Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
“It isn’t cricket” supposedly set the ethical standard around the British Empire for over a century. Last week saw Lords, the ‘home of cricket,’ validate a damning report about racism, elitism, classism and sexism in British cricket just days after it was issued.
An excellent interview with a well-connected American who would like to see the US and China work together, and knows Xi Jinping well, provides some real insight as to why he is a serious leader. Interviewed today by Richard Harman, Tim Groser backs it up.
Yesterday in Parliament National attempted to embarrass Carmel Sepuloni in question time by asking her detailed economic questions. But the attempt backfired.
It is a given that the right in power want to sell public assets off and the left want to retain those assets. And it appears that the right’s eyes are on Ports of Auckland.
Fresh from his success at selling off part of Auckland Council’s Airport shares Wayne Brown has proposed another privatisation, that of Ports of Auckland Operations by way of the granting of an operating lease for the Port’s activities.
Ad reports on Christopher Luxon’s meeting in Wanaka.
According to National holding a modest shareholding can open a Minister to allegations of conflict of interest but owning seven investment properties and proposing beneficial tax treatment of landlords does not.
Last night I watched Christopher Luxon in a interview with Jack Tame on Q&A from youtube. My takeaway from it was that I don’t want this fool anywhere near actual policy. He exhibited a blissful ignorance about downstream effects of genetic engineering, climate change, and productivity in our economy. Even where I agreed with him like on GE – I didn’t want this idiot implementing policy on it.
Poverty is a political choice, and the Green Party is choosing to end it. – James Shaw
The Green Party has today announced an income guarantee and a wealth tax.
Debt is the most destructive and addictive form of economic behaviour we have in New Zealand. And mortgages are New Zealand’s very high grade heroin and we are being forced to come down off a most spectacular high into a rage-inducing forced withdrawal.
The pros & cons of tax cuts vs. universalism suggest that universalism might be universally better for New Zealand.
National’s promise to increase the age of retirement and likely cuts to Cullen fund contributions and state Kiwisaver payments have been seized on by Labour as evidence that National does not care about ordinary people.
Christopher Luxon had no idea that National has recently used artificially generated images in what appears to be a crude attempt to avoid historical issues National has had with respecting the intellectual property rights of artists.
National has hatched on its attack line which we will hear about a lot over the next few months. But it may have a problem. Because the phrase “coalition of chaos” clearly applies to its leadership team.
When we continue to spend our money on stupid stuff, we get a dumb country.
Almost all of the extra heat that humans have captured by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere over the last few centuries has wound up warming the deep oceans. We’re now starting to feel the effects of that excess heat.
National has promised to reverse the removal of prescription charges even though it has a strong policy support and is an example of the state taking less of individuals’ private wealth.
“All of these things were impossible, until they weren’t” – Chloe Swarbrick
Today is Budget Day with the proceedings kicking off at 2 pm.
National’s latest policy brainstorm is to print out and mail to every taxpayer information they could obtain by using Google and MyIRD.
Since they’re touted as 2023’s electoral ‘Kingmakers’, it’s time to understand what the Maori Party really want.
In case we just missed it, New Zealand really has picked a side. Prime Minister Hipkins will head to the NATO summit in Lithuania together with Australia, Japan and South Korean leaders. Also Vladimir Zelinskyy is intending to go as well.
Prime Minister Hipkins has put Labour on course to win a third term. Here’s how.
I’ve worked my way through two books recently, both on extremist sects, one about New Zealand groups and one about those in the United States of America. It’s startling.
This government has within its power the ability to alter the crippling cost of living increases we now face. If they don’t do the political job they can do with prices, they will lose power at the election.
With the release by David Parker of a report showing that the wealthiest New Zealanders pay tax at much less than half the rate of other Kiwis is it time to again debate the virtue of a comprehensive Capital Gains Tax.
Andrew Little says our government is willing to “explore” participating in AUKUS Pillar 2, but “foreign or local voices would not be a factor.” Our leaders will decide he says. I say “taihoa.”
In election year, National’s farming regulations bonfire flies in the face of climate action and ecological restoration.
Yesterday Statistics New Zealand dealt a rather large blow to National’s election chances when it announced that the latest rate of inflation was 6.7%, a significant drop below the previous rate.
We didn’t need the Russian invasion of Ukraine to tell us that great power competition is back, since China and the United States and Russia had been going at it well before even COVID temporarily messed up the multilateral trade system upon which we had built our little country. But it’s made it worse, and so we’re picking a side, and that side is NATO.
Musing after the recent IMF/World Bank meetings, Former White house economist and US Treasury secretary Larry Summers said “it’s looking a bit lonely on the right side of history..as others are increasingly banding together in a whole range of structures.”
It is hard to reconcile Christopher Luxon’s deep christian beliefs with his desire to trash Easter Sunday as a holiday or to refuse to support increases in the minimum wage.
In his …and forgive them their debts, my favourite economist and Jubilee advocate Michael Hudson states that Jesus driving the money-changers from the Temple was “the act that inspired the city leaders to plot his death.”
Today is Jacinda’s official last day on the job as a member of Parliament.
National has proposed RMA reform as the basis for accelerating the roll out of renewable energy generation. It appears that it has never met a problem for which the solution is either a tax cut or RMA reform.
