Chart o’ the day: got milked?
Can’t help but notice the international price peaked just when Fonterra put on their ‘generous price-cap’tm.
Economy
Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
The real cost of PPP’s revealed
A report in the Financial Times, that hotbed of socialism, says that PFI’s as PPP’s are known in Britain cost an extra 20 billion pounds in “extra borrowing costs” over the 53 billion pounds of the projects’ actual cost. Not only that, 4 billion pounds will go to consultants. Enough said. Another dumb idea from those who gave us collateralised debt instruments, self-correcting markets and “there is no alternative”.
Future focus fizzer
Nats are skiting at getting some people off the dole. But what really happened. How much was really saved?
London riots
There have been two nights of rioting, looting and burning in London. The trigger was the police shooting of Mark Duggan. But the cause is the alienation of the permanent underclass, and the stresses of the current austerity programme.
Don’t sell into a down market
Before the government launched its asset sales policy, the Treasury told it that “significant participation by foreign investors” would be “essential” to provide “pricing tension”. In other words, if they can’t sell to foreigners at a high price, they wouldn’t get the revenue they want. So, the second global financial crisis should scupper the plan, eh?
Wealth creators or life-blood suckers?
Study proves that our ‘wealth creators’ are actually bad managers. We have the natural resources. Got the skilled workforce. We’re held back by the capitalist elite. Not interested in capital investment and paying better wages. They’re just rentiers out to extract quick profits: a formula of low wages, tax cuts, and untaxed capital gains. Parasites.
Anti-imperialism not racist
National says that you’re a racist for not wanting to sell our assets to foreigners, particularly Chinese state-owned companies. It’s not racism. It’s about our sovereignty. We are never going to be able to choose our way in the world if we sell everything abroad and we do not want to become a vassal of the world’s newest empire.
End slavery in NZ, create 2,500 Kiwi jobs
Next week, a report will reveal the abuse of 2,500 foreign workers used as virtual slaves on ships employed by kiwi fishing quota holders in our waters. By rights, we should have a world renowned fishing fleet. Instead, we let our potential go to waste and employ foreign slaveowners and human traffickers to do the work instead.
Crisis? What Crisis?
Cuts are good for you.
Ready for round two?
The global financial system, which has never properly recovered from the recession, is poised on the brink of a second crash. The headlines are a parade of bad news…
Update: US credit rating downgraded from AAA to AA+ with negative outlook (same as NZ). Announcement was made after close of markets. It’s gonna hit the fan on Monday.
Keynes vs Hayek debate at the London School of Economics
BBC Radio 4 in the UK has a very interesting debate pitting followers of Keynes vs those of Hayek
No to foreign boats harvesting our fish
Fisheries workers bearing a 12,000 signature told a select committee yesterday the horror stories of abuse of foreign workers on fishing vessels, whose low wages displace Kiwi workers, how the focus on low-cost, low-quality that is wasting our fish stocks, and how this is caused by Kiwi corporates putting a quick buck ahead of their people and their environment.
NZRU to blame for rugby rip-off
Adidas was founded by a Nazi who lied that his own brother was SS to get him in deeper trouble when the brother was captured by the US. That cut-throat attitude persists. I don’t know why people want to wear All Blacks shirts. Adult equivalent of a 5 year old wearing a superman costume. But the NZRU shouldn’t let them be ripped off like this.
George on tax
It isn’t often that I find myself in agreement with Garth George. But he’s written a scorching indictment of right-wing greed that feels right at home here on The Standard…
Economist on US debt politics
KAL (the cartoonist for The Economist) expresses my feelings about the political process over the last couple of months in the US. Their […]
Greens tackle child poverty
The Greens have launched their policy to get 100,000 kids out of poverty. It’ll cost just 0.3% of GDP. We have a moral duty to do what we can to eliminate child poverty. Labour made a start. WFF basically ended working poverty. But there’s the kids of beneficiaries. 270,000 kids below the poverty line while the elite live in mansions. Not good enough.
Compulsory Kiwisaver?
Good to see the government considering a move that would significantly boost KiwiSaver uptake – even if it does highlight their ideological inconsistency!
