Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 7:36 am, June 30th, 2011 - 61 comments
New Zealand Defence Force staff are not covered by employment law. Hundreds of them are being sacked, so as to get “more work out of fewer people”. If they’re “lucky” some of those cast aside might get civilian versions of their old jobs back, with huge pay cuts as a sweetener. Welcome to the epitome of National’s flexible labour market.
Written By: - Date published: 7:14 am, June 28th, 2011 - 205 comments
John Key was elected promising to stop the exodus to Australia. He has failed. More and more Kiwis, especially the young, are leaving. And is it any wonder?
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, June 27th, 2011 - 59 comments
Employers and Manufacturers Association head Alasdair Thompson’s sexist outbursts have drawn near universal condemnation, and are likely to cost him his job. But while we’re about the business of punishing sexist dinosaurs, we should set our sights a little higher than Thompson.
Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, June 25th, 2011 - 18 comments
The snows haven’t come and the ski industry is in trouble. Is it a “cruel blow” from mother nature?
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, June 24th, 2011 - 98 comments
The National Research unit has created National pollster David Farrar has taken time out of his holiday to create a graph showing the reduction in tax across incomes. Supposedly it shows National’s tax cuts weren’t for the rich after all – we just imagined it! But the research unit Farrar have avoided some inconvenient facts.
Written By: - Date published: 6:03 am, June 24th, 2011 - 34 comments
Your morning Facebook-related Alasdair Thompson lolz.
This man is pure comedy gold.
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, June 23rd, 2011 - 126 comments
Sure Alisdair Thompson’s comments today were sexist.
But they were also so dumb it’s hard to be offended.
Queen of Thorns explains
Written By: - Date published: 5:10 pm, June 21st, 2011 - 69 comments
No it’s not a virus. It’s our dollar surfing on a dumper. Gareth Morgan and Neville Bennett have both written about it recently. Bennett says “There is increasing evidence that New Zealand is ailing. The symptoms are a high exchange rate, excessive foreign debt and a decline of the manufacturing sector.” The resulting damage if nothing is done, says Morgan, is “a hollowing out of our non-commodity producing businesses, no correction in our household savings rate and in time, a balance of payments/external debt crisis as those factors conspire.” Bennett is not in the camp of those who say nothing can be done and offers some ideas backed up by the IMF. We need more thinking like that.
Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, June 21st, 2011 - 63 comments
Up to forty jobs are at risk at Dunedin’s Hillside Railway Workshops, because the government would rather send money to China than invest in Kiwi jobs and industry. It’s crazy. Come along to the public meeting tomorrow Wednesday at 7pm.
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, June 20th, 2011 - 64 comments
Low-paid, crappy job? It’s obviously your fault, according to the Right. You mustn’t have enough qualifications, or the correct ones. The good jobs are out there, they’re just hiding. Or, if they’re not, you can weave one from thin air. But, even if this free market magic were real, what’s the end point? The crap jobs still need to be filled.
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, June 20th, 2011 - 18 comments
The autocratic National government is changing the Kiwishare obligation of Telecom without consultation or notice. They say obligations will be the same, but they will no longer be legal restrictions, but changeable company “deeds”.
Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, June 20th, 2011 - 41 comments
Are we “roaring out of recession”? No. Is there an “aggressive recovery”? No. What’s going wrong? The problem is that the Nats are squeezing the life out of the economy.
Written By: - Date published: 3:49 pm, June 18th, 2011 - 28 comments
John Clarke and Bryan Dawe calculate the cost of the European debt crisis…
Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, June 18th, 2011 - 9 comments
Information about the 22 June Global Day of Action in support of the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT).
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 18th, 2011 - 239 comments
We are hearing no end of job loss stories in the news and the government has no plan for New Zealand jobs. Their best idea is to cut the wages of the young, rather than to create jobs of real value. We need workers paid a Living Wage so all Kiwis can have fulfilling lives.
Written By: - Date published: 11:48 am, June 17th, 2011 - 27 comments
Out of the blue, National has decided to scrap the Telecom ‘Kiwishare’. This is the provision that ensures all Kiwis have free local calling and that Telecom can’t be majority owned by a foreign company. National has refused to supply any justification for opening Telecom to foreign control.
