Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, September 8th, 2016 - 8 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, September 8th, 2016 - 4 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 1:06 pm, September 7th, 2016 - 18 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, September 6th, 2016 - 197 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, September 5th, 2016 - 49 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 4th, 2016 - 29 comments
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 and Waitemata ward candidates to express their views on the living wage proposal as well as improved public transport services and rental accommodation standards. The organiser was Living Wage Aotearoa who have been […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, September 3rd, 2016 - 8 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, September 2nd, 2016 - 107 comments
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?
Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, September 1st, 2016 - 11 comments
Never heard of it? Neither had I.
Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, September 1st, 2016 - 49 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, August 30th, 2016 - 57 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 5:05 pm, August 29th, 2016 - Comments Off on Last chance to sign the equal pay petition
New Zealand’s record is shameful. It is long past time or equal pay. You can sign the petition here.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, August 29th, 2016 - 66 comments
Uber is great for the consumer but terrible for its contractors.
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, August 28th, 2016 - 10 comments
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.”
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, August 28th, 2016 - 44 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, August 27th, 2016 - 168 comments
Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne Genter starts a conversation about post-neoliberal economics.
Written By: - Date published: 1:23 pm, August 26th, 2016 - 76 comments
We are now at 485 ppm CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations, up from 250 ppm in the 1700s. And climbing fast.
Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, August 26th, 2016 - 10 comments
Robertson: “What is the economic paradigm that will meet the challenge of world of less secure work, more automation?”
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, August 25th, 2016 - 17 comments
What are the New Zealand institutions other than the State who can achieve good for New Zealanders?
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, August 25th, 2016 - 75 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, August 24th, 2016 - 14 comments
A new phrase is about to enter NZ’s clean green image lexicon.
Written By: - Date published: 7:37 pm, August 22nd, 2016 - 121 comments
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?
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, August 22nd, 2016 - 79 comments
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.”
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, August 21st, 2016 - 22 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, August 21st, 2016 - 147 comments
Extracts from a long piece by Rutger Bregman in The Guardian. Plenty to disagree with perhaps, but plenty to ponder too.
Written By: - Date published: 3:49 pm, August 19th, 2016 - 19 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, August 19th, 2016 - 64 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, August 19th, 2016 - 78 comments
Water is life not merely wadeable.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, August 19th, 2016 - 122 comments
New Zealand is slowly losing faith with this Government and this is why.
Written By: - Date published: 6:17 pm, August 18th, 2016 - 28 comments
Today, electronic numbers in electronic bank accounts are the most important things to the people who lead NZ. That’s going to have to seriously change. The country’s capacity and resources in terms of food, energy, water and cultural/social resiliency is what actually counts.
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 18th, 2016 - 22 comments
An excellent piece by Matt Nippert, Caleb Tutty, Olivia Carville in The Herald is generating a lot of discussion this morning. Are you unknowingly investing in tobacco and munitions?
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