Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

A fresh and intelligent start to your day - catch the very latest international and domestic news developments, sport, entertainment and business on Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, on Newstalk ZB.

  1. hace 3 h

    Ryan Bridge: Should we care what the IMF thinks?

    Don't you find it annoying when some economist or think tank or some 'group' comes to our country and tells us what they think we need to do to make it better? There's the odd case where you'd want to listen. Former world leaders, current world leaders, banks who lend you money, rating agencies who dictate your cost of borrowing. But your OECDS, IMFS and World Banks and United Nations? They all come down here, someone tells them we don't have a capital gains tax and they say, uh, well, you guys need a capital gains tax. And raise your pension age. The IMF is here doing this right now. They outline the problem - we have structural deficit. The government spends more than it earns. It's borrowing money from the rest of the world just to keep its head above water. It's struggling, pay-cheque to pay-cheque, taking out pay-day loans to cover the in-betweens. It's gotten so bad, as I told you earlier this year, next year, $5,600 of the taxes you pay as a household will go straight to paying the interest bill on our debt. That’s five and half grand a year, just in interest! More than we spend on schooling our kids through primary and secondary. Debt servicing is now the fourth-largest line item on the Government’s books, according to Treasury. So, enter the OECD, or the IMF, or the OEIMF. Their solution? A comprehensive CGT could raise the equivalent of 1% of GDP, roughly halving the country’s fiscal deficit. A deficit, they say, we should pay down. The problem with demanding more tax to pay for bad spending is that it encourages more waste and gluttony. It's like gorging on fast food, paying for the skinny jab, then getting fat all over again. You don't learn discipline. No consequences. And once the next structural deficit inevitably arrives, you know what IMOECDS will recommend. Another tax. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2 min
  2. hace 1 día

    Ryan Bridge: Commerce will always find a way eventually

    Good morning, and I really do mean, good morning. Four months ago, war kicked off in the Middle East. A year earlier the tariff war kicked off all over the world. And yet today the following things are happening, regardless. Wall Street is steaming ahead... on track some best quarterly performances since Covid. The S&P: up 14% through Monday. Nasdaq up 20%. The price of oil's falling. Manufacturing activity in the States is at a four-year-high. Here at home, people always tell you the bad but rarely report the good or stable. Yesterday, business confidence was UP in June. A net 37% of businesses are more confident this month compared to last. Despite the war and oil and shoppers being a bit cautious, there's optimism and hope. Jobs. Remember they said jobs would fall off a cliff? People would stop hiring? Remember the employment survey that came out a few weeks ago? It was the most negative/depressing reading since it began decades ago. Then we got the jobs number Monday... we gained opportunities. We gained workers. On a net basis, we added to the pool. That's why on this programme we always strive to bring facts without so much emotion and hyperbole. Bad things happen and people react, but not always in the way you think, or even they think, they will. And if there's one thing you can sure of, no matter how disastrous the headline the vent, the war, the pandemic... Commerce will always find a way. Eventually. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2 min

Acerca de

A fresh and intelligent start to your day - catch the very latest international and domestic news developments, sport, entertainment and business on Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, on Newstalk ZB.

Más de Newstalk ZB

También te podría interesar