Key’s laundry list of broken promises

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 pm, March 14th, 2012 - 57 comments
Categories: jobs, john key, privatisation, public services, tax, Unions - Tags: , ,

He must resign. Surely. Here is Key, speaking to the PSA in 2008, making very specific promises about public service jobs, tax cuts, and asset sales that helped him get elected. Promises he has since broken. There’s no excuse. He wasn’t blind-sided by events. He made these promises never intending to keep them. Key is refusing to comment but if the man has any ethics he’ll resign.

Here are the quotes from the PSA speech:

“We’re not going to cut jobs, we’re just capping at 36,000” – 2,500 jobs gone so far. For savings of $20 million, not the billion hoped for. 2,500 more jobs to go soon.

“We’re not borrowing for tax cuts” – National’s own Budget said the 2010 tax cuts would cost $1 billion over four years. They cost $1.1 billion in the first nine months.

“We’re not proposing to change the Employment Relations Act in a way that weakens unions” – and, yet, they have by allowing employers to block workers from meeting their union representatives in the workplace.

“there will be no asset sales in the first term of a National Government and there may never be asset sales in the years ahead” – National spent $6 million in Budget 2011, before the election, on preparing assets for sale. they were getting papers as early as 2010 on what assets to sell and how to spin it to the public.

“Nor am I hell-bent on selling assets, actually. I personally think that’s not the issue that the current economy faces…actually,I don’t think selling off state assets is going to make the boat go faster.” – Treasury and just about everyone else agrees. Yet National keeps claiming that asset sales are part of its growth strategy.

“The Crown’s dividend stream from the Meridians, the Mighty Rivers of the world is large.” – Funny, because for the past year Key and English have been saying the returns are below the cost of capital on owning these companies – which raises the question of why anyone else would want them. the truth is they are highly profitable. Even English’s biased numbers so the Crown losing $100m a year from asset sales.

“We don’t have a debt problem, they’re acting highly effectively as companies, and they’re making money – There is no motivation to sell assets.” – There is Key demolishing three more of what would soon become his own arguments for asset sales. And, despite the recession (which was already happening when he gave this speech) and the earthquakes, the Crown still doesn’t have a debt problem thanks to the fact that the Fifth Labour Government bequeathed zero net debt. Net debt’s going to peak at about 30%, well below the danger zone. It’s currently 27th lowest in the 34 member OECD. And, of course, selling assets rather than taking on more debt makes no difference to net wealth. In fact it makes it worse in the long-run as the government has to borrow an extra $100m a year to make up the shortfall from foregone profits.

“We’re about creating assets, actually, not about selling assets.” – This term, all they’re about is selling assets … and cutting jobs that Key promised not to cut.

“There is no agenda to sell assets.”- That promise helped him get power in 2008 with the near-certainty of a second term. It was a lie.

Don’t give me any bullshit about Key being forced to break his promises by events. He knew there was a global recession when he made these commitments – he was speaking during the campaign in October 2008, the steepest part of the recession, a year after the subprime crisis began, most of a year after the drought here, and months after the Lehman collapse. And he broke all those promises long before the earthquakes started.

57 comments on “Key’s laundry list of broken promises ”

  1. Hami Shearlie 1

    “If the man has any ethics he’ll resign”! People with ethics wouldn’t have made promises and broken them. People with ethics . Hmmmm, I’m sorry, I don’t think Jonkey knows any of them – he doesn’t rub shoulders with ethical people – he’s Merrill Lynch material!

    Jonkey can’t resign just yet anyway – he’s got too much grubby Nact laundry to wash – see you down at the laundromat John-John!!!

    • johnm 1.1

      Hi Hami Shearlie

      I agree. Shonkey made his pile at the Merrill Lynch ponzi scheme which like all ponzi schemes went bust but not before its operators got out with a lot of dough! Ethics ? Their ethics was make as much dinero for yourself as possible. Shonkey was in the London Office. The City is infamous for a total absence of any regulatory insight on financial transactions and has become with Wall Street the World Headquarters of Ponzi Schemes. AIG operated there along with Bernie Madoff.

