Comments on: English should follow Bennett’s lead

By: Paula Bennett prematurely opens the champagne, again « The Standard

Paula Bennett prematurely opens the champagne, again « The Standard — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:32:59 +0000

[...] thought Bennett had finally learned about things like seasonal variation when she didn’t try to cover herself in glory over the normal Feb-March drop in unemployment numbers. But I was [...]

By: Bright Red

Bright Red — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:10:36 +0000

is you’re talking about governments then they owe it to each other and private lenders (pension funds, investment banks etc). If you’re talking about the debt of countries as a whole, it balances out – the net debt of countries with net debt equals the net assets of those with net assets

By: the pinkpostman

the pinkpostman — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 03:56:23 +0000

Im not very good at the financial side of politics financial matters leave me cold.
To be truthfull i’m just glad my ,wife manages our financial affairs. Having said that I must ask.To whome is this money that every country in the world owes, owed to .?. Is some body collecting it all in and stacking it in piles?

By: felix

felix — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:21:06 +0000

Fascinating. I look forward to hearing more about this little property business.

By: iliveinauck

iliveinauck — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:14:31 +0000

ok i will try and get back in a few days.other people must know about it?

By: ianmac

ianmac — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:23:12 +0000

iliveinauck: It would make an interesting story if you could authenticate it. Sort of double dipping, or a counter to the election story “poor little DPB girl makes good.”

By: iliveinauck

iliveinauck — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:16:21 +0000

I was talking to someone that grew up in the same area as Paula Bennett last night. She had wealthy parents who looked after her children while she did her winz funded training. Also, I know of someone that works for her that builds houses & rents them to Housing Corp..the tenants pay $80 per week & the govt tops it up to $425. Thoso kind of people I call Beneficiary beneficiaries.

By: Kleefer

Kleefer — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:42:52 +0000

Bright Red, you appear to be conflating inflation with price increases (one is a symptom of the other) but you may be right, Australia is likely to experience lower inflation than New Zealand in the near future thanks to putting its interest rate up earlier.

In fact, about the only thing the Aussies have done right recently is putting the rate up. Everything else the Aussies have done for the past couple of years (first-home buyers bribes, borrowing billions to pay people to go to the mall in the delusional belief that consumer spending drives economic growth etc) has only pushed that country closer to the edge of the cliff on top of debt mountain. They should have listened to Steve Keen!

The Aussie unemployment numbers are misleading as many of those jobs are in sectors propped up by cheap money and government stimulus (construction for instance) so those “jobs” are actually a drain on the Australian economy and need to be liquidated so that labour and capital can be diverted to more profitable activities. It’s a painful process as many New Zealanders are finding out.

New Zealand has taken a (slightly) more honest route and I’m certain that when the proverbial hits the fan the highly regulated labour market New Zealand’s union leaders would love us to emulate will come back to bite Australia.

My point is that with any government-sponsored statistics you have to look beyond the headline to find out what the numbers really mean. This is just as vital for GDP and unemployment numbers as it is for when Bill English tries to claim credit for public spending cuts his government hasn’t had the courage to make. The only thing governments are better at than destroying economies is fiddling with the numbers to escape blame.

By: Luke.xensen

Luke.xensen — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:04:46 +0000

“deferred funding to transport agencies” so thats what the Nats mean by bringing forward infrastructure. I think this may refer to public transport projects being delayed and canned, esp in Auckland.

By: Zorr

Zorr — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:42:57 +0000

It isn’t about bagging every money man/fund manager as not contributing. It is when all these people are doing is shifting money “between accounts” so to speak to generate wealth on paper that has no basis for existing in reality that there begins to be problems.

The managers of the Cullen Fund are acting responsibly, hence why they get our praise. Simple stuff really. No wonder you don’t get it.

By: Bright Red

Bright Red — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:57:19 +0000

that stimulus money clearly wasn’t wasted. it averted a depression.

and, btw, the US govt is getting a lot of that money back from the banks now.

By: tsmithfield

tsmithfield — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:30:53 +0000

Part of the grand plan of the US printing money is that the yanks devalue the US dollar and thus inflate away their overseas debt. The US has been banging on at China for being a currency manipulator for pegging the yuan to the dollar. However, China as the biggest creditor of the US, stands to lose big time if the US is able to carry out its devaluation plan. So why wouldn’t they want to keep the yuan pegged to the dollar? If you have a look at a chart for the dollar over the recent years it becomes apparent who the real currency manipulator is:

http://www.sharelynx.com/chartstemp/FCA/SAMFiatAbuse.php

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:27:02 +0000

Of course it does, what do you think.

By: felix

felix — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:31:14 +0000

So that money has an effect but the two trillion dollars BR mentioned doesn’t?

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:27:21 +0000

$750 billion worth of hand outs peed up against the wall, labelled as stimulous packages.