Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
TS regular Tony Veitch has some practical ideas as to how we insulate NZ from the ravages of neoliberalism and climate change. Readers may agree with some, none or all of the suggestions. However, whichever way you look at it, the time for hand wringing is over. It’s time for action.
Auckland Action Against Poverty is trying to get a sanction on sole mothers removed.
The world’s biggest general strike ever occurred this month in India.
Big Tobacco was hit this week in New Zealand after Parliament passed laws requiring smokes to be sold in plain packaging. The science about the health threats posed by smoking is settled, as is the science over climate change. When can we expect laws being passed against the oil companies?
Blogger and social activist Chloe King, one of the hundreds of thousands of low waged workers in this country was devastated by John Key’s comments suggesting that she and others were lazy and had no work ethic. This is her response.
“If indigenous people were given a space to be able to think about what system would work for them, I don’t think that would look like capitalism” – Kassie Hartendorp speaking at the launch of ESRA last week.
The whitewash of the rugby players who assaulted a woman at a post season piss up has been released. A mightily relieved rugby boss Steve Tew can now go into the rest of the season knowing that the All Black squad will not be affected by the loss of any players to suspension. The only person to have lost their job over the incident is the victim. How cool is that?
Nick Srnicek’s keynote talk at the launch of Economic and Social Research Aotearoa, on the role that left think tanks like ESRA can play in developing a post-capitalist politics for today.
A Tory think tank proposes a massive house-building plan, with a ‘Living Rent’ to make it affordable; and Nick Clegg lifts the lid on the Tories in the last government.
Nothing and no-one is separate in this world. Nothing and no-one is more important than anything else or anyone else; no voice greater and no voice lesser.
John Key let the mask slip yesterday – as he said that we needed immigrant labour even for unskilled work because of the work ethic and drug use of New Zealand workers. That’s how he sees normal Kiwis, but actually maybe they just need proper pay & conditions.
The Jobs That Count campaign isn’t just about Talley’s AFFCO. It’s about getting local councils that work for all of us and make sure that the big businesses in our communities give back to us.
I attended the Living Wage People’s assembly this week in St Matthews in the City. The idea behind the meeting was to get Mayoral […]
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) brings leading thinkers and culture creators from around the world to the Sydney Opera House stages and online to discuss and debate the important ideas of our time.
Our National dipshit ministers have decided to start a new growth industry. They importing low-skilled to extract their savings, using them to generate artificial heat in the service economy and to slow wage growth. On the way through they’re also screwing the housing market. Our current net permanent long-term migration is completely unsustainable. Perhaps it is time to vote NZ First?
Never heard of it? Neither had I.
And in Europe the EU has taken steps against Apple for rampant tax evasion and an EU-US free trade deal appears to be dead.
Matt McCarten is to head a new Labour party office in Auckland. The party is going to take to fight to National in the city that decides the election. Yet another bold step from Andrew Little, who is looking more and more like the next PM.
New Zealand’s record is shameful. It is long past time or equal pay. You can sign the petition here.
Uber is great for the consumer but terrible for its contractors.
Illustrator and commentator Toby Morris has animated TA’s story: “What do you want most in the world,” John Campbell asks TA, who has been living in a van with her family since February. “A library.”
The closure of 19 mostly rural Westpac branches is indicative of the ongoing hollowing out the regions. Neglecting Northland cost the Nats the last by election. Neglecting regional NZ as a whole might cost them the next general.
Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne Genter starts a conversation about post-neoliberal economics.
We are now at 485 ppm CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations, up from 250 ppm in the 1700s. And climbing fast.
Robertson: “What is the economic paradigm that will meet the challenge of world of less secure work, more automation?”
What are the New Zealand institutions other than the State who can achieve good for New Zealanders?
Most of the media has reported the Government’s “3%” spin on the extent of residential property purchases in NZ going to foreign buyers pretty uncritically. There have been honourable exceptions, and yesterday property editor Anne Gibson in The Herald joined them.
A new phrase is about to enter NZ’s clean green image lexicon.
John Key has announced an inquiry into the Havelock North water crisis. But has it been set up to fail the residents of the Central Hawkes Bay?
Hickey: “The best way for an economy to grow is for the market to allow wages to grow. Allowing a flood of low-skilled migrants is frustrating that market mechanism with the short-term aim of keeping wages low for employers.”
So often we lose sight of the fact that local government is about much, much more than rates. We’re launching a Jobs That Count ticket to change that.
Extracts from a long piece by Rutger Bregman in The Guardian. Plenty to disagree with perhaps, but plenty to ponder too.
America is bailing on private prisons because they don’t work. What’s the bet that National is ‘too proud and arrogant’ to follow suit.
The Government is refusing to accept there are legal issues with Kiwisaver providers investing in manufacturers of cluster bombs. But it is also not ruling out there may be a problem.
Water is life not merely wadeable.
New Zealand is slowly losing faith with this Government and this is why.
