I cannot be bothered with all the ACC and PAYE paper work that comes my way the moment I start employing people. OSCH is another hassle. The minimum wage is too high mainly because many are simply not able to be productive enough with their time to be worth anything,thats if they turn up in the first place. I like to pay a fair wage to a get a job done well,Im sticking with my Indian friends they work hard never complain know the value of a $ and although they always like a bit $ more turn up on time and do the job. They also dont come back after hours and flog all your gear.

Roger - it is not clear from your article whether you oppose minimum wages, or merely just the current levels of minimum wages or increases. There are one or two statements in the article that imply you oppose minimum wages full stop.

I can agree with you to a point about LEVELs of minimum wages, but if you are implying that there should be NO minimum wage then I can't agree with that.

I think it is totally naive to think that without a minimum wage that employment competition would prevent exploitation. Bollocks is another word that comes to mind.

Roger : I'm in good company , Matt and Walter are still here , too . Bless them !

And Duggie , too . Brilliant ! .......... Keep stirring the pot Rogie . The truth is unpalatable to those who don't want it .

I'm a bus driver, at our union meeting I mused that we would have to go to japan and force our tourists to take more expensive tours so we could get a wage rise.

Since the employment contracts act we are out to pasture for the winter and if it's a bad season we just don't earn as much for the year. Once we could have registered as unemployed over the winter.

footnote
a friend went to Thailand the poor bar girls there don't get to eat when the foreign men aren't visiting (it's no wonder they love them so much)!

Roger it is a cheap and ill formed piece. By your own contradiction - US minimum hourly wages are just NZ$10.60 and US current unemployment is higher than ours.

You have to set a stick in the sand somewhere and say this is the minimum our people should work for so they are not totally taken advantage off.

Instead of looking at the minimum wage you should look at bank managers, lawyers and other professional groups their greed has a much larger implications.

"Faced with an increase in minimum wages, employers will reduce the number of people employed and substitute more productive workers, machines or imports for low-skilled labour."

So the low-skilled labour will be replaced by more productive workers or machines - isn't that going to happen anyway? And perhaps it's better that people upskill rather than be paid a wage that's not enough to live on, to do a job better done by a machine?

Then again, in light of Mr Reynolds, maybe we should scrap the minimum wage and institute a maximum wage.

What a load of rubbish. A minimum wage sets a standard that all employers have to meet. A bad employer can under-cut a good one by cutting wages desperate people will have to take. I well remember the last time I worked for a bad private employer, in times of plenty (of labour) ie a recession they were all for passing risk onto the employee by making them/us all contract and getting us to shoulder the responsibility for computers powerful enough to run AutoCad (as just one example).....yeah they were happy that they had cheap labour they could take on as and when. Then during the boom times they were miffed that they had to pay penal rates and supply computer hardware because contractors were at a premium. One of life's experiences for me, now I pick employers with greater care.

"Faced with an increase in minimum wages, employers will reduce the number of people employed and substitute more productive workers, machines or imports for low-skilled labour." This is exactly what they should be doing....this is good business sense, employing cheap, low productive workers is plain nuts, it does not raise the national productivity.

A minimum wage sets a price for the goods at the other end, if people are not prepared to to pay that then there are no, or less sales, hence employers and employees move out of that market and prices can rise.

This piece is pure extreme right wing faulty ideology, and most NZers wont touch it with a bargepole thank god.

W.Kunz: "The real problem is NZ just doesn't provide enough decent jobs, because important segments in our economy are missing."

Decent jobs? do you mean skilled jobs? ie those that pay well? Its a fact of life that skills sets are getting higher for jobs...so the less skilled or un-skillable will always find work hard to get, and that's going to get worse as time progresses and we as individuals have to become more and more skilled/expert in a smaller and smaller field of endeavor.

What "important" segments? Some segments are better supplied as imports...making cheap shoes in NZ is pointless, making high quality boutique brand type shoes, could be worthwhile.

regards

Looks like a crap article to me too. Where is the data or the evidence?

"Such increases were bound to price many young people out of jobs. The folly of such a policy is starkly illustrated by the unemployment statistics."

The evidence is that while the minimum wage was rising so steeply, unemployment in NZ fell and fell to all-time low rates. The more recent rise could perhaps have something to do with the international meltdown. The whole issue has been studied so intensively I am sure Roger Kerr could have found something more solid than a survey of the opinions of US economists. It seems to me that having an unemployment benefit of "just" 36% of the minimum wage provides an excellent incentive to get off the dole.

Maybe we should drop the minimium wage to 50 cents an hour so company directors like Roger Kerr can increase their bonuses by a few more million and attract business looking for slave labour away from China and India.

philly

seriously If I was setting up a labour intensive business, I would go china...
even say IPhone software developemnt china looks good...

there is going to be pain on both sides as Chineese/indian wages rise (less competitive exports) and pain on our side as wages fall lower wages and lower NZD.

we let the deficeits build, its our own issue as much as chinas

how can nz compete with wages so high....

Told ya , Rogie : You'd find it easier to use a red-hot poker to insert a pound of melted butter up a wild-cat's arse , than to convince this lot of the truth of your argument...............personally , I'm exiting here , before these guys find some melted butter !!!!!!!

... another thing that including Kerr's articles results in. They encourage readership from the likes of Roger Thompson. Have a look at his post at 4.48 & try to tell me that that is a good thing!

Ouch Philly : That hurts !

An economist playing with figures again.Walter's right ---build some decent manufacturing industries that require skills and can support decent wages. Over the last 10-15 years the service industries have been seen as the "in thing" --they have always and always will be low payers.
I wonder how economists like Roger Kerr rationalise the bonuses paid to guys like Fyfe at Air NZ --- the company has an 80-90% drop in profit and he still gets rewarded. What about the shareholders ??

@interested .....ok i put it more simply for you lefties to understand.

Please, click my name - see - It is about first principles.

Interested: OK, so we should allow wages in NZ for the unskilled to go to $1 per hour to compete with Chinese labour.

A fair comparison would of course be to find a Chinese or Indian who could do YOUR job - & either offer for them to come & do it instead, unless your pay went to their level (call it $2 per hour).

... or have you just discovered that you are a protectionist "lefty" too, when it comes to your own job, rather than regarding some unskilled person?

philly our wages are going down mate just watch and see, if china came up to $6 and we came down to $6 it woultd be a level playiong field, the field is not even china does not allows its currency to float...

i dont like playing when my goadposts are 12 times as wide as theirs either....

I want to see china workers paided fairly as well ... do you?

Just when we thought that that classical regulation-hating Friedmanian economics had been totally discredited through the meltdown, it is good to see some die-hards still bravelly promoting Economics 101!

lol

Roger T: "our opinions , and those of Roger Kerr , must be screeched down and drowned out in a cacophony of leftist derision . "¦.. . Logic and sensible debate "¦"¦ exit left!"

OK, chaps, fair enuf. Lets raise our contributions to the level of cool and reasoned debate and objectivity that Roger T. brings to the discourse. Hmmm, now wot was his message above?

Exhibit One: "You'd find it easier to use a red-hot poker to insert a pound of melted butter up a wild-cat's arse , than to convince this lot of the truth of your argument"

Socrates would have envied the suble and compelling logic demonstrated here by Roger......

Socrates........that geezer wearing a bed-sheet in " Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure " ? Cool dude !

Matt : wot $ 350 dole ? No dole , man !

interested : Told ya , we're an endangered species , 'cos we care about our fellow human enough not to molly-coddle him . But to challenge him/her to strive for personal growth , adventure , and freedom .

"With this mentality of NZBusiness roundtable " Look guys its simple just like what sits around the NZBusiness RT. The best managers and CEOs have gone abroad, what's left to manage is the quite frankly shocking in its inability to think. Its stuck to the right wing dogma because thats the quality of what there is, I mean its not even sound thought. Should we be surpirsed that NZ's productivity is low, yet workers work some of the longest hours if this is how they think? What this suggests to me is that NZ businsses are poorly managed, and capital is poorly invested. I dont know where it goes but if the level of business debt is anything to go by its a major disappointment....this piece is just another in a long line of ill thought out meanderings confirming it.

Ross actually mainstream views....the loony left cant get enough votes for an MP...the rabid right only get them because they won a seat...they are both a tiny minority of voters, yet seem to make a huge amount of noise....

matt in auck: agree....by their measure 99%+ of NZers are loony left....and they are sane....yeah right. In terms of black and white, thats actually how I think they see things, you are either with them 100% or an enemy, cut and dried. I find it strange in a discusion that I can agree with some of their (left or right) ideas to a degree, then I find that limited agreement is taken as whole hearted support for a proposterous position....the mind boggles.

