Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Big time businessman Damien Grant thinks we’re either rich or irrelevant commodities. And Granny Herald thinks it’s reasonable to give him a platform to preach this vile social darwinism. Suddenly the careless deaths of Kiwi workers and the systemic poverty of so many of our children becomes less surprising.
National promised to close the wage gap with Australia, and stop the flow of people across the ditch. Instead they’ve not just massively increased the wage gap and the number of people fleeing the country, they’re now forcing our best and brightest out.
I’ve just read Vernon Small’s piece today and I actually learned things from it, other than opinions plucked out of thin air by the author. Small explains the fiscal and economic challenges now existing that the next government will have to cope with and, with a nod and wink, tells us National is going to push out its date for getting back to surplus.
John Armstrong wants Labour to come out radically different after the Cup. Having refused to cover Labour’s skills package or its mining policy, he’s suddenly interested in policy. He wants Labour to suddenly adopt league tables and forget the 39% tax rate. Armstrong genuinely doesn’t seem to get it. Parties of the Left don’t pick and swap policies on a whim.
I/S at NoRightTurn on the Gisborne mother and baby who were turned away by three government agencies when she sought help: “People who go to WINZ needing help should get it. Instead, this woman was told to fuck off, thanks to service cuts and a deliberate policy of limiting costs by imposing bureaucratic barriers to access.”
IHC workers won a lengthy court battle to have the work they do overnight (so-called ‘sleepover’ shifts) recognised as work worthy of the minimum wage. The $300m in backpay they were due would have bankrupted IHC. The government, so keen to bailout corporate mates, refused to help. Now, the workers have given us, taxpayers, a $200m break on their debt.
Respected Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf argues that the last thing we need in a world of excess saving is for creditworthy governments to cut their borrowing. He presents evidence that shows that fiscal deficits are helpful not because they return the economy to swiftly to health but because they promote the (required) painfully slow healing. If the debt diagnosis is wrong then so is the asset sales cure.
If electricity assets were part privatised, future governments couldn’t make the kind of reforms that National made earlier this year because of the need to consider private investors’ rights. Pretty simple, eh? Tell that to Hekia Parata. Bill English has his head in the sand on the effect of falling markets and can’t guarantee Kiwi ownership.
Robert Reich writes about the impact of growing inequality in the United States. He has a graphic that shows the effects over the past hundred years. As the US and Europe come closer to their Niagara fall, the logic is compelling. Edmund Burke’s saying that those who don’t know their history are destined to repeat it comes to mind.
Treasury has now adopted their masters’ political line on income statistics. The latest Treasury MEI uses average after-tax wages to argue that an average worker is better off by 2% since October 2010. In real terms the average worker’s gross wage less inflation means they are 1% worse off. The average of $50,000 a year is a long way above the median wage as indicated by the 2009 IRD distribution figures. In reality a few are hugely better off, some are ok, and most are still worse off.
Once again recent headlines prompt me to ask if in 2008 we really chose a brighter future after all.
The New York Times has a graphic comparing the outcomes of economic policy in the US, specifically comparing the broadly social democratic policies prevalent between 1847 and 1979, and the NeoLiberal policies since 1980. The differences are astounding.
The stories coming out of the Pike inquiry paint a picture of a company with a basic disregard for workers’s safety.
But we shouldn’t expect anything else after thirty years of putting the interests of business ahead of everyone else.
Denis Tegg on National’s head in the sand Energy Strategy. All the official international warnings have been dismissed and the government has forced official to remove any reference to peak oil. The minister flatly refused to answer questions about the impact of peak oil on her fossil-fuel centred plan at the strategy launch.
Reading the political spin from David Farrar (channeling Bill English) over the weekend, I have to keep reminding myself that he really has very little idea about the practicalities of business. Where he is concerned about political costs, I find from a perspective of an exporter that I’m far more concerned about reliability of services.
Guns don’t kill people, the old saw goes. People do. By the same token, corporations don’t dodge taxes. People do. The people who run corporations are reaping awesomely lavish rewards for the tax dodging they have their corporations do. A report from the Institute of Policy Studies shows that 25 major U.S. corporations last year paid their chief executives more than they paid Uncle Sam in federal income taxes. Creative accounting is also a problem here.
