Author Archive

Key’s $155b subsidy to polluters

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:27 pm, November 16th, 2009 - 38 comments

A month ago, I wrote that National’s moves to gut the Emissions Trading Scheme would increase government debt by $73 billion by 2050. A Treasury report said that National’s ETS changes to subsidise polluters would see government debt 6-8% of GDP higher than it otherwise would be. GDP in 2050 is modelled at $914 billion, so 8% […]

Recession’s causes still not fixed

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:28 am, November 16th, 2009 - 41 comments

Recessions are meant to be about fixing economic problems that built up during the previous boom – unwinding imbalances in the parlance. Higher unemployment, with all its consequences, business failures, and higher government debt are the price of putting the economy on a more sustainable platform for the future. But it’s not happening. All the […]

Failures of leadership: English, Hide, and Harawira

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:57 pm, November 15th, 2009 - 66 comments

I know this point/counterpoint series of posts on Hone Harawira maybe getting a bit tiresome but I have to disagree with the assertion in a couple of recent ones that Harawira has been treated more harshly Bill English and Rodney Hide or, by implication, than a Pakeha in his situation would have. And I think that those […]

Greens greenwashing for anti-environment govt

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:46 am, November 14th, 2009 - 11 comments

The Greens have announced the collapse of the cornerstone of their Memorandum of Understanding with National. With Gerry Brownlee as Minister for Energy, National hasn’t only failed to make progress on energy efficiency and conservation, it is taking illogical, retrograde steps. So why are the Greens continuing to provide greenwash for this government? I’m thinking about […]

More jobs and pay bad – JPMorgan

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:19 am, November 13th, 2009 - 7 comments

I was sent a press release from financiers JPMorgan in Australia. There’s a line in it that reveals much about how the capitalist class views the rest of us. “labour shortages and wage pressures probably will rear their heads again. This will, of course, be a concern for the RBA [Reserve Bank of Australia]” Let […]

Harawira offensive & dumb. No excuses

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, November 13th, 2009 - 73 comments

Frankly, I don’t appreciate being called a white motherf**ker, by Buddy Mikaere and Hone Harawira. Before you start, that’s not to deny that Pakeha stole vast amounts of Maori resources despite the treaty signed between the Crown and iwi, and in spite of the Crown’s own laws. The thief – the Crown – and the victims – the […]

The resistance

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:41 am, November 12th, 2009 - 5 comments

A very well-produced youtube vid on National’s distortions over ACC The clever thing National has done is set up ACC as the agent of its own demise. With Business Roundtable member John Judge in charge ACC has become a propaganda wing for National’s anti-ACC rubbish. Judge and Nick Smith have created a false air of […]

Wages fall, except for union members

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:05 am, November 12th, 2009 - 42 comments

The Labour Cost Index tells us that most workers this year failed to get pay rises to match inflation in the past year. 52% got no increase. 4% got less than inflation (2%, represented by the green line on the graph). 1% even got pay cuts. That’s a dramatic change on a year ago. Well, so […]

Spin cycle finally into 1st gear

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:30 am, November 11th, 2009 - 7 comments

I’m all for cycle-ways but excuse me if I don’t get all silly over John Key knocking a post in the ground in Waikato and declaring his first cycle-way under way. The reality is the Waikato River Trail was being built anyway. In fact, it is already over half built. So this $3 million isn’t actually creating […]

To [insert region here] or not [insert region here]

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:33 pm, November 10th, 2009 - 12 comments

Looks like Nicky Wagner’s having the same trouble* as Jackie Blue: …the National-led Government is committed to helping more children take part in organised sport at school, after school, and during the holidays. We want all Kiwi kids to have the opportunity to play sport. We know too many schools in [insert region here] struggle to […]

Jackie Blue: Committed to [insert region here]

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:50 am, November 10th, 2009 - 28 comments

