Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, June 24th, 2012 - 44 comments
While we the public distract ourselves with trivia like car crushing, and focus on other important matters like asset sales, the TPPA which is quietly unfolding in the background is actually the most important ongoing political issue. It has potentially disastrous implications for our sovereignty and our future.
Written By: - Date published: 3:04 pm, June 20th, 2012 - 41 comments
A draft agreement has been negotiated for the Rio+20 summit that starts today, but anyone who cares about the future of our planet should be disappointed. The expert panel of nobel laureates, scientists and ministers’ call to ‘seize the moment’ has largely gone unheeded, as the agreement is full of empty promises and lacking in concrete commitments.
Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, June 19th, 2012 - 11 comments
National are shelving their plan to get out of deficit by 2014/15 – their only goal left, with the Brighter FutureTM shelved. No to stopping the exodus to Australia, stopping high unemployment, getting better public services, fixing our current account deficit, returning to growth, proper ECE funding (and Adult and Community Education at all), better training for teachers, keeping ACC fair, not cutting frontline staff, promises to not raise GST and more, all on the altar of surplus in 2014/15.
Now what do they stand for?
Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, June 16th, 2012 - 56 comments
Austerity has failed in both the UK and NZ. But at least Cameron’s Conservatives have the wit to realise it, and the courage to act.
Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, June 9th, 2012 - 372 comments
Austerity: another great idea brought to you by the same people who got us into this mess. But some economists are able to think outside the orthodoxy: There Are Real Alternatives. See you at The Voyage.
Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, June 5th, 2012 - 32 comments
The “tradeable” sector is still shrinking. The property market is heating up again. We need a capital gains tax now.
Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, June 1st, 2012 - 14 comments
Labour are pushing for an enquiry into how Treasury oversight of the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme was so poor that it has cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. Bill English can’t be allowed to hide this under the plus Treasury carpet, so his lack of oversight of Treasury isn’t shown up.
Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, May 28th, 2012 - 20 comments
Just as a quick update on my pre-budget Spin v reality about a Government that has the worst growth record of any since before Michael Joseph Savage, and has a 52% increase in unemployment despite more than 1,000 NZers leaving for Australia each week.
Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, May 27th, 2012 - 8 comments
A couple of good BBC articles: what have the Romans done for us? and can we have a society that doesn’t depend on us becoming ill with our fatness? And Kim Hill’s excellent interviewee Steve Keen.
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, May 26th, 2012 - 47 comments
National don’t have faith in Kiwis, or our skills and education, our Kiwi ingenuity. Nope, they think the only way to wealth is farming – which can’t be expanded, tourism – which provides low value jobs, and resource exploitation – of oil, gas and minerals unfound. They’re banking on us hitting the jackpot, because they can’t think of any real way of providing a future for our country.
Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, May 24th, 2012 - 3 comments
An excellent column from Bryan Gould, and a picture of working families in financial distress. Something to ponder, as we await the zero budget.
Written By: - Date published: 5:05 pm, May 22nd, 2012 - 30 comments
Don’t blame Greece: if you change nothing, nothing changes. National’s problems are their own to solve, but they don’t have the guts to look at the big problems in New Zealand’s economy. 0.6% growth in total over the last 3 years – less than population. But National only tinkers and distracts, as our brightest and best head to Aussie.
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 pm, May 21st, 2012 - 13 comments
National have become a very adept PR machine. While not adept at running the country, they’ve become great at running statistics. John Key was pushing things a little too far with his lines that unemployment rising to 6.7% showed an improved economy and that Europe electing anti-austerity leaders showed their austerity policies were right, but […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, May 21st, 2012 - 14 comments
Last Budget, National promised 36,000 jobs in the year to March 2012. We got 20,000. They promised 1.8% growth. We got 1.1%. They promised a $9.8 billion deficit. Now, it’s heading for over $12 billion. Ready for a repeat on Thursday?. English will say last year’s failures were all someone else’s fault. Key will grin and make some weak jokes, the beakbenches will hoot and holler. But will anyone outside National be smiling this time round?
