Agree with PeterR.

I think it will be a mistake selling NZ assets.Not just economic sovereignty and control.Pivate companies does not serve the best interest of NZ.Telecom sale is a big example...The country is well behind in it's infrustaructure,the government that sold it in the past cliamed selling it to oversease control will continue to invest and improve NZ infrastructures,but years on nothing has been upgraded until the recent years,with government interventions we seen some movements.I think we are shooting our foot all the time..Selling power generators,Postal service off shore oil digging rights, is the wrong step.AS it already monopolise easily and no competion will improve the picing.

Love it, AndrewJ :-)

Point is, why hasn't our financial whiz of a PM thought of it!

What a mess this economy is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWwRi8o6NOo&feature=PlayList&p=EB420F6C70...

Walter

Kate & AndrewJ

All that is required then is for investors to purchase said fund, all the people with student loans then leave the country for Australia or where ever, which would result in the fund collapsing ......

"I am being kind in my assessment by describing this article as absolute garbage."

I wont be so kind.....its total crap.....Prebble et al sold our assets for peanuts to foreign investors to prop up their dodgy voodoo economics and that has cost us dearly in profits exported and balance of payments disasters for many years.

"Government owners of commercial businesses on the other hand don't have their own "skin in the game" as they say."

and yet we just had a "working group" wanting quality SOE stocks injected into the NZX so mom and pop investors would have confidence to deal in stocks....guess what bet many of these are involved with Kiwisaver or other life policies are and desperate to prop up their failing business model and/or get their assets into companies of value before the private highly indebted stock they are stuck with implodes.

What does that say? It tells us SOE's are of value and private companies/investors have broken their companies in chasing short term profits and are worthless if not broke or bankrupt....

So holding onto SOE's is benefiting NZ on many levels....

"Sales of public commercial assets will help us wring extra performance out of our economy without the economic upheaval that some fear."

absolute rot with no real world justification for this, didnt happen last time wont happen this time....

"The current perceived abuses in the New Zealand energy industry, for instance, are perpetrated by government-owned electricity operators in a poorly structured market. Get the market structure right (challenging, admittedly) and most of the problem will be solved.

Poorly regulated...poorly invested, power companies are not in the business of ensuring supply, they are there to make a profit.....just look at Enron to see what this leads to. Govn's need to invest here...best done via SOE's who, without pressure from private investors to make short term suicidal profits can plan for the long term...and keep NZers and the businesses that employ them safe and working.

These neo-con, voodoo economics are utter rubbish...

Go get real work, we dont need witchdoctors...maybe sweeping the roads.

regards

Edmund

All that is required then is for investors to purchase said fund, all the people with student loans then leave the country for Australia or where ever, which would result in the fund collapsing "¦"¦

That isn't happening anyway ???

I had hoped someone would challenge my assessment and then allow me to give my reasoning. On reflection the article is so confused it appears only to make sense in support of a prime ministers department intent on asset sales. So it got the response it probably deserves.

That is a unfortunate because the article covers a wide range of issues that need challenge and debate. John Carran could well have something useful to contribute, but for that to be conveyed effectively he would need to logically separate out the separate issues he is mixing together. These are not purely economic - the cultural and political aspects probably not being separable. Regardless, all need far more and more structured analysis than they are getting. Quick thoughts suggest working through the following at least:
1.What is government's role anyway. This badly needs to be questioned before anything else.

2.Define a suitable relationship between political parties and government. We are no longer an egalitarian society "“ we have developed classes of political and cultural elites.

3.How good is the quality of our regulation, and what is its impact on competition. Refer to political elites above.

4.What benefits do we get from government expenditure? Do we really need most of that additional, poor quality, over priced infrastructure?

5.Appropriate forms of ownership. We have co-operatives that behave like corporates, Crown Research Institutions that are expected to return 9% on assets (was it any wonder they were into property speculation) but allow Landcorp to get away with negligible returns. We don't allow privately owned universities when the best in the world aren't government owned. Why is competition from the private sector not allowed in education?

6.How does foreign ownership of major assets impact on our current account deficit.

7.The quality of NZ owned assets versus foreign owned assets. How come foreigners own the banks, while for 5-10 times the investment we get the dairy industry?

8.What then is wrong with our capital markets?

By which time we might be in a position to sensibly argue about sales of government assets.

So John (or anyone else), why not give it a go the next opportunity you get.

Have the boys from the IMF been on the phone?

Fred - KISS.

http://www.interest.co.nz/news/top-10-10-cactus-kate-tax-reform-bernanke...

Cheers, Les.

PS - no offence, thanks, all good. It's at fact - KISS.

Sorry Fred, as I explained I have literally 2-3 hours between work, sleep, 6 days a week at present, only time for immediate family responsibilities. Am chomping to get back to the serious debate and rip apart the monetarist indoctrination of Muffets (monetarist finger puppets) such as the treasonist mongrel that wrote the garbage in the article above.
When are we going to hold our public credit/banking think tank, it would want to be very soon and it would want to be very desicive, as the banksters are riding roughshot right over the common (supposedly) freeworld, and if Obama doesnt turn out to be firstly genuine, secondly able to impede their massive influence, its going to get very, very ugly for the subjects of the borderless banking empire.

Is Fascist-Imperialism an existing political term, as I believe it would some up a cabal of colluding nation state administrations that rob their own populations via creative commercial pyramid scams, then used the loot to fund expansionist raids on other nations.

Our forefathers got conned into thinking they were risking their lives to prevent the citizens of NZ from suffering domination at the hands of slaveminded elitist foreigners and the desperate sods they drove to their dirty work, now you can drive round and see the flags of foreign corporates/nations sitting in the position of prominence above our national flag, what a friggin disgrace.

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