By Bernard Hickey
New Zealand has just gone through an election campaign as if in a daze.
See our Live Election night blog on National's second term win here.
We woke up the morning after that teeth-grindingly tense World Cup Final and the party that followed with a bad case of blurred vision.
National and Labour talked past each other and the voters early in the campaign with an ultimately pointless exercise in fiscal jujitsu. They sparred with each other but ultimately no one could work out who was right. There's a good case for Treasury to actually do the costings for each party's policies as well as produce the Pre-election Fiscal Update (PREFU) after this year's bout of he-said-this and he-said-that.
Both parties blithely paraded on up and down the country ignoring the storm brewing over the seas in Europe, America, China and Australia.
They were both relaxed about assuming -- and that's all it was really -- that growth will power the budget deficit back into surplus within three years. Neither were willing to address the structural deficit worth around 3-4% of GDP that they both baked in over the last six years through tax cuts, Working for Families and Interest Free Student loans.
Neither major party, and none of the minor parties, have prepared a Plan B (that we know about) if Europe's financial system and economy implodes in shower of banking collapses, production slumps, social strife and political turmoil.
Both John Key and Phil Goff simply stared off into the distance and pointed at the Treasury's PREFU forecasts for a growth revival as their fig leaf for denying the storm existed. The economic forecasts in that PREFU were finalised on September 26. That was 8 weeks ago, which is an eon in the life of financial markets.
Since then both the Greek and Italian governments have collapsed, the Spanish ruling party was voted out and Europe's economy has slumped quickly towards a deep and dangerous recession. Europe's banks are unable to borrow from each other or US money markets. Instead they are now reliant on a European Central Bank, as increasingly are the governments of Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece. Even Germany, right at the heart of Europe, failed this week to sell its bonds.
America's Congress failed again to tackle a massive budget deficit and China's factory output fell this month for the first time since the Lehman crisis. Australia cut its official interest rates in response to a rapidly cooling economy and its house prices are now falling faster than at any time since the Lehman crisis.
Yet neither John Key or Phil Goff told the voters what they would do to shelter New Zealand from this gathering storm. Would they cut government spending? Would they increase taxes? Would they borrow even more? Or would they do all three and collectively cross their fingers that everything will be OK.
We'll find out in the days ahead if Key had a Plan B carefully written and placed in the bottom drawer or weather he will just make it up as he goes along.
I'm not sure which is worse. Knowing the politicians were preparing to break their promises or knowing the politicians had no idea what to do if they were forced to break their promises.
I'd much rather know and prepare than not know and hope it'll be alright on the night.
Either way we should get ready for New Zealand's political and economic leadership to introduce us all to a giant dose of financial Berocca.
Because the full hangover starts tomorrow.
45 Comments
Damn, that was my next question too. There were no good options IMO. You could vote for, a punch in the face, a punch in the guts or a kick in the nuts. So don't complain when you get a punch in the face 'cause you could've voted for a kick in the nuts. I voted for NZF because I would be more likely to get a surprise attack, then something obvious.
spot on skudiv. national and labour are c#%p and the choice was so s#*t I ended up voting for the Conservative candidate and giving my party vote to Green - two elections Green now from a life long labour man. Re: the Green vote, while I don't agree with alot of their policies the peak oil theory I do prescribe to so the thinking being even though they have only half an idea, their heart is in the right place.
Well sort of same here.....I voted for Charles Chavel purely because I dislike Dunne that much and that was the best option for waving Dunne bye bye. I voted party green because I want a Green tinge and things like peak oil adressed....at least they seem to be trying to get us to become more efficient.......I really dont like the Green's left views though, sadly there is no other Green option.....I had hoped the Conservatives were Green and Blue in the Maggie Thatcher mold only to discover they are in the Sarah Palin - Republican mold.....
oh well....
regards
"Whether" I think....says he whos typing sucks big time.....
You are correct....its one to ponder....Goff is supposed to be up for making the hard calls....he and Labour have not said a thing...
Key walked into a bomb site in 2008....this time the dropping bombs are going to be bigger and more frequent......
What are his (JK's) options? Im sure he's cut everything he can to the bone right now.....so the only thing I can think of is public service wages cuts, say start at 10%...aka Ireland....and tax increases.....ho hum.......
