The PREFU reveals an approaching Nicola Willis surplus based on inflation and fiscal drag. It has nothing to do with economic growth. Meanwhile our young adults are experiencing the joys of very high and sustained unemployment. The same kind of environment that stunted the generation in National’s recession of the 1990s. This time we have a rapidly ageing population. And Nicola Willis in fantasy land.
This government has an appalling record of large scale business closures, which continue to damage the careers of thousands of New Zealand workers.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Unemployment hits 5.4% in the December quarter, but that doesn’t include the 140,000 plus Kiwi citizens that have fled in the last 2 years
When the coalition is treating the economy as a game, are they having fun?
There is no evidence of immediate improvement in our economy, or of this government improving it.
Privatisation and Plunder is essential reading for those who want to work for a society where prosperity for all is the aim.
That’s the headline of the pamphlet in the letterbox. But from their own measures is that true?
Industry experts say Chris Bishop and his party are to blame, but Bishop denies it, saying construction industry leaders are just “wrong”
We don’t know where this country is going and it’s getting worse.
Another science fund bites the dust in New Zealand.
In what looked like an early election campaign launch Winston Peters has done his old man shaking his fist at the sky tirade against everything woke.
We’re good, but we know we want better leadership.
Science and tertiary education are being ignored in NZ, which is just dumb.
It gets rather depressing reading the statistics on National’s induced recession as they steadily push New Zealand into stagflation. The Reserve Banks unplanned OCR decision last week wasn’t a hopeful sign. We’re in for a few years of a National led and created recession. Get out while you still can
It is sickening to see how economic power is being used against ordinary New Zealanders right now.
So what does National do when its minor support party tries to steal media attention with dog whistling racism? It reverts to some good old beneficiary bashing.
National’s 100 days of action is to address the rhetoric of economic difficulties but the announced policies will do nothing to help the pressure that ordinary people are feeling.
Poverty is a political choice, and the Green Party is choosing to end it. – James Shaw
Prime Minister Hipkins has put Labour on course to win a third term. Here’s how.
As we adjust to the advent of civilisation threatening climate change there is a new threat that is emerging, the unregulated development of artificial intelligence.
* or is it?
National’s recent press releases show that its approach to politics will be relentlessly negative, with no idea of what it will do as an alternative or how it will fund changes.
Hot on his confusion of Hawaii with Te Puke Christopher Luxon’s has dropped a couple of new clangers by admitting then denying that National will not increase health funding at least by the rate of inflation and then by displaying his class prejudice by saying people are not going to get rich on welfare.
Anyone else getting tired of the media presenting the fact that New Zealand essentially has full employment is a very bad thing?
Remarkably low Covid death and infection rates, good and improving vaccination rates, low unemployment and debt to GDP …
Rather than economics, can we talk about the values that underlie how we manage the country?
Yesterday Statistics New Zealand announced a dramatic drip in the unemployment rate as well as solid increases in wage rates and average weekly earnings for workers. While the Government celebrated Employers thought it was a crisis.
Minister Roberston’s recent speech to the Trans Tasman Business Circle sets out both how this government is using the pandemic to reset whole sectors of the economy, and also how it is getting its head around economic and social challenges. The points made were unsurprising, but his intended direction was unclear.
One of the details announced in the budget was funding to explore a ‘social unemployment insurance’ scheme. This scheme has been pushed by the Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ, which will work with the Government in a newly set-up Tripartite Working Party. When we dig into it though, we realise it is no safety net. It’s a parachute that slows our drop, giving us time, before we hit that real net – down so far below.
IF the discovery of a potential Covid vaccine looks like a new dawn, let’s not forget that this is the accelerating point of the K-shaped recovery New Zealand have been dreading. Our already rich are on the line heading upwards. They are getting richer because of a range of our Government policies.
Much has rightly been made of the leadership quality of Prime Minister Ardern this year. But the PREFU results announced today shows that Minister of FInance Grant Robertson is by a long way the most effective Minister of Finance we have had since Dr Michael Cullen.
Defying expectations official labour force data from Stats NZ released today shows that the unemployment rate dropped to 4 per cent from 4.2 per cent in the June quarter.
Is it time to completely rethink how we deal with unemployment? We face a tsunami of job losses not seen in generations. Two ideas — social insurance and a job guarantee — are gaining prominence as ways to change how we deal with the problem. One provides income protection for those who lose employment, the other aims for something bolder: the elimination of unemployment. All welcome; register here.
…is the US sharemarket roaring away – up 44% – while economic recovery prospects are grim?” ANZ’s Sharon Zollner’s answer on Tuesday was the Fed printing money, but worried markets were turning a blind eye to the bad news. The bad news hit today as the sharemarket nose-dived. Wolf Richter’s answer was more to Kim’s point: “Fed bails out the wealthy while America convulses in pain.”
National’s new job-creation scheme appears to be inconsistent with their desire to fully re-instate the 90-day trial period.
