When you look at the NZ political landscape....an explorer might declare its 'desert' and sparsely populated with good ideas. Take the latest saving from both:
1. The Labour Opposition Party
2. The NZ Reserve Bank governor
The Labour Finance minister is arguing that he is not in favour of privatisation, but partnerships between private and public capital are ok. One might wonder why the distinction. It is a silly, arbitrary one....but then I never looked to politicians as moral exponents, or leaders of anything worthwhile. On the contrary, they display the hubris of wanting to look 'new age', but in the process, simply looking like idiots. What is the intent of this government policy? Maybe Labour realises that its hard to attract capital to NZ, so you have to offer 'statutory favours' (i.e. kickbacks) to business through 'partnerships'. Maybe Labour wants to make some money on the side after the travel allowances were abandoned?
Ideologically where are they going? Why retain control over SOEs? Is private business is bad, why don't they embrace the nationalisation of business? Maybe that is too politically incorrect. Maybe Labour represents socialism in its 'unashamed honesty'.. well no, otherwise they would favour nationalisation. Nope, intellectual cowards. Are they not content with extorting wealth through taxes, that they need to drive business as well? Don't they see this as a conflict of interest? i.e. Govt as both regulator, judiciary and executive? Well they do it in government to such bad effect, why not in business as well? Isn't it privatisation? Well, Labour will not allow itself to believe this because it wants to establish the support of the unions. What we are going to see is the SOEs use this concession to shift businesses into SOE subsidiaries, so the SOEs might end up functioning like the model of Singapore's cronyism, where SOEs are investing in totalitarian states like Myanmar, with utterly no accountability because they have a state minister as their patron saint.
What does their suggestion achieve? Firstly, it entails the ongoing enslavement of private capital for public purposes, with the perpetuation of the state/public delusion of economic, moral or political worth. It totally ignores the problems caused by the state, it ignores the psychological impact of slavery, moral scepticism and marginalisation of everyone, or at minimal the fear of being marginalised, alienated or imprisoned for some arbitrary statutory law conjured up by the government, i.e. Speeding camera fines for which their is no logical justification, or the blatant lack of accountability of judges in the judicial system, nor the failure to address the conflict of interest in having judges appointed by the two major parties. It matters little the judiciary is bipartisan, since both parties retain an entrenched interest in their longevity, at the expense of other parties.. But on a more fundamental level, who cares what the parliament thinks. They are a pack of idiots. They don't convey moral authority. Have you ever heard political philosophy spoken from George Bush? No. Have you heard of John Key consulting a moral philosopher? A scientist? Well yes, but they do this only on the margins. Public policy is decided in cabinet with the support of the party. Its party generated, and its utter evil. It is indefensible, but it does not need to be defended because they have the majority. The public who voted for them have to trust them...because they have a choice every 3 years, and if they are wrong, they get to vote for another group of extorting, thieving idiots who fundamentally support the same thieving system.
The Reserve Bank has advised the government to adopt the Nordic system of taxing the income from capital rather than income. This is because NZ does not produce any income, so you have to tax the holders of capital. Hmmm? The problem with that is that it will diminish the value of capital by making it a cost burden, making it cheaper for foreign enterprise to buy. More importantly, it does not change what is fundamentally wrong with taxation and centralised, arbitrary government control - that they are coercive, centralised and arbitrarily defined. This is merely an idea from a government agency bereft of ideas, playing on the fringes of a very evil system. Democracy will not lead us to some form of collectivism...it is collectivism. We are slowly seeing individualism undermined by the 'common interest', or at least the pretense of it through imaginary representation.
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