Daily review 17/11/2020

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, November 17th, 2020 - 13 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

13 comments on “Daily review 17/11/2020 ”

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  1. Tiger Mountain 1
    17 November 2020 at 6:00 pm

    People should be in zero doubt about Jacinda and Robbo’s commitment to the Parliamentary neo liberal consensus, and its various structural components.

    She said as much re the separation of Govt. and Reserve Bank. There will be no intervention from her.

    I have no problems with people’s gratitude for the PM briefly putting people before capital during the Level 4 Lockdown. Public health was the clear winner, but at great cost of billions being transferred to business via bailouts (with literally thousands of cases pending for stealing workers leave, and fraudulently claiming bailouts)-and now gifts to speculators and rentiers.

    Time to wake up working class and take action. How about NZCTU and the 60 NGOs promote a nationwide “call in sick day” to push for 10 days sick leave before Xmas?

    • xanthe 1.1
      17 November 2020 at 7:09 pm

      Not saying this is necessarily the case, But jacinda has form for waiting until the clamour for action has reached a frenzy across the political spectrum…. and then acting.

      I wait and see.

    • arkie 1.2
      17 November 2020 at 7:19 pm

      Michael Cullen is considered to be one of the best performing ministers of the modern Labour party. He is prepared to publicly criticise the Governments approach:

      Former Labour finance minister Michael Cullen has sounded the alarm over the amount of cheap money sloshing around helping to fuel the housing boom, while National is calling on the government to rein in the Reserve Bank.

      …

      “And also, like the fact that doing this is widening most differentials within society when obviously at least the current government would prefer to see the opposite happening to that,” Cullen says.

      There won’t be any action on the demand side from the government, with Ardern maintaining the stance of no capital gains tax under her leadership.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/430836/government-under-pressure-across-political-spectrum-over-inflated-house-prices

      • Pat 1.2.1
        17 November 2020 at 7:42 pm

        he does of course have cancer so I expect he is unconcerned about upsetting the party but it is worth remembering he accepted the neolib consensus even after he resigned from Parliament

      • Nic the NZer 1.2.2
        17 November 2020 at 7:50 pm

        This sort of statement would be more meaningful if Cullen had revised his understanding considering his own term as finance minister, during which house prices rose far more rapidly as a fraction of incomes (than presently). They did this despite relatively tight monetary policy at the time. The main lesson from this seems to be that monetary policy has almost no influence on house prices (and probably inflation rates more generally, considering the RBNZ inability to get CPI inflation up to 3%).

        If on the other hand the problem is the overall preference for monetary over fiscal policy, and the focus on govt fiscal surplus as a goal, and so the resulting lack of spending growth, and so the lack of employment growth, and so the lack of labour market pressure, and so the relative (to house prices) lack of median wage growth. Well in this case Cullen and his focus on higher taxes, could be seen as contributing to the problem.

      • greywarshark 1.2.3
        17 November 2020 at 8:28 pm

        Cullen can criticise but where does he say that the solution is to build more state housing for renting, with some sold off every year on a buy-back at agreed valuation basis. So people put money into their home, and get it back later. Now that would be speaking up. But merely playing the wise man from the side of the pool hardly gets his toes wet. He needs to dive in or be pushed and come up spluttering something with some passion behind it.

        And bringing in tighter housing policy on everybody. And immigration – stop being subservient to people with cash. How did they get it by the way? Ghost houses, drive out the ghouls. Most houses these days look so dull and depressing they would sap the life from anybody. And the ghouls that develop them can even put something like liens on to prevent colour change etc. Talk about pretentious dictators – that’s what neo lib afficianados turn into.

        • Tiger Mountain 1.2.3.1
          17 November 2020 at 9:32 pm

          Yes, whole streets and “precincts” in various shades of porridge or beige. Covenants bind purchasers–poor sods–to a limited colour palette.

      • mikesh 1.2.4
        18 November 2020 at 9:02 am

        Cullen, in a Stuff article, says that while he still supports a CGT it would do nothing to slow housing price increases.

  2. Maurice 2
    18 November 2020 at 3:16 am

    More rainbow houses!