The Standard

Economy

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

Categories under Economy

Top ten things we have learned already

Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, May 6th, 2020 - 53 comments

The top ten things that the Covid pandemic has taught us as a country.

Roger Douglas attacks economic privilege and inequality

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, May 5th, 2020 - 261 comments

Roger Douglas has reverted to his socialist roots by going back on his pro market mantra and criticising the economic privilege and inequality that he helped create.

The Post Covid Blues

Written By: - Date published: 2:01 pm, May 4th, 2020 - 26 comments

No new COVID 19 cases today!

UPDATE: No change to Level 2, decision in a week.

What would President Biden do?

Written By: - Date published: 7:47 am, May 4th, 2020 - 59 comments

With President Trump doing what we all expected, and killing 67,000 people and counting through chronic poor leadership, and utterly ruining the U.S. economy as well, it’s time to look at what policies the alternative candidate has on offer.

Covid-19 and climate change

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, May 3rd, 2020 - 55 comments

The International Energy Agency is forecasting that disruptions caused by Covid-19 will reduce CO2 output this year by 8%. To avoid the worst excesses of climate change the world has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6% for the next decade. How are we going to keep repeating the reductions that we achieved this year for the next decade?

Rebuild better post COVID

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, May 2nd, 2020 - 46 comments

A Guest blog from E tū Assistant National Secretary, Annie Newman. “Democracy creates a space for the market, civil society and the government but it doesn’t guarantee a balance between these spheres. That is government’s role. Right now, there is an opportunity for our government to do more than protect the future of business; it can address the imbalance in our democracy where the market dominates the agenda.”

His work here is not yet done

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, May 1st, 2020 - 71 comments

Former Prime Minister John Key has said that under current conditions employers are going to sack 20 per cent of their workers even if the company is doing well and that employers should never waste a crisis.

No Exit.

Written By: - Date published: 5:25 pm, April 30th, 2020 - 22 comments

Reaction to Covid 19 has done more in a few weeks to blunt the drive behind climate change than anything the environmental movement has managed to do in over thirty years.

How to kill the car

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, April 29th, 2020 - 45 comments

What would you do so that instead of wandering endlessly through tilt-slab monstrosities soaked in 80s music and fluorescent lighting, surrounded by oppressed minimum-wage slaves who hate being there and you hating being there worried about your wheeled asset damaged in their carpark instead you get freedom?

The class politics of the Covid-19 pandemic response

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, April 28th, 2020 - 59 comments

National economics spokesperson Paul Goldsmith has advanced a plan to address the Covid 19 pandemic which includes union bashing and privatisation.

Green Party: COVID-19 recovery and investment in people and nature

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, April 27th, 2020 - 16 comments

Most of the funding will go directly to employing people – the tools needed for wetland restoration such as spades and seedlings are far cheaper than big excavators and asphalt.

Draconian Tourism or no Tourism?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 27th, 2020 - 192 comments

If overseas tourists want to visit NZ, they may have to give up a little bit of their privacy to keep all of us safe.

How Covid-19 is smashing councils

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, April 26th, 2020 - 69 comments

Just as most industries in New Zealand are firing thousands of people to cut costs, local government is getting ready to do the same.

dear sysop: on covid-19 debt

Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, April 25th, 2020 - 60 comments

We put in guest posts occasionally.  These days I’m the person who runs the email account and sees the general ones. Mostly I don’t give any feedback as much as anything else because a lack of time. But I should. This is the first to get that editorial attention. The topic itself is worth discussing. What is the process of raising debt for the cobid-19 economic response.

The “Others”.

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, April 25th, 2020 - 20 comments

“Othering” has long been a staple of Governments that want to remain in power for the benefit of an Oligarchy, an “Elite”, a small ruling class, or the ones with, “the money”. Deflecting blame for economic and social issues on, an ethnicity, a class, the elderly, the poor, the young, the unemployed, young solo mothers, the disabled, immigrants, or any other convenient group that can be demonised. Very soon more of us may become the “others” we didn’t care about.

“The government will never do that”

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, April 23rd, 2020 - 56 comments

Say it out loud: Degrowth.

Pandemics and our privacy

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, April 22nd, 2020 - 43 comments

The Ministry of Health is checking with the GCSB to enable full tracing of people to slow further outbreaks. Should we be afraid?

Eat the rich

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, April 22nd, 2020 - 47 comments

Richard Branson, who has arranged his affairs so that he pays tax to no government, is upset that Governments are not bailing his empire out. And an idea has been floated to allow billionaires to set up boltholes in New Zealand.

Running for cover

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 pm, April 21st, 2020 - 41 comments

More 1% Americans are heading our way, according to Bloomberg. The Texas company building underground bunkers is getting more enquiries. They’re not running from the virus but fear the aftermath when the breadlines turn.

When Bridges’ social media goes wrong

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, April 21st, 2020 - 77 comments

Simon Bridges’s Facebook post criticising the extension of lockdown level 4 has been met with overwhelming opposition, including from people who are clearly National Party supporters.

Guest post – is it safe to lower the lockdown level?

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, April 20th, 2020 - 58 comments

Guest post by Karl Sinclair on what needs to be addressed before the country can be safely lifted out of lockdown.

Greens push for large intercity rail infrastructure to ensure sustainable post-COVID-19 rebuild

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, April 19th, 2020 - 122 comments

“The Greens are highlighting fast intercity rail improvements as the type of climate-friendly, job-creating project that should be prioritised for post-COVID-19 economic stimulus investment.”

Don’t plan on a vaccine or persistent natural immunity.

Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, April 18th, 2020 - 93 comments

Don’t plan on a vaccine or persistent natural immunity. Unless we’re incredibly lucky, neither are very likely for much of the coming decade. We don’t have the bat immunity systems. Learn to embrace the bets of the future rather than the clinging to the comfy blanket of the past that has now gone.

The plan for Monday

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, April 18th, 2020 - 30 comments

Even if New Zealand gets out of the immediate Covid-19 infection better than most other countries, the result is still a wrecked world and a slow recovery. What we face is something like an Australian firefighter with a hose and a tanker facing an onrushing wall of flame: they successfully dampen down a defined circle […]

Matthew’s Magic Numbers

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 pm, April 15th, 2020 - 43 comments

Matthew Hooton has tweeted a series of numbers. They add up to good news for the Government.

UPDATE: Curia Polling reckons it’s even better for Labour!

No Right Turn: Climate Change – the need for a green recovery

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, April 15th, 2020 - 7 comments

The Climate Change Commission – the expert panel tasked with getting New Zealand carbon neutral – has written to the government asking it to apply a “climate change lens” to the post-Covid-19 spend-up.

What we were doing wasn’t working.

Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, April 15th, 2020 - 112 comments

After the lockdown, it is tempting to try and go back to what we had before. To the familiar and comfortable, especially for us that were comfortable. Forgetting that for so many, things were anything but, comfortable. That won’t be happening. “Before” no longer exists.

What Is This Moment Teaching Us?

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, April 14th, 2020 - 53 comments

What is Covid-19 telling us about our response as a nation?

Are the Vultures Already Circling Above?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 14th, 2020 - 116 comments

We cannot go back to business as usual after the lockdown but can we shape the way things will be for the greater good?

Please sort this out MoH

Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, April 12th, 2020 - 85 comments

Frontline home care workers and their clients still don’t have adequate protection from covid. 

New Zealand’s poor in this new crisis

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, April 11th, 2020 - 126 comments

Covid 19 is not some great leveller. To succeed the state has to completely redirect the economy to so that ordinary workers and working families are supported.