Another empty promise

61 comments on “Another empty promise ”

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1. Craig Glen Eden 1

   2 November 2011 at 8:22 am

   And Fraud is a lie.
2. thejackal 2

   2 November 2011 at 8:48 am

   All stick and no carrot makes the unemployed suicide statistics.
   • Hami Shearlie 2.1

     2 November 2011 at 9:19 am

     Maybe that’s how they plan to cut down the beneficiary numbers – I wonder if they’d prefer a mass suicide like lemmings?
     • mik e 2.1.1

       2 November 2011 at 5:25 pm

       100,ooo gone to Australia thats how they’ve made their figures up another 100,000 in the next 3 years. Considering Jinxed keys 175,000 more jobs lie =67,000 more unemployed, extrapolated figures for the 57,000 new jobs= 185,000 more unemployed
   • Tiger Mountain 2.2

     2 November 2011 at 9:27 am

     Too right jackal. Many young people in particular must wonder what the hell they have to done to warrant the shit handed out to them at the moment.

     Increased punitive bureaucratic barriers to getting welfare assistance will just result in more of the following:
     • living in garages and overcrowded houses (cardboard boxes coming soon) • petty crime perpetrated against other low income people • depression and suicide • poor(er) nutrition • children having miserable lives • thousands more never to reach their true potential–dramatic? As evidence I offer the aftermath of 80s rogernomics and the Nats ‘mother of all budgets’ ’90 benefit cuts. Both events that some of our communities barely recovered from and now the tories prescribe another dose.

     It is indeed a ‘war on the poor’.
   • Blue 2.3

     2 November 2011 at 10:28 am

     Typical Tory economics. Cut and destroy with the blind faith that everything will be better ‘later’ and ignore the massive human cost of what they are doing.

     They remind me of a doomsday cult – when it’s pointed out that they were wrong, they just cling harder to the belief in the face of all evidence.

     I’m not surprised that they haven’t learned, but surely the voters of NZ don’t really want to return to the 1990s?
3. Colonial Viper 3

   2 November 2011 at 9:04 am

   Key’s Welfare Plan Needs Jobs First

   Even the Tory Right Wing Herald can see it.

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10763233
   • Draco T Bastard 3.1

     2 November 2011 at 1:04 pm

     When their “welfare plan” is lower wages – no it doesn’t.
4. Dv 4

   2 November 2011 at 9:07 am

   Young children NEED their mothers. One is TOO YOUNG for a creche.
   What are the cconomics of proving that child care for the1 to 5 . I cant believe that stacks up.

   Pre schoolers NEED their mother.
   • Placebogirl 4.1

     2 November 2011 at 3:00 pm

     Um, you can believe young kids need a single caretaker all you like, and possibly they do, the evidence is out on that one–but it does not have to be their “mother”. Apart from breastfeeding, there is no evidence at all that one loving adult is better than another for a kid, so let’s not genderise this, okay?
     • Zorr 4.1.1

       2 November 2011 at 5:31 pm

       I have to inquire as to your expertise in this matter?

       Are you:
       a) a mother? (assumed from your moniker)
       b) an ECE teacher?
       or
       c) just someone with an opinion?

       And the jury isn’t out – the jury came back a long time ago about the benefits of close attachment to loved ones during the early developmental years. And just so you know what to categorise me as, I am a father of 2 boys with a wife who is staying home to care for them and we are both tertiary trained including some primary school level teacher training.
       • Placebogirl 4.1.1.1

         4 November 2011 at 3:17 pm

         My position in this is not relevant to the argument. Close attachment to loved ones still doesn’t automatically mean “mother”.
5. Peter 5

   2 November 2011 at 9:26 am

   Mr English says he is making many small systematic changes to improve the efficiency of the economy which will one day result in more jobs via an upbeat invigorated private sector. That’s as good as it is going to get on the National job front. Put simply they do not have a directed pro-active “job-plan” because they don’t believe it is their role to provide one.

