Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andrew Dickens: We're all feeling the pinch, especially the Government

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Andrew Dickens: We're all feeling the pinch, especially the Government · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're broke. The half year the
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  Speaker 1: government fiscal update shows we're still in debt and the
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  Speaker 1: debt is getting bigger. So we're broke. Not enough money,
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  Speaker 1: everything's more expensive, so it's off to the money lender
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  Speaker 1: before the bailiffs come in and sell everything. Sounds like
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  Speaker 1: a lot of households around me. Ideally, of course we'll
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  Speaker 1: be in surplus. That would mean we have raised enough
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: money to actually pay our way. Then we'd have more
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  Speaker 1: money than cost. But we aren't, and the possibility of
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  Speaker 1: that happening has got further away. So make no mistake.
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  Speaker 1: Deficit as bad, but surplus actually that's only just okay,
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  Speaker 1: that's how bad we are, and we're getting more and
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  Speaker 1: more into debt. The government has a debt to GDP
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  Speaker 1: ratio of forty one point eight percent. It used to
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  Speaker 1: be twenty nine and it's forecast to rise to over
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  Speaker 1: forty six percent before it starts going down. But you
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  Speaker 1: can just say we're broke, simple, easy, let's put another
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  Speaker 1: lens on it. Though. The New Zealand government has posted
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  Speaker 1: a surplus seventeen times since nineteen eighty. That's seventeen times
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  Speaker 1: and forty five years. So the governments have, as being broken,
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  Speaker 1: had to run off to the money lenders sixty two
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  Speaker 1: percent of the time since nineteen eighty. Being broke is
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  Speaker 1: our normal. And if I applied the surplus deficit debt
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  Speaker 1: ratio to my own finances, then I've been broke most
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  Speaker 1: of my adult life. I mean, hello, who hasn't had
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  Speaker 1: a debt to equity ratio of ninety five percent in
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  Speaker 1: their lives? So if you look at that at that way,
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  Speaker 1: it start so bad. And we're still on the right
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  Speaker 1: half of the indebted nations list because everyone's broke. I
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  Speaker 1: think sometimes we're a bit naive when we demand surpluses
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  Speaker 1: about just how hard it is to do. If you
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  Speaker 1: listen to Stephen Joyce on Heather's show yesterday, he said
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  Speaker 1: government books are hard to turn like a supertanker. As
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  Speaker 1: he said yesterday, it can take up to a decade
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  Speaker 1: to go from deficit to surplus. But some of us think, oh,
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  Speaker 1: a few public service cuts and cuts to benefits and
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  Speaker 1: we'll be tickety boot. Our fiscal crisis is far more
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  Speaker 1: fundamental than that, and that the problem is we don't
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  Speaker 1: make enough money in this world to fix it. We
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: need to make more money in the world, so we
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  Speaker 1: have more tax revenue, so we can then afford the
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  Speaker 1: good stuff and the necessary stuff, and so we don't
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  Speaker 1: have to have debt. So my question to you is,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: what are you doing there? Standing here listening to this.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Get to work, make more money for more from Early
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talk Set
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: B from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.