Most of the topics addressed this week are because of the commitment of political parties, both left and right, to neo-liberal economics. Aspects of the management of our economy are a huge challenge, but, in my opinion, neo-liberalism has been a cancerous rot in our society. It has led to government being seen through a exclusively business and more recently private property lens.
Through neo-liberalism we have seen much of the state corporatised. Financial discipline is essential with all public policy, but this all-prevailing economic dogma has too often removed compassion, and reinforced individualism in our society. We have become dog eat dog. If you go down to a beach and watch the seagulls scrapping over food, that’s a metaphor describing our society. Guard rails have been removed which were there to protect the poor and the defenceless. We are rapidly becoming the compassionless society that the right-wing economists desire. If you don’t believe me, go to Morning Report last Thursday morning where they dug up Ruth Richardson from somewhere.
I started shouting at my radio as Ruth Richardson was being interviewed. In the interests of my health, I turned it off. The ideas Richardson promotes are dreadful and dated. Of course a healthy economy is essential. However, she hasn’t learned a thing since she destroyed a fair portion of the goodwill in our economy with her “Mother of all budgets”. The total absence of compassion towards those who are vulnerable in our society was palpable in the way she spoke. I detest this type of economic analysis which has failed right around the world. We must stand up and shout from the rooftops that we resent this economics and will resist them repeating again what Richardson did in 1991.
Bernard Hickey summarized the potential debate between Nicola Willis and Ruth Richardson as:
In my view, this way this debate is framed is frozen in time in 1991, stuck with the now-wrong assumptions that New Zealand faces being locked out of global markets, that the New Zealand Super Fund does not exist, and that austerity will work to grow the economy again because households can borrow much more to pick up the slack left in the economy as the Government contracts as a share of GDP.
In an article Bryce Edwards argued about the influence of corporate lobbyists on this government (20) Integrity Briefing: The Boardroom’s Manifesto – How NZ’s corporate elite lobbies in plain sight and the downstream damage it is causing.
I replied in the comments below the article :
I guess we have to accept that these CEO’s and lobbyists don’t have kids at school, or family members needing health support, no elderly parents struggling for support, don’t need roads to drive on, never struggling to feed their families, with housing which demonstrates that they are “set up”. All the irrelevant issues standing in the way of their tax reductions. Well done Bryce you have lifted the veil off an ugly face of self-interested capitalism. Most small businesses are more closely linked to their communities’ needs and expectations and are happy to play their part locally. It seems to me that this report reflects the desire of these people for us to emulate the ugliness of MAGA. It is surprising that they didn’t all wear a cap announcing this desire.
We need to discuss the need to increase tax. We do need capital gains taxes, but we also need new taxes in our society. Why we don’t have death duties is beyond me. We will have discussions about tax next year and I recommend you look at this YouTube to start following a fellow who is really challenging thinking on tax https://www.youtube.com/c/GarysEconomics. He’s coming to NZ in March to discuss tax.
Editor: not our Garry, but a one r Gary…
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