Dom Post on Greens plan to print money

The Dom Post editorial:

New Zealand should have learned from bitter experience that it cannot shield itself from the vagaries of the international market. Labour and National tried that in the 1970s and early 1980s and ran up debts that took a generation to repay.

New Zealand is a small trading nation a long way from its markets. The only way for it to survive and prosper is to be flexible, adaptable and resilient. If the balance of economic power in the world is shifting, there is no use pretending it is not.

The decline in the value of the US dollar and the euro is a reflection of the decline in the relative worth of the American and European economies.

The attempts by American and some European policy-makers to reboot their economies by printing money are acts of political desperation.

It makes no sense for a country which has weathered the global financial crisis better than most of its Western counterparts to emulate their risky tactics. Printing money – or quantitative easing as it is technically known – fuels inflation, devalues assets and reduces purchasing power. Once started it is difficult to stop, as Germans discovered in the 1920s when wheelbarrows replaced wallets as the most efficient means of carting cash.

The Greens plan will see shares in Mitre 10 and Xerox increase!

It is interesting that Labour has not ruled out printing money also – just that they don’t want their fingerprints on it. The summary is:

• Greens will force the Reserve Bank to print more money, driving up prices for all NZers
• Labour will amend the RBA, to encourage the Reserve Bank to print more money, driving up prices for all NZers