NZ being used as international example of a bad welfare system
NZ under National is being used internationally as an example of a bad welfare system.
Do we care? Are we going to fix it?
Economy
Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Free Petrol Pt II
Part II of IV. How to achieve zero carbon from the shipping and aviation sectors by the 2030s.
Free Petrol Pt I
Part I of a IV part series of posts on what we can do to hold global warming below 2 degrees C.
We can’t say we weren’t warned
When the Auckland housing bubble bursts a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money. They won’t be able to say they weren’t warned.
Climate change pedal to the metal
Avoiding 2 deg C warming is a ship that’s sailed. Global warming is now happening at about 4.3x the previous long-run rate. And it might go up to 18x the previous rate over the next few years. That’s what the pundits call “abrupt climate change.”
NZ in the international news again
Hollywood should try a different model
Piracy is shifting from peer-to-peer to streaming. Big Entertainment isn’t shifting it’s attitudes at all – still stuck in the dark ages.
Chris de Freitas now is the time to be afraid
As the temperatures increase and the sea rises Chris de Freitas still claims that anthropogenic climate change is not a happening thing. And shows his inability to analyze by misinterpreting a Jarrod Gilbert article which describes climate change deniers as charlatans.
The Ray White – China deal
Real Estate agent Ray White has formed a partnership with China’s Lianjia to market NZ houses to about 260 million Chinese buyers. They say it’s the government’s problem – and they’re right.
Talleys versus Free Speech
The Talley group want the courts to order a union to stop telling the truth about how they bully, maim and kill their workers. Will the Standard be next in the firing line?
The future of work
The Herald (Liam Dann) had a Terminator themed piece on the future of work yesterday. If only there was a party that was thinking about these long term issues!
Stopping the sale of agricultural land and agri-business
Australia’s national interest test applied to attempts by foreign interests to buy Australian agriland and agribusinesses is deliberately vague. New Zealand could take lessons.
DNC Day 3. Biden, Obama, and Trump Jumps the Shark
Day 3 of the DNC. Biden and Obama to speak later, Trump wishes he hadn’t spoken earlier. In what looks to be an embarrassing gaffe, the candidate of the 1%ers has requested help from Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. In a normal election, that would be political suicide. This year, who knows?
UPDATE: Barack Obama LIVE STREAMING NOW.
TPP teetering on the precipice
A silver lining in the depressing chaos of the American presidential process.
DNC: Bernie Speaks
The Democratic Party is holding their convention in Philadelphia. The day has started with an apology to Bernie Sanders and a poll boost for Donald Trump. Sanders speaks live at 2PM (approx).
UPDATE: Feel the BERN! Live NOW.
UPDATE: Video of Bernie Sanders’ speech now added.
CYF massively underfunded
National pays electoral homage to our vulnerable children. They talk a big game about putting “the needs of our most vulnerable children and families at the centre of decisions”. Their actions tell a different story – of under-funding at CYF and falling numbers of social workers.
Oram – seven warning signs for the economy
Rod Oram’s Sunday Star-Times, reprinted on Facebook here, adds yet another voice to the chorous of economic warnings: “Our Road Runner economy is zooming towards the cliff-edge”…
We need to talk about Islam
A post in which Ad responds to TRP’s recent post suggesting that all religion should be banned by suggesting that religious tolerance is a necessary feature of a liberal democracy.
Drumpf LIVE!
Establishment candidate and billionaire Donald J Trump is delivering his acceptance speech at the RNC. It’s chockfulla cliches, but hey …
YOOO ESSS AYYYY, YOOO ESSS AYYYY!
WINZ sends families to live in garages
The government is demolishing and selling state house while WINZ sends families to live in garages. This is New Zealand in the Eighth Year of the Brighter Future.
Democracy and Dunne
The union movement’s digital campaign arm – Together – has sent out the following email asking for support to put Peter Dunne on the spot with his electorate over Easter Trading.
How to collapse liberal society
Liberal society is in reverse in many parts of the world. What do we do to arrest this?
China trade realpolitik
We can’t afford to be using sub-standard steel. We shouldn’t have to buckle to pressure to do so, but we have no leverage at all.
A target we can celebrate missing
Anne Tolley has conceeded that the Nats will not meet their objective of getting 65,000 people off the benefit in the next two years. Good. It is the wrong goal.
Salmond on the ravages of neoliberalism
2013 New Zealander of the year Dame Anne Salmond: “In the name of progress, we sacrifice the future of our own children and the planet.”
National’s Rodeo.
The fiction that National is doing a competent job of managing the economy is entirely due, now that the boom from Dairy and Christchurch rebuilding is ending, to immigration and rising house prices.
They are now riding a bolting horse that they cannot dismount, caused by their own inaction.
Panama Papers – Nat U-turn complete
Having ignored the IRD and other advice, having insulted calls for transparency as “barking mad”, today the Nats’ U-turn on disclosure for foreign trusts is complete.
Maori health and children not a priority
Essential reading, two pieces highlighting institutional racism today. Someone needs to ask the Maori Party how proud they are to be propping up this government.
What – you mean – the lefties were right?
Inequality, poverty, the rise of the working poor – people are pissed. Lefties have been saying it for a long time, but now Serious Market People can see it too.
Be Like Dad, Keep Mum (in fear).
Temuera Morrison has made a powerful video for the Women’s Refuge annual appeal. He’s making a difference. You can do something the Key Government won’t do. You can make a difference. You can stop keeping mum about domestic violence and you can help fund your local refuge.
Helen Kelly; A Work of Art.
The NZ Portrait Gallery’s latest work is of unionist Helen Kelly. It’s great.
Jeremy Corbyn apologises for Blair and Bush’s Iraq War
Jeremy Corbyn’s full response to the Chilcot response. Corbyn says that the Iraq war “was an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext” and that he apologises for it on behalf of Labour, who was in Government at the time.
Social bonds negotiations collapse
The Governments attempt to incentivise the provision of social services by greed has failed with the first proposed social bond failing.
National’s strike-breaking fail
The Police want no part of the Nats’ plan to use them as airport security. Perhaps instead of bungled attempts at strike-breaking the Nats should consider – dealing fairly with aviation security staff concerns?
The Chrematistic Camel
So this post is about a suite of frameworks not to adopt if the goal is to avoid 2 degrees of global warming.
“Died at some point in the recycling process”
Imagine taking shelter on a cold night and ending up crushed or asphyxiated to death in a compressed cardboard recycling bale.