Covid19 Different political parties views.

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#2466184 20-Apr-2020 14:35

There are legitimate criticisms that one can make of the government (e.g. the ongoing blind spot of allowing COVID-19 positive people to quarantine at home instead of compulsorily detaining them in hospitals like HK and Taiwan). And, overall, the performance of leaders at large on this earth has been nothing short of pathetic throughout this crisis. IMO, the government has overall done a pretty good job (and it certainly pays to bear in mind that the alternative government is scarcely an imaginable thought for even political moderates who otherwise aren't always fans of Labour) and any normal person would hope that this continues. Because the alternative is unimaginable.

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#2466320 20-Apr-2020 15:11

As an at risk person Covid-19 worries me a lot but the thought of the government changing post election to a National government lead by Simon Bridges et al frankly scares the waste material out of me. When I look through the National lineup I cannot see anyone suitable for being Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. I was a long time National supporter and member but I cannot support the current batch and will not be voting for them until there is a change of leadership and the top 10 National MPs.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

dejadeadnz

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#2466337 20-Apr-2020 15:28

I feel the same way. Have never been a major National fan but have only ever voted for them (in terms of party vote) or conscientiously abstained. But now I only see rabid beneficiary bashers, law-and-order scaremongers, and hardcore Roger Douglas-esque neocons in terms of their economic policies -- in other words, rabid and hard right idiots -- amongst most of their front bench. Their only remotely likable and semi-acceptable big hitter is Nikki Kaye and it also appears that her influence is waning.

No thanks.

GV27

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#2466448 20-Apr-2020 17:13

dejadeadnz:

hardcore Roger Douglas-esque neocons in terms of their economic policies

I can't tell if this is serious.

Tell me how many of Roger Douglas' reforms Labour has unwound in the last 20 years.

dejadeadnz

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#2466549 20-Apr-2020 19:09

They haven't unwound too many but they aren't the crazies coming up with slogans like "For every 1 regulation we pass, we will eliminate X". Regulations need to stand or fall on their merits - it's not a game. You are generally unwilling to see any flaws in National, so I will save my breath. I am not looking for ideological purity -- like most people, I will either vote for the most tolerable or abstain. And National and Bridges is about as tolerable as dog faeces in my eyes ATM.

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#2466753 21-Apr-2020 07:01

dejadeadnz: snip. ...........as tolerable as dog faeces in my eyes ATM.

Dude, you must have a really tall dog, or your nose is too close to the ground! :-)

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#2466983 21-Apr-2020 11:33

dejadeadnz:

You are generally unwilling to see any flaws in National

On the contrary, there are plenty of valid reasons to criticise National - it's just people using resort to sweeping meaningless phrases like 'neo-liberalism' when both parties are middling at best in terms of offering radical change. National does seem to going through a weird uncomfortable 'Don Brash Rides Again' phase like in 2005 - I would rather that this particular senior leadership team got nowhere near the levers of power, but I would have said that about Labour until about seven weeks out from the election too.

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#2467198 21-Apr-2020 16:32

On the flipside, Deborah Russell has said something particular stupid (that's a really high bar for her, I rate(d) her quite highly) in the committee hearings today, which won't get anywhere near as much scrutiny as anything Bridges has said/done:

https://twitter.com/dbseymour/status/1252428378012934145

E: Should that be a low bar or a high bar? Either way, it was disappointing.

dejadeadnz

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#2467402 21-Apr-2020 20:52

I disagree completely. She's brave for raising an important point -- far too many people are trying to sheet home to the government or this virus the consequences of their businesses being inherently unsustainable or at least structurally unsound. Take it for what it is, rather than engage in point scoring. There's been plenty of academic research on the inefficiencies of our under-capitalised and often not very well managed one man band businesses. I've provided pro bono advice to people facing personal insolvency for quite a few years and a lot of people do in fact (in my experience) rush into running small businesses because they want to stick it to The Man, without understanding a lot of the risks involved, without ever having a business plan, and often without spending a buck on the most basic accounting and legal advice.

