Inequality is terribly damaging to society. National want to increase inequality by transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. They argue that this provides “incentives” for the vast majority of the rest of us to “get ahead”. But this aspirational argument is both incoherent and absurd.
It looks like National is about to cave in to public opinion and abandon its ridiculous plans to mine on New Zealand’s most precious land. Good. The economics never made any sense, let alone the environmental case. The Nats’ economic ‘plan’ looks even thinner now. Here’s something they can do – sort out the minerals royalty and leases on mining concessions.
In other cheery news this morning: “Euro crisis goes global as leaders fail to stop the rot”. Germany’s Chancellor says that “politics have to reassert primacy over the financial markets”…
The other day I wrote about pay rises for workers. 75% of non-union workers took a pay cut last year. Seems their bosses made off a lot better. Despite all the business collapses and the 21,000 lost jobs, half of all CEOs got a pay rise last year and the typical pay rise was a massive 5% (only 10% of workers got a 5%+ way rise). It’s the essence of class war.
Yesterday, Darien Fenton’s Redundancy Protection Bill was voted down by the Government. Disgraceful. The Nats added a kick in the teeth by having David Bennett lead their side of debate with a mad, disrespectful speech. Congratulations to Darien, Labour, the Greens, Progressives, the Maori Party, and the groups representing 350,000 Kiwi workers who fought for this. We’ll win next time.
Most of this country’s mineral wealth lies under private land, according to the government’s own figures. So, why are the Nats so determined to override public opinion and let their mining allies dig up our precious protected lands? Simple: mining on private land means paying a lease to the owner. Mining on public land is cheaper: we’re played like chumps for bigger profits.
Live in Canterbury? Value democracy? What are you doing today after work? Come to the ECan protest, 5:30 pm @ ECan office 58 Kilmore St. Because Canterbury is only the beginning…
National is predictably planning to put the cost of polluters’ actions on to the rest of us by canning the major parts of the ETS. This stupid game of pass the buck is played out all over the world – polluters refuse to accept their responsibilities, governments refuse to act – as more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, locking us in to economic and ecological devastation.
As recently discussed, sovereign debt may well be the next crisis point in the world’s unstable financial system. In breaking news, things aren’t looking too rosy right now.
How does the government decide which are good drugs and which are bad?
And how much does it have to do with big money?
Our glorious capitalist system should mean farms that can’t handle a bad time fail. Just like any other business. Land gets used for something better. It’s the market. But capitalists don’t really believe in the market. Come the bad times, the farmers want another hand out. So government’s giving them the dole. Yup, the dole.
Labour leader Phil Goff has come out swinging against National’s proposal to cut the top tax rate. It’s great to see Phil living up to his promise to stand up for the many, not the few. National’s plan to cut the top rate will only benefit the very wealthy, like John Key. Now we can stand assured, the 6th Labour Government will fix that injustice.
John Key is planning to slash and burn $2 billion out of our public services. Key says the slashing is needed to pay for increasing health and education costs. Bullshit. It’s about paying for John Key’s and his rich mates’ tax cuts.
We all know that long before John Key got into the gold and uranium mining industry, Crosby Textor Chairman, Robert J Champion de Crespigny was pushing the mining industry’s cause in New Zealand. So, who is this CT man who has been called Australia’s ‘Mr Gold’, a “mining magnateâ€, a “resource-sector heavyweight†and “a legendâ€?
Finsec’s Andrew Campbell introduces the union’s Better Banking, a trans-Tasman campaign they’re running with their Aussie counterparts to get a better deal for bank workers and bank customers. Campbell notes the banks’ $1 billion profit in the last 3 months alone and asks “Have your fees gone down? Has your mortgage payment become more manageable?”
Patent lawyer John David Hardie is a bludger. You and me, we pay our taxes. We know we get public services and a decent society out of it. This rich prick is trying to get out of a $10.3 million tax bill. What to do with this rich bludger? How about give him a $1.25 million tax cut. That’s what that other rich layabout John Key is planning.
