Hide confused on underclass

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, March 17th, 2013 - 61 comments
Categories: act, class war, national, poverty, rodney hide - Tags: , , ,

Remember the “underclass”? John Key pretended to be concerned about them for a while as a gimmick for the 2008 election. Since then his government has managed to increase their number.

Rodney Hide was part of that government for a while, and without a trace of irony he writes about the underclass in today’s Herald. The piece is yet another reminder of the “depth” and “quality” of thought that characterises the ACT Party, and is responsible for their political demise. In short, it’s a blithering mess:

The underclass have no hope

Matt McCarten bellyaches every week that successive governments don’t care about the poor and downtrodden. He’s correct.

But the problem is far greater than Matt recognises. The dirty secret of New Zealand politics is that government programmes are perfectly engineered to embed and eternalise an underclass. It’s politics, not economics, that creates the massive hurdle the poor must leap to prosper.

Well I don’t know about “perfectly engineered”, but yes, of course the issues are political. Hide goes on to list his ten examples of how government “blocks upwards mobility”. These are a mix of the usual right-wing fantasies, ACT’s habitual racism, and observations so cryptic and general as to perfectly useless. To choose just one example:

Small business must now stay small and under the government radar. The prospect of starting a business is now just too daunting for the unskilled and out-of-work. There are too many legal hoops and risks to bedevil simple tasks like hiring and firing, building a shed and excavating a little earth.

In the real world of course survey after survey ranks NZ the best (or one of the best) countries in the world to do business, for reasons including “a lack of red tape”. So much for Hide’s fantasies. I’m sure that Standardistas could come up with a much better list of the ways in which government entrenches the status quo.

Hide saves the worst for last, in the conclusion of his piece:

Matt is right to see the problem. But he’s wrong to be looking to government for the cure. It’s politics and government that created the poor and downtrodden and rendered the underclass inter-generational.

If we don’t look to government (politics) for the cure then I can only assume that Rodney has lost it completely and is advocating revolution? Our current system doesn’t do enough to break the inter-generational cycle of poverty, but the problems are political and the solutions are political too. We need to become more engaged with politics, not less.

61 comments on “Hide confused on underclass ”

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  1. Bill 1
    17 March 2013 at 11:01 am

    I haven’t read the full article but am willing to punt that Rodney’s observations are more or less correct or at least reasonably acceptable. The problem, by and large, comes in the analysis. They fail to see, or simply won’t acknowledge, that it’s the natural inclinations of the market to create the type of problems they observe and condemn. And then they wind up attacking institutions that could ameliorate downside effects of markets and promote the very thing that is causing the fucking problems in the first place.

    And the problem liberals tend to have is that they’ll excuse the clusterfuck that results from governments seeking to manage a contradiction. Governments are primarily there to ‘take care of business’. But they also engage in forms of social protection. And you can’t do both.

    Acting in a half arse way and accepting a ‘muddling through’ (as Social Democratic governments must do) only results in a lot of hacked off people over time and, from time to time, an opportunity for wrong headed and fcking dangerous ideas to gain traction. NZ was lucky to only get Act. Things could have been much, much worse.

  2. tc 2
    17 March 2013 at 11:03 am

    Seems hides got his logic wrong again. If governments politics created the poor etc then they are the only ones who can fix it, leaving it to the markets a proven failure.

    Hide hasn’t changed roles just paymasters as he’s still there assisting in the inter generational swindle by using a paid national soapbox to spin and detract.

  3. marty mars 3
    17 March 2013 at 11:13 am

    number 3 is a classic

    3. The rich teach their kids to work hard and be smart to succeed. The Government teaches poor kids their land was stolen and that to prosper they must work on Treaty claims in hope of winning it back.

    that hide needs tanned

    • Bill 3.1
      17 March 2013 at 11:16 am

      There is a saying along the lines ‘enough brains to tan *your* own hide’. I suspect Rodney may well be the exception that proves the rule.