Written By: - Date published: 6:38 pm, June 16th, 2011 - 155 comments
Patrick Gower has revealed the Nats are poised to announce a policy to reintroduce the youth minimum wage at a rate of about $10 an hour, and potentially make it apply to people in their 20s. Outrageous and a breach of human rights. You should get paid for the work you do. Not your gender. Not your ethnicity. Not your sexuality. Not your age.
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, June 16th, 2011 - 16 comments
Green Party MP Metiria Turei asked some very important questions of John Key in Parliament today. Once again, the Prime Minister wasn’t there so Bill English tried to answer for the absentee leader. And what we learned is that National not only has no answer to poverty but also doesn’t really give a damn.
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 pm, June 15th, 2011 - 8 comments
Fascinating programme on TVOne Sunday this week – see it here and here – contrasting the Australian approach to mining with the disaster at Pike River. The key difference was the existence of union safety check inspectors. Australia use them, we don’t.
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, June 15th, 2011 - 63 comments
Randian superhero David Henderson has withdrawn his genius from New Zealand in protest at the collectivist government that has persecuted him and attempted to distribute the fruits of his talent to parasites. In a short statement after leaving the country, Henderson said other Atlases would join him in strike and “stop the motor of New Zealand”.
Written By: - Date published: 6:20 am, June 15th, 2011 - 86 comments
My jaw dropped when I heard this listening to Question Time yesterday. Mallard: “Does he understand that real average wages go up when high-income earners get massive tax cuts-$1,000 a week, in his case-and low-income workers lose their jobs?” English: “No, I do not understand that, because it is not true.” Can’t English do simple maths?
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, June 14th, 2011 - 22 comments
“Substitute the words “convention centre” for “suitcase of cash” and the transaction looks very clear.”*
National wants to change the rules for another foreign corporate. Wouldn’t move an inch for Kiwirail jobs. Maybe that’s because Kiwirail didn’t donate 100K to National (and Labour) in the past decade like SkyCity did.
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, June 13th, 2011 - 18 comments
So you support Maori being paid less than Pakeha for the same work? What about men being paid less than women? No, that would be discrimination, eh? Same work, same pay. So, what about paying a 17 year old less than a 18 year old for the same work? That’s what National is planning if we are stupid enough to give them a second term.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, June 13th, 2011 - 17 comments
Auckland has 250 licenced gambling venues. SkyCity wants to build a $350m casino/convention centre but only if it gets a law change. Key has agreed to the law change. Calls it progress. Yet no help for Kiwirail jobs. National doesn’t believe in real jobs like manufacturing. Picking the pockets of gamblers is more in line with National’s economic vision.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, June 12th, 2011 - 15 comments
Amongst the many vacuous claims made in relation to the last budget, the claim that cuts to KiwiSaver would encourage savings always struck me as the dumbest. Now the facts are in, and guess what…
Written By: - Date published: 8:12 am, June 12th, 2011 - 16 comments
Bill (and John and the entire National caucus) have been telling us that we are required to borrow $380 million each and every week. Apparently we aren’t.
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, June 11th, 2011 - 12 comments
More incisive hilarity from Danyl: “It works like this: Paul Holmes gets to live in a state house for a year with a one year old baby, surviving on only the $288 dollars/week allocated to beneficiaries on the DPB, and at the end of the year Paul gets to decide whether he chooses to ‘breed for cash’….”
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, June 10th, 2011 - 36 comments
Joyce was told that building the new train cars at the Kiwirail workshop in Dunedin would bring half a billion into the economy. Joyce insisted Kiwirail go with the ‘cheapest’ option. China. Now, another 40 jobs have been axed. Not to mention other economic losses. Joyce is unrepentant. Blind to the cost of ‘cheap’. Aussie’s do it smarter than Joyce.
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, June 10th, 2011 - 80 comments
The Budget is unravelling at a startling rate of knots. Bill English is floundering to explain his dodgy asset sales numbers that count the benefits but not the costs. Now, a senior minister has admitted that John Key’s claim that “there are 170,000 new jobs being created as a result of this Budget” is a lie. We actually really do deserve better than this.
Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, June 10th, 2011 - 27 comments
The Nats haven’t got a clue how to run a successful country, and most of the things they do try just make matters worse. We’re drifting…
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