GUEST BLOG: Gerard Otto – Turn that frown upside down Mike

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.