Employers ’are day-dreaming’

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 24

Employers ’are day-dreaming’

PA Wellington Research predictions by the Employers’ Federation about economic growth over the next five years were “socially and politically irresponsible,” the Social Credit economic affairs spokesman, Mr L. Hunter, has said. The predictions include a halving of the unemployment level, a significant increase in living standards of New Zealanders, and a 60 per cent increase in the proportion of manufactured goods exported over the next five years.

Mr Hunter said these predictions could lull people into a completely unjustified sense of imminent economic well-being which could not happen without reform. Increased production would come only from increased productive investment, which could not occur while interest returns on money-lending remained higher than available production profits. The model and assumptions underlying the employers’ predictions were nothing more than exercises in “academic day-dreaming,” Mr Hunter said.