this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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Does bad economic news make more headlines than good news? (www.rnz.co.nz)
submitted 9 months ago by Dave to c/newzealand
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Stories about surging inflation, successive food price rises and more Kiwis in arrears topped bulletins and filled front pages last year. But recent news about slowing inflation, cheaper food and rising business confidence hasn't had the same impact. How come?

Within the last month, surveys finding business confidence rising and food price inflation falling for the fourth consecutive month made few headlines.

But the bad news still does.

Last Thursday, TVNZ’s 1 News told viewers “New Zealanders are getting behind on payments”.

“More than 400,000 people fell behind on credit payments and the number of mortgage accounts past due exceeded 20,000,” it reported.

This was also based in the latest monthly report from credit agency Centrix, showing 4000 more Kiwis in arrears than a month earlier.

But last year more people were in arrears - and in 1 News’ own report this week Centrix explained the season was the reason for the latest modest monthly uptick.

“People tend to spend money and incur credit prior to Christmas. And it then comes back to bite them early in the new year,” he explained.

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[–] liv 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think your plan (the first one ha ha not the smoking) is a good one, and totally achievable.

To afford it, MSD could switch their means testing assessments to once per tax year (instead of using two random overlapping 52 week periods per year which don't coincide with the tax year). That way they could use IRD data.

[–] Dave 2 points 9 months ago

I can think of heaps of problems with that method, but nothing strong enough that I don't think a working group couldn't sort out answers to them.

Personally I just want to raise taxes, pay UBI that counteracts that raise, and get rid of WINZ (or more likely, a smaller, more specialised agency). Means testing super is kinda moving away from that goal.

But we probably need young people to vote if we want to stop old people making all the laws.