She's formerly TVNZ's highest profile reporter, who conducted the Leaders Debates at the last election. If you're a journalist in NZ these days, especially working for a State broadcaster, then the deal is to be a leopard and change your spots. One day you're a raving leftie. The next you're a raving far right supporter of Big Business interests. All at the flick of a switch. A mercenary for hire. ANZ, though Australian registered, has a majority of its shareholders being Americans.
So what's the deal? Practically the same as the UK's East India Company. Become indistinguishable from the government. Then ship the loot back to the mother country by exploiting the locals. ANZ is a modern reincarnation of this type of outfit. But don't worry. ANZ's sophisticated Comms & Marketing Team will kill this story in the Main Stream Media and ensure it never gets traction. Meanwhile Finance Minister Willis has sent the Commerce Commission's report to the Treasury asking for advice because she has no plan of her own (and doesn't want one). What will be the outcome? If the right-wing think they're clever in NZ, they don't know what's going to hit them.
So what's the deal? Practically the same as the UK's East India Company. Become indistinguishable from the government. Then ship the loot back to the mother country by exploiting the locals. ANZ is a modern reincarnation of this type of outfit. But don't worry. ANZ's sophisticated Comms & Marketing Team will kill this story in the Main Stream Media and ensure it never gets traction. Meanwhile Finance Minister Willis has sent the Commerce Commission's report to the Treasury asking for advice because she has no plan of her own (and doesn't want one). What will be the outcome? If the right-wing think they're clever in NZ, they don't know what's going to hit them.
Public anger will grow. And sooner or later the attack on what are seen as illegitimate Big Business interests made up of useless people who never invented a single interesting product in their life will begin. It will start with capital & asset taxes. The root of the problem is that most of the folks on the boards running many our biggest companies are no Steve Jobs types. Most of them are useless. Most of them have got there by virtue of the Old Boys and Old Girls clubs. Before blowing up the NZ public sector, NZ's private sector should take a look at itself and see what an ugly picture it has become.
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.
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:
One big corporate club (crime syndicate) and we ain't in it.
I would far rather see four big and stable banks supporting our economy than twenty baby banks that are ill equipped to weather the economic storms that hit from time to time. But then left wing commentators like McCulloch who promote competition are hardly being honest given that their core values are State command and control of the economy, and that only needs one State owned bank.
Professor, you should have added to this comment, that Antonia Watson has "come out swinging" (it is in print) against the Banking Report, suggesting that a Monopoly exists and that (in her words) that having another Bank establish here in New Zealand is not acceptable. In other words, Australian Banking Mafia, the ANZ being the "Boss, Don, of the Banking Family [of Australian Banks] " - to which I take an insinuation from her comments, that they would fight against any other Banking enterprise trying to establish in New Zealand. That is why they spent money in buying the National Bank of New Zealand, to reduce competition.
Anon @ 11.53. Yet these same big banks would quickly put their hands out if they had a problem. Too big to fail would be the cry, all while laughing about our stupidity and giving themselves even bigger bonuses.
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