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Unemployment worse than it looks

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 3:30 pm, August 9th, 2012 - 67 comments

Unemployment is up, and the real situation is worse than the figures suggest. Just how many more years of the Nats’ economic “genius” do you want NZ?

Kiwirail disgrace

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:17 am, August 9th, 2012 - 36 comments

Buying back Kiwirail was a chance for building a cost-, oil-, and carbon-efficient transport network. Instead, its been a tale of false economies: cheap trains from China, cheap sleepers from Peru, cheap labour from contracting out. In the end, it all costs more for worse results.

Working InZone

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 7:55 am, August 9th, 2012 - 6 comments

Yesterday, National was patting itself on the back for getting, wait for it, 25 people into work and off benefits as part of rebuilding Christchurch. This in a $770,000 programme called Work InZone that was meant to get 100 people into work. This programme didn’t create jobs, it just helped get the select beneficiaries to the front of the queue for them. Just means someone else missed out.

A modest proposal

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:52 am, August 8th, 2012 - 25 comments

I plan to start a business. I will be a job creator. 50 people will have jobs thanks to me. The whole community will benefit. My business will make poisoned puppy toys. Don’t get me wrong. They won’t kill every puppy who chews on them every time. Only 50% over the puppies’ lives. 30 puppies a year will die per job created. But – jobs! Does it make it better if I’m only selling the poison puppy toys in Australia?

1 job 312 applicants

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 1:14 pm, July 4th, 2012 - 41 comments

High levels of unemployment in NZ are both a condemnation of the Nats’ bungling of the economy, and a reality check on their perpetual grandstanding beneficiary bashing.

At least Parker’s onto it

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 5:33 pm, June 5th, 2012 - 80 comments

The news out of Europe, China and Australia is looking worse by the day. What’s coming at us doesn’t look pretty. I was about to do a post saying I hoped someone in Labour was doing some scenario planning and was very pleased to see today that Parker’s eyes are open.

John Key, the jobs fairy

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 9:05 am, June 5th, 2012 - 46 comments

Remember when John Key promised 4,000 new jobs from the cycleway and, in fact, a few hundred, short-term, part-time positions were created? Remember when John Key promised 170,000 new jobs and unemployment went up instead? Looks like Key’s being making it up on the pokies-for-convention centre deal too, which would create only a fraction of the jobs promised.

Christchurch – economic hindrance?

Written By: Ben Clark - Date published: 2:15 pm, May 25th, 2012 - 16 comments

The Government have been pushing a line that Christchurch is holding us back as an economy. The poor people of Christchurch are to blame for all our woes apparently, with their earthquake. We shouldn’t blame National, just Cantabrians.

But it’s not true.

Pre-budget reading

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:09 am, May 24th, 2012 - 3 comments

An excellent column from Bryan Gould, and a picture of working families in financial distress. Something to ponder, as we await the zero budget.

Half way there

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:20 am, May 23rd, 2012 - 22 comments

It’s great that foreign fishing vessels in New Zealand waters will now be required to be flagged here and, in theory, will be subject to New Zealand law. But I reckon that abuses of those crews is only half the problem. The other problem is that we have Kiwi quota owners, in particular iwi, employing foreign fishers while quarter of a million of our people are jobless.

One more promise I couldn’t keep

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 9:13 am, May 21st, 2012 - 14 comments

Last Budget, National promised 36,000 jobs in the year to March 2012. We got 20,000. They promised 1.8% growth. We got 1.1%. They promised a $9.8 billion deficit. Now, it’s heading for over $12 billion. Ready for a repeat on Thursday?. English will say last year’s failures were all someone else’s fault. Key will grin and make some weak jokes, the beakbenches will hoot and holler. But will anyone outside National be smiling this time round?

Mr Key’s remarkable lack of ambition

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:01 am, May 21st, 2012 - 59 comments

Remember ‘ambitious for New Zealand’? Remember ‘brighter future’? National used to at least say they wanted to do something significant. At what point did all that get replaced with ‘surplus by 2014/15’? Key and National have $70 billion a year to play with to better this country, and the best thing they can come up with is making sure government operating revenue exceeds operating spending by about half a percent in three years time.

Cutting holes in the safety net

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:35 am, May 8th, 2012 - 11 comments

The Nats’ welfare cuts will cost $500m over 4 years. Supposedly save a billion. Net saving: $125m a year. 1% of benefit costs. 1/8th of the cost of extra beneficiaries under National. Won’t really save even that little. No jobs. Unemployment rising. National’s problem is it tries to save costs of the welfare safety net by cutting holes in the net. The real solution is to stop people falling in. Best welfare policy is a jobs policy.

