How do you stimulate an economy or show me the money!

[McDuck]

Well, how do you get you primates to do anything?

Fortunately you are biological machines and you run out of food or warmth or are driven by deep primal urges to reproduce.
So we're reasonably sure you won't just sit there and do nothing.

You are also able to be inspired by fantasy, you have imaginations.

Stories about great people make you want to do great things.
(Unfortunately stories like breaking bad and sons of anarchy are also emulated).

But here's the question.

What do you think need to happen to make New Zealand a Great Economy?
A real economy, not a pretend one shuffling imaginary paper, or being paid off by a superpower to extend their control in the region.

I have a few ideas, but I want to see what you've got first.
Extra credit for the truly weird.

[Learning]

Lower population. -
- Skilled workers become more valuable and wages for them increase.
- Housing demand drops. Lower rents and more spending money for the "fun stuff" maintains commerce.
- Less travel and congestion delays leads to faster and easier productivity.
- The above three offset lost tax revenue.
- Less demand on education, medical care, social expenses, etc, etc allows better quality for the same cost.
- Over crowding effects environment and social wellbeing. Avoiding it helps maintain a happier and more productive population and environment.

[McDuck]

Lower population. -
- Skilled workers become more valuable and wages for them increase.
- Housing demand drops. Lower rents and more spending money for the "fun stuff" maintains commerce.
- Less travel and congestion delays leads to faster and easier productivity.
- The above three offset lost tax revenue.
- Less demand on education, medical care, social expenses, etc, etc allows better quality for the same cost.
- Over crowding effects environment and social wellbeing. Avoiding it helps maintain a happier and more productive population and environment.

ok!
Top points for originality.
If I distill your idea down to its most basic form...
It looks like a density or capacity solution.

Almost a tuning or balancing solution.

it's true of course.
The less dense or crowded a place is, the easier it is to move about and get things done.

That reduces loss due to waiting and friction from units banging into each other.

You've basically come up with an efficiency solution.
All of the effort that goes into the system, is utilized by that system, to move in the direction it wants.

However, the thing about you primates is this.
You like to cluster in groups.

Even in the wild, the simpler of your species bustle and cluster in the same tree or patch of bush.
squabbling over the same food or water source.

Most living things have figured out the advantages to clustering.
Security in numbers for one thing, less time wasted looking for something to mate with, or searching for edible things.

Matching the amount of clustering with the space and resources is the heart of your idea.
Reason bears it out as a very, very good one.


Humorously, you can get a mismatch in both directions.
See.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in_China

[hawkeye]

Stop incentivising people to produce more children than they can afford to support ( cap payments of WFF at 2 or 3 children) and use the reduction of WFF to make sterilisation procedures free for people, maybe even incentivise it, with compulsory contraceptive counselling when applying for WFF for each new child. Also use it to raise the amount people can earn especially with seasonal or casual jobs before their benefit is cut off as it is too difficult to deal with the dept to get it back if the work dries up.

(Where children are already born obviously support can’t be withdrawn suddenly so existing payment will have to be phased out. )

Reducing the number of people in the world has to be the single best way to address climate change so I am perplexed by this goverments policies that incentivise people to have more children.

There might even be enough money left over one day to reduce tax!

Also, where where people turn 65 And have over a certain threshold of income still, or have over a certain amount of assets divert their superannuation into a new kind of KiwiSaver plan , call it kiwi retire. This money can then be only used for resthome care, health needs including medical insurance, or emergency funds which can be applied for. If they die it can’t be left in their estate but goes to the nz super fund. This would stop people with modest savings using up retirement savings on overseas trips etc which takes money out of the economy, then relying on government super when it runs out. Those with substantial retirement savings have to fund their own resthome care currently and this way their government super payments would reduce their personal contribution so they will not be impacted overall. People with lesser savings should pay for their own resthome care too before spending money on holidays and luxury items. This is fairer than means testing.

If the majority choose to take up full medical insurance it will decrease the government health bill too and mean people could afford elective procedures, whereas if they have blown their retirement savings earlier on they may be struggling by the time they are in their 80s.

LAJ

[McDuck]

Stop incentivising people to produce more children than they can afford to support ( cap payments of WFF at 2 or 3 children) and use the reduction of WFF to make sterilisation procedures free for people, maybe even incentivise it, with compulsory contraceptive counselling when applying for WFF for each new child. Also use it to raise the amount people can earn especially with seasonal or casual jobs before their benefit is cut off as it is too difficult to deal with the dept to get it back if the work dries up.

(Where children are already born obviously support can’t be withdrawn suddenly so existing payment will have to be phased out. )

Reducing the number of people in the world has to be the single best way to address climate change so I am perplexed by this goverments policies that incentivise people to have more children.

