Written By: - Date published: 5:35 pm, February 9th, 2009 - 60 comments
Categories: scoundrels -
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Roger Douglas has his big debut speech tomorrow night in Orewa. He’s been working hard and sucking the (tax payer funded) parliamentary library resources dry to get it right. The speech, which promises to restart the neoliberal revolution, is embargoed until he delivers it to a breathless crowd tomorrow night. You can read it here. Turns out he’s got nothing but the same old discredited ideological dribbling. Even his “facts” are wrong. Nothing ever goes right for Roger.
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Scoopit!
Which particular facts are wrong?
With out even reading the speech…..
Firstly, Who broke the embargo? and why?
Secondly, a Roger speaking on TV makes a much better story than a print version in scoop. This will play on all the TV news tomorrow night (assume Roger speaks before 6pm to allow the TV crews time to record and make comment)
Thirdly, Scoop, Schmoop, only for poli geeks, not mainstream.
hilarious.
“This will play on all the TV news tomorrow night”
ah… yeah… right mate. 25 year old speech, delivered by our most boring political speaker of all time, and broken a day before it’s delivered.
can’t see tv news editors going near it with a barge poll.
who’s the gimp paid to be his press sec?
Thirdly, Scoop, Schmoop, only for poli geeks, not mainstream.
And Roger is for the “mainstream”? Yeah right.
Wow, reading this reminds me how disappointing Sir Rog isn’t in government. I agree with Dr. Brash – he’s our greatest living NZer. Finally, someone that actually wants to improve the conditions of everyone.
Was IrishBill planning on actually indicating which facts were incorrect?
Why isnt he sedated and locked up in an Old Peoples Home?? Cause thats where he should be…..rambling on to the other oldies who cant escape or who are skipping through a field of poppies in their heads.
reading this reminds me how disappointing Sir Rog isn’t in government.
????
In what sense is he not?
BB, Facts like “Any increase that workers receive beyond productivity increases will merely exacerbate unemployment.”
Productivity was (slightly) decreased in the last ten years compared to the ten before that. And yet unemployment shrunk in the 2000′s and grew in the 90′s. does that mean the real world is wrong or is Roger? Hint: it’s not the real world.
“Labour increased the costs to hire and employ workers, and told us these policies were employee benefits. They were benefits for people in jobs, but hurdles for those out of work. They will now act as a major barrier to re-employment for those who lose their jobs.”
Yes of course, Roger. That’s why we’ve had low unemployment throughout the ERA years. Even now, heading into a recession, the unemployment rate is much lower than it was for most of the 90′s (when we had Roger’s mates making it “cheaper” to employ workers).
There are plenty more errors here but I can’t be bothered listing them. Maybe I’ll do a post on them tomorrow. After all, I’ve got nearly 23 hours before it hits the news.
I heard him on sunday radio. Him and fran osullivan teamed up to say that privatisation worked and that SOEs underperformed against their state sector counterparts. Fran lept in with saying that National should revoke their promise not to privatise because of “exeptional times”.
Telecom was mentioned. Rodger simply said it was the government’s fault for changing the rules etc.
It was pathetic. The only reason he is still here is a lame attempt at justifying his ridiculous and wrong headed point of view of the past.
That speech is an almost direct lift from his 1980 masterpiece “There Has To Be A Better Way”.
Douglas has not shifted his thinking in 30 years – despite reams and reams and reams of hard data that show he was wrong and we are still suffering as a result.
Greatest Living New Zealander? Douglas should be strung up at No 1 The Terrace and his rotting corpse hanged in the foyer as a reminder to those trolls who inhabit that evil place of what becomes of those who seek to make the rich richer and poor poorer. Then there will be justice.
Felix – I mean not in cabinet. ACT is in government but he’s on the periphery.
If his policies are failures – then please, name a single policy of his that has been repealed by 9 years of Labour. Just one.
IrishBill: the three tier tax system, total deregulation of the dollar, privatisation of rail. There’s three to start with. Most of his policies were asset sales that couldn’t be reversed. Plenty of the policy he influenced (as a mentor of Richardson) in the 1990′s has been turned back.
SD, scoop broke the embargo. Probably done by a non-journo content loader by mistake. But it’s not their fault because nobody in their right mind sends scoop embargoed media releases. Here’s a tip for Roger’s
internmedia advisor: when you send embargoed copies, send them to your list of trusted journos not your main list. If you must send an embargoed copy to scoop then do so by contacting Alister or Kevin directly.I guess this show that we can’t expect a hasbeen dinosaur like Rog to be able to function in a modern political environment.