   The challenge then is for the Left to fully explain what job the will create and how? Who has the answers?
   • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1

     2 November 2011 at 9:34 am

     Did you read the post at the top of the page? The one with Labour’s track record on job creation? Let’s think, what steps did Labour take? Well, they replaced the Employment Contracts Act with the Employment Relations Act (good faith negotiations etc), they raised the minimum wage every year, and they achieved the lowest unemployment rate NZ has ever seen. They averaged more than the best Brand Key can imagine. All this while keeping the government books in surplus until Blinglish got his grubby paws on them.
     I’d say they’ve got a plan.
     • mik e 5.1.1

       2 November 2011 at 5:29 pm

       Don’t forget Jim Anderton had a regional development budget of about $300 million a year that also helped Jinxed Key cut that budget immediately coming to office
6. Lanthanide 6

   2 November 2011 at 9:27 am

   This seems to be supply-side economics. All we need to do is up-skill our DPB mums and those on the UB (and change the name of what they’re getting to give them more motivation, too!) and then the jobs will magically be created.

   Our titans of industry will say “gosh, look at all these newly upskilled people, we better create some jobs for them because we’re such nice guys”.
   • Colonial Viper 6.1

     2 November 2011 at 10:41 am

     The Tories don’t want to create more jobs.

     The trick is to flood the market place with new upskilled and trained labour in an environment where there are not enough jobs to go around.

     Lets employers pressure workers further and get away with not raising wages.

     “Stuff my business around mate and you’re gone, there’s a whole queue of qualified people begging to take your job at lower rates.”

     The key question is who controls the capital in this economy.
     • mik e 6.1.1

       2 November 2011 at 5:32 pm

       Tories don’t create more jobs because they want the price of labour to be continually downward
       Elitism running the economy like a business people don’t count they are just a commodity
     • Deadly_NZ 6.1.2

       2 November 2011 at 11:22 pm

       Even more so now with the draconian 90 day fire at will bill due to be doubled to 6 months.
7. prism 7

   2 November 2011 at 10:13 am

   On Radionz this morning Peter Dunne (Hone calls him Mr Sensible) talked about planting riparian strips as depression style makework and implied it was demeaning. This puts such valuable work in a broad hole beside horrible depression government schemes like digging holes and filling them in, presumably for no reason such as putting drainage pipes in, or making roads to nowhere. I seem to remember that Helen Clark came out with this style of comment too.

   There are a few things to say about such work as planting – anything. First, is that physical work rates ALONGSIDE tapping computer keys or being a salesperson or.. Then, if that physical work is planting, it is likely to be good for the environment. Then the comment implies that planting riparian strips is not necessary and does not require skill and there is no useful education in it. We know that riparian strips are useful for filtering run off from land, and keeping stock out of streams thus getting our waterways clean, clear and free of e-coli.

   There is the matter of learning about working the land and soil and the needs of plants so they will take root and not eventually die of stress because of bad planting. The large tree planting during the last century in Kaingaroa was a worthwhile achievement that a later government-hating regime had available to sell off to private interests. It was not a useless make-work scheme. The knowledge from projects like this can be applied throughout life and is the basis for landscaping, tree culture or just having a successful vege garden that rounds out the personal budget.

   So what’s with this political put down about projects like this. If we had a majority of intelligent, practical and far-seeing problem-solvers in government we wouldn’t hear this rubbish. Unfortunately many of the strutters in Wellington can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

   And further there should be a regular work team that the unemployed join and which trains and guides them, like a general apprenticeship, and who go and work on things for central or local government, probably outdoors, helping with things that usually have to be by-passed or put off because of lack of funding. And further again, there should be an increase in state house building during recessions which would involve trainees from polytechs giving them valuable work experience after their training. Making lemonade with lemons, with the implication that they aren’t much use, is a cliche about doing useful things with available resources. Our unemployed are a resource and their time is a resource and we could turn that time, their energy and the unemployment benefit to good use for them and for the country, if we only could have politicians that were practical thinkers instead of tired hacks following ideological paths beaten by past party policies or dreamed up by twisted individuals whose prescriptive thinking for others cuts carefully around the booty set aside for themselves.
   • Colonial Viper 7.1

     2 November 2011 at 10:42 am

     Dunne’s just another ignorant townie. I guess he thinks hosing down cow shit from a dairy yard is also demeaning work.

     What a moron.
   • Ben 7.2

     2 November 2011 at 3:28 pm

     The sooner Dunne is out of Parliament, the better. For a massive array of reasons.

     Thankfully I recently moved into the Ohariu electorate, and he only won by 540 votes last time over the current Labour candidate, Charles Chauvel. I don’t particularly like Chauvel, but I’ll vote for him in the hope he ousts Dunne.
   • Mark 7.3

     2 November 2011 at 10:03 pm

     Actually I think planting trees on river banks is a United Future policy for exactly the reasons you stated. What Dunne probably meant in his usual verboise way was that this was not a skilled job so could be picked up by the growing number of unskilled and unemployed in the current economic climate – not something particularly insulting really.

