The Government’s borrowing requirement is set to dwarf pre-Covid levels. Over the five-year forecast period, Westpac sees the Government raising $140b in bonds, $12b higher than the previous forecast of $128b.
Westpac is now pointing to 6% OCR because of huge immigration pressures, that’s the umpteenth time in a row the economists have been wrong about an OCR peak.
Yes our economy has been malformed and warped by the Covid response, but all those screaming at those ramifications ignore why we had to take on that debt in the first place!
COVID!
We faced a once in a century novel pandemic. We had to make decisions that hurt and damaged many lives.
We all sacrificed for the greater good because that was the best means of dealing with a novel virus.
Were there mistakes?
Of course and there were consequences, and those consequences were worth the alternative which was tens of thousands of dead in a mass death event altho would have mutilated this nation.
Critics pointing at the lack of a mass death event as proof that there never was one ignores what we had to do to ensure that didn’t happen!
It’s the most idiotic argument!
The ease with which we rewrite the recent past, to determine with the luxury of hindsight that Covid was just a cold when it has killed tens of millions around the globe is sophistry.
As climate change rapidly distorts weather and human density and animal populations are crammed together cheek to jowl, the possibility of a future pandemic with a far higher mortality rate is greater than ever before.
This level of national emergency event is always a possibility in this new environment.
That’s the new reality.
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What is worse for the long term health of the country? A few thousand people mostly aged 80+ passing away sooner than expected, or the billions we owe which our grandkids will be paying for the next several decades – as your mate Damien Grant pointed out on TWG last night? The cure was worse than the disease.
it wasn’t just oldies that died thgough was it raf?
Fair enough. More reason for us to review our response critically as there is one certainty, we will see more of these public health events in future.
Historical events tells us that previous events were far more damaging to humanity. Economic analysis suggests that humans are now better prepared that ever before to deal with these public health crises.
Will we be better at responding in future? How we use AI and our other resources will define us in future. Removing CO 2 from the atmosphere….. should be our primary focus….? The science does not convince me but contagion might well have set in and there is no antidote for stupidity other than free speech.
According to MOH website, 87% of deaths in NZ from Covid are aged people aged 70+ with the largest number those aged 80-89. We also know that in most covid deaths the patient had several comorbidities. This especially applies the 3 kids under 10 who died, they were not healthy kids to begin with, as sad as it is.
There was an interesting article on Stuff about the ethical choice of saving a covid life or performing hundreds of hip replacements (the ‘cost’ was similar). What has a bigger impact? Saving a single life or improving the lives of hundreds of people?
So RAF. 13% of those under 70 of the 2700 odd that died equates to 351. I’m 71 so glad I wasn’t one of them.!
You’ve fallen into the exact same logical error that the article is pointing out. The reason the number (and distribution) of deaths are as they are in New Zealand, is because of the response. So using the observed deaths in New Zealand to criticize the response is irrelevant, because without the response that number would have been far higher.
Additionally, the issues with the health system are not because of the COVID response, rather because of nearly a decade of under funding it, having short-termist accountants run the system, rather than medical professionals who know about the actual requirements of a health system etc.
To conflate the two is complete nonsense.
Well said by an ageist anti person.
How do you know it would have been mainly old people that died if we had done nothing.
How come they are not dieing of measles right now. It is because the right steps were taken by that generation many years ago. Its going to be the young ones who die from measles and flu this winter because dipsticks like you are happy to sit on your arse and moan about the biggest success our country has seen.
Tell me honestly what you would be saying now if we had deaths in the same rate as Balls up Boris and Terminator Trump allowed. They are too embarrassed to report the true figures.
Assessing the age specificity of infection fatality rates for COVID-19: systematic review, meta-analysis, and public policy implications
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289900/
The argument about future generations never seems to come up when climate change is mentioned. You freak out about relatively low levels of government debt (by OECD standards) but many ignore future generations being under water literally
I can’t imagine that people who live in future would choose to live under water.
If they are smart and wealthy enough to sort that out maybe it will be quite cool.
Mermaids even.
Oh dear.
If Covid had been allowed to run rampant in NZ, our already inadequate public health system would have crashed and burned. It would not have been up to dealing with those hospitalised and dying.
