I see yet another bunch of public service jobs is being eliminated - 60 jobs are to go in biosecurity because the volume of work is currently down, due to recession. (Great post on this at The Standard.)
Now I've always understood that one of the very few ways the gummint can make a real difference in a recession is by (a) employing more people - so cheap insulation is a really good idea - and (b) keeping on the people they already employ.
But no, it seems Mr Key and Co know better - they believe it's more important to slash public spending by cutting programmes and axing jobs all over the show.
Quite how this helps, I'm not at all sure, because all those public servants were spending the money they earnt buying things and paying taxes will now have to stop all that and instead get by on the less-than-subsistence level income provided by their former employers (if they can get it, that is - two-income families are the norm, but if one becomes unemployed the other is pretty unlikely to get a cracker).
Isn't that exactly what helped make the Great Depression so bad???
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Anne, you need to do some reading up on economics, because it is obvious from your blog post that you have no clue at all about the need for cutting government spending.
ReplyDeleteIt would help, numerica, if you actually put forward an argument instead of just having a go.
ReplyDeleteAnne makes a perfectly good point. Governments all over the world including ours are making investments during the recession as a way of offsetting some of the effects of (and in fact fighting) the recession. Carrying a few government jobs is as valid an investment as any and compares perfectly with paying private companies to ensure private homeowners to have insulation.
In fact it also makes sense in the longer term. Sooner or later the economy will recover and skilled workers will be needed. The government can save money on training in the future by investing now. This argument could be extended. If this government really wants to offset the worst effects of this recession AND ensure future reductions in government spending then they should invest hugely in training NOW. This will ensure a supply of trained workers when the economy recovers and help offset some of the effects of unemployment.