Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Even considering putting in a new harbor crossing without heavy rail that hooks into our existing public transport rail system is simply ideological stupidity by National. Well it is good to see that Aucklanders recognize the critical requirement for a new harbor crossing – “Rail crossing wins big backing in poll”. The sample is small but quite clear…
A unemployment disaster is slowly unfolding in Christchurch. For now, the tide of job losses is being partially held back by wage subsidies supporting nearly 70,000 workers, but those will be phased out by June. Then, all hell will break loose. The Government has no plan for this and, according to Key, hasn’t even bothered to understand the scope of the crisis.
Displaced Christchurch residents are being told they need to pay at least $190 a week to stay in emergency campervan housing.
Meanwhile picking up the tab for wealthy SFC investors just got another third of a billion more expensive.
Last year, the New Zealand Institute lambasted the Nats’ ‘aspiration’ to catch Australia by 2025 with a report entitled ‘A goal is not a strategy‘. Did the Nats change? Of course not. Yesterday, their energy strategy was released. It offers some goals but is mute on how to get there. It’s not really a strategy at all, but it serves the Nats’ purpose nonetheless.
A UMR poll shows that 40% of Kiwis support paying an earthquake levy to help pay for the Christchurch rebuild. 22% prefer more borrowing, and 29% want spending cuts. Asked just whether they supported or opposed a levy – 57% supported it. Yet the Nats are choosing cuts instead.
With news now that a starving boy was found eating cockroaches, and that impoverished elderly are eating catfood, the plight of the underclass is getting nothing but worse. Is this the “brighter future” that National promised?…
The number of New Zealanders desperate for food is increasing.
But the government’s priority is to look after its wealthy mates.
What a joke.
The economy, shall we say politely, is facing some difficulties. With a National government there was no plan as to how to weather the economic storm, we just got tax cuts for the rich and an economy that just can’t get growing.
Truthout is one of my favourite sources of political commentary in America. Here’s editor William Rivers Pitt on “The New American Dream”…
“Workers lose in two-speed recovery” is the headline of an interesting article in today’s Business Herald print edition, sourced from “The Economist.” Living […]
The CTU is launching a new campaign today as part of their ongoing Fairness At Work. Things Just Got Tougher is about the new employment laws that start today, April 1.
In the last Budget, National cut the corporate tax rate to 28%, which costs $400 million a year and comes into effect today. […]
At this time in our history we need government leadership like we have never needed it before. But the signs aren’t good. Christchurch is a city on the edge, and round the country business confidence is plummeting.
Today National has a terrible April Fools for workers around Aotearoa: 90 day fire-at-will, reduced union access, sick notes after 1 day and minimum wage up a pittance. Workers are doing it tough already, and now National’s turning the screw.
In a raucous public meeting in Timaru last night, John Key said “The entire time I’ve been Prime Minister I’ve had Treasury in my office week after week, month after month telling me South Canterbury Finance was going bankrupt”. So, why did National sign SCF into the scheme and renew its deed three times?
You know your opponent’s stand is dishonourable when they resort to spreading lies and promoting falsehoods about your position. The government’s Acting Energy and Resources Minister, Hekia Parata, has been caught out lying and spreading slurs that misrepresented her opponents’ position on deep sea oil drilling.
Bill English wants to cut things that are “nice to have”, like the adult education classes (that he used to praise in opposition), and keep “necessities”, like tax cuts for the already wealthy. This is the kind of economic “wisdom” that has Bill leading us into an all time record budget deficit.
Key and English are trying to soften us up for big public service cuts this budget. They tell us it’ll just be ‘nice to haves’ and that the private sector will step in to fill the gap when they cut too close to the bone. The important thing to realise is that every time the public service doesn’t provide us with something either we have to buy it out of our own pockets (usually at greater cost) or we don’t get it at all.
The government is backing a call for “heroic” student loan holders to pay their loans back asap to help fund the earthquake recovery.
But there doesn’t seem to be a similar call for “heroic” high earners to return their unaffordable tax cuts.
