Reading that… do a pretty good analysis of hows Dr’s pay….

Sorry, I wasn’t denigrating you based on the presentation of the graphs, rather that it would be well represented on bar graphs.

[lprent: looks like you lost a bold tag or two. I've corrected it as it looked a bit loud. Hope it is correct]

irigate is possibly a little less pragmatic than yourself, apologies for grouping you with irrigate on the matter of;

“refusing to buy goods made with slave labour and making sure that companies know we will not support them in their attacks on us and workers around the world.”

I think he/she has bitten off a little more than they can chew with that stance.

I look forward to the standards coverage of the Dr’s strike, I expect you could do a pretty analysis of how Dr’s pay compares to Aussie over the National years and the Labour years. It would be interesting to see given the high profile nature of this current industrial action. Additionally did you see the letter in this weeks Listener by Kevin Atkinson? It’s on page 8 and it’s titled “David Cunliffe”.

Health looks like it might almost rival the EFA as an election issue.

To answer your question, I do try where possible to buy ethically, but realise that’s not always feasible in our society. It’s not really the point either – I don’t believe any fundamental social change can come through consumer choice. So I do what little I can to not make things worse, and involve myself in political activity to try and make the world a more humane place.

The way I see it, you’re on a hiding to nothing if you think you can separate yourself entirely from the society you are trying to change, and you’re even more deluded if you think buying fair trade coffee is going to save the world.

There you go burt – that’s a thoughtful reply. You reckon you can pay me the same respect?

Anyway burt, what makes you so sure I’ve never been involved in an industrial campaign against the government?

Who I am has stuff all to do with anything, I’m an x-Labour voter.

Who the govt think they are declining a pay negotiation where the demand is similar to the sort of pay rises they have had every year since 1999 is a big question.

Teachers and Police have the same gripe. Do we see a pattern here?

Another big question is where are the union advocates here at the standard, why are they not singing the praise of the union for standing up to an employer that behaves like a corporate CEO getting their annual cream while the workers get buttons?

Do the standard union activists loose their voice when the employer is govt? Luckily the Dr’s union has some balls and principals. Dangerous and risky – but lucky.

Do you want to be taken seriously here? Do you actually want to engage in constructive debate? If so, you need to drop lines like “Sad sad socialists making a pudding of public health”. You should also give up gutter stuff like calling Helen Clark a “lying bitch”, and your desperate fixation with the retrospective validation of government accounts (a standard process which occurs in most years).

Some of your posts have potential Burt, but you too often ruin it with the nonsense I’ve just described, so I usually can’t be bothered to engage.

So really, please – work out who you are. If you’re a serious commenter, then lift your game. If you’re just a troll, then trot out some of your typical lines, maybe the one about shooting the messenger or something, and I’ll move you down my list of people I’m interested in engaging with.

Who are you Burt?

Let me clarify one thing, I don’t really give a toss the MP’s get good pay rises. Their salaries had to rise as historically Politics as a career (in NZ) didn’t compete with corporate employment, this made good talent hard to attract and retain.

I just wish the govt would acknowledge that the same conditions exists for Dr’s (and others) and rectify it for “all of us” like they have already done for themselves.

It’s not about what National might do, it’s not about what the US do, it’s about today, it’s about here and it’s about Labour.

Look – plain and simple. MP have had circa 10% pay rises every year since 1999, Dr’s haven’t. We have no shortage of MP’s, we have a shortage of Dr’s. What grounds have the MP’s got for rejecting a 10 10 10 pay rise?

If the Dr’s union wanted to play hard ball they could pick any three years of percentage increases in the Cabinet Ministers salaries and demand this as a three year package retrospectively applied as MP’s salary increases always are. It pays to remind the govt how many people are lining up to take their place and that Dr’s are in short supply.

Correlation or causality on the supply and demand differences between MP’s and Dr’s and their respective gross salary increases in salary over the last 9 years?

Guess you’re right Burt. Gee, I wish we had a good capitalist health system like America…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18802

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/index.html

Yes siree jimbob, that capitalist health system sure looks good! Not.

Looks like the senior Dr’s are set to make a real living, better hope they don’t get to like the $200 /hour they can charge in the next few days or weeks – they may leave NZ so they can continue to earn that sort of money.

But I can see where the problem is, how can the govt give them big pay rises when they are already rich pricks. I mean tax cuts (increases in net income) can only be given as long as they don’t only benefit the rich so percentage increases for rich pricks have the same problem. The laws of supply and demand are things we can’t talk about so all we have left is ‘how much do they already earn’. Sad sad socialists making a pudding of public health.

The thing about globalisation is knowing where to stop. We have to be clear about our comparative advantage (fishing, forestry, agriculture, tourism, niche industries) and revisit the assumptions about economic growth and mass migration (stop selling the family silver to balance a trade deficit).

Notice that 50 to 60% of the job growth in the last 5 years were due to the housing boom which was due to a liquidity bubble…..

I did the “muppet” post my comment in the wrong tab again. Can you please tidy up after me once more and delete my comment directly above this one.

Thanks.

[lprent: no sweat]

Have you nothing to say about what changes will be required for you to avoid all ‘slave’ labour ?

Can we assume from this point forward that when you publish strong opinions on this blog that you are just blustering and we shouldn’t take anything you say seriously?