Tax cuts hard to sell
Herald: “…the Government ought to be banking surpluses, just as Sir Michael Cullen did during the boom of 2000-2007”.
Economy
economy
Tax-cuts or… Health
Health – particularly mental health – is underfunded, resulting in strikes over patient safety and units shutdown due to staff shortages. And unnecessary deaths. So why is the government even thinking about tax-cuts when our services need investment?
Hickey on debt
Hickey in The Herald on Sunday: “Our household debt to income ratio of 165 per cent is now about 5 per cent above those previous highs of 2008 and rising quickly as debt rises around twice as fast as incomes.”
Economics is still lost
Paul Romer is an economist highly respected by his peers, and about to become the Chief Economist at the World Bank. He’s also just published a paper rubbishing the last 3 decades of macroeconomics.
Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times is challenging fractional reserve banking. It’s certainly time for some new ideas.
Robertson: Lessons from the Future of Work Commission
Robertson: “What is the economic paradigm that will meet the challenge of world of less secure work, more automation?”
Between what we want and what we need
New Zealand is slowly losing faith with this Government and this is why.
Spark – kudos
Our wages are too low generally, and this is one of the main economic challenges that we face. A few more employers committing to paying a living wage would be a good place to start.
Globalisation and global incomes (the “elephant graph”)
An elegant graph explains why free trade is a good thing, but why it is causing a backlash in rich “Western” countries.
Left Side Story: What do New Zealanders actually earn?
Reprinted with permission, by Deborah Russell from Left Side Story: What do New Zealanders actually earn? And why we need to understand these figures.
Immigration jobs and housing
Until we sort out our housing and unemployment problems it is surely time to reign in NZ’s currently record levels of immigration.
Reserve bank cuts OCR to record low
The Reserve Bank just cut the OCR to a historic low of 2%. And no it’s not good (economic) news.
Stiglitz on the globalisation revolt
Globalisation is facing a popular revolt. Economist Joseph Stiglitz explains why.
Employers failing Kiwsaver obligations
In a sign of just how stressed our economy is: “Inland Revenue is chasing employers for unpaid KiwiSaver contributions worth tens of millions of dollars.”
We can’t say we weren’t warned
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.
The future of work
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!
Oram – seven warning signs for the economy
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”…
National’s Rodeo.
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.
Our zombie economy
It’s basically flat-lining – only partially animated by immigration and a housing bubble.
Official climate change fraud
Scientists and experts have been knowingly understating the unfolding climate change catastrophe to governments and decision makers. Why? For the sake of what is “politically palatable”.
Essential reading – Hickey on immigration
Hickey: “Helping employers to bring in low-skilled migrants instead of investing in new technology and becoming more productive so they can pay local workers more is essentially stunting our productivity and real GDP per capita.”
Indigenous Perspectives
“It is possible to live in a society with a world view that does not include empire”
– Winona LaDuke
Budget 2016 – F for Fail
— Deborah Russell
Budget Live
Live coverage of the budget starts around 2pm.
Well that was boring.
Pre-budget reading
Budget day! Here’s a little light reading to get us started. Write your own line for the budget!
Vernon Small on Key’s fiscal Tardis
Small: “Only this week Prime Minister John Key managed to spend one, save it and outline a plan to give it back to taxpayers all at the same time.”
Trade deficit worst in seven years
Add it to our record debt, our record pollution, our record housing unaffordability, our rising inequality, our terrible carbon emissions…
Stalled global economy and helicopter money
The global economy has been stuck in an ongoing crisis since 2008. Printing more money won’t fix it, but it looks like we’re going to try it anyway.
Job losses everywhere
Brighter Future. Cusp of Something Special. Tell it to the newly jobless.
Holding back our productivity
Our “business leaders” are doing an objectively poor job. Perhaps instead of insulting Kiwi workers as “pretty damned hopeless”, Bill English should be taking aim at these captains of industry.
Imperator Fish: The terrifying cost of Labour’s UBI
Imperator Fish warns us of the terrifying cost of Labour’s UBI.
It’s even worse than you think.
Hickey on the UBI
Bernard Hickey makes some excellent points on the Unconditional Basic Income / Guaranteed Minimum Income.
Labour’s Ten Big Ideas
National’s only idea this term has just been shot down by the public. Meanwhile Labour has been thinking about the future and the issues that confront NZ.
Future of Work Conference
Labour’s Future of Work Conference is under way. There is a page with information and live stream here.
Looking to the future – planning to adapt and protect people – this is work a government should be doing. In this case, a government in waiting…
Interest rates and banks
Yesterday Andrew Little criticised the banks’ failure to pass on the cut in Official Cash Rate (OCR) to we the people via mortgage / interest rate cuts. Naturally the political right went ballistic.
Key fiddles while dairy industry burns
The dairy crisis is escalating with a further drop in prices occurring overnight. And John Key has chosen to defend the Government’s handling of the crisis by attacking Andrew Little. He would be better off explaining what his Government is doing to address what is becoming a crisis.
Safe As Milk
Labour is calling for an urgent summit of the dairy industry players to avoid the looming bankruptcy of one in ten farmers. National’s response? Crisis, what crisis?