Anyone saying there are plenty of jobs, people are just to snobby (ie lazy) to take them, has to explain why 90,000 people suddenly got lazy between 2008 and 2009 as 80,000 jobs disappeared.
I think we have previously established that unemployment was rising sharply in the declining period of the Clark led Labour Government so it is a bit disingenuous to claim that it happened as soon as John Key took office.
However even that doesn’t detract from the fact that I haven’t seen any person on the right actually argue that the reason people are unemployed is purely down to them ALL being lazy bludgers. Perhaps someone could link to someone making this claim?
If people can’t find someone making this claim then the central idea behind this article is a straw man argument. Congratulations on creating one of those and effectively countering it. For your next trick I expect you to state that Right wingers believe up is actually down and how this too is just crazy talk.
Wrong again. I’m intrigued that a spin-tool like yourself isn’t familiar with the old tory technique of “targetting” a few “lifestyle” beneficiaries, while restricting the entitlements of a whole bunch of “worthy poor” as collateral damage. E.g. Pete George the other day.
The fact is that there aren’t enough jobs, therefore unemployment protection is necessary and not an option. And bullying the unemployed is pointlessly vicious.
That post by Pete George is more supportive of my point than yours. He just stated that he knew of SOME beneficiaries who choose to be beneficiaries not that ALL beneficiaries choose to be beneficiaries. You may disagree with his position on this but it doesn’t provide evidence that right leaning people are trying to argue that the increase in unemployment is due to more people becoming lazy bludgers.
But it does support the argument that if there are no jobs out there, and that all the unemployed-centred “encourage them back into work” bullshit is just bullshit. If the government wants to cut the number of beneficiaries, bullying the unemployed will have less of a result than, oh, investing in education and infrastructure, buying locally, and not laying off public service staff.
Ensuring a viable productive economy and a flexible labour market is probably the best for reducing unemployment on a long term sustainable basis. You may disagree, which is your right, but other people do think this. They are the ones in power at the moment. Next time the left is in power they might attempt something along the lines you are suggesting. I choose to ignore the rest of your emotive laden post.
We can’t get emotive about under-producing economic units.
What possible basis can you have for believing that the government is really trying to solve unemployment? Just how much are you going to blame on the GFC, when we’ve started (since, oh, 2008/9) sliding down the performance charts of the OECD?
Meanwhile, unmatured potential economic units cease to function.
Overall productivity has been consistently rising for decades not just here but world-wide, and New Zealand is still a very flexible place to be an exployer compared to the rest of the OECD. If productivity and flexibility were all it took to increase available employment opportunities, we’d be having a jobs boom already, and it would be completely unrelated to changes in governments or other economic factors. I think we can both accept that the economy is more complicated than that, and at the very least we can agree to concede that it has natural cycles, (booms and busts) and is composed of several tugs of war between employers and labour in general, and more complicated relations between consumers and retailers and industries, and the impact of available information to each party.
The fact is, average productivity (in contrast with overall productivity, which is steadily rising) is actually inversely correlated with high demand for labour, simply because as the demand for workers increases, employers have to settle for less productive employees, who they fire when demand for labour decreases. Low productivity is ironically a sign of a healthy labour market, not because productivity is bad, but because universal employment drags down productivity figures.
To reduce unemployment, circulation needs to increase. Policies that create extra employment, or otherwise equalize the distribution of wealth to some degree, increase circulation and generate demand, which in turn prompts businesses to increase supply, which in turn prompts them to hire additional employees, which prompts them to demand more services and products from other businesses, and so on. You know what doesn’t help that process at all? Employer fleibility and productivity. In fact, productivity generally decreases the need to employ additional people because all of the available work is done.
Talking about viable economics, low the high income inequality would boost both the economy and lower unemployment. Given both Labour and National inability to discuss the effects of increasing oil prices on the economy, business is left in limbo and risk adverse. National would like its voters to believe selling assets won’t harm the deficit but anyone with a clue knows that’s not true. NZ exports its skilled, its profits, and raw resources, when we should be keeping our skilled, our profits and adding value (introducing a CGT). But National are biblically sret against any tax increases unless its on the poorest, unbalanced and unfair GST rises.
National have no idea how to run an economy, one National voter on TV actually thought that pushing single mums into fruit picking and replacing desperate pacific islanders was a real reality. WTF. Just as passing economic analysis shows that is wrong, its always going to be cheaper to hire desperate foriegners froma pacific Island chain (like Australia does to NZ citizens). And more so with some pacific islanders who have no work, no other opportunities and no baby (or home to heat).
National voters know little about economics if they repeat anything a politician says without thought.
And bullying the unemployed is pointlessly vicious.
Do you think no pressure at all should be put on beneficiaries to improve their edication or get work? (Labour tried to ‘encourage’ people off benefits before National started trying).
Option 3: actually give them educational and employment opportunities that will allow them to participate in society, not bully them into becoming grist for the mill.
There should be more than enough educational opportunities now shouldn’t there. Some could be done better, but anyone can get education if they want it.
Creating ’employment opportunities’ is election talk. No party actually knows how to increase employment to near nil-unemployment levels.
We have fewer lower skilled jobs due to technology and offshoring, and a far bigger proportion of the population looking for work due to women becoming ‘equal’ participants in the workforce. Has any country successfully created full employment in the last thirty years?
Do you think doubling public service employment would solve it?
There should be more than enough educational opportunities now shouldn’t there.
Should be but aren’t.
I was watching telly the other day and they had an engineering course targeted at disadvantaged youths – applicants outnumbered places by something like four or five to one.
Universities and polytechs are not exactly running out of students.
No party actually knows how to increase employment to near nil-unemployment levels.
Some do better than others. Seems to be those ones that actually foster industry, health and education, rather than speculators.
We have fewer lower skilled jobs due to technology and offshoring, and a far bigger proportion of the population looking for work due to women becoming ‘equal’ participants in the workforce. Has any country successfully created full employment in the last thirty years?
Nope, not ones that dovetail ludditism and good old fashioned sexism, anyway. Why the apostrophes around women becoming equal (more precisely, women becoming recognised as equal)?
Doubling the public service wouldn’t solve it, but culling the public sector doesn’t help.
Oh now I get it, you’re in politics because you have no understanding of other people’s lives and the real interaction between classes. Makes it pretty easy to say things like “anyone can get education”. Oh sure Pete, the world is so rational and caring and giving. Then you go on to spell out a possible solution, but can’t see it, because you’re holding so tightly to a model that strokes your control dysfunction, but doesn’t work in reality.
When’s you next banning due. I can’t believe you’re so old and so dumb, clearly you are a remorseless troll. Then again, those emails yesterday of rural types imploring Key to let them remain ignorant were quite instructive that a person can be eagerly ignorant for over 50 years. Who’s paying the bill for your eager ignorance, Pete? Unlike those collecting social security, the welfare you are taking has the opposite effect of being either social or secure. Get an education- anyone can – or hurry up and “retire”.
