Economy

Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour

Categories under Economy

Hoatu he tumanako ki a rātou

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 21st, 2024 - 20 comments

Grant Robertson has given his valedictory speech in Parliament.

This is what happens when you give landlords a big tax cut #1

Written By: - Date published: 3:34 pm, March 20th, 2024 - 57 comments

No funds to continue to give families of disabled people

Peters gets knocked down but may not get up again

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, March 20th, 2024 - 54 comments

Chumbawamba have threatened legal action against Winston Peters for NZ First’s use of their song “I get knocked down” and have described him as having divisive, small-minded, and bigoted policies.

Uber Drivers in Court of Appeal

Written By: - Date published: 2:24 pm, March 19th, 2024 - 3 comments

Uber Drivers are in the Court of Appeal today. Uber is appealing against Employment Court decision they they are employees with worker rights. Its a no-brainer, so they are and should have them.

Amateur hour

Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, March 16th, 2024 - 11 comments

Government members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have managed to vote to support a Labour amendment that would make electric vehicles more attractive but submit a report to Parliament that suggested that the amendment had been lost.

National’s Overseas Gambling Levy policy figures are not rock solid

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, March 15th, 2024 - 4 comments

The IRD has estimated that National’s proposed Overseas Gambling Levy Policy will bring in $500 million less than it promised during the election campaign.

Luxon on rents – another National economic idiot

Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, March 14th, 2024 - 30 comments

I was incredulous that this lummox Christopher Luxon had ever paid attention during even a basic economics course. Landlords aren’t going to pass any cost reductions on to tenants in rent values. They charge new tenants the rental rates that the market can bear. In the absence of significiant new housing or a reduction in population, that is directly related to what tenants can afford to pay

Rock Solid Financial Geniuses

Written By: - Date published: 2:55 pm, March 13th, 2024 - 45 comments

The right has this belief that they are economic geniuses. Occasionally this belief is shown to be faulty. Like this week when National’s costings for tax cuts to Landlords was $800 million more than previously estimated.

Tax cuts for landlords will not reduce rents

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, March 11th, 2024 - 127 comments

Recently the Government has been working out how to cut funding for school lunches for poor kids while at the same time it has also announced that it will restore interest deductibility for landlords.

Let them eat cake

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, March 5th, 2024 - 73 comments

David Seymour has stated that funding for free school lunches will be cut by up to half.

USUKAs

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 pm, March 3rd, 2024 - 32 comments

US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. We should say tai hoa.

Bene bashing 6.0

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, February 20th, 2024 - 102 comments

So what does National do when its minor support party tries to steal media attention with dog whistling racism? It reverts to some good old beneficiary bashing.

Get ready for your water to be privatised

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, February 17th, 2024 - 124 comments

The National Government’s repeal of the Three Waters Legislation and its pursuit of “new forms of infrastructure funding and financing” suggests that privatisation of water is on the drawing board.

A sad lament from the serial left

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 pm, February 13th, 2024 - 103 comments

Attacking leftists attempts to expose the Atlas Network of right-wing think tanks, Chris Trotter offers this gem “Morally speaking, is taking money from oil companies really all that distinguishable from giving money to oil companies every time we fill up our petrol tank?”

Alex Foulkes To Stand For Green Party Co-Leader

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, February 11th, 2024 - 147 comments

Faulkes describes himself as a staunch Eco-Socialist and trade unionist

Mr Bates vs The Post Office

Written By: - Date published: 6:54 am, February 5th, 2024 - 12 comments

Originally published on Nick Kelly’s blog Many question the value of the performing arts and drama. At the start of 2024, the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office did what journalists, politicians and broader civil society have failed to do over the last 25 years. It raised public awareness of the injustice faced […]

Coffee and Cigarettes

Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, February 3rd, 2024 - 12 comments

Coffee and Cigarettes is an in-depth study of the human condition by Jim Jarmusch.

Economy improves dramatically thanks to Labour

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, January 27th, 2024 - 26 comments

This week there were two pieces of economic news showing a dramatic improvement credit for which should be given to the last Labour Government.

Operation Poseidon Archer

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, January 25th, 2024 - 31 comments

CNN reports that the US has named the ongoing operation against Houthi in Yemen “Operation Poseidon Archer, suggesting a more organized and potentially long-term approach.” New Zealand has joined it – cue the slippery slope.

What If Trump Wins Again?

Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, January 14th, 2024 - 65 comments

New Zealand has gained prosperity over 40 years within a free flow of trade under peacetime supported by minor attacks to shipping and planes, low international trade costs such as tariffs, and confidence that international trade disputes will be settled by law rather than by might is at risk: all of that required a United States President prepared to support that.

Not all Americans are Neocons

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, January 13th, 2024 - 14 comments

But the ones that run US foreign policy are. Matthew Hooton in a typical smear wants to label Helen Clark as anti-American because she warned that involving us in attacking Houthis was a ”slippery slope.” She’s not and he’s wrong.

The Coming Oil Crisis

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, January 13th, 2024 - 21 comments

An expanding Middle East war that puts the Red Sea and Suez tanker route at risk is a major risk to us because it could hit the global price of oil.

Our Resistance

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, January 11th, 2024 - 7 comments

There are still groups of people in New Zealand who can and do organise to resist the damage of the right.

Atlas smirked

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, January 7th, 2024 - 115 comments

A George Monbiot article in the Guardian made me wonder what effect the Atlas Network is having on New Zealand politics through the Taxpayer’s Union. Publicly available information suggests considerable funding is being made available and that the current Government’s priorities are precisely those that the Atlas Network would approve of.

The Useful Rich

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, December 31st, 2023 - 64 comments

New Zealand’s rich are endlessly fascinating, but as wealth concentrates ever tighter we are poorer.

Wanaka Has No Crime

Written By: - Date published: 5:06 pm, December 28th, 2023 - 47 comments

The purpose of everyone in New Zealand is to keep Wanaka pure.

National wants to hide huge potential rates rises caused by canning of Three Waters

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, December 24th, 2023 - 20 comments

Someone should tell the Taxpayer’s Union. Some Local Councils are planning to put rates up by double digit figures.  And the Government is planning on exempting them from discussing this with ratepayers.

Is the Coalition Government Back Jabbing Māori?

Written By: - Date published: 4:10 pm, December 22nd, 2023 - 19 comments

The coalition government robs Pita to pay Paora to appease its voter base.

The Mini Budget Today

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, December 20th, 2023 - 70 comments

Don’t let anyone be fooled this Christmas dinner by what National is setting out today. 

Why Labour must change course

Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, December 19th, 2023 - 49 comments

“A Left government with any claim to progressive credentials will focus on three policy areas – first, high-quality, high value production; second, taxation measures to reduce significantly wealth differences; third, strengthened democracy, including industrial democracy beyond collective bargaining. These three are indispensable. A Left politics, which does not build on these three, will founder.”

90 day trials – Don’t come Monday

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, December 18th, 2023 - 65 comments

This coming week, under urgency and leading into Xmas, the Coalition government will expand 90-day trials to all workers, in yet another payback to National/ACT/NZ First’s (NAF) business backers.