Between Deborah Russell and David Seymour, there's one intelligent human being and it's not Seymour. He's the worst exemplar of the kind of pork barrel bottom feeding that he likes to accuse others of. Frankly, he has as much credibility as a piece of dung.

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#2467535 22-Apr-2020 07:23

dejadeadnz:

I disagree completely. She's brave for raising an important point -- far too many people are trying to sheet home to the government or this virus the consequences of their businesses being inherently unsustainable or at least structurally unsound. Take it for what it is, rather than engage in point scoring. There's been plenty of academic research on the inefficiencies of our under-capitalised and often not very well managed one man band businesses. I've provided pro bono advice to people facing personal insolvency for quite a few years and a lot of people do in fact (in my experience) rush into running small businesses because they want to stick it to The Man, without understanding a lot of the risks involved, without ever having a business plan, and often without spending a buck on the most basic accounting and legal advice.

Between Deborah Russell and David Seymour, there's one intelligent human being and it's not Seymour. He's the worst exemplar of the kind of pork barrel bottom feeding that he likes to accuse others of. Frankly, he has as much credibility as a piece of dung.

She (and you in a desperate attempt to defend her) are totally ignoring the effects of cashflow. There's no cashflow model alive that says a full trading business may or may not have income for a whole month with almost totally no warning when the economy gets shut down by the Govt during a once-in-a-life-time event. You simply would have closed the doors if your sales had fallen away to zero over time. It has literally nothing to do with capitalisation.

How many businesses have a full month of standing costs in cash reserves? Is that an effective use of capital? Is she saying we should hoard 1/12th of our gross at any given time instead of investing in growing our business, paying down other debt or paying higher wages? How is that a smarter use of capital?

Even Robertson disagreed with her. But sure, crawl over broken glass to defend a self-described business and finance expert who is totally misunderstanding the reasons businesses are struggling at the moment to take a pot shot at David Seymour for....not actually doing anything?

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#2467547 22-Apr-2020 07:57

GV27:
On the flipside, Deborah Russell has said something particular stupid (that's a really high bar for her, I rate(d) her quite highly) in the committee hearings today, which won't get anywhere near as much scrutiny as anything Bridges has said/done:

https://twitter.com/dbseymour/status/1252428378012934145

E: Should that be a low bar or a high bar? Either way, it was disappointing.

The trend of small business not having an emergency fund is of course bad, but it's not unusual for the population in general.

Young adults struggling to make ends meet - survey

"Fund manager Kiwi Wealth took a look at who investment is benefitting and how, and has identified a 'lost generation' when it comes to wealth, with young renters most disadvantaged.

The survey of 2000 adults found more many living paycheck to paycheck, including nearly two-thirds of renters, half of the young adults, people in low-income households.

About half of them did not believe they had the capacity to save money, with 40 percent of those living in the regions struggling to make ends meet, compared with about a quarter living in Auckland."

It's worse in the US. From Investopedia:

"Living paycheck to paycheck is an unpleasant financial reality for many Americans. In fact, 59% of adults in the U.S. admit to living paycheck to paycheck, according to Charles Schwab's 2019 Modern Wealth Index Survey. Almost half (44%) have credit card debt and only 38% have an emergency fund.1

A surprising number of upper middle-income earners—those making six figures—are also scrambling to make ends meet, other research shows. A recent study by global advisory firm Willis Towers Watson found that 18% of employees making more than $100,000 annually live paycheck to paycheck."

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GV27

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#2467567 22-Apr-2020 08:09

Worth pointing out we'd been experiencing a general slowdown in the months leading up to Covid19 and many businesses would have been draining whatever reserves they had to get to this point. For some sectors, the money they made between EOFY and Field Days is their rainy day fund for the rest of the year.

