A brief response to National’s claim of economic brilliance

By
Martyn Bradbury
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14
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Economic growth, employment, average wage increases and Government finances are all supposedly bright are they? When you consider the high levels of child poverty, inequality and the total joke the asset sale program has become, the fact National are hell bent on making ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ as the official national anthem suggests desperation, not belief.

Economic Growth – Higher economic turnover is being underwritten by foreign external debt. That means less gross national profit will stay in NZ and will flow out of the country in foreign dividends and interest. Praying for a natural disaster to rebuild from is not an economic plan.

Unemployment – For you to be considered as ’employed’ for the quarterly household survey, you just have to work one hour per week. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement of economic prosperity is it? So what the National Party might actually be saying is that 53,700 NZers are now working one hour per week. Well thank the little baby Jesus, let’s all jet off to Hawaii for the holidays if such good times are here.

Average wages  – These are terribly distorted because of the mega pay of the exceptionally wealthy who distort the pittance minimum wage gives those on the bottom of NZ society.  Paying the richest NZers billions in tax cuts will make these ‘Avaerage’ wages look spectacular while minimizing true poverty.

Government finances – What is the point of a surplus when social services are starved and the Government continues to sell asset revenue streams? It looks nice on paper, but the social damage these cut backs create cost us far more in the long run and the billions that National has borrowed for corporate welfare and tax cuts provides nothing but an illusion of economic well being.

 

Poverty denial and ignoring inequality will be two of the most important con jobs that National and national’s proxies through the mainstream media need to sell to the masses. Expect disinformation and spin to increase exponentially  this election.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

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14 COMMENTS

  1. I’m interested to know what the mean wage is opposed to the average. If I remember maths correctly that’s supposed to be a more accurate refection of what most people earn.

  2. National Propaganda Machinery in rehearsal mode for up-coming election …. Latest use of Govt Dept Quote : … “We are the only one`s who will listen to you!! ” ( G.C.S.B ) .

  3. The young and stupid Nats are in full flight posting their memes on 2013 ‘achievements’….
    They know this one is theirs to fight for. But they are going to loose.

  4. This is a good post Martyn, but more details may help to make the critique more damning.

    The thing the young Gnats will find hard to counter about your position on the economy is that it happens to be true.

    Would that it were not, we should be doing so much better, but every true criticism will resonate with the miserable experiences of ordinary New Zealanders, and every glib lie will get their backs up.

  5. We can throw all the facts and figures most of them can be distorted as you well know, but the fact is that even if incomes have gone up, many people out there do not feel better off – housing costs, young people shut out of buying there first home, job losses, redundancies (many in regional NZ), costs of education, food prices, education costs , not to mention possible rising interest rates, and of course child poverty – His Excellancy our Governor General has written an excellent piece on this topic in his New Year address

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