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Inequality – two excellent pieces
Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, December 14th, 2014 - 65 comments
Inequality has been very much in the news recently. Friday saw the publication of two really excellent pieces that between them provide a comprehensive, if depressing overview.
Christmas at the extremes
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, December 13th, 2014 - 65 comments
Two New Zealands will shortly celebrate Christmas, the poor and the rich. Here’s a crazy thought…
None so blind
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, December 12th, 2014 - 181 comments
Message to today’s anonymous Herald editorialist – competition doesn’t close the inequality gap, it widens it. In other news, black is black not white, and water is wet. How can you write such drivel?
Fudge-it-Budget
Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, December 11th, 2014 - 31 comments
The lied about surplus in the run up to the 2014 National Election is looking like matching Penn and Teller for magical skills. It’s the ultimate disappearing act. Unlike bad economic figures when Labour is in Government, this isn’t National’s fault. Bill English says so. It’s all down to a whole lot of unusual and […]
Denying the truth no way to run a country
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, December 10th, 2014 - 16 comments
Right-wingers recently got all hot and bothered about the idea of “recall elections”. Perhaps we do need them, not for the scandal of a Mayor having a bathroom, but for governments that systematically and cynically deny the truth, to the detriment of us all.
Dodging the big decisions
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, December 10th, 2014 - 18 comments
Colin James has an excellent piece on the housing market. Simon Collins has a piece on the implications on young renters. Meanwhile, a number of other big problems are being ignored by National as well.
Polity: OECD on inequality and growth
Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, December 10th, 2014 - 33 comments
Rob Salmond notes the OECD report saying the West – and New Zealand more than any – have had their growth held back by income inequality. Do we have a government willing to do anything about it?
Campbell & Gould on neoliberalism
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, November 4th, 2014 - 49 comments
Yesterday’s Werewolf contained a fascinating discussion between Gordon Campbell and Bryan Gould on neoliberalism and the economy. It should be required reading for Labour leadership contenders!
The future of work, income
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, November 1st, 2014 - 188 comments
Automation is changing everything – faster than we think…
NZ Inc
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, September 14th, 2014 - 119 comments
David Cunliffe has announced his final big policy. It’s called NZ Inc and it’s a bloody smart move.
Look over there! Tax cuts!
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, August 26th, 2014 - 7 comments
So National are both so out of ideas and so desperate to take the spotlight off their Dirty Politics that they’re now promising tax cuts. Tax cuts straight after we have a panel of our most prominent economists warning that the ‘rock star’ economy is going to hit the rocks.
The local in the bigger picture: new Green conservation policy
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, April 30th, 2014 - 12 comments
Largely overlooked yesterday, the Green Party launched their “Conservation in Our Backyards” policy. Focusing on protecting New Zealand’s socially and environmentally rich biodiversity, it provides a means to act locally in countering the current track towards global social, environmental and economic destruction.
Piketty: inequality & capitalism’s flaw
Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, April 30th, 2014 - 50 comments
There is a major new economics tome out this year that’s sending waves through the economics community like none since Friedman in the 70s. It’s Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
It points out that under capitalism, we’re doomed to inequality.
Patricia Grace takes on RONS
Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, April 1st, 2014 - 48 comments
The Kapiti Expressway is one of the National government’s RONS projects: it makes no sense economically. It is destructive to the environment and the local communities. The NZTA is attempting to run roughshod over ancestral lands, including that of writer, Patricia Grace. She is taking a stand.
And now for the real news…
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, March 21st, 2014 - 15 comments
“Rockstar economy”? Let’s hear it for another chorus of,”There is no depression in New Zealand”! Demographia reports on absolute food and housing poverty for too many Kiwis. Simon Collins reports on the ethnic inequality gaps & high rates of Maori imprisonment.
Pinning hopes on China
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, March 9th, 2014 - 33 comments
Our export-led economy is a rock-star according to those on the right. Australia kept us going, and now, despite the EU still spluttering, we can fly because China will buy all our milk powder. But there’s a potential flaw in putting all your eggs in one China basket, as a number of BBC stories have been revealing.
NZ independence? back to the future
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, March 4th, 2014 - 150 comments
NZ seems like a client state of both US imperialism, and the UK monarchy: a throwback to the first part of the 20th century. John Key was quick to support the US & EU lines on the Crimea; some low achieving, British royals are visiting NZ at taxpayers’ expense.