      More of the World Shonkey comes from:

      “Goldman Exec Quits, calling firm toxic — CNN

      “It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off,” he wrote. “Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘muppets,’ sometimes over internal e-mail.”

      — This is an amazing OpEd. Please read all of it. It’s in the NY Times.

      You know, there’s a part of me that perceives this as very significant moment. Someone from deep inside the Infinite Growth beast is condemning its inevitable devolution into blatant, open criminality, lacking all pretense of moral values. Greg Smith has done the world a valuable service and redeemed himself in many ways. GS is at or near the top of the pyramid (scheme) and the moral climate Smith describes is ubiquitous throughout the financial world, from the IMF, to the World Bank, to… everything.”

      “I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘muppets,'”
      Shonkey is so separated from the ordinary kiwi not wanting our assets sold off I am sure we might as well be muppets to him. He’s a neoliberal auto pilot zombie.

      Link:http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/news-alerts/item/6931-goldman-exec-quits-calling-firm-toxic

      • rosy 1.1.1

        “I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘muppets,”

        That’s one of Key’s favourites isn’t it – calling people muppets – the opposition, his adminstrative staff… even his wife, if I recall correctly. Hmmm I wonder where he picked that up from…

        • johnm 1.1.1.1

          Hi rosy
          Yes! Refer this standard article of 2009 “Memo from a muppet”

          “So John Key thinks I’m a Muppet.

          “[when I’m in Hawaii on holiday] they’ll send me stuff … those Muppets in the background who send it all to me”*

          Well f#ck you, John.

          While you’re off in Hawaii with your DPS pouring you drinks, I’ll be working. The days I do get on ‘holiday’ I have to be online and on-call to respond to the government’s latest stuff up. Christmas morning, first thing I’ll have to do is check the wires for any news I need to respond to or send off to the minister (if I can get hold of him). And, yeah, then I will sing Snoopy’s bloody Christmas with the kids, and I’ll have an eye on the phone the whole time.

          I don’t get to go to Hawaii. I don’t get six weeks holiday a year. I don’t get your wage. I don’t get to bribe journalists to like me with fancy bottles of wine paid for by my taxpayer salary (and, yeah, we got an inflation adjustment this year, whoo hoo). But I do the work because it needs to be done and I believe in it. I’m proud to work for the people of New Zealand, John. I don’t need your insults, you lazy, showboating, do-nothing, weak excuse for a Prime Minister.”

          Link: http://thestandard.org.nz/memo-from-a-muppet-2/

          Goldman Sachs MDs have: “Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors
          refer to their own clients as ‘muppets,’ sometimes over internal e-mail.”

          Link:http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/news-alerts/item/6931-goldman-exec-quits-calling-firm-toxic

  2. ropata 2

    http://keyholes.co.nz/post/13195497123/capital-gains-tax-and-rents

    Capital gains tax and rents
    John Key say that a CGT will push up rents …

    Now rents and property are still bubbling along and making wealthy NACT voters happy.
    Thanks to Key’s short sighted attitude to CGT low income earners are worse off

    Shameful behaviour from the boy who was raised in a state house.

  3. fender 3

    ”………if the man has any ethics he’ll resign”.

    It’s safe to say he won’t be resigning then!

    He will quit however once the wealth transfer has been completed, though the extent of the wealth transfer potential should be knee-capped in 2014. For the sake of our country 2014 can’t come soon enough.

  4. Bazar 4

    ““There is no agenda to sell assets.”- That promise helped him get power in 2008 with the near-certainty of a second term. It was a lie.”

    That promise was made and held.
    There were no assets sold in the first term, as Key said.

    You seem to think that because they were elected in 2008, the NZ population is unable to change their mind, forced into some bizarre 6 year election cycle.