      • marty mars 3.1.1
        17 March 2013 at 11:38 am

        I don’t know that saying bill – what does it mean – I was trying to be clever with the multiple meanings of tanning from sun to curing to smack but is that one based on the curing or the smacking?

        • Bill 3.1.1.1
          17 March 2013 at 11:44 am

          If you are looking to tan a hide, there is apparently enough tannin for the process in the brain of the creature who’s skin you want to cure….

          Obviously it’s an insult at the best of times to refer to someone as ‘having enough brains to…’ But Rodney seems a step beyond and off in the realms of complete uselessness.

    • Te Reo Putake 3.2
      17 March 2013 at 11:43 am

      Wow! In Rodney’s world, poor means maori. His supposed ‘joke’ at the ACT conference about hating maori was obviously nothing of the sort.

    • pollywog 3.3
      17 March 2013 at 12:12 pm

      Comes down to that definition of success. In different cultures it’s measured differently.

      A big house, a fancy car, a trophy wife and 2.5 blond, blue eyed kids isn’t my idea of making it.

      • lprent 3.3.1
        17 March 2013 at 12:14 pm

        2.5 blond, blue eyed kids

        Sounds generically and genetically improbable, I’d agree. 😈

      • Colonial Viper 3.3.2
        17 March 2013 at 12:16 pm

        Surely it depends on how fast the fancy car and how hot the trophy wife is?

        • pollywog 3.3.2.1
          17 March 2013 at 12:37 pm

          I’m a shit driver and don’t really believe in marriage.

          A hot trophy wife and fast fancy car would probably be the death of me!

          • Colonial Viper 3.3.2.1.1
            17 March 2013 at 1:38 pm

            Yeah I guess so. How about a hot fancy car and and fast trophy wife? Hmmmm…that might actually be more dangerous!

      • Tim 3.3.3
        17 March 2013 at 12:52 pm

        Which leads me to another thought (I’m still trying to figure out how my mind works) but it’s to do with the way in which the very things Rodney loves (the commoditisation and commercialisation of everything and all) have led to an internationalisation of the NZ underclass.
        That commercialisation includes education (as just one example), whereby we now sell our educational ‘opportunities’ and lifestyle to foreign students and wannabe immigrants – OVER-PROMOTING and UNDER-DELIVERING.
        Why its a win win situation. We can promise an education (at double the cost of what NZers pay – which as many already know in the tertiary sector is a total rip-off), followed by relevant work ‘experience’, alongside our wonderful egalitarian society and clean green image (albeit being destroyed daily by the Munster of Trism).
        Then when we don’t deliver – we simply demonise those that have subscribed to the bullshit. What’s worse is that in these ‘austere’ times, we can always say that there are too many bloody immigrants taking all our jobs, it’s their own fault, send them home. We could even get some unions to subscribe to that view – perhaps even a Labour Party – JUST SO LONG as they’re prepared to forget undertakings made by some/many of our salespeople; AND JUST SO LONG as we don;t give a shit about our ethics and international reputation. Good luck with that! (Kiwis have always worried about what others think of us – for reasons why – I dunno!)

        I mentioned elsewhere on this site – somewhere/somewhen – when Key was on his little S.A jaunt how I’d spoken with the son of a diplomat in daily contact with father, when the grand tourismo of Key and the Buznuss elite were frolicking and trying on silly hats
        Then Key returned home grandstanding and calling the jaunt an overwhelming success (but citing only examples of ‘mights and maybes’). He also managed to deliver a grand insult on the trip too.
        This man (Key) might be a successful dealer in little of social value, but if he thinks he’s successfully ‘sold’ NuZull tuneties to the South Americans in a manner that’s beneficial to NZ, OR that China, India, South America and elsewhere aren’t both conscious and concerned about the plight of their citizens having been fed the promised land spiel – the guy is sillier than I originally thought!
        But this is about Rodney – the man whose can rightfully claim that the above sort of crappola is working as (His) design.
        I’d be less worried about Hyde tanning, and more about those lamp post cross-members and rope when the shit hits the fan if I were Bill and Rodders

  4. Colonial Viper 4
    17 March 2013 at 11:24 am

    Rodney Hide has put his own political narrative about the underclass into the public sphere. What does the left have.

