Digging us out of this mess is going to be hard work for the new government, especially since Labour and the MainStreamMedia are trying to sabotage them from the start. Amazingly this week, Robertson, Hipkins & Newshub attacked the new government for not subjecting the legislation they wish to repeal to Regulatory Impact Statement scrutiny, arguing that Labour had always done so "except during Covid".
Well, Covid makes up most of the period during which Hipkins held power, as Covid Minister. During that time he ran NZ, together with his colleagues, like a totalitarian state, ignoring every form of proper scrutiny - particularly like cost-benefit analysis and regulatory impact statements. Folks like me ferociously and personally argued for those checks and balances to be done, and Hipkins, with the aid of his accomplices in the media, set the attack dogs onto us.
During Covid I argued on this blog and radio that the late order of the vaccine was because Hipkins never did cost-benefit analysis. Had he done so, his government would have worked out that since each vaccine dose cost only around $20, five million doses should have been ordered from Pfizer (as well as from each of the several other companies offering vaccines) instead of one million at the end of 2020. Furthermore, I argued on Newstalk ZB that the second lock-down in 2021 never added up on a cost-benefit / regulatory impact basis. That was not with the benefit of hindsight, it was when it was happening.
Yes, Hipkins and Robertson have damaged our lovely country in an unprecedented fashion, and now have the gall to argue that they managed the economy prudently by respecting the experts advice, in the form of cost-benefit analysis and regulatory impact statements, when the truth is they gave the likes of economic "experts" like me, who were arguing in favour of those disciplines, short shrift. Now we're all paying the price in terms of a shrinking economy, meaning less money to pay for health-care and more people dying as a result.
Sources
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/did-the-economy-shrink-or-grow-new-gdp-numbers-today/VIPKVULJP5DGDJSEY5NDXQ3HMI/
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/12/chris-hipkins-says-his-government-never-removed-requirement-for-regulatory-impact-statements-except-during-covid-19.html
Well, Covid makes up most of the period during which Hipkins held power, as Covid Minister. During that time he ran NZ, together with his colleagues, like a totalitarian state, ignoring every form of proper scrutiny - particularly like cost-benefit analysis and regulatory impact statements. Folks like me ferociously and personally argued for those checks and balances to be done, and Hipkins, with the aid of his accomplices in the media, set the attack dogs onto us.
During Covid I argued on this blog and radio that the late order of the vaccine was because Hipkins never did cost-benefit analysis. Had he done so, his government would have worked out that since each vaccine dose cost only around $20, five million doses should have been ordered from Pfizer (as well as from each of the several other companies offering vaccines) instead of one million at the end of 2020. Furthermore, I argued on Newstalk ZB that the second lock-down in 2021 never added up on a cost-benefit / regulatory impact basis. That was not with the benefit of hindsight, it was when it was happening.
Yes, Hipkins and Robertson have damaged our lovely country in an unprecedented fashion, and now have the gall to argue that they managed the economy prudently by respecting the experts advice, in the form of cost-benefit analysis and regulatory impact statements, when the truth is they gave the likes of economic "experts" like me, who were arguing in favour of those disciplines, short shrift. Now we're all paying the price in terms of a shrinking economy, meaning less money to pay for health-care and more people dying as a result.
Sources
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/did-the-economy-shrink-or-grow-new-gdp-numbers-today/VIPKVULJP5DGDJSEY5NDXQ3HMI/
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/12/chris-hipkins-says-his-government-never-removed-requirement-for-regulatory-impact-statements-except-during-covid-19.html
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
Have you read nothing about the effects of the’ vaccine’?
The first thing to do was order the vaccine its cheap when compared to the economic cost of a lock down. Our GDP is $1b/day.
I am highly skeptical of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine but in the context of the Delta it may still have a valid case for use, but under the subsequent Omicron its need evaporated.
But the smart money was to order it and do the research once it came into production, and that did not happen, hapless fools were in power. Morons in space, comes to mind a great film.
"the smug, grinning Cheshire Cat, Grant Robertson, and his negative, bitter colleague, Chris Hipkins, "
Don't hold back Professor. Let us know what you really think:-)
Wait till the 20th of December. The govt books will be a horror story. Too much spending, too much unbudgeted spending, too many blow outs. Huge spending, so little to show for it.
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