Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Miscellania 2: Politics Edition

So the Black Caps are off to Zimbabwe after all. No Right Turn thinks the government should be ordering them to come back, but what does it really matter anyway? It would be a good political statement for them to boycott the tour, but if it's going to be costing someone (either the public or NZ Cricket) millions of dollars, is it worth it just to make a statement that will have no real impact on what's happening over there?

And, (via every political blog in the country) Labour have released their student loan policy; no interest charged for anyone staying in New Zealand. Sounds reasonable to me, but the right wing bloggers are up in arms about it, pointing out that ultimately it will only increase the level of debt further. And they're right, it will cost the taxpayer a lot of money, so wouldn't it be better to spend that money on more adequately funding the universities? That way students have to borrow less in the first place, and the goverment isn't giving out interest free loans. I'm no economist, but I think that works out cheaper in the long run for everyone...
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2 comments:

Joel said...

I agree about the student loan policy. The money would be better spent on funding universities directly. Also, there would be no reason for everyone who attends university *not* to borrow as much as possible, because anyone who is smart and can be bothered could invest it... for as long as they want too, since they are paying no interest.

Also a comment made by Don Brash shows is inability at maths: "It'd be cheaper to give every New Zealander $1000 to stay in the country" ~= 4 billion dollars, somehow it doesn't work.

9:57 am
Jon said...

Yeah, it just doesn't make much sense. It does bother me a little to see the way National supporters have reacted to the policy though... all their criticisms can be applied to National's student loan policy as well (although to a lesser degree).

8:33 pm

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