Treasury reports public service spending cuts to pay for lower taxes for landlords are shrivelling the economy, lifting spending on benefits, pumping up public debt & will put 20,000 more out of work
They're just trying to work out if this year of austerity not working was a fluke, the more you try it the better the data is. Who knows if you try it again it might work 🤷♂️ (huge dose of sarcasm)
Something I've taken for granted a wee bit was the self perpetuating cycle effect, or the economic downward spiral that Craig mentioned. We take for granted that this "shall pass" but it can potentially be long lasting & scarring for our economy.
I had a peep at some of the Glasgow Study, it is eye-opening. Also a timely reminder that the decisions of those in power really do have tangible consequences in our everyday lives.
For those interested in the Glasgow Study, here are a couple of links... Will we see these same outcomes take place in Aotearoa? Hopefully not!
Maybe Willis will go under the bus - some of the others are seeing the writing on the wall - no hope for Seymour (he fires the bullets of others) but Peters looked ready to push earlier tonight and Luxon will follow the wind.
Bernard just listening to Wallace Chapman with his panel and economist Gareth ? and they are still trying to blame the reserve bank going on about how difficult and woeful the economy is but simply no mention of all these reasons of this tried and failed doubling down on austerity measures of this govt WRONG FAILED approach taking no blame on themselves! Hand wringing by the panel about how we will all have to suffer( except the wealthy landowners landlords etc) for the sake of getting into surplus.
PLEASE will you offer to speak on RNZ. and BREAKFAST the Panel everywhere you can tell Wallace the real cause!
I sent Wallace your last chorus from yesterday to listen to.
I know but feel frustrated that no media is telling the truth and this govt is getting away with this incompetence acting as though they are the saviours of fixing the wreck and broken economy that Labour and reserve bank caused. No media is challenging it ! BERNARD PLEASE!!
Yeah fair enough. I do try to share the info as diplomatically as possible with friends & Whanau, often they don't even take a look.
I guess some might consider me to be the proverbial odd-ball cousin/friend on face book or whatever. Can't blame them I guess.
Bernard appearing interviews will mean that the framing will be different & unexpected, therefore people will be more likely to listen/watch & therefore "consume" the information so to speak. Not to mention he's also really good at explaining things.
Yes Sigrid, I empathize with what you are saying, it is more than just a pet peeve at this point(regarding the media ignorance about the economy) because the ignorance of those in power are having massive consequences for us citizens.
The 'actual' crisis we are in is a Balance of Payments crisis rather than one of high government debt. . It conveniently happens that the 'cure'- which is to reduce demand for imports by creating a recession- is most readily achieved by cutting government spending, which also aligns with Right Wing ideology of 'small government' and Austerity as a means of enforcing a more authoritarian approach to worker-employer relationships.
Labour and / or the RB did unwittingly cause this BoP crisis. Take a look at this graph (set the timeline to MAX): https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/current-account and this: https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/current-account-to-gdp .Worst overseas balance since Muldoon's 'think big' orgy of foreign-financed expenditure. The reason? Labour omitted to tax the Covid relief money back out of the economy using a surcharge (supertax) on corporation tax and top-band (ie investor-class) income tax. Given that the RB are the 'professionals' that should have been their advice to the gov't at the time. This genie can't be put back in the bottle post-facto and Nat's couldn't have advocated for more tax on companies and the rich for political reasons even if they had realised.
It's a matter of general knowledge that there's nothing in NZ that investors like investing in except real-estate (that's why industrial productivity is so awful). They did this initially, but the RE bubble burst, then the dollars left the country to buy overseas investments. Now the FX markets are awash with billions of NZ dollars that are depressing the value of the currency.
There's no quick and easy way out of this debacle, but being kind to the poorest and investing in 'home grown' (ie financed by gov't money creation & requiring minimum overseas borrowing) infrastructure projects while waiting for the current-account deficit to return to normality would be a start.
Thx Bernard. I'm trying to get my head round how financial flows- particularly the repatriated profits of overseas owned banks- distort what should, with a free-floating exchange rate, be a self-regulating mechanism if it were simply trade.