    Newsflash, the New Zealand population voted for this government, well aware that assets sales were part of the national policy.

    I’m amazed at the inability for a leftwinger to grasp such a simple premise.
    National said they would sell assets if they got into power this term, they made it clear, labour made it clear, greens made it clear, every party, reporter, and informed voter made it clear.
    There was no uncertainty in this, and people still voted for national, and thus for asset sales.

    And now you attribute nationals victory at the polls to little more then a old promise that held no relation to 2011, and as such proclaim Key as a liar.

    Hell you sound like a child having a tantrum while looking for an excuse to explain why their party lost.

    Grow Up.

    • Colonial Viper 4.1

      So you’re running the “Key has a mandate from the electorate” line.

      Well, why doesn’t Key spend $10M from the $6000M asset sales to run a referendum on the issue then?

      Or are you afraid that the NZ public will vote 80% or more against asset sales? Some mandate.

      • Bazar 4.1.1

        Because we only just had a referendum on the issue, and it was a binding referendum.

        Your asking for a non-binding referendum, that won’t have anywhere near the same coverage and detail, and just isn’t needed.

        I will add though, that i do believe if a referendum was given, that it’d be against asset sales.

      • Mark 4.1.2

        Should we have a referendum on the Ports Dispute as well?

    • rosy 4.2

      …”that held no relation to 2011″

      Worth remembering when righties go on about ‘they did it too’ whenever opposition to asset sales (or anything else) is directed from Labour to National.

    • starlight 4.3

      If nz’ers were in favour of asset sales they would have voted so he had ‘unbridled power’
      key did not get that,he had to get the support of maori,act,united future,to get a 1 seat majority,
      maori are not supporting asset sales.

      • Bazar 4.3.1

        “maori,act,united future,to get a 1 seat majority”

        National, Act, and United are enough at 63 Seats.

        The maori party are not needed, but as with the last term in government, included for stability and long term relations.

  5. Debatewatcher 5

    Interesting.

    John Key gave the speech to the PSA on 25 September 2008.

    Lehman collapsed on 15 September 2008.

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0809/S00271.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers

  6. Blue 6

    It’s not really news that Key is a liar. His 2008 promise to cap, but not cut the public service was broken with impunity and he got away with it scot-free because the media and the public don’t care about public servants losing their jobs.

    The fact that it 100%, no arguments, no excuses, made him a liar fell by the wayside.

    I seem to remember some classless journalist clubbing Phil Goff for calling a spade a spade during one of last year’s election debates.

    Political reality check here – after nine years in Opposition, National and John Key would have promised any fucking thing under the sun to get back into power, with no intention whatsoever of keeping those promises, only doing whatever they needed to do to get a second term as well.

    And the media, compliant little sycophants that they are, whitewashed it all because it suited them to have a change, to have something new and shiny rather than another three years of the same. No responsibility, no ethics, just selfish, shallow greed.

    • rosy 6.1

      “after nine years in Opposition, National and John Key would have promised any fucking thing under the sun to get back into power”

      Would have… They did! I remember well ‘the yeah, yeah we’ll do that too’ from Key whenever labour came up with a policy decision that might trump tax cuts. The blatant cheek – and the MSM just laughed along with him – how cute they all were.

    • Peter 6.2

      Sad, but you are right!

  7. seeker 7

    “but if the man has any ethics he’ll resign.”
    He doesn’t and he therefore he won’t. I’m not at all sure that you can really call him a “man” either, I am sad to say. Very good post though Eddie.

  8. tsmithfield 8

    LOLZ Eddie. Your article can only be an attempt at distraction from the performance of Labour’s bumbling charisma-void of a leader.

    So, am I right in saying, that by the logic advanced in your article, Labour, if elected next time, will be breaking promises big time, they don’t scrap GST on fruit and veges, extend the in-work tax credit to the unemployed, introduce a capital gains tax etc etc. And before anyone advances the obvious and pathetic excuse that there is a new leader for Labour now, let me remind them that there is a thing called collective responsibility and the new leader was part of the team that crafted those promises.

