Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, July 19th, 2018 - 113 comments
Excerpts from Glenn Greenwald speaking on Democracy Now! (h/t Adrian Thornton)
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, July 18th, 2018 - 77 comments
Mike Hosking appears to have entered into a particularly dark time.
Written By: - Date published: 1:10 pm, July 15th, 2018 - 68 comments
Peter Dunne has some sage advice for National; phone a friend. If you can find one.
Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, July 14th, 2018 - 49 comments
A post puzzling over our collective state of mind in the face of incredible danger and suggesting the only course of action we can take. Covering our eyes and blocking our ears isn’t it.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, July 13th, 2018 - 61 comments
What would happen if the house prices of Auckland, Queenstown, and other centres of very high debt went into substantial and long term decline?
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, July 12th, 2018 - 101 comments
Perhaps the Labour-led coalition might choose to reflect on it priorities – the sufficient funding of essential public services or buying billion-dollar war machines from the Donald Trump regime.
Written By: - Date published: 6:48 pm, July 11th, 2018 - 186 comments
There’s never been Free Speech and that’s not actually much of a problem according to Te Reo Putake, who is no stranger to the downside of Saying Things.
Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, July 9th, 2018 - 27 comments
The speed of the growing trade war between the United States and China will hit New Zealand. Our long term diplomatic arc, such that it is, was to follow a modernist impulse set after World War Two: that economic growth and democracy matched deep human impulses for freedom and prosperity together. China has never assented […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:21 pm, July 8th, 2018 - 10 comments
I don’t pay much attention to news channels these days, and realise this will have been all over the place in the shape of headlines and lead stories. So I’m sorry for simply echoing that which is already being amplified, but hey…
Written By: - Date published: 4:45 pm, July 7th, 2018 - 98 comments
The extent and limits of current politics.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 5th, 2018 - 65 comments
These sorts of debates do my head in. Essentially because they are so removed from reality that anyone with any sense would know that Labour was not responsible for the last global financial crisis. But apparently the opposition spokesperson does not understand what happened in 2008. Does this seem a bit harsh? Well it is […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 4th, 2018 - 56 comments
Teachers have indicated they will also be seeking a significant catch up in salaries and job conditions after a decade of neglect.
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, July 2nd, 2018 - 48 comments
Labour’s Family Package and the Auckland Regional Fuel tax have both kicked in.
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, July 1st, 2018 - 50 comments
Deserving workers and undeserving workers in the public service.
updated
Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, June 28th, 2018 - 51 comments
Barry Soper in the Herald has fallen for National’s fake news concerning something said by Jacinda Ardern that was taken totally out of context.
Written By: - Date published: 3:47 pm, June 27th, 2018 - 41 comments
Carmel Sepuloni has announced much needed changes to make WINZ more sensitive to the needs of New Zealanders who need assistance.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 27th, 2018 - 102 comments
National has claimed that Jacinda Ardern ruled out national strikes during the last year’s election campaign. And has trimmed a video and taken comments out of context to justify its claim.
Written By: - Date published: 2:34 pm, June 26th, 2018 - 21 comments
If we can’t see the wood for the trees, shouldn’t we simply step back a bit and look again?
Written By: - Date published: 6:02 am, June 19th, 2018 - 113 comments
Take a look around the room you’re in. Or if you’re out and about and reading this on some mobile device, then take a look around the next room you enter. Closely.
Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, June 18th, 2018 - 26 comments
Twitter in the right hands can be a very dangerous thing. As shown by Jessica Williams when she questioned the intellectual grunt of the taxpayers union in this series of tweets.
Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, June 18th, 2018 - 94 comments
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has incurred attacks from the right by refusing to allow the desecration of conservation land on the West Coast.
Written By: - Date published: 2:13 pm, June 15th, 2018 - 42 comments
The Government has announced that all employees in the core public service will be paid a living wage from September 1, 2018.
Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, June 14th, 2018 - 19 comments
…on reclaimed land. (Dunedin) – because water features are nice things to have.
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, June 13th, 2018 - 32 comments
If the political class think liberalism has failed, then why is it that the process of killing off NZ Post is approaching completion?
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, June 12th, 2018 - 45 comments
Liberalism was meant to be the New World Order and even (so the briefly celebrated Fukiyama reckoned anyway) an End to History. Big stuff then. But it seems the placid and complacent consensus is fraying round the edges.
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, June 11th, 2018 - 48 comments
In New Zealand there is sufficient evidence to show that poor peoples’ lives are cut short because of poverty related poor nutrition. While food banks are alleviating the worst impacts of hunger, their kindness may well be contributing to the problem. Food poverty is a systemic issue and requires a systemic response, a response that successive governments are able to avoid while charities continue to provide a buffer for the system.
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, June 11th, 2018 - 15 comments
Darien Fenton writes about Business New Zealand’s early approach to the Fair Pay panel.
Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, June 10th, 2018 - 125 comments
Matthew Hooton and Fran O’Sullivan have claimed that the Government’s decision to ban off shore petroleum exploration is “Orwellian”, part of an attempt to divert attention from other issues, bad for the environment and bad for jobs. Are they right?
Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, June 8th, 2018 - 32 comments
Remember when you could pay a mortgage, keep the kitchen cupboard full, take the kids to the movies now and then, by working as a bus driver, a freezing worker, a journalist, or any number of other solid middle-Kiwi jobs? When a decent working life was a given…
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, June 6th, 2018 - 39 comments
Perhaps the idea that it’s necessary to have national objectives and realistic plans to achieve them, is overrated. Seems to be working for Trump.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, June 6th, 2018 - 112 comments
National thinks that getting back to full employment, having wages and conditions sufficient to allow a working family to live in decency on one full time wage, and home ownership rates of about 70% are a bad thing.
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