Now Key wants to raid the Cullen Fund

Scoopit!

Following on from Adam’s post of yesterday on Cullen wanting to direct Cullen Fund investment, we now have John Key very disappointingly going down the same path. He should know better.
David Farrar writes on the key announcement, perhaps more in sorrow than anger.

Bernard Hickey talks about the issue here:-

It is possible to understand why both Cullen and Key have suggested this, but the problem is that they are potentially opening the door to directing investment into ‘political projects’, backdoor nationalisation of the private sector, inflated values of NZ assets as over time the fund gets bigger, but the opportunities for investment may not be there. Consequently in seeking to solve one problem, the lack of capital to invest, they may well create several more.

As Hickey notes, what happens if a demagogic populist such as Winston Peters got himself into a position to influence investments for example.

No this is not a good idea.