Political thread.how is your government handling the recession.?

[stubbornforgey]

We have been all forced into a very serious situation and the crisis will worsen unless the top officials get off thier asses and do something.
What is your government doing ..?

In NZ we had just elected a new Prime Minister and so far his ministers are doing a great job under his strict guidence...for instance..

His new social devolpment minister cancelled a few tax payer funded events as she saw no real reason why these 2 day conferences should cost something up to 200,000$s.
Our finance minister has lowered the interest rates and has cut mortgage rates
by 5%..doesnt seem like much but its a help.
We have been given tax cuts and those of us in the kiwisaver scheme will be better off by an extra 18$ a week in our pay packets.
Petrol prices have been slashed down to 1.30$ per litre.
All the top financiers are now calling on our power companies, telecommunication services etc to also help with the recession by demanding they lower thier profit margin and also to lower thier prices.
Food prices are falling dramatically, especially the essential food..
meat and veges prices however still remain a little too high.
There is much more that was passed into urgency last night..
so yeah..we are happy.


by the way..'I didn't even vote for him'

[Rodus]

Here in the UK we seem to have a Prime Minister who think's he's saving the world :confused:
We should be having an increase in borrowing, a drop in interest rates that the banks don't really want to pass on to the mortgage holders but will happily hit the savers with. Basically we're stuffed here, unemployment rising, manufacturing bombing, it's not good.

edited to add: I didn't vote for ours either.

[Kemal]

Kiwisaver? That's the actual name of the program? Oh man, that's great! Kiwisaver!

Anyway our government is well on the way to rewarding the failure of our no-account auto industry. It is really more of a gigantic bribe for the autoworker's union. If it passes, I will be expecting a free car, and if I don't get one I intend to steal one GM car, one Ford and one Chrysler off of the lot.

The .gov has also doled out hundreds of billions of dollars to banks and lenders. This makes slightly more sense than the auto industry bribe out... er, bailout, because banks lend money to everyone else and are the engine of the economy. However, the government is not making sure that the money is being used as intended. Basically we have no idea what they are doing with our money. That is an admission by the GAO, which is itself a government agency. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122891702630494623.html

[The_Return]

Here in Canada, the two-year old we've elected are whining, arguing and slapping each other around...somehow, it seems everyone in Ottawa forgot all about the economy going to shit as soon as Harper put out his fiscal update :rolleyes:

[stubbornforgey]

Kiwisaver,
the government kick start the worker off with 1000$'s bank acc.
the employee sign an agreement with the employer [its not compulsary}
The employer will match dollar for dollar the amount you wish to deducted into
your KS savings account, which also collects interest.
The govt pays the employer an annual fee
and awards them by giving them tax credit
on thier businesses.

Not all businesses are in the scheme.


It was introduced as an incensitive for new zealanders to save.
We are our worst enemy.
By the way, you don't have to be a Nzder to be in the scheme...
its just called that.
Australia has something similar.