Author Archive

Excellent question

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:57 am, December 9th, 2009 - 9 comments

An excellent question from Labour yesterday, using some familiar numbers: Hon Annette King: When he was reusing ‘unreliable, highly volatile, and potentially misleading’ [Paula Bennett’s words] figures yesterday, was he aware that unemployment drops around this time every year and that this year we are experiencing a smaller than usual seasonal drop of just 2.6 percent, […]

Are you ‘really’ unemployed?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:41 am, December 8th, 2009 - 5 comments

Governments use statistical tricks to lower the official unemployment rate. This fun video shows how many jobless people get swept under the carpet. It’s not that the statisticians aren’t aware of the jobless. In the US, they use different definitions of unemployment. ‘U-3’, the official unemployment rate only counts those people who are actively looking […]

Summer’s arrival thanks to me – Key

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:46 pm, December 7th, 2009 - 11 comments

John Key is still claiming credit for the drop in the number of people on the unemployment benefit that occurs every October and November due to seasonal jobs that disappear after Christmas. In his press conference today Key said that the number of people on the dole had fallen to 58,500, a 300-odd drop […]

Trans-Tasman ratings

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:39 pm, December 7th, 2009 - 18 comments

In a sure sign the silly season is upon us, the Trans-Tasman has released its annual MP ratings. Considering the writers of the Trans-Tasman are rabid rightwingers who view John Key as the second-coming, it’s hardly a surprise that Nats get high scores and the Left get low ones. Anne Tolley, a woman so stupid […]

Ethical meat on its way

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:58 am, December 4th, 2009 - 20 comments

Jon Stewart covers developments in the science around making meat without raising and killing an animal. Jon has a laugh of course but this is actually really exciting stuff. I’ve been following the developing science around this for a while. The upsides are huge. You can grow meat without the animal. That means no sow […]

Oram on the Brash Report

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:16 am, December 3rd, 2009 - 12 comments

Always worth listening to, Rod Oram rips the Brash Report on Nine to Noon, not just on the findings but on the quality of the work, that we’re paying half a million dollars for. Here are some of the choice quotes: “At every point it has unbelievably facile analysis and, in fact, substitutes rather generic […]

Guaranteed minimum income + capital tax, the way forward?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:19 am, December 2nd, 2009 - 49 comments

Occasionally something in politics really surprises you. Like when I turned over to Campbell Live last night (I’d seen the Family Guy episode too often) and there was Gareth Morgan proposing a guaranteed minimum income funded by a comprehensive capital tax. Guaranteed minimum income/negative income tax is hardly a new idea (I’ve been meaning to […]

Tax working group disappoints

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:27 am, December 2nd, 2009 - 2 comments

I’ve had quite high hopes for the Tax Working Group. I thought it would be a genuine, ground-up review of the tax system with no assumptions that would start with basic questions (1. what do we want the tax system to do?). However, I’ve been reading through the papers from the Tax Working Group conference yesterday and […]

Dubai: Subprime state

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:18 pm, December 1st, 2009 - 31 comments

Dubai is the subprime folly writ large. In the US, they built ‘exurbs’ in the Californian high desert, two hours each way from LA; rows of McMansions bought by people who couldn’t afford them whose lifestyles were dependent on cheap petrol*. In Dubai, they built skyscrapers in the desert; golf courses, swimming pools, even indoor […]

Tax Working Group report preview

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:59 am, December 1st, 2009 - 26 comments

Let’s hope the Tax Working Group’s report out today is more worthwhile than the effort of the 2025 Taskforce. The basic idea that has emerged from the interim reports is that we should try to take tax off income and put it on land. If you tax stuff that can”t moved out of the country, […]

No more jobs for Nats’ old mates

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, December 1st, 2009 - 49 comments

Apart from keeping Don Brash well stocked with corned beef in his dotage, what exactly are we getting out of the Government’s half million dollar 2025 Taskforce? The Brash Report is a joke. It reads like nothing so much as a collective ramblings of half a dozen geriatics who haven’t had a new idea in 20 […]

Digging for nuggets

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:17 pm, November 30th, 2009 - 78 comments

As we predicted, the main recommendations of the Brash report have been rejected out of hand by John Key. They are, as intended, mere headline grabbers – outlandish, silly ideas like flat tax funded by slashing government spending by 20% (that’s $17 billion). Forget relatively minor measures like cutting free early childhood education and putting […]

Nats’ dismal record on jobs and benefits

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:28 pm, November 29th, 2009 - 20 comments

In opposition, National claimed that Labour wasn’t really getting people off benefits, it was just moving them from unemployment benefit and ‘hiding’ them on the sickness and invalid’s benefits – Paula Bennett repeated the claim just this week in the House. But the facts prove otherwise. When Labour was in power, there was small […]

No amateur hour for real leaders

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:37 am, November 29th, 2009 - 15 comments

Among the breathless reporting of who John Key is having a meeting with (‘he’s talking to the Queen!’ ‘he’s going to talk to India’s PM), as if a meeting itself is an outcome, an achievement, I’ve seen one very interesting comment on CHOGM. On her blog, Audrey Young writes about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s appearance […]

Everybody else is going, so why can’t we?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:11 am, November 28th, 2009 - 16 comments

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon have called on world leaders to attend the Copenhagen talks on the new climate change treaty. President Obama will be attending as will the leaders of most major countries. Yet John Key still says he almost certainly won’t go, even after New Zealanders raised the money […]

Why was Worth fired?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:33 pm, November 27th, 2009 - 37 comments

