Archive for May, 2010

Grateful poor to thank rich for trickle down wealth

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, May 19th, 2010 - 29 comments

It is befitting that the 27st of May – just one week after the Budget – marks Thank The Rich Day, which sees poor people the length of the country gearing up to offer their gratitude to the rich for their contribution to the welfare of the poor through making themselves richer. Thank The Rich Day is, in fact, the brainchild of grocery packer Joe Brown…

Investment ethics a million miles away

Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, May 19th, 2010 - 6 comments

Brian Gaynor in Saturday’s Herald argues that investment industry organisations and their advisors owe a duty of care to investors. He calls it an “ethical overlay”, and says Unfortunately a number of developments indicate that we seem to be a million miles away from having this ethical overlay. There is little incentive for New Zealand […]

Inequality Aspiration Envy

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, May 19th, 2010 - 71 comments

Inequality is terribly damaging to society. National want to increase inequality by transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. They argue that this provides “incentives” for the vast majority of the rest of us to “get ahead”. But this aspirational argument is both incoherent and absurd.

Eat the Rich

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, May 19th, 2010 - 22 comments

Some how it just seems right for John Key’s “Don’t Be Jealous” Budget. Or if you want something a bit more high brow but still with the big hair, there’s Brian Edwards on $50 Million PM Counsels Poor Not To Envy Rich. Me… I say Eat Them!

Excusing the ‘Don’t Be Jealous’ Budget

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, May 19th, 2010 - 15 comments

Tomorrow, National will give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders. $12,000 a year for a typical CEO or a Prime Minister on $350,000 a year. $290,000 a year for Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Telecom. The Right are trying a bunch of excuses for this unneeded gift to the richest people in the country, paid for by working Kiwis. Let’s debunk ’em.

Closing the wage gap

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, May 19th, 2010 - 5 comments

Unions are closing the wage gap in the oil industry using collective action

Meanwhile the government is preparing to give rich individuals tax cuts and has been eroding the rights of workers.

Open mike 19/05/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 19th, 2010 - 29 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Nats set the places for their own tea party

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 pm, May 18th, 2010 - 27 comments

The US Republican Party faces destruction at the hands of the Teabaggers, a reactionary movement based on ignorance and fear that the Republican leadership purposely created. National faces a similar risk. It cynically fed its members anti-climate change conspiracy theorist nonsense. Now the Nats have to govern but their knuckle-draggers are fighting back.

More dim bulbs

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, May 18th, 2010 - 11 comments

Yesterday I posted on John Key being named “Dim bulb of the week” by the San Francisco Examiner. Continuing with a dim bulb theme – let’s talk about Edison Hour, as it is explained to us by a budding genius from ACT…

An addicted technophobe; a politician

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, May 18th, 2010 - 12 comments

Apparently, President Obama has delivered a speech ‘ranting’ against technology. The opinion in The Economist is worth a  read just for the joy of reading the hilarity between the lines. ‘WITH iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations—none of which I know how to work—information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather […]

Green alternative budget

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, May 18th, 2010 - 53 comments

The Greens have released their alternative budget, “Mind the Gap”. It focuses on the inequality between rich and poor in NZ (rightly called “the scourge of modern societies”). It’s great to see the Greens tackling this issue head on.

Don’t be jealous, they’re better than you

Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, May 18th, 2010 - 185 comments

Key has finally admitted his tax cuts are for the rich.

But that’s okay, he says, because the rich are so much more important than us.

Open mike 18/05/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 18th, 2010 - 16 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Key predicts future recessions

Written By: - Date published: 11:31 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 13 comments

I’m really surprised that this comment from John Key hasn’t elicited more reaction: “[Future] recessions are almost certainly in my view going to be global in nature and probably more severe… I think the question is not whether there is going to be another global recession but when that recession is going to hit.” A sovereign debt crisis this year or an oil supply crunch in 2012?

Hooten has “loose lips” syndrome as well

Written By: - Date published: 5:27 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 26 comments

It is always amusing listening to Matthew Hooten being a spinster on politics. But it was rather ironic for him to be in a conversation about John Key’s “loose lips” on NatRad this morning. He talked about this site posting conspiracy theories, but he was talking about a post at Tumeke and attributing to us.

“Loose lips” appear to be rife amongst the right-wing politicians and political commentators these days.

