Pike River facts laid out
An excellent piece by Pike River mum, Sonya Rockhouse, in today’s Sunday Star-Times. The full article is here, but here are some of the most important points…
Economy
Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Where to now for the left?
With the right in ascendancy throughout the Western World what does the left do to change this?
Can we even afford to be tenants in our own country?
Being tenants in our own country is starting to look like the good old days.
It’s past time to be bold about water
Water is both the front line and the rallying cry.
Win for sanity in Hager vs Westpac
The Privacy Commission issues a ruling that should not have been unnecessary.
Living wage rises to $20.20 an hour
The living wage rises, and an odd argument for abolishing the minimum wage.
Rocketwerkz – an enlightened employer
We sometimes give employers a bit of a hard time on this blog, so it’s nice to occasionally celebrate a good one. Dunedin gaming company Rocketwerkz is in the headlines for all the right reasons.
National’s one-trick election pony – the eternal mirage of tax cuts
As Finance Minister Bill English effectively ruled out tax cuts, but it’s election year, and so of course the Nats can’t help but trot out their one-trick election pony again.
The Standard Book Club – Small is Beautiful, Economics as if People Mattered
The Standard’s inaugural book club looks at E. F. Schumacher’s sustainability classic.
The new world order
With former adversaries USA and Russia now the best of friends and with China now emerging again as the preeminent economy in the world the question is will the transition of power be handled smoothly?
Good ideas in Gisborne
Andrew Little’s announcement yesterday in Gisborne of Labour’s pledge of up to $20million to build a prefabricated timber plant there is a much-needed boost to the area and a sign that Labour’s 100,000 new house pledge first made by David Shearer in 2012 has legs.
Treat her right
The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1972. It’s now 2017 and it’s never been enforced. It’s time to ‘Treat Her Right’.
Cadburys Dunedin to close with hundreds of jobs lost
Another blow to Dunedin.
Kia Kaha Canterbury
It seems almost inevitable that the recent fires in Canterbury and the Hawkes Bay are the result of climate change and the harbingers of things to come.
Auckland: Stop Niki’s Eviction!
Time to take action against the destruction of communities and privatisation of social housing.
Auckland NIMBYs refused
If Auckland as a city wish to retain representative samples of our past, then we should concentrate on how to preserve those rather than trying to deny the migration that increases its population by something like 50 thousand people per year. This is a working city – not a museum.
Is this the impossibility turning point?
There’s a wonderful fiction still propelling the world that the 21st century will bring an ever-expanding arc of freedom and prosperity to the vast majority of humanity but the reality seems to be anything but.
We Are All ‘Identarian’ Now
There has been an unfortunate trend developing in recent weeks, of negatively labelling people who dare to have a different opinion on equality to the labeller, as identarian. This description is something to be appreciated in these times when dark forces appear to be on the rise again.
Panama Papers – Mossack Fonseca founders arrested
In the story that keeps rolling on, Mossack Fonseca founders arrested for money laundering.
Greg O’Connor selected for Ōhāriu
The former Police Association president has been confirmed as a Labour’s candidate for Wellington’s Ōhāriu electorate.
Bloomberg warns world of New Zealand’s toxic trusts
Bloomberg magazine has highlighted how foreign trusts are damaging New Zealand’s reputation and are being used for criminal activity.
Herald documentary: Under The Bridge
If you didn’t catch up with this in The Herald this week – Under The Bridge – you should take a look now. An excellent piece of long-form journalism.
Prof John Quiggin – After Reform, What Comes Next?
University of Queensland Professor John Quiggin, author of Zombie Economics, will speak on this topic for the Fabian Society in Wellington on Monday 13th and Auckland Thursday 16th of this month. All welcome, details and registration inside. Will be interesting.
29 lives lost. No justice for their families.
Solid Energy trucks have refused to cross the picket line at Pike River this morning after the families set up effigies of their dead men.
Salvation Army report – NZ “Off the Track”
“The absence of any meaningful progress in reducing child poverty rates over the past decade—and the lack of interest by Government in using welfare and income support programmes to do so—points to wilful indifference toward the long-term personal and social impacts of this avoidable harm.”
The SOE sell down three years on
Some time in the next 12 months it is likely that the forgone dividend payments and loss in share value from the Power Company shares and Air NZ share sale will be greater than the amount received, only three years after the sale.
Willie on the unions
“Matt McCarten is one to watch. He’s developing his union. I don’t have much time for [the established unions]. I hope my mate Matt destroys them.” – 2005 – link
Smartest guy in the room
The Government signed a deal with Peter Thiel that socialised the losses and allowed him to privatise the gains of the joint venture fund that the parties entered into.
Poverty and health
Socioeconomic status is a major health risk factor. Not exactly a surprise is it.
Unemployment rate up
Despite National’s fiddling the figures on the way unemployment is counted, the unemployment rate is on the rise again.
Labour gets serious about regional development
Labour is serious about regional development. It is proposing a 10 year $200m package of regional initiatives. The first of these was just announced in Dunedin.
Americans Killed By Terrorists since 9/11.
Killed in the USA?
Punching Nazis, and practicing resistance
Being human, Linda Tirado, and lessons for New Zealand.
Stop. Driving. Climate. Change.
What can we do today that will make a difference?
Privatised Education Strikes Again.
The problems we have identified many times, with privatisation of essential services, continue.
Lifeboat NZ
How do we feel about NZ becoming a lifeboat for the super-rich to run out on the problems that they created?