Happy election year! (Patreon)

Ugh. I cannot believe we're back in an election year. Since Covid time has collapsed in on itself, so that everything is both flying past me, and moving incredibly slowly.

All the wise financial folk seem to think this year is going to be a shitter. Not just for Aotearoa, but for most of the world. The ways in which eonomists describe recessions always sound so erotic. It could be deep and long. Or soft. Or hard. Or V shaped.

When Covid disrupted everything, it gave us a chance to take a look at society and remake it in a different, more just and equitable way. So far no government around the world has taken that chance. 

If the economists are to be believed* then we will no doubt be convinced that we need to "cut spending", and "manage the country's budget more carefully", which is just code for austerity. Which is further code for cuts. Which is just a way of making the poor poorer.

Solutions to economic global disruption seem to lack imagination. I'd like to see some properly left solutions. Not just centrist bullshit, but actual left-wing ideas put forward. More nationalised services; I've already said a state-owned supermarket would be a goer. Have it focus on selling NZ product so it's buying local and working for the country too. But there is electricity generation that could be re-nationalised after a failed experiment in partial privatisation.

The runaway inflation we've been facing seems to be at least partially created by runaway profits. It's time some of those industries were reeled in. Banking I'm looking at you.

Labour is in a hole, and it needs to climb out with actual solutions to the problems we're facing. Otherwise people are going to default to National just for "change", and folks let me tell you National is not offering anything better. A National Government would likely be much of what we've got but meaner. Meaner to those who can least afford to be on the receiving end. Someone in my middle class position is unlikely to be materially impacted by a Luxon-led Government, but I don't want my country to face that. 

I'm still of the view that Labour will stumble over the line in a 2005 style victory. Most people seem to have written them off, but I think they'll do it. I think the whole planet is going to face a recession and things will look grim everywhere. And at that point Labour can hold up Jacinda Ardern and ask "who do you want to see us through this challenging period? Someone who got us through a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, and has been getting us through a global pandemic? Or do you want that bald LinkedIn post over there?" 

And I think enough of the country will swing back to Labour to get a Labour/Greens/TPM coalition over the line. Goodness knows what that will look like, but it would be the most left wing government we've ever had. The alternative is a National/ACT coalition, and the most right-wing government we've ever had. Either way it's a scary time to be a centrist. Suck it.

*there was a quarterly GDP report out not long before Xmas that was something like 2%, when nearly every economist had predicted approx 0.9%. In economic world this is a huge miss. And it happens all the time. But it won't stop these same economists being platformed with their next set of predictions. Kids, if you want a job with seemingly zero accountability then punditry is your ideal scenario. Especially political punditry. But especially economic punditry.