Then, the knock-on impact on others with urgent need of health care would have been far worse – for people of all ages.
Hang on Labour Government rebuild of the Dunedin Hospital would solve it.
Oh gosh it’s running at least 3 years late and due budget blowouts it won’t be any bigger plus no car parking.
More lies by Bob.
Read the ODT read any reports on the Dunedin Hospital rebuild,read any critiques by medical professionals and you will find I’m correct.
Has Andrew Little resigned yet?
Again, the stats beg to differ. The over 80’s were over 15 times more likely to die than those 55 years and younger. The stats were there, the age group(s) that needed protecting were known – Assessing the age specificity of infection fatality rates for COVID-19: systematic review, meta-analysis, and public policy implications
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289900/
To an extent I agree with you. I do feel that the labour overspend has contributed to our woeful inflationary pressures as well as the supply and demand issue. That is not to state that labour were wrong in how they handled the situation but I do feel that they were misguided. The solution is always to either raise more money in bonds, or to borrow more money, but the reality is that these are not viable long term solutions for the economy of any country in times of a crisis because you cannot continue to issue more bonds and to borrow more money forever. I feel that with New Zealand’s low rate of infections compared to many other countries it would have been preferable for budgets to have been temporarily reduced and for two or three major State owned assets to have been sold, instead.
Right on. The perpetual complainers, the ‘Never Happy unless I’m Unhappy’ horde, had it made.
If Covid deaths had swept the country heaps of them would’ve died and we wouldn’t have heard from those particular ones. They didn’t die because of measures taken and we have to put up with their bitching about the wrong things being done or too much being done.
And if David Seymour had been in charge, or Chris Bishop, everything would’ve been better. Would Michael Woodhouse still looked for mystery a mystery man in Queen Street?
Yes Peter, lucky we didn’t have 80,000 deaths like the accurate models and the graphs said. Phew! If…if…if…if…
Yes Peter the coalition of cuts(Nact) would have cut the health,education and police force budgets like previously and the models and the graphs wouldn’t have had enough numbers and pens to show the amount of deaths that would have occurred.
Good heavens NSC you are deluded if not delusional.
David Seymour in charge it wouldn’t have been an issue,we all know that to be true.
Good heavens Bob you are deluded if not delusional.
Imitation the ultimate flattery.Thank you NSC I’m honoured.
Hypothetical because Seymour will never be in charge, we all know that to be true.
Oh dear oh dear.
That’s a large dose of cope right there. Just doing what we were told.
History will show we dodged a bullet. History will show the culpability of the media who criticized every decision made by the government. History will show yes there were mistakes however we had never done this before. History will show even ACT supporters expected wage subsidies to keep them afloat. History will show how brave Jacinda Ardern was in the face of hatred and misogyny. History will show the protesters for what they were ( and it won’t be nice reading). History will show even the most right wing supporters expect government money in times of crisis aka. Cyclone Gabrielle. History will then show the right wing supporters for what they really are hypocrites because all along they accepted government handouts when it suited them
Yes, once again your right Queeny and we still have groups with their hands out the very ones that run down the current government and will vote for National and Act who have shown they care mostly about the rich and well-heeled peoples of this country. And these groups are never happy with there lot they want workers right now and it is alright for them to put their hands out when there is a flood, drought or disease outbreak but not others. And this privilege group who are very outspoken don’t care about the impact on our countries buckling infrastructure as long as they get what they want.
Where to start.
The media not once criticized the govt, they were kissing ass like I’ve never seen (Tova then Jessica’s turn to ask me how wonderful I am)
The govt prevented businesses from operating, business had no choice, the govt closed everyone down (except the supermarkets that suddenly the left hates) . It’s like someone takes every ounce of food out of your house and tells you, you can only take food from the govt now… and you’re supposed to be thankful? Let me decide to operate or not, not try to kill my business and expect me to be thankful you’ve kept it on life support.
History is already showing Jacinda as an extremely divisive figure. At the end of her tenure she was too scared to venture out of Wellington except to go overseas. That’s on her, that’s not misogyny.
Ok if tax paying businesses aren’t allowed to expect support during unforeseen events, then where is the cut off? You expect the govt to support the unemployed, why? Why should they expect support and others not?
