economy

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Symbol or substance?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:11 am, July 7th, 2009 - 28 comments

It seems to me that National has fundamentally misunderstood what the foreshore and seabed debate is about. Key’s statements yesterday suggest it is about a mere symbolical recognition of an iwi’s traditional ties to sections of foreshore and seabed. It’s not. He seems to think it’s about beaches. It’s not. He seems to equate mana […]

What goes up

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:21 am, July 7th, 2009 - 15 comments

There’s a lot of empty, over-optimistic talk around at the moment about ‘green-shoots’ in the economy. Supposedly, these are little early signs of recovery which mean that soon everything will be back to normal and we can go back to getting rich selling each other houses with money we borrowed from the Japanese. Things will get […]

Lovin’ it?

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 7:55 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 39 comments

Stuff reports that McDonald’s is getting up to $16,000 of taxpayer money per person it recruits from the benefit. I doubt this per-person maximum is reached that often but it does seem that a lot of public money is going to the extremely profitable fast-food giant (and, presumably, its franchisees) every year. I’m all for […]

Just laugh in their faces

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:39 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 26 comments

National is overseeing the most dramatic rise in unemployment on record (yep, 2000 a week is more than the 1980s, more than the 1990s). They’ve got no answers, no ideas. All they can talk about is what Goff said 20 years ago and laugh. Like 2000 people a week losing their livelihoods is some kind […]

Jam tomorrow

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:30 am, July 1st, 2009 - 24 comments

I see John Key is promising new ideas to stop job-losses: We’ve got an economic strategy … and I intend over the next few weeks to spell out my thinking in that area It strikes me as another one of his vague PR-driven promises. Like the promise he made in March about the initiatives that […]

Atlas drops the ball again

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 5:48 am, July 1st, 2009 - 104 comments

Why does this myth that the private sector is better persist in this country? At every turn, the bosses show themselves to be a bunch of greedy, short-sighted half-wits. Take Line 7. Outsourced their production to China. Built their business model on the assumption that the NZD would stay high. Didn’t hedge. NZD, predictably, falls. Business model stuffed. […]

A rolling maul or treading water?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:58 am, June 30th, 2009 - 33 comments

In the face of widespread criticism that his government is asleep at the wheel, John Key has boldly relaunched some tired old spin. See, we’re meant to believe the reason why our government, alone amongst the developed countries, has done bugger-all to save and create jobs is that, rather than a ‘big-bang’, Key has adopted […]

Asleep at the wheel

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:14 am, June 24th, 2009 - 25 comments

Yesterday, Goff asked Key for some evidence that his government is doing something to save jobs. Key squirmed and squirmed. Goff: What have the three main ideas that emerged from the Job Summit, and that he promised would save or create thousands of jobs, delivered in actual job numbers? Key: I would say that the […]

1 million Aussies? Don’t get too excited

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:43 am, June 23rd, 2009 - 17 comments

So 1,001,880 Australians visited New Zealand in the year to May, up 3.7% over the last May year despite the recession Yay? Well don’t pop the bubbly just yet. The total number of visitors fell 2.6% from 2,482,881 to 2,418,647. The decrease from other countries wiped out the gain from Australia. And here’s the important […]

Productive debate

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:34 pm, June 9th, 2009 - 23 comments

There was nothing in the Budget for productivity. Education, the foundation of producitivty, was actually cut when you take into account inflation and population growth. There was a bit more for a few more roads but shaving a few minutes of the commute has no effect on productivity. Yet Bill English is very keen for […]

New Zealand’s weakest link

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:28 pm, June 7th, 2009 - 63 comments

Is its business leaders. There’s Keys, the Fyfes, the Weldons. Who all spend so much money to look good on the covers of magazines. Who expect us to love them. They want to be hailed as messiahs or Atlases carrying the rest of us. These are the muppets who banged their heads together for a […]

The $8 billion robbery

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:44 pm, May 31st, 2009 - 44 comments

On Q+A this morning Guyon Espiner interviewed Bill English. Guyon had received papers from a treasury official that apparently show the cost of cancelling the government’s contributions to the Cullen Fund for 10 years will be $8 billion over and above the cost of borrowing to fund the contributions. $3.5 billion from lower value of […]

The man in the mirror

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:04 pm, May 29th, 2009 - 28 comments

The Budget is already costing jobs. AirNZ has announced that it will be cutting flights. 80 jobs will go. The EPMU has said it will fight hard for the jobs. It’ll be tough to save them all. Why is AirNZ cutting the flights? Not enough passengers. AirNZ was hoping for something for tourism […]

No super contributions = worse net debt

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:08 pm, May 28th, 2009 - 114 comments

I’ve had a dig into Treasury’s numbers and worked out that they expect the Superannuation Fund will make a 13% return next year, falling to 11% a year by 2012. Those figures seem pretty good, not too optimistic. It’s what the Fund made in ordinary years before the crunch and bear in mind the Fund […]

The Debt Bogey Returns

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:00 am, May 28th, 2009 - 32 comments

Seems this op-ed was off-message for one of our larger media outlets, we’re happy to run it: _______________________________________ Alan Blinder, Professor of Public Affairs at Princeton recently warned Americans: ‘ Prematurely changing fiscal and monetary policies – from stepping hard on the accelerator to slamming on the brake – can be hazardous to the economy’s […]

Let them eat oysters

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:37 am, May 25th, 2009 - 36 comments

