New Zealand’s crown deficit has grown to $6.5 billion in the eleven months ended in May, more than $2 billion worse than forecast in Budget 2023.
The shortfall was largely due to weaker tax revenue from corporate profits, which have been struggling against high interest rates.
Central banks around the world have been suppressing economic activity in an effort to tame stubborn inflation.
The IMF has forecast global economic growth to fall from 3.4% in 2022 to just 2.8% this year.
New Zealand’s economy is in a technical recession and business profitability has been falling as consumers have pulled back on spending in order to pay down debt.
Core Crown tax revenue was $103.3 billion, but $2.2 billion below forecast. Treasury said this was because of the lower corporate taxes and other individual tax revenue.
“Slightly offsetting these was source deduction revenue, which was $0.3 billion above forecast reflecting a stronger labour market compared to forecast,” it said.
This reflects what is happening in the New Zealand economy, with profits and economic growth slowing but employment remaining strong.
Core crown expenses were close to forecast at $115.1 billion but the missing tax revenue added $2.1 billion to the operating balance deficit of $6.5 billion.
Net debt was $5.1 billion higher than forecast at $73.3 billion, or 18.9% of gross domestic product (or 39.5% using the old core debt measure at $153 billion).
Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the cooling economy had resulted in a lower-than-forecast tax take but the deficit was still smaller than it was last year.
“The Government had already taken steps to respond to the uncertain economic environment by carefully and responsibly managing its spending,” he said in a statement.
Nicola Willis, the National Party’s finance spokesperson, said the Government had underestimated how much the economy had slowed and was blowing its budget.
“Government debt has soared by an additional $5 billion, and the books have been plunged even further into the red, with a deficit that is $2 billion larger than forecast,” she said.
David Seymour, leader of the Act Party, said it was reasonable to expect a full year deficit of over $9 billion, since Budget 2023 had forecast $7 billion.
“The main reason for the growing deficit is slowing company tax receipts. The economy is bad, and Robertson’s irresponsible policies are finally affecting his own books,” he said.
Robertson said the Labour government’s financial management had left enough space to meet the costs of extreme weather events.
Debt levels remain lower than in many comparable countries and below the self-imposed debt ceiling at 30% of GDP (or approximately 50% under the old core debt measure).
“We are striking a balance between supporting New Zealanders in the here and now and investing in strong public services and a resilient infrastructure network while carefully managing our resources to ensure the long term sustainability of the economy,” he said.
140 Comments
would love to hear what National/Act would do differently that would make the deficit smaller. Their normal go to policies of cutting taxes and building more roads is going to make the deficit worse, not better. Cutting government spending? Good luck finding anything large enough that isn’t a core public service that would make any sort of difference. The only remedy I think they will propose that isn’t deficit inflating is asset sales I am guessing (not a terrible idea to offload Air NZ & power company holdings as the answer) .
Considering this government is spending 60% more a year than it was before the pandemic, there must be a reasonable amount that can be chopped.
Even though they blamed covid for all their spending, they are currently spending more than they ever have, that's with all the expense of covid just about completely gone, so much spin from this government.
Go and have a look at the 2023 budget and tell me where you would find anything approaching billions in spending that you could cut. Outside covid, most of the increases over the last few yeas is catch-up infrastructure spending after decades of neglect. “Cutting government department spending on consultants” is chump change that will make near zero impact.
Means testing Government super might be a start? That has increased from $11b in 2017 to $17.7b in 2022. No wonder we have a deficit.
What do we have then? they doubled NZ's government debt in less than 6 years, but I'm not seeing anything for it, other than things like a few extra roads that were in the planning years before they took office.
This government is an absolute shambles with their spending and everything else.
It's really what we don't have that we should be thinking about. Mass unemployment, tanked economy (still on the cards) etc. We can argue it was misdirected, but it's still flowing into our private sector and propping us up for now. That money needs to come from somewhere to make up the deficit so back out of the pockets it comes. Alternatively we can cut spending, but that simply means it's not in our pockets in the first place and our public services are a shambles. The idea that bank lending will save this one is flawed - we no longer have the cashflow to support that debt. That's the real mistreatment.
Exactly there is nothing to cut and what amazes me is that people are not able to comprehend a simple idea that someone has to pay.
If government stops spending then private expenditure will increase but alas all these falls on deaf ears and people are more interested in short term gain rather than long term vision.
