the deluded and the deranged

Danyl at The DimPost cuts to the core with this post about the revised treasury forecast. Already their unrealistic pre-election forecasts have been revised downwards - apparently they have decided to factor in the european economic crisis. As danyl notes the major parties fought the election with these unrealistic projections and that shows the value of all of their promises - vacuous and a waste of time.

Right. So just to recap: Treasury made these very optimistic growth predictions in the 2011 budget, and everyone said they were delusional. But Treasury stood by their forecasts, and a month out from the election they repeated their insanely optimistic outlook in the PREFU.

The government and opposition parties based all of their fiscal policies on the Treasury forecasts. Both main parties claimed they’d get the country back into surplus in a few years, because of all the additional revenue from all that economic growth. Jobs weren’t a big topic of debate in this election, because Treasury promised us that all the growth would create 170,000 new jobs!

Now here we are, just over a week after the election and whaddya know? Treasury has announced they were too optimistic. Growth is going to be less than they said it would a month ago – even though nothing substantive has changed since then. The European crisis didn’t just emerge on Sunday the 27th.

 All very true and this is what john keys says

Stuff

'Forecasts are wonderful things and they are a prediction of what may or may not occur. We are the government and so we will get on and run the operation as best we can ... yup, it might all go to hell in a handbasket and if it does we'll manage it. ''But at the moment we are more confident than others.'' The Government is committed to getting the books back to surplus in 2014/15.

''If there is some catastrophe in Europe and the place melts down, that changes the global economic outlook, there are always things that are beyond our control. But we are totally committed to trying to get back to surplus,'' he said.

How exactly key will manage everything going to hell in a handbasket is not known, probably the same way he deals with everything else - smile and spin. Same with dealing with the catastrophe of the global economic collapse - she'll be right mate - have a beer. Is this responsible government? Is this what we want or need? Apparently the answer is yes, based on the election. This really is the deluded leading the deranged.

Hattip - DimPost