No
government should ever legislate their nose into a voluntary transaction
between two consenting adults where there is no element of force or fraud
involved. This National government’s coming Low-Ball Offer regulation is an
inappropriate intrusion of the state, yet again, into the private, voluntary
transactions of individuals. Worse, it’s treating New Zealand adults, as if
they were children, in this kindergarten of a country. Understand that I know what’s good for me better than any bureaucrat,
and certainly any politician, so (Anti)Commerce Minister, the authoritarian Craig
Foss, can take his regulation back to the Fortress of Legislation, and
rescind it please, while giving the taxpayer their money back for the time that
has been squandered over this.
Just
in case Foss is confused by this attack on him, here’s what he doesn’t
seem to understand: if a company wants to make me a ridiculously low offer on a
share or bond I own, I don’t need to take it. I can simply say no. Armed with the
Internet or a phone to a broker, I can find out the market value of any stock
or bond I own within five minutes: I don’t need protection from a low ball
offer. And worse: sometimes a low-ball offer may be to an investor’s advantage. During
the period of the finance company disasters, a low-baller willing to take a
risk by offering a lower price for a bond than an investor might have got out
of liquidation, could well be doing that investor a favour simply by offering
them liquidity. If I was ninety years old and a low-baller offered me $10,000
for a bond I might receive $20,000 for from a liquidator in five years, well,
time considered, $10,000 in my hand now may well be the prudent decision,
because I might not be here in five years, or perhaps that money is needed now for medical bills that will make my life better. That type of opportunity, which may well improve my life, is the beauty of the functioning
voluntary free market that Foss is trying to destroy.
Though,
bottom line, it’s always about philosophy: freedom of the individual versus the
mollycoddling of an out-of-control state.
And philosophically, here’s the final insult: for the act of a
low-baller making me an offer that I can voluntarily accept or not, without
duress - it’s just a letter through the post for Rand’s sake - and an offer
that may well be doing me a favour, that low-baller, conducting their right of
the voluntary offer, can be fined $30,000.
This
legislation is every bit an insult as the recent IRD and MSD privacy breaches,
therefore, I ask Foss to voluntarily step down from his portfolio please: if
nothing else, he has proven he does not understand his party’s stated ethic of
small government, by just placing the fist of state, in the form of the
increasingly draconian Financial Management Authority (FMA), into my stomach
again. And let me reiterate, the continuing power grab by the FMA, represents a
bigger threat, and menace, to business, investment, and prosperity in New
Zealand, than every low-baller does.
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