Dave Cameron (March, 18) prompts me to emulate Rosemary Penwarden's example and write another open letter to 'Covey' (aka Covid-19). Here goes.
Hello Covey. You can wipe away that grin right now. This ain't a fan letter. But before you self-destruct, it's only decent to give you credit for one achievement, even though we shouldn't have had to wait for your threats first.
Your ugly mug so terrified our politicians that they finally resorted to ordering our Reserve Bank to concoct a massive vaccination for the big banks – injecting a whole $47 billion into their reserves and just by punching a few figures into a computer. A modern miracle. But, hang on, that's nearly four times the amount budgeted for the rest of us. Only $12 billion for business and beneficiary relief, and even that is borrowed on the debt markets for us and our mokopuna to service.
Lovely for the banks, the "Super Fund" and other investors now rushing to buy the government bonds in order to maintain their Wall Street credit ratings and to keep on financing the fossil fuel industries.
All the same, Covey, you've done it. You've finally convinced the general public that our central bank can produce any necessary funds, something we Socreds (that's Social Credit to you) have tried for decades to do. Even former Rangitikei MP, Bruce Beetham, failed to get his Reserve Bank Amendment Bill past the scorn of both sides of Parliament. Okay – you've got the message. Time to disappear for good - our good.
HEATHER MARION SMITH Gonville
Slash red tape
In Laurel Stowell's article (March 19) Mike Cranston is quoted as saying he congratulated the Reserve Bank on lowering the OCR. He also mentions that the Government should stall up and coming regulation.
It is certainly easier to make a business successful with low interest rates. At Davos this year there was conversation that Donald Trumps success in stimulating the USA economy was in no small part because he slashed regulation, and there seemed to be some sort of consensus that it was probably the more important part.
All people doing business understand the costs of over regulation, instead of being able to get on with the job they have to spend months and years fighting for consents. Trumps slashing meant the consents that had taken two years were being processed in six months.