[lprent: Banning is something that the moderators decide. I have banned people for insistently calling for a ban. It falls under the “boring the moderators” or “wasting moderation time” categories. ]
Nobody’s asking for zero unemployment right now. I think we’d settle for policies that lowered the figures by a few percentage points this year, in addition to any natural upturn that might happen.
Doubling public service employment would certainly solve the problem, but we’d need to actually have some sort of productive program for that, because the whole point of stimulating the economy with government employment is that you still have people doing productive work for the government on top of the economic gain in general. Doubling the public service would probably be too much stimulus, I would imagine, and there’d be no way to find enough productive work for that many people. Even a twenty percent expansion would be bold start.
But in more staff-neutral terms, we could make significant headway by simply cutting out third-parties from government employment and having the government run its own temping agency, for instance, and stop engaging in this “contracting out” nonsense to get around its own employment laws. We ship an extraordinary amount of money out from the government by contracting out in areas like HR where it just doesn’t make any sense to do so, and the government could provide the services itself with better efficiency, as it wouldn’t need to make a profit.
When there was plenty of work and benefits were relatively a lot higher than they are now, very few people chose benefits.
The Prime Minister reckoned he knew all the unemployed by name.
The big number of people on benefits are there simply because the RWNJ neo-liberals stuffed our economy. They wanted a pool of unemployed to help drive wages down.
The current meanness towards beneficiaries is simple to scare all of us into accepting starvation wages and dog whistle to the unintelligent to cover NACT’s economic ineptitude. The same tactics used by another lot of Fascists in the past.
And then you quote lazy ‘myths’. I’ve had a bit of a look before, some of the detail is interesting but the questions are little more than exaggerated loaded nonsense.
1. Anyone who wants to get off welfare can get a job.
Many can and do. Obviously some can’t, for various reasons eg not enough jobs available, unemployable.
2. People on welfare commit a lot of benefit fraud, at the expense of hard-working people
Yes, some people (a small minority) do that.
3. Putting a time limit on how long people can receive welfare is a good idea
How many think that? About three?
4. People who go off on the dole go onto sickness and invalids benefits. We have to crack down on them, too.
A few do that. ‘People’ sort of implies all which is nonsense.
5. Most of the people on welfare are unmarried mothers – many of them teenagers – who have extra children so that they can get more money.
Obvious dramatic exaggeration.
6. Lots of people are on welfare for years and years, and then their children and grandchildren become welfare dependent.
Depends on what you mean by ‘lots’. Too many – yes. But a small minority.
7. Making unemployment insurance compulsory would be a good idea.
How many people think that? I don’t recall seeing it discussed.
8. People on welfare are bludging on the rest of us.
In effect a minority are, but ‘people’ is meant to sort of imply all which is nonsense.
9. Young people need welfare reform in order to teach them the value of work.
Nonsense – who thinks that? The best teachers of the value of work are parents and wider family, by example. Welfare reform may encourage or nudge some young people to find out the value of work for themselves.
10. Thank goodness the Maori Party is at the Cabinet table, to ensure the genuine needs of Maori are being met.
A political dig at the end. That’s been called a ‘myth’?
1. “Some people get off the unemployment benefit” is not the same as “anybody can get off the unemployment benefit if they try”. Some people are legitimately unemployable, some people need additional resources to become employed that they don’t have enough social resources to acquire, and some people are simply unemployed because the economy is too depressed for them to be a worthwhile bet for an employer right now. The vast majority of those people couldn’t get off the unemployment without spending more money on helping them.
And you know what? You shouldn’t have to be exceptional to get out of unemployment, you should need to be exceptional to require it, if we had a healthy society. Anything above 3% is not even arguably an exception, and ideally we should have less than 1% of the workforce drawing the benefit for more than a month at a time.
2. The minority of people who abuse benefits is so small that measures that are already in place can deal with them. We should be more concerned with the fact that it’s not possible to eat healthily on the benefit and afford accommodation at the same time.
3. Time-limiting benefits is just a more extreme version of the other sticks that the Right wants to offer beneficiaries. Sometimes it’s not a matter of sticks or carrots, sometimes you just need support to get into employment. People want to be productive, they want to feel involved, they want the things that meaningful employment (ie. not McJobs) offer, so the carrot is there intrinsically. We just need to stop dangling it from the stick over their heads and actually put it in reach.
4. So you agree we don’t need to crack down on people who go onto sickness or invalids benefits from the dole? Because as I see it they’re pretty hard to qualify for as-is and unlikely to be a point of abuse.
5. Sure, but it’s a significant portion of the complaining about benefits, too. I’m not sure you get to complain about people quoting back to you what people are actually saying- and as far as single mothers on benefits are concerned, that’s a pretty mild paraphrasing. And yes, I understand that this is getting into the foggy areas of personal experience rather than factual debate.
6. Sure, too many. But actual dependency on welfare is a symptom of a great many social problems, and it makes sense to deal with the causative factors before we actually think about increasing pressure on beneficiaries, wouldn’t you agree?
I don’t think anyone would claim that long-term beneficiaries don’t need policy to address them- the debate is about how legally mandating people to get jobs possibly helps them when we’ve already established they either can’t or won’t in their current situation, and I would argue the answer is “overall it does more harm than good.”
8. Undeniably there are a few people who do this, but the question is whether they’re worth any additional energy to deal with. I don’t think so- it’s an incredibly low return on investment to follow them up directly when you could actually look at the root causes of the need for welfare.
9. I’ve met people who think that. They’re fortunately a significant minority, but they do exist, and I get very embarassing praise from them for having found my way into being a “young professional”, (by which they mean I get paid more than minimum wage and need to wear business clothes to work, despite needing to work six days a week to save anything significant) even though they don’t know I spent multiple years dealing with a severe anxiety disorder in which I couldn’t work.
(I was supported by my parents, so I didn’t actually claim the benefit at the time- which is yet more proof that being stuck on a benefit is a symptom of lacking other resources to fall back on more than some sort of intrinsic failing)
The RWNJ’s are right. Bob Jones, for example, is on record as saying that when National forms a government, he changes his strategy to a low growth model.
There is a direct correlation between the National Party and a slower work rate in the economy. The RWNJ’s are still missing the point though – they think laziness causes the problem, but the problem is their understanding of economics is a little bit shit.
I’m not so sure you can say there is a change to the entire system just because of one example. In my opinion, what Bob Jones says should be taken with a grain of salt.
Your point is well made though Kotahi Tane Huna, people simply don’t work as hard when they’re earning less. You really do get what you pay for and if you’re a smart investor, you take your money out of the NZ economy when the Natz get into power. They’re not to be trusted.
The irony though Kotahi Tane Huna is that the likes of Bob Jones expect to make more income under a Labour led govt. Exactly the opposite of how Labour sells itself to it’s supporters…..
But sure…. lets vote in a govt that’s better for the wealthy … just pretend it’s best for the little guy and lets make the wealthy …. well wealthier….
BS Burt labour is better for everybody god with your dumb logic no wonder your a National supporter so what you’ve been saying up till now that labour is bad for wealth creatos is just a figment of your imagination.
Like gooseman you have been caught out!
