Lies, damn lies and desperation

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, August 26th, 2010 - 43 comments
Categories: class war, john key, national, tax - Tags: ,

John Key was spinning again in the House last week. So desperate is he to deflect criticism of his government’s poor performance, that he has been talking about how take-home wages didn’t rise fast enough under the Labour Government.

It is time we got away from Mr Key’s focus on individual greed and got back to a focus on better hospital, schools and care for those who are struggling. Gains should be shared amongst all of the people. David Clark argues that Key’s tax cuts are going to actually drive away our high-achievers while Mr Key is telling us it’s going to bring them home. I think Clark is right, people want fairness and don’t want to live in a society with ghettos and skyscrapers. If they wanted that, they would move to the states or the middle east.

Let’s stick to the facts. Measures of inequality show that inequality grew massively in the 90s under National, but did not increase significantly with Labour. In fact, the fifth Labour Government grew the pie by a quarter in real terms, and this quarter strengthened public services and was shared widely. They didn’t get everything right, but at least they were heading in the direction of creating a fairer society.

No doubt Key will blunder on. Although we don’t know much about what he stands for, a fair society is one thing that is definitely not on his agenda

43 comments on “Lies, damn lies and desperation ”

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  1. vto 1
    26 August 2010 at 8:28 am

    John Key – the only man in New Zealand who doesn’t recall what his position was during the 1981 Springbok Tour…. if he was telling the truth of course.

    was he?

    • loota 1.1
      26 August 2010 at 8:34 am

      You easily remember things that you truly and passionately believe in. Key, he has a lot of blank spots, I suspect.

      • Bored 1.1.1
        26 August 2010 at 8:58 am

        He was on a bicycle tour at the time.

        • wtl 1.1.1.1
          26 August 2010 at 10:49 am

          And it was on that bicycle tour that he first had the inspiration to build a cycleway across NZ. He has worked tirelessly towards achieving that goal to this day.

    • bbfloyd 1.2
      26 August 2010 at 11:48 am

      vto.. i’m sure he was telling the truth. which tells us more about why he wanted to be pm than all the bullshit written in our gossip sheets(herald, dom post).

  2. Cnr Joe 2
    26 August 2010 at 8:42 am

    Y’now, it would be nice to be able to say ‘at least he meant well’.
    He wanted to govern, he wanted to have P.M on his c.v – but did he not realise that this is also a legacy shared by the world ? That this is history and books and things?
    Perhaps he should of read up on it before bribing his way to power.

  3. Pete 3
    26 August 2010 at 8:44 am

    “I think Clark is right, people want fairness and don’t want to live in a society with ghettos and skyscrapers.”

    Unfortunately ‘fairness’ is too subjective – ACToids bounce it about when they need to, and it’s been used to justify tax cuts for so-called ‘hard workers’ (hint: because higher incomes = harder workers) i.e “it’s only fair I get to keep more of the salary I earn”. The rest just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or some-such.

  4. TightyRighty 4
    26 August 2010 at 8:49 am

    but everything done to try and improve schools, those who are struggling and hospitals gets pilloried by you as it doesn’t follow your prescription to cure every ailment. write a cheque. that approach has been proven to not work, as evidenced by declining literacy and numeracy standards, healthcare persistently failing maori and pacific islanders and people on the dole still being poor. with a smaller bank balance comes the need to think innovatively to achieve results. this can throw up some worthwhile methods that need more money. these can be readily identified as it wasn’t just more money that started them in the first place.

    • KJT 4.1
      26 August 2010 at 11:38 am

      What declining literacy and numeracy standards? NZ is consistently near the top in literacy and numeracy in international comparisons.

      • TightyRighty 4.1.1
        26 August 2010 at 1:13 pm

        it’s not about how we compare to other nations, it’s how we compare to our levels of literacy and numeracy in years gone by. I’m the first person to admit my grasp of grammar and punctuation is substandard. When i read the letters written by my parents and grandparents it’s even more apparent. Sometimes it’s good to compare within a nation for standards, rather than looking smugly outside our shores.

        • KJT 4.1.1.1
          27 August 2010 at 10:23 am

          If you are a similar age to me you went to school in an era where it was fashionable not to teach grammar etc. That has changed since we went to school.

          Universities have always complained about declining standards as far back as I can remember.

          That is because they do not want to have to teach.

          I think Plato was the first to burst into print about the inferior younger generation. We are looking at their skills level from the view of 20 or more years of life experience and education.

          • KJT 4.1.1.1.1
            27 August 2010 at 10:40 am

            20% do not do well at school. We already know the reasons. They are to do with equality and the breach of the social contract.

            There is always room for improvement in any human endeavor, including teaching. Teaching ability or educational standards are not the problem here.