National’s proposed reform of the foreshore and seabed legislation is no ‘elegant solution’. Instead, it is being criticised in the business press as an undemocratic favouring of Maori business interests over Pakeha ones, while iwi are saying that it doesn’t give them what they want.
George Monbiot writes: It’s a bitter blow. When the government proposed a windfall tax on bonuses and a 50p top rate of income tax, thousands of bankers and corporate executives promised to leave the country and move to Switzerland(1,2). Now we discover that the policy has failed: the number of financiers applying for a Swiss work permit fell by 7% last year.
In 2008, John Key was promising us a brighter future. 18 months on, we’re in that future he was talking about and Kiwis are reporting their lives are worse than they were before he came to power. 83% of Kiwis surveyed by ShapeNZ rated their quality of life as ‘good’ or better, down from 89% in 2008 and 92% in 2007. Key has a responsibility to live up to his promises
National’s mates in the dairy industry were annoyed that the elected councillors in Enviornment Canterbury wouldn’t let them have all the water they want. So National has sacked the councillors and suspended local democracy for four years. The diary farmers will pay along with everyone else for their short-termist ‘science be damned’ attitude. But not before they’ve caused long-term damage.
The eXileD has a piece on Ireland’s woes and how they got there. The 1980s neoliberal revolution and dodgy deals for the Right’s mates are familiar. Ireland became a tax haven for bludging international financiers. It’s all come crashing down but John Key wants to copy their mistake by creating an offshore financial centre here.
David Farrar is not stupid. Like everyone with a brain, he knows that climate change is a real and dangerous threat caused by human greenhouse gases emissions. Yet he persists in making denialist dog-whistles to his readers, always being careful never to outright deny climate change himself. He and all the leaders of denialism are telling what they know to be lies to people they know to be idiots.
The recent recession represented a spectacular failure of unfettered capitalism. One of the main causes in America was a picking apart of financial regulations. This allowed the “innovative” products and practices that brought the system down. Perhaps America has learned the lesson. A new Democratic proposal outlines “the biggest overhaul of regulations since the New Deal”.
British American Tabacco’s Graeme Amey has the brazen lie down pat. The guy quit smoking himself but wants Kiwis to keep smoking and […]
While other countries have used their strong public sectors to steady the private sector and keep unemployment down during the economic downturn, our government is compounding unemployment by cutting the public sector, throwing people out of jobs and feeding worker insecurity.
Fran O’Sullivan is a pro-business liberal or libertarian, David Garrett is a knuckle brain conservative. But actually, they’re not so far apart. It seems both believe in freedom for the rich and control over the poor. Incredibly O’Sullivan goes into bat for Garrett over his sterilisation comments.
It’s time for the National Party to issue an abject apology to the nation… for the 1992 Building Regulations that directly led to […]
This man is Paul Reynolds, CEO of Telecom. He has overseen the largest corporate disaster in recent New Zealand history. The Nats are planning to give him over $6,600 a week in tax cuts. Apparently this screw up on a $7 million salary is the kind of guy New Zealand needs.
You know how the world has been through the worst financial crisis in decades? You know how countries like Ireland and Iceland who had made themselves into financial hubs via tax breaks for banks are now deep in the crap with burgeoning debt and unemployment? Why don’t we do what they did?
Consider these results from opinion surveys of experts different areas of research, I won’t tell you the areas of research just yet: In one, […]
Telecom is threatening to throw up to 1,500 workers out of their jobs so it can increase profits by offshoring. A good government in this situation is […]
So, I’m at a cafe having lunch and there’s some fat middle-aged businessmen having lunch at the table beside me. One of them […]
Rahui Katene is worried that people who can’t afford stomach staplings here (which supposedly cures diabetes, although the evidence is mixed) are getting […]
Phew, that was quick. Yesterday John Kingi writes to us about Club Physical promoting homophobic myths. I publish his email. The same day […]
John Roughan asks: “Nearly half of all personal tax revenue is contributed by just 10 per cent of us. Is this socially healthy?” […]
I’m no big city banker. But I was under the impression that profit is the income that is left over once you’ve paid your […]