Superannuation was paid to 535 300 people in the 2011 year. This is 12.75% of the population and really not very high by any stretch of the imagination.
NZ should be investing in manufacturing of products derived from its prime products, i.e. wood, wool. It is tragic that whole logs are being shipped offshore and all we need to do is get diesel for the chainsaw. Plastics and Textile imports are the largest growth items between 2005 and 2010 mostly from China. Milk powder, butter and cheese export has increased by around 80% and logs by around 33%.Except for crude oil no other area is significant in exports.
The biggest problem hidden in the figures are the number of under 25s out of work (or in “tronning”), I would hazard that over half of the under 25s have no “real” prospect of a “good” job. This is a form of inter generational theft. There is a call for the age of superannuation to rise, so the older workers have to stay longer…..which means the younger ones will have to wait longer. The thinking behind this is either warped or very self serving.
Where is the evidence that a lower retirement age has a big impact on youth unemployment? Certainly if we look at the countries in Europe with a lower age of retirement I would suggest we would tend to find that Youth unemployment rates are the same, or even higher, than those countries with a higher average age of retirement. Your argument smacks of the same logical fallacy that some conservatives use for discouraging women in the workforce.
Gos, I need very little evidence that if I add work to one age cohort (like an extra year) that work is not going to be available to another age cohort. Nothing is more obvious. And to make matters worse I have little faith that an extra years work will be available to that age cohort either.
Whether that work is “available” or able to be undertaken by another age cohort is entirely another issue. What it screams to me is that whilst there is a youth employment crisis the politicians and Treasury are focused firmly on the wrong age cohort.
Especially this sentence “Governments had tried in the past to reduce youth unemployment by enticing older workers to retire, but had failed, partly because they had to raise labor taxes to pay for the extended pensions. Employers were not amused.”
Merely pointing out that you are habitually arrogance rich, but evidence light. Although this bit made me laugh.
“I won’t deny that there would probably be some increase in unemployment as a result of extended working lives, but that would just be a temporary factor as the labor market adjusts,” Kirby said.
When
is an increase not an increase? When an economist says it’s a “temporary factor”.
When I am asked to provide evidence for anything I have made a claim for I tend to provide it or at least provide a source for it. A good example of that is that list of links to various papers on the benefits of economic freedom for economic growth. You might disagree with the links but then again I tend to disagree with your sources as well. You also missed my linking to an IMF paper on Belgium which refers to the same fallacy that is mentioned briefly in the editorial you are commenting on.
Meh – saw it. My point was that on the one hand you were criticising someone for not providing evidence when they made a claim at the same time as doing the same thing.
But then of course you missed the wee comment in your own source that essentially contradicts it and your position (albeit a “temporary” contradiction). Of course, you have a history of failing to read your own sources.
Your temporary contradiction (whatever that means) seems only to be an opinion. The IMF paper goes into greater detail about the fallacy that Bored is promoting. If you care to discuss this then go ahead. If you want to try and score petty debating points go ahead and waste your time once again.
temporary contradiction (whatever that means) seems only to be an opinion.
Gos, it was your source that brought it up.
As for the IMF report:
We subdivide the population into three subgroups: the older workers (50–65 years of age), the prime-aged workers (30–49) and the young (20–29). The precise cutoff points between these different groups are clearly of a key importance and mostly dictated by the institutional setting. Since in Belgium education is compulsory until the age of 18 and data is generally available in 5-year age brackets, we do not consider any 5-year age bracket including people subject to compulsory schooling. Therefore, the lowest age considered is the age of 20
Not entirely sure 28 counts as particularly “young” in the employment market. Especially when they skipped the firest two years of post-school employment history (for reasons that are basically odd), even though they identified school-industry mismatch as a cause of youth unemployment.
You asked for evidence supporting my claim that Bored’s comments were a fallacy. I provided that evidence. Whether you agree with the evidence or not is irrelevant to me. Bored hasn’t even bothered to counter this, just restate his position as if it is commonly accepted as a fact. It obviously isn’t as there wouldn’t be a fallacy named for it.
So now you’ll only accept criticism of sources (that you link to only upon request, and that you frequently fail to read yourself) from those people who aren’t particularly interested in getting into a semantic debate with a slippery propogandist?
slick.
Of course, if the shoe were on the other foot you’d be all to eager to crow objectionably, not to mention subsequently insisting that no evidence had been provided…
If someone posted a link to something that I disagreed with I don’t think I would state they haven’t provided any evidence. I might state something like, (if it is an opinion piece), that the evidence is not very persuassive or is flawed or that it isn’t hard evidence
Pity that reality contradicts your claims that economic freedom benefits economic growth.
The fastest growing economies have always had Government intervention, assistance and regulation. And the highest taxes!
“The idea that forcing elderly workers out of the labor market before the statutory age of
retirement would provide jobs for the unemployed young has been for a long time widely
accepted in several European countries, particularly in Belgium where indeed youth
unemployment is particularly high both in absolute and in relative terms. For most
economists and fortunately an increasing number of Belgian this view is based on the
erroneous belief in a fixed amount of work. Economists call this allegedly widespread view
the “lump of labor fallacy”.”
For once Gossy is correct
More people working grows consumption, the economy and allows more jobs. More State employment grows, not shrinks, the private sector.
Gossy has just contradicted his own previous positions, generally supporting those who think that austerity and small government are economically beneficial. The Laffer curve is also a result of the “lump of Labour, lump of capital fallacy.
State spending needs to be underpinned by the productive sector and constatly increasing it is not self sustaining over the long term. Eventually you just end up borrowing more and more to fund unproductive expenditure. You just need to look at the problems in Greece to see the outcome of this. The only solutions in this case are either debt default, inflating your way out of trouble (including devaluation of currency), or severe Governement cut backs (i.e. austerity).
By the way it is interesting to see a sort of bastardised version of Keynesian being promoted here.
Bored, having so many people under 25 out of work – these are University degree holders and NZ has only a small pool of jobs suited to that skill level. Many jobs are customer service, help desk and manual, part time and seasonal work. The pay is not going to cover living costs and paying back the student loan. Besides, one does not study for years to pick apples (not that there is something wrong with that). Many will go overseas looking for greener pastures and NZ is the poorer for it. As for the retirement age – there maybe people who want to work longer (never met any) but there are many who have to work longer as they still pay mortgage, help with grand kids or are on single income. So, all in all it looks like we are slowly becoming a very poor country.
Right on there Foreign Waka. But NACTs are unlikely to think about the country and economy in any useful, meaningful way that would bring such practical considerations to the fore for implementation.
I recently spent time with some RW. Not a book about the place, no newspapers which might spread round untidily. Lots of interest in Breakfast TV and the bright coloured mannikins that appear there giving the junk news. No RadioNZ reporting and analysis, only Coast with endlessly pleasant music and limited advertisements to provide ‘wallpaper for the ears’ as Peter Ustinov remarked about elevator music.
It’s frightening to know that so much power is held in the hands of these smug people in their cloistered ivory towers, looking with disdain on the unsatisfactory plebs below. The strugglers and the non-achievers are the labels applied to those not regarded as worthwhile human beings at all.
Why? Disappointed you didn’t find the complete works of Ayn Rand on the bedside table? I really don’t like this kind of attack because ultimately you can say exactly the same things of a lot of poor working people, the “strugglers and the non-achievers” – not always groanoing bookshelves in their homes either. Attack a person’s views, philosophy and politics if you must, but it seems a bit mean spirited to attack their taste in home entertainment.
I remember going to work in the Uni holidays of 1975 and walking down a street in Sydenham calling into every factory en route asking for work. I worked 2 days for one place before deciding that the boss was an out of control maniac, so I went next door and asked for a job cutting up meat. We worked to a Union award and there was a group bonus, the Union man and the foreman drove this mercilessly so there was no slacking. Good money was paid, but you had to earn it, and I don’t recall any slackers or absentees.
The point of the above is that when we had full employment we also had good wages, and we had very little need of welfare. And compulsory unionism meant there was some balance between employers and employees. Most importantly people were demonstrably NOT lazy. Any form of perceived bludging was frowned upon from all quarters.
Funny thing, back in the 70s the National Party maintained a narrative that described workers as lazy. They also vilified the unemployed (all 20 of them) as the cause of all of societies woes. What we have from Nact today is the same old crew with the same old line…”kill the poor”.
Certainly do…there is a lot of bullshit talked about the role of unions that does not match the reality.
A little background: organised labour (unions) originally had to accept a compromise: compulsory unionism in NZ was conditional upon acceptance of the Arbitration System. Unions referred to it as “labours leg iron”.What that meant was that unions were bound by a system that mitigated against the worst excesses of the unions (and the employers).
I don’t regard Unions as socialist bodies: they are in reality a way of grouping together to get a better deal in the way that is regularly applied by other buyers and sellers in the “market”. As a buyer of their services (I employ people) I can see the downside of not being able to screw individuals down as easily. Conversely I don’t have the cost of dealing with multiple individuals, or multiple negotiations, which as an employer save me heaps of time.
Other than your views on compulsory unionism I actually agree with your position on Trade Union’s in regard to bargaining. They can be very beneficial to employee and employer alike.
You only have to look at how shop assistants are treated daily to see why Unions are needed.
Compulsory unionism means that employers cannot single out and fire union members, for one.
As an employer I prefer my employees and myself not to pay taxes to subsidise employers who cannot pay their full costs.
AND I do not see why other employers should not have to compete on efficiency and usefulness rather than on how much they can undercut my employees wages.
Unions are as much a necessary part of capitalism as employer associations. They provide a necessary balance.
I remember reading James McNeishs book Fire Under the Ashes about Danilo Dolci and the
poor in Sicily, which was under the thrall of the Mafia which strangled business and initiatives unless it suited them and bled operating businesses dry. Conditions were not good or improvable. Danilo Dolci did a consciousness raising project with the unemployed men which gained a lot of publicity and anger.
The idea was to have an unemployment strike. The men for the time of the strike stopped being unemployed and went out to work on the roads at their own cost and time.
We don’t want to sink to those levels of desperation, and if we had politicians with real commitment to all the people, to having a vital economy and a successful, buzzing little country, we would be managing our way out of recession not creating this fly-blown mess that everyone walks around at a great distance avoiding the smells and ordure.
I remember reading a book by Danilo Dolci. I recall his manner of speaking was very matter of fact: We wanted a well. I met with this person and they agreed to supply this, then I asked these people for that, then we put it all together and it worked… and so on. Perhaps it was a translation issue, but it was like he was deconstructing and sanitising the art of politics to cut a long, dirty, story short. I came away with the impression of a man who could do the impossible, but also with strong connections to the mafia. You just couldn’t walk round Sicily at that time and do stuff and annoy people and not end up at the wrong end of someone’s Lupara. He had big friends, no doubt about it.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I think NZ has reached the point where people have to simply take back what has been taken away or given up by stepping in and doing the things they need without any permission or recourse to authorities. The principled, charismatic, Lone Ranger has turned out to be a whore on a mule, so we’ll have to save ourselves.
To be fair to National, the global economy crashed not long after they took office and unemployment spiralled not because of their policies but as a result of the global meltdown. Thankfully New Zealand is not as heavily indebted as the European Union, strong export returns of primary products, fishing, farming and forestry have staved off the more serious implications of a fiscal meltdown as in Greece’s case.
The figures portrayed in the graph don’t reflect the true number of jobs lost in a contracted economy. Upwards of 100,000 Kiwi’s have left for Australia in the last 5 years and if that hadn’t happened the unemployment statistics would be worse and the situation grave for the economy.
I think this discussion keeps getting sidetracked.
There is an assumption in the “reforms” and a lot of this discussion that there are a large numkber of unemployed/solo parents unwilling to look for and take work. This is simply not the case.
While there is a small number of long term unemployed and a small number of long term dpb recipients who have children while on the dpb, their impact on welfare expenditure is very small.
Meanwhile it is very hard to be on an unemployment benefit and not be actively seraching for work – the system already regularly reviews beneficiaries’ status.
So – my question is why do we focus of the very few that are in position?
Why isn’t the “reform” focused on assisting the vast majority who do want to work and are not sponging off the system?
The answer is, of course, that the whole thing is a diversionary tactic. Key/Bennett know that by pretending that there is a problem with malingerers they will build support from the mostly uninformed electorate and divert attention from the real issue – that they have no answers to the lack of employment opportunities.
Why isn’t the “reform” focused on assisting the vast majority who do want to work and are not sponging off the system?
IMO it’s because the NACTs don’t want more people employed, they just don’t want to be blamed for it, the more people unemployed, the more likely a reduction in wages.
And after a couple of years on reducing employment they can force these people back to work at a lower cost to employers – in terms of money for wages and money for worker protection. It’s that simple – while we’re all outraged about blaming/or blaming the unemployed for their plight, they’re getting on with the real business of lowering employer costs.
Zetetic I can’t parse this post because
a) spelling error: should be “people are just TOO snobby“)
b) grammatically weak run-on sentence: please use punctuation when paraphrasing someone’s argument.
Your argument is undermined by lazy misuse of English.
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Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
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Yep the RWNJs seem to believe that a spontaneout outbreak of blugerism occurred when Key assumed power.
Of course it has nothing to do with the economy or the Government’s handling of the GFC.
The number of benefits includes those on superannuation and this particuar benefit will continue to increase in numbers.
Did you know that older people are ageing for a business?
[this graph is just working age benefits. but good point. zet]
Oops thanks zet
I think we have previously established that unemployment was rising sharply in the declining period of the Clark led Labour Government so it is a bit disingenuous to claim that it happened as soon as John Key took office.
However even that doesn’t detract from the fact that I haven’t seen any person on the right actually argue that the reason people are unemployed is purely down to them ALL being lazy bludgers. Perhaps someone could link to someone making this claim?
If people can’t find someone making this claim then the central idea behind this article is a straw man argument. Congratulations on creating one of those and effectively countering it. For your next trick I expect you to state that Right wingers believe up is actually down and how this too is just crazy talk.
