Today's news headlines read, "Massive GDP fall: NZ in deep recession - ‘worst since 1991′". What's the cause? The economist who can best claim to have predicted the GDP numbers that came out today is John Gibson at Waikato University - one of our country's, and one the world's, best. In 2021 at the height of NZ's Covid Elimination Strategy, Gibson warned of its severe consequences on GDP. However, Covid Minister Hipkins marshalled all of his allies in the Main Stream Media to run the line that his virus strategy went hand-in-hand with great economic outcomes. The politically biased academics who he cynically used to back him up were mainly based at Otago University, where Hipkin's mate, Grant Robertson, now works as Vice-Chancellor, despite not having an academic pedigree - other than having drunk in Dunedin student pubs. Gibson argued the lives saved in 2020-21 due to lock-downs would ultimately be out-weighed by lives lost due to us becoming a poorer country. He was right. Hipkins & Otago's academics were wrong. Today's GDP figures are even more proof.
The GDP track that Gibson projected in 2021 in his Figure 2 below is the GDP track that NZ has been on since that time. In fact its worse. That loss of GDP has meant the likes of Dunedin hospital has been delayed in terms of rebuilding. That loss of GDP has meant Pharmac has not been able to buy more and better drugs to save lives. NZ's GDP per capita has been falling for two years now. The number of lives lost due us being poorer now exceeds the number of lives saved during the lockdowns. In personal correspondence, John Gibson wrote to me saying, "No-one from officialdom nor the media has ever asked me about it", regards his NZ Association of Economists presentation below. His paper was peer-reviewed and published. Labour's current leader Hipkins made sure the views of Gibson were never aired - never picked up by the Main Stream Media outlets that were fully under Hipkins and Ardern's control during those times. I should know - they turned their attack dogs onto DownToEarth.Kiwi when we dared to make the assertion the vaccines had been ordered late - now a proven fact - as published in the Australian Government's official report into its Covid response. That Hipkins invited the Otago academic medics into the government's inner fold and helped them get wall-to-wall media attention, shafting the likes of far higher ranked researchers like Gibson is something worthy of a suppress-free-speech-at-all costs ugly dictator.
Maybe you think this kind of Blog should not be backward looking - but working out the causes of the economic, cultural and social divisions that have arisen in NZ is the first step in working out how to solve them. Although my view is the new Coalition should've gone way harder in cutting the size of government, measured both by spending and regulation, in its first year in office, aiming for an "expansionary fiscal contraction", like Denmark and Ireland pulled off, there's no question at all as to who caused this mess we are in - his name is The Disgraced Former Covid Minister Chris Hipkins - he's an embarrassment and should go lock himself up. Now he's telling Kiwis the GDP figures today are the Coalition's fault. Has the man no shame?
Sources: