class war

Money and happiness

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:50 am, May 1st, 2011 - 35 comments

How do we improve a society’s happiness most effectively?  By lifting the poor out of poverty.  By increasing wealth where we get more happiness bang for our income buck, and reducing the disparity between rich and poor.  So why are we currently moving in the opposite direction?

“Politics of envy”

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:03 pm, April 20th, 2011 - 77 comments

National Party blogger David Farrar is whining about the “politics of envy”.

He seems to think we shouldn’t be mean to Key because he’s rich and making us poor.

Cry me a river.

The class politics of Lotto

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:00 am, April 18th, 2011 - 129 comments

Bright Red asks why people buy Lotto when, for the vast majority, gambling means losing money in the long-run. Because gambling gives a taste, a tiny chance of a life-changing win. It’s no coincidence that Lotto and casinos were legalised during the neoliberal revolution, which took away the route to decent wealth through work for most.

Armstrong on Nats’ elitist agenda

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:47 am, April 16th, 2011 - 7 comments

National has pillaged the poor to benefit the rich. That can be seen in the tax cuts, the GST hike, the subsidies for climate polluters, even the cuts to public transport to fund holiday highways. But sometimes it’s the smaller stories that best expose the underlying theme of a government, as John Armstrong shows in his piece today.

John Key: let me eat cake

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:00 pm, April 8th, 2011 - 68 comments

Labour’s candidate for Wairarapa, Michael Bott, on this out of touch government: “John Key smiles and waves for the cameras in Christchurch then jumps on a plane to Cape Kidnappers to spend the equivalent of a pensioner’s yearly income on one-off novelty dining with his wife – you can’t get more different than that.”

Whatever happened to “we’re all in this together”?

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 7:44 am, April 5th, 2011 - 63 comments

Displaced Christchurch residents are being told they need to pay at least $190 a week to stay in emergency campervan housing.

Meanwhile picking up the tab for wealthy SFC investors just got another third of a billion more expensive.

The New American Dream

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:37 am, April 2nd, 2011 - 14 comments

Truthout is one of my favourite sources of political commentary in America.  Here’s editor William Rivers Pitt on “The New American Dream”…

Hartevelt swipes Nats’ elitism

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:57 am, March 20th, 2011 - 32 comments

The SST’s John Hartevelt is shocked by National’s decision to pay out millions for Christchurch rugby business while ordinary people live in shattered homes and lose their jobs with meager support. He asks whether the Nats have lost their moral-political bearings. In fact, this is a perfect example of National’s elitist philosophy.

Looting by another name

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:22 am, March 11th, 2011 - 126 comments

Mayor Bob Parker has described landlords hiking rents in Christchurch as “looting by another name”.  I think the majority of us would feel as Parker does — it seems simply wrong to exploit people for profit in a time of tragedy.  But look around.  It’s just unregulated capitalism in action.  There’s an awful lot of it about.

Bashing benes no solution to joblessness

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:30 am, February 22nd, 2011 - 26 comments

National’s grand plan for the economy in the age of peak, peak food, and climate change: give tax cuts to the rich and take from the poor. It’s classic Nat class war. They want to force 100,000 people off the benefit in the ludicrously long time-frame of 10 years. But they won’t be creating any jobs so other workers will be displaced and wages will be forced down.

In our land of plenty

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:21 pm, February 21st, 2011 - 55 comments

Look past the tattered remains of Brand Key and the Nats have not changed in the past 20 years. They still don’t have a clue how to create a wealthier New Zealand but they know how to hurt people. As in the 1990s, they are falling back on bashing people who are jobless through no fault of their own. This clip from ‘In a Land of Plenty’ deserves to be watched again.

Compare and contrast

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 7:40 am, February 19th, 2011 - 54 comments

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn compares the bailout of SCF investors with the Nats’ threat to change the law to deny some workers the minimum wage.

The Nats’ useful bludger myth

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 16th, 2011 - 14 comments

Under Labour, when there was effectively full employment, there were still 1,700 people who had been continuously on the dole for over 4 years. I was prepared to accept most of these were ‘bludgers’. Turns out I was too cynical. Paula Bennett found only 658 were ineligible. Werewolf has an excellent article busting more benefit myths.

Why are the “Right” terrified of equality?

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:21 am, February 14th, 2011 - 78 comments

Economic inequality is damaging to the fabric of society.  It’s a simple and compelling message, and it seems to have the political “Right” in a complete panic.  In fact if Deborah Coddington’s latest piece is anything to go by, the Right are terrified to the point of derangement.

Cuts to our public services to pay for elite’s tax cuts

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:54 pm, February 8th, 2011 - 69 comments

John Key’s government is just two years old but it is already clearly bereft of ideas. His lacklustre speech showed no innovative thinking. There was just his usual bile directed at Labour and the same old failed National formula: asset sales, welfare cuts, and public service cuts masked by restructuring to fund tax cuts for the rich elite.