bob said:
over $200K lost? if this had happened the other way FB you would be yelling from high on top of a soap box
You are missing the point. A planted press release designed to make the NZDF look wasteful coming out within 24 hours of a notorious slasher and burner being put in charge of a spending "review" to my mind clearly signals the government intends to take axe to defence spending.
It is of course part of a wider PR offensive from this government ahead of what will probably be catastrophic cuts in a black budget from the dismal Bill English, in which the mistake of the 1990's National government will be repeated.
Let's be honest - National's numbers on tax cuts don't add up. They simply cannot give the sort of tax cuts their rich mates want without a deficit blow out. At the very start of a fragile recovery, the ultra dry and orthodox English is therefore clearly going to slash and/or cap all government spending and transfer wealth via a tax cut from middle and low income Kiwis to the richest New Zealanders in another attempt at the long discredited trickle down. We all know that history tells us tax cuts will be pocketed by business by way of increased profits and dividends to largely offshore owners. Slashing government spending, along with interest rate hikes, will kill off the nascent recovery before it really even starts and we will flounder back into a W shaped recession just as Australia and the rest of the world shake off the current recession and start growing again.
It is a repeat of the failed policies of the nineties, by the same people who brought us the income gap with Australia in the first place. You can forgive them a mistake first time round. Second time and they should be put on trial.
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