We're a society of bottom feeders, I don't think the sugar rush of a few extra dollars a week will last long before somebody is trying to pick it out of your pocket. Individuals have no idea what their priorities are, how many Sunday lunches were bought with the cost of living payment last year? Was that a sensible use of money? Whose responsibility was it to spend that money in a prioritised way? The covid response, like giving a 5yo kid $50 outside a dairy and telling them to only buy one thing. Once again, we prioritised the same houses we already had.
We should expect more from the government than the two main options we are given. Dancing around the elephant in the room, arguing about the amount we spend rather than the allocation of that spending and the way we should be equitably taxing that money back.
Labour have tried to half arse too many things a whole arse nothing. National want to zero arse anything, and let houses do the work for them.
Why not reduce trade deficit by creating a stupid crap import tax. Why not tax those insane business profits but provide rebate for innovation and/or education. Why not tax anything to do with investing in property. Why not tax.
Why not invest in our public healthcare system and essential public services. Why not invest in the thing which made this country a good place to live in in the first place. Families, kids, education, infrastructure.
Why can we not rely on a government to step up and lead?
We should expect more from the government than the two main options we are given
This is an age of fairly direct and easily distributed communication. If the population can't use that to shape democracy in their own interests it deserves the limited on rails choices it's given.
Get a grip. Self employed people pay 15% GST on their profit. Then they pay about 30% tax on their income from that profit. Then they pay 15% GST plus fuel and a few other taxes on their private income. Did you notice the total tax intake for Robbo? And some clowns say it is still not enough.
The Nationals need to go full Elon Musk on the Govt sector. Sack everyone who isnt physically producing something meaningful with their labour. Then see what breaks. If it doesnt break, it was never needed in the first place. If it breaks, hire some of them back. All those climate change consultants, diversity officers, PR spokespeople, modellers, social policy strategists - sack them all.
Red pill perfection KW, this is what everyone is doing currently not just governments. Wait for two of the wheels to fall off and then hold them back on with gaffer tape to keep rollin. Education, healthcare, infrastructure the evidence is everywhere. Just dont tell the sheeple this is the plan.
not a terrible idea to offload Air NZ & power company holdings as the answer
Sure, nothing says sound financial management than pawning off income generating assets to pay down your credit card bill.
Seymour also hinted at potentially lifting restrictions on mining permits. Permit fees are at best a trickle; royalties and taxes from mining operations will at least take 2-3 years to flow through at best.
Not saying it is a “great idea” - just trying to think of “not terrible” actions that National/Act could conceivably take that would actually reduce government deficit in the next 3 year term. Open to hearing any other suggestions for realistic proposals on how they could reduce the deficit without massive cuts to core public services. Even “not increasing” spending on core public services (John Key’s signature move) - is a rather risky move when retaining existing public service staff is proving tough at present.
Also, not sure anyone would call AirNZ a good long term income generating asset.
Not clear it will make much of a difference to the deficit unless the cost of borrowing is higher than the dividend yield, other than the one-off sugar rush of selling the things.
Would reduce the debt, but take a corresponding chunk out of the government's assets. Personally, if I could borrow like the government and not have to worry about paying tax on the dividends, I would happily buy more shares in the gentailers (not sure about AIR).
My own gut feeling is that a grossly badly managed NZ owned set up is grossly superior to any foreign owned outfit in NZ. All foreign owned banks in NZ send more money home than they spend in wages here.
More than a few PaknSlave owners are on NZ's rich list. That tells us how much money The Final Countdown, and their mates with the same owners, Bunnings and Kmart are sending back home every week.
Please correct me, and provide examples if I am wrong.
Acts alternative budget is cut taxes, massively increase defense spending & an airy-fairy proposal to “Reduce the number of public servants and remove whole departments that add no value for the public” without actually naming any of these departments that add no value to the public and no indication of how much that would save.
These are not serious people.
Somewhat dependent on the business model, structure etc.
I'm not threatening to throw my toys out of the cot if the election doesn't go the way I want it to, but with my business I could (if I wanted to) pick up and take overseas tomorrow with no impact on the day-to-day operation as everything is largely done remotely, and my clients based here have been used to me working remotely from overseas in the past.
In fact, it is something I've somewhat prepared for as my wife has a qualification and career that she could earn substantially more with overseas.