     If you are so closed mind to criticise when you clearly agree with his position then I feel sorry for you. A lot of United Future’s policies this election would get broad party support, even from Green and Mana. Be happy that Dunne will be part of the next National government to bring them closer to the centre and limit the effect of Brash and Banks.
     • mickysavage 7.3.1

       2 November 2011 at 10:05 pm

       But Mark I do not disagree but the idea of planting the riparian margin is a green idea for the past 30 years at least and has solid Labour support.  It is not a United Follicle policy …
       • Mark 7.3.1.1

         3 November 2011 at 10:31 pm

         Exactly. You agree with it. And it is United Future policy this election. But you’re obviously not open minded enough to take a serious look at what other parties are saying – “United Follicle”? Come on; you’re a joke. Doesn’t it speak volumes that the only criticism most of you have of Dunne is his hair?

         No wonder Labour is crashing if you think that sort of crap would win voters over.
8. prism 8

   2 November 2011 at 10:24 am

   On Kaingaroa forest and the Depression – an overview on NZ that is very informative is here –
   http://www.seafriends.org.nz/enviro/soil/soilnz.htm

   In the Great Depression years (1925-1935), the Government planted large areas of pumice soils (the Kaingaroa Forest) in pine forests, which provided the timber for sawmilling, pulp and paper forty years later. Between 1965 and 1985, when the state forests came on stream, it was clear that forestry was a viable business in NZ, inviting both Government and private plantings. After 1984 when tax rebates were phased out, new plantings declined sharply, and Government plantings dropped to zero because all cutting rights had been sold to private interests
9. Tom Gould 9

   2 November 2011 at 10:26 am

   Eddie, you have missed the point completely. The policy is carefully designed to get a headline and make a loud dog-whistle noise to waivering Tories who do not buy their asset sale line, the old one or the new one. But thanks for setting the record straight.
10. Afewknowthetruth 10

    2 November 2011 at 10:57 am

    ‘Treasury is forecasting job growth of just 125,000 in the next 4 years ‘

    Since when has Treasury got anything right?

    Peak Oil portends the end of all current economic arrangements, and judging by the way things are now moving (US stagnation, negative growth in Europe, China slowing down, environmental catstrophes all around the world etc.) things are on track for significant economic contraction by the end of 2012.

    The system is crumbling like a sand castle on a beach with the tide coming in and what is on the horizon will make the Great Depression look like good times.

    Hence, the vast majority of political candidates lie need to continuously in order to get votes.

    By the way, Prism.

    ‘In the Great Depression years (1925-1935)’ is not correct.

    The Wall Street Crash occured on October 1929, and for three or four years most governments remained firmly locked into denial, declaring that a quick recovery was on the way (sound familiar?).

    Most western nations (not Germany under Hitler, which America invested heavily in) remained mired in depression from 1931 to 1939, when war triggered a sudden surge in activity.

    The big difference between the 1930s and now is that little of the world’s oil had been used up at that time (unlike now, when most of the easy oil has already been burned), and the world population was around 1/4 of what it is now!

    Humanity is in a self-made trap from which industrialism cannot provide an escape route. Indeed, further attempts to stimulate industrialism are entirely counter-productive.

    People trapped by the false paradigm [of perpatural growth on a finite planet] cannot see the truth, so they continue to promote murderous and suicidal policies based on population growth, increased industrial activity, fractional reserve banking and interest payments, all of which make matters worse, of course.
    • Rusty Shackleford 10.1

      2 November 2011 at 2:36 pm

      “The Wall Street Crash occured on October 1929, and for three or four years most governments remained firmly locked into denial, declaring that a quick recovery was on the way (sound familiar?).”

      No it doesn’t sound familiar. Hoover did the following.
      * almost doubled federal spending from 1929 to 1933.
      * expanded public works projects to “create jobs.”
      * pressured businesses not to cut wages, even in the face of deflation.
      * signed the Davis-Bacon Act and the Norris-LaGuardia acts to prop up unions.
      * signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff.
      * created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
      * proposed and signed the largest peacetime tax increase in
      American history.
      And then FDR expanded on all of that.