The $6.8 million package for businesses offered last week by the government was an insult: business mentors and export junkets – just what people who aren’t allowed to access their businesses need. Now, Key and Bennett have announced they are slashing wage support and and the job loss payment. It will hammer the Christchurch economy.
The next Fabian Seminar at Connolly Hall Thursday 31 March at 5:30pm will feature economist Geoff Bertram examine how the high level of New Zealand’s overseas debt that figures prominently in much policy discourse is largely an increase in foreign-currency liabilities voluntarily taken on by mainly Australian-owned banks in pursuit of private profit. It will be interesting – all are welcome to attend.
The latest piece from economist Bernard Hickey is a despairing warning on the subject of borrowing. With the current government making things worse not better, is there any way out of this downwards spiral?
Normally, we get 3.65 millisieverts of radiation a year. Increased cancer risk is associated with 100 millisieverts per year. Nuclear workers are only meant to get 100 millisieverts even in an emergency with protective clothing. Today, water in No 2 reactor was detected emitting 1 sievert per hour – and they’re not sure of the source.
The world will gradually be forced to abandon fossil fuels. Fukushima (and Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island) show us that we can’t trust nuclear power. It has to be green, renewable energy sources. Can’t be done? Germany thinks it can.
The economy grew just 0.2% in the December quarter, enough to avoid the technical definition of recession but did it feel like that […]
So what are you gonna do with the 9K of tax cuts you got with your 400K pa job since October? Why not pay 7K to shack up with 65 of the elite and eat a 6 course meal from foreign chefs?… What do you mean you’re not on 400K, you haven’t pocketed 9K in the last 5 months, and price rises ate your ‘tax cut’? You need a real job.
62,000 Christchurch workers are now receiving special earthquake payments. Most of these workers’ businesses have been closed by the earthquake and plan to re-open at some point by 6,300 jobs are gone for good That’s about 30% of Christchurch workers out of action and 3% without the hope that their workplace will re-open.
The Nats want us to believe there is no other option than massive cuts to government spending. Roughly, a third of the cuts covers the earthquake rebuilding, another third covers the Nats’ tax cuts for the rich, and the last third covers the revenue loss from this neverending recession. So, how come the Nats can afford another round of tax cuts for the rich?
Owners of businesses in the red zone CBD want brief access to their premises to retrieve items and data that are vital to whatever remaining chance they have of keeping their enterprises alive. The government is refusing access on the grounds of safety. There’s right on both sides of the issue, but whatever happened to informed consent?
“The Prime Minister’s out of touch. Here’s a man who got well over$1000 a week from his own tax cuts… He may know where his bread is buttered on but it’s a different side of the loaf to most Kiwis… who every time they go to the supermarket are asking “how come this trolley of groceries is costing $20 or $50 more than it seemed it did last week’?”
John Armstrong’s contacts in National are telling him that Working for Families and student loans are the targets for cuts in this year’s budget. He also reveals the real reason for National opposing the widely-supported earthquake levy: putting on a tax would be an admission that tax cuts for the rich were a mistake in the first place.
According to Scoop, the PM is telling porkies about the average income of New Zealanders. On behalf of the various authors here at The Standard I’d just like to say, well, gosh! — imagine our surprise.
On Friday, the government sent out a Request for Proposal for building companies to build 2,500 temporary modular homes in Christchurch. It looks like step towards the rebuilding plan I and others have been suggesting for the past couple of weeks. Now, lets see an aggressive timetable and a plan for what comes next.
The SST’s John Hartevelt is shocked by National’s decision to pay out millions for Christchurch rugby business while ordinary people live in shattered homes and lose their jobs with meager support. He asks whether the Nats have lost their moral-political bearings. In fact, this is a perfect example of National’s elitist philosophy.
Well-known Wellington artist Bob Kerr has produced a series of paintings on “The Three Wise Men of Kurow”, Davidson the teacher, McMillan the […]
There’s a large number of reports coming out of Christchurch of businesses that have been demolished without Civil Defence consulting with the owners, as is procedure, and giving them a chance to recover vital equipment and records first. Disturbingly, some of these demolitions seem to have been carried out by ‘cowboys’ without CD approval.
