No pay rises under Nats

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 am, October 19th, 2011 - 81 comments
Categories: election 2011, labour, Unions, wages, workers' rights - Tags:

St. Augustine said “Lord, give me chastity, but not yet”. Was reminded of that reading the Tories’ reaction to Labour’s work and wages policy. Tories say they want you to have higher wages. But not yet. It’s always later. Once you’ve earned it. In the ‘brighter future’. And they’ll scream blue murder any time you demand what you deserve today.

They know that, at the end, the question of wages is how to divide the pie between workers and capitalists. More for one means less for the other. And their whole project is about securing, protecting, and enhancing the privileges of the capital-owning elite.

The results of National’s ideology are lower wages when they’re in government.

(from the Quarterly Employment Survey. Somewhere in an old post is a graph showing wages took until 2002 or 2004 to get back to where they were in the mid-80s when they peaked)

I’ll let you in on a secret: we’re never going to be a high wage economy if we reject every proposal to raise wages.

I’ll give you a second one for free: we’re not going to catch Aussie wage rates, or even get the same share of output going to workers, if we refuse to adopt the labour laws that created their wage rates.

Labour’s work and wages policy looks a lot like the Aussie system.

  • No compulsory union membership.
  • Mondayisation of statutory holidays.
  • $15 an hour minimum wage.
  • a statutory right to redundancy pay.
  • No exemption from work rights placed on film workers.
  • Industry standards to lift the lowest wages in an industry to the norm for that industry. (the Aussies call them “modern awards”)

The last is a good one. Right now, if you work in unionised workplace you can be earning twice what someone down the road doing the same job in a place that isn’t unionised earns. That just ain’t right. The Tories reckon the market will sort that out – supply and demand, market equilibrium blah, blah. It’s not true because the differentials exist. And if you’re in a unionised workplace, you were almost certain to have gotten some kind of pay rise in the last year. If you’re not, you probably didn’t.

So why doesn’t everyone unionise? It isn’t that simple. The system’s set up against it. Individually negotiating with each employer, especially in industries with lots of small employers, can be prohibitively expensive for the dues unions can raise. The big sites get unionised. Small ones, not so much. And some organisations actively thwart unionisation of their workforce. It’s a bloody tough thing to stand up to your boss in a time of recession and unionise. Especially if you’re under the 90 Day Fire at Will law.

The good bosses and their workers get screwed. They can’t afford to raise wages too much or they’ll get undercut by the bad bosses.

Just like the Fire at Will Bill is a bastard’s charter, with the bad bosses pulling down standards and forcing others to match them to stay competitive, so the current wage bargaining system lets bad bosses set the floor and drags down everyone else.

Industry standards will be an agreement between employers and workers’ unions facilitated by the government to set minimum pay and conditions standards for the industry based on the industry average. Allowance will be made for small employers who have geniune difficulty reaching the standards. Unionised sites will still be able to bargain for improvements on those standards.

But the important bit is it disempowers the bastards who run low-pay models. These are the people keeping us back as a country. Under Labour, they will have to compete fairly with their counterparts, rather than winning by screwing over their workers to make a profit.

These kind of industry standards models work in many different countries. Actually, some countries don’t have a general minimum wage, they just have industry standards setting minima. Countries were the pay is higher and the share of output that workers keep is higher. Countries that have stronger growth because wealth is more widely distributed, not hoarded by a tiny elite (to the same extent it is here).

If we want to be a high wage, wealthy country that attracts and retains people, we need to copy what works.

And we’ll all be winners from that.

81 comments on “No pay rises under Nats ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    19 October 2011 at 2:25 am

    The last is a good one. Right now, if you work in unionised workplace you can be earning twice what someone down the road doing the same job in a place that isn’t unionised earns. That just ain’t right. The Tories reckon the market will sort that out – supply and demand, market equilibrium blah, blah.

    If you don’t know what the going rate is then how can you ask for it?

    These awards, if we get them, will need to be published so that people are working with better knowledge.

    • Bill 1.1
      19 October 2011 at 10:09 am

      If you don’t know what the going rate is then how can you ask for it?

      As I noted in another thread, this system is already in place for workers in the state school sector. The unions negotiate with the commissioner of education. Minimum terms are agreed. Those terms are then applied to all workers doing work covered by the collective (both union and non-union). The advantage in being a union member is that the conditions apply to you 3 -6 months before they apply to non union workers.

      School boards can only enter into different arrangements if the commissioner agrees to them. In other words, the applicability of the minimum terms is protected.

      Applying the same or a similar scenario to the private sector under the ERA would be quite simple. It would require an equivalent level of authority to the Commissioner for Education being appointed for each industry. That authority would negotiate with unions and a part of those negotiations would be the date from when the negotiated terms would apply to non union workers wthin the industry. A simple insertion into or alteraton to the ERA whereby any Individual Agreements that didn’t comply with the industry minima would be deemed to be unlawful then brings the private sector into line with the current situation in parts of the state sector.

