The Standard

Economy

Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour

Categories under Economy

What about those neat capital gains on housing, eh?

Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, January 14th, 2022 - 184 comments

Labour are doing the things about the housing crisis they said they would. It’s not working.

It’s Time.

Written By: - Date published: 2:46 pm, January 10th, 2022 - 324 comments

In seven or eight days from now, the dutiful lackeys of the NZ government and the public health dept they direct, are set to come after every child in NZ between the ages of 5 and 12 with injections of m-RNA to hand.

Book Review Helen Kelly: her life

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 pm, January 8th, 2022 - 12 comments

The Helen Kelly biography by Rebacca Macfie provides a clear and intense overview of what has happened to New Zealand society over the past 40 years from a time of high union membership and equality to now where unions struggle and inequality is significant.

Maintenance time

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, January 2nd, 2022 - 15 comments

Luna in the sun

The Standard server is going down for a few hours later today for maintenance. Some of the drives in the archive array are getting old. The SSDs in The Standard array are showing wear. Needs a good vacuum – for which I mostly blame the cat….

What Starts off in Support of Alabama’s Miners …

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, December 28th, 2021 - 2 comments

What Starts off in Support of Alabama’s Miners turns into a homily from Beau on the power of getting community change going when and only when you have the organisational power to pull it off month after month after month.

The pandemic is resiliency training

Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, December 24th, 2021 - 12 comments

Fear and loathing on both sides of the fence, or adaptation and resiliency? We do have some choices.

Our Energy Upheaval

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, December 23rd, 2021 - 79 comments

Ministers Wood, Shaw and Parker (Energy, Climate Change, and RMA reform respectively), must pull their eyes downward from the misty clouds of climate change and stuff multiple decades away and down into the jagged, shadowy deal-by-deal path of the transition to clean energy.

Revisiting Riverton: the Longwood Loop food resiliency project

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, December 22nd, 2021 - 22 comments

Key here is the resilience politics of greenies, DIYers and anarchists, where we just don’t wait for the government to act, we get on with and build the new ways ourselves.

The country’s books are in remarkably good shape

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, December 16th, 2021 - 79 comments

As the country rebounds out of partial lockdown the Treasury’s recently released half yearly Economic and Fiscal update suggests that the Country’s accounts are in remarkably good shape.

Clearing the decks

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, December 13th, 2021 - 14 comments

The draft report into Nick Smith’s treatment of a young staff member that eventually saw him leave Parliament has made its way into the public realm, just in time to be lost in the pre Christmas media wash up.

The 2022 Economic Boom

Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, December 12th, 2021 - 23 comments

New Zealand is seeing a strong, business-led recovery.  But what will we do with this success?

Fair pay agreements – the employers fight back

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, December 11th, 2021 - 48 comments

BusinessNZ and Federated Farmers have this week attacked the Government for intending to implement policy designed to improve the plight of poorly paid workers.

Fonterra’s Capital Restructure

Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, December 7th, 2021 - 32 comments

Fonterra is in the middle of a big restructure of its capital. It is still the case given its dominance over us that where Milk Supertanker Fonterra goes, we go.

National’s factional problem

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, November 28th, 2021 - 91 comments

National’s basic problem is that it has three discrete factions, christian conservatives, urban liberals and the country grouping.  And no coherent vision to reconcile these totally disparate groupings.

Class oppression and discrimination

Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, November 27th, 2021 - 79 comments

A brief analysis of power.

He Waka Eke Noa?

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, November 24th, 2021 - 14 comments

While a core of farmers protested a few days ago against farm environmental regulation with long lines of tractors, the organised form of agribusiness, Maori and government working together have concluded that making a climate different isn’t possible.

See what happens when you put a woman in charge?

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, November 24th, 2021 - 120 comments

Remarkably low Covid death and infection rates, good and improving vaccination rates, low unemployment and debt to GDP …

Astroturfers of the world unite

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, November 20th, 2021 - 52 comments

Two days before what is claimed will be the mother of all protests links between the Groundswell organisation and the Taxpayers Union have been discovered.

Is This The New State We Want?

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, November 19th, 2021 - 24 comments

The New Zealand state is gaining power again, but is it what we want?

The 2022 We Are Heading Towards

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, November 13th, 2021 - 34 comments

Most of us have been diminished by COVID in 2020-21 so it’s time for everyone to prepare 2022 as an honest accounting of damage to our whole society.

The Freedumb Protesters give protesting a bad name

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, November 10th, 2021 - 58 comments

As a principle the right to protest is important.  But the freedumb protesters making outlandish claims and at the same time plagarizing the language of progressive protest movements deserves to be called out.

Covid alters Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, November 3rd, 2021 - 22 comments

With in-person shopping about to re-start in Auckland next week, this is the best moment we will have to reinvent Auckland: one customer at a time.

We are all in this together

Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, November 2nd, 2021 - 206 comments

Increasing levels of angst at the current lockdown can be related to privilege.

The Covid vaccine rollout

Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, October 30th, 2021 - 185 comments

Matt Nippert’s in depth article in the Herald this morning provides a well researched deep insight into the Government’s vaccine roll out.  And as it progresses the New Zealand response places us mid table and improving in the OECD vaccination comparison and gives us some hope that the Delta outbreak may be controlled.

ANZ Bank clearly believes that greed is good

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, October 29th, 2021 - 131 comments

ANZ Bank has  just announced a $1.92 billion profit for the year to September 30, 2021.  This is about 1% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.

Good Again

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, October 28th, 2021 - 23 comments

COVID has reminded us how good New Zealand is, and we should remember how we were reminded.

Why vaccine mandates are needed

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, October 27th, 2021 - 165 comments

The Government has announced vaccine mandates for some publicly facing businesses designed to help minimise the spread of a virus that has killed millions of people world wide.

In December 2022 We Will Be …

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, October 25th, 2021 - 15 comments

A year ago we were preparing for the America’s Cup and threading our way through the latest crisis quite well.  What will we be planning next year?

Won’t someone think of the business owners?

Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, October 24th, 2021 - 174 comments

This week Judith Collins was reported to be close to tears.  But not about the possibility of a significant number of deaths but by the prospect of business closures.

Friday will change Us As Citizens

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, October 22nd, 2021 - 210 comments

While we may have been lifted out of martial lockdowns and some rights have been reinstated in limited form, we have surrendered to another more pervasive power.  The power of big data.

National’s plan – open and be damned

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, October 21st, 2021 - 71 comments

Yesterday National released what feels like take 16 of its Covid response plan, this one focussing on business interests and setting a hard timeline for reopening.  But getting significant details wrong and rehashing failed policies previously tried in England has dampened its effect.