            The best, most dedicated teachers, are in the low decile schools. Time servers congregate in the middle deciles because they just would not survive in Otara.

            If the standard of teaching was the issue those schools would do better than the higher decile ones.

            • TightyRighty 4.1.1.1.1.1
              27 August 2010 at 11:16 am

              Equality and breach of the social contract? been reading “the spirit level” have we? Toby Young in the spectator has pointed out that the only link made in that book that stands up to scrutiny is the link between inequality and infant mortality.

              or have you been ignoring the glorious work done by the LA Times? the one that says that teachers have the most impact on student learning, not any other factor. it’s not decile, it’s not equality, it’s not the social contract (which by the way, only bleeding hearts have probably signed, the rest of us have just been shanghaied into it). it’s useless teachers, being protected by a militant, pig-headed union, to the detriment of children and the the excellent teachers out there.

              try thinking things through before postulating that problems are everybody elses fault.

              • felix …
                27 August 2010 at 11:43 am

                You’re welcome to reject the social contract and fuck off any time you like.

                But you won’t because you’re soft and weak and you can’t make it on your own.

                • TightyRighty …
                  27 August 2010 at 12:33 pm

                  temper temper felix you big pussy cat. interesting that you think it’s ok that artificial constructs that seek to define what is morality and ethical behaviour can be imposed on society with only the merest of restraint. especially as you seem very fond of abusing the government for trying to do the same, but under a different ideaology.

                  • felix …
                    27 August 2010 at 4:47 pm

                    Interesting that you seem perfectly comfortable with the aspects of said artificial constructs which benefit you both directly and indirectly, yet you quickly run in fear from the facets of the very same construct which require any responsibility or effort from you.

                    • TightyRighty …
                      27 August 2010 at 8:03 pm

                      you are confusing running away with resistance. I know you lefties are all very empathetic with the french for their anti-american viewpoint, but you didn’t need to learn to how to fight from them. Next you’ll be using human shields after cosying up to palestine.

              • lprent …
                27 August 2010 at 12:18 pm

                We went through a NY Times article (that DPF obviously didn’t read past the first page before linking to it) that looked at such results in more depth. It showed that the biggest factor in how well teachers taught was more effective training in how to teach – largely in the classroom. Not artificial standards on students, not changes in pay rates, and none of the other things beloved by RWNJ’s.

                You notice that Tolley and the idiots in this government have not put one iota of extra resource into that? What they have effectively done is remove the time to do it by getting teachers do ineffective makework of the “National Standards”…

                • TightyRighty …
                  27 August 2010 at 12:44 pm

                  my opinion has changed on national standards, not of their effectiveness, but because teachers will deliberately fuck them up at the behest of the PPTA. national will be on a hiding to nothing as teachers, and only teachers, know best apparently.

                  and even with your example above from the NYT, that’s still no reason to not be able to base a teachers salary on their performance. performance pay may induce them to study harder while at TCOL, and to continue their own education. or are you assuming that teachers don’t want a dynamic career and the oppurtunity to progress? and if you are not, shouldn’t that progression be based on ability? would that not set a fantastic example to a teachers students? and maybe keep more skilled teachers in New Zealand?

                  • KJT …
                    27 August 2010 at 1:02 pm

                    “On the face of it, It seems fair to reward people who perform better than others with more pay.
                    If anyone can come up with a fair and valid performance measurement. Fine.

                    However even in the private sector this is fraught with difficulty.
                    Unless performance has a single clear measurement business has a poor record with targeting performance pay.”

                    http://kjt-kt.blogspot.com/2010/08/performance-pay-for-teachers.html

                    “If performance pay is such a good idea how about tying MP’s pay to the average wage. 5 times the average wage with an 85% tax abatement rate on any other income would seem about right.”

                    • TightyRighty …
                      27 August 2010 at 2:37 pm

                      so your actually advocating a pay packet of 200k to be an mp, when not even three comments before, you say

                      “The evidence shows that a far greater proportion of useless people exist in management and Government than teaching.”

                      are you actually condoning paying the useless ones even more? or do you peversely think that higher pay will hold them to higher standards? and your tax abatement idea, that\’ll just encourage career politicians. that’s about as awesome as genital warts.

                  • KJT …
                    27 August 2010 at 1:03 pm

                    National standards have been tries and failed in the UK and the US. Even some of their former advocates no longer support them.

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    27 August 2010 at 1:32 pm

                    national will be on a hiding to nothing as teachers, and only teachers, know best apparently.

                    As far as teaching goes – the teachers do know best. Parents and politicians on the other hand, know next to nothing.

                    • mcflock …
                      27 August 2010 at 2:09 pm

                      dammit, DtB, there you go again!

