*yawn* Is alive

[BlackUnicorn]

Welcome fellow kiwi

I'm from the Shakey City btw, it's chaos so i've escaped to my parents house for a while.

And John Key ruled out adding interest to student loans...

Oh, and even if the Government cut their salaries (which they should) the amount recovered would be a rather pithy amount, hardly making a dent in the deficit.

The quake is going to cost us $20 billion (how much of that is insured privately i'm not sure), if you're against cutting spending to pay for it you have two options... 1) Raise taxes, 2) Borrow more (we already owe 15 Billion...), neither of these are great options, they are in all likelihood much worse than cutting spending and subsidies.

Another solution that they'll never go for (sadly) would be to remove all taxes in Christchurch for the next 5 years and relax building regulations which would 1) Make reinvesting in Christchurch an opportunity and not a burden 2) Make it easier for people to rebuild their homes. Even then we would have to cut spending to account for the lost tax revenue in Christchurch, but that is far better than borrowing to fund it.

And removing interest free loans is NOT "cutting education" it's shifting the burden back to the people who chose to study - Less people will chose to study but they're mostly the ones who will drop out anyway.

Actually my concern is more on the fact that government has been trying to get out of it, I am one of those people who believed ending free education in NZ was a terrible idea, perhaps John Key and Sir Roger Douglas and all their government cronies should pay back their free education to NZ, they didn't mind it when they held out their hands and got their share of NZ's bank (which they later sold through insider trading schemes to their close friends and put NZ further into debt - ironic that NZ is now owned by an Australian Bank aka Westpac).

But in all seriousness, if you believe National will rebuild Christchurch you must be joking, if he raises taxes he will hurt economic recovery and hurt the poor even further than he already has with his lovely GST hike, as for actual rebuilding it will be a few heritage buildings that are saved and flash new apartments for the rich, the lower middle class will have to sell up and leave the city.*

Personally I hope National looses the election and gets turfed out, we are in heavy debt and all along Labour didn't want to cut and 'hope' for miracles like catching up with Australia, but knowing popularism people will believe John Key, expect higher crime, more poor, and 10,000+ more educated people leaving to Australia. I shouldn't laugh but if you believe the Nats will do anything positive economically here..you should read up where John Key gets his ideas from... the failed Meril Lynch that had to beg for a bailout and screwed its fellow Americans.

*That is if the developers grand new visions don't go by economic reality.