The Standard

Economy

Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour

Categories under Economy

Trade retaliation

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.

Meth Fries Housing NZ’s Brains

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?

The EU thinks that our tax system’s clean bill of health is not so clean

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.

NZ being used as international example of a bad welfare system

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?

Free Petrol Pt II

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.

Free Petrol Pt I

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.

We can’t say we weren’t warned

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.

Climate change pedal to the metal

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.”

NZ in the international news again

Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, July 30th, 2016 - 59 comments

new-zealand-guardian-small

Hollywood should try a different model

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.

Chris de Freitas now is the time to be afraid

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.

The Ray White – China deal

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.

Talleys versus Free Speech

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?

The future of work

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!

Stopping the sale of agricultural land and agri-business

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.

DNC Day 3. Biden, Obama, and Trump Jumps the Shark

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.

 

TPP teetering on the precipice

Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, July 27th, 2016 - 51 comments

A silver lining in the depressing chaos of the American presidential process.

DNC: Bernie Speaks

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.

CYF massively underfunded

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.

Oram – seven warning signs for the economy

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”…

We need to talk about Islam

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.

Drumpf LIVE!

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!

WINZ sends families to live in garages

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.

Democracy and Dunne

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.

How to collapse liberal society

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?

China trade realpolitik

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.

A target we can celebrate missing

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.

Salmond on the ravages of neoliberalism

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.”

National’s Rodeo.

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.

Panama Papers – Nat U-turn complete

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.

Maori health and children not a priority

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.