Kelsey said:
” . . . If his policies are failures – then please, name a single policy of his that has been repealed by 9 years of Labour. Just one. . . . ”
How about the sale of state assets that had to be repurchased by the government after the private sector bilked them?
Kelsey, of course he’s on the periphery. He’s barking fucking mad. But he is in government.
Is the question about his policies directed to me? Why?
Well from the part that I read it seemed to make sense. Which is perhaps why labour never really did it for me over the past nine years. So much of their policy action just seemed, well, pretty dumb really. Driven by ideology and arrogant politics rather than reality on the ground.
He is easy to dismiss with abuse (old age, dinosaur, etc a-la kiwiblog style you hypocrites) but try prising those welded ideology blinkers off and think / observe objectively for a change.
Last labour govt – biggest waste in NZ’s history.
“Greatest Living New Zealander? Douglas should be strung up at No 1 The Terrace and his rotting corpse hanged in the foyer as a reminder to those trolls who inhabit that evil place of what becomes of those who seek to make the rich richer and poor poorer. Then there will be justice.”
Another quote to add to the pile when people on here pretend to be morally superior to the “kiwiblog right”.
vto, he makes at least a half a dozen statements that are tangibly, empirically wrong. That’s delusional. Plain and simple.
“vto, he makes at least a half a dozen statements that are tangibly, empirically wrong. That’s delusional. Plain and simple.”
Need we quote Helen or Michael on tax cuts – which they later seemed to forget – to embarass you IB?
so funny to come here and watch hypocrisy at work as the left slay the character of only two of the sensible people to ever appear on that side of the spectrum. you all can’t stand it when someone has a crack at dear leader, but you ruthlessly mock and assassinate the character of Mr Douglas. This man bravely managed this country to the point that the fourth labour government could then lie around on easy street and suck the fat out. Roger Douglas did more good for this country than Helen, Michael, Mike, H2 and all the rest of them ever did, or could have dreamed of doing.
Dean, for a start I’m not embarrassed by the comments of politicians I have never voted for. Beyond that I don’t recall either of them making statements about New Zealand’s economy that were directly and materially refutable.
IB I heard him on national radio in the w.e. too and he did sound a bit like Prebble I have to admit. Thing is – these old codgers do often make more sense than anyone else, but they just dither with spitting it out. Which doesn’t come across too well.
And I pull back (a little) on my waste of time re labour – they weren’t quite that bad. The common sense of previous times needed a little restraint to prevent excessive actions. And to make people remember other parts of the community. Which has now happened so its back to sensible policies.
out (to watch a luv story hee hee)
“Dean, for a start I’m not embarrassed by the comments of politicians I have never voted for. Beyond that I don’t recall either of them making statements about New Zealand’s economy that were directly and materially refutable.”
You have absolutely got to be joking.
Not about the not voting for them part, because I can believe that.
Are you honestly saying you’ve never heard Helen or Michael talk about tax cuts being bad?
Really?
Get a grip – He sounded like Prebble – because he was Prebble. Not Roger.
vto, I’m the last one to cast stones regarding old codgerness, it’s Douglas’ absolute denial of reality not his age that I’m criticising. Have a good time at the flicks.
Hey, Fran, welcome back. Are you going to cover Roger’s speech? Any sneak previews of your analysis? I’ve been liking your call for concrete action lately although I doubt it would be the action I’d like.
vto – Roger’s record is one of inequality, of the rich getting richer and everyone else, middle – lower classes getting poorer. I/S sums it up here. Some of the points:
That outcome of rogernomics was the bulk of people being relatively worse off whilst the rich made off like bandits. That was not only the outcome of those policies but the intention of those policies.
Dean, tax cuts were bad in 2005 and 2006 and most of 2007. You don’t cut taxes at the peak of a cycle where there is no productive capacity left and a massive skills shortage because they only increase inflation. There’s nowhere else for them to go.
I’m still looking forward to those awkward 1980s white board sessions Roger was so good at. The whole Private vs Public is as dated as the trickle down theory, does Roger have any predictions on when the US dollar will fall over? this time next year maybe?
I wonder if John Ansell was assisting (given the “guts to do what’s right” line in the speech). Remember that it reflects his previous work…
Not so sure this is just a snafu… otherwise what’s with all the truncated paras like:
Looks like a draft to me. Which suggests a leak.