Equally it's fairly hard to pick up a manufacturing business, or stuff your tradie ute into the carry on bin to move overseas.
You simply move and take the business with you. Xero, A2 Milk, Rocketlab, AllBirds .... things are already bad enough that companies are leaving NZ and headquartering themselves overseas. Many businesses are as mobile as their founders capital. They can, and will leave. And if the NZ dollar keeps falling, overseas companies will simply swoop in and buy the NZ companies and remove them that way.
They have to cut government spending by being more productive eg stop hiring loads of people layers of management that do nothing. But unfortunately the ministers are so incompetent and get fired faster than they can be replaced. How can we expect any improvement… lol
Think about Twitter. 70% of staff were taken out, it’s still operating fine. Not advocating mass firings but just stop hiring for a few years would help, attrition would help as well. Of course critical roles should be replaced.
Not arguing there is fat to be chopped for sure from public service, but the amount saved from cutting even thousands of these middle management is going to save a few hundred million, which is chump change vs a deficit approaching $10 Billion annually.
That is not an answer as to how to decrease the deficit, the next government will have to do something very radical to make a significant impact to the deficit (like multi billion dollar asset sales), but a much more likely outcome is that they don’t actually change anything and just blame the next couple of years deficit on the previous government.
Ya I agree more has to be done. This is just one element that can be easily addressed. I'm pretty sure if National comes into power, this will surely be one of the focus areas. There's actually loads more if we look around. Few examples... 190m of covid test kits to be written off, 45m storage costs... 1B in 3-waters costs so far...... hundreds of millions in the light rail costs so far. No one seems to be accountable here. I reckon 5B easy peasy. 10B hmm, will take a lot more pain.
It's more of a mindset thing, you have to be calculated and prudent about where money is spent. Financial sense and responsibility. Understanding where to spend and ensuring a return, recognizing and knowing how to drive productivity, and how to drive innovation to create new opportunities and jobs to grow an economy. Current govt just doesn't have that skillset at all, worse still, zero execution skills (e.g. spending money with little results...) Who-ever who comes into power with that mindset and experience, should be able to achieve this. It will take some time though, the damage is significant. But overall, it's not too different from skills required when running a business.
"I'm pretty sure if National comes into power, this will surely be one of the focus areas."
Why do we have to wait for them to come into power to find out what they plan to do? At the moment they have no policies that would address this. They should be able to tell us by now.
In that rather emotional song, 'The Living Years' by Mike & The Mechanics, the singer says 'every generation blames the one before' ... same goes with politics, right?
The left will always blame X long years of National neglect (they'll still be going on about it when the earth stops spinning) where X+1 is always the number of years required to finally turn the corner towards fully-funded and functional public services and infrastructure ... just one more hit and we will get on with it, definitely trust us this time.
The right will always blame the spendthrift nature of the left, pointing out the pissing up of coin against the wall on overpaid civil servants, wasteful ministries, ill-conceived policies etc, ignoring - as you rightly point out - that truly radical change that is simply unpalatable to the majority of the population would be required to see actual meaningful improvements.
The Labour Govt hired 50,000 extra bureaucrats during their term. Not more doctors, nurses, police officers or teachers. At an average salary of $100k each, firing them would save $5 Billion a year. And not reduce the delivery of any public service. Look at the Reserve Bank - its doubled its staff numbers under Labour, and for what? It still does the exact same job it did under National. What are all those people doing? Now multiply that through every single Govt department.
Re: BKKIWI, National/Act would do no differently. I highly doubt it! The social division and economic problems that we're facing are labour's creation. John Key was very vocal about not shutting down the country for a virus. ACT did not want to mandate that experimental vaccine! I suspect under ACT/National the country would've remained open, and we'd be in a far better social, economic, and healthwise position right now.
Hindsight shows that the world shut down in order to save a bunch of 80 year olds. The average age of a Covid death was 84. So we destroyed the global economy so that extreme elderly people could carry on dying from the same old age, heart disease, dementia and cancer that was already killing them before covid came along. The sad thing was that by mid-2020 this wasn't hindsight, it was current knowledge. Yet Govts continued with the pointless lockdown policies anyway.
Although it may make economical sense re the governmental budget, I wonder whether it is good idea to hand over control of power and transport into and out of NZ to private companies as these are essential services for the wellbeing of the NZ population or if the government should keep some control?
