Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, October 26th, 2010 - 30 comments
Otago Law Professor Paul Roth says possible law changes by the Key Government to provide more tax-payer funded charity to corporate giants Warner Bros Entertainment is ‘Third-World’ lawmaking and a ‘race to the bottom’ in an attempt to compete against developing nations with little or no labour rights. Roth says if we ‘lie back and prostitute ourselves […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, October 26th, 2010 - 156 comments
Lucky John Key – he’s going to have a great week! It’s hard to see how he can lose. He’ll either be the man who single-handedly saved The Hobbit, or he’ll be handed a big stick to beat the evil unions with forever. In reality, however, the decision to keep the movies here is probably already made. Key’s ego will be just another tool used against him in negotiations as the studios go for the best deal they can get…
Written By: - Date published: 2:15 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 5 comments
The release of 400,000 classified documents on the Iraq war today highlights a much broader issue for New Zealand. As the world moves into uncertainty, some commentators call it a ‘new new world order’, New Zealand must establish itself definitively, cementing the values we wish to hold true for the coming century.
Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 41 comments
One of the strange things about helping to run a left blog like this is looking at the varied opinions of those on the left of the political spectrum, and then looking at the monolithic opinions that the right seem to have of the left. I was musing on this while reading Matt McCarten’s excellent Saturday article. Now you have to understand that Matt and myself are almost at the ends of the spectrum when it comes to politics on the left….
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, October 25th, 2010 - 32 comments
I’ve just been reading The Age of Absurdity, which has many good ideas on modern happiness.
One of the ideas that won’t cause happiness – but will decrease motivation and quality of work – is performance related pay.
(Consumerism and a Sense of Entitlement also causes unhappiness, but big ups to Personal Responsibility. None of that is in this post though)
Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, October 25th, 2010 - 142 comments
The Nats and their repeaters are trying to paint unions as some kind of public enemy. How can we be a public enemy when we are the public? Unions are just people. Unions exist to work for our rights. Rights like the eight hour working day, the origin of the celebration of Labour Day. If you enjoy decent conditions at work, if you’re enjoying your long weekend, why not thank a unionist!
Written By: - Date published: 2:01 pm, October 24th, 2010 - 75 comments
The Hobbit ‘crisis’ is all about money. It’s about the producers of this long-troubled production, who are in financial difficulty, wanting to minimise their up-front costs. The mark in the con is the only one with cash to offer on the scale they need – the Prime Minister. He’s the one with the most to lose and the most ability to pay.
Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, October 24th, 2010 - 10 comments
The Secretary for Education Karen Sewell has just had a minimum pay rise of $30,000p.a. Ironically the same 4% that teachers are after. Here is some maths for Mrs Sewell. Her 4% is 30,000 dollars. 4% of a teachers salary of around $65k is $2,600 dollars.
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 pm, October 23rd, 2010 - 105 comments
After days of trying to read the media and rumour mill tea-leaves on the Hobbit it was time to do some fact checking.
It turns out this has been a hard lesson in how the international film industry works.
Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, October 23rd, 2010 - 84 comments
Fran O’Sullivan reckons the Government will offer tax-breaks to keep the Hobbit in NZ.
But it also looks like they’ll try to keep claim it’s about the (settled) dispute.
If that’s the case there’s some truly gymnastic spin to look forward to this week.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 23rd, 2010 - 38 comments
There was a time when New Zealand gave overseas aid to developing countries like Singapore. But we stopped moving forwards after the neoliberal revolution. Today New Zealand is still reliant on low value added commodity trading for its sustenance. One which is struggling to pay its bills after a lengthy period of selling off its economic sovereignty.
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 pm, October 22nd, 2010 - 134 comments
Emails have surfaced showing the Hobbit dispute was settled early this late last week.
So why did Jackson go on the offensive on Thursday?
Is he not talking to Warners or is there more in play in this than the actors dispute?
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 22nd, 2010 - 171 comments
Does anyone believe that a $660 million project moves countries over the ‘threat’ of a few actors wanting better standards? Would Jackson really betray NZ when Weta is based here, the casting is underway, and Hobbiton is built? Cui bono, this talk of ‘crisis’: how much will the Government fork over to appease the threat of foreign capital flight?
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, October 22nd, 2010 - 27 comments
Every time I think John Key can’t get any more cynical and hypocritical in his messaging, he manages to take it to a new level. Apparently spending money on the education system will create “a noose around the neck of young New Zealanders”…
Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, October 22nd, 2010 - 84 comments
If labour stability is the big issue with keeping the Hobbit here the answer is very simple.
Employ workers as employees, not contractors.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 am, October 22nd, 2010 - 30 comments
Things are quickly turning to custard for National. The economy is going south fast and Key’s Teflon-coating is so damaged the mainstream media is openly saying we deserve better than a ‘smile and wave’ PM. The Nats’ strategy – try to convince us nothing is wrong – is really bad. It makes them look either duplicitous or out of touch.
