Notices by Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 2

A somewhat higher estimated future cost for interest payments, relative to certain other countries, is *not* a good reason for governments not to borrow for spending on infrastructure. Which can create some slack in the current budget, to be spent on restoring the properly fund universal public services. Something we had in this country when I was a child, so anyone who says it's a utopian pipedream and can't be done is denying history.

(2/?)

Presuming it's maintained properly, public infrastructure can be useful for generations to come. I think our grandkids will be happy to share in the cost of building it, by having government budgets cover some interest payments during their working years.

Especially when the alternative is to live in a country where infrastructure and essential services are available only to those who can afford to "go private". As we do now.

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The right talk a big game about the cost of public borrowing to future generations. Then borrow anyway to give tax cuts to the landlord class (Willis bugets have borrowed more than Robertson's - fact).

But they never seem to be very interested in talking about the cost to future generations of *not* borrowing. Maybe that's something the left need to talk more about?

(4/4)

This is handbag economics at it's best. Completely ignoring the economic fact that the role of a government in an economy is fundamentally different from that of a citizen, a household, or a business.

Democratic governments of sovereign countries are not big, compulsory-membership co-ops, as Hooten implies, bound by budgets. They are the organised expression of how citizens want our country to be organised. Or at least they're *meant* to be, and if they're not, maybe we don't need them?

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I think it's worth deconstructing another bit of propaganda Hooten tried to insert into the Feb 24 edition of the Bradbury Group;

https://thedailyblog.co.nz/8pm-live-tonight-the-bradbury-group-with-kieran-mcanulty-on-labours-state-of-the-nation-matthew-hooton-david-cunliffe-and-quilae-wong-political-panel/

The absurd claim that the reason our public infrastructure and service struggle, while governments borrow to keep the wolves from the door, is that we're not a wealthy country. We can't afford nice things, you see, because we're 5 million (or so) people looking after a country the size of the UK. "Middle class" by world standards.

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Hooten is right that there are only 5 million of us to supply all the goods and services we need, or exports to trade for them. But that means supplying universal public services is much cheaper than it is in the UK or other countries with much higher populations.

He's right that our population is small relative to our land space. But there's no cost per km2 of doing public administation. Most of that land is mountains and forest that mostly maintains themselves at no cost to the public.

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When I was a child we had a comprehensive social safety net, with the same land space to look after, and only 3 million people. Anyone who thinks either of these things are the reason for the poverty of everyday life in contemporary Aotearoa they're deluded, or lying. I'll leave the job of evaluating which of these applies to Hooten to the reader.

(4/?)

We have about the same amount of real wealth in this country as we did in the 1980s. When we didn't have mass unemployment, and homelessness, and malnutrition, and diseases of poverty.

All the land is still there. As is most of the infrastructure. While some of it has been severely undermaintained (railways, ferries, public media), much more has been built (roads in particular, fibre optic networks). We still have a few million people's worth of labour, world class universities, etc.

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The real cause of our apparent poverty can be seen in the rapid and ongoing increase in inequality, or income and wealth, that we've seen in the this country since the 1980s. Caused by austerity policies justified on the basis of the very handbag economics Hooten and his ilk and pimping.

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What we don't have is a public policy framework that makes sure everyone has fair access to that wealth. For citizens to supply themselves and their families with their basic needs. For communities to supply basic services, to everyone who needs them. For businesses to create new goods and luxury services for those who want them and are prepared to pay.

The same amount of wealth still exists, but it's all been hoarded by the 1%, here and offshore.

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As I've said here before, if you dig into the fine print, a lot of the "imports" we supposedly have to export stuff to cover, are actually economic rents we pay to offshore extractors to use our own infrastructure. Which was built at public expense, and we used to own it, but it got corporatised and sold in the 1980s/90s (and a bit more in the late 2010s).

To put it bluntly, as a country we sold the farm to pay the mortgage, now we're selling our organs to lease the farm.

(8/?)

The problem is not a lack of resources. It's not, as Hooten claims, that we're not a wealthy enough country to have nice things, like 21st century infrastructure and functioning public services for those who need them.

The problem is, economically speaking, we're not actually a sovereign country. We're not free. We are economic slaves, both to the domestic 1% and the offshore extractors they curry favour with. That's what we need a radically democratic form of public governance to solve.

(9/9)

I just remembered one other thing I wanted to comment on from this edition of the Bradbury Group;

https://thedailyblog.co.nz/8pm-live-tonight-the-bradbury-group-with-kieran-mcanulty-on-labours-state-of-the-nation-matthew-hooton-david-cunliffe-and-quilae-wong-political-panel/

Which was Bomber's advocacy for a state-backed supermarket chain. With all due respect to Comrade Bradbury, this is right up there with GST off fruit and veges as far as uninspiring policies.

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#FoodSecurity #AntiMonopoly #supermarkets

For one thing, this would involve risking huge amounts of public money on a business venture. One that no corporate extractor thinks is viable enough to invest in.

Until we can get a stake into the heart of corporatist policy ("neoliberalism", "Washington Consensus"), and kill it dead for good, even success would be failure. Because if it worked, it would be sold off to said extractors by the next NatACT government, on the basis that the state has no place in the supermarket business.

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In this case - much as it sticks in my craw - I happen to agree with them. Food supply is one thing that can and should be done in a decentralised, and ideally community-based way. The supermarket system is already too centralised for my liking, and depending on the state for food security is *literally* putting all your eggs in one basket.

Take a look at KiwiBuild, or the current state of our public health system. Would you want your food supply to depend on a system run like this?

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I agree with what Kieran McAnulty said to Bomber on this one; public provision isn't a silver bullet for everything. Especially when the public service has been been corporatised, restructured and starved of resources for decades.

I'm all for revitalisation of the public service, public ownership of common infrastructure, and universal public services in areas like health and education where commercialisation creates perverse incentives. But we can't wish that into existence overnight.

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Side note: One thing I learned from studying uni corporatisation is that much of the "wasteful public spending" the NatACTs love to bemoan is a direct product of *their reforms*.

Academic departments used to share resources on an organic, 'who needs it now' basis. When universities were corporatised, each department became a separate 'business unit', and now any resources they share with each other have to be accounted for as expenses. So the total on-paper cost of running them went up.

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Another example is the cost of flying MPs around the country. When AirNZ was 100% publicly-owned and run as a public good, flying MPs around was just part of its role as the national carrier. If those flights were accounted for at all, they were expenses on the AirNZ balance sheet.

But once AirNZ was corporatised, those flights were pushed onto the MPs expenses, and counted as public spending. Same flights, same provider, but suddenly a massive costs to the public accounts every year

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@Salty
> High speed rail across the country now

100%. Ever since I got back from living in China I've been embarrassed by the degraded state of our intercity rail network. But again, once we build this, in full non-corporate public ownership, it needs to move MPs around the country's gratis. Not make it a public expense that pod people like Rodney Hide can obsess over as "wasteful public spending".

@lxo
> GNU Jami

... is better than Briar in that it has apps for a range of OS. Problem is Jami doesn't work reliably. Last time I tried it the group voice chat was very good, but text message delivery was laggy and unreliable. Even when both people in the chat were online at the same time (and communicating in a backchannel about the test).

Maybe that's improved since they shipped group chats? Hmm. Did they actually ship those yet?

@cy @soapdog