Hickey’s prescription for the currency
The neoliberal myth is that government economic policy doesn’t really matter, it can’t affect the economy – apart from being an anchor on growth. The truth is, government is the biggest actor in our economy. What it does matters. Bernard Hickey has listed 10 ways that the government could act to get the exchange rate down.
Graph of the day: 1 in 20 jobs gone in Chch
120 jobs per weekday lost but nothing to worry about. The market will right itself.
Free market quake
The “free market” exists to make profit. It does have some advantages when everything is running smoothly. But the free market is hopeless in tough times. It never wants to pay out or clean up the mess.
Key’s own goal on poverty
A bad mistake by John Key in the House yesterday. Phil Goff asked him about the gap between rich and poor. Key cited a new report on falling inequality. But he should have read the report properly. It credits Labour policies for driving down poverty and inequality.
PSA launches myth busting campaign
The PSA is launching its election campaign this evening. Our big challenge is to break through the government’s narrative (now reaching mythic proportions) […]
Chart o’ the day: the real world
You paid to get Try-hard John on the telly
Remember John Key’s awful Letterman appearance? Supposedly worth a fortune in tourism. We know that was complete crap. It was a stunt meant to impress us saps. Now we learn that we paid for it. PM’s office pleaded for months to get on Letterman. Try-hard even sent a demo tape. When that didn’t work, they paid a US PR agency $10K to seal the deal.
All hail our vampire overlords
How did the wealth of the 151 richest people grow by 10% of GDP when the economy grew only 1.5%? Mostly by revaluing existing assets. Not a lot of ‘wealth creation’ from our self-appointed Randian Heroes, just book changes. But, apparently, we owe everything to the elite and need to let them suck up more of our wealth for themselves.
Breeding for a business?
A typical shock horror headline on Stuff in the weekend – “Pre-teens dream of kids and dole”. So what’s going on here, and is it an argument for “welfare reform”?
All the World’s A Square
Some inspiration as Monday morning looms.
Out of sight out of mind
Many other countries have cleared beggars from the streets in advance of big international sporting events. Such a thing would never be needed in New Zealand though. Would it?
Cooperation vs the tea party
Cooperation is one of the characteristics that defines humans in evolutionary terms. However true to their intellectually intransigent nature derived more from their enjoyment of a good old randian tantrum, the tea party is holding everyone to ransom. I suspect that the republicans are not going to like the consequences because voters value cooperation more.
Boggled
I/S at No Right Turn on the public’s perception of the management of the economy, and National’s “dismal non-performance “.
Political crisis, not debt crisis
The media are reporting the chance of the US defaulting as a ‘debt crisis’, as if the problem is too much debt and people won’t lend to them. It’s not. The US is still borrowing at half the cost we borrow at. The problem is the debt ceiling. A purely political invention that lets lawmakers cut taxes, add spending, and then refuse to allow the resultant borrowing.
Joyce and corporate handouts
National has handed Telecom a new monopoly to replace its old one. As landlines go the way of the Dodo, fibre optic cable is the new natural monopoly, and we’re learning that Steven Joyce was talking to Telecom as far back as 2009 to ensure they go the lion’s share of the government handouts for fibre and a virtual monopoly in the market.
Flavell fails on suicide
Last week, Jim Anderton said that the tidal wave of youth unemployment we’re experiencing will lead to more suicides. He’s right. The best response from the Right: slash young people’s wages and that might create a few more jobs. But Te Ururoa Flavell’s suggestion to ostracise and condemn the dead is just as bad.
Indeed
A classic from stuff:
Prime Minister John Key said the Government had had very little room to move on the economy.
”The public recognises that the rest of the world isn’t in great shape and so New Zealand is having to contend with that global environment,” he said.
Chart o’ the day: more trouble brewing
Every US dollar we make in exports is worth 17% less in New Zealand than 4 months ago. Gonna get worse. How long’s this sustainable?
US brinksmanship takes us all to the edge
The Republicans are playing chicken over the debt ceiling. The idea is to win as much as possible in spending cuts and permanently shrink the government by appearing more willing to go over the edge than the Democrats without actually going over. But does the Tea Party faction understand the game, or will they block the last minute compromise?