Hi Kevin and Barnard, any chance you might clarify what is meant by this comment: "Labour omitted to tax the Covid relief money back out of the economy using a surcharge (supertax) on corporation tax and top-band (ie investor-class) income tax." This idea of 'supertax' seems important, but I am not clear about what it means. Thanks, Colin
'Supertax' is a surcharge on top of the normal top rate of tax-it could also be seen as a windfall tax. For example, In 1971 the top band of UK income tax on earned income was cut from 90% to 75%, but a surcharge of 15% kept the top rate on investment income at 90%, the point being an attempt to incentivise work over rent-collecting.
The necessity during Covid-relief, and the targetting of top-band and corporation tax comes about because most of capital's share of business income flows uphill to the investor class where it seeks investments, and if it fails to find profitable opportunities in new productive capacity, it will distort existing asset values by speculation. Remember, this is not a revenue-gathering exercise (arguably taxation never is, but we can park that thought for now) but an exercise in minimising distortions in the economy at-large.
None of this is a novelty. For example, during WW2 the British Government created a huge amount of new money to pay for war production, and simultaneously applied a top-rate of income tax of 99.25% as a hard backstop against war profiteering. It seems like those lessons have been forgotten over time.
Interesting comment re the health data regarding children in the UK. Finland invests in their kids with healthy lunches to ALL children, turn out bright highly creative children at the end of their education, that will serve their country well.
I'm in UK for an extended period so can avoid Luxon etc in the main but equally disappointed w Labour here who seem to have become the new centre right government.
In the UK, the Tory backbench had the privilege of throwing out Truss / Kwateng. Unfortunately, here the Luxon / Willis combo are the OG's of the present government, and there's no equivalent of the all-powerful 1922 Committee in the UK Conservative Party. Not that there's any talent in National to replace them with.
TBH I would almost be happy for the Governor-General to dismiss parliament and appoint a technocratic administration, though I fear the inevitable appointment of RB economists who would skew it to favour their 'daddy'- the private banking sector.
Yes it is all treasuries fault for those over enthusiastic forecasts from the budget, and there is a reason why there is a new treasury secretary. They would have altered the track of HNZ costs had been slid back into last financial year? It might have been useful for journalists to be familiar with the last BEFU and projection more unemployment, means more transfers like accommodation supplement?
I was really surprised to read that productivity shot up during Covid, all this talk of “mismanagement” huh 🤔 Does anyone know why this would’ve been the case - more money going into infrastructure over that time? No one coming into the country? Surely govt could just look to copy what was done well over that time
It's a good question. Remember when our boarders were shut & while the rest of the world were having lock downs, we were having local sporting events & shows. We were the envy of the world moving about freely within our boarders, even hosting the Americas cup. My theory is that because we had our own country bubble(being covid free for so long) our economy could(for the most part) function as normal. The covid payments from government helped a wee bit, bit of a stimulus. But alas we have largely forgotten all of that.
All good Bernard. I thought you were channelling the 80s with a Room that Echoes (Peking Man): "You hear all the words that I tell you; You touch upon the things that I feel"
The big question now is: how does New Zealand get out of this mess? How does the nation fire up the economy? If the trajectory revealed yesterday is allowed to play through to 2030 or heaven forbid beyond, New Zealand enters uncharted territory. A continued reliance on sunset industries trading commodities isn’t going to be enough to recover. What else is there? The human capital exodus will make firing up anything in the economy more difficult. Capital will be hard to get. Banks are myopic housing specialists. Sitting in the wings is the potential for geopolitical instability and balance sheet bashing natural events. Overseeing this mêlée is a risk averse, short-term thinking, ideologically confused, poorly lead, coalition. Meanwhile, those cans that were kicked down the road by successive risk-averse, status quo governments…they’ve been found. Merry Christmas 🎄
So happy we have these financial geniuses in charge. If would almost be hilarious if it wasn't so serious.
They're just trying to work out if this year of austerity not working was a fluke, the more you try it the better the data is. Who knows if you try it again it might work 🤷♂️ (huge dose of sarcasm)
Thank you for these deep dive interviews Bernard.
Something I've taken for granted a wee bit was the self perpetuating cycle effect, or the economic downward spiral that Craig mentioned. We take for granted that this "shall pass" but it can potentially be long lasting & scarring for our economy.
I had a peep at some of the Glasgow Study, it is eye-opening. Also a timely reminder that the decisions of those in power really do have tangible consequences in our everyday lives.
