John Key Dishes Out Common Sense

A New Zealand Prime Minster has made it into the Wall Street Journal what is the world coming to ?

Those capitals are rolling out billions of dollars in stimulus packages -- with taxpayers' money -- to try to prop up growth. That's "risky," Mr. Key says. "You've saddled future generations with an enormous amount of debt that then they have to repay," he explains. "There is actually a limit to what governments can do."

I'm not deeply ideologically driven," he says. "I believe in good center right politics."

Mr. Key says. His government is revising legislation meant to protect New Zealand's pristine environment from private-sector development but misused by greens to stymie all stripes of business plans.

online.wsj.com...

On balance I need to point out that the article doesnt mention some of the measures the government has taken to combat the recession such as the ten day working fortnight or how infrastructure projects have been brought forward to preserve jobs . Also the fact that it has been acknowledged across the political spectrum that the regulatory frame work that allowed finance company's to go under wasn't up to scratch. Never the less I should point out that Resource consent was over regulated. On the issue of asset sales National is struck in a jam between the unpopularity of asset sales with the public and its desire to sell assets to raise revenue for infrastructure projects .

Also Australia avoided the shock treatment by under taking economic reforms on a more gradual basis and that country has the benefit of vast natural resource deposits . All that aside Key is of course right concerning the fact its not possible for governments to spend there way out of the recession . Given that the NZ governments books is 8.6 billion dollars in the red its just as well that some common sense is prevailing in a small economy .

The day that the Republican party becomes more pragmatist and less ideological is the day they hold office again . It looks like that its going to take a long time for the Republican Party and its supporters to wake up to this fact . Key comments on the " Buy American " and " Buy New Zealand made " rings true . For example the catch from commercial fishing vessels is often shipped to China for processing and packaging and then back to the kiwi consumer .

I could go on but I want to get some . Ultimately New Zealand a small country of four million people nestled in the South Pacific who bucked International trends by electing a Center Right government lead government may have done benefit the country in the long term then they realized. After all the Kiwi electorate did vote for change that was just the same policy's with minor alterations and differnt faces .

I wouldn't have minded being a fly on the wall when Key answered the question about buying the US dollar .