I'm absolutely gob smacked at the number of people on this thread who are defending this labour governments economic debacle. You have to go back to 1972-1975 to find a worse labour government.
This finance minister doesn't focus on a balanced budget and he never has. He hates the thought of a balanced budget so much that he calls it a well being budget.
Well, how many people are better off after 6 well being budgets? Oh the irony of it.
Look at the NZ dollar, 61c US. That's inflationary. Look at the rising petrol price, that's inflationary. Look at all the immigrants coming in, that's inflationary. Look at the trade balance, that will deflate the kiwi dollar and will be inflationary.
If you don't know what a recession is then you probably think we are in one now. Well, the next 12months will show you what a recession really is and this time interest rates will not fall because inflation will not fall. It will be a true recession and a deep one.
Cut your coffees, make your lunches, cut your takeaways and balance your own finances because you can't count on the government balancing their finances. But hey it's ok if your finances are better than 50% of your mates who are near bankruptcy.
What should a national government do? Obviously focus on growing the economy and trimming government expenditure.
There is alot of wastage in Government and it's all political. Ask anyone who lives in Wellington, they will tell you.
There were 2 great economic managers, and it spanned 1990 - 2008. During that period we had a national government and a labour government repair the national finances and deliver us zero net debt. That's right, ZERO.
And now we just have a wellbeing budget where noone is better off for it. Well, the price you will pay is huge and your right to a government provided pension will be the price you will pay.. This is what happens when you don't balance your own finances and don't keep an eye on your income and your expenses, eventually you get "declined" pop up. It's coming for you and me and you can thank poor economic management and political wastage just to stay in government. Good luck, I hope you get through this, be kind, and look after your well-being!
It should be the opposite, Governments are meant to operate a counter-cycle fiscal policy. When economy is growing, taxes should increase and Government spending should decrease to pay back debts. During a recession Government spending increases and debt increases however this time around Governments are concerned about inflation even though it is a global phenomenon and not localized to NZ
Dumb question - I thought that business profits had typically risen in the last year (based on an article I think I read here a week or so ago). How does that square with a reduced tax take from lower corporate profits? Maybe different time periods being compared.
This is what is confusing me.
At a wider level, how can company profits be up (implication being that companies are price gouging to cause this) but at the same time company profits be down (implication being that's why the deficit has grown).
Unless I'm missing something, if a company declares a profit it's fairly hard to avoid paying tax on that (the whole minimising tax piece comes beforehand, anything from the humble tradie buying that new ute he doesn't really need to large corporates engaging in more complex practices).
FWIW my business profits were down about 30% YoY but that was as a deliberate consequence of not raising my prices in line with what some competitors were doing. Tough at the time but in the more challenging environment that is now developing it is paying dividends as I'm retaining clients where others who had fleeced theirs for every cent have lost some of that loyalty. I think it will work out ok for me in the end.
Various surveys show a handful of companies making increased profits, with most decreasing or staying the same.
So for the most part, the price increases experienced by consumers aren't due to increased profits. Doesn't stop people from feeling otherwise obviously.
Time. In my case last years accounts look fine. Going forward I can see gst payments to IR are going down.
I listened to Chippy on Jamie Mackays farming show for a bit yesterday. He seems to think farmers will be paying the same amount of tax as usual this year. Jamie asked him what juice he was on. I hadnt given it a lot of thought til some dire words from Jamie. Profits are definately getting squeezed. Considering primary industry is something akin to 80%of NZs income, this aint gona be pretty.
No disagreement with that. But we haven't learned anything - yet. No one more than me would like to see lower interest rates targeted at productive enterprise. No one. But we don't have it in us to do that without a massive learning event. None of our political 'leaders' have the courage (or the understanding in many cases) to do what has to be done. We know what that is, and it involves a redirection of national Debt. As you suggested the other day, prioritising Public Debt over Private to rebalance the equation. Because that will torpedo the ultimate driver of our economy - property prices and the associated Debt.
So it's back to what's going to happen, not what should.
No one more than me would like to see lower interest rates targeted at productive enterprise. No one. But we don't have it in us to do that without a massive learning event
Given the lending to these businesses has been fairly static over the last decade or so, when business interest rates have been lower than ever, how much more do you think lending would have to be subsidised to see the sort of result you're expecting?
