OnPoint: Budget 2009: “Aww, shit.” (Final Update)
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Thanks, Scott. That's kind of what I was saying - fairness to some people can be about the state/society "not interfering" with the individual's own responsibilities which are paramount.
In that worldview, public intervention may be immoral if it distorts or thwarts that prime motivation. However, only the most loony fringes of our Right are inclined to apply that principle consistently. The rest seem happy to distort away in favour of their mates, much as the centre left will apply their own conception of fairness inconsistently.
But no one owns the word, and the outgoing government usually re-positions it for some time into the new one's term - hence Labour in 1999 not reinstating benefit levels or changing fiscal underpinnings like the Reserve Bank Act, and National last year retaining Working For Families and state owned enterprises - for now.
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Again, I'm going to take issue with your analysis. Fairness means different things to different people.
Yes, it does - and the post you are responding to acknowledges that. At the same time, the version of fairness subscribed to by the vast majority of people in this country is not the right's narrow procedural definition, but a more substantive one which looks at outcomes as well as procedure. And that, for example, is why kiwis overwhelmingly support free education and free healthcare - because we understand that user pays mean payers use, and everyone else misses out. And we regard that - the exclusion of people from a vital social good, with a consequent effect on their life chances and quality - to be unfair.
ACToids and Libs beg to differ, of course. But I think their combined 3.7% of the vote last election shows how popular their narrow view of fairness is.
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ACToids and Libs beg to differ, of course. But I think their combined 3.7% of the vote last election shows how popular their narrow view of fairness is.
Winston was even more popular than Mr 3 %.
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I/S, I agree there are many aspects about the system that can be identifed as "of the Left". You mention free education and free healthcare as examples.
But a large number of people (maybe even the majority) support tax cuts, harsher penalties for crims, freedom from the "nanny state" etc. It could be argued that those are all right-wing traits.
And nobody ever thinks the policies they support are unfair.
ACToids and Libs beg to differ, of course. But I think their combined 3.7% of the vote last election shows how popular their narrow view of fairness is.
Bear in mind though that a large percentage of the Nats probably support many of ACT's policies but stick with the Nats for other reasons.
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Bear in mind though that a large percentage of the Nats probably support many of ACT's policies but stick with the Nats for other reasons
This may be true. But by the same token, a large percentage of National voters were won over from Labour at the last election, and probably still support many of Labour's policies but were won over for other reasons.
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George, I agree, and I wasn't suggesting all Nats support privatisation and the other things ACT stands for. The Nats are a fairly broad church at present. But many within its ranks probably do like ACT's economic policies. So to characterise NZ as a naturally left-wing country is an over-simplification.
Apologies for the threadjacking. Anyone want to talk about the Budget?
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Budget, you say. NZ Institute says not good enough by half.
But like just one chopstick without its mate, avoiding a ratings downgrade was necessary (and welcome) but insufficient. To fuel New Zealand’s economic growth and make it stronger coming out of the recession than before, the Budget also needed to take bold measures to address New Zealand’s poor growth performance.
John Armstrong touches on the inter-generational effect of stopping the pre-funding of superannuation.
The impact of Thursday's Budget is to cut the burden of superannuation for baby boomers. Those aged between 56 and 64 will have retired before contributions resume to the Cullen fund. The burden will consequently fall more heavily on those 55 and under.
They will be grumpy - and Labour will reinforce the message - that they will be paying twice, first for themselves and second for those retired or about to retire.
Union economist Peter Conway unsurprisingly notes that jobs lost out.
John Roughan reckons the Nats missed their chance to make more brutal cuts now and lack the will to do it later.
Roger Douglas all but calls them nancies for not privatising health, education and welfare.
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Oh, and a tidbit from Fran O'Sullivan.
But English's most intriguing admission was that he had appointed former Treasury boss Graham Scott - and a panel of economists - to work on a new economic strategy.
This is either a shocking admission that English doesn't know what to do next, or a signal that the National Government intends to bypass the Treasury and get serious about fundamental change.
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Found this bit of info also.
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How can a recession be ferocious?
And, the standard of the poor be so timely?
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Update 2: Less money for Super Fund = Less money for Super
Gee, that flu pandemic's looking like a better idea than we first gave it credit eh?
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I've been looking at that downgrade bogeyman.
I need to do some more numbercrunching, but it looks like Eurozone states with an AA- rating pay maybe 1% - 1.5% more on their government debt than AAA states.
Also, that only actually cuts in when the government rolls over debt or increases borrowing. Existing coupons stay the same.
Which would mean that on debt of $200bln, we'd be paying $2-3bln more a year, cutting in gradually over the next 10 years. That's against public spending of $38bln today. So we'd have to eventually find 7% or so in extra tax.
Actually working out the economic effect of that's a hard problem, but it wouldn't be death. Worst case would be that we'd have to pay tax at a level similar to France or Finland.
I think that would be a good tradeoff for saving jobs now.
(Not to mention that if we spent public money on energy saving and renewables now, we'd be a much better credit risk in the future than countries that are struggling to pay their oil bills).
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But English's most intriguing admission was that he had appointed former Treasury boss Graham Scott - and a panel of economists - to work on a new economic strategy.
Econonists. Oh, great . ITE, that's a bit like hearing that the politburo have engaged a crack team of Marxist-Leninist theoreticians to work out the best response to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
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Or economists, even.
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