Mike Hosking wrote to his “miserable bugger” audience on NewsTalk ZB today that with GDP at 0.6% growth for the last quarter and with an annual growth barely above 2% , money was increasingly not going to come from the once “Rock Star Economy” to pay the “useless”.
But Mike was fooling them all again.
New Zealand’s GDP grew by 0.6% in the last quarter, while Australia’s only grew by 0.2%.
Canada only grew by 0.1%
19 countries in the Euro area only grew by 0.2%
The 28 countries of the EU only grew by 0.3%
The entire OECD only grew by 0.3%
New Zealand at 0.6% beat the UK on only 0.2% and even Japan on 0.5%
So what was Mike Hosking frowning about?
When Mike tells his listeners that our annual GDP is barely above 2%, the annual GDP growth to December 2018 is 2.8%.
So it’s much closer to 3% than 2% actually Mr Hosking!!!
Mike was wailing on behalf of Farmers who fear they will be taxed into oblivion while “the useless” are getting treated slightly better than before.
Mike says this is not about growing the pie and it’s about redistributing money from the productive sector to the non productive.
Yet with no new taxes at all that were not promised in the 2017 election – Agriculture growth was down 1.3% in the past quarter – all by itself.
So was Forestry and Fishing while Retail Trade boomed, as did accomodation and supermarkets as household shoppers went out and spent more.
It’s a mixed bag really.
Manufacturing was down but Business Investment was up, and construction of both commercial buildings and residential housing were both up.
So things are doing okay really, in fact really pretty well – plus it’s hard to argue that property investment is productive…cos it just pushes up rents for the middle – who are stuck without that massive deposit.
Hosking almost calls the “Tax Working Group Report” government policy ( which it is not ) – and warns that the left leaning operator is sucking “our money” from the pie.
Funnily we are about to tax huge multinationals and grow the tax take a bit that way…which is new money coming in.
Growth is growth – and whilst sectors in our economy grow at different rates, overall the pie is definitely growing faster than all those other countries.
We are not shrinking.
We are growing and faster than most.
The smarter folks know that’s all very well but what about wealth inequality?
Yes.
Mike also fools the Newstalk listener by claiming that the jobseeker benefit has grown under this government by 11,000 which is really not very much – and represents 4.5% of the ready to work population.
That 4.5% was 4.8% in December 2013.
It depends whether you see this as a gradual lowering of the portion on the benefit as the working population grows?
I think it’s a minor decrease over time really.
Of course the hard numbers should grow along with the size of the ready to work population.
The amount the overall working population has grown by escapes Mike Hosking.
Something Mike either does not appreciate or – wishes to use as an MMS ( manipulative misinforming stick ) to beat dumb people with.
Another sophistry of Hosking is to claim that 10,000 people on the social housing wait list is a record.
A record that was equalled in 2010 under John Key and only reduced by removing Category C and Category D people from the reports to produce fake improvement for National.
All those people ( 3000 ) have still been there waiting, it’s just the Coalition decided to put Category C and Category D back into the reports.
Yes there were about 3,000 people who National were hiding.
Hosking naturally uses this to whip up Dumb Town into a storm about nothing but shifty reporting.
Funnily Hosking described all the people on Job Seeker support as those people who fail to turn up to appointments despite all the jobs available.
Which is also inaccurate…because the data includes all sorts of people who are not sitting on the benefit for very long at all and who do show up, but compete with others who have more skills.
So why is the fire burning Hosking’s britches really?
The furnace appears to be fuelled by a fundamental failure to understand our economy.
On top of this Hosking does not appreciate how well New Zealand is doing really.
Nor does he comprehend the difference between a report and government policy.
His use of misleading information is all about being a misinforming ideological attack dog for his paymasters.
Just a lying rich prick really.
Cheer up Mike.
It’s not so bad.
You are full of shit.
That’s all.
Gerard Otto is an activist and a writer.
After 9 years of National stacking the deck in the media with right wing journalists, is it time we scuttle that ship, ditch all these narcissistic wankers and line the decks with more balanced jouirnalism?
plus 100 MARK
Horeskin is still madly in love with National ?
He is a Natzi through and trough ?
It is easy to bleat on about how bad it is when you know darn well that you are exempt from these real horrors because you are wealthy in your own right.
Real life does not exist for Mike because he is comforted by it’s worst effects
which allows him to wank on about serious issues he has no comprehension of and never will.
Just like the rest of the nasty right wing journalists.
He is doing the job that NZ-Mean is paying him to do.
Keep the ratings up among all the miserable buggers , the ignorant and the angry right wing that might listen to Plunket and Garner.
There is nobody on air that offers an alternative argument to this
continuous crap.
It’s time for some serious attention of our broadcasting strategy and the decline of un biased commentary and information that is not serving the public good.
yes your right Mosa our media are miserable buggers
It seems so odd that Mike Hosking deems himself as being ‘the font of all knowledge’ on ALL things here in NZ and overseas.
I don’t bother reading his bleatings even in the tabloid NZ herald. He, his wife and many ‘journos’ in the herald are so biased towards the NZ National Party that I call these creatures and the tabloid herald the ‘Mouthpieces of the NZ National Party’.
Hosking comes across as being a volatile sort of person. His verbal assault on a woman that accidentally hit his car in Parnell some years ago shows him up as being a person with a vipers tongue. He may have dreams of being a free-loading, self-serving National Party MP in the future but I think National needs to steer well clear of him. He will embarrass them more so than every time Simon Bridges speaks.
And so I get the impression whenever there is a Hosking article in say the NZ herald it isn’t Hosking that wrote it but John Key. Key always seemed to have an answer for everything and probably considered himself the ‘font of all knowledge on everything’. Key writes the articles and Hosking applies his name to those articles.
In attempt to please his National Party Masters Hosking will always parrot anything John Key tells him. Hosking doesn’t seem to possess the mental capacity to think rationally. He will never amount to much than some rambling lunatic that ZB radio and the NZ herald have given airtime and paper space to.
National’s ‘rock star economy’ description was based on growth predictions that failed to occur. It wasn’t ‘Rock Star” it wasn’t even a “one-hit wonder”
Thank you for analysing his perspective. Good journalismOne sound of his vol e and I turn him of Kate off.
Mike’s muses are generally false, fallacious and feeble. He garners strength from the knowledge that those who listen to him are the false, fallacious and feeble but like a toxic waste dump, take in then spew out his sewer garbage to other like-minded vacuous souls who, because of their lack of intelligence, simply absorb it like a sick body absorbing empty carbs that do no-one any good other than stimulating their own baseless narrow-minded narrative.
He is now just a has-been, nothing more than a stuck record, boring media hack for the national party. And as for the ripped jeans – Mike, act your age not your show size.
Agreed but I think you meant shoe size – not show size, not that his show size is anything to rave about.
“On top of this Hosking does not appreciate how well New Zealand is doing really.”
He can’t . To do so would acknowledge the effectiveness if the current govt
Hosking can’t have that it would defeat his purpose for exustance
Never mind hate speech, the constant fate news delivered daily by Hosking should be challenged and called out for what it is, a determined
attempt to undermine the democratic process. It is not journalism, it is rightwing political agitation of the most arrogant and vicious kind.
The above article is an excellent rebuttal of Hosking’s lies.
It is a pity it will not be more widely read.
I cant wait to see is face when Jacinda wins the next election at the last last election I really enjoyed seeing his pissed off face he looked like he was going to cry.
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