When is an asset sale not an asset sale? When it robs from the poor and steals for the rich

8
1

Screen Shot 2014-10-28 at 8.25.05 am
National have turned state housing on its head.

At no time during the 2014 election did the Key Government even hint that they were going to privatise 30% of the Housing NZ stock of state homes.

Not once.

Key even went as far as telling NZers there would be no new asset sales in February of this year…

PM rules out more asset sales
Prime Minister John Key is ruling out any further sales of state assets, once Genesis Energy is partially sold.

So far, Mighty River Power and Meridian Energy and Air New Zealand have been partially sold, with the Government retaining at least a 51 percent share.

State-owned coal company Solid Energy was also in the original plan, but withdrawn due to financial problems.

Mr Key told reporters on Monday the Government still believes that partially selling energy companies was the right move and will help to improve their future performance.
However, he said there are no more state-owned companies that would make sense to partially sell, with New Zealand Post facing declining business and Transpower operating as a monopoly.

…and now the Government announce they will be privatising $5 Billion worth of state houses, but that’s not a privatisation of a NZ asset because the people being robbed are the poor and the houses will be sold to property speculators and religious charity groups. It is a wholesale abdication of social responsibilities but NZers don’t care.

NZers love John Key, as a culture we don’t respect intelligence, we respect confidence. It’s not the argument that matters, it’s not the fact the poor are being screwed, it’s not the desire to debate rationally using empirical evidence instead of ideology, it’s Key looking down the barrel of the camera and saying,

“I’m Khomfortable with that’.

We are an easily led passionless people.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

You can lead a NZer to a blog. But you can’t make them think.

8 COMMENTS

  1. My observations are these:

    Yes “we” respect confidence, but the confident can lead the followers anywhere. The obvious double meaning to that should be obvious. In fact, you’ll find that there is so much bottled-up energy to act inside the presumed “apathetic” general public that if you start something value-driven requiring participation at a bus station, street or township, people will be tripping over themselves to take the lead. If a person has the confidence to act on their own, when everyone else stands by, the followers will soon surpass that energy and action.

    Yeah John Key lies National bad yeah yeah we know it’s soul destroying and painful to watch – if we do actually have souls – which I personally doubt. The battlefield between the ideals of the past, the needs of the present and the still unknown “dreams” of the future has moved on from 6pm news, internet forums and polite conversation. The war can’t be won by reason alone. Just act. Do anything, consciously.

  2. I posted this on another page here, but I personally think it bears repeating, since we are absolutely screwed in every way if National wins another term:

    I’m afraid middle NZ, without an alternative, widespread media voice for the Left, will never again vote for Labour. Labour is finished, as the number of people who proudly call themselves Labour voters diminishes by the day. Just look at the contestants in the leadership vote. Is any of them somebody you could see becoming PM in a landslide (which is what it will take to beat Key)?

    I can’t.

    They need to stop with the infighting and identity politics. Gay people, all very nice and good, but most of middle NZ is homophobic, xenophobic, conservative white people. They will not listen to a word you say if you are seen championing gays, womans rights and Maori beneficiaries. I have no doubt in my mind these are important, but there are MORE PRESSING ISSUES, like the TPPA, global warming, the slow demise of the US economy, our growing environmental damage, the rise of China, our economic isolation and soveriegnty, our badly-cut and punishing welfare and state housing system, and possibly most important for middle NZ, JOBS. There are bugger all jobs, and making things better for minorities will indeed help all of us, but it will NOT win us an election, and we NEED TO WIN to implement policy.

  3. Is there any point in winning an election for Labour if the outcome is to implement policies that won National the election? NZ is in a sorry state if promoting policies to help the poor and the homeless etc will lose elections. The real political problem is the fear of the middle classes in losing their economic advantages.

    • @hone, ..In which case the ‘real problem’ is pure selfishness, for which there is no solution until we reach a point where we suddenly realise that unless “we all hang together , we will surely hang separately”.

    • I agree, Labour are pathetic. They haven’t communicated properly to the public about the Capital gains tax so are now suggesting they might pull that, utterly stupid. Every rental should have a capital gains tax on it when it is sold.

  4. A government of speculators, for property developers, and by the rich.

    Some work needs to be done to determine just how many homeless people it takes for the government to turn a housing speculator into a $billionaire?

    There is just one little problem*. When the houses become too expensive to buy and the private rents completely unaffordable for many.

    *Dare I mention it, (Bubble)

    And when it bursts, what happens to all those speculative property values?

    Will, as has happened in the US, the empty unaffordable homes are bulldozed in a vain attempt to restrict the supply to keep the inflated values up?

Comments are closed.