Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
11:03 am, October 16th, 2015 - 26 comments
Categories: economy, national -
Tags: cooking the books, surplus
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Such a good graphic
+1 Well done Labour.
+2, nice work, although there is quite a lot going on in that one graphic. They’re going to have to continue to simplify the message to sway the nat voter, or just repeat, repeat, repeat.
+ 3 So good
Funny the things this government will flip-flop on, and the things they cling to like glue
That doesn’t explain what the surplus is but it’s a nice detailed image about how this government screws us over. This is what explains what a Budget Surplus really is!
Its not a cash surplus either as they are borrowing $8 bill this year to pay their bills ( about $1 bill of that is to refinance old borrowings).
Income + 7 billion = Spending. No surplus there!
Does the “taken” column include the state houses that have been sold off and the profits the Nats have taken when redeveloping state house land?
And of course the sell-off of state assets (heavily discounted) has helped reduce the deficits above.
Meanwhile, ironically, on the same day as the $400 million surplus is announced, we hear that Christchurch is condemned to pump sewage into its rivers for the next 30 years because the government won’t front up with the dosh to fix the system. Cost: $400 million!!! You couldn’t make it up.
So far the tax cuts Key granted mostly to the better-off when he was first elected will have cost around $7 billion.
Blinglush signalling more reckless tax cuts should give the opposition more ammo given chch, education etc
About time Labour did something decent. Maybe they are taking my advice.
I’d imagine this is going to get torn to shreds though. I can already spot problems.
@infused
Don’t keep everyone in suspense, list all the problems you have spotted then.
Michael Cullen wrote the 2008/09 budget (which was already in deficit at the Aug 2008 PREFU. Yet this deficit is credited to National, not Labour.
@ Melb
You wrote the same rubbish back in April on
“The difference between a surplus and landing a 747 on a pinhead”
WrittenBy: MICKYSAVAGE – Date published:11:55 am, April 14th, 2015 –”
Here are 2 interesting responses you received.
One Anonymous Bloke3.1
14 April 2015 at 1:15 pm
Too funny, here’s a dupe who still believes the decade of deficits lie, based on the witless conceit that Labour would simply not have responded to the GFC.
mickysavage3.2
14 April 2015 at 1:19 pm
Cullen’s 2008 budget predicted an OBGAL of +$1.3 billion (http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2008/execsumm/b08-execsumm.pdf). According to the completely artificial promises made by Key this is all that is required.
And we have been dancing on a pinhead many times on this subject. So Cullen was responsible for the GFC and not Wall Street?
Neither reply addresses the point that the deficit should have been credited to Labour and not National.
The deficit rightfully belongs to National and their self serving incompetence.
The problem with this graphic is it’s good but hardly anyone will probably ever see it.
Who cares its about time they kept it simple and repeated themes without being dragged into detail. A tactic nact use all the time.
Easiest thing is to point to the EQC costs. They should be in a different shade of blue or grey, since National aren’t responsible for those costs. Then we’d clearly see just how crap they truly are, because they could no longer hide behind “earthquakes!”.
Yes infused. I see you have moved from your position prior to Maui (it will neve rhappen) to a 50/50 chance on TPP. So I do hope no one is taking your advice cos it shifts quite quickly
Simple and effective….well done and long overdue from the party that normally takes a page when a paragraph will do.
More please….how about one on the asset sale proceeds and all the promised uses of the funds or one just on health spending in real terms or public school funding etc etc
Any surplus this government claims to have is a lie. As long as there is such a big debt run up by them there is no real surplus.
This is a pretty on-point message. Contrasts clearly and simply what the accounting identity (Surplus) is costing the country. Labour might want to watch which side of the line they are residing on though, maybe the deficits could start to look like a helpful way in which the government can be adding spending to the economy?
Another place National is lying by numbers is the economic benefit from deep sea oil exploration drilling. They claim the recent arrival of high cost oil rigs will produce over a billion in economic benefit.
“Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges says the permits represent more than $110 million in committed expenditure on initial exploration, which, if successful, could lead to more than $1 billion in further work.” 3 news
This is false of course as these units arrive and crews are flown in and out. May be under $5mill for fuel and supplies. The trick is to count the whole value of the rig as an economic benefit ( which is done for stats purposes) but when the rig leaves that billion dollars goes away again ( again for stats purposes). Then there is the rental costs which are around US$1 mill per day ( probably less now demand is low) but this is all paid off shore so doesnt come into NZ)
Not the place to go into the whole deep sea thing, but heres an explanation of the drilling process ,[ and just be amazed at how many things can go wrong!]
http://www.pepanz.com/news-and-issues/issues/deep-sea-drilling/
Sorry, the sheeple just hear one word SURPLUS, and think “oh thats ok then”……………..
Good luck Labour trying to change that…….
National has increased the national debt from ~$10 Billion to ~$100 Billion, incurring ~$4.8 Billion per annum in interest. So even if that surplus was legitimate (which it’s clearly not), it would be swallowed up by the additional interest in approx one month.