Luke: but KFC isnt exactly a life's ambition is it?

Lets look at KFC/MacD's/BurgerK...we are looking at the cheap food that probably does your body more harm than not...but with a minimum wage all three have to pay the same minimum wage...so the "food" from either is going to be priced similar....so people have to pay a little more for it with a minium wage, their "food" is either still a value proposition or it is not.

In terms of 15 ppl instead of 20, well 20 may well have been over-staffed but because the labour was so cheap that it was not managed...this isnt a good way to run a business IMHO...if all you need is 15 thats all you should have whatever the wage per hour otherwise NZs productivity sucks....oh wait it does....

At 16 ppl shouldnt be aiming to work at cut throat wages in awful jobs, they should be aiming to get a tertiary education to improve their entire life whether its going to be a plumber or eventually a PhD....longer term its far better for that person to have that than a clapped out car at 17....

Steven - who the hell are you to decide these things for another individual!? Apart from your own kids that is where your say should end!

When I was 16 I did not care about uni yet - I cared about getting a car and girls! Just because you didnt, doesnt mean that EVERYONE else has to be like you!

Majority of kids in NZ dont get a very lavish allowance (if at all). I imagine that you did, and that ment you didnt have to work! When you come from a poor family mate you dont have money not to just buy a car - but you can buy a coke and pie! At 16 that is a big deal!

And PhD's... realy? People with PhD's are the most unproductive-self-satisfied sucks on our society (in the most part) - and I should know since I have one and I know alot who do!

NZ needs to lift its basic literacy and numeracy before you talk about tertiary wankers! Getting kids into any job that builds there ability to make decisions and apply themselves outweighs your "merit", "achieved", "not achieved" and "no life".

Fact is mate... 20 to 10 = 10 unemployed. Dont bullshit a bullshitter. KFC have been selling chicken for longer you have been able to wipe your ass - they know their margins.

The "your wrong for doing this" mentality will ruin this country before a free labor market. Shame you havent looked at all sides of the argument.

Roger, the needle on your turntable is stuck...

So our unemployment rate went up 2 points in a year, must be because of the market intervention of a minimum wage hike!
That is cheap and lazy analysis, in the same period unemployment rates increased
2.4 points in the UK and Canada, 3.9 points in the US... hmmm pattern there, maybe it's not the minimum wage, maybe something has affected the global economy in the last year.
Can anyone out there help Roger find the answer?

My final comment - my wife who is an Act supporter thought this piece was really stupid
now thats saying something, if the BRT are alienating even Act voters!!!!

Good God. Desperate, unfounded, moronic right-wing distortion gets flayed even by its own traditional, moronic cheerleaders.
We really are in trouble.

This post by Roger Kerr testifies just how out of touch he and his neoliberal ilk are.
They're prepared to promote policies that would prove acutely damaging to all concerned and still manage to counch them in terms of delivering better outcomes for all more efficiently.

They think that through abolishing minimum wage laws then employers will automically hire people who are currently lacking while failing to address just why they would do so. Since the Black Death there has been a tension between the demand of labour to ensure their fair share of social produce and the capitalists wish to maximise his economic rents via employment of labour substitutes e.g. sheep rearing as opposed to wheat production in the 14th Century . Arguably it was the Black Death that ushered into existence the notion of proto-capitalism as feudal landlords decided to lease their lands to landless knights and gentry in order to avoid the trouble of negotiating labour contracts with commoners whose bargaining position had been strengthened by the population decline that had occured due to the plague.

The landholders came to see that their best chance of continuing to profit from land would be to cease direct engagement in agriculture and to lease it. This helped to create a new role for landless knights and other gentry.
http://medieval.etrusia.co.uk/black_death

A similar situation presentd itself in the British colonies due to there being vast tracts of land cheaply available to whoever wanted it, so removing the prime motive to work for someone else, which E.G. Wakefield bemoaned in his Art of Colonization.

