. I see my role as expanding that Overton Window of polite discussion to include these sorts of things. The only way I can do it is to be free of sponsorship and advertising. I worked out 8 years ago subscriptions are the only way to really focus on the news as it is. Thanks for your support, and to everyone else here. This post and the response has gladdened my heart for Christmas.
One of the most influential figures in western history was Socrates. All he did was incessantly ask awkward questions. He was thought of as a "Gadfly". Keep up that continual buzzing in the governments ear Bernard. Other journos are catching on and more people than you know are listening.
Thanks DJA. As I've said a few times, being unelectable and unemployable can be useful sometimes. Will keep it up. Thanks for the support and encouragement. I see my job as to ask as many questions as possible. I welcome plenty more in these comment threads.
Is there any doubt anymore that the genuine role of government is to keep the people down and the elite in control? How is it that the gov can do anything they want to us simply by invoking the "debt" word? Debt rules, and so we have food banks, poverty, homelessness, inequality. Why? Who says? Aside from a bit of cash, money is a number on a computer screen, that's all folks. There is no shortage. At any time the gov can fund anything it decides to fund, debt-free. Underfunding of social supports betrays its true agenda.
The pfa needs to be tossed or rewritten. Imagine the preamble: This Act ensures that public spending on social supports will be fully funded by the New Zealand Treasury, debt-free and in the public interest, to guarantee that no Kiwi will ever suffer the indignity of food insecurity, homelessness, or poverty.
Grrrr this makes me so ratty! Comparatively we have some of the lowest national debt in the world. We also have masses of social issues & our infrastructure is straining. Grant Robertson et al need to cut the bullshit & fix the Public Finance Act. I'm over neo-liberal ideology running our country & it's now & future stakeholders into the ground. I want my grandkids & all the young ones in my community to have quality social services, functional infrastructure & optimism that things can be done better. We need politicians & voters to consider larger/different/more compassionate perspectives. And if that means my home devalues, so be it.
To true! As soon as any government sits down and get underway in their three-term year they are making decision to butter up voters to ensure they get re-elected in 3 years time. Bloody depressing as cant see either party going out of their way to change it to at least 4 year terms. Can you imagine the outcry of the great unwashed thinking either party was trying to stay in power for longer!
Thankyou Erina and DJA. Not my intention to make people cry. I try to smile as I talk. As if I was explaining it to my Mum. She's lovely and thinks a lot about these things, but not as a policy wonk. Helps me try to talk empathetically and simply and answer the obvious questions. Cheers.
Bernard- really like your analysis thankyou-- but isnt it even worse? As your first IMF public debt comparison shows NZ debt is very very low because the IMF includes what Grant R refuses to- the assets of the NZ super fund.
By not acknowledging that these assets offet the gross debt he can pretend the debt situation is more alarming than it actually is- and hence the case for fiscal stringency.
I think the real resource contraints are the issue not the money- which is why we must divert materials away from luxury housing with appropriate tax. But redistribution to give enough money to those who are at the foodbanks is not an action contrained by resources-- the true contraint is the ideology of needing to give the poor incentives to better themselves
Absolutely a great point Susan. Yep. $60b and counting to add on. Net net debt would be 19% with that added in. Pitifully and criminally low. A company that had the right to force its customers to pay them money and had a guaranteed market globally of bond buyers ready to throw mountains of freshly printed money at them would call it a lazy balance sheet.
No, John, that's what they want us to believe. We have to rid our minds of their debt nonsense. And then we can rid ourselves of these bogus debt obligations.
"If anybody should be taking moral responsibility for their lack of epistemic responsibility, it is our sensationalist revenue-driven media, whose actions are first driven by our consumption habits" Don't you think this lets off the hook those among the VERY rich who are actively influencing public opinion through social and conventional media (e.g. the Koch brothers and their supporters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/30/billionaire-stealth-politics-america-100-richest-what-they-want or Rupert Murdoch)? It's hard for people to make wise and moral choices when their reality is being so actively manipulated.
