"I have no idea why Luxon and Willis will not release their working [to detail their foreign-buyers tax plan], or a detailed carefully written up description of them, or why they won’t release Castalia to describe in detail what they did on this item.
"But it isn’t reassuring. Not, as I’ve said repeatedly, that it matters much at all macreconomically, but because it seems to say quite a lot about their likely approach to governing. Trust matters in politics and government, but trust is earned, and is reinforced by verification. It isn’t won, in functional polities, with a smile and some bluster and a refusal to provide any supporting detail, all while in interview after interview actively misrepresenting what they have done."~ Michael Reddell, from his post 'Marketing Brochure?'
UPDATE: on Twitter John Elliot makes a fair point, albeit well soused in whattaboutism:
I must confess I was surprised at the time, since Kiwibuild's numbers at the time were so clearly laughable.
As was Ardern's pledge to "fix"child poverty by throwing money at people. Sadly, she never learned PJ O'Rourke's should-be-famous welfare dictum:
"You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money."
This is not to say that the political press gallery here is party political. No. It's to say that they're as f'ing useless as the politicians on whom they purport to report.
1 comment:
You can't reduce the cost of housing by increasing demand.
Is it in the interests of NZers to compete against foreign wealth for local housing? Who benefits from that? National must have some friendly people in mind who do...
Jay
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