Surplus sunk
The Nats are going to miss the only target they ever cared about hitting – the mythical surplus. Seven wasted years and counting…
Economy
Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
inability to access food
people are reporting that they have been unable to access emergency grants for food, simply because that are unable to reach WINZ staff to apply for one.
Inequality – two excellent pieces
Inequality has been very much in the news recently. Friday saw the publication of two really excellent pieces that between them provide a comprehensive, if depressing overview.
Christmas at the extremes
Two New Zealands will shortly celebrate Christmas, the poor and the rich. Here’s a crazy thought…
‘Ditch the [misleading] rhetoric’
On RNZ this morning PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff criticised Bill English for his misleading rhetoric about rises in “average wages”. NZ’s income and wealth gaps have increased in recent decades. The lowest income remain low; the top earners get big salary increases.
None so blind
Message to today’s anonymous Herald editorialist – competition doesn’t close the inequality gap, it widens it. In other news, black is black not white, and water is wet. How can you write such drivel?
This is not business as usual. This is not some hippy over-reaction. This is serious shit!
New author Mandy Hager joins us with some reflections on having become a grandmother: “So that’s why I’m speaking out now, every opportunity I get. Not because I like the exposure (shudder), but because I love this tiny little person and I will fight for his future, come what may. It’s the right thing to do. …”
Fudge-it-Budget
The lied about surplus in the run up to the 2014 National Election is looking like matching Penn and Teller for magical skills. […]
Oppose the housing sell off!
A last-minute, urgent appeal from Phil Twyford – oppose the sell off of state houses – today!
Denying the truth no way to run a country
Right-wingers recently got all hot and bothered about the idea of “recall elections”. Perhaps we do need them, not for the scandal of a Mayor having a bathroom, but for governments that systematically and cynically deny the truth, to the detriment of us all.
Local Bodies: “Government Given the Bums Up”
From the Local Bodies blog, 2 posts on the government’s “head in the sand” approach to climate change and the environment. A critique of the government’s approach to business, mining and the environment & a report on the protest against the government’s head in the sand approach.
Dodging the big decisions
Colin James has an excellent piece on the housing market. Simon Collins has a piece on the implications on young renters. Meanwhile, a number of other big problems are being ignored by National as well.
The Roll of Shame.
Another day of shame for the New Zealand Government. as they march us in lockstep…….
Towards the sort of police State we used to fight.
Polity: OECD on inequality and growth
Rob Salmond notes the OECD report saying the West – and New Zealand more than any – have had their growth held back by income inequality. Do we have a government willing to do anything about it?
rising poverty amongst asians
a new report shows that poverty related illnesses are growing at a rapid rate for asian children, and so are other poverty indicators. some of this is related to a more settled population, but we also need to talk about racism.
Profits before Botulism
The new report from the Government finds Fonterra woefully inadequate in its food safety culture putting profits before the safety of people. The […]
it’s not censorship, it’s market forces
the addition of judith collins as a columnist has some people calling for people to cancel their subscriptions.
the response has been the usual. there are claims that this is censorship. even though the choice to not purchase a product that no longer appeals to you is hardly censorship.
Dirty Politics and the health advocates
How is it that Katherine Rich can be the head of the Food and Grocery Council and look after the interests of suppliers yet at the same time be on the Health Promotion Agency and not have a conflict?
Fred Dagg – User’s Guide to NZ
I miss Fred Dagg – John Clarke’s latest is a purler. “New Zealand … is an egalitarian nation made up of well over four million rugged individualists and naturally gifted sportspeople and is run on alternate days by the government and whoever bought the national infrastructure.” Read, laugh and weep – he might be gone but we’re not forgotten, and thank God for that.
Local Bodies: Government Responsible for Invercargill Poverty
The second annual Child Poverty Monitor was released today. bsprout on Local Bodies on poverty and inequalities in Invercargill, “provides a good snapshot of New Zealand society”.
Losing money
The economic news is depressing for NZ at present. After riding a dairy commodity boom for the last few years, the payout for farmers looks like it will drop from a high of $8.50/kg last season to $4.85/kg this coming season. Meanwhile National has neglected our most sustainable resource – people. So expect a busted economy for the next few years.
Exploited workers need union protection
Another example of a bad employer unfairly docking a worker’s pay. But this worker was a union member…
Andrew Little: the future of work
The text of a speech delivered by Andrew Little this morning
Save Our State Houses: Labour Party
Kevin Hague says, the government’s plan to replace state housing with “social housing” will make the affordable housing crisis worse & is “economically reckless”. The Labour Party have circulated a petition to save state houses from being sold by the NZ government.
Democracy, Money and Power
The stage was long ago reached where members of the US Government were told they should “wear their sponsors logo’s on their shirts”.
Tip of the iceberg
Looks like exploiting petrol station workers by docking their pay for circumstances beyond their control was just the tip of the iceberg of this kind of behaviour.
’81: knowing your position
Andrea Vance has written an informative article about Andrew Little. In it, among other things, we learn that Little remembers exactly which side he was on during the 1981 Springbok rugby tour.
Clarke and Dawe: G20 Growth
The excellent Clarke and Dawe on the G20 and growth.
Polity: Income mobility
David Farrar seldom seems to actually read the reports fully before he starts inventing meaningless canards. A theoretical equality of opportunity is irrelevant when your parent’s lack of disposable income is the major determinant of your own education and opportunities. We waste the opportunities from peoples abilities because of income inequalities.
Who needs $4.8 billion anyway
Yesterday a report from the NZ Super Fund (the Cullen fund) provided further evidence of National’s economic “genius”. We could have used the $4.8 billion that they just chucked away.
One law for the rich
And, as ever, one for the poor.
Labour and the unions
In which I ponder my 2c on the leadership race, and the path ahead for Labour and the unions…
NRT: A low R&D economy
The Herald this morning reports that New Zealand is near the bottom in global R&D spending. Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce is in full denial mode, saying that this doesn’t reflect what he’s seen. But he did make his money from being a crony capitalist, so perhaps he just can’t recognize innovation?
In defence of John Key
Click-bait, moi?
Sale of social housing stock won’t save costs
Hamilton City Council currently has plans to sell of its remaining pensioner housing stock. It already sold off a block of them in 2012. Of those sold, only 12 out of 53 units are available for seniors to rent at affordable rates. This is because 27 were sold as there was no social service provider able to buy them. So now Council want to sell the rest.
Why does the right control the English speaking world?
Jason Wilson in the Guardian has asked a very relevant question. Why is the right currently dominant in the English speaking Western World and what does the left have to do to change this?