Bruce Cotterill has written an opinion piece for the NZH. Of course they stuck it in the Business section and paywalled it. The unemployed might read the Herald online but how many subscribe or buy a paper?
The fact that teachers are unhappy with their lot at a time when our educational performance is so poor should be a matter for some urgent national focus. Nations that can’t educate their kids are doomed to fail.
So, in a week when the indicators show us failing, it seems ironic that the government chose to announce a $2 billion increase in the welfare bill. […]
We have to remember that every extra dollar our politicians spend is borrowed. […]
[W]e now overlay the minimum wage increase with a boost to welfare payments. So, we are paying people more not to work at a time when some businesses are running reduced hours because they can’t get staff. It doesn’t make sense. Simply put, we’re putting more borrowed icing on a rented cake.
Mr Cotterill is clear he thinks the government should cut back on spending. He supports payments to superannuitants, who’ve worked and paid taxes, and to those who can’t look after themselves. His main complaint is those who can work, but don’t. He touches on the loss of tourism (Covid), that farms and agriculture are under attack and the recent loss of export dollars from lost produce in the recent flood events. We need to “cut our cloth”.
Borrow and spend seems to be the recipe. It would be OK if the spending was productive. But it’s not. It’s wasted money. My money. Your money. Unproductive. Down the drain. And all in the name of what? It’s all about votes, folks. […]
And so we are forced to live in a world that is almost make-believe. A world where you don’t have to be better or do more, but you get paid more. Meanwhile, those who do become better or do more, those who try harder, or those who borrow money against a house or another asset so they can invest in their business and employ other people, are caught in a vortex that is sucking them closer and closer to a bank-induced failure.
He ends with a hope that government spending will shift to focus on investing “in those who want to work, rather than spending on those who don’t”.
Read more here. Discuss it on The BFD.