Key a dim bulb

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 42 comments

Our PM is now an international laughing stock, having been nominated by the San Francisco Examiner as “Dim bulb of the week” for his cannibal joke. Nor are Key’s most recent comments on the Tuhoe deal likely to help matters…

World Bank opens up its data

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 1 comment

As well as releasing its yearly report on World Development Indicators last month, the World Bank opened up its data. It has included a public API and access to over a thousand indicators. In the video below, World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick speaks about the Bank’s open data initiative.

The Supercity & neoliberalism

Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 8 comments

A passage from Matt McCarten’s article in the Sunday Herald summed up for me not only the approach of Rodney Hide in setting up his Super City but also the neo-liberal project that has been in vogue for the past quarter century. Democracy under the neo-liberal model is, as far as possible, to be a financial transaction.

Who says tax swap boosts growth?

Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, May 17th, 2010 - 33 comments

There are several myths about the coming tax swap that have a surprising amount of currency. The biggest is that this tax swap will boost growth. It won’t and the Tax Working Group never said it would. What it will do is increase inequality with massive tax cuts for the elite funded by higher GST and rents for working Kiwis. That’s not by accident or inevitable – it’s by design.

No answers on the tough questions

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, May 17th, 2010 - 20 comments

Hmm, so another bad, bad week for the directionless Key Government. Lucky a major newspaper steps in with a chance to make the PM look cute and adorable. It’s pretty telling that National Party pollster David Farrar chose to highlight a joke question from Valerie Vili and a joke answer; the answers to real questions are amazingly weak.

Parliament in lockdown

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, May 17th, 2010 - 20 comments

Nope, it isn’t the budget. It appears that there is a bomb scare. At the beehive there is an evacuation. It appears that people in the rest of the parliamentary complex are not allowed to leave, and no-one is allowed to enter. Pretty freaky how easy it is to shut down the a core of […]

Open mike 17/05/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 17th, 2010 - 27 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Renters will pay for Nats’ tax cuts for the rich

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 pm, May 16th, 2010 - 71 comments

The tax changes that will soon be announced are characterised even by the Government as a ‘tax swap’. They are fiscally neutral. The tax burden will not fall. All that will change is who it will fall on. Most people end up neutral or slightly worse off from the GST and income tax changes. The rich get huge cuts, which renters will end up paying for. Who are the renters? The census tells us.

Henare’s bigoted attack on poor proven false

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, May 16th, 2010 - 61 comments

Tau Henare is opposing Labour’s suggested policy of taking GST off fruit and vegetables saying “If they can’t afford to buy a lettuce or a tomato then they should give up the drink and the smokes,” and “It’s a well-known fact that poor people, if they don’t have enough money, will buy smokes and not bread.” Really? Well, it took two minutes checking on the Stats’ website to prove him wrong.

The New Zealand Herald: “Coalition is shakier by the day”

Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, May 16th, 2010 - 24 comments

The headline for the Herald’s editorial today says a lot about where the media are at with National at the moment. The Government and its actions have been savaged by a range of msm outlets this week in New Zealand – and internationally, which in turn became another source of yet more negative domestic coverage. This week […]

Strong showing for Len Brown

Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, May 16th, 2010 - 9 comments

Sam Cash writes it’s good news for Auckland with Len Brown opening up a strong lead over John Banks. Len Brown’s campaign seems to have been quietly gathering momentum since he launched his insurgency last year.

Corporal punishment bullshit

Written By: - Date published: 7:53 am, May 16th, 2010 - 33 comments

Family First have a history of trying to make political capital out of stacked questions. They’re are at it again, distorting the results of a survey question to push for bringing back corporal punishment in schools. They are aided and abetted by some spectacularly bad journalism.

Open mike 16/05/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 16th, 2010 - 15 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Shed some sunlight on a limp response

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 pm, May 15th, 2010 - 33 comments

David Farrar has finally made a comment on my “Hey Chubby…” post. It raises more questions than it answers. So I ask some of the obvious questions, and conclude that he has forsaken the principles of “free speech” that he so enthusiastically espoused only a few years ago.

International Year of Biodiversity but not in NZ

Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, May 15th, 2010 - 9 comments

The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. They have stated ‘It is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives.’ National has taken up the cause wholeheartedly in a variety of weird ways. They seem hell bent on enacting policies that will do nothing but destroy biodiversity in the name of the economic growth.

Wind power is (too) successful?

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, May 15th, 2010 - 20 comments

You sometimes have to wonder about headline writers sometimes (including myself). But take a look at this one from Bloomberg.com, a site with a focus on investment. Windmill Boom Curbs Electric Power Prices for RWE RWE AG is a power utility and wind farm operator in Germany. The reason that they’re getting reduced prices for […]