@Rapido said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
My hunch is 28 days short sharp pain will do less damage to the economy than a drawn out half arsed approach.
28 days which includes school holidays, plus 2 stat holidays. 18 working/trading days for many.
Let a hairdresser or dentist stay open but with desultory turnover but still all the costs? Or shut stuff down , reduce all costs, subsidise wages, defer mortgages. Shift the pain to the commercial landlords who shift it to the banks.
Wont work for all, for some time is money. Can't save everyone, let the 'creative destruction' begin as the textbooks say.
Can’t agree. “Creative destruction” is pretty offensive really. The majority of businesses that go to the wall represent the sweat, dreams and livelihoods of individuals and families all over the country. They will not recover. Many will have guaranteed their debts with their personal assets and they will lose their homes, in many cases their families, and in some cases their lives. They will not be able to borrow any more money to start again. They will fail to pay their debts, often to other small businesses, leading to more of the same. Recession, too, is a virus. What most small and medium sized businesses want is to be in control of their own destiny, not have failure forced on them by someone who has no idea of what is needed to keep a business afloat in good times and bad, or empathy with the sense of helplessness when you see the hurt felt by your family, your employees and their families, and the community who depends on you to deliver your services and pay your debts. And it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how honourable your intentions are, you can’t do anything about it. Because you have been ordered not to.
BTW, shifting the pain to the banks? Like that actually ever happens... The banks will do fine. And if they don’t, the squeeze will go onto their customers, and there’s nothing the government can do to stop them.