GUEST BLOG: Ross Meurant – TIME FOR ME TO COME OUT
When it comes to, Rule of Law, being more important than Rule of Police, and my position on social policy: my time on this blog seems to have attracted some support.
This ‘liberal’ side of Red Squad Monster – Ross Meurant, manifest when as an MP, I supported legalizing abortion; gay rights; legalizing dope; voted against hanging and for banning nuke ships (it was I and my electorate executive who initiated and successfully pursued National’s adoption of Labour’s “No Nukes” policy).
However, when it comes to economic policy; I am hard core private sector; work hard and reap the rewards. Pure Machiavelli: Good Fortune is Hard Work. Which puts me at variance with many of the Daily Bog’s disciples.
Watching the mood of Daily Blog, one cannot fail to feel the socialist ethos lurking in the mist of economic chaos currently descending upon us all.
“Capitalism is dead. State ownership and equality for all is our salvation,” is the clarion call.
If you didn’t fall asleep during this resurrection of communism – let’s get back to the real world.
- Increase benefits for people who won’t work!
- Protection of tenants who won’t pay rent!
Now we have the curse of COVID 19 descending upon us with more fury than the chattering classes postulating the coming again of Marx.
The fact is, that more than 50% of the jobs are provided by working class who got off their arse; put some thought into where in the market they could deliver their skillset (be it bricklaying or IT technology); took a second mortgage over the family home – and took the risk to start a small business – AND – provide jobs for others!
However! Covid 19 is putting a serious handbrake on this group of enterprising people to whom NZ owes much.
But is the solution, a Socialist Revolution? If so, where does the money come from?
Free tertiary education for all! Fell on the floor along with cheap houses for the proletariat. Reason. Simple economics m8! Not enough money in the Treasury – a piggy bank dependent on tax paid by those who do go to work.
Let’s bring in capital gains tax!
Ignore that this was the ladder that many plebs and proletarians, who did go to work and who were prepared to lay off the piss and other entrenched rights of the of they who rely on the health and education system created by tax paying Kiwis; to buy a house.
And a few years later; sell that house and buy in a ‘better’ locality. For after all, who among us do not seek to improve their wellbeing, status and opportunities for their children?
This entrenched ladder out of the gutter, is ignored by the soothsayers who insist that capital gains tax will make us all the more equal in a glorious socialist society. Equal at the bottom – not equal in the middle classes.
So, where is the money going to come from to support this state of altruism?
Government can borrow! Yeah Right M8. To a point.
No worries. Borrow, for tomorrow may never come. Socialism will socialize the debt.
Ironic. In the end, we pay the biggest capitalist roadsters on the planet – American lenders propping-up our banks which prop-up our government. The full circle?
Which brings me back to a consistent harp in recent posts I’ve penned for the Daily Blog:
The economic pain will be greater than the medical pain – UNLESS – Jacinda (who has performed marvelously so for in this crisis), puts her faith in the ability of the private business sector, to recover and restore, New Zealand.
She also needs to remember: People vote with the hand on their wallet. People forget the good but sure as hell remember the bad. Therefore, a strategy to delay the elections, is in my view, a bad idea from Labour’s position.
Already Winston is supporting the merit of economic recovery as soon as possible. That alone, will get him back over 5%. The current swing to Labour, completely eradicates the Greens.
Jacinda needs level 3 ASAP. More important than Jacinda, the country needs Level 3 ASAP.
NB I wont vote for her – not that I don’t think she has performed exceedingly well facing off COVID 19 – but because I know, money does not grow on trees.
Ross Meurant; a former high-ranking police officer, former Member of Parliament, formerly with commercial interests in Syria and Iran and currently Honorary Consul for an African state.
Ross with respect; we cant go back to where we were; simple as that.
I am not a green Party suporter and Winston is on the right track.
If you think that this virus is going away; – think again sir.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/top-federal-health-official-says-coronavirus-outbreak-is-going-to-get-worse-in-the-us.html
Today the Director General of the WHO stayed that Civid 19 is 10 times more deadly than swine flu was so get used to the long wait to gat back to your bussiness as usual “normality”
Swine flu was less deadly than flu.
“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.” According to J K Galbraith. Far easier and quicker than cultivating an orchard. It’s who controls it’s formation and to what end that is the question; the Why What and for Whom .
D J S
Exactly. It’s unfortunate that Ross Meurant is so hopelessly ignorant.
When the finance minister puts together a budget, it goes to a vote and that tells us how much the government can spend. So there are very real constraints on how much a government can borrow like full employment so once we’re close to full employment then there isn’t any reason to raise government spending and shift resources from private use into public use such as a world war to name just a few reasons.