    • Tim 4.1
      17 March 2013 at 1:08 pm

      You mean we still have a Public Sphere? Shit! tell me where and I’ll head off there immediately along with all those rellies still unable to get with a decent internet or cellularly connected [ummm…..trying to think of the latest buzz] errr ECO-SYSTEM!

  5. prism 5
    17 March 2013 at 11:31 am

    Oh Mr well-dressed Wolf, what big teeth you have.

  6. Sanctuary 6
    17 March 2013 at 11:46 am

    I see the other ACToid Damien Grant has finally written a column on a subject he can speak about with some authority – fraud.

  7. Jenny 7
    17 March 2013 at 12:44 pm

    No Joke

    Rodney Hide got up at the recent ACT conference and in a jocular manner and to much applause and laughter, said that it is true that ACT hate Maori and unions and the poor.

    In an obvious dither Jim Hopkins, asked to Rodney to “revisit” his remarks, in case it completely destroyed ACT’s chances of getting any votes at all.

    Suddenly appearing serious, Rodney Hide refused to withdraw his comments.

    “They think you have horns, hate the poor, hate Maori, hate the unions – well, that’s true.”

    Fearing that comment would make the news, MC Jim Hopkins asked Mr Hide to reconsider.

    “There was a moment when you said we hate the poor, hate the Maoris, hate everything, and it’s true,” says Mr Hopkins. I was just wondering if you’d like to revisit that.”

    Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Act-Party-struggles-to-avoid-political-oblivion/tabid/1607/articleID/287876/Default.aspx#ixzz2N97jji6G

    • Redbaiter 7.1
      17 March 2013 at 1:01 pm

      Hey don’t lie.

      It was a joke, with a significant pause after the word “Unions” that cannot be demonstrated in text.

      Play it fair and square.

      If you can that is.

      • Jenny 7.1.1
        17 March 2013 at 1:16 pm

        Are you still here?

      • QoT 7.1.2
        17 March 2013 at 2:27 pm

        Too good to click on the clearly-provided link, RB?

        “There was a moment when you said we hate the poor, hate the Maoris, hate everything, and it’s true,” says Mr Hopkins. I was just wondering if you’d like to revisit that.”

        He refused …

      • Murray Olsen 7.1.3
        17 March 2013 at 7:36 pm

        Fair and square: Hide is a racist dog and an embarrassment to evolution. If he weren’t racist to his filthy core, you wouldn’t need to defend him by arguing about commas.

  8. Redbaiter 8
    17 March 2013 at 12:59 pm

    Remember the “underclass”?

    Sure I do- they are the drones kept in poverty and ignorance to ensure that any left wing politician standing for election will at least get some votes.

    Barack Obama was elected by them. or rather relied upon them to get enough votes to win.

    Uneducated uninformed low information voters.

    Most who don’t pay any real tax and therefore have no skin in the tax game and will always vote for a politician promising to rob the productive and share the proceeds with them.

    Without them we’d probably never ever see another left wing politician elected.

    You guys here better hope they never ever go away.

    • karol 8.1
      17 March 2013 at 1:16 pm

      I think you’ll find the US “underclass” are the ones less likely to vote.

      Statics show that in the 2012 election:

      In particular, Obama maintained wide advantages among young people, women, minorities, and both the less affluent and the well-educated.

      And that Obama lost ground among working class white voters.

      • Redbaiter 8.1.1
        17 March 2013 at 1:25 pm

        Around 50% of people in the US who could pay tax do not. Therefore they don’t care if taxes are increased on the rest of the population and will always vote for more handouts. Is that fair? Shouldn’t everyone have at least some skin in the game?

        • Colonial Viper 8.1.1.1
          17 March 2013 at 1:37 pm

          Corporates in the US get the biggest handouts. The US has become a socialist state – for corporations and banks.

        • Jenny 8.1.1.2
          17 March 2013 at 2:21 pm

          Well we all know you have a lot of skin in the game.