A question for my paying subscribers. Should I open this up to the public now, in order to spread this around more? I'm happy to if this comment gets more than 10 likes. I try to keep plenty exclusive for those who have paid good hard money. But I wonder if opening it up would be useful to keep the debate going. Thoughts?
I subscribe to support your work, because I see the vein of your analysis as important. I'd be very happy if incisive pieces like this that could influence the public Overton Window were made publicly available.
Seconded - crowbar the window...
I'd be happy to see your column and thoughts spread out to everyone. That video of you and John Campbell should be seen by every Kiwi who cares about their country, and the government's twisted priorities have to be exposed and stopped. The gov is directly attacking the poor and increasing inequality, and justifying it all with some nebulous concepts like "balance" and "fiscal responsibility". Sickening.
Do you mean this particular podcast?
Ah, this is Thursday's podcast, which I'm listen to today (Friday). Bernard I wonder if everyone has moved onto today's (Friday) podcast & comments and thus will miss your question above?
I agree open it up - unlike Roberston I am willing to pay for the future!
Hugely enlightening Bernard, should provoke public discussion (and more subscriptions to The Kaka!) jb
Just subscribed yesterday after following for a while. The occasional opening up reminded me of the excellent analysis I was missing out on. So I subscribed to support the work and therefore hopefully make it more common in the discourse. Open it up I say!
I agree open it up - unlike Roberston I am willing to pay for the future!
Kant famously said ‘Ought implies can.’ I think that applies viscerally here. The govt can only do what it has the social licence and political capital to do. Actually doing what needs to be done to fix the housing crisis and tackle climate change is political suicide, and if they are not in power, then they cannot do anything at all, which makes it a self-defeating action.
The political capital generated by the public narrative is in such a dire state because the largest portion of the demographic bell-curve has, inevitably, succumbed to a century of public-relations and marketing sophistry... The public have no idea what is real anymore, no one is taking Epistemic responsibility for what they believe, and given that what we believe informs what we do, it is therefore impossible for them to take moral responsibility for their actions (such as the political capital their flaccid epistemology creates in the voting booth).
I fear the balance between our positive-rights (our freedom to do) and negative-rights (our freedom from the actions of others) is being lost in this society-wide epistemic cascade failure, with positive rights (”My freedom!”) trumping negative rights (”Everyone elses freedom!”) far too often (which is logically self-defeating)! There is only one of you to enjoy your positive-rights to act, but seven billion enjoy their negative-rights to be free from your action. Framed like this, the moral calculus is obvious.
The solution is popularising the notion of epistemic responsibility in the public narrative. But as with all feedback loops in any complex and highly contextual system, if that process takes too long, the solution arrives too late :(
I congratulate Bernard on his work expanding the public’s epistemic armoury, his arrows see perhaps the straightest around at the moment, but I feel any kind of upwards blame upon government is fundamental attribution-bias. Such blame is better levelled out into the community generating the political capital determining the politicians actions, and especially at the media who ‘inform’ that public narrative. If anybody should be taking moral responsibility for their lack of epistemic responsibility, it is our sensationalist revenue-driven media, whose actions are first driven by our consumption habits. So I guess we can only blame ourselves! That’s never going to sell enough advertising to catch on though is it :(
Chris. This is a thoughtful and insightful comment. Many thanks. I would have made it comment of the day but my email was too long for it to fit today. You make great points, many of which I agree with. I see my role as expanding that Overton Window of polite discussion to include these sorts of things. The only way I can do it is to be free of sponsorship and advertising. I worked out 8 years ago subscriptions are the only way to really focus on the news as it is. Thanks for your support, and to everyone else here. This post and the response has gladdened my heart for Christmas.
Bernard is careful to single out the median voter at the cents of all this.