Remember – March against National’s undemocratic supercity today 25th, noon, Queen St [More info] Thousands of protesters take to the streets of Auckland today to save local democracy. Key’s response: ‘let them eat oysters’ Nah, what he said was the hikoi is “unlikely to make a difference, is premature and the wrong forum to raise […]

Power to the people

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:35 am, May 22nd, 2009 - 53 comments

This just in – the electricity market isn’t working. Well, plenty of people were saying that would happen back in the 1990s when National insisted on giving it a go. They split up the ECNZ into four bite size pieces to compete against each other. They planned to sell them all and create a totally private electricity […]

The root of the problem

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:45 pm, May 21st, 2009 - 58 comments

I reckon New Zealand’s a bit of an economic miracle really. Small country, new country without centuries of infrastructure, middle of nowhere, good only at making dead animals and animal products. Yet we’ve got one of the highest living standards in the world. Not that you would know it from our ‘business leaders’. Always whining […]

NACT: Going backwards for politics

Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:10 pm, May 20th, 2009 - 33 comments

The Fast Forward Fund was axed by the NACT government in Feburary. This was a fund that was to be invested and the proceeds and capital drawn down over 10-15 years to invest in agriculture. The funds would be distributed with equal contributions from agricultural businesses. Farming provides well over a third of our overseas […]

Big numbers, Crazy ideas

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:11 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 6 comments

Most of us work for a living, and worry about money measured in tens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars. For myself, I find the numbers involved in the economic crash and the bailouts to be so insanely huge as to be meaningless. This article summarises some of the numbers involved in America, and actually manages […]

What would Key the Investor do?

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:27 am, May 11th, 2009 - 15 comments

Here’s a question for Mr Key but you can play along too. What if you could buy into an asset that performs well usually but had a very bad year last year? Because of that bad year, the price is now at historically low levels but the outlook over the short and long term is […]

Bosses ‘using recession’ to squeeze staff

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:12 am, May 11th, 2009 - 10 comments

Well that didn’t take long. Bosses ‘using recession’ to squeeze staff: Bosses being accused of using the recession to exploit workers by driving down wages, forcing unrealistic productivity targets on staff and creating an environment where stressed staff will leave without waiting to collect redundancy pay. As evidence mounts of increasing employer pressure on staff, […]

Another nail in the neo-liberal coffin

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:10 am, May 9th, 2009 - 32 comments

Neoliberal economic policy has taken a bit of a beating lately. Unregulated financial markets have exploded spectacularly and the wreckage is dragging the real economy down with it. The whole edifice is being propped up with trillions of dollars worth of taxpayer bailouts – as ever big business likes to privatise the profits and socialise […]

Whatever it takes, except anything

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:00 am, May 8th, 2009 - 6 comments

A reader has spotted that Hide wasn’t the only minister telling porkies in Parliament yesterday. Fortunately for Bill English, he’s too smart to breach privilege: ‘The Government is concerned about anyone losing their jobs; that is why we will do anything we can to help people to keep secure the jobs they have or to […]

Bad or not too bad?

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:52 am, May 7th, 2009 - 24 comments

The latest unemployment figures look better than expected but appearances may be deceptive. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is up to 5.0%, lower than expected, but the unadjusted number is 5.6%. There is a seasonal adjustment unemployment usually climbs in the March quarter, then falls later in the year, whether that will happen this year […]

Quarterly Employment Survey

Written By: Tane - Date published: 2:00 pm, May 4th, 2009 - 27 comments

The Quarterly Employment Survey out today shows that 46,700 jobs disappeared between December and March. That’s 2.6% of jobs gone in a single quarter. Unemployment is probably well over 6%, we’ll find out exactly what it is later this week. 47,000 jobs lost while the government has done next to nothing to create and save […]

What a joke

Written By: Tane - Date published: 3:30 pm, April 28th, 2009 - 48 comments

This shows how meaningless tax cuts are. From last night’s TV3 poll: When you receive tax cuts this month [they began on April 1], do you think you will be most likely to spend it, save it, pay off debt or other? *Spend it 25.3 per cent *Save it 30.1 per cent *Pay off debt […]

Imagine.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 28th, 2009 - 6 comments

Inspired by a forwarded e-mail about Obama’s speech to the NAS with this line in it Imagine Key committing to invest 3% of GDP in R&D Obama 27th April 2009 at the National Academy of Science I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to […]

Budget 2009: Why not tax the rich?

Written By: Tane - Date published: 2:00 pm, April 27th, 2009 - 56 comments

With the Government openly preparing the public for spending cuts in the upcoming Budget, No Right Turn reminds us that there are alternatives – rather than cutting services and harming the poor, we could always raise taxes on those who can most afford it. The state of New York is doing this, hiking state income […]

Don’t fear the reaper

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:05 pm, April 27th, 2009 - 20 comments

The Government’s response to the recession so far has been to curl up in a ball and hope it will go away. Incredibly, while the economy is shrinking, the Government is destimulating it further by cutting public services. The excuse they give is that if the Government doesn’t reduce its borrowing, the credit ratings agencies […]

‘Bout that gurgling sound…

Written By: RedLogix - Date published: 2:31 pm, April 24th, 2009 - 53 comments

The average house in New Zealand should be worth about 3.5 times the average household income. (3.5 * $48k = $168k) The historic long-term rental return on most residential property was about 10%. Current rents for a typical 120m2, three bedroomed home in an average suburb is somewhere in the range of $12-16,000 pa…. ie […]