Hold a jobs summit, a “do-fest” not a “talk-fest”. Get rather excited about business migration. Create a new category called “entrepreneur plus”. (Give the job of policy development to the wrong department, but that’s another story). Wait one year. Check the mailbox. Discover just one (ONE!) applicant.
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I voted for idiocy based on implementation – or rather non implementation – actually pretty sensible policy with real potential if someone focussed on it.
Someone already voted it was sensible? Gah. We really need to kick these guys out of power.
Idiocy
Silly and pure idiocy are rather mild and polite.
I can think of other words.
This is a part of Nationals Cargo Cult.
If they do the right voodoo dance, the magic will make the New Zealand economy all better. Wait for that billionaire who will come to NZ and suddenly invest all his wealth in the NZ economy and make everything better.
It basically nonsenses, they are praying that someone will take notice and come. Most people don’t really move to NZ because of the tax breaks or how the government will give them special treatment because they are an “entrepreneur” (what every that really is, everyone these days can call themselves an entrepreneur).
The only real way to make NZ economy better is to encourage more exports, encourage local ownership and build up a local pool of capital. Maybe discourage imports as well, or at least no importing crap we don’t need but mainly need more exports.
How we going to do this is a tough question!
Such publicity stunts are talked about and shelved. Little evidence based rational is ever presented.
While the public hear the honeyed word designed to have some appeal, time is passing and the next election is coming.
A second term of Nats ( Act will be gone ) with whoever, will see moves to drastically reduce govt running of NZ and increased corporate control and influence. Govt services will also be cut.
Local Govt will also be opened up along lines Hyde has boldly pushed in AK. Once in place they are very hard to change. Ak is a warmup and confidence builder for Nact and their masters.
Treasury, Health, Education, SOEs, DOC and Kiwibank will suffer or be on the block for private pickings.
The vital energy sector will be farmed out to private investors and that is counter to any hope of rationalisation for the immediate and medium term future of NZ.
With time for consolidation Labour with whoever will have little chance of reversing.
These time wastes and staged policy substitutes are not insignificant in their function.
Bollard was interesting on Q and A this morning; the job summit was just a feel good wheeze by this government to shut the people up and make them feel warm and fuzzy towards this bunch of NAct zeros.
Agreed!
!
Very sensible policy as you once again overlook the fact that the coffers were left empty and that it will take NACT this term and most of the next to clean up the mess left by the out going Labour Government.
A message to Phil Goff and the Labour Party.
You got to pick up you game and smash that smiley little git or will be all living in 1984 (George Orwell or Roger Douglas, you pick!). We don’t want to live like it Russia or the USA.
Forget about what every going on inside the party and be united at the front.
Don’t want to see privatisations, things being sold off to national mates for very cheap prices, while us, the Joe Blogs have to pay huge prices for crap services (if privatised, they will make cuts to the services so the can make more money, so the service will become crap)
And not only that us people below will be expected to pay more taxes while the would be rulers get bigger tax cuts.
pdm
Your statement about the books is bluewash.
Did you not hear the IMF assessmet of the NZ books last week and thats after months of Nact running them downward and giving out tax perks for the rich.
Cullen warned them against cuts in spite of his running surpluses.
I think the problem with trying to attract entreprenuers is that they are usually going to fall on their feet and succeed wherever they come from… There are now two self made, black, African born and African residing billionaires – you don’t need to move to a first world country to build a fortune these days (it helps)…
Hmmmmmm add to the list the dudes who owned the blood diamond mines in east Africa somewhere who were very entrepreneurial and very rich, I’m sure we can come up with many other examples to add? The Russian Oligarchs who appropriated all the former USSR state assets for a song and then profiteered off the back off their fellow country men. Again very entrepreneurial, its good to fall on to ones feet with a glass of Cristal in hand.
Thanks for ignoring the great fiscal position Cullen left as a legacy, the billions in the Cullen Fund, and for thinking solely of the top 5% of asset wealthy NZers who can’t wait to get more social welfare handouts from the Govt.
Good on ya.
“things being sold off to national mates for very cheap prices,” – turn it up Red, these people will become friends of Labour just as soon as the mood or electoral results decide.
