Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Key’s making excuses for his government’s pathetic record on jobs. Unemployment is going the wrong way but Key calls another 2,000 people without jobs to 162,000 – the highest number since 1994 – a “very small, technical rise“. 65,000 more unemployed under National. And we’re doing relatively badly. We’ve gone from 6th lowest unemployment in the OECD to 14th.
Unemployment is up, and the real situation is worse than the figures suggest. Just how many more years of the Nats’ economic “genius” do you want NZ?
Buying back Kiwirail was a chance for building a cost-, oil-, and carbon-efficient transport network. Instead, its been a tale of false economies: cheap trains from China, cheap sleepers from Peru, cheap labour from contracting out. In the end, it all costs more for worse results.
Yesterday, National was patting itself on the back for getting, wait for it, 25 people into work and off benefits as part of rebuilding Christchurch. This in a $770,000 programme called Work InZone that was meant to get 100 people into work. This programme didn’t create jobs, it just helped get the select beneficiaries to the front of the queue for them. Just means someone else missed out.
The Libor banking scandal has grown into a full fledged international crisis. Just another example of the rot at the heart of capitalism.
I plan to start a business. I will be a job creator. 50 people will have jobs thanks to me. The whole community will benefit. My business will make poisoned puppy toys. Don’t get me wrong. They won’t kill every puppy who chews on them every time. Only 50% over the puppies’ lives. 30 puppies a year will die per job created. But – jobs! Does it make it better if I’m only selling the poison puppy toys in Australia?
Hey John – where’s our “Brighter Future”? Hey National voters – was this what you voted for?
No one can fix the tail of educational underachievement without fixing poverty.
For some reason the Nats are in a hurry to complete their privatisation programme within two years. Anyone in any doubt as to how the process of consultation with Maori will play out might be informed by some recent history.
Anyone else taking a perverse pleasure in the Pullar-Collins-Boag-Judge affair? They’re all Tory villains. And they’re eating each other alive. Judge was handpicked to privatise ACC. Now, Collins is trying to stick the Boag email leak to him, Did he do it? Who knows. The other most likely option is Collins. So implicating Judge serves Collins’ purpose.
Labour’s people-centred economic policy got a huge boost last week, courtesy of the Members’ Bill lottery. Paid parental leave extended, holidays Mondayised, minimum wage raised, and assets fenced off from sale. The first two have gone to Select Committee. They are worth supporting.
A post (reprinted with permission) from bsprout at the Local Bodies blog…
Although Key’s privatisation programme has hit plenty of problems with Maori water rights, his job is made a whole lot easier by the luxury of an ethical main opposition party.
The government have $3 billion for the Christchurch rebuild burning a hole in their pockets. But at the same time they’re claiming governmental poverty is why we need to sell our productive assets… And there’s 30,000 people nearby wanting proper houses to live in.
Many of those who participate in the comments here at The Standard also run their own excellent blogs. We regularly feature No Right Turn and Imperator Fish Today we’re reposting (with permission) pieces from two other blogs that attracted some attention in Open mike recently. Here’s the second one, from The Political Scientist…
Many of those who participate in the comments here at The Standard also run their own excellent blogs. We regularly feature No Right Turn and Imperator Fish Today we’re reposting (with permission) pieces from two other blogs that attracted some attention in Open mike recently. First up here’s Frankly Speaking…
The Waitangi Tribunal has recommended that asset sales should stop.
Will update as reaction emerges.
The pay of CEOs in our largest listed companies increased at more than four times the rate of the pay of workers last year. And workers’ pay actually went backwards after inflation. Meanwhile, the average CEO has pocketed more than $1,500 a week of tax cuts from National. Meanwhile, the 150 richest New Zealanders saw their wealth increase by 18% in the past year.
In April, Christchurch Council revealed its plan for the CBD rebuild following an extensive period of public consultation. The chance to rebuild the CBD of our second-largest city was a once-in-generations opportunity to fit the city for our future challenges. The Council plan had its faults but one of the good aspects was it addressed smart transport. King Gerry ripped it up immediately.
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring). This week: hiding tax, growing up neo-liberal and Syria.
3 opposition private members’ Bills passed – extended paid parental leave, Mondayisation, and lobbying disclosure – on Wednesday (moving a ban on land sales to foreigners up the list). Then, all 5 drawn from the ballot on Thursday opposition bills too: marriage equality, $15hr minimum wage, super-majority/referendum protection for asset sales, charging government agencies that pay access to info, and controlling water pollution.
Gosh, isn’t government austerity working well in Britain. Thank goodness we’re following in their footsteps.
Key loves mythical “mum and dad investors”. Real mums and dads – not so much.
Last month on The Nation (or Q+A?) Groser mentioned how the much hyped, but actually insignificant, free trade deal with Russia had hit a mysterious wall. Groser couldn’t even get to see the current minister and had “tough” talks with the ex-minister instead, while Key’s meeting with Putin was cancelled by Putin at the last minute. Now, I think we know what the trouble is.
The biggest petition to Parliament in 3 years was presented yesterday with Greenpeace’s 140,000 signature call for the Government to halt subsidisation of fossil fuels and invest in a clean energy future instead. 140,000 signatures is a remarkable achievement. Predictably, it got a nasty response from the Government. Their ugly attitude is turning off voters.
Loyalty Scheme: $360 million.
Brokerage Fees: $90 million.
Advertising/PR: $30 million.
Iwi Settlements: $unknown.
Lost Revenue: $100 million/year.
One law for the rich, another for the poor.
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring). This week: The Olympics, some interesting science on inequality and performance pay, and what does history look like when it’s not the propaganda of the victor?
We know that more sprawl is actually twice as expensive to the rate- and tax-payer than increasing density within existing urban limits because […]
Whether you accept the evidence that the consumption of oil is currently peaking or not, it is undeniable that a) the world’s fossil fuel resources are finite and we’ve already consumed a large fraction of it and b) we won’t keep consuming evermore per day until it’s all gone. So, inevitably, the shape of human fossil fuel use is going to look like this.
Never let the Nats tell you that they’re making responsible cuts in tough times. When the Greens tried to amend the social welfare bill currently before Parliament to ensure no kids would “unduly suffer”, National vetoed it saying that would eliminate $128m of the savings National’s planning to make. Get that? National’s welfare reforms take $128m from poor kids.
This report has been prepared for the purposes of verifying the Prime Minister’s statement on Tuesday 17 July 2012 that it was unlikely a meteorite would hit the earth that afternoon. Having comprehensively reviewed a number of economics journals that we agree with, we can find no evidence that a meteorite struck the Earth on the afternoon of Tuesday 17 July 2012.
Many modern companies are now operating markets of their own, but they’re not “free” as claimed. Rather there is only one possible purchaser of your labour, leading to a tournament of who is able to accept the lowest pay and conditions. This isn’t even capitalism, but we’re letting them get away with it.
I don’t know which is stranger, a currency-trading capitalist denigrating people for maximising their economic opportunities, or claims dating back to The Treaty being passed off as somehow superficial.
Right now 28 miners are stuck down a Waihi mine with a fire causing noxious gases. 15 people are being decontaminated at Tiwai […]
Even John Key is now admitting that the asset sale program is facing a serious legal challenge, and that delays in the sales are likely. Any such delay would have several implications…
