Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
It’s always so wonderful to load up Granny Herald and see some wealthy late middle-aged grump (I’m picking this one is John Roughan) taking a swipe at the poor in the editorial. Today, Granny says we can’t afford to give mums more paid leave or more Working for Families for young kids. Hmm. But we can still afford those tax cuts for the rich?
Remember back when Labour was in power and the Right had this myth that dole numbers had only dropped because Labour had moved people to other benefits? It wasn’t true but that didn’t stop John Key saying it during one of the 2008 debates as he promised to get more people into work. Now, 2 years later, 83,879 more Kiwis are on benefits.
In 1951, New Zealand temporarily became a police state. Civil liberties were curtailed, freedom of speech denied, and the Government used force against its own citizens. This film tells the story of the infamous lockout of waterside workers and the nationwide strike which followed. The film won Best Documentary and John Bates was named Best Director, Documentary, at the 2002 New Zealand Television Awards.
When the government, eventually, gets back from its month-long holiday, it needs to review the minimum wage. To keep up with inflation, the increase needs to be at least 50 cents an hour to $13.25. If we want to catch Australia, we should copy them and lift it to $15.
In the last decade or so the right have taken the rhetoric of grievance and victimhood and used it to stifle debate. But there’s a big difference between real grievances like racial oppression and the so-called grievances rich, powerful right-wingers (or should that be right-whingers) subscribe to.
The “Great Recession” saw a greater spike in unemployment in New Zealand compared to its drop in GDP than almost everywhere. Whilst GDP slumped, unemployment did less so in all but 2 countries across the world: NZ and Spain. The Government, far from being relentlessly focussed on jobs, has ensured with its policies that workers were laid off in swathes.
You would think that, to reassure the families and satisfy critics, the government would have released detailed technical analysis showing why re-entering Pike River will never be possible. Instead, we got vague, contradictory statements only after the media pressed Key for answers. Now, a mining expert has confirmed the mine’s atmosphere is stable and can be made breathable cheaply.
The National Secretary of the miners’ union has warned important evidence may be lost if Pike River mine is sealed.
For making that rational observation he’s been smeared by National Party blogger, David Farrar.
It seems the Nats don’t just want to seal the mine, they want to seal the whole issue and they’ll be quick attack anyone who raises any awkward points.
Like smiling and waving, frowning and looking sombre, is easy. But satisfying the expectations you create can be hard. This is where Key consistently fails. He has failed again over Pike River. The sudden and inadequately explained end to the recovery operation is bad enough. Lying about the promises he made is gravely insulting.
Sad news for Coasters. Recovery of bodies at Pike River abandoned. Key promised ‘whatever it takes’ to get them out. He’s breaking his […]
Another great piece of work from I/S at No Right Turn: “the Exclusive Brethren have set up their own KiwiSaver scheme… The scheme will only be offered to members of the cult. This is, of course, illegal.” They’re trying to take taxpayer money for a business that illegally discriminates on the grounds of religion. It must be stopped.
The CTU have launched the latest of their quirky and cute campaigns. Job Survivor Island illustrates the effects on real people of the […]
The Great Depression saw the rise of rightwing reactionarism. Out of reactionary movements came fascist governments from Brazil to Romania. We had the 100,000-strong New Zealand Legion. The Great Recession is spawning a new wave of militant reactionarism, now reaching our shores.
This year, as last year, we miss out on both Anzac and Waitangi days as holidays. And the Government refuses to do anything about it. Phil Goff and the EPMU back all workers getting their rightful public holidays like any other year – but John Key apparently doesn’t think it’s do-able, that it needs “research”.
This post from the Oil Drum looks at how peak oil and the economy interact. From 2004 to 2008 oil prices rose and rose with demand. But high prices bought nearly no new oil to the market because it isn’t there. The prices broke the global economy, destroying demand. Now, prices are rising again and the weakened economies will topple much easier.
Under the supposed rules of capitalism, investors take a “haircut” if an investment goes bad – no reward without risk. It’s also Economics 101 that giving relief to the ‘little people’ will have a more stimulating effect on the economy than if you bail out the wealthiest interests in society. But the powers that be are breaking the rules to aid the rich.
No, this post isn’t about Smile and Wave’s failure to close the gap with Australia. It’s about the widening gap between the tiny elite in this country and the rest of us. Even before the Great Recession, 10% controlled more wealth than the rest of us combined. The housing market shows that their wealth is still rising while ours falls.