      Which all means that if an unscrupluous employer entered into a sub minima term agreement with you, they’d be liable to action to recover the resultant wage difference etc.

    • Scott 1.2
      20 October 2011 at 7:54 pm

      When was the last time you saw a situations vacant ad with a wage range in it? Another good way of hiding the going rate.

  2. wired 2
    19 October 2011 at 6:12 am

    Can you please be more specific regarding the datasets you used as by using the QES (diff ones) and CPI (all) the output doesn’t line up with your graph. Thanks

    • Zetetic 2.1
      19 October 2011 at 7:26 am

      Here are the series parameters I downloaded from infoshare

      Average Weekly Earnings (Employees) by Industry (ANZSIC06) and Sex (Qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)
      Total All Industries
      Total Both Sexes
      Total (Ordinary Time + Overtime) Weekly

      CPI All Groups for New Zealand (Qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)

      Adjusted QES into June 2011 $

  3. RedLogix 3
    19 October 2011 at 6:41 am

    The other equally powerful, but subtle, tool for suppressing wages is the cult of secrecy around how much people are paid. In reality it only works in the bosses favour.

    Of course one of the side-effects of award structures is that everyone has a fair idea of what the going renumeration rates are …

  4. tc 4
    19 October 2011 at 7:26 am

    And the nats fan club have already lined up the CT lines. listening to Phil O Reilly talk over Helen Kelly and suggest she sold it to labour and the return to the bad old unions have all the power days, which Blinglish is running with also.
    Policy with outcomes meets rhetoric and scaremongering…….watch the MSM on this one.

  5. Craig Glen Eden 5
    19 October 2011 at 7:42 am

    Phil O Rielly is a total hypocrite this guy is a National boy through and through, when ever National implements a policy that increases cost to business he can live with it and soft shoes the issue Eg superannuation scheme increase 1% last budget, but if Labour suggested it the sky is falling.

    Phil O Rielly does not represent business he is nothing but an apologist for National.

  6. Uturn 6
    19 October 2011 at 8:10 am

    Of the $15 minimum wage promise, how much will really hit the workers’ pocket? It’s not as simple as $15p/hr minus income tax. Labour plan for compulsory superannuation, just like National. Also hard to say exactly how much the cost of living will rise under the effects of a developing ETS. Now we can argue about whether the sky is falling and whether anyone should care forever, but in day to day life all that will happen is, like under National, Labour will promise the bright future of $15 p/hr and after a year or so the worker will wonder why he’s still unable to make ends meet. Give with one hand, take sneakily with the other. Nationals $23 a week tax cut got eaten up by their dodgy economic management a long time ago and they’re still planning to take more. Labour are no better.

    So if you want me to get out and vote, someone from Labour better start telling the truth. The plan had better be an improvement on the current capitalism NZ style, but with the addition of empty socialist promises. And if you think I’m going to believe that my kiwisaver money will be around in 40 years, you’re kidding yourself. Current events prove these people aren’t trustable for two days, how in god’s name will they be stopped from stealing superannuation funds for 40 years? In real terms, compulsory superannuation is nothing more than a gentle tax. So factor it in to your bright future.

  7. IrishBill 7
    19 October 2011 at 8:23 am

    I’m quite impressed by this – it’s one of the most significant policies I’ve seen for a long time.

  8. Zetetic 8
    19 October 2011 at 8:24 am

    Are you suggesting that inflation will be 15% under Labour? because that’s the size of the $15 an hour increase from $13 an hour.

  9. Blue 9
    19 October 2011 at 8:58 am

    It’s good policy, but not a vote-winner sadly. All the response I’ve heard from people who should be supporting this is negative.

    Kiwi workers have taken on board the idea that wage rises lead to mass unemployment, and they will fight tooth and nail against any attempt to get them better wages and conditions because they fear unemployment so much.

    Trying to fight that ingrained perception is a battle I don’t think Labour can win. Good on them for producing some top-notch policy though.

  10. Pete George 10
    19 October 2011 at 9:03 am

    I’ve had pay rises during the National term, not as much as usual but I think quite reasonable in the economic circumstances.

    Forcing wages up while most businesses are still struggling creates a real risk of squashing job recovery.

    • freedom 10.1
      19 October 2011 at 9:29 am

      Hi PeteG, you have some answers for us all i believe. It is a tough life wanting to be a politician. Irritating people asking you questions on your views, hassling you when you have spent all day thinking up new ways to swerve issues and generally just interfering with your plans to fudge reality.

      You really should front up Pete.
      call it practise for your future role
      http://thestandard.org.nz/time-for-a-government/#comment-386981

      • Pete George 10.1.1
        19 October 2011 at 9:35 am

        Work in progress. I had to reschedule to do having an accident.