    • felix 8.1

      If they were elected on those promises, yep.

      So no.

      Moran.

      • tsmithfield 8.1.1

        “If they were elected on those promises, yep. So no.”

        Well, Key wasn’t elected last year on the promises alluded to in the article, either. In fact, so far as asset sales goes, he specifically promised no asset sales in that previous term, and that asset sales would be put to voters in the next election, which is exactly what happened.

        So, it is comparing apples with apples and so the same goes for Labour, if promises from previous elections are to be considered relevant.

        “Moran.”

        Are you suggesting I am part of a historical Australian drug family?

        Or maybe you meant “moron”. In which case, the title would apply more aptly to you for not being able to spell it.

        • Te Reo Putake 8.1.1.1

          Whoosh! A joke goes flying over TS’s head. The world moves on …

        • felix 8.1.1.2

          “So, it is comparing apples with apples and so the same goes for Labour, if promises from previous elections are to be considered relevant.”

          Rot.

          Labour didn’t get elected on any of the promises you list. If they did, I’d expect them to stick to them. But they didn’t, so they can’t, and you’re arguing hypotheticals while the rest of us are talking about what National actually said and did.

          Trouble is you don’t have many options arguing in favour of John Key breaking his word so you’re finding it easier to argue about what might have happened in a parallel universe where National weren’t elected.

          Even that moran Matthew Hooton manages to mount a coherent argument in support of Key’s broken promises. Why can’t you?

        • Frank Macskasy 8.1.1.3

          No, Key was elected,

          * to create 170,000 new jobs.

          * Not to raise GST.

          * Capping state sector numbers – not cutting.

          * Stating that he didn’t want to see NZers “tenants in their own country”.

          * Raising wages.

          * Creating an economy where NZers would prefer to stay in NZ rather than migrate to Australia.

          * Yada, yada, yada.

          I’m sure I’ve left out a few things, TS – but you get my drift.

          What’ve we got instead…

          * Well, he’s combining several ministeries into one Soviet-style super-ministry.

          That’s it. Yay.

  9. TT 9

    It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Key is a white collar criminal. He shouldn’t resign; he should be removed from power and spend the rest of his life in prison along with the rest of the ruling NACT junta.

  10. AAMC 10

    The only thing surprising here is the surprise with which the news delivered it. Why wasn’t this dug out pre election? Because the 4th estate has an established mantra around us Kiwi’s being good sorts and giving a Govt a couple a cracks at it before we start to hold them to account?
    This is a failure of the media, and it presentation as some great scoop when we’ve all been ranting on here and to friends about exactly these issues for years…

  11. vto 11

    .

    Hands up who would trust John Key.

    • vto 11.1

      Tell you who wouldn’t and no doubt didn’t and that is the audience at that speech. You could see it in their eyes, it was like they were watching a snake-oil salesman. Surprising that.

  12. insider 12

    I think John Key should do what Helen Clark and Michael Cullen did after interest free student loans didn’t cost what they said they would and what Pete Hodgson did after the $500m carbon credit cheque got lost in the post.

  13. vto 13

    Why does everyone pussyfoot around politicians who lie?

    It is like the fact that an MP is not allowed to be labelled a hypocrite in the house apparently. Weak and pathetic.

    It just stinks… “oh no, don’t call him a liar because he might call me a liar for a lie I made back whenever”. “No, don’t say anything too bad, lest it happens to me in reverse.” “Lighten the accusation in order that I only receive light accusations in return”.

    The participants in the political world are at these times complete shams. On all sides. The most lies in the country get spoken by politicians and it is unacceptable that it is permitted.

    If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck …..

    Bullshit on a grand scale.