                      Look, just because the so-called “experts” have so-called “experience”, “training” and “qualifications” does not mean that an idiot’s opinion, unsullied by knowledge or practical experience, is not equally as valid.

                    • TightyRighty …
                      27 August 2010 at 2:41 pm

                      hopeless dtb. after 13 years of studying most pupils are pretty good at identifying bad teachers and where they are failing. thanks to compulsory education, everyone has been through school, which means all parents have. no way that parents, politicians included, would have any idea about the education system right?

                    • Comedy …
                      27 August 2010 at 3:51 pm

                      What about the parents who are teachers and the teachers who are politicians ?

                      Keepin’ it real on Friday !

                    • Pascal's bookie …
                      27 August 2010 at 4:22 pm

                      Bloody hells. If kids are coming out of secondary school qualified to design and monitor education systems then the teachers are doing a bloody excellent job.

              • KJT …
                27 August 2010 at 12:38 pm

                No. Reading work that predates the spirit level by many years.
                The spirit level is a good summary of the evidence though.

                So a journalists opinion is more correct than years of research.

                The evidence shows that a far greater proportion of useless people exist in management and Government than teaching.

                You are happy to take advantage of the benefits of living in a society, but want to deny them to others.

      • Internationalcomparator 4.1.2
        26 August 2010 at 1:16 pm

        I is retard

        [Ummm – ok, not a good start. If you want to comment seriously here you are welcome, but nonsense like this won’t last long. — r0b]
        [lprent: it is one of our usual commentators using a new alias – and I’d agree that he is. ]

  5. travellerev 5
    26 August 2010 at 9:21 am

    Eddie,

    Sociopaths like John Key count on you to call them stupid bumbling idiots while they go on their rampage of inequality and greed.

    His good friend Julian Robertson from Tiger management (closed a couple of years after the LTCM hedge fund collapsed) and living it up in New Zealand with his luxury golf resorts knows a thing or two about him Merrill Lynch, the LTCM hedge fund (the aftermath of which when it collapsed gave him the nickname “Smiling Assassin” because he fired his excess colleagues with a smile).

    While they own the millions, have been bought out with billions they are called the bumblers while we are living marginal lives (Compared to them that is) trying to be good honest citizens.

    You remember that the next time you see them do something to the detriment of us rewarding them with more money, more wealth and more rights.

    • Mark M 5.1
      26 August 2010 at 10:48 am

      You were there were you Traveller? when he fired these people.
      If not how do you know he was smiling or did you just make that up.

      • The Baron 5.1.1
        26 August 2010 at 10:59 am

        I suspect she is a psychologist too, bandying words around like sociopaths – and all because she disagrees with his politics.

        Oh look here comes the weirdo, hyperbolic NZ left again, doing their absolute best to seem like crazied ideologes rather than considering what the hell they would do instead.

      • bbfloyd 5.1.2
        26 August 2010 at 11:55 am

        mark… get a dose of wake up and smell the flowers would you. yes i know it hurts to have the love of your life exposed for what he is, but you just make it worse by attempting to deny the obvious. HIS FRIENDS CALLED HIM THAT BECAUSE HE SACKED A WHOLE PASSEL OF PEOPLE WHILE SMILING AND WAVING!

        • travellerev 5.1.2.1
          27 August 2010 at 8:43 am

          After Merrill Lynch just got stung in a massive collapse of their favourite hedge fund LTCM.

          When? When their speculation in foreign currencies caused the collapse of the Thai bath.

          Sociopath? In order to be called Smiling Assassin by your colleagues in a world were the minimum demand is a seriously Sociopathic inclination being the Wall street investment banking world you’d have to be the cream of the crop or total scum as that is what floats to the top

    • The Voice of Reason 5.2
      26 August 2010 at 11:26 am

      The phrase was in the Herald puff piece on the weekend and has been used plenty of times before. Key is aware of it and has never denied it was applied to him nor that it was in any way unfair.

  6. M 6
    26 August 2010 at 1:00 pm

    Unfortunately Key aka Boy Blunder doesn’t seem to be able to join the dots – more unemployment equals more crime as people become more desperate or food banks run out of supplies.

    Key is too busy having his prostate massaged by big biz whilst fellating the booze barons, a true roasting as they say.

    Found this series of cartoons re libertarians – the extreme right, third row is absolutely Key

    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/24-types-of-libertarians/

  7. Draco T Bastard 7
    26 August 2010 at 2:21 pm

    Although we don’t know much about what he stands for…

    Actually, we do. He is a financial speculator and so it can be reasonably assumed that he stands for people, normally rich, that want more financial speculation and none of the dirty work that actually produces wealth.

  8. David Lloyd 8
    27 August 2010 at 11:19 am

    I’m still waiting for the media to question donKey about his part in the Asia currency crisis.

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