For those interested in the Glasgow Study, here are a couple of links... Will we see these same outcomes take place in Aotearoa? Hopefully not!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/02/uk-austerity-policies-premature-low-birth-weight-babies-scotland
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2024/06/19/the-cost-of-austerity-how-spending-cuts-led-to-190000-excess-deaths/
Cristina, deep thanks. I wouldn't have known about it, and it's on the dot. Yay - data, data!
Cristina, thank you for this, great info and the sort of data we beed to get out there.
Great links Cristina. Cheers.
Thoroughly enjoyed Craig. A very clued-up man, along with yourself. Many thanks.
And I thought we were all supposed to be Keynesists now.
Learn from the Brits before they do.
Maybe Willis will go under the bus - some of the others are seeing the writing on the wall - no hope for Seymour (he fires the bullets of others) but Peters looked ready to push earlier tonight and Luxon will follow the wind.
Bad audio on your feed Bernhard
Bugger. Sorry. Not sure why. I’ll do some digging.
Bernard just listening to Wallace Chapman with his panel and economist Gareth ? and they are still trying to blame the reserve bank going on about how difficult and woeful the economy is but simply no mention of all these reasons of this tried and failed doubling down on austerity measures of this govt WRONG FAILED approach taking no blame on themselves! Hand wringing by the panel about how we will all have to suffer( except the wealthy landowners landlords etc) for the sake of getting into surplus.
PLEASE will you offer to speak on RNZ. and BREAKFAST the Panel everywhere you can tell Wallace the real cause!
I sent Wallace your last chorus from yesterday to listen to.
Sigrid Campbell
Not a bad idea, though I do acknowledge it takes time to do these appearances on podcasts & TV/radio.
I know but feel frustrated that no media is telling the truth and this govt is getting away with this incompetence acting as though they are the saviours of fixing the wreck and broken economy that Labour and reserve bank caused. No media is challenging it ! BERNARD PLEASE!!
Yeah fair enough. I do try to share the info as diplomatically as possible with friends & Whanau, often they don't even take a look.
I guess some might consider me to be the proverbial odd-ball cousin/friend on face book or whatever. Can't blame them I guess.
Bernard appearing interviews will mean that the framing will be different & unexpected, therefore people will be more likely to listen/watch & therefore "consume" the information so to speak. Not to mention he's also really good at explaining things.
Yes Sigrid, I empathize with what you are saying, it is more than just a pet peeve at this point(regarding the media ignorance about the economy) because the ignorance of those in power are having massive consequences for us citizens.
You’re quite right on the framing.
The 'actual' crisis we are in is a Balance of Payments crisis rather than one of high government debt. . It conveniently happens that the 'cure'- which is to reduce demand for imports by creating a recession- is most readily achieved by cutting government spending, which also aligns with Right Wing ideology of 'small government' and Austerity as a means of enforcing a more authoritarian approach to worker-employer relationships.
Labour and / or the RB did unwittingly cause this BoP crisis. Take a look at this graph (set the timeline to MAX): https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/current-account and this: https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/current-account-to-gdp .Worst overseas balance since Muldoon's 'think big' orgy of foreign-financed expenditure. The reason? Labour omitted to tax the Covid relief money back out of the economy using a surcharge (supertax) on corporation tax and top-band (ie investor-class) income tax. Given that the RB are the 'professionals' that should have been their advice to the gov't at the time. This genie can't be put back in the bottle post-facto and Nat's couldn't have advocated for more tax on companies and the rich for political reasons even if they had realised.
It's a matter of general knowledge that there's nothing in NZ that investors like investing in except real-estate (that's why industrial productivity is so awful). They did this initially, but the RE bubble burst, then the dollars left the country to buy overseas investments. Now the FX markets are awash with billions of NZ dollars that are depressing the value of the currency.
There's no quick and easy way out of this debacle, but being kind to the poorest and investing in 'home grown' (ie financed by gov't money creation & requiring minimum overseas borrowing) infrastructure projects while waiting for the current-account deficit to return to normality would be a start.
Agreed Kevin, especially on the supertax to pull the Covid money back.
Thx Bernard. I'm trying to get my head round how financial flows- particularly the repatriated profits of overseas owned banks- distort what should, with a free-floating exchange rate, be a self-regulating mechanism if it were simply trade.
Thanks Kevin, most of it went over my head lol, but I still appreciate the info & the links to the graphs. Those stats websites are cool aye?