There might even be enough money left over one day to reduce tax!

Also, where where people turn 65 And have over a certain threshold of income still, or have over a certain amount of assets divert their superannuation into a new kind of KiwiSaver plan , call it kiwi retire. This money can then be only used for resthome care, health needs including medical insurance, or emergency funds which can be applied for. If they die it can’t be left in their estate but goes to the nz super fund. This would stop people with modest savings using up retirement savings on overseas trips etc which takes money out of the economy, then relying on government super when it runs out. Those with substantial retirement savings have to fund their own resthome care currently and this way their government super payments would reduce their personal contribution so they will not be impacted overall. People with lesser savings should pay for their own resthome care too before spending money on holidays and luxury items. This is fairer than means testing.

If the majority choose to take up full medical insurance it will decrease the government health bill too and mean people could afford elective procedures, whereas if they have blown their retirement savings earlier on they may be struggling by the time they are in their 80s.

LAJ

Wow!
No beating about the bush there.
Top points for bravery.

You've gone for a balancing type solution also.
Balance the productive members of society with the workload, by reducing the mismatched skill set of the uneducated or addiction impaired.

You're probably aware that large families are a response to high infant mortality rates.
And as medical care improved, so did the number of surviving children.

Farming people also had children as a way to get low cost employees for the harvest.
Some religions take it as doing God's work, by producing more little souls to bask in the glory of God's creation.
Other cultures view children as a old age pension type insurance.

Probably only romantic cultures view children as a cute Huggies type " joy of life" thing.
Although we are preprogrammed to find them adorable.


China did try a similar thing, the one child policy, with unusual unintended social and economic effects.


But I think you are on to something.
How do you stop the slightly boozed teen primates from doing what comes naturally?
Certainly adjusting the subcultural perception that it's a perfectly viable form of employment (at the country's expense), would move things in the direction you are suggesting.

Personally, I'd like to see exact figures on the origins of the population increase for the year.
And trace the geographic locations of the parents and grand parents, before I could even start to form a picture of the flows.
If I'm going to optimize population to workload, I need to understand the source of the people.

[McDuck]

It's worth mentioning, that the code for density runs pretty deep in the nature of things.

Right at the atomic level, water in a pond will (given some heat type energy) evaporate away from a densely packed lake of fellow molecules.
To float about free and unhindered as mist or clouds.

Human migration also is driven partly by density.
Many a company was built when the youngest of a large Scottish or European family left for fame and fortune abroad.

War and conflict itself could be seen as a density issue.
Two populations expand until their boundaries overlap.
Then a conflict arises.

The resulting toxic environment causes population shift.
From an area of high violence density to an area of lower violence density.

Even road rage can be seen in these terms.

[McDuck]

OK.

So it's become obvious that the only real game in town is optimization.

Making sure all the work you are putting in is not wasted.

Well, at least minimising the waste.

And believe me, there are so many lost opportunities all around.

So, where to start?

First you need a new government ministry.

The Ministry of reflective numbers and words.

T. M.O. R. N. W.

It's only reason for being is to provide numbers , words and pictures, that give a real, simple picture of what's going on.
In it you would need to breed a real cult of integrity.

This is not a political tool to produce part pictures, or slanted views.

It's only goal is to give ministers and decision makers good simple starting points for problem solving.

Here is an example of what a block of TMORNW data would look like.

" In Auckland city, ( the area indicated by the red enclosed line on the map on page two) a reliable count of 200 people sleeping rough were found on the (date here).
of which 30 were teenagers who had been drinking the night before and were intoxicated.

Break down by age (page 17).

Ambulance staff and have indicated that approximately 45 of these people are here every night of the week, and unusually high levels of alcohol is in their systems every night of the week. (list of people interviewed on page three).

The following trained professionals ( list page five) have....

When asked the path that led to their present arrangement, the rough sleepers said the following (see replies page 12)."

layered and connected information is also essential.

For example, noting that the closure or reduction in (for arguments sake) mental health support houses ten years previously was an event in the history of 9 of the rough sleepers, would be worth including.

You'd need to get some really good thinkers in your ministry, but integrity and independence would have to be the other qualities.

This rubbish" 2% of" whatever sort of data would bring pity and scorn from your team.
They would laugh the obscurers out of the place.
Possibly a group activity, like screwing up pieces of paper and throwing it in balls at the offending individual, while all the time chanting Ob-scur-er, ob scur-er, would go a long way to reinforcing the culture of the place.

The end result, small concise reports, would be tested on paid members of the public, similar to jury duty, if the big picture was not able to be understood fully by those people in a half an hour, then the report would go in for another editing.

Autonomy would be obviously essential.


The next ministry would be the ministry of effective processes.

T. M. O. E. P.