Nah you’re missing the difference between being friendly and being friends.
Their bosom buddies with National through thick and thin; they act sorta amiable IF Labour is in power.
Worldadifference.
“You got to pick up you game and smash that smiley little git” He doesn’t mean that literally Trev
What an irrelevant, pointless comment… Your irrational hatred for all the wealthy grows every day…
Must be hard going to work everyday for one of these “rich pricks”…
Ummmm…JMH, perhaps you missed the point of where the “blood” in “blood diamonds” comes from?
And did you miss the point of how a new elite class of billionaires was created in the new Russia, while average life expectancy for commoners dropped by 5 years, alcoholism and violence rates skyrocketed and unemployment went through the roof?
No my friend, I’m just very aware that the Government has given away enough tax payers money + interest to SCF “rich pricks” (your terminology, not mine) this week to repair Christchurch. Just think about how much money that is.
That’s the level of wealth which has just been transferred to the asset wealthy classes, at a stroke of a pen. While frail elderly citizens are being asked to live in dirty, filthy conditions.
Its class war. And its very rational, very calculated. And its being waged by the wealthy asset holding class on everyone else. And they are winning.
Full of assumptions tonight aren’t we?
Ha ha, okay Loota, the wealthy are coming for your chequebook better go hide under the bed…
The two rich pricks (Michael Cullen’s terminology not mine – you may have noticed the quotation marks) are a South African who invested in mining and a Nigerian who owns a construction and cement company…
My point is that if people in these countries are able to legally (and morally I might add) build such huge fortunes why would they bother leaving their home to come here because National creates some hare-brained scheme..?
People who own blood diamond mines and ex Russian KGB members who gamed the capitalist change are completely irrelevant AFAIC…
Uh, what good would that do?
They don’t need to come after my chequebook…???
We only get targetted indirectly – surely you’ve figured that out. The tax payers’ (Govt) cheque book is the one the investment gamers want, and the one they’ve got.
They don’t mind a nanny state as long as nanny is filling up their wallets.
Yeah I suppose you are right, its real easy to tell where any given foreign billionaire has vested financial interests.
I’m looking forward to your next lurch further to the irrational hard left, next we’ll be hearing about how the Western Media distorted Mao’s Great Leap Forward to make it appear as if it was a bad thing…
JMH you’re trying real hard to PR position me as communist, or crazy or loopy lefty or something, not sure why? What exactly is this so-called “hard left” you talk about?
Do you really think the fact that we live in the great productive farmland of NZ but many of our citizens cannot afford to buy milk, butter and meat everyday has escaped everyones’ notice? Has it escaped your notice that while this is happening, financial capital is handed out by (literally) the dump truck load to those in least need?
You do realise that at $10M folding cash loaded on to a Chep freight pallet, you would need 170 pallets of cash, each one loaded up to chest height with notes, enough to fill a small warehouse, to bail out SCF?
Its enough cash to repair Canterbury, and apparently enough for you to make flippant remarks around, like how the Govt had no choice. Maybe you meant to say “no will”.
And all delivered with a smile and a wave to speculators and financiers. And the guy who holds up a dairy for $150 gets jail time, imagine that, from this grand theft someone is no doubt angling for a knighthood.
By the way, at the time, and certainly since the mid 1980’s, the “Great Leap Forward” and “Cultural Revolution” have been acknowledged to a greater or lesser extent by the Chinese leadership as major disasters for modern China and its people.
As an example, the former Chinese leader DENG Xiaoping embodied this understanding.
It is one of the unfortunate side effects of globalisation… Globalisation – the reason your plasma TV costs $700 and is made in Korea and not $5,000 and made in Penrose… It’s the reason our farmers are the least subsidised and most productive in the world, when you advocate that this is a massive problem that needs to be changed you are defacto adopting a hard left anti-trade position (whether you like to think of yourself in those terms or not) and it puts you at odds with party you are a member of… Your party opposes it because they understand it is a route back to 1983 and the world liquidators knocking on our door as our country knocked on bankrupcy’s door…
Sarcasm from me but thanks for the Chinese history lesson…
@Jeremy M Harris
It wasn’t that much of a great leap forward. Even the current Chinese Leaders think it was a disaster.