"In colonies, labourers for hire are scarce. The scarcity of labourers for hire is the universal complaint of colonies. It is the one cause, both of the high wages which put the colonial labourer at his ease, and of the exorbitant wages which sometimes harass the capitalist.55

"Where land is cheap and all men are free, where every one who so pleases can obtain a piece of land for himself, not only is labour very dear, as respects the labourers' share of the product, but the difficulty is to obtain combined labour at any price."
E.G. Wakefield, Director New Zealand Company.

In America the capitalists blithely resolved this problem via the expedient of locking up land in the form of land grants to rail road corporations and encouraging fresh waves of the oppressed working class from Europe, but New Zealand under the Liberals, the likes of Grey and Seddon took the opposite tack and broke up the great estates of the English landlords through at first land value taxation and then eventually direct expropriation and New Zealand was better for it, achieving one of, if not THE highest standard of living at the time.

This debate just reflects how profoundly dysfuctional and irrational the moralistic notion that in order to "serve society" everyone must be compelled to be employed in the formal economy for at least 40 hours a week, regardless of the unnecessarity of most labour in this day and age, let alone the economic nonviability.

Beijing now wants cleaner industries that produce higher-quality items for the local market, from cars and planes to biotech products and software."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_14/b407807884622

In the 1920s, American capitalists came to realise that productive capacity was rapidly outstripping the will for the public to consume the produce industry of the time and became concerned that it would usher in a leisure filled society of abundance that was accessable not only to the rich and powerful, but the Everyman as well.

"I am for everything that will make work happier but against everything that will further subordinate its importance. The emphasis should be put on work"”more work and better work." "Nothing," he claimed, "breeds radicalism more than unhappiness unless it is leisure."
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962/

The arrival of the Great Depression and the response of FDR's administration put paid to that as General Electrics' Gerard Swopes plan to cartelize and centrally manage U.S. industry found favour with FDR's Brains Trust desire to reengineer U.S. society into an "efficient" corporatist centrally planned society on the lines of Mussolini's Italy and Stalin's Soviet Russia .
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,742325-2,00.html
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/bigbiznewdeal.html

* Stuart Chase, journalist and author, writing in Harper's in 1931: "Plato once called for philosopher kings. To-day the greatest need in all the bewildered world is for philosopher engineers."

* Rexford "Red Rex" Tugwell, Columbia University economics professor and New Dealer at the Department of Agriculture, in his 1935 book The Battle for Democracy: "There is no invisible hand. There never was....[W]e must now supply a real and visible guiding hand to do the task which that mythical, non-existent invisible agency was supposed to perform, but never did."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/29606.html

Yeah its a foregone conclusion that eventually the West will have to equalize in wages with the industrializing nations such as China, Vietnam, and Thailand and the current economic crisis is merely accelerating this trend.

Big Blue is offering its outgoing workers in the United States and Canada a chance to take an IBM job in India, Nigeria, Russia or other countries. Only "satisfactory performers" who are "willing to work on local terms and conditions" should pursue the jobs, the document says. The company also will help with moving costs and provide visa assistance, it says.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/02/journal-nor...

Its futile and downright harmful to compete directy with their workers who are willing to defer consumption for the sake of following generations and the development of wider society. They're willing to do so, because they have a completely different philosophical basis to their society than we do, we focus on individualist self-interest, whilst their culture is more egalitarian minded.

I don't think Western Society is yet ready to slough off the vestiges of the "Protestant Ethic" Probably not even in my lifetime. Of well. Will be interesting to witness the unfolding tragedy of the Fall of the Great Anglo-Saxon Empire.

Roger Kerr and co. also push for the closing of the gap between NZ and Australia. If we removed the min. wage all that would happen is that resources would go further into low wage activities as these would be seen as the easier option. How on earth would this help close the gap between the two countries ?? You cannot have it both ways Everyone ( including the Bus. Roundtable ) thinking smarter is the answer for NZ's difficulties.

Don - During a worldwide booming economy and with a growing population and tax take, it's only natural public sector employment figures increased. That's what happens in times of growth "“ sectors grow. It's a pity (when it comes to employment) the private export sector let us down.

Nevertheless, despite Roger's claim that the minimum wage reduces employment opportunities, the fact is, employment figures increased, as did the minimum wage.

Roger also fails to take into account that the minimum wage doesn't prevent the market competition process (he describes above) from taking place, it's merely a minimum safeguard to ensure employees don't end up competing in a race to the bottom.

This looks like a great red herring. Crank up the debate with an extreme idea while the real agenda, only slightly less extreme, sneaks under the radar.

