capitalism

Categories under capitalism

Incompetent management forces Shearer & Brown off fence

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, March 12th, 2012 - 47 comments

After months on the side-line, David Shearer and Len Brown have been forced to choose a side in the Ports of Auckland dispute by the irrational and unreasonable behaviour of the Ports management. Shearer has come out against casualisation and marched with the workers in Saturday. Brown has offered mediation between the parties.

Women kept out of the boardroom

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 pm, March 8th, 2012 - 19 comments

Stuff has a report telling us what we already know: an old boys’ network keeps women out of the boardroom in Australia and New Zealand. This clubbiness is just one of the reasons we’re such an unequal country. A small network of white middle-class males appoint each other to the boards of their companies, then set each other’s pay

Management incompetence costs POAL millions

Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, March 8th, 2012 - 28 comments

Ports of Auckland wants to increase profits by slashing pay-packets by 20% – $6m. So far, the process has cost them at least $28m. Add $9m for redundancies. Add the cost of continuing interruption as the contractors are established. Add the cost of blacklisting. Add the cost of customers that have shifted ports. Len Brown should sack the POAL management for incompetence.

Save our port

Written By: - Date published: 6:14 am, March 6th, 2012 - 14 comments

POAL back to bargaining table

Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, March 2nd, 2012 - 47 comments

4 days into 4 weeks of strikes, Ports of Auckland is back at the bargaining table. From usually docking 4 ships a day, they’ve docked 2 in 4 – 88% reduction. POAL can’t provide service. Ships are going elsewhere in our over-capitalised port system and might not come back. The Council will be screaming blue murder at the loss of revenue and business disruption. How long till management folds?

Wanna stop problem gamblers? Close the casinos

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 1st, 2012 - 133 comments

SkyCity is shrugging its shoulders after 2 adults left 5 children in locked in a van while they gambled in its casino. This is the 25th such incident this year. Yes, these are bad parents. SkyCity profits by problem gamblers acting impulsively and irrationally chasing rewards ignoring the costs – that’s exactly what its customers do when they leave their kids in cars to go gamble.

Why the Right wants to deny that unions increase wages

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, February 29th, 2012 - 98 comments

Union wage rises beat non-union every time. It’s basic market theory. If workers bargain individually they are in perfect competition with each other and become price takers. Together they have market power. Hence: “united we bargain, divided we beg”. But the Right doesn’t want you to know that. They want to break the unions to strangle wage rises.

Private sector can’t compete with ACC

Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, February 27th, 2012 - 35 comments

Government documents from last year reveal a plan to make ACC boost its levies and pay the government a dividend so that private insurers can compete. But that wasn’t enough. Now, the plan seems to be to exclude ACC from workplace injury insurance altogether. Private insurers just can’t offer cover as cheap as ACC can. So that Nats’ solution is to deny us access to ACC workplace cover.

Bosses move to drive wages down

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, February 27th, 2012 - 89 comments

John Key said he “would love to see wages drop“, and his government has achieved that but they’re just getting started. This is the year when the gloves come off. Ports of Auckland is trying to slash its wage bill by 20%. Talley’s-AFFCO is locking out 750 workers indefinitely. And DHBs are trying to scare nurses ahead of their pay negotiations with the spectre of job cuts.

The real crims wear white collars

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, February 25th, 2012 - 74 comments

Directorships are the golden ticket in the world of the business elite. You attend maybe 10 meetings a year, sign whatever’s put in front of you, typically get paid $3-4K a pop, and do it over again half a dozen times or more for various companies. It’s a gravy train for managers past their use by date. But customers and shareholders have to trust what directors sign off on.

Joyce’s dirty deals: international convention centre

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, February 23rd, 2012 - 57 comments

Steven ‘White Elephant’ Joyce isn’t content with building highways to nowhere with costs that exceed the benefits. Now he wants an international convention centre in Auckland that’s just as pointless. But he doesn’t want the government to pay. So, he’s cutting a dirty deal with more law for sale and more pokie machines blighting our communities.

Behind the hockey stick

Written By: - Date published: 11:09 am, February 19th, 2012 - 137 comments

There have been several interesting pieces on the politics of climate change recently, including some reflections (and a new book) from Michael Mann (the scientist behind the “hockey stick”), and leaked documents from the denier industry.

NRT: And so its come to this…

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, February 18th, 2012 - 16 comments

No Right Turn on the plight of democracy in Greece.

Foreign banks bleeding us dry

Written By: - Date published: 6:47 am, February 14th, 2012 - 340 comments

The Bankers’ Crisis is hurting people all over the world. From the deepest, darkest austerity in Greece, to the continuing foreclosure tsunami in the US, to cutbacks and job losses here, it’s the ordinary people suffering the hangover for the bankers’ wild decades of unbridled excess and profit. But at least the banks are suffering too, eh? Yeah, nah.