What did Goff say in his speech? something about JK's mandate.....
regards
It worries me that the only policies that national are concerned with are welfare reform and selling assets (key talking to TVNZ post election). Where are the policies to make us richer as a country? Neither of these policies are going to achieve this. In fact selling the assets are going to make us poorer as the shares seep over to Australia. Anyone for a further deteriorating current account deficit? In 3 years time all that will happen is that the Maori party will be gone and NZ will have slipped further down the OECD.
Hey Iain, was that guy who sindged his eyebrows yesterday a mate of yours?
www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6040675/Car-set-on-fire-in-Cuba-Mall-protest
C'mon Iain
It's not armaggedon - we are just witnessing the beginning of the destruction of the banking empire as never seen before.
We are unlikely to enter a world war footing this time round and our youth will at least live to tell the story.
It didn't go so well for the young in previous generations, under similar conditions.
I agree Stephen. Lain's conspiracy theory version is a bit over the top in my opinion, the financial system functions on pervasive self interest of course. This is as far as I go, the self interests involved thought that the financial system and higher and higher debt levels could persist forever. Of course that is nonsense, but that is literally what many people believed and continue to believe. But the financial crisis wasn't anybodys idea, and the lack of constructive solutions is down to the same people still thinking there is some magic solution where their old financial system returns.
The problem as I see it with Key is that he was part of this group. I doubt that he is going to realise the problem, even as he sees the economy slide and slide. He is as powerless now as anybody in politics would have been to stop the financial bubble. Until somebody in charge realises what is causing the recession, expect to see more spending cuts, bailouts and badly structured backruptcies. Exactly the kind of stupidity which hurts all the people who are victims of the recession to begin with, and often with self interests escaping relatively unscathed.
When the country wakes up to find that Key doesn't have any answers, then National will be spending at least a decade in the political wilderness.
Sorry, Iain, didn't mean to insult you.
I agree that the banking system is unsustainable, and must be replaced. This is primarily for environmental reasons, a system which only functions in an expanding state, is disfunctional.
I just don't think that there has been any underlying banking conspiracy. The people responsible have been acting in self interest and genuinely believe their perspective is the only legitimate one. There are pleanty of people here, every day, who genuinely believe that the Labour government policy caused the recession, that tax cuts and austerity will take the country out of recession. The PM is not party to any knowledge which makes the reality more clear to him.
Real, significant changes in the world happen on the back of public opinion. They are not down to political 'leadership' from the front. Political parties almost never bring new ideas to the parliament, there needs to be an underlying believe that the ideas are constructive.
A realistic explanation of monetary policy and it's effect on the economy needs to be spread as widely as possible. That includes in my opinion the clear fact that private banks have a big influence on monetary policy, e.g that money has effectively been privatised. Only when people understand this, will the reforms be possible.
I don't think a conspiracy theory view can really be the main-stream view, so even if it is true I don't think that it is a highly constructive way to spread the message. I do appreciate your research, into NZ political influence and corruption by (frequently foreign) financiers.
NtN - Perhaps you are not very clear with your words so let me ask you a couple of questions
Have you ever ..
1: Been part of a Federal Reserve Bank Global Foreign Exchange Committee
2: Worked with Structured Finance
3: Worked with Quantative Analysis in the banking world
4: Set up systems for HFT on exchanges
5: Worked on "Anti Money Laundering " projects
"The PM is not party to any knowledge which makes the reality more clear to him." - Aside from the fact that #1 makes this statement of yours beyond laughable, not to mention naive, JK operates in, and has operated at the highest levels of banking, and to say that self interest is the the main play here is ridiculous!
"That includes in my opinion the clear fact that private banks have a big influence on monetary policy, e.g that money has effectively been privatized' - How do you think this came about Nic, by accident?
Use of the word Conspiracy Theory is exactly what those at the very top count on to stay hidden - The sentence above, unless you regard the creation of Private Central Banks to be an accident, implies that there was a conspiracy to control the worlds monetary systems, surely you can understand that is exactly what you have stated right! So because of that , how therefore can this now understood, and accepted (by so many experts and some amateurs), possibly be called a Conspiracy Theory, and considered not mainstream!
Monetary reform can only enter the main stream when it stops being based on conspiracy, and the financial system is seen for what it is. A flawed way to manage your national currency.
