Covid19 and the Stock Markets
In this time of uncertainty when mass unemployment beckons you would expect that stock exchanges would be plummeting. But think again. Because they seem to be doing fine.
covid-19
UK: Too soon to end the lockdown
First Secretary of State Dominic Raab has said that lockdown changes being announced this coming Sunday will be ‘modest’ and ‘small’. This is hardly surprising when earlier in the week the national statistician Professor Ian Diamond said that COVID-19 infection rates could be increasing. In particular, the number of cases being reported in care-homes appears to be increasing. Adding to the pressure both the Scottish and Welsh ruled out any significant relaxation of the lockdown rules.
Parker gives Bridges a lesson in constitutional law
In a Facebook Live event David Parker has schooled Simon Bridges on basic principles of constitutional law. And it appears that Bridges demand that legally privileged advice be handed over is heading to the Privileges Committee.
Bridges pulls a stunt
Simon Bridges threw two stunts yesterday, firstly threatening to try and summons senior Public Servants to publicise confidential legal advice and then by attacking Dr Ashley Blomfield for not answering emails quickly enough despite the existence of a pandemic which the country appears to be handling pretty well.
Top ten things we have learned already
The top ten things that the Covid pandemic has taught us as a country.
Roger Douglas attacks economic privilege and inequality
Roger Douglas has reverted to his socialist roots by going back on his pro market mantra and criticising the economic privilege and inequality that he helped create.
Covid-19 and climate change
The International Energy Agency is forecasting that disruptions caused by Covid-19 will reduce CO2 output this year by 8%. To avoid the worst excesses of climate change the world has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6% for the next decade. How are we going to keep repeating the reductions that we achieved this year for the next decade?
The class politics of the Covid-19 pandemic response
National economics spokesperson Paul Goldsmith has advanced a plan to address the Covid 19 pandemic which includes union bashing and privatisation.
How Covid-19 is smashing councils
Just as most industries in New Zealand are firing thousands of people to cut costs, local government is getting ready to do the same.
Guest post – Bridges is done, who can save National?
Guest post from former Labour Staffer Clint Smith on the similarities between National’s current predicament and what happened to Labour in 2011 and 2014.
Will National roll Bridges before or after the election?
It appears that the National Party is engaged in a bitter discussion of when Simon Bridges should be rolled, not if. Will it be before or after the election?
Pandemics and our privacy
The Ministry of Health is checking with the GCSB to enable full tracing of people to slow further outbreaks. Should we be afraid?
Eat the rich
Richard Branson, who has arranged his affairs so that he pays tax to no government, is upset that Governments are not bailing his empire out. And an idea has been floated to allow billionaires to set up boltholes in New Zealand.
When Bridges’ social media goes wrong
Simon Bridges’s Facebook post criticising the extension of lockdown level 4 has been met with overwhelming opposition, including from people who are clearly National Party supporters.
Guest post – is it safe to lower the lockdown level?
Guest post by Karl Sinclair on what needs to be addressed before the country can be safely lifted out of lockdown.
Covid-19 decision day
Decision day for the Covid-19 lockdown and my personal view is that although the country has done well it is not quite in a position to ease the lockdown.
The plan for Monday
Even if New Zealand gets out of the immediate Covid-19 infection better than most other countries, the result is still a wrecked world […]
Lockdown 4 – do we stay or do we go?
Over the next few days there will be an intense public debate about whether the lockdown should be continued or loosened.
What Is This Moment Teaching Us?
What is Covid-19 telling us about our response as a nation?
New Zealand’s poor in this new crisis
Covid 19 is not some great leveller. To succeed the state has to completely redirect the economy to so that ordinary workers and working families are supported.
Has the EU failed during COVID-19?
Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s blog
For global governance organisations, this is an important moment. This is the chance for them to demonstrate their worth and coordinate the response. In many ways how these structures respond becomes more important than the response of nation-states. This also is where the deficiencies and shortcomings of such organisations become very apparent. The noise coming from the EU in the last 48 hours is far from reassuring.
Pandemics are no a time for inward-looking nationalism
Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog
Trump is focused on the November US Presidential Election. His anti-Chinese, nationalist, America First rhetoric is his go-to response to keep his political base onside. He is placing his political ambition ahead of millions of lives both in the US and globally. Trump has placed electoral politics ahead of leadership that could save millions of lives.
Beyond mere rescue
It’s time to plan the re-launch the very idea of New Zealand.
What not to do in a pandemic
The Trump regime has this week plunged new depths in the handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the United States
David Clark
He should have been immediately fired.
The kind of imagination we’re going to need
More was achieved by and for Americas throughout the Franklin D. Roosevelt era than ever before or since in American history. This may provide us with a model for how we get things back on track.
No Right Turn: A new Ministry of Works
Idiot/Savant writes: “While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in”
Not a good day for an April Fool’s joke
David Farrar has shown that many of his commenters and followers do not understand satire.
CTU launches online tool for reporting bad employers
The Council of Trade Unions has launched an online tool allowing employees to log complaints against ill treatment by employers during the Covid-19 lockdown.
How this may play out
Developments on Covid-19 are happening at pace as we enter the make or break stage concerning the virus’s spread.
We are all socialists now
It seems that the pure free market approach is ill equipped to provide the world with the leadership and guidance it requires.
Political campaigning in a Covid-19 world
How will the Covid-19 pandemic affect the 2020 election campaign, and are we looking at a postponement?
M.I.A. Joe
America has a question.
Ardern’s announcement about the new 4 level alert system for coronavirus
Please be strong, be kind, and unite against Covid-19
– Jacinda Ardern.
On Mike the Moron and handling infectious diseases
Five days ago Mike Hosking was representing his paymasters with his reflection of their basic ignorance of history. Then demanding caution in dealing with covid-19. Yesterday he panicked for immediate action to close the borders which government did anyway later that day. It is just dangerous to give a public platform to a dithering moron who be at home in 1918. Perhaps he should read the pandemic plan?
No disconnections or evictions
Unite’s Joe Carolan has called for a rent, mortgage and bill freeze.