I see hypocrisy alright.
“The media not once criticized the govt, they were kissing ass like I’ve never seen (Tova then Jessica’s turn to ask me how wonderful I am)”
You were out of the country at the time?
The 6pm news on both channels criticized the government. That makes your “where to start” end right there.
The rest is just another right wing assault we have come to expect from BG
I see hypocrisy and misogyny in every one of your posts and the reason she never ventured out was because of idealists like you. God knows what you might do if you were armed.
Its an illusion. The media are allowed to critique areas or people, that is deemed, not important. But on matters that are important, the media cheer-leads more than they critique. This is like politics in general, feed the masses enough crumbs to keep them occupied, while riches flow upwards.
“Critics pointing at the lack of a mass death event as proof that there never was one ignores what we had to do to ensure that didn’t happen!”
The same argument is used by climate deniers. And this misguided argument can be shown as wrong so easily. For example…
So, if someone suggests parachutes aren’t necessary. Then 100s jump (with parachutes) and no-one dies. By the logic above, the lack of a mass death event is proof that parachutes aren’t necessary. Hmm, not sure I buy that.
acording to the right everything from noahs flood to ww2 is labours fault…they just wanna have a pop.
But the stupidity of pushing money onto banks during covid to lend for mortgages only served to drive up house prices and enrich those that didn’t need it.
Stupid stupid thinking from our minster of finance, and he was warned about it too.
that’s so right. Robertson was out of his depth . In fact he has been during the entire time Labour have been in power. I thought Bill English was an incompetent muppet he compares favorably to Robertson, who has ignored Treasury advice the whole time he has been Minister of Finance. Never I have I seen such wastage of public money. And there is nothing of substance to show for it apart from the Provincial Growth Fund. But no one talks about that as it wasn’t Labour’s idea!!!
Oh Shona how naive you are. You say there is nothing to show for Grant Robertson’s time as finance minister. Maybe you should open your eyes.What would you have done. Let the disease in. If a government doesn’t look after their people in time of strife when will they ever do it. Do you seriously think we would have avoided inflation ( us being the only country in the world to do so). No country has avoided monetary strife even the most disciplined asian economies have had their share over the last 3 years.
Yes Queeny Shona is very naive. Think Bill English and his constant cutting of funding to the Police, Health, Education, infrastructure and social services,. Now think Robertson now not only having to pay catch up but also having to pay ahead. Why does Shona think Nurses were leaving, it was because English cut wages so badly that Labour are left to stop the blood letting. Never have I seen so much damage left by a previous government’s under funding, to the point when they added 1 million to our population they thought no additional funding would go unnoticed.
Shona’ go and ask teachers, health workers and social service workers nothing of substance to show and rather than your right wing ranting and laziness, do some research.
Oh dear.
Oh dear alright.
Dear oh dear.
Bob the critic.What critics of Government Covid spending always refuse to acknowledge
Dear oh dear oh dear.
yes, once again your right Queeny and we still have groups with their hands out the very ones that run down the current government and will vote for National and Act who have shown they care mostly about the rich and well-heeled peoples of this country. And these groups are never happy with there lot they want workers right now and it is alright for them to put their hands out when there is a flood, drought or disease outbreak but not others. And this privilege group who are very outspoken don’t care about the impact on our countries buckling infrastructure as long as they get what they want.
Personally I feel that the covid overspend by the labour government was a mistake and that the prime minister at the time, Jacinda Ardern, didn’t really know how else to deal with the economic fallout. I would have preferred the austerity measures toured as an option by the national party; however the thing about austerity measures is that timing is crucial, you only rarely get the timing exactly right, and so it would have spurred on an unnecessary deep recession.
Daniel Lang just ask the Europeans about austerity budgets , Greece in particular. What good would austerity have done. Can you imagine a pandemic and austerity at the same time. Ok if you have money. The funny thing about the covid fund is that the right complain about it now but they had their noses to the trough as soon as they could. They also weren’t averse to cheating the system that is using the money for themselves not their workers.
The issue is that if that much money in bonds had not been raised by the government, they wouldn’t have been able to spend so much at least without borrowing, and the overheated residential property market may not have continued in the way that it has done.