      WWII didn’t end the depression, unless you consider making tanks instead of useful stuff economic growth and getting shot in the to be a cure for unemployment.

      I’m not touching the neo-Malthusian stuff.
      • Draco T Bastard 10.1.1

        2 November 2011 at 4:03 pm

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover#Great_Depression

        Sounds like normal neo-liberalism to me. Didn’t work then either.

        I’m not touching the neo-Malthusian stuff.

        Of course not, you don’t like the facts and so ignore them.
        • Rusty Shackleford 10.1.1.1

          2 November 2011 at 4:57 pm

          Interesting debating style. Post the wiki link to the topic, call the person something you don’t like then claim the facts are against them. Dust hands and walk off into the sunset. Saying something substantive not required!
          • McFlock 10.1.1.1.1

            2 November 2011 at 5:22 pm

            Rusty, you’re one to talk! Your entire list of Hooverian(? oh it’ll do) actions completely failed to address the original point:

            “The Wall Street Crash occured on October 1929, and for three or four years most governments remained firmly locked into denial, declaring that a quick recovery was on the way (sound familiar?).”

            1: “most governments remained locked into denial” – how does your list of some actions by ONE government address that point?

            2:” [most governments …] declaring that a quick recovery is on the way” – you fail to provide ANY quote from ANY government to the effect that recovery will not be quick.

            PS: you missed out the immigration scapegoating and fixation on balanced budgets, which is par for the course both for you forgetting inconvenient truths and tory govts scapegoating people (oh noes, Indonesian people smugglers are targeting NZ!).
          • Draco T Bastard 10.1.1.1.2

            2 November 2011 at 6:14 pm

            There’s no such thing as debating with you or any libertarian – you’re all delusional and full of shit. I point to the history that completely negates your belief (ie, the entire 19th century and most of the 20th) and get called a liar.
      • mik e 10.1.2

        2 November 2011 at 5:44 pm

        Rusty spinning the same bullshit again. New zealand came out of recession with a change to labour social credit coalition 1935 .The US let their banking system collapse completly New Zealand nationalized our banking system which helped us while The US had to wait much longer for banks to recapitalize NZ had a double head start with social credit and labour using the reserve bank to loan money Quantitative easing[printing] .It worked very well.The US was always and still is not as flexible as NZ because of their electoral system .
    • prism 10.2

      2 November 2011 at 3:37 pm

      Afktt
      You’ll be right about the dates of the Big Depression. However the quote is from a NZ entry and perhaps that ten years (1925-1935) is when the tree planting in Kaingaroa which they were referring to, got mostly done. Perhaps we were feeling the pinch before the 1929 USA crash. Do you agree that it was a good idea to plant trees then, i.e. investing in future infrastructure in a downturn with unemployment?
      • mik e 10.2.1

        2 November 2011 at 5:52 pm

        Rusty you are lying just like your master wikipedia is not that accurate on hisTory as you would like to believe.New Zealand was in recession right from 1924 the govt of the day borrowed heavily and tried to mop up unemployment with public works just like Borrowing bills English Jinxed Key and petroll head Joyce. it failed miserably and until riots broke out the right wing government of the day did nothing!
11. Uturn 11

    2 November 2011 at 10:59 am

    Motivations for Welfare reform in this country seem to vary from idiotic to malicious. Reform is usually discussed by people far removed from the pointy end of real effects; never having been through either the circumstances that brings them to a WINZ office or the process of applying or living a life under the demands of receiving a benefit or the social exclusion of being called unemployed.

    They know nothing of living on the fringe, yet spout how it is, should be, and how to leave it. They don’t know that once you’ve been there, your perspective of the well meaning clingers who hide in the collective identity of being employed – virtuous and proud – changes, and forgiving the cowardice of those people takes a lot of effort. More effort than those proud virtuous workers applied to their understanding of a beneficiary’s existence.

    It is an experience that changes your life, permanently. And what do you hear, day in day out? Oh there are jobs… if you look hard enough. The Honourable P.Bennet says jobs online have increased by 25%. A meaningless statistic. Is she aware many recruitment firms operate “fishing” expeditions everyday? Do a quick search on SEEK.CO.NZ at the $0 – $40K range and see how many more jobs there are once you lift that wage range up to $200k. Now do a job search just using the part-time filter: that category that is supposed to support solo parents with a liveable wage. Are there 11,000 of those jobs? No. So where are these thousands of part-time liveable wage jobs, even in four years time?