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, May 21st, 2012 - 59 comments
Remember ‘ambitious for New Zealand’? Remember ‘brighter future’? National used to at least say they wanted to do something significant. At what point did all that get replaced with ‘surplus by 2014/15’? Key and National have $70 billion a year to play with to better this country, and the best thing they can come up with is making sure government operating revenue exceeds operating spending by about half a percent in three years time.
Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, May 15th, 2012 - 12 comments
Unemployment’s up, wages are flat, retail and export prices in freefall. Last budget National promised 4% this year – it’s 1%. But never fear, the brighter future is just around the corner – again. Key says growth will be strong in 2013/14 -2 years from now. Does anyone still believe him?
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, May 11th, 2012 - 20 comments
We’re in a second mini-recession/stall since the Great Recession began in 2008. As in 2010, oil prices ramped up and growth petered out. Now, oil prices have dropped back a little. But the moment the economy shows mild signs of life, they’ll be back up again. Short periods of weak growth, oil price shocks, recessions – sounds like the cycle peak oil economists have predicted for years.
Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, April 26th, 2012 - 40 comments
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.
The United Kingdom is in recession again. Thanks austerity!
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, April 22nd, 2012 - 41 comments
Behold the economic genius of John Key.
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, April 10th, 2012 - 4 comments
Ruth Richardson has forced every subsequent policy to be sized up for ‘fiscal responsibility’. I’d like them to be sized up for ‘social responsibility’ and ‘environmental responsibility’ as well.
Written By: - Date published: 4:50 pm, April 8th, 2012 - 89 comments
We know that giving SkyCity more pokie machines will mean more problem gamblers, more crime. The Right says it’s worth it for the convention centre. But the official numbers show that’s a dog and we would pay for it in the long-run. It’s not one side of this equation that is bad for New Zealand, it’s both.
Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, April 6th, 2012 - 72 comments
Another “Zero budget” has been signaled. Some commentators think it’s a bold move. I beg to differ.
Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, April 4th, 2012 - 46 comments
The “fiscally neutral” tax cuts never were neutral at all, and a lower than expected tax take is hitting the government’s books. But Key is still out there repeating the lie.
Written By: - Date published: 6:34 am, April 2nd, 2012 - 273 comments
Bernard Hickey has a great piece in the Herald on Sunday that you shouldn’t miss.
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, March 23rd, 2012 - 15 comments
Plenty of high-profile bad news headlines for the Nats. At least it takes the focus of the boring old economy.
Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, March 20th, 2012 - 101 comments
Barack Obama will be breathing a sigh of relief after David Farrar endorsed his call to end oil subsidies. It seems the 3rd oil price spike in 5 years is getting the attention of even the Right. Something, they’ve got an inkling, is wrong and rising petrol prices are here to stay. Pity that, on the cusp of revelation, Farrar opts for the security blanket of neoclassical economics.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, March 15th, 2012 - 14 comments
Recently, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal describing how CEOs around the world spend their time. The article drew on data from a larger study, the Executive Time Use Project . This project relied on reports of time use by CEO’s personal assistants; making it more accurate. It came across my usual reading and I thought I might share some of the findings with you.
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, March 10th, 2012 - 24 comments
Hey John – where’s our “Brighter Future”? Hey National voters – was this what you voted for?
Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, March 7th, 2012 - 32 comments
Tax revenue is down, blowing a big hole in all the government’s financial projections. The Nats are in trouble and instead of looking for solutions, they’re looking for excuses.
Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, March 6th, 2012 - 16 comments
Nationals bungling on the economy continues to damage NZ. Even their misguided state sector job cuts have failed to make significant savings…
Written By: - Date published: 3:40 pm, February 20th, 2012 - 3 comments
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
Bollard says the NZ-Aus income gap may not be as large as suggested – but what about the incompetence gap?
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