Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
So John Key thinks that a 1.9% increase in pay will cover 4% inflation, and that’s all minimum wage workers are going to get. That 25c/hour won’t add up to a litre of milk at the end of the day, let along a block of cheese at the end of the week. A person on minimum wage will now get $437.24/week after tax, whilst JK gave himself over $1000 extra per week in tax cut.
Owning your own home was the foundation of the “Kiwi dream”. Now it seems that we’ve let that dream slip further out of reach than almost anywhere in the world. Houses in Auckland are less affordable than in New York. Demand in the rental market is far outstripping supply. What should the government be doing?
Tomorrow is the first day of Parliament for the year, so I’m picking we’ll see John Key’s annual passing mention of the ‘underclass’. You remember Key’s promise to make lifting the underclass his priority, eh? Well, Key doesn’t. He has abandoned Aroha Nathan after using her for PR and now says he can’t do anything for the poor.
When a millionaire director and a foreign corporate wanted millions in tax breaks, Key jumped to it. When SCF collapsed the investors got an average of $60K, no questions asked. But when it comes to helping the ordinary families of Christchurch and the West Coast, the Nats are nowhere to be seen once the cameras are gone.
At a time when so much political journalism is focused on analysis of image management it’s nice to see a major Sunday paper throwing its weight behind a push for some real world issues.
Anthony Hubbard’s piece in the Sunday Star Times today looks at 10 real issues the election should focus on:
Bernard Hickey looks at the tax bludgers. Labour’s plans to introduce a higher new top tax rate would raise needed tax from those who can most afford it. But it would also foster more tax bludging by the rich. Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater by abolishing the top rate, we need to eliminate the avenues for bludging.
Ever been in a job where you thought you were underpayed and overworked? Ever voiced those feelings to your workmates? Either on the job, or during ‘smoko’, over the telephone or through some other electronic medium?
A Burger King employee in Dunedin has. And now, astonishingly, faces the possibility of being fired for serious misconduct.
All over the globe we the tax payer recently got stuck with a bill for trillions of dollars to bail out banks that were “too big to fail”. Or were they? One country, Iceland, went against the trend, and let its banks go under. What happened next?
PM Key says we shouldn’t lose confidence despite rising unemployment. Pledging to go ‘on the pull for jobs’, Key said he will prostitute NZ to any multi-national corporation and Kiwis should be willing to work for free. The PM was last seen smiling at himself in a mirror, muttering ‘Hey baby, wanna come back to my place and clean it for $12.75 an hour?’
John Key Oct 2010: “I don’t think we should argue we are in a recession … now that summer has come, economic activity is starting to pick up.”
Building consents lowest on record * unemployment hits 6.8% * retail spending falls * We’ve had double dip recession
The NZIER recently popped up with a study purporting to show that the “90-day trial period” (the fire at will bill) is “working”. The study and its conclusions have since been widely quoted. Unfortunately the conclusions are a load of nonsense. NZIER have committed the amateur hour mistake of seeing the cause that they want to see.
The Onion, PARIS—At a press conference Tuesday, the World Heritage Committee officially recognized the Gap Between Rich and Poor as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” describing the global wealth divide as the “most colossal and enduring of mankind’s creations.”
The December quarter employment statistics are out. And there’s a big jump up to 6.8% unemployment. 11,000 people lost their jobs, 8,000 became “unemployed” and 3,000 others left the workforce altogether. The labour force participation rate (the number of people of working age, working) is down to 67.9%.
The same old formula has played out again: National appoints an expensive, hand-picked working group (the Savings Working Group). The working group comes up with predictable recommendations. The Nats extreme recommendations out of hand, to appear moderate, and do what they were planning to do. Here are the real savings solutions.
December 2007, John Key, speaking to Carolyne Brooks-Quan said: “We would love to see wages drop“. Key tried several conflicting excuses, including that he was talking about Australian wages (which became a mini-meme). But actions speak louder than words. Yesterday, we had more confirmation that wages have dropped under Key, except for union members.
In America a federal enquiry has now confirmed what we already knew. The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by multiple failures of regulation and good old fashioned greed. If we don’t make some fundamental changes it is all going to happen again…
Pundits looking to talk up the economy are hopeful that things will improve in 2011. National have done more harm than good, but there some encouraging signs too, arising from external factors such as high food prices, and returns on old investments such as NZ Super. The NZ economy will eventually recover. Not because of the Nats, but in spite of them.