    From tens of jobs to tens of thousands of jobs in four years – not with any policy National has. We’d need several hundred tourist bicycle trails to do that and I’m yet to see a recovering sick person do a day’s work with a spade and barrow. Even some healthy people can’t do it. Tell me who will hire an unqualified sickness beneficiary or solo mum for an accountants partner position after being out of the workforce for more than a year, more than six months. It might happen, I don’t want to slam the door on someone’s hope, but will those exceptions number in the thousands? The hundreds? Ok, what about ten?

    The honourable Bennet says society’s perception of welfare has changed. No it hasn’t. It’s just grown more hateful. Try being honest on your CV and saying you had a period of mental illness from which you are now recovered. Now wait as hundreds of applications return nothing but silence or, occasionally, the really special person who calls you in to sneer and abuse you during an interview because they can’t handle honest answers to their ignorant questions.

    Mental illness is just weakness is their implication. You’re soft. Grow a tougher skin. Sit through the demands to be a better person, better than they are or anyone they employ. But it won’t matter, they never intended to employ you. They just wanted a warm up before the real candidates began. This is what you get if you’ve recovered. Now try it on medication, then with specific concessions needed from an employer to just help you along.

    Society hasn’t changed, it’s that its ignorance has been cemented by years of policy that encourages self-interest, insular thinking and intolerance.

    The honourable Bennet says it’s not about what you can’t do, it’s about what you can. Try this: spend some time in agricultural employment in rural areas. Watch how people will size you up inside of a few words and give you a go, more or less regardless. You do some work, if the job is done you get the job – however long it lasts. You won’t have a bright future, and you won’t earn much, sometimes below minimum wage, but you’ll be working. It’s not a bad lifestyle, but it’s clear you are barely tolerated. Living in a tent can be a bit chilly, but you get used to it. Now move to the city and apply for a job. If you aren’t herded with 15 other people into a ridiculous “group interview” and encouraged to exhibit secondary psychopathic tendencies, you will be bombarded by numerous reasons not to hire you. The employer might even ask: why should I hire you? But wait a minute, wasn’t it the employer who wanted to hire someone? Didn’t they just interview you? Weren’t they listening to the answers? The job is necessary isn’t it? It does actually exist, right? And here they are focussed only on reasons why not to hire?

    No, Right Honorable Paula Bennet, it isn’t about what a person can do anymore.

    Society hasn’t changed. Welcome to The Market. This is the understanding, compassionate, intellignet marketplace that will take up the responsibilities of welfare in NZ.

    The same market that failed 150 years ago, necessitating a shift towards social welfare.

    The haters of beneficiaries don’t know any of their targets personally. Their stories are all of some glimpsed action of a stranger: that girl down the road whose always laughing and happy. She’s on a benefit she should be miserable, how dare she go outside, how dare she experience life at all. I bet she’s pumping out kids right now! Where is the evidence that there are a huge number of women operating as baby factories – so many in fact, that there should be policy change to catch the sneaky breeders. Now it seems that being poor should be cut off at the source.

    Look at the National Party’s own figures and add up how many people are unemployed, how many are ill and then see how many could possibly be a woman on a domestic purposes benefit, and then how many of those are actively making babies for cash. My god, it’s like the supporters of National Party reforms are operating on a nostalgic whiff of eugenics mixed with an astoundingly low level of intelligence. The honourable Bennet now implies poor people aren’t allowed to have sex – just to be safe. Oh there is contraception for sure, but sometimes it fails. The rich are allowed to make that mistake, but not the poor. No mistakes for the poor. They have to be both simultaneously more capable than the rich, more capable than medical science itself, but also less capable so they remain poor.

    You see, it’s not beneficiaries that the rich hate. If there were no benefits and people were supported by their partners or families by necessity, the rich would still hate anyone of lesser social status. Hatred and cowardice has always driven welfare reform in my lifetime.

    So here is my message to those ignorant haters. You think it is all one sided, your cowardly attacks on the poor, the less able, the sick, the unfortunate. You think you have the upper hand. You regard me as the untermench. I’m not. I’ve seen you clearly now, how all your virtuous talk means nothing, how it’s held together with barely the breath it takes to slur the words. I’ve seen you wreck yourself with our alcoholic infotainment based culture and excessive eating and then turn your fat finger on those who are hungry. I try really hard to live the ideas of social manners that I was taught by my parents; people you would’ve sneered at and do still sneer at similar types.

