Well Jianqi has corralled
his lambs and just about got his coalition organised. And when you think of it;
coalition is a good name for it since it will be putting out a lot of heat and black
smoke and it will bring tears to your eyes before very long.
So what is that
blinding light on the horizon? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Of course not, you
silly buggers; it’s that brighter new future we were promised so many times
during the last month.
What’s that? You
can’t see it? With all due respect, I think you need to take the blinkers off
NOW, because Jianqi’s brighter future is here and just keeps getting brighter
each day.
Take the economy
for example (I wish someone would...). Is that bright or what? Treasury figures
are just out on the country’s operating deficit for the four months to Oct 31,
2011. Treasury gave all us voters the low down on how this would work out six
weeks ago and now we find they were absolutely...wrong. It was out by 4.1
percent, which doesn’t sound much, but considering this prediction was only
made six weeks ago (and half-way through the period in question) it is not
particularly bright.
They tell us it
was down due to lower Crown revenue and a smaller tax and GST take. So the
taxation policy is working well, then...NOT. They can hardly blame the economy
on Labour now they’ve been in total control for the last three years!
Maybe we should
check out the brighter health outlooks instead. I see National Disgrace is
promising to provide even more elective surgery. Goodness me, that sounds
great. Furthermore they have a goal of all patients booked for elective surgery
to wait no more than four months. Wow – two months less than now. Or is it?
Actually no. The whole waiting times issue is a load of lies and deceptions.
You see the
current system ‘guarantees’ patients on the list will be seen in six months,
but how can they guarantee this, you might ask? Easy, I answer. If they don’t
think they can see you in six months; then you don’t get put on the list. This
was exposed on National Radio’s Nine to Noon programme of 10 November 2011
where surgeons told Kathryn Ryan exactly how it works and why we have Charity
Hospitals in Auckland, New Plymouth and Christchurch performing much needed
varicose vein and hernia operations as well as many other surgeries for painful
conditions that the DHBs are ignoring.
Okay then let’s
look at the brighter future for jobs. That’s always one to get everyone
excited. Jianqi tells us the abolition of the youth rates lost us 9000 jobs in
one fell swoop. Let’s suspend judgment on that for a moment while we check out
the Nats’ brighter future answer to this.
They are going
to introduce what they have dubbed a ‘starting-out wage’ which apply to 16 and
17-year-olds beginning work and 18-19 year-olds who have just come off a
designated benefit as well as 16-19 year-olds in training in certain recognised
industry training courses. It will be equivalent to 80 percent of the minimum
wage (wow $10.40 before tax -such generosity). For new young workers this will apply
for the first six months with the same
employer. Which means if for some reason their employer decided to toss
them out after three months (and what is to stop him/her?) they have to start
again with their next employer at $10.40 for another period of six months. You
see after six months the employer is obliged
to pay them the adult rate, so with an easy out at three months it is easy to
see what will happen to many.
So what is
really giving us a brighter future Jianqi? Certainly nothing in this lot. But
perhaps it is your plan for asset sales ... er sorry ‘the mixed ownership model’?
Now in the lead up to the election we were told the change to the ‘mixed
ownership model’ would net us $7B. That sounds quite a tidy sum, but how did
the Nats arrive at it? Well, unfortunately we don’t know because they muzzled
treasury and the Ombudsman before the election. I can think of only one reason
why they would do that, and it has nothing to do with ‘commercial sensitivity’.
It is ‘political sensitivity’ because when you discover the whole concept has
been built upon figures that don’t add up, it suddenly becomes a far more
worrying matter than simply losing the income from these assets. After all that
pain was supposed to bring gain. But realistically what sort of gain could it
ever bring other than a very brief elation rather like when you sell your house
and have a whole lot of money ....but nowhere to live, because you didn’t get
as much as you thought for it.
I am the first
to admit that my understanding of economics is rudimentary at best, although
lately I have begun to realise I share this level of expertise with those in
treasury who get paid far more than I could hope to earn. So at this point I
should defer to those who actually work in the money market.
Auckland financial
analyst Brent Sheather, and NZ Herald business columnist Brian Fallow have both
laid out a very convincing analysis of the situation You can find details of
their analysis at http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/11/24/gordon-campbell-financial-analysts-jump-ship-on-asset-sales/
but in a nutshell Sheather says To get these asset
sales, the Government will need to price the companies at price-earnings
multiples of somewhere around 14 to 16 times, which implies after-tax earnings
yields of 6 to 7 per cent. The
7% is the profits of the company after tax. So the company could pay out 4% as
tax free profit, and re-invest the other 3% for more growth. Either way, that’s
going to be nearly twice the 4% cost [of the borrowing option.]. Again, these
sums indicate that ordinary New Zealanders stand to lose by selling down the
assets.
Both commentators seem to be
of the opinion their views are pretty widely shared within the financial
community, who is pulling Jianqi’s chain? And more to the point; where is this
brighter future coming from?
Maybe it’s coming
through the communication companies who are rolling out faster broadband ‘all
over the country’. Wow! But wouldn’t it be better if all of us had decent
cellphone coverage and television reception first? I mean how fast does
broadband have to be? You can only type or click so fast.
Or maybe it’s coming
from those nice mining companies. You know the ones. . These guys bring lots of
work – they are the good guys. We’ve got a mining inspector so it’s okay. The
companies are responsible people. It’s just that they don’t need all that
health and safety nonsense because they employ real men, not cry-baby scaredy-cats
who worry about being entombed in their workplace, or blown to smithereens.
But wouldn’t our
future be so much brighter if everyone just stopped complaining about silly
things such as child poverty child abuse, drunk drivers, lousy employers, a
failed health system, dirty dairying, degraded environment and a failed
education system and just got on with helping Jianqi to help us?
Yeah, right! I
might as well toss my shades away for the next three years.
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