The Government’s Covid 19 response, mainly via Reserve Bank measures, has enabled a mind-boggling increase in inequality, according to influential financial commentator Bernard Hickey. Covid response has saved multiple lives, but its refusal to simultaneously address inequality via taxes raises uncomfortable questions about how a leftist government has overseen a once-in-a-generation shift in wealth
The government is simultaneously grappling with the Covid, economic and housing crises, but its failure to act urgently and boldly on the crisis in our Fourth Estate may have the most damaging longer-term effect. Bernard Hickey has lashed out at Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi and Jacinda Ardern, for their fiddling-while-Rome-burns response to an industry in meltdown.
New Zealand, like many other nations, is hurtling towards economic depression faster than Covid-19 spreads. “We are going to have a depression”. “This is like an asteroid hit the global economy”. “We can print our way of this”. Reflections on what lies ahead by Simon Louisson, Bernard Hickey and others.
Being compared to Trump has got to hurt. And shouldn’t there be consequences when a PM flat out lies to the country on the state of the economy?
Bernard Hickey: “It is extraordinary for the Prime Minister to call the Treasury’s short and long term forecasts a “load of nonsense” and yet rely on the medium term ones to promise all manner of riches to voters on the eve of an election.”
Hickey in The Herald on Sunday: “Our household debt to income ratio of 165 per cent is now about 5 per cent above those previous highs of 2008 and rising quickly as debt rises around twice as fast as incomes.”
Hickey: “The best way for an economy to grow is for the market to allow wages to grow. Allowing a flood of low-skilled migrants is frustrating that market mechanism with the short-term aim of keeping wages low for employers.”
An elegant graph explains why free trade is a good thing, but why it is causing a backlash in rich “Western” countries.
Hickey: “Helping employers to bring in low-skilled migrants instead of investing in new technology and becoming more productive so they can pay local workers more is essentially stunting our productivity and real GDP per capita.”
“Mr Hickey said the actual figure for foreigners buying homes here could be anywhere between 3 and 48 percent.”
Bernard Hickey makes some excellent points on the Unconditional Basic Income / Guaranteed Minimum Income.
It seems that “serious economists” are discussing something called “helicopter money”. Would it fly in NZ?
Bernard Hickey’s piece from last Sunday on Auckland Housing is a depressing read.
Excellent piece by Bernard Hickey in The Herald this morning.
Bernard Hickey asked such an interesting question on Twitter that it’s worth a post and discussion here. When and how will the young revolt?
We’re in yet another round of talk of “green shoots” of economic recovery, complete with the hype of an optimistic budget. Maybe they’re right this time, but the recovery, when it does happen, will be in spite of the National government, not because of them. All National have done is hold us back for four years.
Recent pieces by Bernard Hickey and John Armstrong both highlighted the problem of our aging population and the unsustainability of super – in Hickey’s memorable words we are “consuming our future”. Armstrong tries to balme MMP, but that won’t wash, it’s just the usual short-sighted Nat stupidity…
NZ is well served in the range of online offerings that are exploring beyond the fringes of the mainstream media. Welcome to a new player, Bernard Hickey’s JOURNALISM.ORG.NZ.
The “tradeable” sector is still shrinking. The property market is heating up again. We need a capital gains tax now.
Bernard Hickey has a great piece in the Herald on Sunday that you shouldn’t miss.
Capitalism is good. Globalisation is good. It’s political orthodoxy. But is it matched by economic reality? Perhaps not. Recent pieces by Bernard Hickey and Gordon Campbell give us plenty to think about…
The credit rating downgrades have been quite a political earthquake, and the aftershocks are going to continue for some time.
Bernard Hickey writes compellingly on the coming fall of capitalism.
John Key was elected promising to stop the exodus to Australia. He has failed. More and more Kiwis, especially the young, are leaving. And is it any wonder?
The minor party debate on Q+A was very interesting. Rahui Katene was self-contradictory and vague, like the Maori Party always is. Peter Dunne was pathetic. Roger Douglas slammed the government’s borrowing as did Russel Norman, who pointed out the other three had all voted for National’s debt-increasing tax cuts for the rich.
Bernard Hickey sets out the “theory” behind National’s tax cuts, and sums up the impact of the tax package as a whole: “Simply put, it’s not working”.
Why isn’t it working? Well the fact that the theory is nonsense probably doesn’t help…
The latest piece from economist Bernard Hickey is a despairing warning on the subject of borrowing. With the current government making things worse not better, is there any way out of this downwards spiral?
Bernard Hickey looks at the tax bludgers. Labour’s plans to introduce a higher new top tax rate would raise needed tax from those who can most afford it. But it would also foster more tax bludging by the rich. Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater by abolishing the top rate, we need to eliminate the avenues for bludging.
Financial journalist Bernard Hickey of interest.co.nz and Selwyn Pellett of the Productive Economy Council will discuss the need for a complete rethink of […]
The US Government has begun creating new money out of thin air, to inflate away the value of its debt and lower its currency to make its industries more competitive. It’s not the only country. Nearly all the major currencies are engaged in the ‘Currency Wars’, trying to force down their exchanger rates. We’re in the cross-fire doing nothing.
Bernard Hickey continues his politico-economic rebirth. Yesterday, he wrote on how New Zealand can protect itself from dangerous international capital flows that undermine our economy and our ability to choose our own path. We shouldn’t leave the guidance of our economy to the invisible hand of blind, fallible, and valueless markets.
Bernard Hickey, one of the country’s leading economic commentators, was a hardline neo-liberal – ie. the market is god. Now, he’s changed his mind. He’s come to the realisation that there’s no invisible god’s hand directing capitalist markets. Instead they are directed by short-termist elites. We need to take back control.
