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Monday, February 19, 2024

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Ardern in the USA


Harvard's Kennedy School should be using her as a Case Study of the Dangers of Charisma

Having left Kiwis the legacy of a cost-of-living crisis, falling education standards for our poorest children & racial division, former PM Ardern is now shacked up in the Kennedy School at Harvard University, enjoying the pleasures of being on the receiving end of the University's $US 60 billion endowment. She recently gave a rousing speech there, saying the secret to great government policy is to "bring in the public". Did the out-of-touch Harvard folks not hear about the landslide defeat her Labour Party just suffered because it was hard to find anyone she brought with her? Nearly every policy she enacted has been reversed these past months because the public slam-dunk rejected them.

Ardern frequently attacked the 1980s market reforms of Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble & company, saying they had not brought in the public & were a disaster. Yet those reforms, be it an independent Central Bank, lower personal income tax rates, GST, elimination of farmer subsidies, floating dollar & more, are still in place 40 years later - whereas it's hard to find a single Ardern "reform" still there one year after she left office. Her government turned the vaccinated against the unvaccinated; Māori against non-Māori; rich against poor; farmer against environmentalist. Her motto became "divide & conquer"; not "bring in the public". Big Media are desperate to paint Luxon, Seymour & Peters as dividers. But we, the people, know the truth. The seeds of division were laid and cultivated by Ardern.

Harvard's Kennedy School of blah-blah should be ashamed of itself for becoming a place that jumps on bubbles, even after they've burst, where the faculty hire former politicians whose partisan views align with their own. Its seminars now resemble group therapy sessions, lacking in academic integrity. The School is not searching for the truth, which is meant to be the ethos of a university. So what was the lesson of Ardern's time in politics? She was perhaps the most charismatic leader NZ has ever known - a Case Study of a long line of world politicians who've led their country to ruin yet for a time were wildly embraced by the public due to their charisma. She relied on (terrible) advice & saw her job as "selling it to the public", which she did with extraordinary talent. But that advice led to never-ending lockdowns even after most of our population were vaccinated (because Prof. Michael Baker advised elimination was "sustainable"), spiraling debt, more monopolies, unaffordable prices and inflation. Ardern gained personal mojo & success - yet cost the nation its mojo & success. We must regain it fast and get back to where we once belonged.

Sources:
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/public-leadership-management/jacinda-ardern-has-lot-be-proud-former

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.

5 comments:

Reggie said...

lol the world gets sillier by the day! You really should write a serious note to Harvard and let them know that they’re being conned. History will show that Ardern is probably the worst, most destructive PM this country has ever had. She even exceeds Muldoon!

Simon Cohen said...

I find it amazing that that narcissist Professor Michael Baker is still making statements to the gullible news media [who print them] despite having been proven wrong on all his previous predictions.

DeeM said...

Jacinda Ardern - a dreamer, wrapped in a narcissist, inside a delusion.
Good at nothing except bumping her gums together and emitting an endless stream of platitudes and ideological tosh.

Now in her happy place at Harvard, along with all the other woke dickheads, receiving uncritical adulation from the adoring far-Left; and blissfully ignorant of her abject failures as a leader and a politician.

Anonymous said...



Cork rises.... even to the so-called lofty heights of Harvard.

This once great institution is looking somewhat tacky lately and even its woke president, an icon of identity politics, was forced to resign for inappropriate behaviour.

Has Ms Ardern - one day Dr Ardern probably - further tarnished the once shimmering Harvard brand? Seemingly yes.

But hey - her big buck gigs ( sorry, " fellowships" ) are still rolling in. Vacuity is lucrative.

Peter said...

An excellent summation. Who would ever have thought for the socialist, Toothie Tala (the teller of tales), it would have ever turned out to be so lucrative?

But it does just go to show that you can indeed fool some of the people some of the time, and even fool All (well, leastwise, the majority) of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people...

Harvard is welcome to her and, based on its recent idiocy, deservedly so.

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