Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, December 28th, 2009 - 10 comments
An interesting piece on the SST yesterday: English has warned public servants such as teachers and nurses not to expect pay increases that are “out of line with realistic expectations”. “I think we will see quite a few sparks fly,” O’Reilly said. “Government departments are being told how much they can spend so you’re going […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:35 pm, December 23rd, 2009 - 19 comments
Since Marty’s away, no pretty graphs. There’s not much Christmas cheer in the new GDP numbers I’m afraid. The economy grew at just 0.2% in the September quarter (the forecast was 0.3%). That’s below the rate of population growth, so economic output per person continues to fall. GDP per capita is down 5%, $2000 a […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, December 16th, 2009 - 7 comments
More economic illiteracy from our old friend: Certainly given the rhetoric from the finance minister of late I’d thought the numbers would be worse than the Budget, not better. Um, everyone knew they would be better. We’ve known for months. The recession was over earlier than expected and that improves all the numbers. what was […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, December 16th, 2009 - 26 comments
An extraordinary moment in Question Time as John Boscawen skewered National’s hollow promise to close the wage gap with Australia by 2025. Watch the video and listen to Bill English’s voice. He was simply left high and dry when Boscawen asked him for some actual evidence that the gap is going to close: Boscawen: By how much […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, December 15th, 2009 - 41 comments
With huge infusions of EU cash and deregulation that brought in foreign companies looking to make a quick buck, Ireland’s economy grew pretty quickly over the past 25 years. On the back of their new-found wealth, Irish governments implemented a neoliberal revolution – cutting taxes for the rich, privatising public assets, the usual formula for […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, December 15th, 2009 - 12 comments
National claims it created 2,300 jobs with its stimulus spending. Of course, most of this supposed stimulus was smoke and mirrors – re-announcing existing spending – and 2,300 is bugger all when there are over quarter of a million Kiwis out of work. But I had a few more problems with this announcement. Firstly, I […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, December 5th, 2009 - Comments Off on In a land of plenty
Alister Barry’s other classic documentary on the effects of the Right’s neoliberal revolution on every day New Zealanders, In a Land of Plenty, is also now online thanks to NZ On Screen. Check it out below:
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, December 3rd, 2009 - 12 comments
Always worth listening to, Rod Oram rips the Brash Report on Nine to Noon, not just on the findings but on the quality of the work, that we’re paying half a million dollars for. Here are some of the choice quotes: “At every point it has unbelievably facile analysis and, in fact, substitutes rather generic […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, December 2nd, 2009 - 49 comments
As the dust settles on the cynical theatre that was the 2025 Taskforce, one fact is becoming abundantly clear. The political Right haven’t a clue what to do about the economy. Key and English don’t have a clue, or they’d be doing it. Brash and his Taskforce don’t have a clue and they said so: […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, December 1st, 2009 - 31 comments
Dubai is the subprime folly writ large. In the US, they built ‘exurbs’ in the Californian high desert, two hours each way from LA; rows of McMansions bought by people who couldn’t afford them whose lifestyles were dependent on cheap petrol*. In Dubai, they built skyscrapers in the desert; golf courses, swimming pools, even indoor […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, November 30th, 2009 - 17 comments
Brash’s taskforce releases its report today. Where’s Key? CHOGM ended yesterday but he’s not back until Wednesday. Catching Aussie by 2025 is meant to be his big vision. He can’t get them to wait a couple of days or get back quicker? We know this serious stuff isn’t really Key’s thing. But the fact that […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, November 20th, 2009 - 24 comments
It looked like a duck. It walked like a duck. It quacked like a duck. Turns out it was a duck. The “Plain English” advertisements were effectively party political broadcasts on behalf of the National Party. (Hardly surprising, as they were coauthored by English and his people). Even TVNZ now admits they should never have […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, November 19th, 2009 - 25 comments
National has released its petroleum strategy. It appears they plan to further lower our already low royalties to encourage foreign oil companies to come here, dig up our finite our reserves as fast as they can and make off with huge profits. Just about the dumbest attitude you can have to irreplaceable natural resources like […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, November 19th, 2009 - 33 comments
It’s great news that Phil Goff is urging a rethink of the way monetary policy is conducted in New Zealand. For too long interest rates (and hence inflation, unemployment, and house prices) have been the blunt tools of monetary policy. And for too long workers, householders, and exporters have borne the brunt. Labour leader Phil […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, November 16th, 2009 - 38 comments
A month ago, I wrote that National’s moves to gut the Emissions Trading Scheme would increase government debt by $73 billion by 2050. A Treasury report said that National’s ETS changes to subsidise polluters would see government debt 6-8% of GDP higher than it otherwise would be. GDP in 2050 is modelled at $914 billion, so 8% […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, November 16th, 2009 - 41 comments
