IT STOPPED BEFORE IT STARTED

We head into an election year faced with the prospect, in the light of the deficit blowout, of even more severe austerity measures. No prizes for guessing who will be expected to carry the burden. It won't be the wealthy of Remuera (presently enjoying their big tax cuts) but it will be the poor of South Auckland.

I have consistently said that there is - and has never been - an 'economic recovery'. So I'm not being wise after the event.

There has been be no 'aggressive recovery', no 'uneven recovery', no 'patchy recovery', no 'slow recovery'. There hasn't been an economic recovery 'just around the corner'. There hasn't even been an 'economic recovery' just five miles down the highway, then take the first turn on you're right.

There has just been no economic recovery. Full stop.

But can our economic experts and politicians own up to this? No way.

According to the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) the 'economic recovery' has 'slowed to barely a crawl'.

So, lets get this straight. An economic recovery that has never actually happened has now 'slowed to barely a crawl''. So the 'economic recovery' that has never started has now stopped and can anyone tell the difference?

What is this new ludicrous view based on?

In defence of NZIER its not actually its view - rather it is the conclusion they have drawn from a survey of financial and economic agencies.

That's right. The very same organisations that have been consistently wrong about the state of the New Zealand economy have been surveyed for their opinions on the state of the New Zealand economy.

Mm, make sense to me.

One of the financial organisations that was surveyed was the ASB.

One of its economists is Chris Tennent-Brown. In May he was hailing a temporary drop in the official unemployment rate as 'evidence of an emerging economic recovery.'

He said: 'It's just a really good step in the right direction to see the labour market looking reasonably healthy compared to our expectations. "To summarise in one word: WOW! The New Zealand labour market has turned,"

Would you buy a used capitalist economy from the ASB and Chris Tennent-Brown? I don't think so.

These well-paid economic 'experts' who appear in the media everyday are just talking rubbish and they've been talking rubbish ever since the global capitalist economy went into meltdown.

They are neoliberal neanderthals who won't admit that the game is up - neoliberalism and the free market has failed. And it is ordinary people who are paying for that failure.

Of course these guys have a stake in the system and they are not about to start biting the hand that feeds them.