Wrong again. I’m intrigued that a spin-tool like yourself isn’t familiar with the old tory technique of “targetting” a few “lifestyle” beneficiaries, while restricting the entitlements of a whole bunch of “worthy poor” as collateral damage. E.g. Pete George the other day.
The fact is that there aren’t enough jobs, therefore unemployment protection is necessary and not an option. And bullying the unemployed is pointlessly vicious.
That post by Pete George is more supportive of my point than yours. He just stated that he knew of SOME beneficiaries who choose to be beneficiaries not that ALL beneficiaries choose to be beneficiaries. You may disagree with his position on this but it doesn’t provide evidence that right leaning people are trying to argue that the increase in unemployment is due to more people becoming lazy bludgers.
But it does support the argument that if there are no jobs out there, and that all the unemployed-centred “encourage them back into work” bullshit is just bullshit. If the government wants to cut the number of beneficiaries, bullying the unemployed will have less of a result than, oh, investing in education and infrastructure, buying locally, and not laying off public service staff.
Ensuring a viable productive economy and a flexible labour market is probably the best for reducing unemployment on a long term sustainable basis. You may disagree, which is your right, but other people do think this. They are the ones in power at the moment. Next time the left is in power they might attempt something along the lines you are suggesting. I choose to ignore the rest of your emotive laden post.
We can’t get emotive about under-producing economic units.
What possible basis can you have for believing that the government is really trying to solve unemployment? Just how much are you going to blame on the GFC, when we’ve started (since, oh, 2008/9) sliding down the performance charts of the OECD?
Meanwhile, unmatured potential economic units cease to function.
Overall productivity has been consistently rising for decades not just here but world-wide, and New Zealand is still a very flexible place to be an exployer compared to the rest of the OECD. If productivity and flexibility were all it took to increase available employment opportunities, we’d be having a jobs boom already, and it would be completely unrelated to changes in governments or other economic factors. I think we can both accept that the economy is more complicated than that, and at the very least we can agree to concede that it has natural cycles, (booms and busts) and is composed of several tugs of war between employers and labour in general, and more complicated relations between consumers and retailers and industries, and the impact of available information to each party.
The fact is, average productivity (in contrast with overall productivity, which is steadily rising) is actually inversely correlated with high demand for labour, simply because as the demand for workers increases, employers have to settle for less productive employees, who they fire when demand for labour decreases. Low productivity is ironically a sign of a healthy labour market, not because productivity is bad, but because universal employment drags down productivity figures.
To reduce unemployment, circulation needs to increase. Policies that create extra employment, or otherwise equalize the distribution of wealth to some degree, increase circulation and generate demand, which in turn prompts businesses to increase supply, which in turn prompts them to hire additional employees, which prompts them to demand more services and products from other businesses, and so on. You know what doesn’t help that process at all? Employer fleibility and productivity. In fact, productivity generally decreases the need to employ additional people because all of the available work is done.
Talking about viable economics, low the high income inequality would boost both the economy and lower unemployment. Given both Labour and National inability to discuss the effects of increasing oil prices on the economy, business is left in limbo and risk adverse. National would like its voters to believe selling assets won’t harm the deficit but anyone with a clue knows that’s not true. NZ exports its skilled, its profits, and raw resources, when we should be keeping our skilled, our profits and adding value (introducing a CGT). But National are biblically sret against any tax increases unless its on the poorest, unbalanced and unfair GST rises.
National have no idea how to run an economy, one National voter on TV actually thought that pushing single mums into fruit picking and replacing desperate pacific islanders was a real reality. WTF. Just as passing economic analysis shows that is wrong, its always going to be cheaper to hire desperate foriegners froma pacific Island chain (like Australia does to NZ citizens). And more so with some pacific islanders who have no work, no other opportunities and no baby (or home to heat).
National voters know little about economics if they repeat anything a politician says without thought.
And bullying the unemployed is pointlessly vicious.
Do you think no pressure at all should be put on beneficiaries to improve their edication or get work? (Labour tried to ‘encourage’ people off benefits before National started trying).
Should remaining on a benefit be simply a choice?
Option 3: actually give them educational and employment opportunities that will allow them to participate in society, not bully them into becoming grist for the mill.
There should be more than enough educational opportunities now shouldn’t there. Some could be done better, but anyone can get education if they want it.
Creating ’employment opportunities’ is election talk. No party actually knows how to increase employment to near nil-unemployment levels.
We have fewer lower skilled jobs due to technology and offshoring, and a far bigger proportion of the population looking for work due to women becoming ‘equal’ participants in the workforce. Has any country successfully created full employment in the last thirty years?
Do you think doubling public service employment would solve it?
Should be but aren’t.
I was watching telly the other day and they had an engineering course targeted at disadvantaged youths – applicants outnumbered places by something like four or five to one.
Universities and polytechs are not exactly running out of students.
Some do better than others. Seems to be those ones that actually foster industry, health and education, rather than speculators.
Nope, not ones that dovetail ludditism and good old fashioned sexism, anyway. Why the apostrophes around women becoming equal (more precisely, women becoming recognised as equal)?
Doubling the public service wouldn’t solve it, but culling the public sector doesn’t help.
Oh now I get it, you’re in politics because you have no understanding of other people’s lives and the real interaction between classes. Makes it pretty easy to say things like “anyone can get education”. Oh sure Pete, the world is so rational and caring and giving. Then you go on to spell out a possible solution, but can’t see it, because you’re holding so tightly to a model that strokes your control dysfunction, but doesn’t work in reality.
When’s you next banning due. I can’t believe you’re so old and so dumb, clearly you are a remorseless troll. Then again, those emails yesterday of rural types imploring Key to let them remain ignorant were quite instructive that a person can be eagerly ignorant for over 50 years. Who’s paying the bill for your eager ignorance, Pete? Unlike those collecting social security, the welfare you are taking has the opposite effect of being either social or secure. Get an education- anyone can – or hurry up and “retire”.
[lprent: Banning is something that the moderators decide. I have banned people for insistently calling for a ban. It falls under the “boring the moderators” or “wasting moderation time” categories. ]
It didn’t take long for the petty personal attacks to return. I’d hoped to come back trying to add to debates, to address ideas and not attack people.
Some seem happy and willing to discuss differences. Will that be swamped by futile provoke-to-ban moronity? I guess if that’s whats wanted here.
Nobody’s asking for zero unemployment right now. I think we’d settle for policies that lowered the figures by a few percentage points this year, in addition to any natural upturn that might happen.
Doubling public service employment would certainly solve the problem, but we’d need to actually have some sort of productive program for that, because the whole point of stimulating the economy with government employment is that you still have people doing productive work for the government on top of the economic gain in general. Doubling the public service would probably be too much stimulus, I would imagine, and there’d be no way to find enough productive work for that many people. Even a twenty percent expansion would be bold start.
But in more staff-neutral terms, we could make significant headway by simply cutting out third-parties from government employment and having the government run its own temping agency, for instance, and stop engaging in this “contracting out” nonsense to get around its own employment laws. We ship an extraordinary amount of money out from the government by contracting out in areas like HR where it just doesn’t make any sense to do so, and the government could provide the services itself with better efficiency, as it wouldn’t need to make a profit.
