Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, May 25th, 2015 - 75 comments
Extracts from Rod Oram’s piece in the SST as posted on Facebook. “What’s missing from [the budget], and the six before, is any glimpse of the world we live in, let alone the political leadership we need to survive and thrive in it.”
Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, May 24th, 2015 - 71 comments
Anyone remember departure tax?
Written By: - Date published: 4:33 pm, May 22nd, 2015 - 139 comments
Twenty five dollars a week can’t be bad, can it? For families on the breadline, it’s surely better than nothing and every little helps. And when the total spend is $790 million, that’s not peanuts, is it? – even if multiplying $25 up to this total should surely tell just how many qualifying families there […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, May 22nd, 2015 - 188 comments
An increase to the base rate of benefits is welcome, but it comes with nasty fishhooks. As the Nats are forced to address leftie / progressive issues – a capital gains tax, Auckland housing, poverty – we the people need to keep the pressure on.
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, May 21st, 2015 - 13 comments
Grosser has confirmed that the TPPA (if it ever happens) will contain “ISDS” provisions that could limit the scope of our sovereignty by allowing foreign corporations to sue NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, May 21st, 2015 - 161 comments
A panicked response to the Auckland property crisis. A welcome (albeit inadequate) adjustment to benefit rates. Public pressure is forcing action on the Left’s political agenda. Still no surplus, and no one believes the projected one next year. A reactive budget – there is no vision.
Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, May 20th, 2015 - 8 comments
Only a quarter of the world’s workers have permanent jobs. A worldwide trend away from secure jobs risked “perpetuating a vicious circle of weak global demand and slow job creation” that has dogged many countries since the 2008 crisis, the ILO reports. Decoupling of wages from productivity has led to a loss of aggregate demand the report estimates at $3.7trillion.
Written By: - Date published: 10:17 am, May 20th, 2015 - 15 comments
Bill English tells us that the promise that they won the election on – that they’re the only Masters of Finance who could balance the government books (because that’s all that’s important…) – now isn’t at all important to the public.
And Bill tells us: they’ll get their surplus when I give it to them, and they’ll be grateful for it.
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, May 20th, 2015 - 134 comments
We the people only learned of Treasury projections on the costs of inaction on climate change (up to $52 billion) because someone screwed up a redacted document. We were never meant to know. And National’s Minister for Climate Change Issues statement on the matter is that Treasury should have done a better job of hiding this vital information from the public.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 19th, 2015 - 29 comments
The Herald has praised David Cunliffe with changing public opinion about the introduction of a capital gains tax. And rubbished John Key’s suggestion that the announced limited tax on increasing housing values is not a capital gains tax.
Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, May 19th, 2015 - 24 comments
National’s policy opens the door to more effective capital gains tax, thus irritating investors and their base, while probably not achieving anything in practice. The worst of both worlds. Bonus question – does this policy effectively underwrite losses when the property bubble bursts? Plus another bonus John Key lie!
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, May 18th, 2015 - 13 comments
The levels of poverty and inequality in NZ are a disgrace. Apparently the budget is to “arrest the decline”, but we have heard such promises again and again from Key.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, May 18th, 2015 - 48 comments
Deborah Russell is a senior lecturer in taxation at Massey University and was Labour’s candidate in Rangitīkei in the 2014 general election. In this post she sets out her preliminary views on National’s new tax.
Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, May 18th, 2015 - 39 comments
According to John Key the proposed tax on capital gains if a property is sold within two years of purchase is not a capital gains tax, there is no housing bubble in Auckland, and the proposed new tax does not represent a complete about face by the Government.
Written By: - Date published: 7:08 am, May 18th, 2015 - 261 comments
Just two years ago, leading lights in the neo-liberal cult were denying the existence of poverty in New Zealand. In the semi-public havens of the rich, it was the messengers who were being abused for rattling the neo-liberal cognitive dissonance with pesky facts and sympathetic portrayals of actual poor people.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, May 17th, 2015 - 196 comments
National appears to be doing an about face on a Capital Gains Tax for housing.
Written By: - Date published: 6:08 am, May 17th, 2015 - 64 comments
Back in March 1988 David Lange had a clear idea about what lay ahead for New Zealanders as the long-term consequences of Roger Douglas’ psychopathic worshipping of the metaphysical Invisible Hand gradually materialised.
Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, May 16th, 2015 - 18 comments
Unbelievable.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, May 14th, 2015 - 68 comments
One of the biggest political deceptions in our lifetime? Or just an honest mistake by our noble Finance Minister?
Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, May 13th, 2015 - 40 comments
As widely reported today, the TPPA has taken a probably fatal hit in the US Senate. Good riddance.
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, May 13th, 2015 - 9 comments
Half the workplace deaths in NZ last year were in agriculture. Already this year the toll has been massive.
Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, May 13th, 2015 - 174 comments
“National’s talk now is about how achieving surplus was an “artificial target” and that getting a surplus is “like landing a 747 on the head of a pin.” A lot of effort has gone into glossing over the broken promise. But I see it for what it is – one of the biggest political deceptions in a lifetime.”
Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, May 12th, 2015 - 48 comments
For the sake of reference – Nye Bevan was a Labour mp and the architect of the British NHS. Michael Sheen’s speech was a defense of that institution, but the underpinning message is, well…
Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, May 10th, 2015 - 49 comments
There’s a major and rather obvious contributory factor to UK Labour’s failure in the UK general election that doesn’t seem to have drawn any comment. Until now…
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, May 8th, 2015 - 11 comments
113 more jobs to go at Solid Energy’s Stockton Mine. Bill English killed Solid Energy, these job losses are his.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, May 8th, 2015 - 7 comments
If National were serious about their “social housing” spin they would place restrictions on the use and resale of these houses. Without such protections its just another privatisation of public assets.
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, May 7th, 2015 - 16 comments
The Auditor General found that no one in National Ltd™, the Māori Party, Te Puni Korkiri, or any other of its apologists can detail exactly what Whānau Ora is supposed to be doing, provide evidence of its outcomes, or explain why up to 33% of the money is being paid in “administration”. In other words, Whānau Ora is a shambles. And dodgy.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, May 5th, 2015 - 38 comments
Over the past few years the amount WINZ has lent to beneficiaries for emergency dental work has been slashed. Update: Seems to have been an error- OIA chaos in the Ministry of Social Development
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 4th, 2015 - 85 comments
On Radio NZ this morning John Key gave an interview that was cringe-worthy, defensive and accidently hilarious. The man is a joke … and not even an original one.
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