Political orthodoxy and economic reality

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, February 13th, 2012 - 68 comments

Capitalism is good. Globalisation is good. It’s political orthodoxy. But is it matched by economic reality? Perhaps not. Recent pieces by Bernard Hickey and Gordon Campbell give us plenty to think about…

Wanted: more news like this

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, February 2nd, 2012 - 16 comments

A remarkably nice worker/boss story from across the ditch: Australian Ken Grenda may have sold his bus company, but his staff of almost 2,000 are smiling. Mr Grenda gave cash bonuses totalling A$15m ($16m, £10m) from proceeds of the sale to employees of his 66-year-old Melbourne-based company. The bonuses, averaging A$8,500, were based on the length […]

Gibson puts his money where his mouth is

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, January 16th, 2012 - 20 comments

An interesting passage from Herald on Sunday article on Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson and Maritime Union President Garry Parsloe: … “Gibson won’t confirm reports he earns $750,000, saying “I don’t do this for the money,” … Parsloe grins. “They should stop paying him then. That would save the port quite a lot of money every year for a start”

What’s really going on at Ports of Auckland 2

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, January 10th, 2012 - 256 comments

Since my post yesterday, Ports of Auckland has upped the ante  threatening to sack all its workers and contract out (to quick and loud cheers from the National-aligned blogs they are working with – Cameron Slater’s rate is $10,000 for an operation like this). What they’re proposing is a breach of the law and wouldn’t work, but its just setting the scene for the next stage.

What’s really going on at Ports of Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 pm, January 9th, 2012 - 125 comments

The Right is up to its old tricks over the Ports of Auckland. It’s the usual pattern: make up some bullshit about how the workers are spoiled and unreasonable, cry that the sky will fall if the company doesn’t get its way, and (this is the long-game) suggest privatisation as the solution. What you haven’t heard is the cause of the ‘crisis’: the Port’s attempt to cut the workers’ conditions and pay.

Rich attacks unions

Written By: - Date published: 6:56 pm, December 27th, 2011 - 98 comments

Katherine Rich attacks the waterside union in an opinion piece today.

But that’s not surprising given she’s being paid to speak on behalf of some of the biggest corporations in the world.

Anyone would think there’s some kind of connection between how strong unions are and how big a slice of the pie the rich can take for themselves…

The poor get richer?

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 pm, December 13th, 2011 - 81 comments

Phil O’Reilly’s article in today’s DomPost headed “The rich get richer but so do the poor ” is appalling.  Responding to the OECD report on inequality, he is following in the footsteps of Alasdair Thompson. BusinessNZ are still dinosaur employers  from the Victorian age.

The Most Important Economic Speech of His Presidency

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, December 10th, 2011 - 40 comments

Truth-Out content is licensed for redistribution, so I’m going to repost this excellent piece in its entirety. It’s long, but it’s worth it.  Is Obama going to grow a pair at last?

The biggest fraud

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, December 8th, 2011 - 99 comments

In its final days, South Canterbury Finance quietly loaned $300m to related-parties. Breach of the deposit guarantee scheme’s rules. Nats did nothing. When SCF collapsed the related parties got off scot-free – if they owned SCF bonds, the Nats even paid them $350m voluntarily. Now, the Serious Fraud Office has laid the biggest fraud charges in history over SCF. What’s the bet it’s over those related-party loans and bonds? And where’s our fucken money?

Law firm sets out business wish list

Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, December 1st, 2011 - 97 comments

Law firm Chapman Tripp has taken it upon itself to summarise the business community’s expectations for National’s second term.  Back to youth rates, and that’s just for starters.

If we stick with the status quo

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, November 24th, 2011 - 14 comments

Another of those pictures that is worth a thousand words.

Wall St Occupation evicted

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, November 16th, 2011 - 14 comments

As has been widely reported, the Wall Street occupation at Zuccotti Park was evicted in an overnight raid yesterday. By refocusing media attention on the Occupation, will this eviction only make them stronger?

Who really benefits from asset sales

Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, November 12th, 2011 - 25 comments

Brent Sheather assesses the case for asset sales in today’s Herald. He cuts through the crap and concludes “selling the SOEs doesn’t look all that clever, particularly from the perspective of young people and those other sectors of society who won’t be able to participate in the offers in any material way. This is likely to be at least half the population.” He looks at who really benefits, and it’s the fortunate few once again.

The impact of right wing economics

Written By: - Date published: 8:14 am, November 6th, 2011 - 32 comments

1980 saw the election of Ronald Regan as US president. On taking office at the start of 1981 he ushered in a package of right wing economic policies that soon picked up the nick-name “Reganomics”. How did that work out for workers and for inequality?

Dr David Suzuki message to the world

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, November 3rd, 2011 - 4 comments

This address from Dr David Suzuki to the world, delivered to a gathering at Occupy Vancouver, attracted some attention in comments yesterday. Well worth watching.

Greek democracy

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, November 3rd, 2011 - 82 comments

So, a government says that the people will have the say on its budget, and global markets plunge. Was there ever a clearer sign that the interests of the capitalist elite and the people are at odds, and the capitalists know it? It’s interesting that Papandreou has chosen to force a crisis and headed off a coup. Around the world, ordinary people want radical change.

Evicting Occupy Dunedin

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, November 2nd, 2011 - 20 comments

Yesterday was a dramatic day for Occupy Dunedin.  A trespass eviction deadline of 8pm came and went, but after a big show of public support, the Occupation is still there.  Dunedin North Labour candidate David Clark lends his support to the movement.