Posts Tagged ‘savings’

Savings: National’s failing

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, November 2nd, 2011 - 10 comments

National have a rubbish short-term plan for Government debt: Asset Sales.

But they have no plan at all for the private debt that is forecast to blow out worse than ever under their policies. Bit like the economy in general really.

Happy Birthday KiwiSaver

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, July 4th, 2011 - 2 comments

John Key’s government celebrated KiwiSaver’s 4th birthday on July 1 with cuts to your entitlements. (Zet mentioned this here, but this is my take…)

Encouraging savings the National way

Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, June 12th, 2011 - 15 comments

Amongst the many vacuous claims made in relation to the last budget, the claim that cuts to KiwiSaver would encourage savings always struck me as the dumbest.  Now the facts are in, and guess what…

Save us from Nat working groups

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, February 3rd, 2011 - 27 comments

The same old formula has played out again: National appoints an expensive, hand-picked working group (the Savings Working Group). The working group comes up with predictable recommendations. The Nats extreme recommendations out of hand, to appear moderate, and do what they were planning to do. Here are the real savings solutions.

S&P downgrades defenceless, exposed NZ

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, November 23rd, 2010 - 69 comments

Standard and Poor’s shock move to downgrade our credit rating caused markets to plunge late yesterday. Bill English’s reaction, predictably, is to pretend nothing is wrong. John Key says it’s about debt, even as he borrows for tax cuts. But let’s look at what S&P says is wrong with us:

Savings based recovery nonsense

Written By: - Date published: 3:38 pm, November 18th, 2010 - 47 comments

Bill English is always busy trying to put lipstick on the pig of our moribund economy.  His latest attempt is to argue that we are experiencing a “savings based recovery”.  There’s no such thing.  He’s just making excuses for the fact that people have no money to spend, or are desperately trying to pay down debt in these uncertain times.  Enough with the lipstick.  Enough with the empty promises of jam tomorrow — National are never going to deliver.

$2.3 billion sting in the Budget’s tail

Written By: - Date published: 12:47 pm, May 30th, 2010 - 19 comments

National’s second budget has induced a lot of inflation – 5.9% over the next year. Interest rates on term deposits are just 4.4%. Collectively, New Zealand’s savers will be $2.3 billion worse off in a year’s time than they are now, thanks to the Budget. The flipside is the real value of mortgages will fall. Borrowers win and savers lose. I thought English said he was encouraging savings.

A kick in the guts for savers

Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, May 22nd, 2010 - 54 comments

My wife and I are retired. We worked hard, we lived frugally, and we have a nest egg to get us through. Now John’s mob have come along and taken part of that nest egg away from us. 5.9% inflation will eat up our savings. The same will happen to the nest eggs of retired people or young people saving to buy a house up and down this country. How does that reward saving?