Why the left needs feminism part II: why the centre vote is a lie and what Labour needs to do to reclaim its soul.
John Key says he needs ‘advice’ on Mondayising ANZAC Day and Waitangi Day. The fact is the move would be right and popular but his business mates are too cheap to pay an extra 4 days every 7 years. Key’s just playing for time.
Russel Norman followed Phil Goff and John Key’s state of the nation speeches with the annual Greens state of the planet address. The capital gains tax initiative grabbed headlines but there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface. As we face myriad economic and environmental problems, the Greens have the real answers.
In the first part of a two part guest post, Queen of Thorns takes a look at feminism, the left, the labour party and funny old Chris Trotter.
Continual growth in the use of resources is not possible. Society and the economy has to be structured to allow a steady state economy where resource use is within sustainable limits.
We could look at bailed-out TranzRail and Air NZ, with privatisation leading to risk-free pay-outs for the temporary owners of infrastructure that couldn’t be allowed to fail. Or Telecom that doesn’t look out for NZers interests, and needs us to pay for it to build us a fibre network. But let’s look at the “success” story of Contact, the closest privatisation to National’s new plans.
John Key, very optimistically, reckons he can raise $10 billion by selling our assets. Key’s Government gave massive tax cuts, averaging $16,000 each, to the richest 1% of taxpayers that they’ll get year after year. The present value of those tax cuts for the richest 1% is over $10 billion. He’s selling our assets to pay for tax cuts for the richest 1%.
John Key is busy raising the canard of our economy being as indebted as the PIIGS countries that are in trouble in Europe. He’s talking about net foreign debt, and he’s suggesting lowering government debt is the solution. But New Zealand’s debt problem is not a government debt problem, and with asset sales he has the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
Just what is this political “courage” the Herald speaks of?
Whilst John Key’s raising of privatisation is the first focus of his State of the Nation speech, perhaps equally as important is his intention for swingeing cuts to public services. Health and Education will have to pay higher wages from the same budget, but the likes of Police, Justice, Conservation and Social Services can expect cuts of more than 10%.
So John Key’s great bit of policy for the election is to sell off the family jewels. Generations of New Zealanders have built up these assets, and now, like in the 90s, National intend to flick them off to foreign investors, and drain the country’s wealth.
Good news for families of the Pike River miners. The Police have shown them video proving their mens bodies are still intact. It raises questions about the government’s actions. Why was this footage previously withheld? Why were the Nats spinning that there was nothing left to recover? And why was the recovery really abandoned so hastily?
It’s not radical, it’s not revolutionary but Phil Goff has laid out a positive, progressive, and affordable vision that contrasts with John Key’s directionless, lazy leadership. It seems to be popular. The PM’s state of the nation is expected to contain an interesting savings policy but always the question is: cue bono?
John Key says that he can’t increase the minimum wage by a decent amount. The excuse this time round is that a decent increase will destroy jobs. Well, let’s check that out a little bit. Is it really true that lifting the minimum wages destroys jobs? If it is, do the benefits outweigh the gains? And what about the cost of letting wages fall?
Phil Goff has just delivered an excellent speech to start a year of laying out Labour Policy. $100/week tax free, stopping tax-dodging bludgers, support for R&D and exporters, correcting housing market anomalies and encouraging investment in the productive sector. There was a lot to like.
The Legatum Prosperity Index looks beyond GDP, a failed measure that counts rebuilding after an earthquake as a gain. The Index is a broad measure of nations’ prosperity comprising 88 components. It shows that New Zealand is a relatively prosperous nation. It also shows that relative prosperity is falling under National.
Higher commodity and food prices, we are told are a Good Thing. Our exporters (ie. Fonterra and foreign oil companies) get more money. But we consumers have to pay more to by the same products, so are we better off? And what about the poor saps overseas who are paying more for less, or the really poor saps who are priced out of the market?
It’s a bit late, but this post is in response partly to John Armstrong’s bouquet piece at the end of 2010 headlined “Forget […]
We have a national myth that everyone is in essence equal, yet we have a disparity of wealth where 10% own more than the other 90% put together and 50% have no net assets. How does one square away occupying a position of extreme privilege in a democratic society? Often, by convincing yourself that your privilege doesn’t exist.