Recessions are meant to be about fixing economic problems that built up during the previous boom – unwinding imbalances in the parlance. Higher unemployment, with all its consequences, business failures, and higher government debt are the price of putting the economy on a more sustainable platform for the future. But it’s not happening. All the […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, November 13th, 2009 - 7 comments
According to Stuff Bill English is planning to pull back the stimulus spending. The problem is there hasn’t been any significant stimulus spending. So my question is what exactly is the government going to cut back on? Will they cancel the cycleway? Or are they going to take all of the budget lines they crammed […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, November 12th, 2009 - 23 comments
Brian Fallow has a great post over at Granny Herald this morning. “Emitters on bludger’s end of deal” deals with the way that the NACT government has been loading costs onto future voters and taxpayers. On superannuation: By siphoning off and investing around another 1 per cent of GDP while the babyboomers are still in […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 9th, 2009 - 36 comments
I’ve never quite understood why David Farrar, who is after all paid to do statistical work, insists on performing transparent statistical tricks on his blog. Yesterday, he did a post with figures on the number of 15-19 year olds with jobs. He argued that it showed removing the youth rate and giving everyone the same […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, November 9th, 2009 - 9 comments
Like here in New Zealand, unemployment continues to climb in America. And one of the results is soaring productivity. (sources: 1,2) But wait, isn’t higher productivity good? In normal circumstances, yes, when it comes about from capital deepening (ie businesses investing in equipment rather than taking profits) or a more educated workforce. But productivity will […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:35 pm, October 31st, 2009 - 8 comments
A range of interesting political/economic comment today in the Herald: Fran O’Sullivan joins the left-wing and groups like Federated Farmers in calling on the Key Government to sort out monetary policy. At the moment, the Reserve Bank is tasked solely with controlling inflation with interest rates as its only real tool, while the exchange is […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, October 30th, 2009 - 24 comments
If you watched the media coverage of last week’s Council of Trade Unions conference you’ll have walked away thinking it was about John Key telling teachers to take a pay cut and some woman threatening to throw a shoe at him. Entirely missed was the launch of the CTU’s Alternative Economic Strategy. That’s a pity, […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, October 30th, 2009 - 19 comments
National’s favourite public servant (who got himself a nice pay rise), John Whitehead, has been offering dire warnings of the future. $2 trillion in debt by 2050! Something must be done! Naturally, the Treasury has an extreme right-wing solution – cut everything: cut health – yeah, a less healthy workforce that’ll be great for the […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, October 27th, 2009 - 2 comments
What a shame that the Reserve Bank has backed down on new the prudential liquidity rules that require the banks to raise a higher percentage of their money from longer term deposits. The rules were to come in at the start of next year, but the banks complained and in this country business always get its way so […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, October 21st, 2009 - 3 comments
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, October 8th, 2009 - 18 comments
Back in the 1980s, some people who had read too much Milton Friedman and had drunk too much whiskey at Backbone Club meetings, thought adopting the neoliberal economic model, that had never been proven to work outside textbooks, was the way forward for New Zealand. Slash government, slash taxes (for the rich), slash wages, slash […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, October 7th, 2009 - 31 comments
Back in 1934, when Gross Domestic Product was first being developed in the States, the economist in charge, Simon Kuznets, wrote “…the welfare of a nation [can] scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income…”. Right from the start, the economists were saying GDP was merely a measure of economic activity, not of the wealth […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, October 6th, 2009 - 19 comments
When the Tui oil-field was opened last year, the operators (AWE New Zealand, 87.5% foreign-owned, ironically) were given permission to burn off 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas retrieved incidentally to the oil over the life of the oil-field. That’s actually a hell of a lot of gas, about 6% of what New Zealand […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 30 comments
I wish that I got praise heaped on me at my job for exchanging a bit of small-talk with the popular dude. Don’t want to take away from Key’s achievement. I mean wow, he shook the Obama’s hand and didn’t muck it up. I’m looking forward to the gushing accolades when he manages to crack a […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 47 comments
You’ll remember that in the Budget National decided to suspend payments to the Cullen Fund, which is designed to help fund the future cost of superannuation. At the time, John Key and Bill English said we were losing money on the Fund and we couldn’t afford to borrow to put money into it. They compared […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, September 23rd, 2009 - 5 comments
The newly released figures show 0.1% growth in the June quarter. The March figure was also revised up to -0.8% (from -1.0%). Here comes the sun? Not quite. 0.1% is pretty damn weak. It’s below population growth (0.25% per quarter) so, we’re still worse off per person. And we’re a long way below the economic […]
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