Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, October 9th, 2012 - 19 comments
If I was at the manufacturing crisis summit this Friday, and if John Key was showing up rather than spending his time on Planet Key and claiming that manufacturing is doing “extremely well”, I would ask him this: How come when Hollywood calls, you drop everything and go; how come you arrest Dotcom for them and give them $50m a year; but when Kiwi jobs are bieng lost, all you have to offer is denials and the cold shoulder?
Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, October 9th, 2012 - 99 comments
National promised us an “unrelenting focus on jobs” and delivered record highs in unemployment and emigration. Now Key is refusing to even attend a Union jobs summit, because on Planet Key everything is just fine. The unwillingness to admit that anything is wrong is just blind arrogance.
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, October 8th, 2012 - 76 comments
In another slippery John Key u-turn, after his mission to Hollywood ‘sweeteners’ are now on the table. Key is bending over to let US-based conglomerates extend their dominance in NZ, in support of their own interests and values.
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, October 8th, 2012 - 223 comments
I was surprised this weekend to see The Herald come out with a strongly stated piece in favour of cheating and tax evasion.
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, October 8th, 2012 - 31 comments
So, it turns out that our ‘foreign trusts’ regime is being exploited so that billionaires from developing countries can avoid tax in their countries. We’re a tax haven. And the Government sees nothing wrong with that. It’s legal, so it’s OK. Yes, we’re helping a foreign elite avoid paying their fair share and rip off poor people, but hey, this is a National Government – that sounds like paradise to them.
Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, October 8th, 2012 - 12 comments
John Key likes to reference Singapore as a model for New Zealand. He’s meeting their PM today. Obviously, we can’t move New Zealand to the world’s busiest shipping route but what else can we do to emulate Singapore’s economic success? Singapore hasn’t sold its SOEs – it has built them into a massive investment fund. And it doesn’t let its currency raise to kill its exporters – it intervenes.
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 pm, October 7th, 2012 - 8 comments
I turned on the news hoping to see the Nats’ rebuttal of the Greens’ detailed plan to protect Kiwi manufacturing like our competitors are doing. Instead, I saw a smirking fuck who has overseen the loss of 40,000 manufacturing jobs say ‘the high dollar’s good’. Joyce actually says a over-valued dollar is a good thing. ‘Flat-screen tellies are cheaper! Pity you don’t have a job to buy one!’
Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, October 7th, 2012 - 27 comments
Parasitic blogger takes on Very Important Columnist who does Real Journalism Work to bring to her readers Informed and Insightful Commentary on The Issues That Really Matter.
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, October 7th, 2012 - 328 comments
40,000 manufacturing jobs gone in four years. Manufactured exports in free-fall. Tourism revenue collapsing. If that’s not a crisis, what is? Why is the government going to do? Nothing. Nothing. On Q+A, Russel Norman put forward a solid proposal: lower the OCR, new tools to stop housing booms, and quantitative easing to pay for Christchurch […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, October 7th, 2012 - 29 comments
There is increasing concern about New Zealand’s housing situation, with an escalation in homelesssness, people living in totally unacceptable conditions, and the lack of sufficient affordable housing stock.Update: Government close to unveiling plans for “cheap” housing on city fringe and ‘brownfield’ sites.
Written By: - Date published: 7:19 am, October 7th, 2012 - 59 comments
40 jobs in a hi-tech business repairing jet engines are set to be lost. The business’s profits are being slaughtered by the high dollar. The Bluff smelter could close – 900 jobs directly on the line, plus thousands more in the local economy – as Rio Tinto can’t make a profit with the dollar so high and aluminum prices down. How much longer will we do nothing?
Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, October 6th, 2012 - 4 comments
CTU President Helen Kelly talks about the Government’s Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety and the need for as many workers as possible to make a submissions and give the Government a real, on-the-ground picture of health and safety in the workplace.
Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, October 6th, 2012 - 93 comments
It looks like National are going to increase funding for food in low decile schools.
That’s great news for the kids but gives the government the chance to brush the question of why they were hungry in the first place under the carpet.
Just like any good third way policy should.
Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, October 6th, 2012 - 7 comments
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week, immigrant Pacific Island families in poverty, and a thoughtful and challenging piece on the role of philanthropy in NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, October 5th, 2012 - 18 comments
It’s now clear that National are unfit for office anywhere but Planet Key. Which is unfortunate, because here on Planet Earth, things aren’t going so well. We need new ideas, we need action, we need results. We aren’t going to get them from National.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, October 5th, 2012 - 128 comments
Today there have been protests around NZ, against Paula Bennett’s punitive welfare reforms.
Updates: Include ODT article link and extract, photos of Henderson protest, and links to several news articles.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, October 4th, 2012 - 79 comments
Draco T offers a radical formula for economic renewal.
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, October 4th, 2012 - 66 comments
As Key heads off to the US to promote the NZ film industry, I look back at the Hobbit union-busting case and the issues it raised. Will Key’s latest mission to Hollywood, boost the economy, increase jobs and provide benefits to the NZ film industry? Or will it actually undermine the NZ’s economy and democracy, further Americanising NZ’s culture along with it?
Written By: - Date published: 1:49 pm, October 2nd, 2012 - 22 comments
Kim Dotcom was arrested on charges related to copyright infringement, not national security or “terrorism”. There is a worrying trend that the GCSB is part of an international security networks that have shifted from their original mission related to national security and is providing support to corporate interests.
Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, October 2nd, 2012 - 4 comments
“TPP Watch” has a shiny new web site, with great resource and events coming up. Check it out.
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, October 1st, 2012 - 16 comments
We’re told 36,000 workers are needed for the Christchurch rebuild. But since the earthquakes began 2 years ago, 9,000 people with the skills needed for the rebuild have left New Zealand. We’re making no effort to keep the skilled workers we have but the Government thinks those 36,000 workers will just magically appear when needed.
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, October 1st, 2012 - 10 comments
‘Business Business Business’ is the endless chant from the Nat’s business will be our savour, all business is good of-course. Bad businesses, well they will go out of business, generally because they cant compete or are poorly managed, but mostly not before they have stolen all your savings, which in the case of a good bad business you will never have any chance of recovering.
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, October 1st, 2012 - 117 comments
David Cunliffe has given another excellent economic development speech. I think what’s interesting is that he’s not really proposing new policy – what he’s saying is largely in line with the platform Labour ran in on 2011, but he’s articulating the vision behind those policies – the why, rather than just the how – which was lacking from Labour in 2011. Great stuff.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, September 30th, 2012 - 126 comments
David Shearer still doesn’t get why judging beneficiaries from across the road isn’t compatible with leading the Labour Party. QoT perseveres in trying to explain it to him, using short words.
Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, September 30th, 2012 - 176 comments
Split Enz once sang, “History Never Repeats”… Or does it? Destructive prejudices separating ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor have been around a very long time. When the likes of Paula Bennett pander to such ill-informed vindictiveness with punitive social welfare reforms, they will damage large numbers of children – our future citizens.
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, September 29th, 2012 - 23 comments
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week, right wingers whine about the focus on poverty, 3 News and Kidscan try to do something about it.
Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, September 27th, 2012 - 32 comments
Draco gives his long awaited second part on his views on a social democratic economy.
..the present socio-economic system that we use, namely Free Market Capitalism, is a failure. When thinking about the economy and how it works I realised I had to go back to basics as almost everything that’s taught about economics in the mainstream theories is bollocks – most of its assumptions aren’t even close to being realistic.
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, September 27th, 2012 - 53 comments
The UK and USA make for interesting case studies in their differing responses to the global recession. A pity that NZ followed the wrong leader.
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, September 26th, 2012 - 71 comments
Colin James writes good political analysis. His ODT article from yesterday resonates with me. It is time to look for a new economic model as we watch “..central banks – supposed to epitomise the straight and narrow – print money like 17th century monarchs.” as they recirculate the stupidities of the past like any National government.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 26th, 2012 - 102 comments
Bennett’s reforms aim to cut the costs of government spending on welfare. But what this means is that more of the necessary caring and service work in NZ will be unpaid, or underpaid. It doesn’t mean people will necessarily work harder or longer, and that they aren’t making a significant contribution to society and the economy.
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, September 24th, 2012 - 54 comments
Welcome to National’s economy: Kiwirail has just announced 158 infrastructure and engineering job losses, and this afternoon Solid Energy will probably announce the loss of 300 jobs at Spring Creek, and 200-250 elsewhere. This on top of the swathe of job losses in Huntly and Christchurch Solid Energy announced a month ago.
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