In the comments section today George pointed out the numbers on the bailout:
That’s a $400 loss per taxpayer.
Or an average $48,500 gain (including 8.5% return) for SCF investors. Meanwhile. teachers are being refused flu shots because they cost too much.
I get slightly different numbers: about $380 for every man, woman and child in NZ a little over $55,000 on average for each of South Canterbury Finance’s 30,000 investors.
Even if you buy the government’s line about getting a billion back over four years it’s still a huge transfer of cash from the many to the few. The only thing that will dwarf it this term will be the hike in gst to pay for tax cuts for the rich (unless they start privatising before the election).
That this wealth transfer has been so blatant is probably why Bill English announced it this morning only after it was done. He probably figures it’s a lot harder to make a long-running story out of something that has already happened.
But what is particularly galling is to hear John Key defend this rip-off just a day after he said teachers are disconnected from the real world.
It’s nice to know the government can scare up a spare billion and a half for a handful of rich investors while telling the people who teach our kids to go f**k themselves. It shows exactly who they are ambitious for.
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