Cullen tries to blame Key for demise of Merril Lynch

WTF? Cullen is such a twat it isn't funny. His questions in the Owen Glenn appearance last week were bad enough but this...

"Given his background and the fact that Merrill Lynch has just gone belly up, I would have thought New Zealanders should draw the conclusion that you wouldn't put a man like that in charge of the New Zealand economy," Cullen said.

R

Hilarious.
You could perhaps argue that all those acolytes who claim that "Key has run a global finance operation so can run the economy" should perhaps consider the very different risk profiles and implications between the global finance world and a political economy.
But that would be a rather average soundbite I suppose

Cullen - an economics guru - has managed NZ into a recession and we've also slid down the OECD ladder during his tenure... Sounds like a failure to me if yuo want to use his flimsy style of logic on Key.

He's just being a cunt as usual - throwing mud for the people who'll read it and wont know any better than to just lap it up like idiots.

R

I think Cullen's problem is he tried to convert it into hardhittingg-soundbite-for-the-people styles and is just useless at doing that! And comes across like a spiteful idiot when he's far from it (idiot at least)...

I still think he's done a good job of handling our economy - cyclical nature means there SHOULD be regular recessions so long as they're minor and technical-only in nature as this one seems to be. His counter-cyclical impulses seems about right. Given the prevailing global winds we're doing OK.

Are you seriously trying to claim he is personally responsible for not stopping a global economic crisis ?

Read my post.. I said "if yuo want to use his flimsy style of logic.."

Cullen wants to tar Key with an event which cannot feasibly be linked to him anymore than it can to an anchovy on a pizza so I applied his own logic on NZs position.

The OECD slump can however be attributed at least in in part to the performance of the govt and Cullen in particular.

R

points to Cullen for trying to find a sound bite but ultimately a fail

Ha ha.. for someone making calls on other's business abilities it might come as a shock that Treasury papers released today show that Cullen brokered the rail system deal and paid $hundreds of millions too much for it - even after Treasury had valued it.

Treasury officials audited the rail business in 2006/7 (and with outside auditors) - valuing it at around 60c/share compared to the actual share price of $2.80. Toll paid $1.65 a share to buy it in the first place and had done little to improve the value - and much of it could be attributed to the subsidies given by the govt. I.e. we paid extra for Tolls improvements which we paid for in the first place. Essentially we've paid for them twice and the rail network is still utterly crap.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/treasury-papers-show-government-was-sucker-punched-over-rail-deal-35245

R

well technically Merrill didnt go belly up of course... but yeh I get disappointed when I hear Labour resorting to this sort of thing....

Tho I must admit I did link Merrils current woes with Key in my head lol knowing it full well not to be true. In some ways it shows that Key is the smart man for getting in and getting out with a pocket full of pretty green.

Except if you'd actually READ the papers instead of the Nazi Business Review summary, you'd realise there was a massive range of valuations, and the one they've quoted was one of the lowest

I did, which is why I didn't use any whole price nor refer to the lowest quote mentioned.

The comment about the subsidies paid is true no matter what the amount paid for the company.

R

its a much better strategy in aligning Key with currency speculation and portraying him as a gambler who will take risks with our countrys finance.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10532493

although it also could equally be argued that a successful currency trader knows how to quantify and manage risk...

but yeh throwing the 'dangerous risky speculator' tag is good politics imo.

Amusingly I remember Michael Cullen being described as New Zealand's worst problem gambler when Rod Donald was making observations on his superannuation fund.