The RBNZ is a public institution, and behaves as one. Same with the Bank of England. The US Fed is bank owned, but behaves a lot as a public institution. However because of the workings of the financial system this is relatively unimportant. The private bankers do mostly what they want.
There are also people around who claim that the system makes the national debt un-repayable. This just makes the monetary reform movement sound foolish, because for example Andrew Jackson did repay the US national debt in 1835, under a similar system. There are plenty of good reasons to get out from under the banking systems thumb, but ignorance is not constructive.
And how did Andrew Jackson achieve paying back the national debt NfN?
While you are there, perhaps you can give some evidence of how the RBNZ and BoE are public, and how the FED acts like a pubic institution...
Note : "behaving alot like", and being a public institution are not the same thing!
Monetary reform can only happen when enough pressure is created, based on the facts of what has been admitted at the highest levels, and evidenced by some very creditable people globally, not to mention some years long research of people who frequent this site, and that pressure is turned up and the light shone right into the face of the fraud!
If you have ways around the lapdog media, which is as much as those few who do read listen to, then I am al ears. Because the media vehicle in NZ and elsewhere is complicit in the deception, I suspect mostly because they have become too dumbed down to read let alone understand how it al works.
How about you show some evidence that what you say might be accurate, and feel free to answer the bullet points above!
"That includes in my opinion the clear fact that private banks have a big influence on monetary policy, e.g that money has effectively been privatized' - How do you think this came about Nic, by accident?"
Banking has worked the same way for at least since 1971, but realistically much longer. John Key/National certainly has not privatised it, its always been this way.
The way that the banking system works is not actually a huge secret, though only recently has become interesting to the general public. If it is a 'secret' which is only suppost to be known to 'illuminati'/bankers its a pretty badly kept secret. I have seen a number of Iains more slanderous statements against figures like Mervyn King, which are far from constructive. He and the Bank of England would hardly be willing to help the positive money campaign if he was involved in some kind of conspiracy. The last time I saw this kind of carry on Iain was criticising King for
1) not being that keen on tax payer bailouts of banks.
2) trying to act relatively independent of government treasury.
Which sounds exactly like what a central banker should be doing, in a public institution. More recently he was accused of political interference, for telling both the government and opposition what they were discussing, again, sounds like good behaviour to me.
"Banking has worked the same way for at least since 1971, but realistically much longer. John Key/National certainly has not privatised it, its always been this way"
- Yes it has always been this way, for very many aeons in time.
"The way that the banking system works is not actually a huge secret, though only recently has become interesting to the general public. If it is a 'secret' which is only suppost to be known to 'illuminati'/bankers its a pretty badly kept secret"
- In large thanks to the increased communications vehicles, and huge financial centered mess globablly, negatively impacting entire countries of people, it has gone from being kept off radar ,(secret) as you say, into the face of anyone who might care to look up from a monetized enduced nightmare.
Still looking forward to hearing some of your own thoughts Nic!
For a start, I would just point out that even if Iain was PM, finance minister, or reserve bank governor today there is bugger all he could do to stop the recession. This makes a mockery of his narrative that any or all of these three could be causing the crisis.
For example this
"How many days do you think it will be before John Key will be using escalating current global debt crisis as an excuse as to why he cant do what he promised at election time;"
"which is going to be disgusting considering he was personally a major cause of the Global Financial Crisis;"
is unjustified, and not constructive. I am certain that National and ACT are on the wrong track trying to deal with it, but I don't doubt for a moment the sincerity of their belief that they are on the best available one. There are positive and negative sides to everything, and not recognising the shades of grey is a sure fire way to be left out of the debate.
In my opinion its foolish to claim that this crisis is any different to the great depression, and because of this foolish to claim that CDO's, MBS or derivatives (which didn't exist in 1929) were a cause.
As to finance being kept out of economics, there is certainly no conspiracy there. If you think that many economists beliefs about banking are odd, you should see some of their beliefs about investment, free-markets, invisible hands and the confidence fairy. Banks probably fitted the money multiplier model reasonably well for about 40 years after 1945.
What I am trying to point out, is that all of the problems we see can occur with a public institution, like be RBNZ, behaving as a public institution. If you really think that the reserve bank is corrupt then you are supporting the wrong reforms anyway. Putting a corrupt institution in charge of a different system is not going to change the way they behave. If they were subverted and did create the crisis then this will happen again, regardless of the system being used. In my opinion this means they are not the root source of financial corruption, even in the US.
It's also important to point out that for example the Fed didn't cause the crisis, neither did the RBNZ, neither did the Bank of England. The bailouts did a lot of damage to the various governments books, and were badly implemented in that there were no obligations for reform put on the financial system in return. The alternatives were not that rosy either however. There was going to be a crisis at this point, the damage was already done, and the economies needed to be reformed.
NZ would be in exactly the same position now, even if the government was/is fully aware of what is going on in the financial system. Neither English or Key or even Bollard has done anything which either caused or particularly exacerbated the crisis coming to NZ.
NfN - In response to your posts above, the large one especially, we are mostly on the same page it would seem.
Ultimate truth is always out there, whether the minions argue about it, or lies are told to cover it up..
It is always there! Hope has little to do with anything!
Was interesting to witness the fawning of the TV3 media. Outside JK's mansion the presenter gushed over its 'latest value' of $10 mill. (she was later rewarded with a giant choc strawberry delivered from the mansion). Infact all the houses in the street were valued in the millions and it's not even the most sought after street. One of the panellists concured - 'yes this is an aspirational country'.
This is the problem in a nutshell. No wonder an astonishing percentage of the popn voted National. They seem to share this delusion of ill-deserved wealth and will vote for anyone who promises to prop up the delusion, come hell or high water. Evidently they would happily see the assets of their country, built up of many decades, as a necessary cost to retaining the wealth illusion.
They won't be so short-sighted when a giant choc strawberry is inserted firmly up their collective rectum. It's imminent.
"I agree Stephen. Lain's conspiracy theory version is a bit over the top in my opinion, the financial system functions on pervasive self interest of course. "
Actually I concur with Iain, but will accept you're both right. The banking sysem that has come to take such a pervasive role in our lives is a product of an elaborate, premeditated, carefully orchestrated plan, which began in the mid 1970s due to the frustration of many within Big Business interests with the historic bargain between Business and Labour which found expression in the New Deal and Johnson's Great Society. They became concerned about the rise of historically marginalized groups such as the student movement and African American civil rights, which they framed in terms of the "Crisis of governability" (See Samuel Huntington's, Crisis of Democracy). Read the American journalist, Mill Moyers Memorial Speech to John Gardner, former principal architech of Johnson's Great Society and President of Carnegie Corporation of New York.
"See for yourself. Read the literature. Start with A Time for Truth, the call to arms by Richard Nixon’s treasury secretary, William Simon, the Wall Street wheeler-dealer. He argued that “funds generated by business” would have to “rush by multimillions” into right-wing causes in order to uproot the institutions and the “heretical” morality of the New Deal. He called for an “alliance” between right-wing ideologues and “men of action in the capitalist world” to mount a “veritable crusade” against everything brought forth by the long struggle for a progressive America. It would mean, as Business Week noted at the time, “that some people will obviously have to do with less...It will be a bitter pill for many Americans to swallow the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more.” But so be it. "
http://carnegie.org/publications/carnegie-reporter/single/view/article/item/282/
Or going back to 1968, where Treasury Secretary George Ball, advocated the creation of a suprapolitical structure to relieve then existing constraints on the action of multinational corporations, due to what he thought was an imbalance in the scope of national governments and multinational business.