Don’t remember the right critical of the handouts. In fact they admitted they would have done the same in hindsight.
There was know way they would have allowed mass deaths, unemployment and business failure.
The ones who are suffering now and making the most noise are those that jumped on the gravy train due to their inherently greedy nature.
I don’t think that the right would ever have decided to raise that much money in bonds. Not do I think that the right would have borrowed that much in order to spend. Rather, they would have reduced budgets across the board as it is the sensible thing to do in such a situation.
The labour overspend has been a contributing factor to our inflationary pressures, as well as the supply and demand issue. I think they waited too long to reopen the borders as well. They have no-one else to blame, therefore, but themselves for the inflation.
No, I would have preferred the economic plan touted by the National Party as a viable option for this country as we would now have less debt and less inflation. The downside here is that they would have reopened the borders way too early.
I understand that the inflation issue isn’t merely limited to New Zealand. This is because other countries have had higher rates of covid infections and thus it has been absolutely necessary for those countries to retain closed borders for such a long time.
As long as RFK Jnr stays in the race for POTUS and doesn’t get taken out by the CIA, FBI, a Grassy Knoll and keeps away from Elm Street in Dallas. He should be good to take out Biden.
If he manages to do all that then we will probably find out in the next few years whether covid was just a flu and a scam. Until then, covid is still in the too hard (to know) basket.
Ask anyone who has had the flu and a bad case of covid will tell you it was more than a flu. If it was an escaped bioweapon or a pharma scam it would be good to know but like the Kennedy assasination it will take a good 50 years to get a consensus on the truth (of the conspiracy)
I have experienced a serious flu episode years back and I can assure it is not child’s play. I was sick for months and it took me many months to recover.
For some covid is like a cold for others covid or flu mean severe illness or even death.
All the symptoms of a cold, or the flu and covid are the same. The only difference is the severity of the symptoms whether it be the cold, flu or ‘covid’. What were told by the professionals and others was to treat everything like it was covid. A lesson in, ‘how to manufacture consent’.
Also, we were overwhelmed with information. A fait of compli. We were press-ganged into service. From then on, anybody that spoke out was demonised and an outcast like those witches back in the day or Joan of Noah’s Ark!
So, until the real evidence is revealed, Im sticking with, ‘it was a sham’. Even after I had the nanobots, tinfoil and wifi jabs and received none of that but I lost faith when heir Jacinda dropped her pants when a few CEOs sent her a letter in September 2021 and then soon after she made a captains call, a political decision to abandon ship! Lifted the gates on Camp Lockdown and feed us to the wolves. If that wasn’t revealing enough that it was a sham then, then I don’t know what is.
It is difficult not to see conspiracy. But I think it was panic, fear, power….. disillusionment. Then denial, victimhood and then a new start.
Many gained wealth, prestige, retained health, received improved care, I enjoyed the lockdowns and worried about the harm to others, but the real tragedy is the reluctance to review our collective response so that we can deal with unfolding “crises” and future events better.
It’s an interesting argument because alleged ties between the Kennedy family and China go back a long way. However, I personally feel that it’s just another conspiracy theory and it is an inherently wrong philosophical argument.
It is very easy to confuse opportunism for conspiracy.
If Roberston’s is out of his depth as you say Shona that must mean the National leader is out of his as he keeps saying he is not a career politician if so, why does he want to be our PM, isn’t it to have a political career.
I think it was on Luxons bucket list like his bro JK.
Forget ruining the country to the point Labour are in catch up mode, my bucket list will be complete.
He’s had real Jobs has Mr. Luxon.Has Chippy?
Good god you’re an idiot, I’ve lost the will to live. Why does TDB allow idiots like Bob to comment. I guess free speech comes with a price
Good heavens Charles that’s a bit mean old chap.
McDonalds?
Oh dear.
” According to MOH website, 87% of deaths in NZ from Covid are aged people aged 70+ with the largest number those aged 80-89. ”
That was a god given gift for the neo liberal participants who want the welfare sucking old people out of the way because unless they leave a tasty inheritance they are just a drain on the public purse.
Not that any superannuitants ever worked or paid tax.
That is so funny NSC.
I award you comedian of the TDB.
Dear oh dear.
Imitation NSC yet again.Thanks.
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