Like I say, the bar for Russell is higher given her excellent knowledge of tax issues. This however was exceedingly disappointing, almost David Clark-esque. Good on Robertson for immediately pushing back though, he is probably the Labour MP who has impressed the most during this pandemic response.

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#2467588 22-Apr-2020 08:43

So I wasn't impressed today to hear that despite making a big song and dance about how they were supporting the nations GP practices and having paid out 2 weeks of payments of the 4 of a total of 22M in support, having painstakingly outlined payment schedules, cabinet decided on Monday, that they weren't going to make the final two payments subject to a "review". The ministry of health also said that they would be paying those practices who set up COVID clinics a fee per test completed, haven't made the payments, and are now saying they are reviewing the amount given per patient. Many practices are significantly out of pocket for having rented facilities to allow the testing and purchased additional PPE and now questions are being raised as to whether they will actually pay the amount as promised.

The government has a history of expecting PHO's to pick up the tab for their initiatives and has on multiple occasions said they will do things and then changed thier mind after the fact.

Multiple GP practices are laying off staff and some have shut down completely.

dejadeadnz

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#2467616 22-Apr-2020 09:29

kingdragonfly:

The trend of small business not having an emergency fund is of course bad, but it's not unusual for the population in general.

You're sadly wasting your time. GV27 just wants to sheet everything home to the government's choices, complexity and other balancing issues be damned and his ideas are premised on a worldview that focuses on only what's good for that individual business and not legal and moral responsibilities towards others. The fundamental point that he keeps ignoring (quite hypocritical for someone prone to supporting political factions which ceaselessly preach a hyper notion of personal responsibility) is that in choosing to get into business and potentially leaving creditors in the lurch should it fail, small business owners have both legal and moral obligations to ensure that creditors are not unreasonably exposed. This means, in practice, that some of these people should be prepared to capitalise or support their small businesses from personal resources. The moral call for this is especially apparent when one observes how many small business owners treat company/business assets as though they are one-and-the-same as personal assets, which no doubt in every instance has been appropriately dealt with taxation-wise... if one believes in fairytales.

Nor is it true that it's entirely unreasonable to expect people to model for consequences of having no business to run or no cashflow for, say 4 - 6 weeks. If the event of a loss of premises for a small business that nonetheless can only be run in certain areas due to zoning laws, it's not necessarily inconceivable that such a business cannot restart any time soon.

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#2467640 22-Apr-2020 10:22

I don't think the government are giving us enough information around what parameters they are using to decide which level we move to and when.

When I see headlines like this I think the population is getting restless. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/414816/almost-4000-people-breached-covid-19-lockdown-police

People are seeing the flattening of the curve. They hear we're doing pretty good and then they see the new Level 3 which is effectively Level 4 with fries. It's not the Level 3 everyone had been expecting. The expectation was when we did move back to Level 3 it would be the Level 3 that existed before we went to Level 4.

The perceptions people had (up until the 16th of April at least) and the reality are poles apart. I get the feeling that some people feel they have been duped. Why didn't they call the new level, Level 3.7 or something different to Level 3?

There has been no indication that I'm aware of, of how the government is measuring progress in the fight against Covid 19 and how that progress relates to changes in lockdown levels. How many new cases per day? How many Community Transmissions? How many days after there are no new recorded cases? or some other yardstick.

Without this information or at least some rough guidelines the public have no idea how we are doing relative to that yardstick and long they could expect to continue with the restrictions. People need to have some idea for peace of mind and so that they can make a plan as to how they manage their affairs.

With the changes to Level 3 and Level 2 the public are seeing the goalposts being shifted without any explanation as to how or why these changes are being made.

Without this sort of information people will start to become restless. No wonder the number of breaches are increasing.

I'm not saying the governments actions have been wrong but the government needs to be much better at managing the public's expectations. If they manage expectations they can expect much better compliance and less civil disobedience.

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