"He went on to note the problem of governance of the international firm, given the asymmetry between its scope and that of national authorities, and called for the evolution of some sort of supranational political structure. Recognizing that was not likely, he suggested ‘denationalizing’ MNEs as a second best solution, governing world corporations through a treaty-based international companies law administered by an international institution. ""
http://www-management.wharton.upenn.edu/kobrin/Research/Oxford%20rev2%20print.pdf
It culminated in a research project carried out by the American thinktank, called the Council on Foreign Relations, which was aimed at determining what political and economic reforms were needed to be carried out that would alleviate the necessity of accomoditing rising demands for change that threatened the current social order. One of the publications was a book entitled, Alternatives to Monetary Order, the purpose of which was to conceptualize the reframing of world monetary arrangements that would best ensure the continuation of the pattern of economic relationships, favourable to the interests of the United States. Its conclusion was, œThe obvious danger in such a regime resides in its potential instability. Some limited loosening is by no means unequivocally undesirable. It can be seen as a rational response to the earlier tendency, which was most manifest in the 1960s, for economic integration to run far ahead of both actual and desired political integration, thereby forcing countries into suboptimal policy choices. A degree of controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate objective for the 1980s and may be the most realistic one for a moderate international economic order. A central normative problem for the international economic order in the years ahead is how to ensure that the dis-integration indeed occurs in a controlled way and does not rather spiral into damaging restrictionism.â€
Alternative to Monetary Disorder (Fred Hirsch and Michael Doyle, CFR)
http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v8y1978i3p457-459.html
I myself was horrifed when I read an excerpt of the above and to confirm it authencity I actually ordered a second hand from Amazon. I assure you it is, shocking though it may be.
And the mechanism which they used to achieve their purpose was the high interest rate policy of Paul Volcker, Federal Reserve Bank goveror, which he freely admitted below.
www.newyorkfed.org/research/quarterly_review/.../v3n4article1.pdf
Don't you beleive it Stephen, Israel, Iran, Syria, Russia, the probability is higher then unlikely. I don't watch TV so I'm not sure what they are saying there but google those nations and you will find pleanty of current headlines.
Invest in your own security first and foremost, that has been truth since the dawn of man. Got family, friends, neighbours, staff, workmates, community, a plan B? Easy low cost stuff.
Nato/US attacks it's old useless allie Pakastan: From Reuters
YAKKAGHUND, Pakistan (Reuters) - NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations deeper into crisis.
Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's shipments by land.
http://news.yahoo.com/nato-helicopters-attack-pakistan-post-eight-killed-045844890.html
Stephen I think you miss the point - BH has access to ask hard reality based questions to the very highest levels, and by in large he does nt even scratch the surface. This is not to denegrate Bernards contribution via his musings about where the country is going wrong, it is the fact that without backing up with utilizing his access to its full potential then he might as well not bother with the musings..
It just becomes wasted energy, and the commercialism of this site thus takes priority!
And just for laugh the Fed admits it's terrible forecasting errors.
Matt in Auck,
This research paper ably explains just why Banking authorities were unable to accurately forecast the turmoil in the world's financial markets that we're still enmeshed in.
This inference is impossible to make from national or OECD forecasters’ models, where balance sheet variables or interest flows are conspicuous by their absence. These CGE models do not include a separate financial sector, ruling out finance-induced recession by design. Money supply and interest rate variables are included in those models, but they are fully determined by real-sector variables such as the output gap. Also, the process of money stock growth or asset market inflation – by bank lending which increases debt levels and elicits return flows of interest – are not modelled. This fits in with a “reflective finance” view; the financial sector, rather than developing its own dynamic, is assumed to adapt to the “real fundamentals”, so that explicitly modelling it is superfluous...So far, however, monetary (and other) policymakers have resisted inclusion of balance sheets and the flow of funds in their models and policy responses. Greenspan famously preferred to “mitigate the fallout when it occurs and, hopefully, ease the transition to the next expansion”.
There's a good case for Treasury to actually do the costings for each party's policies as well as produce the Pre-election Fiscal Update (PREFU) after this year's bout of he-said-this and he-said-that.
There is a better case for taking fiscal updates away from treasury and giving the task to some other public body more removed from government (i.e. set up a new office of parliament). That might get away from the polticial spin aspect of Treasury forecasting and increase the possibility that factors such as peak oil and climate change and bad financial practices will be recognised and accounted for.
Agreed that international economic conditions are not rosy.
But quite frankly you cannot expect any politician based in a small country to come up with a series of proposals to fix that - and expecting one party to base their projections on gloomy (if accurate) data is unrealistic - it would be political suicide.
The best that we can hope for is for politicians to implement policy that minimises the debt damage by reducing services and handouts to the bare minimum.
After that, each individual has to take personal responsibility to provide for themselves and their family as best that we can.
Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth about poverty, New Zealanders on 2011 have it pretty good, and certainly have access to more goods and services at cheaper prices than any previous generation of NZers.
Put into both a global perspective, and also a local historical perspective, NZ and NZers do still have an economy where it is possible to generate wealth, feed the family and save.
