Economic illiterate claims to be a politician
Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton said the power company profits should be returned to consumers.
“Mighty River Power recorded a profit of $235 million in the last six months of last year,” he said.
“That on its own is enough for every household in New Zealand to get a cheque for nearly $200.”
Jim Anderton quoted in an article in the NZ Herald concerning the Government’s desire for SOEs to improve their performance. Yet again Anderton is displaying a degree of economic illiteracy that is beyond belief. If there were no profits how would the company invest for the future, how would the state investment have any value, what programmes effectively funded by dividends would have to be cut.
The fact that this economic illiterate was once Deputy Prime Minister beggars belief.
Mr Anderton claims to be a politician.
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Far too many businesses like that.
Indeed, some so called iconic companies began then
Didn’t Jim own a business that made supermarket trolleys ? It was a protected market, they made (so it is alleged) over-priced and shoddy trolleys. As soon as the tariff protection was lifted the business disappeared, but Jim was in politics by then. To be fair, trhere were quite a few NZ businesses like that.
Normally corner dairy owners have a better grasp of basic economic facts, perhaps his dairy failed!
Apparently he owned a corner dairy in his younger days…
I always found it weird that he was said to have ‘business experience’
He was also in charge of drugs policy.. gasp
That said the new crop aren’t any better
I think his economic illiteracy shows him to be the prefect politician. Quoth Sowell: “The first lesson of economics is scarcity … The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
Ed,
I agree – he is playing to the gallery and fostering the business is evil mentality which is so prevalent in NZ
And of course leaving aside the fact the MRP IS already owned by the government, and therefore the profits already “belong” to the bureaucrac y in Wellington. Indeed, the power profits wouldn’t be so high oif the last government hadn’t extracted large “special” dividends in the past. Jim isn’t quite so illiterate (although foolish enough) as a man well aware of the the fact that such rhetoric plays well in certain quarters, and that those same quarters are far more economically illiterate than he is.