Key’s $1 Billion Infrastructure Fund A Cruel Joke

Yesterday’s “off the cuff ” announcement of a $1 billion infrastructure fund at the National party conference has been labelled a “cruel joke” by Democrats for Social Credit Deputy Leader and Finance Spokesperson, Chris Leitch.

“Because it will be funded by yet more government borrowing, it will transfer the interest cost off ratepayers in the cities concerned and onto the country’s farmers and provincial small business and general taxpayers, enriching John Key’s finance industry mates in the process”, Mr Leitch said.

“The joke is that $1 billion dollars is not enough to address the infrastructure deficit in Northland, never mind Tauranga or Queenstown, and Auckland needs ten times that on it’s own”, he said.

“Labour leader Andrew Little’s solution of allowing councils to issue bonds is just as bad, as both ‘solutions’ saddle ratepayers with more debt and interest payments.”

“The Prime Minister has ignored a growing body of international advice that infrastructure funding should come from the central bank (Reserve Bank) at no cost, so that ratepayers are not forced to carry the additional interest burden” Mr Leitch said.

The International Monetary Fund, former head of Britain’s Financial Services Authority Lord Adair Turner, and Times financial commentator Martin Wolf, have all advocated the use of central bank funding for such investment.

The government already pays 4.5 billion dollars in interest annually - $12 million per day, seven days per week, in a direct line of corporate welfare to banks and financial institutions that create the money it borrows out of thin air.

That $4.5 Billion in annual wasted spending will be added to by the Prime Minister’s latest plan, is taxpayer money that could itself have been better spent on infrastructure development.

Both the Bank of England and New Zealand’s Reserve Bank confirm that 97 percent of their nation’s money supply is computer-generated figures, created by private commercial banks and financial institutions out of thin air when they make loans.

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