Nice work

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 9:57 am, May 4th, 2012 - 15 comments

Number of additional jobs per year needed to match population growth: 25,000 * Jobs promised by National last Budget to be added in March 2012 year: 36,000 * Actual number of jobs added: 20,000 * Additional unemployed: 5,000 * Change in number of fulltime jobs: -6,000 * Change in number of parttime jobs: 25,000 * Growth in underemployment: 4,000 * Broken promises: 1 really big one

Talley’s cracking

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 6:51 am, May 4th, 2012 - 36 comments

It is a fundamental injustice of our society that one family, which already has more than it can ever need, can hold 1,300 families, who have very little, to ransom just to make a little more cash. But the union makes us working people strong. By standing together, the workers are beating Talley’s in the AFFCO lockout. Talley’s cracked. Wants half them back. The workers have said ‘all of us or none of us’.

Choices, choices: Hillside & National’s priorities

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 8:50 pm, April 19th, 2012 - 25 comments

When it comes to doing dirty deals with a casino, selling our law so that it gets a convention centre and more profits from gambling addicts, National’s willing to die in a ditch. But when there was an opportunity to save and expand our high-tech, high-skill manufacturing at Hillside simply by requiring government bodies to consider the costs and benefits of their actions on the whole country, not their narrow corporate interests, National did nothing.

Winning the race to the bottom

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 11:38 am, April 19th, 2012 - 42 comments

You don’t get fat off the crumbs from someone else’s table and you don’t get rich by being someone else’s butler. So, why the Nats are so happy that Australia is sending a few call centre and cigarette jobs here, where wages are lower, I don’t know. We’ll be wealthier if we produce more wealth, more stuff of real value. Not if our competitive advantage is low wages and insecure jobs.

Choices, choices: pointless boot camps

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:25 am, April 17th, 2012 - 65 comments

The government has splurged $20m putting 3,300 unemployed people through 6 week-long military ‘boot camps’ ($6K each). Result: up to 3 years later, only 19% have jobs. Compares to the typical stint of unemployment of 12 weeks. Looks a lot like the Nats are pouring money into a programme that makes unemployment worse. out of sheer ideological idiocy.

Woka Woka Wharfie Fundraiser – Akl tonight

Written By: Julie Fairey - Date published: 12:15 pm, April 3rd, 2012 - 10 comments

Something to do in Auckland tonight: What: Special screening of The Muppets Where: Hoyts Sylvia Park, Mt Wellington When: Tonight, April 3rd, 6.10pm to 8.30pm Don’t let those muppets at the Ports of Auckland get you down, come laugh at the real Muppets instead! Some door sales will be available, or you can email julie.fairey@gmail.com […]

POAL falling apart

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 2:29 pm, March 30th, 2012 - 47 comments

Things are not going so well for Ports of Auckland. “Ports of Auckland lifts lock-out amid board rift” sums it up…

Meanwhile the economy…

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:54 am, March 23rd, 2012 - 15 comments

Plenty of high-profile bad news headlines for the Nats. At least it takes the focus of the boring old economy.

We used to be better at this

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 11:48 am, March 19th, 2012 - 68 comments

Port developments

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:15 am, March 17th, 2012 - 97 comments

Ports of Auckland management may be starting to realise that they have bitten off more than they can chew. Faced with international union action, they have called a halt to the redundancy process.

Mythbustin’: Waitakere Man

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:57 am, March 15th, 2012 - 54 comments

Chris Trotter invented the myth of the so-called ‘Waitakere Man’. It assumes Labour has lost voters because we’re all contractors now or in roles where we could be contractors, and don’t need their union-based labour policies and benefit system but want simpler rules for small business. No factory or retail workers in this model. Problem is, it’s not true.

On those that need to work harder

Written By: Jimmy Reid - Date published: 10:06 am, March 15th, 2012 - 14 comments

Recently, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal describing how CEOs around the world spend their time. The article drew on data from a larger study, the Executive Time Use Project . This project relied on reports of time use by CEO’s personal assistants; making it more accurate. It came across my usual reading and I thought I might share some of the findings with you.

Key’s laundry list of broken promises

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:58 pm, March 14th, 2012 - 57 comments

He must resign. Surely. Here is Key, speaking to the PSA in 2008, making very specific promises about public service jobs, tax cuts, and asset sales that helped him get elected. Promises he has since broken. There’s no excuse. He wasn’t blind-sided by events. He made these promises never intending to keep them. Key is refusing to comment but if the man has any ethics he’ll resign.

Postcards from the “brighter” future

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:32 am, March 10th, 2012 - 24 comments

Hey John – where’s our “Brighter Future”? Hey National voters – was this what you voted for?

List contest: Coping with redundancy stress

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:00 am, March 8th, 2012 - 43 comments

The $340K contractors hired to show our diplomats the door have told them that, to cope with stress, they could pray, take a bath, or get a cat. What else do you think was on the list?:

Suggestion 4: Whistle while you don’t work…
Suggestion 12: Watch The Life of Brian. Sing along to Always Look on the Bright Side of Life…
Suggestion 18: For the love of God, stop leaking to Phil Goff