+1
When it was a choice.
When there was plenty of work and benefits were relatively a lot higher than they are now, very few people chose benefits.
The Prime Minister reckoned he knew all the unemployed by name.
The big number of people on benefits are there simply because the RWNJ neo-liberals stuffed our economy. They wanted a pool of unemployed to help drive wages down.
The current meanness towards beneficiaries is simple to scare all of us into accepting starvation wages and dog whistle to the unintelligent to cover NACT’s economic ineptitude. The same tactics used by another lot of Fascists in the past.
http://werewolf.co.nz/2011/02/ten-myths-about-welfare/
Pete George is a prime example of “lazy thinking”.
And then you quote lazy ‘myths’. I’ve had a bit of a look before, some of the detail is interesting but the questions are little more than exaggerated loaded nonsense.
1. Anyone who wants to get off welfare can get a job.
Many can and do. Obviously some can’t, for various reasons eg not enough jobs available, unemployable.
2. People on welfare commit a lot of benefit fraud, at the expense of hard-working people
Yes, some people (a small minority) do that.
3. Putting a time limit on how long people can receive welfare is a good idea
How many think that? About three?
4. People who go off on the dole go onto sickness and invalids benefits. We have to crack down on them, too.
A few do that. ‘People’ sort of implies all which is nonsense.
5. Most of the people on welfare are unmarried mothers – many of them teenagers – who have extra children so that they can get more money.
Obvious dramatic exaggeration.
6. Lots of people are on welfare for years and years, and then their children and grandchildren become welfare dependent.
Depends on what you mean by ‘lots’. Too many – yes. But a small minority.
7. Making unemployment insurance compulsory would be a good idea.
How many people think that? I don’t recall seeing it discussed.
8. People on welfare are bludging on the rest of us.
In effect a minority are, but ‘people’ is meant to sort of imply all which is nonsense.
9. Young people need welfare reform in order to teach them the value of work.
Nonsense – who thinks that? The best teachers of the value of work are parents and wider family, by example. Welfare reform may encourage or nudge some young people to find out the value of work for themselves.
10. Thank goodness the Maori Party is at the Cabinet table, to ensure the genuine needs of Maori are being met.
A political dig at the end. That’s been called a ‘myth’?
PG. You know the article was debunking common RWNJ myths about welfare, don’t you?
Or did you even read it.
I take back what I said about how good our education system is. It has obviously failed some people.
1. “Some people get off the unemployment benefit” is not the same as “anybody can get off the unemployment benefit if they try”. Some people are legitimately unemployable, some people need additional resources to become employed that they don’t have enough social resources to acquire, and some people are simply unemployed because the economy is too depressed for them to be a worthwhile bet for an employer right now. The vast majority of those people couldn’t get off the unemployment without spending more money on helping them.
And you know what? You shouldn’t have to be exceptional to get out of unemployment, you should need to be exceptional to require it, if we had a healthy society. Anything above 3% is not even arguably an exception, and ideally we should have less than 1% of the workforce drawing the benefit for more than a month at a time.
2. The minority of people who abuse benefits is so small that measures that are already in place can deal with them. We should be more concerned with the fact that it’s not possible to eat healthily on the benefit and afford accommodation at the same time.
3. Time-limiting benefits is just a more extreme version of the other sticks that the Right wants to offer beneficiaries. Sometimes it’s not a matter of sticks or carrots, sometimes you just need support to get into employment. People want to be productive, they want to feel involved, they want the things that meaningful employment (ie. not McJobs) offer, so the carrot is there intrinsically. We just need to stop dangling it from the stick over their heads and actually put it in reach.
4. So you agree we don’t need to crack down on people who go onto sickness or invalids benefits from the dole? Because as I see it they’re pretty hard to qualify for as-is and unlikely to be a point of abuse.
5. Sure, but it’s a significant portion of the complaining about benefits, too. I’m not sure you get to complain about people quoting back to you what people are actually saying- and as far as single mothers on benefits are concerned, that’s a pretty mild paraphrasing. And yes, I understand that this is getting into the foggy areas of personal experience rather than factual debate.
6. Sure, too many. But actual dependency on welfare is a symptom of a great many social problems, and it makes sense to deal with the causative factors before we actually think about increasing pressure on beneficiaries, wouldn’t you agree?
I don’t think anyone would claim that long-term beneficiaries don’t need policy to address them- the debate is about how legally mandating people to get jobs possibly helps them when we’ve already established they either can’t or won’t in their current situation, and I would argue the answer is “overall it does more harm than good.”
8. Undeniably there are a few people who do this, but the question is whether they’re worth any additional energy to deal with. I don’t think so- it’s an incredibly low return on investment to follow them up directly when you could actually look at the root causes of the need for welfare.
9. I’ve met people who think that. They’re fortunately a significant minority, but they do exist, and I get very embarassing praise from them for having found my way into being a “young professional”, (by which they mean I get paid more than minimum wage and need to wear business clothes to work, despite needing to work six days a week to save anything significant) even though they don’t know I spent multiple years dealing with a severe anxiety disorder in which I couldn’t work.
(I was supported by my parents, so I didn’t actually claim the benefit at the time- which is yet more proof that being stuck on a benefit is a symptom of lacking other resources to fall back on more than some sort of intrinsic failing)
more lies goose
The RWNJ’s are right. Bob Jones, for example, is on record as saying that when National forms a government, he changes his strategy to a low growth model.
There is a direct correlation between the National Party and a slower work rate in the economy. The RWNJ’s are still missing the point though – they think laziness causes the problem, but the problem is their understanding of economics is a little bit shit.
I’m not so sure you can say there is a change to the entire system just because of one example. In my opinion, what Bob Jones says should be taken with a grain of salt.
Your point is well made though Kotahi Tane Huna, people simply don’t work as hard when they’re earning less. You really do get what you pay for and if you’re a smart investor, you take your money out of the NZ economy when the Natz get into power. They’re not to be trusted.
The irony though Kotahi Tane Huna is that the likes of Bob Jones expect to make more income under a Labour led govt. Exactly the opposite of how Labour sells itself to it’s supporters…..
But sure…. lets vote in a govt that’s better for the wealthy … just pretend it’s best for the little guy and lets make the wealthy …. well wealthier….
I think this Global meltdown doesn’t mean a low growth environment is the same thing as a low profit environment.
BS Burt labour is better for everybody god with your dumb logic no wonder your a National supporter so what you’ve been saying up till now that labour is bad for wealth creatos is just a figment of your imagination.
Like gooseman you have been caught out!
Superannuation was paid to 535 300 people in the 2011 year. This is 12.75% of the population and really not very high by any stretch of the imagination.
NZ should be investing in manufacturing of products derived from its prime products, i.e. wood, wool. It is tragic that whole logs are being shipped offshore and all we need to do is get diesel for the chainsaw. Plastics and Textile imports are the largest growth items between 2005 and 2010 mostly from China. Milk powder, butter and cheese export has increased by around 80% and logs by around 33%.Except for crude oil no other area is significant in exports.
