Know when to run

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 pm, September 3rd, 2012 - 21 comments
Categories: election funding, john key, Judith Collins, privatisation, Steven Joyce - Tags:

Key has gone for a gamble again; but not the gamble some of the pundits were expecting. On the asset sales, he’s chosen flight over fight, giving up on floating Mighty River Power this year and pushed the timetable back to the next window of opportunity in 2013. But the real problems the asset sales face now isn’t Maori action, it’s the state of the economy.

Expectations are very different now from when the idea of selling infrastructure assets was first mooted in the National Party. Slowing electricity demand, pressure on electricity prices from consumer resistance and possible regulation of asset revaluations, as Geoff Bertram outlined this morning on National Radio, as well as dropping coal prices all mean that the brighter future of return to surplus via asset sales is now just a shimmering and ever-receding mirage.

On top of that is the looming referendum, which now will certainly erupt in the middle of any sale process and well before the next election. More and more New Zealanders are likely to come to the conclusion that the whole sale idea is bankrupt, and the best solution is to keep the assets in government hands.

I think MOM has turned up her toes and the asset sale process is effectively dead. It won’t  surprise me if Key  decides he  wants to put his family and his own future first, not put himself through another election, and does another runner before 2014. There will also be a lot of very disappointed National Party big donors who want their money back.

And Joyce v Collins will be a brawl; a battle of the arrogants.

As they say, it’s an ill wind.

21 comments on “Know when to run ”

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  1. Carol 1
    3 September 2012 at 8:53 pm

    wouldn’t be at all surprised if Key decides he doesn’t want to put his family first, do another runner and not go through another election.

    Is there a typo in this sentence, or am I just reading it wrong?

    • Anne 1.1
      3 September 2012 at 9:08 pm

      It’s a typo Carol.

      He will decide to put his family first…. My bet is around April/May of next year.

      • Carol 1.1.1
        3 September 2012 at 9:22 pm

        OK, thanks, Anne.

        I think Key is leaving his options open, but gambling on being able to negotiating his way out of the situation, one Iwi at a time…. or via a court case. But if that doesn’t work, and the economic context for sales doesn’t improve, he’ll take his scrap book and (anticipated) gong and run.

  3. fnjckg 3
    3 September 2012 at 9:25 pm

    joyce is as incoherent as brownlee; joyce/collins-may the best man win

  4. Carol 4
    3 September 2012 at 10:18 pm

    Is running when things start to turn to custard, part of JK’s MO?

    He doesn’t seem to have stuck to many jobs for more than a couple of years – the most was 7 years at Auckland Bankers Trust:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Key#Before_politics

  5. captain hook 5
    3 September 2012 at 10:42 pm

    key is on the edge all right.
    he knew what the conditions were going to be but he is trying to organise the economy for the few and not the real workers.
    everybody knows the world economy is on the down slope at the moment and people in general accept that.
    recovery will come.
    what people dont accept is using the present conditions to tear up the economy on neo liberal priciples knowing that all their decisions will have to be turned a round by the next government after they have proved worthless in practice.

  6. xtasy 6
    3 September 2012 at 10:43 pm

    Ahem, I do not run, I hasten and do what wisdom tells me, so to say.

    Smart bets on the currency and merchant instruments got me rich, good and hail that, but now I am OUT!

    I dread government, because people actually expect me to deliver, which I never wanted or promised to. So f off NZ, I am out now, I have my island refuge, I worked hard for it, I could not give damn shit about some unemployed, some sole mums, addicts and sick down in South Auckland. F Off, leave me alone, I want my turf and “my rights”. I am Hone Key after all.

    I will even forego my passport, it is not worth having it, since tens of thousands want to rid themselves of it every year. Do not blame me, my intentions were good and you are to blame, so negative, bad, unfaithful folk. Hate you all, JK

  7. captain hook 7
    3 September 2012 at 10:43 pm

    oh and I forgot to mention that all his ministers are feeble prats.

  8. AmaKiwi 8
    4 September 2012 at 12:08 am

    The market has killed NZ infrastructure sales.

    The Facebook share offering in May was a disaster. The initial offering price was $38. It is now $18 a share. That’s a 52% LOSS.

    In August, Manchester United wanted to sell shares at $20 (USD) but the market was so weak they dropped the offering price to $14. The owners took a 30% LOSS in order to sell the shares.

    In August there were only 9 initial public offerings (IPO) on the US markets. That is miniscule. Cash is moving OUT of shares into fixed income. IPO’s are dead. They will not recover anytime soon.