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 pm, October 21st, 2010 - 69 comments
Russell Brown’s anti-union take on the Hobbit dispute has been cited by righties all over the internet as “evidence” the union is wrong.
So let’s take a look at what he’s saying and how it matches up with employment law, industrial relations and all the rest of that good stuff.
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, October 21st, 2010 - 72 comments
National’s bully-boy tactics continue. Young people are trying to voice their concern to the select committee that is looking at the extension of the Fire at Will law to all workers. The Nats on the committee don’t want to listen so they’re bullying submitters and refusing to even accept submissions that don’t toe their line.
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, October 21st, 2010 - 516 comments
It looked like Actors Equity and Peter Jackson had come to an agreement.
They’d even written a joint statement to announce the boycott was off.
So why has the whole thing blown up?
Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, October 21st, 2010 - 25 comments
In three short years John Key and National have gone from economic bravado, to failure, to lies, excuses and whining. As the economy languishes they will have nothing to offer except more lies and excuses.
This is a time for fresh thinking, both globally and locally. But we won’t get it from National.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, October 20th, 2010 - 58 comments
I’m generally a fan of Gareth Morgan, but boy his facts are wrong in yesterday’s Herald, leading him to really bad conclusions. Basically, Morgan argues that we have to let foreigners buy our assets because we use that money to buy more imports than we export, which we won’t be able to do if we block asset sales. Why is that a bad thing?
Written By: - Date published: 12:51 pm, October 20th, 2010 - 115 comments
Thousands of workers are now leaving their work places to attend one of the 27 protests taking place today from Kaiatia to the Bluff against National’s draconian anti-worker policies. This one could be big. This is the day that Kiwi workers stand up and say that they have had enough of this government attacking our wages and work conditions. Update: 5-6 thousand at Parliament.
Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, October 20th, 2010 - 8 comments
In contrast to National’s policy vacuum on the economy, Labour has been focusing its policy work on a major change in direction. It’s obvious that the hands-off approach introduced in the 1980s has failed, leading to mal-investment in housing with an economy stripped of its manufacturing capability and geared for import-dependent consumerism.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 20th, 2010 - 32 comments
Trying to get my head around the economic arguments going on. Hearing contradictory things. Who’s telling the truth? ls Labour’s new overseas investment policy Stalinism that will ruin the economy, as Key claimed on Monday and Tuesday? Or is the same as the existing law, as Key claimed on Monday and Tuesday?
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, October 20th, 2010 - 44 comments
National have been running some fine lines of bullshit lately. Keith Ng’s recent post at Public Address calls them out on two of them. The first, National is trying to claim credit for low inflation. The Second, National is trying to claim that recent wage increases have been better than the previous 9 years. Keith takes the bullshit apart – dirty work, but someone has to do it.
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 pm, October 19th, 2010 - 40 comments
This post isn’t about National cutting education at every level, which will damage our country for decades to come. Nor is it about how they’re cutting cost-efficient preventative medicine to fund ‘sexy’ elective surgery. It’s not even about how they’re pouring billions into holiday highways in the era of peak oil. This is about the Cullen Fund.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, October 19th, 2010 - 37 comments
John Key says that if we don’t let overseas buyers snap up our farmland then land prices will decrease and some over-leveraged farmers will go underwater. And that’s supposedly a bad thing. Key wants us to believe that foreigners putting our farmland out of the reach of Kiwis and making us borrow more from the Aussie banks is a good thing.
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 19th, 2010 - 27 comments
The Nats are trying to take credit for the fact that annual inflation in the year to September was the lowest since 2004. What exactly did they do? Dig into the numbers and the cause of the lower inflation is a weak global economy, not National. Already, inflation is climbing, 1.1% this quarter, and will break 5% next year thanks to the GST hike.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 19th, 2010 - 87 comments
For some reason, the Nats hate public education. Even an elitist fool should be able to see that a well-educated workforce is valuable and public education is the cheapest way to achieve it. Yet National is attacking education at every level. The latest ‘offer’ to the secondary teachers would see them take 2 years of after-inflation pay cuts.
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, October 19th, 2010 - 12 comments
Unemployment is up, wages are down. But the Nats want to put the boot into workers to keep costs down for their rich mates. They’re trying to take away workers’ rights, remove protections, cut pay, reduce holidays and diminish access to sick leave. Tomorrow is the national day of action when we fight back.
Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, October 18th, 2010 - 43 comments
Phil Goff made an excellent speech yesterday. One that showed far more direction, and a lot of promise for going forward. Hopefully Labour can capitalise on this much better than they did on the excellent “The Many, Not The Few” speech. They should be able to – yesterday’s “Kiwi Dream” speech contained much more meat […]
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