The biggest problem hidden in the figures are the number of under 25s out of work (or in “tronning”), I would hazard that over half of the under 25s have no “real” prospect of a “good” job. This is a form of inter generational theft. There is a call for the age of superannuation to rise, so the older workers have to stay longer…..which means the younger ones will have to wait longer. The thinking behind this is either warped or very self serving.
Where is the evidence that a lower retirement age has a big impact on youth unemployment? Certainly if we look at the countries in Europe with a lower age of retirement I would suggest we would tend to find that Youth unemployment rates are the same, or even higher, than those countries with a higher average age of retirement. Your argument smacks of the same logical fallacy that some conservatives use for discouraging women in the workforce.
Gos, I need very little evidence that if I add work to one age cohort (like an extra year) that work is not going to be available to another age cohort. Nothing is more obvious. And to make matters worse I have little faith that an extra years work will be available to that age cohort either.
Whether that work is “available” or able to be undertaken by another age cohort is entirely another issue. What it screams to me is that whilst there is a youth employment crisis the politicians and Treasury are focused firmly on the wrong age cohort.
I just love Goose giving yet another call for “evidence” followed by him suggesting an alternative theory but supplying no evidence for it.
This is a good discussion on it
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2011/12/12/2003520527
Especially this sentence “Governments had tried in the past to reduce youth unemployment by enticing older workers to retire, but had failed, partly because they had to raise labor taxes to pay for the extended pensions. Employers were not amused.”
LoL. 🙂
Merely pointing out that you are habitually arrogance rich, but evidence light. Although this bit made me laugh.
When
is an increase not an increase? When an economist says it’s a “temporary factor”.
When I am asked to provide evidence for anything I have made a claim for I tend to provide it or at least provide a source for it. A good example of that is that list of links to various papers on the benefits of economic freedom for economic growth. You might disagree with the links but then again I tend to disagree with your sources as well. You also missed my linking to an IMF paper on Belgium which refers to the same fallacy that is mentioned briefly in the editorial you are commenting on.
Meh – saw it. My point was that on the one hand you were criticising someone for not providing evidence when they made a claim at the same time as doing the same thing.
But then of course you missed the wee comment in your own source that essentially contradicts it and your position (albeit a “temporary” contradiction). Of course, you have a history of failing to read your own sources.
Your temporary contradiction (whatever that means) seems only to be an opinion. The IMF paper goes into greater detail about the fallacy that Bored is promoting. If you care to discuss this then go ahead. If you want to try and score petty debating points go ahead and waste your time once again.
Gos, it was your source that brought it up.
As for the IMF report:
Not entirely sure 28 counts as particularly “young” in the employment market. Especially when they skipped the firest two years of post-school employment history (for reasons that are basically odd), even though they identified school-industry mismatch as a cause of youth unemployment.
Sigh.
You asked for evidence supporting my claim that Bored’s comments were a fallacy. I provided that evidence. Whether you agree with the evidence or not is irrelevant to me. Bored hasn’t even bothered to counter this, just restate his position as if it is commonly accepted as a fact. It obviously isn’t as there wouldn’t be a fallacy named for it.
So now you’ll only accept criticism of sources (that you link to only upon request, and that you frequently fail to read yourself) from those people who aren’t particularly interested in getting into a semantic debate with a slippery propogandist?
slick.
Of course, if the shoe were on the other foot you’d be all to eager to crow objectionably, not to mention subsequently insisting that no evidence had been provided…
McCock,
If someone posted a link to something that I disagreed with I don’t think I would state they haven’t provided any evidence. I might state something like, (if it is an opinion piece), that the evidence is not very persuassive or is flawed or that it isn’t hard evidence
And then a day or so later it becomes no relevant evidence whatsoever…
Pity that reality contradicts your claims that economic freedom benefits economic growth.
The fastest growing economies have always had Government intervention, assistance and regulation. And the highest taxes!
Not according to the number of links I provided a few days ago.
Like the one that claims Freidmanite economics and Pinochet were good for Chile?
Here’s a paper that is discussing the link in Belgium (in which the participation rates for elderly people in the workforce has been declining).
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2008/wp0830.pdf
Please note the following passage
“The idea that forcing elderly workers out of the labor market before the statutory age of
retirement would provide jobs for the unemployed young has been for a long time widely
accepted in several European countries, particularly in Belgium where indeed youth
unemployment is particularly high both in absolute and in relative terms. For most
economists and fortunately an increasing number of Belgian this view is based on the
erroneous belief in a fixed amount of work. Economists call this allegedly widespread view
the “lump of labor fallacy”.”
Is that evidence enough for you McFlock?
For once Gossy is correct
More people working grows consumption, the economy and allows more jobs. More State employment grows, not shrinks, the private sector.
Gossy has just contradicted his own previous positions, generally supporting those who think that austerity and small government are economically beneficial. The Laffer curve is also a result of the “lump of Labour, lump of capital fallacy.
State spending needs to be underpinned by the productive sector and constatly increasing it is not self sustaining over the long term. Eventually you just end up borrowing more and more to fund unproductive expenditure. You just need to look at the problems in Greece to see the outcome of this. The only solutions in this case are either debt default, inflating your way out of trouble (including devaluation of currency), or severe Governement cut backs (i.e. austerity).
By the way it is interesting to see a sort of bastardised version of Keynesian being promoted here.
Are you still trying to pretend that the State sector is not productive Gossy.
I thought we already had this discussion.
Greece was a lot more complicated than you admit, and very little to do with Government deficits as RWNJ’s try to claim.
Being tied to the Euro and German currency had a lot to do with it. Greece’s currency should have devalued.
Keynes has been proved right, and Freidman wrong, many times now. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/voodoo-economics.html
This is a good article on the subject. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10789734
How is borrowing to give more money to bankers, and the wealthy to spend on Hawaii holidays, working, Gossy.
See my links. In short your thinking has a name. It is called the “lump of labour fallacy”.
It must be nice to know your line of thinking has it’s own particular fallacy.
Bored, having so many people under 25 out of work – these are University degree holders and NZ has only a small pool of jobs suited to that skill level. Many jobs are customer service, help desk and manual, part time and seasonal work. The pay is not going to cover living costs and paying back the student loan. Besides, one does not study for years to pick apples (not that there is something wrong with that). Many will go overseas looking for greener pastures and NZ is the poorer for it. As for the retirement age – there maybe people who want to work longer (never met any) but there are many who have to work longer as they still pay mortgage, help with grand kids or are on single income. So, all in all it looks like we are slowly becoming a very poor country.
Right on there Foreign Waka. But NACTs are unlikely to think about the country and economy in any useful, meaningful way that would bring such practical considerations to the fore for implementation.
I recently spent time with some RW. Not a book about the place, no newspapers which might spread round untidily. Lots of interest in Breakfast TV and the bright coloured mannikins that appear there giving the junk news. No RadioNZ reporting and analysis, only Coast with endlessly pleasant music and limited advertisements to provide ‘wallpaper for the ears’ as Peter Ustinov remarked about elevator music.