But do Nzers have the work ethic to grab that opportunity? or has the hand-out, entitlement mentality that has been fostered over the last 10-20 years taken hold?
We will see.
"the stench of lies and deceit emanating from the Federal Reserve"... http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31768.htmlyou gotta laugh...petty crims get life in a cell....thieving lying corrupt fed bosses get bonuses and a Presidential pat on the head...
I ask myself....how thick can so many be in the land of the free, that they can be so determined not to see......?
Interesting to ponder what the world will be like for the next elections and what the parties will look like then.
Just checked United Future's web site to see their position on asset sales. The slimey fence siting creep has worded it to appear that he is sort of against them but left enough wriggle room to support Nationals proposals.
I listened to Peter Dunne last Thursday during the minor parties debate on National radio. My overall perception then was that United Future was promising all sorts of things including opposing asset sales. By Sunday, again on National radio, Peter Dunne appeared to have returned to type - all he was talking about was Peter Dunne.
Thousands of factories across the border here in HK face imminent closure.
China’s factory unrest flares as global economy slows Sat, 26 November 2011
DONGGUAN, China — In factory towns across China's export powerhouse in the Pearl River Delta, a vicious cycle of slowing orders from the West and increasing wage pressures has led to a series of major strikes that could reverberate through the economy. From shoe and bra factories in the east of Guangdong province, dubbed "China's world factory", to a cluster of watch, sport and electronics plants to the south and west, hundreds, even thousands, of workers have crippled production for major Western brands.
A Reuters team that visited four factory towns in the region this week saw significant signs of industrial strains despite attempts by security guards to block access to workers. The strains underline recent warnings of a looming export slowdown from a senior Guangdong official and a survey of country-wide industrial activity in November that showed the worst contraction since 2009. At Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings' giant shoe factory in Huangjiang town — a major supplier for sports brand New Balance — the mood remained tense after most of its 8,000 workers took to the streets on Thursday, blocking roads, overturning cars and clashing with police.
It is worth making a small analysis of this on the humble pair of cheap(well perhaps not that cheap) chinese throw away shoes.
So there is a strong chance of the supply of shoes drying up, since local manufacture died a generation ago. The situation could be made significantly worse if oil shortages for whatever reason restrict the flow of goods. Further deterioration might see the New Zealand exchange rate plunge.
So what shoes there are are going to be expensive because of short supply, and higher import cost. Hyperinflation perhaps?
Or this might be tempered by the fact that on one has the money to buy shoes due to high unemployment. This could cause deflation, although because no one is buying then no one will take the risk of importing which then further exacerbates the shortage.
Perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel is that it may well be worth setting up the local manufacture again in NZ.
Worst of all it was the most corrupt election in NZ's history.
Bernard, did you see TV3 news and how the Epson electorate voting papers had been jacked up. They had John Banks at the top then left a gap. Then they had the National party and then left another gap then listed all the other parties and candidates. How corrupt is that?
Next, if you tell a lie often enough people start to believe it. This is what the news media did. They kept telling the Labour voters "Nation is going to romp in with a clear majority so no point in voting for Labour. They kept this message up constantly. Hey presto, it worked, look at the voter turnout. National got less votes this time but got a higher majority.
Is Rupert about?
Democracy, what democracy?
Actions speak louder than words. I was surprised that John Key, in his brief public appearance and victory speech, felt it important to share with the nation that Germany had failed to sell a part of it's Government bond offering just three days prior. His implication seemed to be the rapidly approaching 'troubled times' soon to impact us here in NZ. However, he didn't mention that the Berlusconi basket case, known as Italy, managed to sell all their bonds just two days later. It wouldn't seem to be a question of the quality of the German offering then, would it. Could it possibly be because Merkel's Government is resisting devaluation of the Euro by inflation, as the international banking cartel demand, and has been given a public lesson in what democracy means and who's really running the show? I note that our PM's currency trading expertise, at the helm of our economy, has seen international banks assets in NZ double during the past three years, and it seems clear just what our government's actual strategic vision is and who they're really working for. It's obvious that the deal's done so just watch the SOE jewels 'disappear', and with them, our ability to pay back JK's loans from his mates. It would seem that not only is the fat lady singing but the piper is also playing.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.