        • felixviper 8.1.1.3
          17 March 2013 at 2:59 pm

          “Around 50% of people in the US who could pay tax do not. Therefore they don’t care if taxes are increased on the rest of the population and will always vote for more handouts”

          Except they don’t. In overwhelming numbers the poor in the U.S. stay at home on election day, just like they do here.

          As usual, the exact opposite of what you wrote is the truth.

    • Colonial Viper 8.2
      17 March 2013 at 1:20 pm

      Sure I do- they are the drones kept in poverty and ignorance to ensure that any left wing politician standing for election will at least get some votes.

      Actually cheap human labour, preferably paid zero, is what the wheels of capitalism need to keep turning.

      • Redbaiter 8.2.1
        17 March 2013 at 1:22 pm

        So Colonel, if workers are kept in poverty, who is going to buy the products capitalism produces?

        • Colonial Viper 8.2.1.1
          17 March 2013 at 1:34 pm

          That’s absolutely the right question. In fact, even senior WalMart executives are asking that question about their discount store sales this year:

          One senior executive summed it up perfectly – “Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Walmart U.S. Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?” The company notes the end of the payroll tax cut by Obama and asks “We need to stop the stupid.”

          http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-15/wal-mart-stock-drops-after-it-says-february-sales-total-disaster-worst-montly-start-

        • Murray Olsen 8.2.1.2
          17 March 2013 at 6:25 pm

          Careful, Redbaiter. Keynes has long been known as a gateway drug to full blown Marxism. First you don’t want workers starving, then you allow them purchasing power, nek minnit you’re speaking Russian and taking Soviet Power for Aotearoa. It’s too dangerous for you here, back to WhaleSpew and that weird bloke in Invercargill while you still remember that native trees are for felling, not for hugging.

    • onsos 8.3
      18 March 2013 at 10:48 am

      You missed a trick there. In the US having a higher level of education makes you more likely to vote Democrat. I imagine it’s similar in NZ.

  9. gsays 9
    17 March 2013 at 1:16 pm

    “If we don’t look to government (politics) for the cure then I can only assume that Rodney has lost it completely and is advocating revolution? Our current system doesn’t do enough to break the inter-generational cycle of poverty, but the problems are political and the solutions are political too. We need to become more engaged with politics, not less.”

    a friends father was fond of saying “dont look to wellington for leadership”, and i am inclined to agree.
    with the system we have, if it is to have ‘winners’ then it must have ‘losers’
    a way to move forward and to break a cycle is to engage with the system as little as possible. eg become intimately linked with your food supply, volunteer your time with a community group or two (garden, sports group, scouting, school etc).
    start to develop your own soveriegnty. this must start from the ground up, not wait for a benevolent politician to allocate a few crumbs.
    what i am advocating is a revolution and it starts and ends with the indivdual.

  10. North 10
    17 March 2013 at 1:32 pm

    Hide is a sideshow proselytiser with scant regard for intellectual honesty.

    Lashes of ACToid bluster risibly masqueraded as fact by virtue of successive bluster-points being numbered.

    Nutting on about an eternal and ever deeper underclass, actually weeping a few crocodile tears along the way, while giving a big miss to the ever-richer, aggressively appropriating, overclass. As though the latter is non-existent and quite uninstrumental.

    On the positive side his blusterings do confirm that he now appreciates the abject failure of “trickle-down”. So what is it to be Hide ? “Trickle-up” ? Where the core cause of underclass, viz. social spending, is dramatically curtailed and people can stand on their own broken feet and rise up phoenix-like ?

    No ? Oh well, maybe this underclass should just learn to teach their kids like the rich people teach theirs’ and then send them off to rich kids’ schools which they’d all be free to attend (not) except for zoning.

    There is obscenity in your relentless plonkerism Hide. Fucked up word equations narcissistically peddled.

