What's good for General Motors is good for the country

Via Just Left: this week's Listener has an interview with Don Brash in which he shoots himself in the foot repeatedly on the foreign policy and the anti-nuclear issue, tries evading the issue again on Iraq, and shows himself to be completely out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders on wage and cost-of-living issues. But the best bit is this:

At your income, you would stand to earn more from across the board tax cuts than 95 percent of the New Zealand public. Do you feel at all embarrassed about that?

Ah, yep, I do. Frankly. The question, though, is not my embarrassment. The question is: what is in the interests of the country? ... I can't let my personal embarrassment block a policy if that policy is of benefit to the country. And you can make your judgment about whether it is good for the country when you see the tax package.

There's an old misquote which sums this attitude up perfectly: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country"... Meanwhile, I think the rest of us, who will pay the price of the nakedly self-interested policies Brash is advocating, should treat them with the contempt they deserve.