An alert reader who, for reasons one can only wonder about, was on Jackie Blue’s website spotted this: Tuesday, November 3. 2009 Launch of National Standards Reading, writing and maths are the basic building blocks all children need to learn to get the best start in life. Currently one in five students leave school without […]

Farrar vs the facts

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 9th, 2009 - 36 comments

I’ve never quite understood why David Farrar, who is after all paid to do statistical work, insists on performing transparent statistical tricks on his blog. Yesterday, he did a post with figures on the number of 15-19 year olds with jobs. He argued that it showed removing the youth rate and giving everyone the same […]

Tolley: national standards could be disaster

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:20 am, November 9th, 2009 - 23 comments

The man National credits with coming up with the idea of national standards has warned the incompetence of Education Minister Anne Tolley could make it a disaster and Tolley agrees. John Hattie told the Sunday Star Times national standards: Could be the most disastrous education policy ever formulated. Will only barely raise student achievement, if […]

Unemployment up, productivity up

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:51 am, November 9th, 2009 - 9 comments

Like here in New Zealand, unemployment continues to climb in America. And one of the results is soaring productivity. (sources: 1,2) But wait, isn’t higher productivity good? In normal circumstances, yes, when it comes about from capital deepening (ie businesses investing in equipment rather than taking profits) or a more educated workforce. But productivity will […]

Not walking the talk

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:30 pm, November 8th, 2009 - 18 comments

I’m not against Prime Ministers making limited use of Airforce aircraft when necessary – when commercial flights or (better) surface travel aren’t practical. It’s cheaper and more efficient than having dedicated aircraft that would hardly ever be used. But Key using two Iroquois, each flying for eight hours, just so he could get from Blenheim to Kiakoura […]

Hide slammed for telling the truth on Key

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:52 pm, November 7th, 2009 - 33 comments

Some pretty damning pieces on on Hide today from John Armstrong, Tracy Watkins, and Fran O’Sullivan. They compare him to Winston Peters and say he ought to apologise to various groups for his troughing and his comments that John Key “doesn’t do anything”. What I find fascinating, though, is that a senior and powerful minister gave his […]

OIA docs confirm English wrote propaganda ad script

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:22 pm, November 6th, 2009 - 38 comments

Documents that the government was forced to release under the Official Information Act reveal that Bill English exercised extensive control and sign-off over each stage of his million dollar political propaganda ad, funded by publicly-owned broadcaster TVNZ. The documents (which, unfortunately, the media organisations have not seen fit to release to the public in full) […]

The myth of upward mobility

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, November 6th, 2009 - 62 comments

Yesterday, we looked at what a vastly unfair and unequal system capitalism is. The control of the fruits of production by the few means that wealth accumulates to them and the rest of us get a pittance. The wealthiest 10% of people own over half of the wealth of this country – net worths of […]

Herald scathing of Tolley

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:22 am, November 6th, 2009 - 5 comments

The Herald was just about as damning as they get of National on Tuesday, with Claire Trevett’s piece on Anne Tolley. Of course, the Herald is never going to out and out criticise a National minister but between the fluff and odd anti-left remarks (“lippy unions”, “excessive regulation”) there’s some pretty tough comments. That Tolley […]

16,000 more jobs lost

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:40 pm, November 5th, 2009 - 14 comments

The number of employed people fell from 2,170,000 to 2,154,000 in the three months to September*. There are 54,000 fewer people in jobs than December last year. 16,000 jobs were lost in three months – 240 per work day. Unemployment rose another 0.5% to 6.5%, the first time it has been that high since National […]

Is this as good as it gets?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:59 am, November 5th, 2009 - 66 comments

Most of the wealth in New Zealand is owned by a tiny fraction of the people because our political/economic system makes it that way. 10% of people have more income than 50% combined. That’s just income. The inequality of wealth distribution is far greater. The net wealth of 10% of people is 20 times […]

