Author Archive

Imperfect but far better than the alternative

Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, January 14th, 2009 - 11 comments

It’s good to see Kiwipolitico taking a critical view of the Left from the Left – it’s certainly better than any critiques we see from the Right. And, naturally,  within the Left we disagree at times, which is all good and healthy. In that spirit, I thought I would respond to two posts on Kiwipolitico […]

The Standard wager

Written By: - Date published: 2:38 pm, January 14th, 2009 - 23 comments

John Key has announced his ‘jobs summit’ at the end of Feburary saying “I don’t want this to be a talk fest, I want it to be a do-fest.” “Do-fest”, eh? Sounds sexy. Place your bets on which media commentator will be the first to enthusiastically adopt or warmly commend this latest meaningless piece of […]

How peak oil can devastate the rest of the economy

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, January 14th, 2009 - 24 comments

We all know the story of the sub-prime crisis that had developed into the credit crisis  – a flood of credit saw mortgage lenders lending to anyone, including people who couldn’t really afford the repayments. To get these potentially bad loans off their books, the banks pooled them together into new, unregulated instruments and sold […]

Govt creaks into inaction

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, January 13th, 2009 - 29 comments

Only four weeks into a well-deserved holiday following two frantic weeks stripping Kiwis of their work rights, the National/ACT Government has been spurred back into action by an emerging crisis. No, not the international financial meltdown. Nup, not peak oil, nor climate change, nor the recession. The crisis that has seen the Government suddenly announce […]

Change of career for Campbell?

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, January 13th, 2009 - 4 comments

Is John Campbell leaving TV to pursue his childhood dream of being a pugilist? No, it’s diminutive Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez. Uncanny resemblance though. (hattip: Hugo – googling himself apparently)

Serendipity, now with dinosaurs

Written By: - Date published: 6:11 am, January 13th, 2009 - Comments Off on Serendipity, now with dinosaurs

When will oil peak?

Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, January 12th, 2009 - 40 comments

We’ve seen that oil production in oil fields and countries peaks long before the oil actually runs out, and as individual countries go, so must, inevitably go the world. Once the amount of oil the world is capable of producing starts to fall, things are going to get difficult. Our economy is the use of […]

Time for a truce in sentencing bidding war

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, January 12th, 2009 - 10 comments

An interesting article from the Sydney Morning Herald: THE NSW Opposition has pledged to end the “law and order auction” in a dramatic break with the tradition of promising to increase punishments and fill jails that has characterised every state election campaign since 1988. The Coalition’s justice spokesman, Greg Smith, who entered Parliament in 2007 […]

The supply of oil must peak, get used to it

Written By: - Date published: 3:24 pm, January 9th, 2009 - 27 comments

There is only so much oil in the world. It was all formed when, over the course of a few hundred million years, creatures living in shallow seas died and their remains accumulated and were subjected to a very particular combination of heat and pressure for hundreds of millions of years. We know where all the sedimentary […]

Anger, that’ll solve our problems

Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, January 9th, 2009 - 11 comments

Yesterday, Labour leader Phil Goff challenged National to present its plan for getting the economy through the global downturn. Halfway through National/ACT’s much-hyped first 100 days and, Goff pointed out, while Obama and the UK are pushing ahead with a ‘Green New Deal’ we’ve seen nothing from National/ACT except the cancelation of the one Green […]

What’s the economy? or why energy matters

Written By: - Date published: 4:08 pm, January 8th, 2009 - 35 comments

The more I learn about energy, and peak oil in particular, the more concerned I get. So, in the spirit of the season, I thought I would share some of it with you. I’ll get to some concrete things we need to start doing now to mitigate as much as we can the impact of falling […]

Splits and divisions

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, January 7th, 2009 - 57 comments

Which MP only got his job by 39 votes? Which former State house kid and brand-new Tory MP already has ambitions to be the next John Key? Which National MP from a working-class background is going around telling people he opposes the 90 Day Fire at Will law and thinks rushing it through was a […]

Get out of Gaza

Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, January 5th, 2009 - 85 comments

Israel’s latest attack on Gaza, purportedly to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, is an unjustified, immoral, and, above all, stupid action. I am not defending Hamas’ rocket attacks at all – while many are targeted at Israeli military forces most are simply indiscriminate. I’m saying they don’t justify Israel’s response. Yep, Hamas fires a […]

Pillow talk

Written By: - Date published: 6:57 am, January 5th, 2009 - 17 comments

I’ve been thinking about the concurrent crises we face – peak oil, climate change, and tightening food supply – how the limits to growth are starting to hit us and how, each reinforcing the other, they constitute the major challenges to our collective welfare in the years to come. I’ve been thinking about how we […]

The recession, graphically

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, December 23rd, 2008 - 42 comments

OK, one last graph for the year. The latest GDP data isn’t pretty, a 0.4% contraction of the economy in the September quarter. It’s the third quarter of contraction in a row driven by the drought, oil prices, and the credit crunch. The ongoing international financial turmoil means we are likely to continue in recession […]

Spend, baby, spend

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, December 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments

Retailers are whining and the Herald has taken on the role of nanny-state, telling us it is our social responsibility but more stuff and to take on more consumer debt. It’s called economics, apparently. So, get out there and spend, people. What are you, socialists? Anyhoo, that’s pretty much me for the year. We’re going […]

Mindless vandalism

Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, December 21st, 2008 - 27 comments

The intersection of The Terrace and Salamanca Rd is the best graffiti spot in Wellington – big bare concrete wall, huge audience. For several months, ‘Kiwibank – gone by lunchtime’ has been written in large letters on the concrete wall. Recently ‘and National too’ was added below, and, then, a stencil of a police officer […]

Granny’s advice – spend up dearies

Written By: - Date published: 3:56 pm, December 20th, 2008 - 27 comments

Economics 101: if you consume more than you produce, your standard of living is unsustainable and, unless you fix the situation, it will eventually come tumbling down. As a country we import more than we export equivalent to 8% of our annual domestic production. The current account deficit is projected to widen to 9.4% of GDP next […]

Key delivers a Christmas kicking for workers

Written By: - Date published: 2:35 pm, December 19th, 2008 - 52 comments

We always said that a National/ACT government would be anti-worker but I’m surprised by how blatant they are being about it. In a series of hasty, secretive laws, they’ve put up taxes on workers, cut their Kiwisaver, and removed their work rights for the first 90 days of employment. Now, they have officially dropped the […]

Partial credit

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, December 19th, 2008 - 29 comments

Yay, more infrastructure spending during a recession. That’s the right thing to do – stimulate the economy and spend while the price of construction is lower. But why, oh why, cancel spending on rail and housing insulation and put the money into roads, instead? The only reason I can think of is that National/ACT doesn’t […]

Thoughts arising from the press gallery drinks

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, December 19th, 2008 - 45 comments

I had some good conversations with journos at the press gallery drinks. We’re often critical of the media, and sometimes specific journos, and I don’t resile from that – criticism is criticism, it’s either well-founded or not and people are free to take it or leave it based on that. I’ll admit sometimes writers express […]

It’s bad, what to do?

Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, December 18th, 2008 - 48 comments

The latest Treasury economic forecasts are out and, in a continuing pattern, they not only make worse reading than the previous updates but they are already out of date. We are now looking at gross government debt rising from less to 20% to 30% or as much as 40% by 2013. Unemployment could rise above […]

The final cut

Written By: - Date published: 1:01 pm, December 18th, 2008 - 1 comment

Gratitude

Written By: - Date published: 4:49 pm, December 17th, 2008 - 39 comments

I haven’t commented on the maiden speeches yet (we’re doing some analysis later) but I can’t let this stand. Aaron Gilmore, the bottom-ranked National List MP who got in by 39 votes, is having his maiden speech. He started by remembering growing up in a state house, going to school, a teacher giving him some lunch. […]

Somewhat suspicious

Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, December 17th, 2008 - 21 comments

Gerry ‘sexy coal’ Brownlee has spent today ripping apart more anti-climate change laws. Today, under urgency and without the opportunity for the public to contribute via the select committee process, National/ACT has repealed the Biofuels requirement and is now in the process of repealing the ‘ban’ on new baseload fossil fuel power plants. Disturbingly National/ACT’s […]

Time to reconsider Hobsonville

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, December 17th, 2008 - 29 comments

After initially saying they would cap the number of state houses, National/ACT’s Housing Minister Phil Heatley actually got informed. Despite the good work that Labour did increasing the number of state houses and their quality, the problem has not been completely solved – there are thousands of families still in need of affordable housing. Now, Heatley says, there […]

Be pragmatic

Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 3 comments

A fundamental of social democratic politics is full employment. It is sometimes said that work is the best form of welfare. When people are in work they have a sense of belonging and self-worth, they commit fewer crimes, they contribute to funding public services, they can afford a better standard of living for their families. […]

Garth McVicar – racist

Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 59 comments

Here’s a quiz. Can you name the one killing that has seen Sensible Sentencing’s barking mad Garth McVicar support the killer and argue, in direct contrast to his normal practice, that the sentence ought to have been more lenient? And can you point to the unusual socio-economic conditions around this killing? Yup. The only, only, killing […]

He’s a fan

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 2 comments

Just in: Coldplay to play at Vector Arena on March 18th. No word yet on whether John Key has managed to get tickets.

A bad start, don’t expect improvement

Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, December 16th, 2008 - 16 comments

We’ve seen a plethora of commentators criticising the National/ACT’s performance thus far. Colin James sums it up well: Key’s past week was mixed at best, notably in the House where his take on mandate reeks of FPP arrogance. His tap-dancing on climate change risks serious consequences. He badly needs lessons in international relations. James goes […]

Making a mockery

Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, December 15th, 2008 - 19 comments

Shock news as Key’s media trainer praises Key Bill Ralston thinks Key is doing just super, which is perhaps to be expected since Key employs Ralston’s company for media training. He also thinks this whole ‘democracy’ thing is a bit of a pain in the arse and it’s great that National/ACT is ignoring it: “Where […]