  14. He also must resign for the simple fact he has encorporated Goldman Sachs in auckland
    into national party policies.
    Just released to the media is an insider of Goldman Sachs in the US has waged a stinging
    attack on these ‘financial terrorists’,the sale of our assets came from GS in auckland,the ports
    in auckland and tauranga requiring a higher return came from GS,the first idea of asset sales
    to ‘pay down debt’ was mis-leading nz,then it changed to schools,health etc another GS
    offering to ‘soften’ the public’s acceptance.
    NZ is being governed by GS in auckland via their man key,when there are other options
    for nz including a capital gains tax.
    Key must step down,he is taking nz on a path to total distruction and needs to stop,a vote
    of no confidence by the public and in parliament needs to be held before it gets totally out
    of control.
    His statement of 2008 is a reflection on key’s character and integrity,missing in action.

    • johnm 14.1

      Hi starlight
      I agree Shonkey is GS material
      Would you be able to explain the connections you have alluded to more clearly? It is very important because GS is a criminal organisation that makes the MOB in terms of getting money out of muppet clients and daft governments bailing them out with taxpayer’s money look like amateurs.

      • starlight 14.1.1

        Interest.co.nz had an article on the goldman link with key,asset sales and the ports were discused at a meeting.

      • starlight 14.1.2

        There is an article by gareth vaughn also one about Goldman managing the sale of our assets.

        • johnm 14.1.2.1

          Thanks starlight I will look those references up. This is a scandal GS are the biggest bunch of financial terrorists in the World today. They are criminals who have committed massive fraud in the U$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ so big the Government couldn’t touch them so they employed them! If Key is connected to these Bastards that should sink him permanently. This should be highlighted by the docile MSM here. Hope eh!

          • starlight 14.1.2.1.1

            You also may be interested to learn that on the board of directors of the ports of auckland
            is Philipa Dunphy (deputy chair) asumed the position in 2010,with a 3yr contract, she
            was executive director of investment banking and head of debt capital for goldman
            sachs JB Were.
            There sure is shonkey deals going on,but we wont see it on main stream media.

            • johnm 14.1.2.1.1.1

              Criminal. Nz must stop being muppet sodomised by this criminal rubbish and bring back democracy. Otherwise its curtains for a decent society. Hi kiwi sheeple Baa Baa go back to sleep you stupid uninformed la la land fuckwits. AKA Mad cancerous ridden Mad fucking butcher.

            • johnm 14.1.2.1.1.2

              Hi starlight
              Again the GS connection with Shonkey and others boarders on the criminal.Why? because GS are criminals!

              These are the rich ponzi scheme mates Shonkey is getting advice from to sell OUR ASSETS. Makes you proud to be a New Zealander eh?

              The People vs. Goldman Sachs

              “They weren’t murderers or anything; they had merely stolen more money than most people can rationally conceive of, from their own customers, in a few blinks of an eye. But then they went one step further. They came to Washington, took an oath before Congress, and lied about it.

              Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511#ixzz1pE6NO6Zz

          • johnm 14.1.2.1.2

            Evidence to back up my assertion:

            Goldman Sachs Criminality?

            The People vs. Goldman Sachs
            Matt Taibbi: A Senate committee has laid out the evidence. Now the Justice Department should bring criminal charges

            Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511#ixzz1o1kkRbuz

            Goldman Sachs: Master Of The Universe

            By Stephen Lendman
            Link: http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman200410.htm

            “The scheme was to sell toxic asset-backed securities (ABSs) to unwary customers (including foreign banks, pension funds, insurance companies and others), then apparently use credit default swaps (CDSs) to profit when they defaulted, or in other words the equivalent of buying life insurance on an undisclosed terminally ill patient. More still, given Paulson & Co.’s role in helping to structure and select assets, then buying CDSs to short them, betting they’ll decline. Paulson thus far faces no charges. Goldman’s so far are civil. If criminal ones are filed, prosecutors will have to prove intent, perhaps coming given enough evidence to proceed.”

