More jobs and pay bad – JPMorgan
I was sent a press release from financiers JPMorgan in Australia. There’s a line in it that reveals much about how the capitalist […]
Economy
Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
What stimulus spending?
According to Stuff Bill English is planning to pull back the stimulus spending. The problem is there hasn’t been any significant stimulus spending. […]
The resistance
A very well-produced youtube vid on National’s distortions over ACC The clever thing National has done is set up ACC as the agent […]
Give the snip snap to the zip zap plastic fantastic? Yeah right!
Brian Fallow has a great post over at Granny Herald this morning. “Emitters on bludger’s end of deal” deals with the way that […]
Wages fall, except for union members
The Labour Cost Index tells us that most workers this year failed to get pay rises to match inflation in the past year. […]
Socialism is Democracy
This hilarious stoush between Moore and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is worth a look too. Hat tip: The kids at the Workers Party.
Brownlee: Not an ardent follower of fashion. Merely obsolete.
One of the things that has surprised me about the government and Brownlee’s energy policy is that it is so mundane and 20th […]
Politicisation of ACC continues
Frogblog has another example of the continuing politicisation of the public service under National. I meant to post on this a while back, […]
Spin cycle finally into 1st gear
I’m all for cycle-ways but excuse me if I don’t get all silly over John Key knocking a post in the ground in […]
Farrar vs the facts
I’ve never quite understood why David Farrar, who is after all paid to do statistical work, insists on performing transparent statistical tricks on […]
Unemployment up, productivity up
Like here in New Zealand, unemployment continues to climb in America. And one of the results is soaring productivity. (sources: 1,2) But wait, […]
McCarten on capitalism
Matt McCarten’s Herald column this week is a call for every working New Zealander to go and see Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love […]
The myth of upward mobility
Yesterday, we looked at what a vastly unfair and unequal system capitalism is. The control of the fruits of production by the few […]
16,000 more jobs lost
The number of employed people fell from 2,170,000 to 2,154,000 in the three months to September*. There are 54,000 fewer people in jobs […]
Is this as good as it gets?
Most of the wealth in New Zealand is owned by a tiny fraction of the people because our political/economic system makes it that […]
NZ’s capitalists dream of absolute power
From Stuff: “Richlister Alan Gibbs will host former National Party leader Don Brash and ACT founder Sir Roger Douglas to discuss what they […]
Key & English lose us $21mil in 3 months
Back in February, former currency speculator John Key and former Treasury adviser Bill English started talking about suspending contributions to the Cullen Fund, […]
Closed for tax evasion
I see the BNZ’s got itself a new PR campaign: On 4 November, most BNZ people will be working on projects around New […]
A good reform, but a minor one
I watched Terminator 3 last night. It’s the worst in the series but that’s still better than watching another Guyon-National lovefest*. Which is […]
English’s strange priorities
Talk about bereft of ideas, the currency is yo-yoing, the housing bubble is re-inflating, wages are falling, jobs are still being lost in […]
The horror of low wages
The Unite Halloween-themed $15 minimum wage march went well yesterday. Looks like there were a fair number of people there. Pity there’s no […]
Exchange rates, Kiwisaver, breaking promises, & the art of doing nothing
A range of interesting political/economic comment today in the Herald: Fran O’Sullivan joins the left-wing and groups like Federated Farmers in calling on […]
Cycleway to nowhere
This just in: A picture of stage one of PM John Key’s personal solution to NZ’s recession – the cycleway to nowhere! OK, […]
CTU Alternative Economic Strategy
If you watched the media coverage of last week’s Council of Trade Unions conference you’ll have walked away thinking it was about John […]
$15 min wage march tonight
The Campaign for a Living Wage will be taking to the streets of Auckland’s CBD tonight to demand a minimum wage of 15 […]
Treasury provides cover for Nats’ rightwing agenda
National’s favourite public servant (who got himself a nice pay rise), John Whitehead, has been offering dire warnings of the future. $2 trillion […]
$15 minimum wage, it’s only fair
The campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage is gathering pace. Initially, Unite kind of set out on their own on this […]
Myth-busting: ACC and injuries
One of the Right’s silly myths, never backed up by any facts, is that not privatising ACC leads to more injuries. The logic […]
Examples of rest break exploitation
Over at Kiwiblog, David Farrar is doing his usual apologetics for National by trying to spin its removal of guaranteed rest and meal […]
Get back to work!
The reprieve from the rain may have been the only thing worth celebrating this Labour Day. Probably pissed that there isn’t a holiday […]
National wants to take a break – yours
You’ll have seen in the paper that National is going to legislate, most likely under urgency, to let employers deny workers the right […]
Remember who they’re fighting for
This memo was sent by the Insurance Council to its members in 2005 but it may as well have been sent this week. […]
RBNZ chickens out on vital new rules
What a shame that the Reserve Bank has backed down on new the prudential liquidity rules that require the banks to raise a higher percentage […]
Rich Germans demand higher taxes
From the BBC: A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes. […]
Just ‘cos it’s Labour day
Credit where it’s due.
Aussie Minister shows guts, foresight and concern; ours… not so much
Australia’s Federal Industry Minister Kim Carr has criticized Bridgestone’s closure of its Australian and New Zealand operations and the 1000 redundancies it’ll bring. […]