Adidas was founded by a Nazi who lied that his own brother was SS to get him in deeper trouble when the brother was captured by the US. That cut-throat attitude persists. I don’t know why people want to wear All Blacks shirts. Adult equivalent of a 5 year old wearing a superman costume. But the NZRU shouldn’t let them be ripped off like this.
The “free market” exists to make profit. It does have some advantages when everything is running smoothly. But the free market is hopeless in tough times. It never wants to pay out or clean up the mess.
A bad mistake by John Key in the House yesterday. Phil Goff asked him about the gap between rich and poor. Key cited a new report on falling inequality. But he should have read the report properly. It credits Labour policies for driving down poverty and inequality.
How did the wealth of the 151 richest people grow by 10% of GDP when the economy grew only 1.5%? Mostly by revaluing existing assets. Not a lot of ‘wealth creation’ from our self-appointed Randian Heroes, just book changes. But, apparently, we owe everything to the elite and need to let them suck up more of our wealth for themselves.
Some inspiration as Monday morning looms.
National has handed Telecom a new monopoly to replace its old one. As landlines go the way of the Dodo, fibre optic cable is the new natural monopoly, and we’re learning that Steven Joyce was talking to Telecom as far back as 2009 to ensure they go the lion’s share of the government handouts for fibre and a virtual monopoly in the market.
Bill Maher on taxes, the deficit, and why 49% of Americans are voting away their future.
Over the last couple of months two potential crises have been unfolding in two very different countries. Greece and America both looked to be in danger of defaulting on their huge debts and triggering a cascade of disastrous consequences. The situation is still unfolding…
I’ve been thinking about that lawyer Casey Plunket who threatened to leave for Australia over Labour restoring the 39% top tax rate at the stratospheric threshold of $150,000. It means a couple of thousand more tax for the wealthiest Kiwis. Would anyone really move countries over that? Do we need the kind of people that would?
There’s an odd contradiction in right-wing ‘thought’. On the one hand, they’re Randian heroes, the wealth creators, modern day Atlases who support the world while ‘parasites’ try to take their wealth and bring them down. On the other hand, they’re victims who need subsidies and special treatment. Fed Farmers CEO Conor English embodies the contradiction.
Low-paid, crappy job? It’s obviously your fault, according to the Right. You mustn’t have enough qualifications, or the correct ones. The good jobs are out there, they’re just hiding. Or, if they’re not, you can weave one from thin air. But, even if this free market magic were real, what’s the end point? The crap jobs still need to be filled.
Are we “roaring out of recession”? No. Is there an “aggressive recovery”? No. What’s going wrong? The problem is that the Nats are squeezing the life out of the economy.
Randian superhero David Henderson has withdrawn his genius from New Zealand in protest at the collectivist government that has persecuted him and attempted to distribute the fruits of his talent to parasites. In a short statement after leaving the country, Henderson said other Atlases would join him in strike and “stop the motor of New Zealand”.
“Substitute the words “convention centre” for “suitcase of cash” and the transaction looks very clear.”*
National wants to change the rules for another foreign corporate. Wouldn’t move an inch for Kiwirail jobs. Maybe that’s because Kiwirail didn’t donate 100K to National (and Labour) in the past decade like SkyCity did.
Auckland has 250 licenced gambling venues. SkyCity wants to build a $350m casino/convention centre but only if it gets a law change. Key has agreed to the law change. Calls it progress. Yet no help for Kiwirail jobs. National doesn’t believe in real jobs like manufacturing. Picking the pockets of gamblers is more in line with National’s economic vision.
Like the ACC, Pharmac is a Kiwi institution that delivers benefits to everyone at a lower cost than other countries. National has got ACC on the butcher’s block. We must make sure that Pharmac doesn’t follow.
The response to two recent posts here at The Standard have shown what a contentious topic the minimum wage is. So it’s timely that yesterday saw the release of the CTU’s summary of research on Minimum Wage and Jobs.
Here’s a stunning headline from the Herald on the glamour of working at SkyCity casino:
Flea collars for SkyCity staff
Perhaps next they could introduce compulsory de-lousing baths at the end of each shift?
The run up to the budget has all been about cuts. How many? How deep? Like lemmings we’re accepting National’s framing, and marching even faster to our economic doom. But, there is an alternative. Instead of slashing spending, we can raise government income. Here’s how.
Paul Krugman on the real reasons for the economic carnage. Not social spending policies, but the daft economic policies of the right-wing “policy elites”. Our focus should not be on slashing spending, but on National’s stupid, unaffordable tax cuts.
George Monbiot on the psychology of political debate (and why we’re all screwed).
Since Paula Redstock was pushed out of the Commerce Commission with a lot of the other brilliant staff, there has not been one cartel or monopoly abuse case prosecuted by the Commerce Commission. This is the very same Commission that was previously saving us millions of dollars each year and paying for itself with its court settlements.
How do we improve a society’s happiness most effectively? By lifting the poor out of poverty. By increasing wealth where we get more happiness bang for our income buck, and reducing the disparity between rich and poor. So why are we currently moving in the opposite direction?
I got involved in marketing through my business and was a firm believer. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on marketing, advertising and training as most companies do; but in the end it felt like I was selling my soul and I quit the system. So much effort is expended trying to sell something to people that they either couldn’t afford or didn’t need.
The cult of management holds that individual shareholders, managers or directors are the main contributors to the success of a corporation, and thence the economy. And deserve the greatest share of the rewards. The jobs and income of all other employees and State servants is a generous charitable gift from these people. It’s a bunch of crap.
Helen Kelly has published a full and detailed account of the Hobbit dispute.
The result is a story that leaves you in no doubt about big business’s class war on workers.
Or which side this government has taken.
Another week, another massive corporate bailout as National reaches into our pockets to aid a company. Whatever happened to free-market ideology? Isn’t failure of bad businesses healthy? When did every financial sector company become ‘too big to fail’? We’re rewarding a bad business model and punishing good ones.
John Armstrong is losing patience with the Nats: “National is certainly consistent when it comes to cutting spending. It consistently fails to practise what it preaches…”
Truthout is one of my favourite sources of political commentary in America. Here’s editor William Rivers Pitt on “The New American Dream”…
The latest piece from economist Bernard Hickey is a despairing warning on the subject of borrowing. With the current government making things worse not better, is there any way out of this downwards spiral?
Mayor Bob Parker has described landlords hiking rents in Christchurch as “looting by another name”. I think the majority of us would feel as Parker does — it seems simply wrong to exploit people for profit in a time of tragedy. But look around. It’s just unregulated capitalism in action. There’s an awful lot of it about.
Farrar says it’s ‘ghastly’ to discuss how to pay for rebuilding Christchurch, since the obvious answer is by reversing the tax cuts rich people like him have pocketed. Well, I think how the poor eastern suburbs of Christchurch have been ignored is ghastly. Fortunately, resilient communities are organising themselves, without government.
We know from history, and from our own recent experience, that tax cuts don’t cause growth. Privatisation and public service cuts don’t do us any good either. What does cause growth? Public spending. What’s more, public spending is much more efficient than the private sector too…
Democracy doesn’t suddenly magically appear as though from a conjurers hat. We know that, right? So why are revolutions seeking democracy D.O.A?
All over the globe we the tax payer recently got stuck with a bill for trillions of dollars to bail out banks that were “too big to fail”. Or were they? One country, Iceland, went against the trend, and let its banks go under. What happened next?