Key & English lose us $21mil in 3 months

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:23 pm, November 4th, 2009 - 40 comments

Back in February, former currency speculator John Key and former Treasury adviser Bill English started talking about suspending contributions to the Cullen Fund, which was set up to help fund superannuation. ‘It’s losing so much money’, they wailed. Some people pointed out that the markets were already recovering, that investments could now be bought at […]

A good reform, but a minor one

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, November 4th, 2009 - 37 comments

I watched Terminator 3 last night. It’s the worst in the series but that’s still better than watching another Guyon-National lovefest*. Which is a long way of saying I didn’t see the Bill English ‘debate’ on TVNZ7 last night. But apparently the most interesting part of it was English didn’t rule out changes to taxation […]

Kiwis should be free-riders – NZIER

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:42 am, November 3rd, 2009 - 15 comments

A nice attempt at wedge politics from rightwing economic think-tank NZIER today. They say we should be concentrating on water quality, air quality, and saving native species, rather than climate change – a transparent attempt to divide conservationists from environmentalists. The entire substance of this ‘report‘ is a table on page 17 that doesn’t actually […]

Granny’s waterworks

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 2nd, 2009 - 17 comments

I think Granny Herald must have shares in Infratil, based on her rubbish editorial today: Particular fervour is reserved for private-sector participation in this sector, perhaps because water is one of life’s necessities. Rarely is it conceded that, in reality, it occupies the same utility bag as electricity, which in this country and elsewhere has […]

English’s strange priorities

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:49 am, November 2nd, 2009 - 51 comments

Talk about bereft of ideas, the currency is yo-yoing, the housing bubble is re-inflating, wages are falling, jobs are still being lost in large numbers, the oil price is back above $80 but what’s the Finance Minister Bill English spending his time on? Some good old-fashioned beneficiary bashing. English announced there will be new measures […]

Exchange rates, Kiwisaver, breaking promises, & the art of doing nothing

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:35 pm, October 31st, 2009 - 8 comments

A range of interesting political/economic comment today in the Herald: Fran O’Sullivan joins the left-wing and groups like Federated Farmers in calling on the Key Government to sort out monetary policy. At the moment, the Reserve Bank is tasked solely with controlling inflation with interest rates as its only real tool, while the exchange is […]

Key OK with ministers’ backdoor perk

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:58 am, October 30th, 2009 - 26 comments

I’m sure you noticed Hide’s latest shenanigans – getting his partner taxpayer subsidised international flights despite Key’s directive not to. Key (surprise, surprise) is ‘comfortable’ with this because Hide used Parliamentary not Ministerial funds. Hide was taking a jaunt around London and Toronto to see other ‘Supercities’ close-up (unfortunately, he ignored the lessons). It was a ministerial trip but we paid […]

Treasury provides cover for Nats’ rightwing agenda

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:07 am, October 30th, 2009 - 19 comments

National’s favourite public servant (who got himself a nice pay rise), John Whitehead, has been offering dire warnings of the future. $2 trillion in debt by 2050! Something must be done! Naturally, the Treasury has an extreme right-wing solution – cut everything: cut health – yeah, a less healthy workforce that’ll be great for the […]

Nats flying high, on your dime

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:30 pm, October 29th, 2009 - 16 comments

Why is our agriculture minister spending as much as the Prime Minister on international travel? David Carter has spent $72,000 on international travel in nine months Peter Dunne, Minister of Revenue, has spent $76,000 Judith Collins, $70K. Anne Tolley $79,000. 70-80K each – we’re talking about enough money to buy half a dozen last minute […]

Myth-busting: ACC and injuries

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:00 pm, October 28th, 2009 - 20 comments

One of the Right’s silly myths, never backed up by any facts, is that not privatising ACC leads to more injuries. The logic (and it’s a logic only the money-obsessed could come up with) is that private workplace insurers would charge higher premiums for dangerous workplaces and lower premiums for safer workplaces – this would […]