  11. red rattler 11
    17 March 2013 at 1:41 pm

    Hide is a cryptofascist.
    Right now he blames govt for making people poor because it interferes with the free market.
    But the assumption behind that is the survival of the fittest – born winners and losers that are intergenerational anyway.
    The only way that the cryptofascists can square their genetic determinism with libertarianism is to reserve natural rights for those who are prepared to use their talents to win. Those who can’t or choose not to compete deserve to lose and forfeit their natural rights.
    It is interesting to see that capitalism is now deploying such naked founding myths in its decline and fall having pushed them into the background during the great upward surge of modernisation.
    It goes to show that with such paucity of ideology, capitalism is really on its last legs and can only drag modern civilisation down unless the underclass reaches up and grab it by the balls.

    • Colonial Viper 11.1
      17 March 2013 at 1:45 pm

      Every renaissance of civilisation has been driven by the top 10% of society. With pressure from below of course. But its the top 10% who need to realise – or be made to realise – what is actually happening and that it is far away from their own interests.

      • Draco T Bastard 11.1.1
        17 March 2013 at 4:44 pm

        Every renaissance of civilisation has been driven by the top 10% of society.

        [citation needed]

        IMO, civilisation is started by the many working together. The few then take over and screw it up for everybody.

        • prism 11.1.1.1
          17 March 2013 at 5:24 pm

          dtb
          The downturn in civilisation probably could always be traced to The Little Red Hen syndrome. The hard-working forward-looking hen prepares practically to grow a crop to get through the winter. Nobody wants to help her, they have more important and interesting things to do. Then when she wants to bring in the harvest it is treated as largesse. The reaping and harvesting team turn up and tell her kindly that she is not up to the work needed, and she is given 10% of her product, the rest going in consultrancy fees, capital costs, maintenance and a hefty sum to the owner of the machines.

          Once there is a financial crop to be gathered the financial gleaners will clean it up for you.
          Too much continuing prosperity and a Jane Austen quote comes to mind to fit the situation. (It is a truth universally acknowledged that ordinary people in possession of good resources, must be in want of business leadership, a pub, a bank, a new religion and financial advice.)

          IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice

    • Morrissey 11.2
      17 March 2013 at 2:12 pm

      Hide is a cryptofascist.

      With his open contempt for democratic institutions, I suggest you could dispense with the “crypto” qualifier.

    • johnm 11.3
      17 March 2013 at 4:49 pm

      Red Rattler
      +1 Scum like Hide shouldn’t be given any quarter. That’s the problem with NZ politics, the left tries to pretend we’re all mates in the end which is total BS. 🙁

      • Murray Olsen 11.3.1
        17 March 2013 at 6:32 pm

        Once they get to the Beehive, they are almost all mates playing a stupid game. We decided we didn’t want to play games with the fascist apartheid regime, so why play them with their local equivalents? Hide is total scum, but is really only the unacceptable face of Key and co.
        The way the main parties carry on in Parliament, then slap each other on the back afterwards, may be ok for professional sports teams, but this in far more important. It’s not a game. It’s a planet worth living on for our mokopuna.

  12. ghostrider888 12
    17 March 2013 at 2:06 pm

    “Right Libertarians”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Modern_American_libertarianism
    and
    “classical Liberals”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

    -fear, self-interest and a sense of entitlement.
    (if i could say something kind about Hide…i would)

  13. ghostrider888 13
    17 March 2013 at 2:08 pm

    “economically conservative” yet “socially liberal” ; nothing like having everbody’s cake and eating it too.

  14. North 14
    17 March 2013 at 6:10 pm

    And in the practical application of economically conservative and socially liberal the gargoyle dog Hide provides the singular example of forked tongue, sense of entitlement, and grossness. Made his “name” out of perk-busting – what does he do ? Dashes off to Hawaii and the UK with the people of New Zealand footing the bill for his love perks.

    Hypocrite ! Arsehole ! That he has no essential morality is confirmed by his having done all that but still getting out there lecturing the cargo-cult middle class about the defects and unsavouryness of poor people. Many people would piss on him if he came anywhere near them.

    Insanely he’d probably claim he’d impressed them. Narcissist !