Hi Kevin and Barnard, any chance you might clarify what is meant by this comment: "Labour omitted to tax the Covid relief money back out of the economy using a surcharge (supertax) on corporation tax and top-band (ie investor-class) income tax." This idea of 'supertax' seems important, but I am not clear about what it means. Thanks, Colin
'Supertax' is a surcharge on top of the normal top rate of tax-it could also be seen as a windfall tax. For example, In 1971 the top band of UK income tax on earned income was cut from 90% to 75%, but a surcharge of 15% kept the top rate on investment income at 90%, the point being an attempt to incentivise work over rent-collecting.
The necessity during Covid-relief, and the targetting of top-band and corporation tax comes about because most of capital's share of business income flows uphill to the investor class where it seeks investments, and if it fails to find profitable opportunities in new productive capacity, it will distort existing asset values by speculation. Remember, this is not a revenue-gathering exercise (arguably taxation never is, but we can park that thought for now) but an exercise in minimising distortions in the economy at-large.
None of this is a novelty. For example, during WW2 the British Government created a huge amount of new money to pay for war production, and simultaneously applied a top-rate of income tax of 99.25% as a hard backstop against war profiteering. It seems like those lessons have been forgotten over time.
Woah! That's so cool to know. Thanks Colin for asking the question I was too chicken to ask. Cheers Kevin!
Thanks Sigrid. I do get asked to go on every month or two. Just not yesterday. I try where I can to do those interviews.
Interesting comment re the health data regarding children in the UK. Finland invests in their kids with healthy lunches to ALL children, turn out bright highly creative children at the end of their education, that will serve their country well.
Btw, the book Craig mentioned is Seven Children, by Danny Dorling.
Read Treasury's books, listen to Willis and weep.
Great korero w Craig, again.
I'm in UK for an extended period so can avoid Luxon etc in the main but equally disappointed w Labour here who seem to have become the new centre right government.
In the UK, the Tory backbench had the privilege of throwing out Truss / Kwateng. Unfortunately, here the Luxon / Willis combo are the OG's of the present government, and there's no equivalent of the all-powerful 1922 Committee in the UK Conservative Party. Not that there's any talent in National to replace them with.
TBH I would almost be happy for the Governor-General to dismiss parliament and appoint a technocratic administration, though I fear the inevitable appointment of RB economists who would skew it to favour their 'daddy'- the private banking sector.
Yes it is all treasuries fault for those over enthusiastic forecasts from the budget, and there is a reason why there is a new treasury secretary. They would have altered the track of HNZ costs had been slid back into last financial year? It might have been useful for journalists to be familiar with the last BEFU and projection more unemployment, means more transfers like accommodation supplement?
I was really surprised to read that productivity shot up during Covid, all this talk of “mismanagement” huh 🤔 Does anyone know why this would’ve been the case - more money going into infrastructure over that time? No one coming into the country? Surely govt could just look to copy what was done well over that time
It's a good question. Remember when our boarders were shut & while the rest of the world were having lock downs, we were having local sporting events & shows. We were the envy of the world moving about freely within our boarders, even hosting the Americas cup. My theory is that because we had our own country bubble(being covid free for so long) our economy could(for the most part) function as normal. The covid payments from government helped a wee bit, bit of a stimulus. But alas we have largely forgotten all of that.
Thanks for the insightful post Bernard.
My apologies for the echo on my sound on this video. I’m working to fix it.
All good Bernard. I thought you were channelling the 80s with a Room that Echoes (Peking Man): "You hear all the words that I tell you; You touch upon the things that I feel"
Love it!
The big question now is: how does New Zealand get out of this mess? How does the nation fire up the economy? If the trajectory revealed yesterday is allowed to play through to 2030 or heaven forbid beyond, New Zealand enters uncharted territory. A continued reliance on sunset industries trading commodities isn’t going to be enough to recover. What else is there? The human capital exodus will make firing up anything in the economy more difficult. Capital will be hard to get. Banks are myopic housing specialists. Sitting in the wings is the potential for geopolitical instability and balance sheet bashing natural events. Overseeing this mêlée is a risk averse, short-term thinking, ideologically confused, poorly lead, coalition. Meanwhile, those cans that were kicked down the road by successive risk-averse, status quo governments…they’ve been found. Merry Christmas 🎄