If you go read up on the history of central banks using interest rate hikes to generate recessions to tame inflation its pretty damn consistent that they often end up overshooting and making things worse than they needed to be to achieve the same result.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Just to add to that, im not much of an economist or anything but my understanding is there's 2 main levers that can be used - interest rates (monetary policy?) and tax rates (fiscal policy).

Its become orthodox to use the former & ignore the latter, partly because of voter backlash & it can be a bit complicated. But as far as I understand it given sovereign governments can print money & borrow when things are bad to generate economic activity the flipside would be to tax it back out and save it to reduce the supply of money chasing goods.

Some folks argue that would be a tidier way of doing things, who knows?!

https://www.slowboring.com/p/tax-increases-are-the-best-cure-for https://www.corporateknights.com/category-finance/seven-ways-to-tackle-inflation-without-raising-interest-rates/

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

We can't do that because tAxAtIoN iS tHeFt.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

She said Wellington was particularly affected by government job cuts, and the flow-on effects to other businesses.

Many government job losses are not in Wellington, but the highest concentration is in Wellington, so the flow on impact of government job cuts as well as general cost cutting likely has a huge impact across the country.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean what do they expect? Literally everything is going up in price, Mortgage rates, insurance, power, food, internet etc. Unless you’re already well off I can imagine a lot of people are just paying to survive right now, let alone having money for discretionary spending. Not to mention we’re supposed to save and invest for our futures as well..

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's like they expect the orange to endlessly give juice when squeezed.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Things such as changing the sick leave rules would help ease the pressure on businesses, or simplifying the Holidays Act.

"While the government doesn't have any money they have other levers they can use to remove red tape."

Sounds like Retail NZ wants them to erode worker rights and protections as well, I’m sure those retail workers will appreciate that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Yeah, saw that and had a micro-rage.

That kind of bullshit is what makes me vindictively reduce my retail spending.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Oh, is that the sound of a free market correction?

I get where you're coming from, Retail NZ and the sector they represent (which is not all retailers of course) always come off as incredibly self absorbed and uncaring imo, particularly when they comment on employment stuff. Bunch of small business tyrants.

But that lets the govt off the hook a bit I think. A lot of the article is Wellington focused, and talks about the link to the job cuts in the public sector and the way that's been done. They've actively cratered things on top of a downturn that was already happening.