How to build better beggars
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, March 1st, 2014 - 35 comments
In the United States, the street beggars have great patter. Despite what South Park would have us believe, when you walk down the main street of a major city, you don’t get hordes of people shiftlessly shaking cups at you, asking for “change?” There are a few. But far more often, there’s a story. I […]
Inequality for all
Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, February 11th, 2014 - 14 comments
There’s been an excellent Insight on Radio NZ on Sunday / Monday, looking at the income gap and the consequences for our society – the loss of social mobility, the loss of health (mental & physical) for all, the increased incarceration, drug use etc etc. There’s also been recently PBS coverage in the US, […]
Role of Government
Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, February 11th, 2014 - 46 comments
Governments are holding on to their traditional roles and functions, but the world has changed. We need something else.
Foreign exchange fixing “as bad” as Libor
Written By: - Date published: 1:24 pm, February 10th, 2014 - 7 comments
Something that doesn’t seem to have hit the newspapers here, but may turn out to have been significantly affecting little ol’ NZ is a growing forex scandal, mainly in the UK (as the centre of forex trading). The boss of the UK’s financial regulator has said the the allegations of rate-fixing are “every bit as […]
NZ Herald watch – history repeats
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, February 7th, 2014 - 146 comments
The NZ Herald has a long history of opposing Maori resistance and supporting colonisation. It has always been right wing with a strong commercial focus & MO. Yesterday it censored news of Waitangi Day protests. Today an editorial spins in slippery style, for the Govt’s failing PowerCo sales.
Spot the difference! Stating the nation
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, January 23rd, 2014 - 97 comments
[Updated] Speeches: Key (today ZB Transcript). PM’s speech – untruths, misdirections & corporatisation of education – comment added. Cunliffe on Monday, on greater opportunities for all Kiwis. Metiria Turei’s speech, Sunday – will talk education, environment. Peters responds to Key. Greens response – education. Cunliffe’s Stand-up – audio.
A matter of “confidence”
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, January 21st, 2014 - 41 comments
Some say the economy often responds positively to “confidence”, while lack of it can result in some financial nose dives. But whose confidence is being highlighted in reports of NZ’ “rock star” economy? Not that of workers, beneficiaries – the precariat, say Labour, Greens.
UBI (1). Memes and Paradigms.
Written By: - Date published: 9:34 pm, January 12th, 2014 - 227 comments
Those growing up after the 80’s will find it hard to imagine the paradigm shift, that was the rise of Neo-liberalism, in the 80’s, in New Zealand. The colossal untested experiment, it really was, and the huge shift of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the richest of us.
The party I will vote for ….
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, December 13th, 2013 - 157 comments
… will be one that has effective policies to make a more equal, inclusive and democratic society, will seriously address the concerns of those least well-off, and not just pander to the concerns of people on (comfortable) middle incomes.Values in need of a slogan?
How to: Pick an Excuse for Not doing Anything About Poverty
Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, December 12th, 2013 - 97 comments
Right wing, excuses reasons, for not doing anything about children in poverty.
Labour shoot themselves in the foot, again!
Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, December 7th, 2013 - 247 comments
Just when you begin to think Labour are looking like a Government, one of the has-beens from the Rogernomics era, again! shows that they have NFI how to get elected and they are still clinging desperately to the Neo-liberal paradigm.
Sir Edmund Thomas: “Reducing Inequality” – new ‘Values’
Written By: - Date published: 5:48 pm, November 6th, 2013 - 29 comments
Sir Edmund Thomas’s recent Bruce Jesson Lecture is now online. He argues for a need to reduce inequalities, via a change in values away from those directed by “neoliberal” economics, & for a struggle from “below”. Is this intended to soften capitalism & not replace it?
“A Tale of two countries” – NZ/Aotearoa
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, November 3rd, 2013 - 81 comments
Yesterday David Cunliffe told a Tale of Two New Zealands. Today 2 NZ Herald articles show where NZ has gone wrong with its fractured and increasingly unequal society: our ailing state supported TVNZ; a high-living property-buying elite. Will Cunliffe talk about state housing today?
Lucy Lawless to Steven Joyce: ‘U killed NZ film industry’
Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, October 25th, 2013 - 103 comments
NZ needs government legislation & financial support to maintain local screen productions. Steven Joyce makes some hollow noises about prioritising NZ-focused productions, while allowing the Auckland industry to decline. Lucy Lawless blames Joyce for NZ Film tax rebates & prioritising BIG Oil.
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