Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, April 6th, 2011 - 29 comments
The saga of South Canterbury Finance just keeps getting worse and worse, with news yesterday that the taxpayers’ bill for the bailout rose by a further $300 million due to the costs of “insider loans”. Why are we spending $1.2 Billion (and climbing) on a stuffed company?
Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, April 6th, 2011 - 246 comments
John Key says the thousands of Kiwi families turning to foodbanks to get by are made ‘poor choices’. Among the ‘poor choices’ that poor people allegedly make according to righties is spending all their money on alcohol and cigarettes, rather than on food. As with most ‘truths’ that underpin rightwing prejudice, the facts don’t back this up.
Written By: - Date published: 6:25 pm, April 5th, 2011 - 87 comments
Actually Phil Goff has it right – these clowns should resign – all they seem to be able to do is screw the economy and cut juicy public-money deals for their mates.
Oh yeah, and photo ops. Can’t forget the photo ops.
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 5th, 2011 - 27 comments
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…
Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, April 5th, 2011 - 9 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, April 5th, 2011 - 63 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 pm, April 4th, 2011 - 26 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, April 4th, 2011 - 4 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, April 4th, 2011 - 100 comments
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?…
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, April 3rd, 2011 - 61 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, April 3rd, 2011 - 84 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, April 2nd, 2011 - 14 comments
Truthout is one of my favourite sources of political commentary in America. Here’s editor William Rivers Pitt on “The New American Dream”…
Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, April 1st, 2011 - 11 comments
“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 standards are declining in recovery because the share of income going to profits has far outstripped wages. Most people are not feeling better off. Some instances quoted: in the US, this is […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, April 1st, 2011 - 118 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, April 1st, 2011 - 21 comments
In the last Budget, National cut the corporate tax rate to 28%, which costs $400 million a year and comes into effect today. It also cut $200 million a year from early childhood education and tertiary funding in the same Budget, while borrowing billions. When the government cuts public services it is because it chooses […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, April 1st, 2011 - 6 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, April 1st, 2011 - 72 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, March 31st, 2011 - 72 comments
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?
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, March 31st, 2011 - 10 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, March 31st, 2011 - 116 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, March 30th, 2011 - 62 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 6:58 am, March 30th, 2011 - 140 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, March 29th, 2011 - 60 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, March 29th, 2011 - 25 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 6:58 am, March 28th, 2011 - 91 comments
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?
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 pm, March 27th, 2011 - 46 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, March 25th, 2011 - 31 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, March 24th, 2011 - 59 comments
The economy grew just 0.2% in the December quarter, enough to avoid the technical definition of recession but did it feel like that for you? No. It felt like recession because the economic pie grew slower than the population. National’s economic record is GDP per capita 5% below its peak and down another 0.6% between […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, March 24th, 2011 - 24 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, March 24th, 2011 - 14 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, March 23rd, 2011 - 43 comments
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?
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