            Key is totally compromised using these crims to sell OUR ASSETS.

            • johnm 14.1.2.1.2.1

              Key is a sodomised muppet of Goldman Sachs albeit well paid! But must NZ become a sodomised muppet of these Bastards too? Decide Kiwi sheople BAA Baa.

              • johnm

                Further explanation of the World these psychopaths inhabit

                The World of John Key ex Merrill Lynch operative.
                Now flogging off our assets.

                “Greg Smith, an executive director at Goldman Sachs, announced his resignation Wednesday in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, denouncing the bank’s “toxic” culture of avarice and fraud.”

                Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29782

                “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” he describes a corporate environment that encourages and rewards big short-term returns gained through the bilking of clients and the general public. “It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off,” he writes.

                Speaking of one’s clients as “muppets” and describing deal-making as “ripping eyeballs out” are commonplace at Goldman, according to Smith.

                “It confirms from the inside that three-and-a-half years after Wall Street’s manic pursuit of super-profits triggered a global financial meltdown and the deepest slump since the Great Depression, nothing has changed in the boardrooms of corporate America. The same fraudulent and often illegal practices that enriched the financial aristocracy and plundered the rest of society continue unabated. The criminals at the top, having been bailed out with trillions of taxpayer funds, are making more money than ever, while millions of ordinary people are being driven into poverty and homelessness.”

                “The criminalization of the American corporate-financial elite cannot be separated from the capitalist system itself. It is the product of a decades-long process of crisis and decay, in which the ruling elite has increasingly separated its wealth-making from the production of real value.”

        • johnm 14.1.2.2

          Further info on GS who are The Standard Bearers of the U$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NeoLiberal establishment. That any NZers including Key would go to these people for assistance on selling our assets is an outrageous scandal.

          Our msm are pretty useless they should have picked up on this:

          “11 Reasons Why America Would Be A Better Place Without Goldman Sachs”

          Link: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/11-reasons-why-america-would-be-a-better-place-without-goldman-sachs

          “#7 Goldman Sachs is working very hard to help state and local governments sell off our highways, water treatment plants, libraries, parking meters, airports and power plants to the highest bidder. Much of the time foreigners are the highest bidders for these precious infrastructure assets.

          The following is how Dylan Ratigan described what is going on….

          On Wall Street, setting up and running “Infrastructure Funds” is big business, with over $140 billion run by such banks as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Australian infrastructure specialist Macquarie. Goldman’s 2010 SEC filing should give you some sense of the scope of the campaign. Goldman says it will be involved with “ownership and operation of public services, such as airports, toll roads and shipping ports, as well as power generation facilities, physical commodities and other commodities infrastructure components, both within and outside the United States.” While the bank sees increased opportunity in “distressed assets” (ie. Cities and states gone broke because of the financial crisis), the bank also recognizes “reputational concerns with the manner in which these assets are being operated or held.”

          Gs have more than enough fiat U$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ juNk currency to buy up OUR ASSETS.Or charge interest on funding those who buy our assets.

          Shonkey is totally beholden to these Wall Street crims and virtually in bed with them. They’rehis ex mates from the Merrill Linch Ponzi scheme days. How he made his $50,000,000 dinero pile: He sure didn’t do any real work for it like say a Wharfie has to work!

  15. I also add to my post,Goldman Sachs is one of three ‘financial terrorists’ that are going
    to manage the sales of our tax payer owned assets, key,looking after his business mates,
    he is here for a reason and its sure isn’t to look after the citizens.

    • johnm 15.1

      Hi starlight
      more on Goldman Sachs

      These are the guys giving advice to their ex mate Shonkey on the sale of OUR ASSETS!
      “Goldman Sachs – Making
      Money By Stealing It
      By Stephen Lendman”
      Link: http://www.rense.com/general95/goldmanss.html

      “Money power in private hands and democracy can’t co-exist. Wall Street crooks transformed America into an unprecedented money making racket.