Remember those thundering editorials and opinion pieces chastising Labour for focusing on trivia instead of the substantive issues?
Professor Robert Wade of the London School of Economics and author of the acclaimed Governing the Market will speak on this topic at LHT2, Rutherford House, Bunny Street, Wellington at 6pm on Thursday 22nd September. All are welcome to attend this free lecture; if you wish to come please register here as places may be limited. Click through to see abstract.
The wealthy elite in Europe are now joining Warren Buffett in these calls for higher taxes for the rich (including CGT), why? Maybe it’s because they know the truth, they know that the world is likely to enter another global recession, and they know the risk this will bring to social cohesion, which they rely on for maintaining the lifestyle they enjoy.
The Tertiary Education Union has revealed that 350 jobs are for the chop at Canterbury University – 18% of the workforce. The Uni, hardly reassuringly, says its 100 to 500. The Nats blame the quake. That’s rubbish. These kind of cuts will permanently gut the Uni, leaving it in no position to be part of the recovery. National: the anti-education government.
This afternoon Labour released a substantial policy package targeting youth unemployment. Once again the public is being offered a choice between Labour’s realistic response to a significant problem, and more do-nothing smile and wave.
Spotted in an English pub. Check out the artist’s name.
Paul Reynolds is leaving Telecom having pocketed tens of millions and seen the value of the company halve. He follows in the footsteps of Theresa ‘Goldeneye’ Gattung who lost Telecom shareholders billions and has put the millions she was paid in gold. Isn’t something broken when bad CEOs paid so much? Danyl notes that’s not the exception, it’s the rule.
National’s Energy Strategy has been roundly criticised. The promises of more renewables and energy efficiency are more ‘aspirational’ fluff with no plan to actually get there. And, worse, the heart of the strategy works against sustainability and environmental responsibility – it’s all about drilling up and burning more oil. I/S at NoRightTurn explains.
Free trade is meant to be about opening up markets for our exports so that we can improve our trade balance and, ultimately, become less indebted as a nation. Yet the opposite seems to be happening. Darkhorse shows that this is the experience of all countries that lower their trade barriers in a still largely protectionist world.
One of the lies at the heart of the Nats’ approach to industrial relations is that negotiating directly with the employer “empowers” the individual worker and allows them to get better wages and conditions. The facts prove otherwise.
Brian Gaynor notes vampire economics of neoliberalism means nearly all the largest listed companies are either privatised former public assets and/or monopolies thanks to government regulation. The capitalist elite has failed to generate wealth and stripped previously privatised assets. Now, their party, the Nats, plans to suck out more of our public wealth.
Like many countries worldwide, New Zealand has an aging problem. Digging around the available charts it isn’t hard to see why. But New Zealand has less of a problem than many developed countries because of the demographics of our Maori and Pacifica populations plus the continuing immigration. It is still pretty bad.
Following the release of data by the Chief Coroner, suicide is once again getting some time in the headlines. Coincidentally, news from Christchurch supports the suggestion that stronger communities reduce suicide rates.
According to John Key all New Zealanders have a socialist streak. But wait, there’s more…
Extracts from an article by Dr Campbell Jones (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Auckland). Who creates wealth? Is wealth evidence of merit?
Remember Greg Clydesdale? He caused quite a fuss in 2008 when the Dom uncritically ran a frontpage story based on his “research” that concluded Pacific Islanders are a drain on a society who are, amongst other sins, crowding ‘our’ beaches. Well, he’s back, spouting more anti-immigrant trash, and Farrar’s blowing the dog-whistle for him.
Angry Old White Man Party (ACT) Leader Don Brash is to launch another attack on young people. It’s strange that this once significant and principled party has sent its dying days picking the on the young. The latest stupid idea is to remove the minimum wage for under 20s altogether and cut spending to cut taxes that the rich pay.
The government reckons it can cut the number of public sector workers without cutting services. That wasn’t the experience of the 80s and […]
