Public service bosses called in as Government accounts plunge deeper into the red
Former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has alleged there is a $20 billion hole in the Government’s revenue as a result of the weakening economy.
Winston says there’s a $20billion dollar budget hole and State Bosses were frantically summoned in panic – this is the same Winston who claimed Harry Tam helped COVID-infected women enter Northland from Auckland…
Winston Peters apologises to Harry Tam over Northland allegation
Former deputy prime minister Winston Peters has apologised to Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam for incorrectly associating him with the Northland Delta outbreak.
On October 9, Peters told Newshub Nation during a live interview that Tam brought the two women at the centre of the Northland outbreak to Northland via Auckland.
Tam sent a legal letter asking for the record to be corrected and for Peters to apologise, which he has now done.
In a statement Peters said he “gave an interview to Newshub on the issue of people who had crossed the Auckland alert level 3 border improperly using essential worker credentials.
“I therefore apologise to Mr Tam for naming him as the Mongrel Mob affiliate who entered Northland with others, causing a two-week level 3 lockdown,” Peters said.
…of course there is a severe economic jolt coming, the Reserve Bank Governor has been ratcheting up interest rates and this Government has chosen to borrow to get us through Covid rather than tax the rich, so the jolt is coming, is it $20Billion?
Ask Harry Tam.
Look, if National and Winston are right and they truly have found a $20billion budget hole, how come the Market less than an hour after those statements rushed to buy Government Bonds with all the poise of meth addicts on a bender?
As Bernard Hickey devastatingly points out...
fund managers bid $1.037 billion to buy $500 million worth of Goverment bonds for an average yield of 4.80%⁴. That strong bidding kept the yield flat in secondary financial markets:
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- at the same time as a global bond selloff that saw yields on the bonds deemed the safest in the world (US Treasuries) rose 20 basis points to a record-high for 2023 of 4.19% because of actual fears of an actual fiscal deterioration in the United States;
- at a time when annual inflation in New Zealand is still reported to be 6.0%; and,
- at a time when there is a real prospect of a hung Parliament within nine weeks.
These fund managers were so keen to lend their money to an institution allegedly “in financial panic mode”⁵ that they gladly handed it over to Treasury’s Debt Management Office, knowing they were receiving a negative return after the corrosive effects of inflation on the buying power of that money. In other words, these professional investors were so confident they would get repaid and that there was no actual fiscal crisis that:
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- they were willing to essentially hand over a gift to taxpayers of the difference between the yield of 4.8% and the inflation rate;
- they were willing not to receive any compensation for the risk they took, or the time they don’t have the money; and,
- they were willing to hand that money over knowing the Treasury⁶ would come back to them next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, to borrow another $500 million per week.
That bidding yesterday included $220 million worth of bids for $75 million worth of 30 year bonds. Those fund managers were so confident about the Government’s finances they bid nearly three times the amount available, knowing they would probably be retired or dead before the Government had to repay it.
…Bernard is right. If the Corporate money men whose job it is to analyse Government economic reliability believed any truth to what is effectively gossip, there is no way you would have seen demand like that!
The people whose job it is to ascertain the worthiness of a Government’s finances didn’t believe a word of what Nicola Willis or Winston Peters were saying.
While we are considering Labour’s list of budget blow outs, let’s just all remember how bad National were at it…
…National spends big too, all Government’s do, pretending Labour is somehow worse is simply absurd.
Labour spent big to fend off a once in a century pandemic, they get cut some grace for that.
The Newsmedia should have ignored this, but they are addicted to the hunt now as we get into election year and rather than actual journalism, their newsrooms are taking news directly from social media click bait.
There is going to be a lot of this bullshit level of political journalism in NZ for the next 3 months.
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