The BRT are not paying this guys megabucks to flick out few Econ 101 ideas from the 1930s. They want to run NZ their way. Crazy like foxes.

25 years of neo-liberalism has disappointed many of us who have to be counted as its original enthusiasts. NZ may, given time and further policies like the BRTs, yet look like some of the Southern US states - high prison populations, bible-banging bigots, real power with the agrarian and 'business' elite.....and similarly low living standards

Maybe Old Europe, with its stodgy consensus politics, welfare states, respect for the environment, all PC etc etc, is not such a bad model after all.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ran it down of course, which is not a bad recommendation.

Lotsa new jobs in the container conversion industry. Pick you beach cabin today. No barge require for the floater model. Stack em and weld. Burglar proof, almost. Bars on the windows are an option for some. Insulate on the outside with tons of soil. Come in two sizes. Wide front doors. No red tape either, cos if the govt use them, you can use them. Use as a sauna in the summer with no alterations or have your very on child control unit. You can even weld up the doors and have yourself a swimming pool, or rain storage tank.

chairman...effiient govt spending & reducing waste are probably the same thing aren't they?
...the problem with govt competing with private sector "ensuring a healthy competative market" for labour is that the govt & local bodies dont have to make a profit to stay in businees..they just raise taxes/rates(where is mark hubbard when you need him?
...my experience with the health system is that if you need a specialist/doctor you had better be prepared to wait a while and reschedule at least 1/2 doz times..but if you need a pscycoologist,occ therapy of social worker they are "falling all over you"
also if you dont have a community services card ..bend over and touch your toes!
..with regard to offshore labour to drive my tractor..bring them in!..as long as they can handle steep hill country which can be quite dangerous.I dont want an accident of i might have OSH on to me .... DOH! ..more Govt!!!

Don - If the government is spending efficiently there is no waste.

You're quite correct, government & local bodies don't have to make a profit to stay in business "“ however, they do have to be accountable, well they should be. It comes down to how they are governed. A competent government would ensure accountably.

You seem to be confusing your issues. It's not government that's the problem; it's how they govern.

"Railways maybe? AirNZ..Telecom?"

All your issues seem to stem from bad governance not from the principal of government (the state working efficiently for the people).

There is no need to throw out the bath to change the water.

In the short-term cheap offshore labour may benefit you personally but in the long-term it drive down local wages, increase peoples reliance on debt, adding more pressure on our credit rating causing banks to increase interest rates.

It will cause more credit defaults, causing assets to fall further while putting more pressure on the productive sector. Lower incomes will further reduce consumer spending which will increase unemployment putting more pressure on government funds thus limiting their stimulus response. In fact, the whole thing will just domino taking the whole country further down, and unless you plan on leaving, that will include you.

Better governance is what we need, not less of it.

Private interest seldom aligns with the national interest so I can't see why you would want to expand private control of vital sectors.

@ The Chairman
Makes absolut sense - good article.
My comment is of similar nature on another issue.: http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2009/08/29/opinion-what-to...

Regarding the performance of Kerr's BRT in terms of improving the NZ economy, interesting to read the ever-excellent Brian Gaynor in yesterday's Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501241&objecti...

Titled "Last chance to bring investors in from the cold", he comments that "Government usually establishes an inquiry to investigate whether any changes need to be made to the regulatory regime. After the 1987 crash there were a number of these inquiries which made recommendations to improve the regulatory structure of the sharemarket and tighten enforcement.

One of the aims of these recommendations was to re-establish the trust between issuers and investors.

But the Business Roundtable was at the zenith of its power and was strongly promoting the idea that there was a small group of businesspeople who created most of the economic wealth of the country and ordinary investors were free-riding on their expertise.... Virtually none of the post-1987 crash proposals were introduced, including the Takeovers Code, and the trust between issuers and investors was not repaired. The assertion that individual investors were free-riders reflected the attitude that the top end of town had towards retail investors.

The 1990s was a lost decade as far as New Zealand's capital markets were concerned with individuals effectively deserting these markets for residential property. The Stock Exchange, which was a strong supporter of the Business Roundtable's point of view, was particularly inept and made no attempt to re-establish trust with the investing public."

One can only weep when looking at the blackened and shell shocked remnants of an investment environment the BRT has helped create. I think the safest approach would be to listen to what Kerr & the BRT recommend, and do the exact opposite.

