Grant Robertson has been forced to lift a finger! HE’S WRITTEN A LETTER!
Shocker on the Mofo Rocker Brothers and Sisters!
Labour are so terrified by their funding of property speculators making house prices explode that Grant Robertson has been forced to lift a finger!
That’s transformative!
As I pointed out 6 months ago, Labour have been so myopic protecting us from the Covid that enormous stresses and strains caused by decades of unregulated free market capitalism weren’t being monitored or fixed, so that when they erupt everyone is flat footed.
Labour are propping up the spike in housing by pumping billions into the speculators through cheap credit so that the economy stays resilient to Covid, it’s effectively trickle down theory at its most delusional.
The type of reforms necessary are stopping banks lending to anyone other than owner occupiers and instead of pumping billions into the banks, the NZ Government should be borrowing at 0% interest to fund our public services and infrastructure.
Those solutions would require intellectual effort on the behalf of Labour and history teaches us that Labour are hopeless at fixing markets that have been molested by free market dynamics.
But yay, Grant has been forced to do something. A letter no less!
Meanwhile entire generations remain locked out of home ownership.
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“Robbo” surely takes out the “Rubber Spine” award for the rest of the year at least. He has written a polite letter to the Reserve Bank Governor asking him “for suggestions” on taming the housing market a tad,…if it is not too much trouble.
Maaayte…you might want to check out some video from the weekend of 17 Oct…there was this election see, and the NZ Labour Party is now the unencumbered Government of New Zealand for three years. So please, preferably starting today, do some BLOODY GOVERNING!
This monetarist absurdity whereby the Govt. has a hands off relationship with the Reserve Bank, is a real world “Catch 22”–which term, coming from a famous Joseph Heller 60s novel, means–“a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.”
Grant cannot move, even though there is pressing need for intervention, because to do so would break the 36 year Neoliberal Parliamentary Consensus that leaves the structural elements of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia in place regardless of which Party forms the Govt.
We have three years comrades to smash that consensus, or at least render it unworkable, and build public support for a campaign to retire it for good in 2023. Don’t make the mistake the left did during the “Clark Years” and lapse into passivity and inaction. 70 NGOs now support the “letter to Jacinda” asking for benefits to be raised before Xmas, that grouping should be expanded, and become an extra parliamentary opposition and community organising focus.
Labour are retreating back to the 35yr old failed Roger Douglas/Ruth Richardson days sadly.
https://iso.org.nz/2015/09/07/2590
Labour are “Transformational” – bulllshit!!!!!!!
I had to laugh when Robertson was interviewed on Breakfast this morning. Not only has he demonstrated that he is clueless about how the economy works but has also demonstrated utter cowardice and buck-passing. All with a smile (been taking lessons from Jacinda?)
Of course, there is nothing unusual about cluelessness, cowardice and buck-passing from a politician or even a minister: it’s pretty much par for the course, and we’ve had decades of cluelessness, cowardice and buck-passing from both major political parties.
What is disturbing is the constant reference to ‘sustainable’ employment, ‘sustainable’ economy, ‘sustainable’ blah, blah blah -even as the world starts to burn and melt at a faster rate than ever, and the markets go increasingly haywire.
I see the Dow has broken through 30,000, on the news that Janet Yellen -yet another clueless sociopath serving the interests of the 0.1%- has been selected by warmonger Biden as Treasury Secretary.
Meanwhile the NZ dollar continues to surge (69.7c) as the hot money chases speculative gains on the back of impoverishment of practically everyone.
Interestingly, even as the US continues down the road to collapse, house prices there are rising spectacularly.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/home-prices-every-major-city-jump-more-double-feds-inflation-target
Apparently, the ‘good news’ is that we are not going to be subjected to negative interest rates just yet, as the global financial Ponzi scheme gradually implodes.
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/108110/markets-cheer-yellen-appointment-us-retail-sags-china-bond-issues-worsen-india-hits
HA ! ,- The ruling 1% only move when the food riots start on Queen ST, Auckland.
We have about 3-5 more years before the chickens get restless. Hold your eggs until then. Aren’t we a lovely , peaceful, benevolent and tolerant society when the throwing of eggs constitutes civil unrest? When other nations are killing , assassinating and murdering each other?
We are indeed Godszone. We are a blessed nation of plenty.
And the ruling 1% are the benefactors of our laid back and tolerant ways? Are they not?
No wonder they chose us as the guinea pigs. But it wont last forever, you cant keep doing that to a stoic and peaceful population without consequences. Because as we all know,… New Zealanders were the first to declare war on Germany in World War One,…to rush to England’s defense,.. we are not a timid peoples, we of New Zealand… we fight,.. and we fight hard and for keeps.
Do we need to remind these ‘Nouveau riche’ neo liberals of the character of those self same Kiwi Desert Rats who fought and died at El Alamein ? All those years ago for the preservation of freedom, democracy and a fair go for ALL peoples?
Just sayin, folks,… and I’m sayin don’t push it too much further , … either. You’ve just about reached the end of your ropes, you neo liberal shitheads.
This is a teency tiny toe in the water of doing the barest minimum to see if the negative press will abate. A “what can we choreograph” to make it look like we have a clue what we are doing whilst leaving everything just the way Roger Douglas meant it to be.
Team, if you think this is going to change anything, please think again. Our housing market crisis is light years beyond subtle adjustment and doing things for appearances sake.
We need to put a stop to the great fraud that we all know about, ie the creation of money, from nothing, within the private banking system. I feel sure it ain’t gonna happen.
Well I can think of a finger I want to lift to its called the one finger salute can Robertson please pull his finger out of his bum its blocking progress. Sorry to be so crass but people need some certainty and somewhere to live.
It’s like the Reserve Bank Act is one of the ten commandments carved into stone or so believe Jacinda and Grant. Forget that it is exacerbating an already fraught housing market in crisis, forget that it cares not for those not already owning their own home, forget whatever ideals it was supposed to reinforce in 1989, its 2020’s now and things are far different. Just carry on as if the RB Act is the gospel, like the sky is blue and the sea is green, that certain, never diverge or question.
What is stopping this government making the Brightline test 10 years with complementary funding to enforce it? Why not change the LVR’s and make investors provide 90% non-loan funding before being able to borrow? Why not make investors register as companies and pay GST on every transaction and submit to monthly audits from the IRD?
Lack of imagination and or sheer intransigence on the part of Labour is what is stopping any progress on a basic entitlement in a civilised society as housing!
Intransigent governments deserve the fate of National 2020! And doing nothing is not going to cut it!
I’m afraid Grant may become Labour’s version of Gerry Brownlee.