    Once were warriors? Still warriors! But this time in the courts.

    Maori have fought a critical holding action that will delay the sales until they are no longer feasible.

    Well done. I owe you a debt of gratitude. I hope others appreciate what you have done for the country.

    • Colonial Viper 8.1
      4 September 2012 at 12:17 am

      The Facebook share offering in May was a disaster. The initial offering price was $38. It is now $18 a share. That’s a 52% LOSS.

      In August, Manchester United wanted to sell shares at $20 (USD) but the market was so weak they dropped the offering price to $14. The owners took a 30% LOSS in order to sell the shares.

      Huge money was made in those IPOs. By the investment banks who managed the floats. Members of the ordinary investing public, hedge funds and pension funds were fleeced.

      • SpaceMonkey 8.1.1
        4 September 2012 at 12:28 pm

        And the same will happen with our infrastructure assets, even if they are partially sold. Goldman Sachs in particular have a history of pumping and dumping IPOs. Facebook was just another notch on their belt… tightening around the throat of the global economy.

  9. AmaKiwi 9
    4 September 2012 at 2:31 am

    The owners of Facebook and Manchester United made big money, too, but unlike John Key they were the rightful owners of the assets they were selling.

  10. tracey 10
    4 September 2012 at 6:21 am

    Key needs to leave before the next election in case a new govt gets rid of knighthoods. If he leaves before his party can grant it. I wonder if kiwibank now gets put on tge table as the finance minister predicted a few years ago? There has onky ever been one strategy, sell assets. Without sales they have no plan.

    The planless govt rolls on.

    • Glg 10.1
      4 September 2012 at 8:46 am

      But a compliant press rolled over for this government for more than 4 years. That’s the bit I cannot understand.

      • bbfloyd 10.1.1
        4 September 2012 at 5:15 pm

        “4 years”? what about the last century…? lest we forget what this blog site is named after…..Which was just one battle of many fought by the many to stop the few from keeping us “mushroomed”…..

      • mike e 10.1.2
        4 September 2012 at 5:44 pm

        They are all changing their tune when John Armstrong the odt excetera are all complaining about Nactional lack of policy on child poverty you know the tide is out for National and its not coming back in.

    • Simon says 10.2
      4 September 2012 at 9:20 am

      And, more importantly, he can strike deals with the wanna’bees for his job – his support for a plum diplomatic post or SOE chairmanship.

  11. Simon says 11
    4 September 2012 at 9:28 am

    When the asset sales programme was first announced my initial thought was, ‘I’m up for some of those’. My very next thought was, ‘I wonder how they’ll get around the inevitable trouble from the Maori over water rights.”

    That well over a year later it’s clear that no-one in the Govt. had proceeded to the second thought any even moderately canny investor had on day one reveals quite staggering incompetence.

  12. Tim 12
    4 September 2012 at 2:05 pm

    @ Tracey and Simon (above)
    I think the problem is that many people have actually OVER-estimated Jonky’s capabilities and intelligence. I’ve heard various boffins and commentators call him “smart” – including Mike Williams on Nine-to-Noon. I don’t disagree. I just draw a distinction on intelligence with a capability for critical thought, and ‘learned behaviour’ and habit – often based purely on ideology.
    There’s an expression ….”cunning as a sh……. r..” but since I know Nats, while capable of dishing out utter nastiness are incapable of receiving it…. let’s just say a fox is also smart – as in a cunning sense. Often what comes with it is the necessity for sheer arrogance.
    Agreed Simon – absolute incompetence. It’s what happens though when you get a bunch of unintelligent, smart, cunning sh……. r..s jostling for a position in the drainpipe. Even when the whole environment changes, they still try and live by their learned behaviour. Worse still, when there are a few in the vicinity capable of any degree of critical thought, they get neutered by the surrounding ….

    Might as well give Jonky his knighthood so he can go embarass the toffs, but look at those lining up behind. Joyce ffs! Collins! Next thing you know there’ll be a Parata or a Bennett in the running.
    And Chris Finlayson once said he’d seen ‘sense’ and signed up for this ideology. I hope he’s content being a bitter old …….. in his dotage

    • the pink postman 12.1
      4 September 2012 at 2:35 pm

      I ‘have allways thought that Key is a cunning devious slime ball.But clever no.According to today’s Herald he made a complete balls up in a speech to Hilary Clinton which if it had been missed could have had terrible consequences for NZ. Plus the rest of his speech was inaudible . Im sure he has a drink problem but I must say he hides it well.Of course that is also the sign of a drinking problem.