govt spending / budget

The Unambiguous Election Winner
Let's not be shy, the reality is there's an overwhelming desire by Kiwis to expand government way faster than the economy itself....
22 September 2005 - Gareth Morgan

Voters In Denial, Underwrite State Profligacy
To live forever - that impossible dream underpins health sector spending out of control....
31 August 2005 - Gareth Morgan

Would the Real Government Surplus Please Stand Up?
Smoke and mirrors to conceal the Budget realities, promise of handouts for everyone to win the election. Cullen lays bare his cynicism....
27 July 2005 - Gareth Morgan

Making Political Capital Out of Poverty
The Budget discovers "the poor". They have been with us a long time and will always be....
28 May 2004 - Gareth Morgan

Funny thing happened on the way to the forum...
Helen Clark wants us to go to heaven but doesn't want us to die. Her rejection of the growth objective confirms that this is a government asleep at the policy wheel....
26 February 2003 - Gareth Morgan

Lies, Damn Lies and Politicians
The Minister of Finance in his Budget pronouncements championed the fact that relative to the size of the economy, government spending in 2002 would be the lowest it had been since 1978 and was projected to continue declining. This, in the face of greater government outlays on hospitals, the super fund, and so on, seems incredulous. It is....
6 June 2002 - Gareth Morgan

The Baby Boomers' Budget
A week later and the 2002 budget has sustained precisely zero interest in the press - such was the import of its content. Yet in reality that document cemented in a trend that has been underway for all but a few of the last 50 years. The trend is toward government that reallocates the nation's resources to a greater and...
29 May 2002 - Gareth Morgan

Transformers Innovators and the Japanese Economic Disaster
At a time when our politicians and some of our policy advisers are imploring Kiwis to save more, and convince us all that politicians can make competent business decisions Japan provides a sobering caution. There, a high savings rate by households coupled with incompetent political intervention in investment markets has been...
13 February 2002 - Gareth Morgan

From banks to airlines to figurines
The Clark government's appetite to invest in businesses knows no bounds. Flushed with the success of its forays into an airline, a railroad and a bank the government has now turned its attention to investment in Lord of the Rings figurines and assorted memorabilia from that US film project and the upcoming America's Cup. Whether large or small...
14 November 2001 - Gareth Morgan

Sailing Away
New Zealand is plunging into the Super Yacht industry with the help of a government only too willing to spread taxpayer largesse in the name of 'picking winners'. Meanwhile virtually every Super Yacht that was down here for the last Americas Cup is now on the block waiting for a buyer. And second hand prices aren't higher. Post the tech-wreck...
13 June 2001 - Gareth Morgan

To Sweden in a day
It's clearly close to the hearts of our socialist (sorry, social democrat) regime that in order to construct the extensive welfare state that we deserve, will need taxes to be raised further. We saw more Prime Ministerial indications to this effect last week in a televised debate between Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley on the funding problems for...
9 May 2001 - Gareth Morgan

Government by the people, for the people?
On its arrival upon the Treasury benches the current cabinet boasted a line up of academic talent second to none. It is ironic then that the raft of policy decisions it has since made demonstrate little if any of the intellectual rigour one might have expected from a group that collectively New Zealanders have invested so many education dollars...
18 April 2001 - Gareth Morgan

Why markets despise this government: Part III
Confidence continues to plummet, the economy trucks along reasonably. Neither is surprising and together this constitutes a 'recovery without confidence', the title of the economic forecasts Infometrics released in June. What's it mean? Put simply the economic windfall for the export sector abounds but the follow-through as businesses spend that...
19 July 2000 - Gareth Morgan