      Goldman symbolizes master of the universe manipulative fraud. It’s been involved in nearly all financial scandals since the 19th century.

      It makes money the old-fashioned way. It steals it through fraud, grand theft, market manipulation, front-running them, scamming investors, bribing political Washington, having its executives in top administration posts, and getting open-ended low or no interest rate bailouts when needed.

      It’s business model and culture assure billions of bonus dollars for company officials, complicit traders, and others on the take. It’s a crime family, not a bank. It’s connected to others like it on Wall Street and corrupt politicians”

  16. This stuff should have been all over the MSM for the last 3 years, but since Key had the longest media honeymoon in history they didn’t touch him with anything he couldn’t spin in his favour. Nat’s victory in the 2011 election is purely on the shoulders of the media for not informing people of what their government was doing. Most people don’t go to look this stuff up for themselves.

  17. aerobubble 17

    Key buys some expensive dresses, after hearing that the world is in the greatest
    global debt crisis in history, returning home he tells wifey that debt will blow out
    and she has to cull her spending, and how much is her family gold airloom again? He
    said he was not going to sell them, or sack the hired help, but now wifey just needs
    to get with the program and go back to work in the real economy (unpaid housework), and his explanation? The world global debt crisis he did not see coming.

    Key keeps abreast of the world economy, he made millions doing so, so its hard to fathom how the PM can argue he did not have a clue about the global debt crisis, and still doesn’t. Our debt is held privately and Key has increase government debt by lowering taxes for the wealth and raising them for the poorest. Two faced.

  18. “Don’t give me any bullshit about Key being forced to break his promises by events. He knew there was a global recession when he made these commitments – he was speaking during the campaign in October 2008, the steepest part of the recession, a year after the subprime crisis began, most of a year after the drought here, and months after the Lehman collapse. And he broke all those promises long before the earthquakes started.”

    Correct.

    The Banking Crisis was in full swing in 2008, and Cullen took Key to task on all his promises. Slippery John simple employed his usual trick; deny, deny, deny.

    By the time Joe Public began to realise what was going on, it was too late and Dear Leader had been elected.

  19. johnm 19

    Selling the cow to buy the milk
    Nats are selling off our Power Company assets to prove to their ideological mates they’re still part of the club. Why does predatory finance want Public Wealth so much?

    Huge funds (like sovereign wealth funds) are frustrated by the near zero rates of return on offer (due to central banks refusing to let rates rise with their QE programs), use their considerable political leverage to get governments (like NZ) to change or modify laws allowing them to buy key income producing assets like Power Companies – so that their return on investment bumps up to 8 – 9% (from 1/2 %)( Power Companies were returning 15% I believe). Citizens end up losing the key income producing asset that their taxes built and maintained for generations. They also will be subjected to rampant extra ticket clipping cost rises – as reckless, loose monetary policies continue to debase the currency – forcing the new owners to ‘keep up with inflation’ by jacking up utility access costs. This is a clear wealth transfer scheme orchestrated by John Key and Bill English at the expense of the New Zealand tax payer.

    • KeepOurAssetsDon'tSell. 19.1

      It all boils down to the Ponzi Monetary system.
      The Financialization of everything by robbing country’s of their infrastructure via selling out to private interests with the help of the Bank’s Fake Money.
      show me a place, in the World today, where financial turmoil doesn’t exist. We are all locked into this shit. Every hedge fund manager is shitting themselves, no one knows where the safe bets are. All talks of any escape is just blowing off steam and ‘the grass is greener’. I’m ready to emigrate but waiting to see which land provides some shelter from the storm by disassociating itself from the ‘free market’.

  20. stuart 20

    key has promised 170000 new jobs by 2014 it was bs at election and total bs now the only promise this prick will keep is to steal our assets i still think he will resign before 2014 job done !why should we except worthless paper money for hard assets at the very least we should ask for gold

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    5 days ago
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