RDee: It would probably be unreasonable to expect Kerr's paymasters at the BRT to emphathise with the tribulations of the stuggling appretice, as they salivate over their multi-milliion dollar remuneration packages.....

Minimum wage..what the hell is that?
Its a dream number.
Those on min wage also qualify for WFF and accommodation etc...
So we have to add this to the min wage, plus the overheads desk jockeys to administer it.
The Min wage should= income+ WFF + accommodation benefits - the desk jockeys - fraud and milking the system.

The pay parity with Australia that Kerr's and Brash's seek is only pay parity in the financial sector, not the real sector, they want slavery for the man on mainstreet and the same level of opulence for themselves as the elitist elements in nations with the advantages of overt slavery that they eye with envy.
Over the periods offered by Kerr the pay of Ceo's and senior executives when compared to the average or median wage have increased exponentially greater in comparison and far in excess of the disparity in tax payment the elite claim negates their wage advantage. The only reason given in most cases is they must be paid the "market" dictates. I put it to you that those market rates have well and truly been proven to be distorted to the same levels by the same gas given off by the same bullshit that inflated the the debt based investment bubbles. This has also distorted the stated average or median wages stated to well above what is actual for those on mainstreet. Telecoms Paul Reynolds for example, $5-7 mil, compared to Telecom linesmen being forced to become contractors, buy own tools and vehicles, only be paid when needed. What degree of freedom,choices or control of their family or recreational circumstances do you think these persons will any longer have.
Slavery is the inevitable end result of a privately controlled debt based monetary system, a system that allows no room for anything to be done for reasons other than the profit motive, with debt servicing and corporate gouging concentrating power in the hands of the few to the extent that the many become completely choice-less, the social motive and any ounce of common decency completely consumed and forgotten.

I recently read an article in - Foreign Control Watch -, a booklet put out by Campaign Against The Foreign Control Of Aotearoa(CAFCA http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/community/CAFCA/ ) called - The State Is Back - by the very worldly Bryan Gould, credentials here http://www.bryangould.net/id11.html
It is right up there as one of the very best I have ever had the pleasure to read, heres a taste:
" By the time the crash came, 30 years of unrestrained global markets had done largely unrecognised damage on a much wider scale. Not least, the so-called "freemarket" had converted the world to a new culture of greed and excess. No reward was to outrageous for those who could claim it was ordained by the market.........Take account of the threat to the global environment which many believe to be the underlying and developing crisis of even greater dimensions than the global recession, we can again see a prime example of market failure.........There can be no return to the fallacy that the "free" or unfettered market establishes a kind of economic democracy that renders democratic politics irrelevant..........many of the deficiencies of unregulated markets have clearly manifested themselves within the national context but their true theatre of operations has been on a global scale; the triumph of the "freemarket" has been, after all, a global victory. The global dimension was an important element in insuring that, for three decades, it could confidently be claimed that "their was no alternative".................Now it was governments who had to sue for terms, and who would lose out in the competition for investment if they did not comply with the demands of the transnationals. The worlds major corporates could, in effect, set the political agenda in each individual country. The price they demanded for what was seen as essential foreign investment was a menu of measures drawn from the text books of rightwing ideologues and familiar to any observer of the New Zealand scene. That menu included a "freemarket"(or monetarist) economic policy, low business tax rates, accomodating rules about the repatriation of profits, industrial relations laws that reduced the power of trade unions, health and safety legislation that was not to onerous, a regime that allows the "externalisation" of costs to the environment( or in other words, the transfer of those costs to the public purse), and labour costs aligned to the lowest international benchmarks............most costs could be "externalised" or passed onto the taxpayers who no longer had a voice, and, as voters began to understand that their governments could no longer protect them, confidence in the democratic process began to weaken........It is an opportunity that arises in two arenas - the national and international. This is not the place to set out a complete agenda but we can atleast sketch out the approaches that will be needed if we are to learn and apply the lessons of the last 30 years. On the national level, it is surely now clear that governments, not banks, that underpin our our financial systems and our currencies; and if that is so, should we not recognise that banking and the creation of money and credit are public functions for which public accountability should be demanded? And should not the management of the economy be the first function of democratically accountable government and not subcontracted out to unaccountable bankers and officials."