Blinglish is confident that voters understand the economy and back the government’s (lack of) direction. In fact he better hope that voters don’t understand the economy, or notice National’s lack of help to an economy shedding jobs and headed into double-dip recession, or he won’t get voted back in.
Youth unemployment is 19.8%, but is there much coverage of a shockingly high number? That’s 1 in 5 young people Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs to the initiated); higher than the OECD average.
I never, ever thought I would say this but there’s a very good article in Investigate this week. It’s about the Pike River disaster. With methane sensors in place, alarms should have gone off well before the gas reached combustible level. Investigate reveals the sensors may have been disabled by workers who would lose pay if they had to stop work.
When was the last time that John Key mentioned the ‘underclass’? In his Statement to Parliament at the start of last year – after Eddie called him out on never talking about the underclass – but he didn’t actually read that part of the statement. So, what has Key actually done for the underclass that he purported to care for so much? Nothing. He’s let poverty worsen.
In December, Dunedin City Council released its Peak Oil Vulnerability Analysis. We’re going to weather the peak oil age largely reliant on the built environment we already have in place – we can’t tear it all down and start again in time – but, the report shows there’s a lot we can do with the infrastructure we have to make it less oil-dependent.
The two significant things from the Herald interview: #1 The signalling by John Key of his willingness to step down. #2 The view […]
I’ve been traveling around for Christmas/New Year’s. It hadn’t hit me until I drove about 1000kms around NZ just how much more expensive petrol has become. The extra cost is a shock when you fill up and it hurts the economy. I got wondering what the political impact is. The numbers suggest it matters a lot.
Having a read of Fairfax’s 2011 political predictions, and their self-grading of their 2010 predictions, two things jumped out. The first is that Fairfax’s political staff have now wedded their reputations as political analysts to a National victory. The second is that they ignore the impact of the economy, and petrol prices in particular, on politics.
From the ‘I told you so’ file comes IrishBill’s first post on the Hobbit dispute after Jackson suddenly announced that a settled dispute with a small union was forcing Warner Bros to abandon a $100m investment and move overseas. We now know Jackson was lying to extort more money and a law change but Irish called it at the time, resulting in 516 comments – a record.
The idea of this little group-effort series of posts is to look at the major areas of government activity and have an objective look at how National is doing – both against their own promises and things that we hold important. Let’s start with the economy, the direct responsibility of Finance Minister Bill English and Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee.
Chinese manufacturing and state support is transforming the cost structure of solar technology. This in turn is helping to put in power support for the emerging use of wireless technologies in the developing world. This helps to ensure that less dirty carbon emitting technologies are not used in the developing world.It is hard to see a downside to this state initiative because it makes solar tech cheaper and more available earlier rather than later.
So, it’s Christmas; the season of good will and all. But for some of our institutions, juggernauts of bad will that they are, they just roll on regardless . For what it’s worth there is an on line letter you can sign calling on the US to end it’s inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning. Maybe signing it constitutes a Christmas message of sorts.
Kiwis frequently like leading the world in the many ways that outmatch our ‘weight’. I wish we weren’t leading the world in this one.
We have one of the worst youth unemployment rates in the world as The Economist shows.
Say you run a large company. Say the manager of a division in your company chose do a deal that improves the division’s own profitability instead of one that would have made the division less profitable but the company as a whole more profitable. You would be angry. So why are the people who run our SOEs required to act like that?
The economy shrank by 0.2% in the September Quarter. None of the forecasters had dared to predict it would be this bad, except yours truly : ) because I looked at the facts, rather than being taken in by Key’s rosy spin. The money trader’s economic record is looking pretty disgraceful now, isn’t it? Hope smile and wave is enjoying the Hawaii sun.
Couldn’t resist this excellent BODY cartoon…
All those who think Keynes is dead (and those who merely wondered what happened to him) should check out the website of George Soros’s Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). A remarkable range of economic luminaries are presented on video and powerpoint, most or all of them arguing for a radical Keynesian solution to the financial crisis.
Peter Jackson yesterday did what the government has refused to do and commented on the revelation that he told Gerry Brownlee the Actors’ Equity blacklist was no threat to the Hobbit movies being filmed here. Unfortunately, Jackson has just further sullied his reputation by revealing the true motives for the Hobbit Enabling Act.
‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the House,
Nats announced policies, they’re usually scared to espouse.
Journos on holiday, Key out of reach on his Hawaiian vacation,
It was the time to let slip, their plan for ACC privatisation.
