Don Brash speech on New Zealand
 

I don't like him much but he did raise some good points:
Link.

Re: Don Brash speech on New Zealand
 

Yet the Nats are determined to leave their grey-power voters' state pension age at 65, more-or-less the same age as when that was in line with average life expectancy. And almost everyone is dependent on the state pension, because nobody (including employers) was encouraged to save for themselves. People see it as an entitlement "because I paid my taxes" (whether or not they did, and whether or not they paid enough to cover their share of national expenses during working years + 25 years of state super - unlikely in most cases).

But who's gonna be around to pay for it?

Oh, hold on, I know! They can chase up those nickels and dimes from the wicked overseas student loan borrowers! Watch out if this trend towards blaming "foreign influences" for national problems continues... it sounds a lot like a headline out of North Korea or Venezuela :lol:

Re: Don Brash speech on New Zealand
 

Will be interesting to see the effects, not just on government revenues but to see what kind of draw it has on New Zealands workforce. If you calculated the total number of people who will retire and the rate it'll be a pretty big ask for companies to find replacements at the same rate.

Re: Don Brash speech on New Zealand
 

Agree - it's worrying enough to be a big discussion point even in countries like the US, UK, Germany, Japan. Yet none of those places have anything like the NZ diaspora of skilled working age people, nor the complete lack of retirement investment.

Re: Don Brash speech on New Zealand
 

I thought the Don Brash speech was great. I wouldn't say I was a huge fan of his but he is the only politician really trying to bring some of these issues to the fore (with National a bunch of lying toads IMHO and Labour absolutely uselss). It was a pity it got so little media coverage and was practically ignored.

There are huge problems ahead for NZ :

- the ageing population is a biggie. I am so annoyed that National totally refuse to even consider raising the retirement age (even up to 67 or 68 would be a step in the right direction). The retirement issue is huge - I worked out that if my OH and I go back to Australia in 20 years we will have around 6x more in Australian super compared to Kiwisaver bearing in mind that Aussie actually encourage savings by only taxing super @ 15%.

- paying for Christchurch earthquake & costs of potential future earthquakes
With EQC now zilch and reinsurance, as I understand it, for a further 2 events only we are stuffed going forward. It is only a matter of time before there is a big one in Wellington. Again the assumption is that the GenX and GenY taxpayers will pick up the bill for all this.

- combined public & private debt being 85% of GDP (at PIGS levels)

- continued brain drain to Australia for above reasons and reduced skilled migration into NZ from UK & Europe going forward due to strength of NZD

It's not a pretty sight. The underlying assumption by the politicians is that Gen X and Gen Y tax payers will just fork out for all this through the paying of higher taxes to support continued weak policy decisions by the Beehive with successive Govts only focused on short-termism.

All the above reasons are why we are joining the disenfranchised and the permanent brain drain early next year, selling up in NZ (whilst house prices are still holding up reasonably well) and moving back to Australia.
I strongly believe there is a better long term future there and the propsect of National getting re-elected for a further 3 years of power - whilst doing nothing for the country and Don-Key just on his own personal ego trip - is highly depressing.