PSA broadens tax debate
It’s good to see the PSA broadening the public debate on tax cuts with a UMR poll showing the majority of Kiwis don’t […]
Economy
Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
You call that policy? This is policy
National has released a brochure, laying out all its policies. They take up two A4 pages of double-spaced bullet points. That’s incredibly lightweight. […]
The grass isn’t greener across the ditch
The cornerstone of National’s ‘New Zealand sucks’ campaign is that Australia is much better (and we have to lower taxes and slash work […]
The headline you didn’t see
‘Unemployment benefits at record low.’ The number of people receiving the unemployment benefit has fallen to just 17,465. That’s the lowest number since […]
Act now to protect workers’ wages
Times are going to get harder for workers in the next few years. Unemployment is set […]
Creeping socialism in Australia
Kevin Rudd’s Labor government has begun the roll-back of John Howard’s unpopular WorkChoices legislation with ten new National Employment Standards aimed at providing […]
Slippery John’s “after-tax incomes” line
You’ll have noticed that Key only ever talks about increasing ‘after-tax incomes’. Even when he’s asked about wages for government employees, like doctors, […]
Petrol price hits parties in the polls
A reader sent us this graph. It plots President Bush’s approval rating and the price of petrol. (the price of petrol is upside-down, […]
Facing up to peak oil
The Government’s independent report on petrol prices is bit of a sop to be the public, really. The world oil price is driving […]
Kremlinology: National on ACC
In most countries, accident insurance is big business. Insurers and lawyers make billions off premiums, claims, and court cases but many people don’t […]
Key’s slippery promises on waste
National has staked it all on delivering bigger tax cuts than Labour. To remain credible, they need to deliver $20 a week on […]
Treating the voters like children
Keith Holyoake used to say “tell the people, trust the people”; be honest about the benefits, trade-offs, and costs of policies and trust the people […]
The wage gap and the Nats’ crediblity gap
Remember when National was all about the wage gap, whinging about it every day? Heard them talk about it lately? The last mention […]
Centre party? Yeah, right
Why is it that UnitedFuture is branded a centre party? We all know they’re socially right wing, in bed with the Christian fundamentalists, and […]
Mythbusting: Labour’s just had golden economic weather
The amazing economic run we’ve experienced under the Labour-led governments is just down to international forces, so National would have us believe. Of […]
Mythbusting: The govt gets rich off high petrol prices
We regularly hear calls (not backed by any major party, including National) for the taxes on petrol to be lowered or removed because […]
OCR unchanged
The Reserve Bank has left the Official Cash Rate unchanged; no-one expected a rate cut this early. It’s encouraging that Bollard has firmly […]
Treasury dreams of cheap oil
This is the graph of the oil price forecasts Treasury used to underpin its fiscal model for the Budget. It assumes that oil […]
Notional Policy: Kiwisaver
Tracy Watkins reported yesterday that National’s weakening of the employer contribution to Kiwisaver may take a different path to the one we envisaged. […]
Gosche to retire
Mark Gosche has announced he will retire from politics at the election. Gosche has represented the people of Maungakiekie for 12 years and, […]
“pretty similar”
I noticed an interesting comment from Ferdinand in our Kiwisaver thread yesterday: I signed up to Kiwisaver based on the 4% employer contribution […]
Some facts on benefit numbers
Hear that sound? It’s Judith Collins banging the sickness beneficiaries drum again. Fresh from a sensationalist report on the front page of the […]
Kremlinology: National and Kiwisaver
National’s refusal to say what it stands for is becoming so ridiculous we have resorted to the Cold War art of Kremlinology. Today, […]
Clydesdale report rubbished
Greg Clydesdale’s report that labelled Pacific Islanders a ‘drain on the economy’ has been rubbished as a lazy, intellectually dishonest piece of work […]
ToryAid: The Standard resurrects Wastewatch
Remember wastewatch.co.nz? It’s National’s site listing all the ‘government waste’. From six years of Labour government it managed to find a grand total […]
Back in the real world
Let’s have another look at our friend, the distribution of income graph. The red circle is what most people earn. The blue circle […]
Kremlinology: Nats’ tax plans
National is still refusing to give us any detail on its tax cut plan, indicating it doesn’t have one. But let’s do a […]
Even Granny’s patience can wear thin
With a loving smack that would have brought a smile to Bob McCoskrie’s face, the Herald‘s editorial today rebukes John Key in the […]
Cumulative Effect
The Press (Budget Doesn’t Impress Family) looks at the effect of the tax cuts on an average family with a combined income of […]
National’s cruel hoax
Well the budget is out and across the country the public are looking at their tax cuts and asking “is that it?” and […]
Tax cut graphs and full calculator
Here are graphs of the portion of income going on tax and the portion of reduction in tax for Kiwis under the Budget’s […]
Tax cut calculator
As much as I despair to see our political discourse descend into a bidding war on taxes, it’s worth looking at Infometrics’ online […]
Budget 2008: Tax cuts
Labour has announced a three year tax cut package worth $10.6 billion. Here’s a table showing the changes: Current 15.00% 21.00% 33.00% 39.00% […]
Telling porkies
The Herald and National have started attacking every piece of government spending as pork-barrelling. Here’s some of what they’re calling ‘wasteful, needless spending’: […]
Water, water everywhere, why not stop to think?
From the MP who tried to ban water comes ‘don’t use crash statistics to work out which roads are dangerous’. Writing in the […]
Lazy academic calls Pacific Island workers lazy
Economist Greg Clydesdale has released a report in which he says Pacific Islanders are a drain on the New Zealand economy (exhibiting “significant […]