Irrational hard left we are hehehe
Believe it or not, the reality is the labour party could be considered center right. While national on the Right, and act on the extreme right.
They only real left wing parties are Green and Jim Anderton.
By today’s standards, Muldoon would be on the center left!
@Simon
” turn it up Red, these people will become friends of Labour just as soon as the mood or electoral results decide.”
They will be more friendly to labour when they in power, so they can try and ‘influence’ them. Of course you do have a point, Roger Douglas anyone but national is there main party they control with act in tow.
For the Rich (corrupt) Africans and the Russian Oligarchs, they own the system back in those counties! Why brother with in NZ where they will actually have to pay some taxes and won’t be allowed access to the government coffers.
Also most of those African and Russian Oligarchs are criminals, they stole what they “own”. From Bribery and political corruption down to intimidation!
So do WE want these criminals in out country? Look what they did to there home countries! I don’t…
@Loota & JMH: the farm export boom seems to overlap with the Dutch Disease to a certain degree.
How do you know the two Africans are corrupt when no one has mentioned their names..? Only that they are; black, African born, African residing and in the mining, cement and construction industries…
Because they are from Africa..?
Because they’re black..?
Pretty racist from someone claiming to be hard left…
Pfffft. Yeah good thing too maybe the frakin 55″ LED full HD flatscreen 200Hz refresh rate TV will make me forget that on the next road over a family can’t afford to heat their home over 15 degrees C because all our decent paying jobs have been ‘offshored’. (Yeah yeah I don’t expect any sympathy from you JMH, just another one of your “unfortunate side effects” I know).
Lolz I get you mate, you define where someone is on the political spectrum in terms of their view of global trade!
I thought when you said “hard left” you might have been talking about some grand principles or values like egalitarianism, social equity, socioeconomic equality, participative democracy, or something like that.
Looks like you were just talking about how companies can make money, my mistake.
Uhhhhh…its a route back in time to a drunk old guy who built a lot of hydrodams and tunnels calling a snap election?
Whaaaat?
You can try to paint me as an uncaring bastard if you like Loota but I care deeply about others, my advice to people in that situation you describe would be to go into WINZ to access the emergency benefit… The debate is over what is the best system, we are never going to live in a perfect world as much as we try… It would be nice to have that debate with if you were interested in anything but cheap point scoring and blaming ‘them’ for all the ills of the world…
You’re a clown Loota, we’re having a debate about the economy, finance companies and wealth around the world and you attempt sarcasm because I stick to the topic…
We spent a lifetime as a country building an economy on a chimera – being the UKs farm, they joined the real world, the charity stopped and then we had to too – painfully, any advocating for that reverting to that again is just advocation to set NZ up for another painful readjustment and a poorer future…
Tired Jeremy? Loota?
Spud – its good training mate
I appreciate JMH for the fact he is a dedicated sparring partner
(1) Name one poster here who has suggested that exporting tonnes of refrigerated butter and meat carcasses to the UK should be NZ’s preferred economic strategy. Ah absolutely no one has. That’s called setting up a “straw man” JMH.
(2) A poorer future? Forget that, we live in a poorer present. A typical new graduate today earns 40% less than I did when I first graduated, in inflation adjusted dollars. NZ used to be in the top 5 OECD, now we are risking scraping into the bottom 5.
My friend, this is what the “solutions” and the pollies of the last 20 years have given NZ.
“its good training mate” I feel the same way about my drinking
“I appreciate JMH for the fact he is a dedicated sparring partner” I could see that
the only silly idea is people thinking Hodgson had a brain.
if he did he perhaps would have laid off the political crap while people are suffering in Christchurch.
every jolt has my kids screaming .
many people have lost their homes and their security but hodgson wants to make inane political points.
your an embarrasment mate
Sorry to hear about your kids, I hope they feel better soon.
Given that public or govt debt was hugely reduced under Labour but private debt rose does that point to middle class (and higher) increasing their indebtedness in “good times” and living beyond their incomes?
I see you really practice what you preach, lolz
C’mon Mark m, we all have to work and go about our business to pay for all the repairs down there.