    Do you know the restraint I show by listening respectfully to your ignorant assumptions about who I am? You have me right in front of you and instead you only hear the stereotypes in your own head. This is real life. This is not a game of employees and employers. Manners and courtesy aren’t for the weak. They’re for people who know that no matter how luxurious the office, the line between civility and brutality is dangerously thin. I let you walk away unharmed, because I hold on with my fingertips to ideals that slip away so easily. You have no idea of the struggle.

    I don’t want your projections: to be you, to live your dreams, to live your failures, to live what you couldn’t be, to be the hope that maybe it could’ve worked; to be your mate, to be your slave, to own your house, your car, your bank account. I want something better, something more human. When I meet you, I am there to discuss how work can be done, not validate your morally bankrupt philosophy. Despite your ignorance and hate, I will win. My world will be better than anything your hate can offer.

    I know what you think of my statements: that they are invalid because… of social status. But am I really below you? Am I on a benefit? Am I scum? Would it matter if I was? Would it matter if my skin was brown, my religion was foreign, my arm was deformed or my sexuality wasn’t your preference? Can you prove I am less than you or do you just hope an idea can be swept aside without it niggling away at you. Do you know how many ways there are to live in NZ? Do you really know anything about your life or those around you, at all?
    • Afewknowthetruth 11.1

      2 November 2011 at 11:35 am

      Uturn.

      Nice rant.

      I guess what you are saying is, society is run by psychotic sociopaths. And in recent years they have beecome more detached from reality and more antisocial.

      Didn’t someone once say ‘Greed is good’? And it got repeated ad infinitum.

      I’m sure Jesus had a rather different narrative.
    • Terry 11.2

      2 November 2011 at 2:17 pm

      I am not sure that you should publish an entire book under comments.
12. tsmithfield 12

    2 November 2011 at 12:31 pm

    So what is Labour’s solution?

    1. Slap a capital gains tax on businesses.
    2. Increase their Kiwisaver contribution to 7%.
    3. Make Kiwisaver compulsory sucking more money out of the economy.
    4. Scrap the 90 day bill.

    That sounds like great incentives for businesses to start employing. NOT.
    • Afewknowthetruth 12.1

      2 November 2011 at 1:06 pm

      tsm.

      Nothing within the framework of orthodox economics or orthodox politics will fix the predicament we are in. The system is fundamentally flawed.

      Neither National nor Labour (nor Greens etc.) have any answers that will; work, though a Labour-led government might reduce the suffering of NZers more than a National-led government in the short term, as the system gradually implodes.
      • aerobubble 12.1.1

        2 November 2011 at 1:42 pm

        Greens can’t give a 100% guarantee that stimulating alterative energy will make
        lots of profits, it will create jobs though obviously. People physically have to manhandle
        insulation into roofs, people physically have to dig roads to the top of ridge lines
        to put in windpower. Solar on roofs still needs workers.

        The world can feed, clothes, house, and provide health cover to all. Its merely
        a matter of choosing the economic drivers that give people enough spare cash
        to change their situation for themselves. Less frilly fad items and more hard nosed
        decisions that lower peoples cost. Now its not a question of whether it needs
        doing, countries like Germany know this, its about getting on and doing it.
        Those countries that do not evolve will not be adapted to the higher carbon
        cost world. Its a question about how a deeply arrogant conservative electorate,
        the NZ voter, wises up and votes for at least a start int he right direction.

        Even National get it, they have shift their stance on alliance with the greens.
        The question for me is redistribution, its obvious too easy for lazy stupid
        managers to get ahead at the expense of the economy and the economic future
        of NZ. Those hired because they have huge debts and thus were much more
        ?ameanable? to staying and being loyal, are the same sad pricks that now
        fill in business questionaries that say National don’t change coarse whatever
        the reality are doing a great job.

        That’s why societies end up in revolution, because the conservatve
        forces become too dip shit stupid and arrogant, and fearful to actually
        change. Welcome to the National Party 101
        • Afewknowthetruth 12.1.1.1

          2 November 2011 at 2:37 pm

          aerobubble.

          ‘The world can feed, clothes, house, and provide health cover to all.’

