Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 1:21 pm, August 3rd, 2016 - 50 comments
The Nats are in a difficult spot here, no doubt about it. The weak steel is a serious issue and it should be investigated. But their usual tactics of deny and lie have been caught out yet again.
Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, August 3rd, 2016 - 129 comments
Housing NZ has admitted that it is evicting tenants when only tiny trace amounts of meth are found on the property. It further admits that the testing regime is not fit for purpose. But, hey, they have the power to make people homeless and they’re not going to let fairness or common sense get in the way of their moral panic.
When did the War on Drugs become the War on the Poor?
Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, August 2nd, 2016 - 43 comments
The European Union is considering sanctions against New Zealand for operating as a tax haven and the proposed reforms by John Sherwin may not be enough.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, August 2nd, 2016 - 104 comments
NZ under National is being used internationally as an example of a bad welfare system.
Do we care? Are we going to fix it?
Written By: - Date published: 6:38 pm, August 1st, 2016 - 11 comments
Part II of IV. How to achieve zero carbon from the shipping and aviation sectors by the 2030s.
Written By: - Date published: 1:42 pm, August 1st, 2016 - 3 comments
Part I of a IV part series of posts on what we can do to hold global warming below 2 degrees C.
Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, August 1st, 2016 - 190 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, July 31st, 2016 - 116 comments
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.”
Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, July 30th, 2016 - 59 comments

Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, July 30th, 2016 - 17 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:53 am, July 30th, 2016 - 161 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, July 30th, 2016 - 87 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, July 29th, 2016 - 33 comments
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?
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, July 29th, 2016 - 25 comments
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!
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, July 29th, 2016 - 26 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, July 28th, 2016 - 88 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, July 27th, 2016 - 51 comments
A silver lining in the depressing chaos of the American presidential process.
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, July 26th, 2016 - 184 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, July 26th, 2016 - 28 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, July 24th, 2016 - 23 comments
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”…
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, July 23rd, 2016 - 365 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 2:44 pm, July 22nd, 2016 - 31 comments
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!
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, July 21st, 2016 - 204 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, July 19th, 2016 - 32 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, July 19th, 2016 - 131 comments
Liberal society is in reverse in many parts of the world. What do we do to arrest this?
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, July 18th, 2016 - 137 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, July 16th, 2016 - 72 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, July 16th, 2016 - 44 comments
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.”
Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, July 15th, 2016 - 23 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 1:11 pm, July 13th, 2016 - 28 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, July 11th, 2016 - 77 comments
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.
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