Perhaps an impatience is frustrating some of us.
We voted to get rid of the last lot on the understanding that things had been wrecked and destroyed, and there was this new lot that were going to put it right.
The trouble has been, as they have tried to explain, that things like fiscal cliffs were a lot worse than anticipated and the problem with too many voters is we vote and move on, and then when we re-engage, we expect fixes to problems that are more complex than we gave them credit for.
This Government has announced a lot and changed a lot. But the simple to read “runs on the board” are only starting to trickle through.
The downturn on crime would be one of them. The police focus on rounding a few people up, so we feel safer on the streets is tangible.
The targets on emergency housing being met years ahead of schedule is another one.
Then yesterday the Gross Domestic Product, the GDP, which is surely one of the most important of all.
It is the economy and the economy is everything. It pays the bills, retires the debt, forks out for the programmes and sets the mood of the nation.
If you are growing, and as it turns out (thank the good Lord) we are, you are moving forward and moving forward is what gets Governments popular and re-elected.
Everyone, as in the experts, had the number at anywhere between 0.3% and 0.5%, still importantly in the right direction.
So the actual figure of 0.7% is better than expected and must be the best of news.
For a country that has spent more time in recession than virtually anyone, certainly anyone we compare ourselves to in the OECD, this cannot be overstated in terms of importance.
0.7% surely comes with a sense that there is more where that came from. So maybe, just maybe, we can turn our backs on the dark days, or years, that have dragged this country to places economically it has never really been.
No, it is not over and, yes, there is much left to do.
But such a decent and, dare I suggest, better than expected number will tell you that the current Government might have got a grip on the worst of it and turned the tide.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
The trouble has been, as they have tried to explain, that things like fiscal cliffs were a lot worse than anticipated and the problem with too many voters is we vote and move on, and then when we re-engage, we expect fixes to problems that are more complex than we gave them credit for.
This Government has announced a lot and changed a lot. But the simple to read “runs on the board” are only starting to trickle through.
The downturn on crime would be one of them. The police focus on rounding a few people up, so we feel safer on the streets is tangible.
The targets on emergency housing being met years ahead of schedule is another one.
Then yesterday the Gross Domestic Product, the GDP, which is surely one of the most important of all.
It is the economy and the economy is everything. It pays the bills, retires the debt, forks out for the programmes and sets the mood of the nation.
If you are growing, and as it turns out (thank the good Lord) we are, you are moving forward and moving forward is what gets Governments popular and re-elected.
Everyone, as in the experts, had the number at anywhere between 0.3% and 0.5%, still importantly in the right direction.
So the actual figure of 0.7% is better than expected and must be the best of news.
For a country that has spent more time in recession than virtually anyone, certainly anyone we compare ourselves to in the OECD, this cannot be overstated in terms of importance.
0.7% surely comes with a sense that there is more where that came from. So maybe, just maybe, we can turn our backs on the dark days, or years, that have dragged this country to places economically it has never really been.
No, it is not over and, yes, there is much left to do.
But such a decent and, dare I suggest, better than expected number will tell you that the current Government might have got a grip on the worst of it and turned the tide.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
6 comments:
"it is the economy and the economy is everything. It pays the bills, retires the debt, forks out for the programmes and sets the mood of the nation.
If you are growing, and as it turns out (thank the good Lord) we are, you are moving forward and moving forward is what gets Governments popular and re-elected."
No, Mike, the economy is something, but it is not "everything." Who cares if we have "growth" and "the numbers" are always improving, and we are all on the same treadmill of production and consumption until we drop dead one day?
What is the point of this, Mike? Ensuring you get to have another Lamborghini?
In fact, what even is a "nation" if all that matters is dollars and cents and having lot's or stuff? It's an economic zone indistinguishable from any other.
Our problem isn't material and tangible, it is an increasing sense of despair and lack of fulfillment and lack of transcendence and lack of social cohesion that naturally develops when everyone thinks like Mike does.
Inflation is tamed, GDP is rising, and a huge amount of hard work is being performed by Luxons team to create a sustainable, prosperous future for NZ including:
- infrastructure planning, financing and building,
- housing supply increase,
- building material cost reduction,
- banking and power company reviews,
- abolition of race based policies (with a few reasonable exceptions).
- free trade agreements
And the idiotic nz voters, who after 3 years of abject nz government failure gave us the hapless ardern for a second term.... now think Hipkins, Schwarbrick, and Waititi can do a better job.
Like Mike, you obviously see New Zealand as basically an economic zone populated by economic units consuming and producing. "To what end?" is the obvious question. Nobody ever articulates this, its all just GDP and other quite secondary or tertiary material concerns.
A nation is its people, its history, its culture, its customs, its values - in other words its shared identity. With all of these ideas effectively becoming verboten in the Western world post WW2, and the effective abolition of politics as properly conceived, "disagreement" in the "liberal democratic" political realm really only centres around minor disagreements about economics.
This is the main reason why there are no true leaders anymore, just managers shuffling paper around while society collapses around them.
I certainly don't live in NZ because of the money..... I can and have made 10x as much overseas.
I live here for the environment, the relaxed small town life style, family, the sea, the bush, and the weather.
However, anyone who thinks a society isn't happier with wealth.... Hasn't studied the world happiness survey.
It is no coincidence the unhappinest countries are 3rd world.
And the happiest countries are monocultural wealthy Scandinavian countries (the Swedes are slowly getting to grips with their unwise decision to let Syrians in).
Politically incorrect maybe, but factually accurate.
Madam B I'm, with you.
Mr H lacks the economic acuity to comment on the economy.
Thx for the insight Ross.
It is little wonder that nz is in the state it is in when ex mps cannot put forward an intelligent coherent argument and resort to petty, childish name calling.
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