Written By: - Date published: 7:34 pm, November 22nd, 2008 - 43 comments
Categories: economy, International, john key -
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Well, John Key took my advice and gave a speech at APEC different from the pro forma MFAT-written speech that might have been expected. Unfortunately, it’s still all style and no substance, all bark but no bite.
Key is scathing of his fellow money-men for taking on more and more risk; he accuses them of being reckless. He says there needs to be more regulation of these “reckless” money-men (although one has to wonder how long he has believed these businesses are behaving badly, given he has most of his money invested in financiers Merrill Lynch).
So far, so good. He’s saying what the Left has been saying all along, and the Right is now conceding – the financiers are greedy and neoliberal de-regulation has permitted them to gamble too much with the result that the rest of us have ended up carrying the can for the problem they created (surprising he never said it during the campaign when he was making capital off his finance experience).
But, unfortunately, this is where he stops, whereas it should be where he is just beginning. He calls for regulation but offers no substantive suggestions for what regulation is needed; says reform is needed but not what reform that should be. Which means he’s not actually saying anything; it’s just empty bluster. In a disturbing continuation of the fluffiness that characterised his time as Opposition Leader, Key identifies a widely recognised problem and then says ‘we need to do something about that’. Real leadership is about providing solutions. So far we’ve seen none of that from Key.
This was Key’s first major test; his chance to make an impact on the international stage. He gets a partial credit for identifying the problem, and a bonus mark for rhetorical style, but on substance, the important stuff, he fails badly.
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Santi: I seem to remember that Key spent 45 minutes on the phone to Helen before heading to APEC about APEC. Looks like he doesn’t share your opinion.
From Granny John Key calls an expert for Apec advice
Mind you it is hard to find your opinions being respected anywhere.
Santi opened his mouth without thinking ,after all the facts are that Key hadto aswk Clark for advice . Amazingly the sour grapes are not coming form Labour but the National Party ,One could be led to belive that the election is still on. Santi’s comments should go in the rubbish bin with the likes of Fran O’Sullivan’s ,who now have to defend Key as he makes mistake after mistake , Watch the body language of English asthe National leadership moves toward him
can anybody tell me what is remarkable about this speech.
I read the herald item(link provided above) but other than a possibility of it making some announcement of presence and, a little unusually perhaps for a PM(product of politics) to allege to a predominantly business audience that “political” failure of the G20 was how the speaker held matters to be the case should his views be disregarded.
If I am correct in this then it is quite possible a dichotomy prevails among APEC (not to mention other) nations. Of the kind where business-is-business and politics-is-politics. N’ere the twain etc.
An observation which may also account for the reported complementarity of two enzed PMs. And yes, adding grist to the present potus’s role. As heard(product of speechwriter/s) and otherwise performed via divers cells.
I’m all for the occasional ribbing of Mr Key but I have to admit that this particular attack is shallow and pedantic. These slanted posts do your credibility no good Clint.
Timewarp
I didn’t intend that remark for you, and I am glad you did not take it that way.
all spending is inflationary, whether it be private or government. So, what do you want, the govt. to hoard all the monies and reduce the pool of money even further? we wouldn’t be in this situation if tax cuts had been given many years ago, and now, giving tax cuts is, for some in the population the same as throwing petrol on a fire. But for others, and given it is a smaller group, this will make the difference between starting a new enterprise or not.
I think we are arguing the same point, just in different time scales. I think people are crying out for some sort of relief right now.
From a moral point of view what right does the government have to take more money than it needs. I know that a govt. can always create ‘needs’ for the monies, but then this becomes the larger issue; how much money does a govt need. Well, depends on what you want it to do, the classic red/blue debate.
The one line policy was in response to another author (rave) earlier in the night.
From a moral point of view what right does the government have to take more money than it needs.
One might equally ask, “What right does a seller of any good or service have to charge over and above cost, ie to make a profit?”. The question has about as much meaning.
Besides a private enterprise will keep the profit and spend it on private needs; at least a government is likely to use a surplus on services that benefit all taxpayers.
Sweet,
Spending has very different characteristics depending on what is consumed (or invested in). Different effects that occur to me include the economic multiplier value of how the spending impact ripples through the economy, and how much of the value is transferred offshore.
So a consumer spending on a bottle of milk has very different qualitative effects to one buying a plasma television, compared to government spending to retire debt, or to invest in infrastructure.
People have been crying out for relief, as you term it, for the last many years – driven on by mantras of government greed and lower tax being good. I think it is valuable to have a discussion around this – but my very objection in the first place was a simplistic “tax cuts are good” mentality. The very lack of consideration of the value of money and where it is spent by the wider populace is exactly what has got us to the point we are in now.
I’m not even going to start discussing the “what right does a government have” comment…..
Ha, John Key ‘took your advice’. Funny. This is like randal making election predictions isn’t it? Everything he predicts, the opposite happens.
If John Key had read your ‘advice’ I’m sure he too would have immediately realised the opposite stance would be most appropriate.
If we are to be realistic about the causes of the current crisis we would have to concede that much of it is due to lending to high risk borrowers. If the risky borrowers were able to pay their loans back then there wouldn’t be a crisis right now. I’m sure the left point of view is that it is the financial institutions that made the loans that are at fault because they should have known the borrowers would get into trouble. So it’s not just the “money men” at fault here. Sure, it’s their own fault for being so stupid as to make the loans in the first place, but the defaulters are the ones in default, so legally they’re the real culprits.
So excuse me if I don’t buy into your mantra that it is all the fault of greedy free marketeers. Down at the root of it there’s a whole cross section of people borrowing more than they can afford to service. Mostly it is beneficiaries and lower income earners who want houses, flat screens and fast cars, and they want it now. No thought that perhaps they should work hard, upskill, increase their income, save up a decent deposit or even pay for the stuff up front.
There is a mantra in our household : Short term pain for long term gain.
We work hard to increase our income, and we don’t spend beyond our means.
We wait until we can afford something, we pay our credit card down to zero every month.
We want tax cuts to bring us back to pre 1999 levels. Cullen said the top tax rate would only affect the top 5% of earners but 9 years later it was getting 14% of them. It became a toss up as to whether one of us should quit work to look after the kids full time, and get the government to make up the income difference. Well wouldn’t that be fair? Let’s one of us give up working and that’s about $20k p/a we don’t pay in tax. Then we’d get about $20k a year in welfare. And although we’d effectively cost the government (taxpayers) $40k p/a we’d actually not be much worse off ourselves.
Now while the left seem to think that is ok (and in fact you seem to think that level of wealth redistribution is some shining ideal to hold up and cherish) I happen to think that it isn’t.
If you can’t earn it, don’t buy a friggin 4WD or WRX. Don’t get the biggest LCD TV in the shop, and don’t spend $500 out on the turps on payday. That’s MY MONEY you’re spending and I don’t like the idea of bailing you out.