It’s frightening to know that so much power is held in the hands of these smug people in their cloistered ivory towers, looking with disdain on the unsatisfactory plebs below. The strugglers and the non-achievers are the labels applied to those not regarded as worthwhile human beings at all.
Why? Disappointed you didn’t find the complete works of Ayn Rand on the bedside table? I really don’t like this kind of attack because ultimately you can say exactly the same things of a lot of poor working people, the “strugglers and the non-achievers” – not always groanoing bookshelves in their homes either. Attack a person’s views, philosophy and politics if you must, but it seems a bit mean spirited to attack their taste in home entertainment.
I remember going to work in the Uni holidays of 1975 and walking down a street in Sydenham calling into every factory en route asking for work. I worked 2 days for one place before deciding that the boss was an out of control maniac, so I went next door and asked for a job cutting up meat. We worked to a Union award and there was a group bonus, the Union man and the foreman drove this mercilessly so there was no slacking. Good money was paid, but you had to earn it, and I don’t recall any slackers or absentees.
The point of the above is that when we had full employment we also had good wages, and we had very little need of welfare. And compulsory unionism meant there was some balance between employers and employees. Most importantly people were demonstrably NOT lazy. Any form of perceived bludging was frowned upon from all quarters.
Funny thing, back in the 70s the National Party maintained a narrative that described workers as lazy. They also vilified the unemployed (all 20 of them) as the cause of all of societies woes. What we have from Nact today is the same old crew with the same old line…”kill the poor”.
So do you support compulsory unionism on a similar level to what was in existence in your time in 1975?
Certainly do…there is a lot of bullshit talked about the role of unions that does not match the reality.
A little background: organised labour (unions) originally had to accept a compromise: compulsory unionism in NZ was conditional upon acceptance of the Arbitration System. Unions referred to it as “labours leg iron”.What that meant was that unions were bound by a system that mitigated against the worst excesses of the unions (and the employers).
I don’t regard Unions as socialist bodies: they are in reality a way of grouping together to get a better deal in the way that is regularly applied by other buyers and sellers in the “market”. As a buyer of their services (I employ people) I can see the downside of not being able to screw individuals down as easily. Conversely I don’t have the cost of dealing with multiple individuals, or multiple negotiations, which as an employer save me heaps of time.
Other than your views on compulsory unionism I actually agree with your position on Trade Union’s in regard to bargaining. They can be very beneficial to employee and employer alike.
I do.
And am writing an article soon as to why.
You only have to look at how shop assistants are treated daily to see why Unions are needed.
Compulsory unionism means that employers cannot single out and fire union members, for one.
As an employer I prefer my employees and myself not to pay taxes to subsidise employers who cannot pay their full costs.
AND I do not see why other employers should not have to compete on efficiency and usefulness rather than on how much they can undercut my employees wages.
Unions are as much a necessary part of capitalism as employer associations. They provide a necessary balance.
I remember reading James McNeishs book Fire Under the Ashes about Danilo Dolci and the
poor in Sicily, which was under the thrall of the Mafia which strangled business and initiatives unless it suited them and bled operating businesses dry. Conditions were not good or improvable. Danilo Dolci did a consciousness raising project with the unemployed men which gained a lot of publicity and anger.
The idea was to have an unemployment strike. The men for the time of the strike stopped being unemployed and went out to work on the roads at their own cost and time.
We don’t want to sink to those levels of desperation, and if we had politicians with real commitment to all the people, to having a vital economy and a successful, buzzing little country, we would be managing our way out of recession not creating this fly-blown mess that everyone walks around at a great distance avoiding the smells and ordure.
I remember reading a book by Danilo Dolci. I recall his manner of speaking was very matter of fact: We wanted a well. I met with this person and they agreed to supply this, then I asked these people for that, then we put it all together and it worked… and so on. Perhaps it was a translation issue, but it was like he was deconstructing and sanitising the art of politics to cut a long, dirty, story short. I came away with the impression of a man who could do the impossible, but also with strong connections to the mafia. You just couldn’t walk round Sicily at that time and do stuff and annoy people and not end up at the wrong end of someone’s Lupara. He had big friends, no doubt about it.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I think NZ has reached the point where people have to simply take back what has been taken away or given up by stepping in and doing the things they need without any permission or recourse to authorities. The principled, charismatic, Lone Ranger has turned out to be a whore on a mule, so we’ll have to save ourselves.
What do the numbers on the left and right of the graph represent?
Is it working population and numbers on the benifit?
Dohl….lhs & rhs urgh
Zet looks to me like it should read “… lazy between 2008 and 2010Q4“
To be fair to National, the global economy crashed not long after they took office and unemployment spiralled not because of their policies but as a result of the global meltdown. Thankfully New Zealand is not as heavily indebted as the European Union, strong export returns of primary products, fishing, farming and forestry have staved off the more serious implications of a fiscal meltdown as in Greece’s case.
The figures portrayed in the graph don’t reflect the true number of jobs lost in a contracted economy. Upwards of 100,000 Kiwi’s have left for Australia in the last 5 years and if that hadn’t happened the unemployment statistics would be worse and the situation grave for the economy.
I think this discussion keeps getting sidetracked.
There is an assumption in the “reforms” and a lot of this discussion that there are a large numkber of unemployed/solo parents unwilling to look for and take work. This is simply not the case.
While there is a small number of long term unemployed and a small number of long term dpb recipients who have children while on the dpb, their impact on welfare expenditure is very small.
Meanwhile it is very hard to be on an unemployment benefit and not be actively seraching for work – the system already regularly reviews beneficiaries’ status.
So – my question is why do we focus of the very few that are in position?
Why isn’t the “reform” focused on assisting the vast majority who do want to work and are not sponging off the system?
The answer is, of course, that the whole thing is a diversionary tactic. Key/Bennett know that by pretending that there is a problem with malingerers they will build support from the mostly uninformed electorate and divert attention from the real issue – that they have no answers to the lack of employment opportunities.
Why isn’t the “reform” focused on assisting the vast majority who do want to work and are not sponging off the system?
IMO it’s because the NACTs don’t want more people employed, they just don’t want to be blamed for it, the more people unemployed, the more likely a reduction in wages.
And after a couple of years on reducing employment they can force these people back to work at a lower cost to employers – in terms of money for wages and money for worker protection. It’s that simple – while we’re all outraged about blaming/or blaming the unemployed for their plight, they’re getting on with the real business of lowering employer costs.
It is a diversionary tactic that has been used often, successfully.
Focus the hate of the ignorant on another group. So they do not see who are really causing the problems and taking the wealth.
Fraud cops call it the “bait and switch”.
The disgusting thing is that those who do the dog whistling, know better.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Zetetic I can’t parse this post because
a) spelling error: should be “people are just TOO snobby“)
b) grammatically weak run-on sentence: please use punctuation when paraphrasing someone’s argument.
Your argument is undermined by lazy misuse of English.
You’re not at Auckland Grammar now, Dr Ropata!