I still believe that success or failure in the budget of this week for the year 2021 will eventually be judged about how it has succeeded on the one hand, to sustain the financial activity of so many enterprises which have been caught in the mangle caused by the huge drop in work and sales; and on the other hand, to keep in abeyance enough reserves to be able in the near future, to contain further bursts of economic disruption.

The balance that has been secured with the measures which have been laid out... in the funds they mobilise, in how they will be targeted, and in how their impetus is going to be spread out... makes sense. Yet good sense does  not always ensure successful outcomes. The equilibrium that has been sought and I think achieved, can only be called prudent, though prudence also sometimes leads to disappointment.

No one truly knows how to reply to a query that remains pending: What shall be the endpoint of this ceaseless effort to control completely the Covid 19 threat to public health and to economies? Shall we have enough resources to go on to the bitter end if this war goes on for much longer?

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VICTORY WELL WON

The big election victory achieved by the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was well merited.

She did not need to... I believe she did not want to either... dilute the social emphasis of her proposals in order to soften the outlook of right-leaning segments of the electorate. She did her best to show that what was being promised by social democrats would be implemented. That’s how it should be.

Today Ardern has the majority she needs to implement all needed reforms: and this is what is being said about her government. It is a dangerous moment. Mistakes start being made as soon as one starts to believe one has all the power it takes to get things done.

However, Ardern hardly appears to be among those who get overtaken by hubris.

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AMNESIA

The amnesia displayed by people who want to preach to us about how, according to them, corruption in this country took off after 2013, is worrying.

Always, it has to be made clear that what was done wrong in the past cannot in any way be used to justify what maybe now is not being done quite right. Yet: How come that those who today are so loud in their expression of shock at what is happening now, never in the past were in any way sensitive to the scandals of yesterday?

And there might be a more telling concern: Let us allow that at that time, they did not protest or demonstrate. But today, how come that they still ignore and fail to mention those past scandals? They could at least accept that they did exist and that the abuses of that time also deserved the furore which they are creating today.

In terms of the language that they themselves employ, they should be apologizing for their actions, or lack of them, then.

Nothing of all this. One could perhaps check about the bios of these present-day champions of justice. Quite a number held in other days interesting jobs with the government then in office, like consultancies, ambassadorships, managers of special assignments...