We have always had inflation of 10% per year, first market to see inflation is always housing and every 10 years we have a recession where everything else catches up a bit. Economists ignore this market when calculating inflation and that's why we get hit so hard during recessions and why they get worse each cycle
It is incredible how many Kiwis do not realize the amount of money wasted by Labour'Greens the last 6 years. When Bill English was kicked out, NZ had very low sovereign debt despite a major earthquake, so Labour/Greens were able to borrow $100 billion. And the tax take increased 40%. Go through the expenditures of the last six years, and what has been achieved? A collapsing health system that after billions spent on consultants gives priority in Auckland based on ethnicity. The current government simply has no idea how to manage finance and achieve much at all. But they may be re-elected because many Kiwis do not inform themselves and yet still vote.
Business owners don't pay out of their pocket or perform charity they generate income when their customers spend.
So this naivety that anyone who successfully runs a business would magically fix everything is flawed. What will happen is government will stop spending and private debt will increase.
My only gripe is that people will realize this when they are left holding the bag after its already too late.
Elect a businessman so he can turn every government department into a profit center. The good news is you probably find excess headcount bloat is reduced, but quality will reduce as the Government services generally do not have to compete with private enterprise.
So you end up with the likes of FENZ posting a $37 million profit FY21 and $16 million FY22 while firefighters go on pay strikes.
Government isn't like individuals as its purpose is to provide services to people and not hoard wealth. When government generates profit they will spend it on different initiatives or improving services. They will ultimately spend the profit somewhere for the benefit of people.
Its like I will charge all of you and then reimburse all of you.
So this naivety that anyone who successfully runs a business would magically fix everything is flawed
I dont think it's so much a blind belief that a successful business person will fix everything, it's that someone who's never had to survive in the Darwinian world of capitalism might have a large disconnect between their brain farts and economic reality.
Replace "profit" with "solvency" then.
And that's not the sole focus running a business, it's just a guiding principle. You also want things like continuity, growth, that sort of thing.
Nice ideas are nice, but if someone hasn't successfully operated in a world where there's a rather definitive feedback loop between a nice idea and it being viable, they can be prone to flights of fancy.
Luxon ran an airline, the sole focus of which is staying solvent. Profits are a bonus.
"In 2007, Warren Buffett wrote in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway investors that “if a far-sighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.”
Historically, airlines have gone bankrupt a lot. Airlines have huge upfront costs to buy airplanes and build networks, then they compete fiercely on price, which pushes profit margins down to a level that can’t support those capital investments, especially through economic downturns when demand for air travel dips. But investors kept putting money into airlines through the decades anyway, perhaps partly due to the romance of air travel, driven by the belief that next time would be different. Buffett’s 2007 warning was about not getting caught up in this belief."
Business owners? Depends on if they are a sole trader, partnership or a company. First two do pay out of pocket and the last one upper management get massive incentives to ensure performance is good and has a board of directors who are focused on profit above all else. Business owners either get it right or the company no longer exists and if your a sole trader or partnership you may lose everything also. The successful business people can definitely teach government as government agencies waste alot of money
“A collapsing health system that after billions spent on consultants gives priority in Auckland based on ethnicity”
Sorry, but this statement above is simply race baiting nonsense. Ethnicity is a minor factor far down the list of surgical priority with the main factors remains “need for surgery” & “time on waitlist”.
It's on the list isn't it? so if it's there then why is even mentioning it race baiting?
If you put it on the list then you can't then turn around and say no one can mention this, or if you do I'll pull the race card and call you a race baiter.
Sorry but that just pathetic behaviour, if they can't back up criticism of their policies then don't do them in the first place.
This government is an utter shambles. You get sick of it. National if they weren’t a shambles prior to 2017 certainly perfected the art, post election. As Chris Trotter opined here a few weeks back, the electorate will be obliged next October, to vote for the least worst. Think about that. What a sorry state of affairs, and the cause, too many of the politicians themselves, don’t seem to give a hoot about either their responsibilities or behaviour. The whole damn shooting box is a shambles if you ask me and it sucks!
Ethnicity criteria wouldnt be needed in an ideal world, but that's not the world we live in.
Improving health outcomes for Maori, Pacific people would benefit everyone. We should urgently be regulating unhealthy industries/ products to nudge people towards better behaviours because 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'. A healthy population is essential for societal prosperity, and we are not doing well on this front.