So in a national crises when unemployment spikes the reserve bank can simply open an account with a number that corresponds to the vote budget with out owing anyone it’s just a few key strokes. Add in some taxes, rationing, price controls, so that in a war more resources can be shifted from private to public sector with out causing price inflation, if we don’t do these things while the government ramps up both borrowing and spending then we will get inflation anyway.
So I kind of go around questioning people on there economic credentials because I don’t see the corona response as being this huge concern about a return of the failures of twentieth century left wing projects. I can answer that it’s just I don’t really care about government finance. It’s important but we are trying to genocide a bug (humanity first).
Ok Boomer.
Mr. Meurant,
I read China gifts masks to Australia : https://apac.news/1-million-masks-for-australia-arrive-on-747-cargo-flight-from-china/
Let’s hope your previous sagacity https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/04/02/guest-blog-ross-meurant-who-to-blame/
contributes to a plane load of masks arriving in NZ!
Great piece of analysis.Sums up why Labour could find it hard to get back into power. Already the wagons are circling and comparing our hard lockdown with its economic hit to Australia’s softer approach. I am not saying what we did was wrong but a few months down the track as the hurt starts to bite there will be many looking for someone to blame.
Winston seems to be aware he could be in the losing camp and is pulling away from the COL in an effort to get back again.
Oz went level 3 because they could – they had a stronger health care system.
We went 4 because we did not and not knowing how much spread there was we played it safe (understaffed wards and already overworked resident doctors and really low rates of ventilators).
The spread is not too bad, the tragedy of outbreaks in aged care homes (especially those for dementia patients) manifest. And it has become apparent that ventilators are not the be all of treatment – CPAP machines modified, various oxygen treatments used for those at high altitude – laying people on their front (maternity matresses), upright in chairs on their front on maternity matresses and non tube and sedation ventilators. We can learn from treatment OE and should adopt this sort of equipement.
We should now move to level 3 at the end of the lockdown – for two weeks before a review of that.
And we should look at Oz experience – give construction a weeks notice that they will be back at level 3, and manufactuting and retail and maybe libraries (within standards) also. And after an on-line school trial period so might schools (schools can then go back to this if they have an outbreak).
Australian corona deaths 61 – New Zealand 9
What the fuck are you on about pleb? Even if you adjusted for population Australia should be closer to 40 than 60 making New Zealand’s response to the Wuhan virus a third more efficient and effective even with our relatively meagre public health resources. Are you fucking kiwi or what?
There are plenty of Kiwi experts who are looking at the effect on the economy and weighing it up against the number of lives saved and the lives wrecked both emotionally and financially. I feel the lockdown was necessary but the next move will make or break this government. It is a decision that I am glad is not mine to make .
We are going to have to retool those bankrupted businesses that can be retooled, and rehire those business back into the workforce, the business people that can not adjust to the new operating environment.
Defunding industrial entities that serve as a conduit to transfer tax dollars & power from wealthy successful people to poor people and perpetually failing people is the natural outcome without reciprocity.
Funding failing businesses should always come with embedded reciprocal benchmarks.
CPAP machines are where we should be heading for a much higher survival rate than ventilators with their necessary drug regime and often unsuccessful recuperation from the ventilator. But we will need ventilators also.
A new development in CPAP breathing assistance has been engineered for Covid19.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/f1-team-helps-build-new-uk-breathing-aid-for-covid-19-patients.
The hope is that the design can be used freely and produced globally.
This is one of the funniest posts ever. It’s like listening to your drunk Uncle at Christmas gleefully rant about his slicing the ears off Gooks during the Vietnam war. It just keeps giving. The only thing the “Liberal Red Squad Monster” left off his first list of virtuous acts was his support of people of colour, presumably because some of his best friends are blacks. Then he tags it at the end. hahaha The rest is such flawed wilful ignorance that it’s best not to argue, just let him take it to the grave as he intends.
“People vote with the hand on their wallet. ” What people ? People like you, who may not see the big picture, but need to. Right now.
‘Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten’… … … …Cree Indian Prophecy
Did you really think that a bit of police bashing would endow you with the credentials of an oracle ? Anyone can police bash – even me.
This
“bit of police bashing would endow you with the credentials of an oracle?”
Understand your pragmatism but do think maybe the time is right for socialism to be reintroduced in some areas where the market model is clearly not working……. the news media and news/facts/commentary totally independent of political and commercial influence….. electricity …… social housing (state housing) … care for the elderly…… banking (stopping the export of $$$$$$)…… public works……. If handled well, there would be huge public support for reform in these areas.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121121713/coronavirus-winston-peters-says-no-value-in-saving-people-at-the-cost-of-greater-social-good
Sanity at last.
The irony is: It’s my old mate Winnie -whose party conduct over donations, I questioned recently.
Perhaps we both arrive at a similar destination on this issue; because we both came from an environment (includes Dargaville High School) which signalled clearly: self performance was the only way – up.
Machiavelli ?