Posted on 03/07/2009 12:09:06 AM PST by Scanian
These days, you have to travel far to find a national leader who is talking about market-based approaches to the global recession. All the way to the other side of the world.
"We don't tell New Zealanders we can stop the global recession, because we can't," says Prime Minister John Key, leaning forward in his armchair at his office in the Beehive, the executive wing of New Zealand's parliament. "What we do tell them is we can use this time to transform the economy to make us stronger so that when the world starts growing again we can be running faster than other countries we compete with."
That idea -- growing a nation out of recession by improving productivity -- puts Mr. Key and his conservative National Party at odds with Washington, Tokyo and Canberra. Those capitals are rolling out billions of dollars in stimulus packages -- with taxpayers' money -- to try to prop up growth. That's "risky," Mr. Key says. "You've saddled future generations with an enormous amount of debt that then they have to repay," he explains. "There is actually a limit to what governments can do."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
How does NZ feel about an influx of capitalists from the USA?
My first thought was that it’s a shame Prime Minister John Key is constitutionally ineligible for the White House. On further reflection though, now that the “natural born” requirement has been dropped by the Living Constitution, I think I’ll contact him and see if he’s interested in challenging Palin for the GOP nomination in 2012. Either one could be a good choice, and both are as eligible as Obama.
A voice of reason comes out of the madness.
Then you wonder why we don’t have any credible politicians saying the same thing over here...
Funny enough, I raised this possibility at my company’s tea break a month ago, and the response ran like “You can tell your American friends to stay put.”
To see what the conservatives in power really think, have a look at David Farrar:
He is not really a lot different from David Brooks if you compare on policy to policy basis, and forget about “relative political scale” nonsense from Farrar defenders.
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