Except that even "time on the wait list" has different meanings for different races. Its 200 days for Maori, and 250 days for non-Maori. And the surgeons who commented on the policy made it very clear that surgical need was not the determining factor, that a Maori person with lesser medical need would get priority over a non-Maori in greater critical condition.
"A document on the equity adjustor which was leaked to Newstalk ZB shows two Māori patients, both aged 62 and who have been waiting more than a year, ranked above others on the list. A 36-year-old Middle Eastern patient who has been waiting almost two years has a much lower priority ranking."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-surgeons-must-now-consider-ethni…
I agree. Most kiwis have little idea how badly the finances have been managed. You can get access to the government books on their treasury website and wow oh wow fantastic levels of borrowing with nothing to show.
I’m afraid that may be the real reason Jacinda left. The game was up and even Grant knows it. That’s why he isn’t the deputy, he’s just the finance minister. And he’ll quietly slip out post election. The books are so bad they can’t even afford petrol cuts till the election!!
You bring up the earthquake, yet 65% of the estimated cost had been paid out by insurance companies within the first 3 years post quake. Not backing Labour by any stretch, but if you're going to justify going from $10b to $60b in Government debt the Earthquake is not going to cut it I'm afraid. Maybe you could say we had a GFC and $50b was used to bail out US banks?
The Reserve Bank currently estimates the total construction cost of the rebuild to be about $40 billion (in 2015 dollars), comprised of slightly more than $16 billion each for residential and commercial construction and around $7 billion for infrastructure.
As at 30 September 2015, insurers had paid out $26 billion,
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/hub/-/media/project/sites/rbnz/files/publicati…
Tax tax tax.
Unfortunately, that's what we get. Can't pay back a deficit with less tax. Unless we cut spending by more than we cut taxes... which is a stealth increase in tax...
Don't worry, we can suck it out of PAYE and leave the rest of the country great again!
PAYE Tax brackets should be increasing with inflation. Full time on minimum wage is just sitting under the 30% tax threshold of $48k, it needs to be adjusted. In 2010 was the last major change in tax brackets when full time on minimum wage was $26.5k per year. The tax brackets all need to increase by $20k. Everyone on PAYE are currently being over taxed
Unfortunately we can’t afford it. Surely Luxumm knows this. Would require a massive cut in spending just to balance out and still run a significant deficit.
No Christmas this year kids, and if we do get Christmas it’ll be short lived before we’re back to bare basics.
Clearly Seymour and Willis either think the rest of us are gullible idiots or are so ignorant that they do not realise that the independent Reserve Bank has been doing its best to crash the economy.
Maybe if we didn't have monetary policy set by an independent institution we would be better able to co-ordinate fiscal and monetary policy.
And Treasury was only 2% out in its forecast.
The RBNZ was gifted the hospital pass. They are doing what they have to do (or were) to 'fix' the economy - as you suggest, the politicians can't/won't do what needs to be done.
When this is all over, and we emerge from the ashes of what once a first world nation, then we can restructure our finances so this never happens again (chances of that given our political system? Nil)
This is why politics sometimes doesn't have a place. RBNZ should have more control to set fiscal policy without being tied to politics. Same thing is happening with local government, politics is getting in the way of long term future planning for short term incentives that make politicians look good at the time
If the RBNZ wasn't the most incompetent NZ has ever had (which is party due to this government changing it's priorities away from controlling inflation) then it wouldn't have printed so much money, and had interest rates set at levels, that could have done none other than cause a housing bubble. That they then finally woke up to about 1.5 years too late, and started doing what they should have been doing way earlier.
Reminds me of when Robertson turned a $6bn surplus into a $1bn deficit, fact checked by RNZ as something that actually did happen, Factcheck: Did Labour turn a $6bn surplus into a $1bn deficit? | RNZ News
He's so good at losing money, no one seems to know where it goes.
How can we have household net savings, finance our current account deficits and repay our household debt without government budget deficits? This money must come from somewhere and fortunately we have a sovereign currency issuing government and so the governments budget deficit provides the private sectors financial surplus to do these things. (Sectoral Balances). https://gimms.org.uk/fact-sheets/sectoral-balances/
Comment: NZ Has Run Out of Money
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