Tuesday 24 August 2010

Savings working group

Matt Nolan at TVHE is nicer to the Savings working group than I would be. From stuff.co.nz we learn that
Mr English said the group would have a wide brief to consider how to improve national savings.

"Improving the level of national savings is the next step in the Government's programme for tilting the economy towards savings and exports,'' he said.
Well if Mr English is really worried about national savings then why doesn't he get the government to save more? But more to the point, Why is he worried about national savings? What is the problem here? What is the "right" level of savings? Are people not saving the optimal amount? If not, why not? Are they just stupid? Can one not ask:
So if the main justification for compulsory super the savings working group is that “people are too stupid to save for themselves”, how can we say that a government working group made up of these same people will be able to determine the “right” level of savings?
Or is it that the working groups knows what is good for us, whether we know it (or want it) or not?

Then there is the question of why we want be tilting the economy towards exports. As I have argued before Imports good; exports bad. This sounds all too mercantilist for me.

1 comment:

Matt Nolan said...

I was nice about the people in the working group - I didn't say anything about the politicians and the tripe they talk about ;-)