It’s been nearly two years now of Paula Bennett declaring that the unemployment crisis is over. Yesterday, she put out a press release titled ‘More than 6,000 beneficiaries find jobs in August‘. Wow, 6,000 in a month, pretty good. But Bennett must have been hoping we wouldn’t read beyond the title. The fact is that 900 more people went on the dole than came off it. The total number of beneficiaries just keeps climbing.
Unite Union’s Christchurch office has been flooded with phone calls and text messages from worried workers in post-earthquake Christchurch.
Unnoticed amongst all the earthquake coverage was a small article in the Weekend Dompost on the foreshore and seabed deal. Apparently, ‘public domain’ will no longer appear in the new legislation. Instead, we’ll have a new name, possibly ‘takutaimoana’, Te Reo for ‘seabed’. That sound you can hear Winston Peters is rubbing his hands with glee.
As far as I know I am the only Standard author to have been right in the middle of the Darfield / Christchurch earthquake. To all commenters and readers in the region – greetings, and keep safe.
It’s the stomach-churning way that some on the Right have decided to try to use the earthquake for political advantage by deifying Bob Parker. Even Parker himself looked sick when Paul Henry compared him to Rudi Giuliani. Update: Farrar, Whaleoil, Henry, and Matthew Hooton are trying to spread a lie that Anderton said only an earthquake could stop him winning the election. Danyl has the truth.
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Rich investor and you put your money in a dodgy finance company? Did the company collapse? You get your money back. No questions. Lost your job thanks to this endless recession? Couldn’t afford insurance? Property damaged in the quake? Key says you can get stuffed. It’s called class war. Also, Key thinks the clean-up will be an economic stimulus. Someone tell this money-man about the broken windows fallacy.
After every emergency come the media articles that accuse the civil defence system of failing. This time the well-known emergency relief experts at the Herald were criticising within a day. Well, the Herald can go f*ck itself. I take my hat off to all the public servants who did their jobs with skill and dedication. The public services responded swiftly to get the situation under control and get people the help and information they needed.
John Key says Maurice Williamson was just joking when he called us racists for not wanting to sell more of our country into foreign ownership.
Does he really expect us to believe that? Why compound an insult with a lie?
And since when would it be OK for Williamson to jokingly call us racists?
Almost as an aside, Matt McCarten has announced that he has the “killing kind of cancer” in his column today. Matt is one of the lions of the Left. His union, Unite, has defied the skeptics to become a real success story. Temp and low-paid workers have found an avenue for collective action, and learnt they can win. Matt makes it clear he’ll never flinch from fighting for the workers. Good on ya, mate, we’re with you.
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Where are the Greens and Labour on the South Canterbury Finance issue? Just looking at the sheer politics of the situation, this is something they should be all over. There is enormous public anger at the way National was willing to magic up $1.7 billion of taxpayer cash for its rich mates while services are being cut. This should be the tipping point, when the Left seizes the public mood for its economic vision but where’s the leadership?
New Zealand is one of the oddest places geologically (Japan is similar) in the world because of our position between two plates and because we are at the twist where the plates change how they interact with each other. But the position of the Christchurch earthquake is a long way from the plate boundaries. Highly Allochthonous has a look at the mechanism of the quake.
The Christchurch earthquake was a shallow high magnitude earthquake close to a urban population centre. That is the disaster scenario for planners. It is a disaster, but not a major disaster. The enforcement of building regulations ensured that the city took damage, but survived largely intact.
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Whatever flimsy and tattered remains of Labour-lite which National used to disguise itself at the 2008 election has well and truly disappeared. Thank […]
Important issues:
jobs, wages, public service cuts, Supercity & ECAN, national savings, climate change
Not important issues:
how we get a figurehead Head of State
Due to the discrepancies in the spread of knowledge the free-market is irrational but there is no doubt that we, collectively, have the needed information to make more rational decisions. The problem that occurs is that neither the knowledge nor the tools to help make rational decisions on that information are readily available. Is there a tech solution?
20,000 more Kiwis’ jobs are at risk as commercial building construction grinds to a halt. The Greens have a plan to divert money from low-quality spending on motorways to high benefit to cost spending on housing that will save those jobs and give Kiwi families a better standard of living. That’s the kind of visionary economic leadership we need. We’re not going to get it from National.
According to Maurice Williamson, we’re all racist. Our concern with foreign investment has nothing to do with the economy, we just hate the Chinese.
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Over the next few weeks the nats and other vested interests will try to muddy the waters over the SCF bailout.
This sophistry is designed to distract from the massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few.
And why shouldn’t they try this tactic? It worked for asset sales two and a half decades ago.
A few people have made a hell of a lot of money off the South Canterbury Finance collapse and bail-out. Are these the same people behind the mystery company that was created just three weeks ago and wants to buy SCF for $1.57 billion? Whether it’s been an organised plan or just lone sharks attracted by blood in the water, the result is the same: the rich win, we lose.
Few stories that have slipped through the cracks are bothering me:
Whatever happened to Tolley’s diplomatic squad investigation? What about Coldplay’s damages for when National stole ‘Clocks’? And Bennett’s apology to Fuller? And that mysterious company in the Caymans that bought Key’s shares? And why was Worth really sacked?
To find out who it is, click here.
Will this individual’s personal file be read out in Parliament by Paula Bennett?
Will this beneficiary’s sex life be investigated by WINZ as grounds for disqualification?
Barack Obama declared the U.S. combat mission in Iraq officially over on Tuesday but said he would not take a “victory lap”. No victory? That’s quite an understatement…
National don’t understand macroeconomics. As such they are inflicting massive and unnecessary harm, with high unemployment and a long time until recovery.
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Many argue English should never have extended the deposit guarantee to South Canterbury Finance in April, or question whether the terms of the guarantee called for the pay-out. Then there’s the stink around the payment of SCF bonds. One thing’s for sure, the Nats didn’t need to spend $20 million on foreign depositors – they did it to try to kill the issue faster. Plenty of meat for Labour. Will they bite?
What next for The Standard? You’re our readers, so you must like something that we do. And you probably have some ideas on what we can do better. So tell us! How best to build The Standard into a community and a voice for the left wing of NZ politics?
Key says his personal relationship with Obama (met the guy twice) means he can call him. Don’t think it’s your winning grin mate. Think it’s because you’re PM of New Zealand. Anyway, this ain’t a game of collecting phone numbers, John. You’ve got to deliver something concrete. How’s that free trade deal coming?
Bill English came pretty close to admitting that the Nats are “relaxed” about our current high unemployment. Phil Goff came out swinging…
Key says that teachers are “disconnected from the real world” for wanting a pay rise that will barely beat inflation. This from the same guy who promised higher wages. The same guy chucked half a billion dollars this year alone on the taxpayer credit card for tax cuts for the rich. The only people disconnected from the real world are those who think skimping on education and health will take this country forward.
Serious questions are being asked why South Canterbury Finance was allowed to join the extended retail deposit guarantee scheme in April given that its financial problems were well-known and its credit rating was downgraded just weeks later. Bill English says it was a ‘line call’, one that’s just cost us at least $600 million. It’s not the first ‘line call’ English has stuffed up.
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Funny how quickly John Key and Bill English found that spare $1.7bn for wealthy investors after all that talk about how we should be tightening our belts.
It’s shows exactly where their priorities are.