The Police have announced they will not be laying any charges against Richard Worth over the incident involving him and a Korean woman in a hotel room. That’s not an exoneration from wrongdoing, of course, but it puts to rest the criminal case. Now, it’s time for John Key to tell us why he […]

Who wins from digging up Coromandel

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:42 am, November 27th, 2009 - 17 comments

Gerry Brownlee is talking of digging up Coromandel to extract a few tens of millions of dollars worth of gold. Naturally, the company that owns the Waihi mine is all for it. The local community gets little benefit from mining. According to the 2006 census, unemployment in Waihi is twice the national average (8.3% at […]

Tax reform for everyone, not just the rich

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:26 am, November 27th, 2009 - 42 comments

Why is it that whenever you see discussion of introducing capital gains tax, land tax etc, the assumption is always that the money will be used to cut the top tax rates? That seems completely misguided to me. Why should tax reform be all about taking tax burden off those most able to bear it? […]

As newspapers die, what comes next?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:16 pm, November 25th, 2009 - 22 comments

The recession, combined with the long-term shift to internet-based media struck a king-hit to US newspapers over the last year. Circulation fell 10.9%. There is now just one newspaper produced per day for every ten Americans (produced, not sold, many are given away). In the UK, things were slightly better but the drop was still […]

Who’s next?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:04 am, November 25th, 2009 - 13 comments

I was watching that vid by the Greens on ACC and bikoi. What caught my attention was the bikers’ chant: “who’s next, who’s next?” The Right loves to atomise us – make us think of ourselves only as individuals or narrow interest groups. Our reaction to the bikers getting hammered with these unecessary ACC hikes […]

It’s not spin, the govt told me

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:18 am, November 24th, 2009 - Comments Off on It’s not spin, the govt told me

The Dompost reports: “The number of places available on a programme to get young people off the dole will be increased after the Government credited it with a drop in unemployment”. Sigh, it’s the seasons, stupid. There has been no drop in unemployment, that went up to 6.5% in the last stats. The number of […]

We can do better

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:24 pm, November 23rd, 2009 - 59 comments

By and large the Right are refusing to defend their neoliberal monetary policy system. The currency is causing chaos, the housing bubble is back, and the Reserve Bank is in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ position as it tries to control inflation. But the Right treat the neoliberal doctrine like a […]

Lunch time quiz

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:37 pm, November 23rd, 2009 - 23 comments

1) What the hell is John Key trying to say here? “Maori are not getting special preference, if you go back to those pre-1990 forests Maori are significant owners in that area, so is Ngai Tahu, those forests are all affected by the emissions trading scheme unless we can get a change at Copenhagen and […]

It’s the seasons, stupid

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:11 am, November 23rd, 2009 - 40 comments

Over the last week or so, I’ve heard John Key, Bill English, and Paula Bennett all make self-congratulatory references to the number of people receiving the unemployment benefit decreasing in October. That sounded weird to me. No-one seriously thinks unemployment has stopped increasing. MSD doesn’t regularly release the month by month data but I eventually managed […]

Oh dear, what a fizzer

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:25 pm, November 21st, 2009 - 57 comments

The pro-child assault lobby spent $500,000 trying to manufacture the biggest march in New Zealand history up Queen St today. The reports say fewer than 5,000 took part. Oh dear. What does that work out at? More than $100 per marcher? Gee, if you’d offered me that much I would have walked back down Queen St too. Update: a couple of pics. Looks […]

A whole lotta nothing

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, November 20th, 2009 - 14 comments

In a speech to National Party members yesterday John Key read out a list of everything the government has done in the last year. Talk about weak, when the public disgruntlement with this do-nothing govenment has reached a level where they’re resorting to ‘not even, we’ve done heaps’. Audrey Young reports the list ran to […]

Monetary policy needs to change

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:29 am, November 20th, 2009 - 66 comments

I’m really happy that Phil Goff has taken monetary policy up as an issue. The current system – a puritanical neoliberal model set in place twenty years ago – has never worked particularly well and has now become a major threat to this country’s ability to export competitively. Monetary policy is a big issue, as […]

NZ should follow Norway’s example on oil

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:00 pm, November 19th, 2009 - 25 comments

National has released its petroleum strategy. It appears they plan to further lower our already low royalties to encourage foreign oil companies to come here, dig up our finite our reserves as fast as they can and make off with huge profits. Just about the dumbest attitude you can have to irreplaceable natural resources like […]

Plutonomy

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:29 pm, November 18th, 2009 - 45 comments

In Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story (which is excellent, btw) he refers to two 2005 Citigroup memos about â€˜plutonomy’ economies and political structures designed with the primary purpose of further enriching the rich. They’re stunning, not only for their frank admission that capitalism favours a tiny portion of the population at the expense of […]

Laugh track

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:57 pm, November 18th, 2009 - 6 comments

As Irish has already noted, Fran O’Sullivan has savaged John Key’s record on employment and said that Paula Bennett is “too busy puffing her own achievements to pay much heed” to warnings on the dire long term-effects of high youth unemployment. What caught my eye was her quote from Key at the start. President Obama is looking for ways […]

Urgent action needed on job creation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:29 am, November 17th, 2009 - 9 comments

We’ve talked a lot about the negative effects of unemployment on the unemployed and their communities (depression, crime, family breakup, poor health, poor educational outcomes for children etc) but there’s another group that benefits from fewer people being on benefits – people with jobs. Check out the graph. At the end of the 1990s, there […]