An interesting take on things, and I think it’s a little unfair to call it outdated… the solutions he’s offering could be applied to today’s problems (which is not to say they should) just as other economic theorems far older than his are being debated as potentially offering some answers.
Plus, dismissing them as outdated or even debating them point by point distracts from what’s really wrong with them, at least IMHO. Because while I’m all for some things to which he refers (the truncated passage about individual superannuation accounts, for one), and disgaree equally as strongly with him in other parts (where he disses R&D tax credits, for instance) something else concerns me much more.
Nowhere does Douglas talk about the need to share the burden for getting us out of this recession. In fact he takes the exactly the same attitude for which he criticises the EPMU and others – except in Roger’s view it’s the workers who should pay the entire cost of resuscitating the economy.
To quote Steve Pierson quoting Fran O’Sullivan:
I’m not concerned from any ideological perspective but rather because I fear that if the burden isn’t shared amongst executives, shareholders and workers then many enterprises which could survive and recover will collapse, causing irreparable economic harm.
I’d have hoped Douglas could have taken off the blinkers sufficiently to see what’s happening around him. Clearly not… unless the final speech is very different.
To save people the trouble of reading the speech he basically says slash tax and move health and ACC costs on to individuals.
Nice if you can afford it, stuffed if you can’t.
And just to show that he doesn’t want to throw the low paid on the scrap heap he is proposing a guaranteed minimum income for families. This after criticising working for families.
His policies are guaranteed to do one thing, make the rich richer and the poor poorer, nice guy, why does anyone listen to him?
“…..I fear that if the burden isn’t shared amongst executives, shareholders and workers then many enterprises which could survive and recover will collapse, causing irreparable economic harm.”
And an indication of the possibility of that happening just might be the fact that the Labour government in Britain has given 500 billion pounds to the banks,
40 million pounds to bail out charities http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/feb/09/charities-recession
and is still trying to privatise Social Welfare http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/feb/08/labour-welfare-jobs-plan.
Which all points to the obvious; that capital ( in cahoots with government) will protect profits at the expense of flushing everything and everyone else down the drain.
Irreparable economic damage? Yes, But irreparable economic damage visited upon on our oh so important masters and their interests? Absolutely not! In fact, it’s unthinkable.
It’s just us expendables that are expected cop it.
ieuan,
Roger sees that the problems we are having with the global economy have been caused by the fact that the richest people don’t have enough money.
From the scoop version of the speech:
A problem:
The solution to which is : create and administer an entirely new tax system that will run in parallel with the existing system:
What we do with those inevitable ones of us that opt for the low tax option, but don’t get themselves enough insurance? Watch their kids starve I suppose, as an encouragement to the others!
O’Sullivan’s collumns in the Herald are usually beyond parody. She’s still having a Mills and Boon style romance with Chicago School economics while conspicuously ignoring the fact whole morally bankrupt philosophy is totally shagged out after one cluster fuck orgy too many. Well they say love is blind eh?
Pretty bloody good speech by the great Roger Douglas, only thing he has missed, is a CGT. We need to create more liquidity in the economy and have that money invested in businesses. If some in the middle class get burnt, so what, they should’ve understood risk when they rushed into the housing bubble, although if they went to the same economics school as Clinton Smith, then one can understand why a lot of them are losing their shirts right now.
Even you thick lefties cannot argue against this most simple of statements:
“Any increase that workers receive beyond productivity increases will merely exacerbate unemployment.”
IrishBill: it doesn’t need to be argued. The last ten years in real world NZ have proved it wrong. And you’re on warning for needlessly insulting the blog owners.
Bill:
That seems to be the misguided approach of much of capital but by no means all. In Australia at least one union and one business realise that radical solutions are needed and have jointly approached the government to pay wages and training costs for workers on days the company is forced to halt production.
That’s only feasible when you have a surplus the size of Australia’s of course (which Rudd seems determined to waste on handouts to consumers to buy plasma TVs) but at least it points to a willingness of (some) capital and (some) workers to strive for solutions outside the class war.
It’s disappointing that (some of) our political leaders can’t set aside the traditional playbook and come to terms with the fact that if anyone loses too much, we could all end up losing everything. And that includes capital. Skills shortages constrain growth (and thus profits) during booms – assuming companies can even survive, considering masses of unemployed people can’t consume.