Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
The Nation has been doing some digging into #Sheepgate and last weekend broadcast its results. There were some findings that if confirmed should result in McCully’s cabinet career being ended. Not to mention a potential Privileges Hearing to decide if he has misled Parliament.
If you’re an average worker the actions of the National government have reduced the value of your KiwiSaver fund at retirement by about $100K.
Unless you are scaremongering and “anti-science” you should embrace GMO foods. Say 107 Nobel Laureates.
It is tragic that a family working 80 hours a week cannot make ends meet.
Three dots.
Updated
Inequality in NZ is the worst it’s been in a decade. Key’s response is pathetic. We need to vote to end suck-up economics. We need to be a better country than this.
Details of a public forum to be run tomorrrow evening by Socialist Aotearoa to discuss Brexit, a Marxist critique of the European Union, and the very British coup against Jeremy Corbyn.
From the circus that never leaves town.
April Key said our foreign trusts had full disclosure and proposals to increase transparency were “barking mad”. June Key is going to implement “sensible and well-reasoned” proposals to increase disclosure and transparency.
A recent interview with Barack Obama displayed an understanding of the problems offered by globalisation but also understands the complex relationship between trade, elites, workers, and redistribution.
There were many who were concerned that John Shewan was not a good choice for an inquiry into NZ’s tax haven system. Seems we owe Shewan an apology, as initial reaction suggests that he has done a good job.
Reposted from Boots Theory with some updates requested by the author
Even in times of upheaval there are things we can do. Here are 11 post-Brexit ways to act right now.
Is it true that 40 percent of us pay no tax? Why, no, no it isn’t.
“Poverty NZ’s ‘new normal’ – report”. “Food bank pantries bare, emergency food grant dropping – report”. “NZ egalitarian? That’s a pretty little lie”. Hello – National supporters – where do you think this is going to end?
Yesterday was a big day for both UK and US politics. Brexit revealed the political consequences of social inequality. Meanwhile in America the Trump Train is derailing.
You might be surprised to learn this, but you don’t want a pay rise.
From the “Brighter Future”, four personal stories published recently are all well worth reading.
John Key’s refused to stop the clock on Kiwi workers losing a million dollars a day. That’s a mistake.
Climate change is now causing extreme dry weather events and is increasingly blamed for water shortages. But what we are doing on the ground has just as much influence on our experience of drought. As New Zealand farmers call for drought relief this winter, it’s time we looked at how we manage land and water, and the critical role this plays in whether humans can live with variable rainfall in the age of climate change. Here’s a stellar example from India.
When it is a variable network pricing mechanism …
It’s basically flat-lining – only partially animated by immigration and a housing bubble.
Not only has Compass being serving below quality food to hospital patients but it appears that they may not have paid some long term employees what they are entitled to.
An update on Te Puea Marae, a homeless teen cancer sufferer, and how to help.
There are some pretty depressing political trends going on.
For eight long years National have been telling us that the 90 day trial (fire at will) law was all about creating jobs. Yesterday a new Treasury report showed that it had failed to do so. RNZ: “The government now says its 90-day trial period was never about increasing the number of jobs in New Zealand”. Of course.
Or not. More National ideology burned to the ground by facts.
A very sincere good morning to the “Park up for homes” folks who have just spent the night in their cars, protesting in support of the homeless.
“It turns out there will be no jobs on a dead planet.”
While New Zealand is struggling to maintain integrity around fishing and resource management, an ocean farmer in the US is leading the way in economic and ecologic sustainability. This is how we can do things differently.
Guardian journalist Owen Jones nails the failure of many to call the Orlando killings what they are; homophobic terrorism. It’s not an excuse for anti-muslim hysteria, as Trump, Seymour and Peters would have it, it’s the worst single attack on LGBT people since the holocaust.
So what should the next President of the United States focus on? Military power or economic domination or international institutions?
Scientists and experts have been knowingly understating the unfolding climate change catastrophe to governments and decision makers. Why? For the sake of what is “politically palatable”.
The refugee rise didn’t go far enough… but we need to stop importing cafe managers and retail supervisors and fuelling Auckland’s housing and transport problems.
Last year there were officially 22,000 unoccupied properties in Auckland. This year 33,000 are officially classified as empty. “Auckland’s 6.6 per cent vacancy rate is higher than either Sydney (5.2 per cent) or Melbourne (4.8 per cent), where there has been an uproar over “ghost houses” deliberately left empty by speculators trading on a soaring market”. This is madness.
Hickey: “Helping employers to bring in low-skilled migrants instead of investing in new technology and becoming more productive so they can pay local workers more is essentially stunting our productivity and real GDP per capita.”
Imagine a country where the political divide is over whether to ban fracking outright or to be opposed to fracking but have a moratorium first in order to gather more evidence.
