TL:DR Studies on financial education show it helps increase savings rates, but has virtually zero impact on whether someone will default on loans. The article suggests that financial discussions at home are important.
Really though, the article is raising discussion points and doesn’t really suggest what actions we should take (that I noticed, anyway).
I haven’t seen the government blaming people?
Companies pay tax on profits. They buy a bottle of milk for $2, sell it for $3, and pay tax on the $1 profit. They get to take off the cost of running the business (e.g. rent, electricity, staffing) before paying tax. This all seems fair to me.
Business lunches are part of running a company. But in fact, there are special rules about food and drink that mean in NZ companies can only claim half the cost. So really this is a weird thing to get hung up on since we artificially restrict how much businesses can claim.
Can you give some examples?
When did they do this?
When did this happen? The reserve bank is intentionally trying to cause a recession.
Even expert economists have no idea what they are doing, because economics is extraordinarily complex, with many different levers, and chaos theory in full swing.
That’s not how that works. The more disposable income people have, the more things will cost. It’s a basic principle of economics that companies will increase prices to the level the market is able to bear (i.e. how much money people have).
The government has made big strides in this area over the last year or two. Payday lenders have significantly more restrictions than they did previously.