Forget GDP growth?

Jacinda Arden, new Prime Minister of New Zealand and, at 37, the world’s youngest female leader, recently claimed that free markets are a ‘blatant failure’

In future, economic performance should not be measured by GDP growth and unemployment but by whether people’s lives ‘offered enjoyment and meaning’

“We need to make sure we are looking at people’s ability to actually have a meaningful life, an enjoyable life, where their work is enough to survive and support their families”

At present her countryfolk were “not feeling the benefits of any form of prosperity”

Hence her new government would address the failures of free markets through intervention

“Has the market failed our people in recent times?

Yes

How can you claim you’ve been successful when you have growth roughly 3% but you’ve got the worst homelessness in the developed world?”

Her short term agenda thus includes raising the minimum wage and banning foreign speculators from buying houses

P.S. Ms Ardern briefly worked in Britain’s Cabinet Office during the Blair years

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