Letters: Reserve Bank’ cruel tactics to curb inflation; Newshub’s closure bad news for democracy; David Seymour and schoolchildren strikes

Newshub anchors Mike McRoberts, Samantha Hayes and Rebecca Wright leave Wednesday's meeting that confirmed the news service would close. Photo / Alex Burton

Cruel way to tame inflation

With consumption running hot and inflation rising, the Reserve Bank is required to remove money from the market and create a recession.

This they have achieved, however it has been done most unfairly as the only people suffering are those with mortgages or other debt.

The overseas hotels are doing roaring business, the airports are bursting at the seams, as those without debt are claiming their 6 per cent returns in the bank and enjoying life.

So to spread the pain more evenly there must be a better way to take money out of the economy and cool inflation.

If the cost of debt could be kept around 3-4 per cent the productive sector and the country could prosper (and perhaps a little less profits for the banks).

The two fairest ways to remove money from the market would be a temporary increase in tax, especially on the higher incomes, or making KiwiSaver compulsory and at a considerably higher rate.

Recessions and unemployment seem a bizarre, archaic and a cruel way to tame inflation.

Vince West, Milford.

Public service shortfall

Your correspondents who use terms like “bloated bureaucracy” and “hiring spree” must be ignorant of the fact that the number of public servants per capita in Aotearoa New Zealand (51.6 per 1000 people in 2020) was nearly 20 per cent lower than the OECD average of 63.3 public servants per 1000 people.

The rise in numbers under the Labour government merely addressed a shortfall that had existed for years and now it appears we are going back to shortages again.

Bryce Bartley, Auckland CBD.

News cuts

What a sad and scary day for democracy in New Zealand.

Our two main go-to news channels are now effectively either wiped out or virtually neutered, leaving the news door open via all forms of social media to all forms of crazy, left, right, and who-knows-what views to be freely espoused to all and sundry.

Given we are already witnessing a dramatic acceleration in the use and scope of these forums it is both scary and alarming to consider there will be only a very limited ability available to counter and expose the fake and outrageous tripe that will no doubt very quickly become the norm.

Are we now but one step away from a government being in a position to set itself up as the only pan-country news service or equally as horrific, an American-based media company re-entering the New Zealand market and assailing us with their weird views on the world?

While both Newshub and TVNZ have their critics, and rightly so, retaining our present news services is light years ahead of the alternatives.

Bary Williams, Sunnyhills.

Moving wallpaper

The axing of Newshub and such thoughtful and worthwhile programmes as Sunday and Fair Go, to be replaced by moving wallpaper, is indicative of the dumbing down of our society. Taylor Swift and her millions may be mildly interesting but hardly merit featuring as a main news item.

In adverts these days three words frequently used to attract buyers are “quick, easy, and fun”. Unfortunately life is not always quick, easy, and fun and to expect it to be so can only lead to disappointment, even despair.

Living successfully can entail some hard thinking, patience and resilience when the inevitable tough bits occur. Perhaps there is a connection here with what seems like a modern epidemic of mental problems, hopelessness leading, tragically, in extreme cases to suicide as a way of escape.

Anne Martin, Helensville.

Seymour and strikes

It was amusing to see David Seymour, Captain Soundbite himself, schooled in the art by a child. He complains of a student “captured on television” saying “I am literally [sic] going to die from climate change”. (NZ Herald, April 10).

The comment may be hyperbolic but hardly more-so than the standard Act Facebook post. Seymour’s insistence that students should have protested on their days off misses the point of a “climate strike”.

No doubt he would also prefer that striking workers took action by staying away from work on their weekends but that’s not how strikes work, is it?

Roy Ward, Freemans Bay.

Defending holidays

One size fits all, yeah no! I have successfully raised an IT engineer, two teachers and a medical specialist, who also had time out to have a relationship with their overseas grandparents and a holiday to Europe to prove South Auckland was not the entire universe.

With this knowledge I can 100 per cent tell you “cheap airfares” are a backbone to greater education, greater passion and doesn’t lessen a person. The passion for education must be in the home (it helps a bit if it’s at the school as well).

We should also remember that an uneducated person still has value to themselves and society if they find a constructive life purpose. The truants are really those (of any age) that have closed themselves down to ever becoming more than what they are today.

Randel Case, Buckland Beach.