Andrea Green in Good Neighbour's community garden in Welcome Bay. Photo/file
Andrea Green in Good Neighbour's community garden in Welcome Bay. Photo/file
The benefits from growing your own veges, boosting the economy and a grateful hospital patient all feature in today's letters to the editor.
Thanks to hospital 'angels'
"Over the last five months, I have had four trips to the Tauranga Hospital. Each time I have been in for five tosix days and in that time I have been taken care of in the best possible way. "From the ER to CCU to 2c and 2b, I cannot thank you girls for all the help you have given me and the others in the room with me. "You girls work so hard to make our stay comfortable and get us on the mend again. "I wish to thank the nurses and doctors for the hard work they do, they go out of their way to make us comfortable. It's time the government looked after our doctors and nurses better - after all, they are the ones that keep us alive. "Thanks again girls, you are the best there is. You are our special angels."
"In regards to "Vege plots popular as prices climb" (News, October 16). Renting garden plots and growing your own produce is not only helpful from a cost perspective, but also increasingly associated with better health. "As an activity in itself, gardening can improve physical and psychological health whilst reducing intake of processed food. People with type two diabetes and other cardio-vascular diseases are encouraged to eat "real" food and reduce the amount of food that is processed. The last time we looked, there were no labels on home-grown produce. "Professor Grant Scofield, an advocate of real food, is speaking in Tauranga during November's World Diabetes Month. For more information call 07 571 3422."
Debbie Cunliffe Diabetes Nurse Educator/Manager, Diabetes Help Tauranga
Money supply
"Your correspondent Bryan Gould misunderstands economics when he suggests that we print money to boost the economy (Opinion, October 17). "The only time this can work without causing inflation is when there is lots of excess capacity - ie underemployed manpower, equipment, land - which just needs funding to bring it into production. In other words, it worked in the Great Depression, but it will not work in New Zealand today. "Mr Gould cites the quantitative easing following the GFC as a model. That was an example of authorities acting to stop the money supply collapsing, as struggling banks called up good loans to help bail them out of bad ones. The financial system had a blowout, and pumping money in flat out kept it somewhat inflated instead of collapsing completely. "Today, more money chasing the same resources, goods and services would just push up the price of everything and we would be no better off. In fact, those on fixed incomes would be much worse off. That is why the Reserve Bank tries to manage the money supply so carefully. This was high school economics as far back as the 1970s." (Abridged)
