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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Why Labour need to save Fisher & Paykel

The Free Market loves how sleepy the hobbits are.

Fisher and Paykel takeover bid worries opposition The Government is coming under pressure to stop iconic Kiwi appliance maker Fisher and Paykel from falling into Chinese ownership.

As the global economy rumbles towards its next predictable collapse because 2007 was just the starting point, we should be asking ourselves 'what type of foreign investment do we want as NZers'?

Do we want the foreign investment that gives our innovators and entrepreneurs access to the funding stream the domestic market won't because of our love affair with non-productive property speculation? Or do we want foreign investment that opportunistically cherry picks our best assets and resources leaving us the poorer for the transaction?

We need to ask ourselves this because the economic micro climate created by Australia and China is coming to an end, look at the growth predictions for our second quarter now being revised down to.3% after it had already been downgraded sharply last week by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's monetary policy statement.

If you thought things were tough now, they are nothing compared to what is looming.

So we need to demand answers from our political leaders to these questions now and on the issue of Fisher & Paykel, Labour beyond all other political parties should be fighting to keep it NZ owned.

Why?

The right wing will say that Fisher & Paykel are a private company and have every right to do what they like, but that's not completely true.

Fisher & Paykel, throughout their history have been propped up by the taxpayer. It began with their creation, the first Labour Government protected Fisher & Paykel's industry over the second world war and most recently Fisher & Paykel took up the taxpayer funded 9 day fortnight.

As taxpayers, we have propped Fisher & Paykel up from the beginning, to now have all that investment and intellectual manufacturing muscle flogged off to China is an insult to the taxpayer.

As NZers we bore all of the public cost, while a few now will benefit

Because it was the first Labour Government that helped build Fisher & Paykel, they need to reconnect with their original economic sovereignty ethos, dump the free market ideology and start standing up for something by demanding Fisher & Paykel stay in NZ ownership.

What Haier is about to do isn't investment, it's corporate piracy that will plunder a company we as taxpayers have built.

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1 Comments:

At 18/9/12 8:22 am, Blogger Draco TB said...

'what type of foreign investment do we want as NZers'?

None. Selling off our economy is bad for us.

As NZers we bore all of the public cost, while a few now will benefit

That's normal for a capitalist socio-economic system. In fact, that's how it's designed and modern economic theory is just a justification for it rather than an explanation which is why it doesn't work.

 

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