Centre
One of the most influential figures in western history was Socrates. All he did was incessantly ask awkward questions. He was thought of as a "Gadfly". Keep up that continual buzzing in the governments ear Bernard. Other journos are catching on and more people than you know are listening.
Thanks DJA. As I've said a few times, being unelectable and unemployable can be useful sometimes. Will keep it up. Thanks for the support and encouragement. I see my job as to ask as many questions as possible. I welcome plenty more in these comment threads.
Is there any doubt anymore that the genuine role of government is to keep the people down and the elite in control? How is it that the gov can do anything they want to us simply by invoking the "debt" word? Debt rules, and so we have food banks, poverty, homelessness, inequality. Why? Who says? Aside from a bit of cash, money is a number on a computer screen, that's all folks. There is no shortage. At any time the gov can fund anything it decides to fund, debt-free. Underfunding of social supports betrays its true agenda.
Let's be kind? Or let's be despots?
The pfa needs to be tossed or rewritten. Imagine the preamble: This Act ensures that public spending on social supports will be fully funded by the New Zealand Treasury, debt-free and in the public interest, to guarantee that no Kiwi will ever suffer the indignity of food insecurity, homelessness, or poverty.
That would scare some well-dressed horses...
Grrrr this makes me so ratty! Comparatively we have some of the lowest national debt in the world. We also have masses of social issues & our infrastructure is straining. Grant Robertson et al need to cut the bullshit & fix the Public Finance Act. I'm over neo-liberal ideology running our country & it's now & future stakeholders into the ground. I want my grandkids & all the young ones in my community to have quality social services, functional infrastructure & optimism that things can be done better. We need politicians & voters to consider larger/different/more compassionate perspectives. And if that means my home devalues, so be it.
3 year horizons,, what do you expect.
To true! As soon as any government sits down and get underway in their three-term year they are making decision to butter up voters to ensure they get re-elected in 3 years time. Bloody depressing as cant see either party going out of their way to change it to at least 4 year terms. Can you imagine the outcry of the great unwashed thinking either party was trying to stay in power for longer!
Well, I didn't think a podcast about the political economy would ever make me cry, but this almost did.
Thankyou Erina and DJA. Not my intention to make people cry. I try to smile as I talk. As if I was explaining it to my Mum. She's lovely and thinks a lot about these things, but not as a policy wonk. Helps me try to talk empathetically and simply and answer the obvious questions. Cheers.
Bernard- really like your analysis thankyou-- but isnt it even worse? As your first IMF public debt comparison shows NZ debt is very very low because the IMF includes what Grant R refuses to- the assets of the NZ super fund.
By not acknowledging that these assets offet the gross debt he can pretend the debt situation is more alarming than it actually is- and hence the case for fiscal stringency.
I think the real resource contraints are the issue not the money- which is why we must divert materials away from luxury housing with appropriate tax. But redistribution to give enough money to those who are at the foodbanks is not an action contrained by resources-- the true contraint is the ideology of needing to give the poor incentives to better themselves
Absolutely a great point Susan. Yep. $60b and counting to add on. Net net debt would be 19% with that added in. Pitifully and criminally low. A company that had the right to force its customers to pay them money and had a guaranteed market globally of bond buyers ready to throw mountains of freshly printed money at them would call it a lazy balance sheet.
Time to recognise we borrow the world from our children.
No, John, that's what they want us to believe. We have to rid our minds of their debt nonsense. And then we can rid ourselves of these bogus debt obligations.
If that's the case, maybe we should involve kids in budget and investment decisions.
"If anybody should be taking moral responsibility for their lack of epistemic responsibility, it is our sensationalist revenue-driven media, whose actions are first driven by our consumption habits" Don't you think this lets off the hook those among the VERY rich who are actively influencing public opinion through social and conventional media (e.g. the Koch brothers and their supporters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/30/billionaire-stealth-politics-america-100-richest-what-they-want or Rupert Murdoch)? It's hard for people to make wise and moral choices when their reality is being so actively manipulated.