  15. Rodel 15
    17 March 2013 at 6:16 pm

    O Jesis! What amazes me is that anyone still takes any notice of Hide or Hooten. We are given only so many brain neurones. Dont waste them!

  16. The Al1en 16
    17 March 2013 at 6:40 pm

    So government caused intergenerational poverty, and it’s government’s policies that keep people in an underclass, yet government can’t/won’t fix it.

    Well that’s something that we all pretty much knew anyway, but thanks for the heads up, loser.

    So what does rodney suggest we do about it? Leave it to the free market? Maybe we could get mega corps in to sort it out.
    Pay them in apple microchips and erect suicide nets at the factories if they meet targets.

    Fuck off and retire, baldie.

  17. muzza 17
    17 March 2013 at 7:01 pm

    We have been the unfortunate witnesses of the r*acism which exists in those who rule over us, on behalf!

    Hide is being open, exposing his true self, and in the process is telling us what his ilk are into.

    These people are not Kiwis, its debateable that they are human beings, having such beliefs!

    • marty mars 17.1
      17 March 2013 at 7:33 pm

      That’s the thing that gets me muzza – they are human (rather than aliens say) and whilst their thin veneer of normalness is transparent, we probably couldn’t pick them out of a lineup. I put it down to the fucked capitalistic exploitative greedy selfish approach rather than an organised deep plot angle. but some of the shit the say and reveal makes me wonder sometimes.

      • muzza 17.1.1
        17 March 2013 at 8:02 pm

        These are corrupted souls Marty, the only thing human about them is the biological suit they share with the rest of us, IMO!

        You are right in a sense that its down to capitalistic, exploitive etc…The hides of the world exist, because they are essential to the status quo, they are essential because they are corruptible, they then become corrupted, and therefore able to be controlled. The how they are controlled, is the variable I have not nailed down my views on as yet!

        I look at it this way:

        The current financial/economic systems are destroying our environmental, natural, life giving/supporting systems. The Hides, Keys and so on, of the world are ensuring through their actions/support of the financial/economic systems, that the destruction will continue, seemingly unabated as it stands.

        Now, unless they are mentally deranged, or believe that somehow they, and families etc will be protected from their actions in perpetuating the destructive policies on planet earth, there are not many remaining explanations as to their involvement in ensuring the continued decline, otherwise why are they compliant to what’s going on – (please offer your thoughts, I’m interested to hear them)

        We are currently in a race Marty, a race against those who own the economic/financial systems which are responsible for the destruction, and currently we are losing that race, badly!

        Many don’t understand there is a race going on, and many are happy to blow it all off, this is not wise.

        Letting them off as human, nah I’m not prepared to run with that – (no I don;t think they are aliens, but thats another convo, anyway)

        • marty mars 17.1.1.1
          17 March 2013 at 9:01 pm

          I don’t know why they do what they do but I do think they are deficient and deranged – fixated on what is in front of them, tempered by extreme selfishness and bloated egos about their own worth and value. They care little for their blood relatives let alone anyone else or the planet even though they don’t think they are going to die. They can’t accept the truth of what they have done and continually deny everything because to front up would be to destroy who they are, what they have done and so on and that is not an option so they will carry on whilst everything including themselves are destroyed – are they human – yep, but I wish they were aliens.

  18. DH 18
    17 March 2013 at 7:10 pm

    I can’t read Hide’s commentaries, I find the guy to be a bit of a dick. He claims to represent business yet his comments make me question if he’s ever been in business for himself. He spouts the simplistic crap that comes in a can, not exactly an original thinker.

    He’s like the economists who prattle about markets and who have never actually participated in a market in their lives. He’s all bullshit & bluster, best ignored IMO.

    • Draco T Bastard 18.1
      17 March 2013 at 9:04 pm

      He claims to represent business yet his comments make me question if he’s ever been in business for himself. He spouts the simplistic crap that comes in a can, not exactly an original thinker.

      I’ve got numerous business people in the family – they spout the same shit.

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  • Supporting better financial outcomes for Kiwis
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  • Thailand and NZ to agree to Strategic Partnership
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