          When you are ready for the truth (presumably not yet):

          http://www.publishme.co.nz/shop/theeasyway-p-684.html

          It took 200,000 years for the human population to rise to the 700 million which applied around the year 1500.

          The only reason we now have tens times that many people alive on Earth is because for the past 500 years people have been using increaing amounts of fossil fuels.

          Just a century ago, when world population was in the 1.5 to 2 billion range, the situation may have been manageable. However, the consumption of fossil fuels went into ‘hyper-drive’ in the mid-twentieth century (oil consumption went from 5 million barrels a day to 50 million a day) as agriculture and food distribution systems became increasingly dependent on oil.

          Humanity maxed out on conventional oil at around 78 million barrels a day over 2005-2008 (with unconventional oil adding another 8 million barrels or so a day), and since 2008 has been in an increasingly desperate predicament, trying to maintain liquid fuels production via converting 1/4 of the US corn harvest into ethanol, ripping up Alberta to get to the tar sands, deep-water drilling etc.

          Over the next five years we will see oil extraction start to plummet and see the industrialised food system collapse. (Difficulty in obtaining phosphate rock will also be a key factor.)

          As William Catton put it, we are in population overshoot of the order of 5 billion people (well that was the figure before climate related disasters started to really impact).

          Most informed analysts put the sustainable human population at between 500 million and 2 billion.

          ‘That’s why societies end up in revolution, because the conservatve forces become too dip shit stupid and arrogant, and fearful to actually change.’

          I totally agree on that point.

          We live in an ‘Easter Island Culture’ in which the last of the resources are being squndered on idiotic projects, and people are too stupid and arrogant to notice what they are doing to the natural systems that make human life possible.
          • Draco T Bastard 12.1.1.1.1

            2 November 2011 at 4:11 pm

            The only reason we now have tens times that many people alive on Earth is because for the past 500 years people have been using increaing amounts of fossil fuels.

            Well, we know a hell of a lot more as well and so can keep babies and elderly alive where 500 years ago we couldn’t. Decreasing mortality has a lot to do with increasing population.
            • Colonial Viper 12.1.1.1.1.1

              2 November 2011 at 6:11 pm

              Well, we know a hell of a lot more as well and so can keep babies and elderly alive where 500 years ago we couldn’t. Decreasing mortality has a lot to do with increasing population.

              A lot of the approaches used to keep babies and elderly alive rely on fossil fuels and large amounts of embodied energy. Without that energy to apply, a lot of the fancy ‘knowledge’ we have becomes as valuable as paper in a text book.
    • One Anonymous Bloke 12.2

      2 November 2011 at 3:13 pm

      Tsmithfield are you a bit thick?

      Labour consistently provides a good business environment, in fact until recently we were second in the world for ease of business – we’ve slipped a place since Brand Key took over, and I think I’ll take Warren Buffet’s word over your BS any day:

      “I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.”
    • mik e 12.3

      2 November 2011 at 6:00 pm

      TsmCGT is going on to income thats is gained , like every body else has to pay tax why should one sector, the speculative sector unproductive be allowed to get off tax free while the rest are paying more, some people have huge assets and business income and don’t pay any contribution while borrowing Bills English is borrowing now in excess $100 billion to buy our votes its us honest tax payers that will pick up that bill for the next 25 years while your mates TSM have their cake and eat it to are laughing at the honest hard working tax payers.
13. Afewknowthetruth 13

    2 November 2011 at 1:01 pm

    Nothing will change until the masses wake up.

    Unfortunately, NZers seem to be more complacent and comfortable (asleep) than people elsewhere in the world.

    I’ll post it here in case people miss it on the other thread.

    Brilliant:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwxedZG21ZE
    Dr. David Suzuki – Message to The World_from Occupy Vancouver
14. tang9 14

    2 November 2011 at 1:41 pm

    Lets hope it does not create another riot like the one in England which would be ignited by a simple excuse?
15. Fortran 15

    2 November 2011 at 2:06 pm

    4500 have registered to help clean beaches after RENA leaks. 170 turned up on Saturday.

    With youth unemployment very high in the Bay why can’t WINZ get on to it, instead of just doling out money to unemployed, particularly males. Training and gear are provided to those helpers and a small feed. Perhaps a little manual labour hurts –
    • lefty 15.1

      2 November 2011 at 4:49 pm

      Fortran said
      “With youth unemployment very high in the Bay why can’t WINZ get on to it, instead of just doling out money to unemployed, particularly males.”

