MEDIAWATCH: It’s official with this Maiki Sherman interview that Chris Luxon is as delusional as Trump

The Prime Minister spend the year hiding from any actual accountability from the media by hiding from critical media and sucking up to friendly right wing media…

…and the latest Maki Sherman interview explains why because when the PM is actually asked sustained questioning, the true enormity of his delusion becomes terrifyingly apparent…

Luxon says Kiwis ‘very clearly’ see economy turning, defends Willis

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has painted an optimistic picture heading into election year, saying “hopeful” New Zealanders are telling him they “very clearly” see a strengthening economy.

…he said what now?

“The Kiwis that I talk to every week are saying very clearly, look, we can see the economy strengthening. We can see things are turning and they are hopeful, and I can see that more New Zealanders are starting to feel that, and that’s a good thing,” he said.

…what economic strengthening?

The latest data shows the economy is standing still after being devastated by this Government’s austerity planning being dependent upon the private sector stepping up which it can’t because it is locked into debt.

A point Bernard Hickey makes…

• Treasury published its Half Yearly Economic and Financial Update (HYEFU) report yesterday, lowering its GDP growth forecast, raising its unemployment forecast, reducing the Government’s tax revenue forecasts and delaying its forecast for a return to surplus by another year to 2029/30.
  
  
• Finance Minister Nicola Willis pledged the Government would stick to its strategy of restraining Government spending growth to crunch the size of core Crown spending below 30% of GDP from almost 33% now, in order to cut borrowing. She hopes this reduces mortgage rates to grow the economy faster.
  
  
• That strategy depends on households and businesses stepping up to borrow, spend and invest to offset the Government withdrawal, as they did through similar fiscal tightenings in the early 1990s, the early 2000s and the early 2010s.
  
  
• But those expansions were mostly driven by households taking on more debt to spend and invest in residential land. That was possible because household debt was much lower then than today, banks were still shifting from mostly business lending to mostly mortgage lending, and mortgage rates dropped substantially each time.
  
  
• Household debt to disposable income rose from under 50% of disposable income in 1989 when mortgage rates averaged around 15%, to a peak of 179% in 2009 after mortgage rates fell to 5.5%.
  
  
• Another surge in lending came as interest rates sagged towards 5% before LVR controls in 2013 and higher bank capital requirements stopped the rise in indebtedness. There was another bounce back in household-debt-to-disposable-income of 175% in 2022 as mortgage rates fell as low as 3%, but the rise in mortgage rates to around 7.5% by late 2023 stopped any further rise.

…All Luxon is pushing here is some narrow narrative that some are seeing ‘green shoots of recovery’ while others see the dried snot of desperation.

There are many things that manage to symbolise the venal corruption of this Government despite our PMs Trump level delusion..

The bastardisation of the school lunches programme into cheap slop.
The IREX Ferry fiasco.
The gutting of public health by a smiling man child.

Smashing Labour’s infrastructure pipeline that created a cascade collapse across the economy.

Desperately needed public housing standing empty.

$12billion for military helicopters while knee capping pay parity.

The total capitulation to corporate interests via the Regulatory Standards Act

Undermining workers safety while the Pike River Mine movie opened.

The totally needless and counter productive hate fest spawned by the Treaty Principles Referendum.

The war on climate legislation as NZ gets hit by extreme weather.

The cutting of benefits for people while giving the worst industries hundreds of millions in corporate welfare.

Refusing compensation to survivors of state abuse if they have gone to prison.

Refusing to recognise Palestine and siding with the war criminals.

Unleashing a tsunami of homelessness from policy that has exacerbated homelessness, and yet all the Prime Minister has in response to all of this is to tell us all that Nicola Willis is doing a great job…

When asked if Willis would remain as finance minister heading into the election, Luxon said: “Absolutely.”

He added: “We’ve dealt with some really challenging trading environments, and so she’s doing a very good job and a very challenging set of circumstances, and working [her] way through it, I think, very, very well.

…ask the homeless how well she’s doing.

Ask those who have seen $20million taken out of food banks how well she is doing?

Ask all those sitting around the table this year at Christmas with so many empty chairs from whanau fleeing NZ how well Nicola is doing as Finance Minister.

Ask anyone, but just not the Prime Minister.

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