@Jeremy M Harris
lol lol lol
Don’t put words in my mouth you smart ass. South Africa and what was Rhodesian now Zimbabwe, White people? They where corrupt as well! and they live in Africa to (or did)!
You don’t have to be black to be corrupt, the Russians are white and corrupt. Shit, corruption happen regardless of race.
Your silly as they come, you claim where racist and hard left. Hard left is Soviet Russia. Hard left is something where not.
and don’t say
“It would be nice to have that debate with if you were interested in anything but cheap point scoring”
Cause you doing it as well.
So stop putting words in people mouth and making assumptions about people, 2+2=5.
So man up, if you want to have a proper debate, then do it. No more “cheap point scoring”!
@Reds: “Your silly as they come, you claim where racist and hard left. Hard left is Soviet Russia. Hard left is something where not.”
How’s this for cheap points? It’s written: “you’re” and “we’re”. It’s called a “contraction”. Insert derogatory comments about your (that’s how “your” is used, as a possessive) school leaving age here.
But worst of all, you state “Hard left is Soviet Russia”. There are so many things wrong with this statement, even Loota is looking a little askance at you at this point.
BTW, I’ll admit my comment above is off-topic. But I think the on topic comments pretty much finished with Trevor’s excellent observation:
“I voted for idiocy based on implementation – or rather non implementation – actually pretty sensible policy with real potential if someone focussed on it.”
It great to see Trevor separating intention and implementation so well.
@Me: “It great”
Oh crap. How embarrassing. In my defense, I’m typing on a iPhone…
@RUTB, hit a nerve I see, I didn’t claim the hard left was racist, just your statement – and it appeared that way… Russia (or the Soviet Union) was hard left – it was Communist, socialism is hard left and you espouse a lot of it…
@Loota, on (1) my mistake I shouldn’t use the word “that”, by that I was referring to a tariff protected, subsidised economy…
(2) I’m not disagreeing with you but we’ve talked about this extensively before and we aren’t changing each others minds on how to correct this…
@Jeremy M Harris
Of course you hit a nerve! My statement said corrupt Africans, I never said anything about black = corruption (I was thinking of White South Africans as well, they are also born in Africa!).
“Because they are from Africa..?
Because they’re black..?
Pretty racist from someone claiming to be hard left…”
This is quote for your post earlier. Its all up there.
I might be leftish? but I never have claimed to be hard left (I might pretend to be hard left thou hehe)!
Im not hard left simply becuase the hard left might have a good idea (like the hard right! “0_0″ ) but it will never work in reality.
My real views are… I think the current style of capitalism (Neo-Liberal) sucks. For all it was suppose to do/be, It hasn’t made NZ any better! Since rogernoimcs, this country has slipped behind.
To quote Roger Douglas, “there’s got to be a better way”!
@Hayden Peake
. I don’t always use the “PC” English, laziness is the reason. I will add school leaving age is 18 with NCEA level 3 and UE.
Fair enough for the cheap points hehehe
“But worst of all, you state “Hard left is Soviet Russia”. There are so many things wrong with this statement,”
You ‘right’! There is many things wrong with this statement but I would like to add that the Soviets claimed themselves they where communists, which according to the ‘rightest’ here and many political scientist is further left than most of us.
No point trying to arguing if the Soviets where truely left or not becuase all it is just some name tag stuck on some political/economic spectrum and our current spectrum is only 2D, not 3D. It need a place it fit easy with hard left than hard right. (I think we all know that the soviets were F### up)
Ideas that are similar or have things in common will always be grouped together, ever if there are differences.
There are aspects of communism that do resemble socialism.
@Red — thanks for the polite reply to my fairly offensive post. I shouldn’t post after wine
More to the point, now I’m going to have be paranoid about my own spelling and grammar.
I do agree with you about the political spectrum not actually being a spectrum, so there’s a point we agree on.
You posted after wine?
High five! 
!
@Hayden Peake
. Scoring cheap points by picking hole in my grammar hehehe 
I never thought any one would respond like that. lol
Actually, I thought your post was neat
And you did bring up a interesting point “Hard left is Soviet Russia”. And in my mind Soviet were hard left based on there authoritative style of government plus the state had to own everything.