      Because they are not the ones who spilt it.

      Why not make the bastards who own the ship get down on their knees in the rain and clean it up along with the parliamentarians who did away with shipping regulations.
      • One Anonymous Bloke 15.1.1

        2 November 2011 at 4:54 pm

        Nah, stuff those useless reptiles – what use would any of them be when real work was needed? Employ people at bloody good rates of pay – it’s a short-term contract after all – with good conditions and proper safety training, then bill the owners. Impound their fleet if they refuse, and deny them service at NZ ports.
        • KJT 15.1.1.1

          2 November 2011 at 5:22 pm

          Send the people who demanded cheaper shipping to do it.

          Federated fuckwits for a start.
16. Terry 16

    2 November 2011 at 2:24 pm

    We have just ONE promise from Key which we can believe with some slight confidence, “we will muddle through”. On second thoughts even that he might find unmanageable. That which is taking place at this time can only be deemed as “persecution” of those too young to vote, and of beneficiaries created by National itself!
    • Irascible 16.1

      2 November 2011 at 2:52 pm

      In Key’s dinnimiac envinmnt muddle will become “We’ll have a hissy fit and throw all the toys out of the cot and then blame the new foreign owners of NZ for failing to develop the economy for the benefit of those living in it.”
      The essence of being an incompetent is to blame everyone else but yourself.
17. randal 17

    2 November 2011 at 5:28 pm

    ho hum.
    just kwqeewee hyperventilating.
18. Afewknowthetruth 18

    2 November 2011 at 8:06 pm

    Prism.

    ‘Do you agree that it was a good idea to plant trees then, i.e. investing in future infrastructure in a downturn with unemployment?’

    Planting trees (and taking good care of them) is one of the most productive things anyone can do in life, whether it is a time of high unemployment or not. Planting fruit trees is a particularly good idea. That’s why almost no city or district councils do so.

    Just be aware that correction of trace element deficiency has been a factor in certain regions of NZ.

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/037811279090042A
19. Afewknowthetruth 19

    2 November 2011 at 8:38 pm

    RS

    You really are full of shit, as DTB and McFlock have pointed out.

    ‘Dear Sir:

    I am writing you as a last resource to see if I cannot, through your aid, obtain a position and at last, after a period of more than two years, support myself. The fact is this day I am faced with starvation and I see no possibility for counteracting it or even averting it temporarily.

    I have applied for every position that I heard about but there were always so many girls who applied that it was impossible to get work… First I ate three very light meals a day; then two and then one. During the past two weeks I have eaten only toast and a drunk a cup of tea every other day.

    Day after day I pass a delicatessen and the food in the window look oh, so good! So tempting and I’m so hungry!…The stamp which carries this letter to you will represent the last three cents I have in the world, yet before I will stoop to dishonour my family, my character or my God, I will drown myself in.

    Hamilton, Ontario

    http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/projects/canadianhistory/depression/depression.html

    ‘At the time, unemployment benefit lasted only for 26 weeks, and the Unemployment Assistance Board, created in 1934, provided inadequate relief for long-term unemployed people, who were put under the Poor Law, which forced them to do service for less money than normal. Senior generations of families were forcibly evicted from their family homes.’

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

    And, as I originally wrote:

    ‘In the United States, economic distress led to the election of the Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in late 1932. Roosevelt introduced a number of major changes in the structure of the American economy, using increased government regulation and massive public-works projects to promote a recovery. But despite this active intervention, mass unemployment and economic stagnation continued, though on a somewhat reduced scale, with about 15 percent of the work force still unemployed in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II. After that, unemployment dropped rapidly as American factories were flooded with orders from overseas for armaments and munitions. The depression ended completely soon after the United States’ entry into World War II in 1941.’

    http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm
20. dad4justice 20

    2 November 2011 at 8:44 pm

    Hey Mr Key any jobs in Christchurch?

    I just asked Brendan Burns who said he was deaf and dumb, so I hope you can answer my question? I rung Ruth and she was pissed and Lieanne lied to me again and called the police.  
21. randal 21

    2 November 2011 at 8:53 pm

    wow that5 a hole can of worns d6j.
    somebody got some essplainign to do.
    or opne z can of wqhipass on em.
    by by jon keese.
    • dad4justice 21.1

      2 November 2011 at 8:56 pm

      [sprout: comment deleted. incomprehensible]

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