        Try here: http://thestandard.org.nz/occupy-aotearoa/#comment-387024

        • freedom 10.1.1.1
          19 October 2011 at 9:59 am

          so basically you are just full of it, wow what an earth shattering revelation
          “having an accident.”
          an accident so disastrous that you could not make it down to a 24/7 pro-democracy action but you managed to make it back onto The Standard to contribute this momentous comment at 6:11pm
          http://thestandard.org.nz/time-to-take-back-whats-ours/#comment-386869

          let me refresh the issue that has garnered my ire
          PeteG: 2:05pm
          “It’s true I don’t agree with fostering a handout mentality. I think this is nuts, especially as it gives it to everyone regardless of whetehr they “need” it or not, and excludes many who may have greater need. ”
          Freedom:
          “as a blanket for all people whose total income is under 30,000 p/a, who is it excluding exactly?”

          Freedom:11:56pm
          “Nine hours later and still nothing, once again PeteG fails to supply the information he alludes to.

          Perhaps his visit to the Occupy Dunedin crew went really well and he is busy talking, sharing and generally at ease learning about the complex and necessary dialogues ahead. He said he was going to be there at 5:15pm, though seeing he made a comment on this site at just after 6pm, i am guessing he was never there. If he was, he obviously wasn’t there for long. This only shows his lack of interest in talking to his potential constituents or a willingness to deceive a wider group of voters on this site through the clear communication of false information and the accompanying misrepresentaion of his character. For a person with a desire to work in politics this is not a good start. ( obversely, maybe it is a perfect start)

          I am guessing he is just sitting at home being a legend in his own linktime.”

          • Pete George 10.1.1.1.1
            19 October 2011 at 10:07 am

            “as a blanket for all people whose total income is under 30,000 p/a, who is it excluding exactly?”

            People earning $30001 and above, many of whom will have greater need than people earning less, for example retired people who own their own homes, no liabilities and are on a comfortable pension.

            • freedom 10.1.1.1.1.1
              19 October 2011 at 10:23 am

              Pete, revolutionary statements like that will certainly capture the interest of kindergarten children everywhere. However do you come up with these ground breaking statements. $30,001 as a marker of those disenfranchised, wow, what cunning you possess.

              unlike you and your pals, i believe a person who has paid taxes for fourty years or more and somehow survived the cheesegrater of life deserves the right to sit back with a little less worry in their day. Maybe they should have the freedom to visit the grandkids or take a trip and yeah it costs abit for any society to keep our seniors comfortable but considering the alternative is dumping them all on ice floes, i choose to support my elders, not shit on them.

              There are some who are certainly more comfortable than others but most of their luck is from the inherent faults in the system and their masterly manipulation of it. If we change the system that problem will diminish.

              When the reality of any circumstances are addressed
              the problems that circumstance presents, can be resolved.

              • Pete George …
                19 October 2011 at 10:43 am

                One off offers of cash for Christmas that will never be able to be delivered resolve nothing. It’s dishonest electioneering.

                • freedom …
                  19 October 2011 at 11:05 am

                  is not your own party currently in bed with a bunch of thieves who did exactly that, and worse, three years ago? Let me refresh your addled brain

                  “Tax Cuts north of $50 a week !”

    • Draco T Bastard 10.2
      19 October 2011 at 12:58 pm

      Ah, you believe the spin that higher wages decreases unemployment despite the evidence that exactly the opposite happens.

      • mik e 10.2.1
        19 October 2011 at 6:22 pm

        TR just look at the chart above wages go down or stay flat after 12 years of tax cuts for the rich the economy didn’t grow and the only thing that stayed flat was and is wages .Carry on reading your breakfast cereal economics comics you have not read anything other than BS propaganda .Gareth Morgan on the other hand has read more than you ever will .I seriously think you are of limited intellect.I have read many thousands of books and done thousands of hours doing research on what works and what doesn’t and your simplistic comical theory Does not work so front up with your research or go back to kiwiblog where they believe in fairytales .

    • KJT 10.3
      19 October 2011 at 8:19 pm

      More BS.

      It is lack of demand that is hurting small businesses.

      Few people are paid enough to have any spare cash.

      Ask your local small businesses if they are, honestly, doing better under National. Now or in the past.

      Don’t forget that ordinary wage earners and beneficiaries are New Zealand’s SME customers.

      The very high income earners spend it on Hawaii holidays and gambling on derivatives.

      Businesses that advocate lower wages are cutting their own throats.

    • mik e 10.4
      19 October 2011 at 10:15 pm

      PG your economic literacy is nil like your pay rise look at how the world pulled itself out of the depression economic history the countries that recovered first gave pay rises even germany had a better plan than you and your backward thinking cohorts

  11. TightyRighty 11
    19 October 2011 at 9:22 am

    “If we want to be a high wage, wealthy country that attracts and retains people, we need to copy what works.”

    sounds like a call for flat, or at least very close to flat tax. oh wait, that’d be to sensible for the non-vrwcnll to understand. it doesn’t display enough envy or jealousy to be made an official policy

    • framu 11.1
      19 October 2011 at 9:51 am

      “sounds like a call for flat” – does it?

      out of curiosity – which countries are you thinking off?

      • Puddleglum 11.1.1
        19 October 2011 at 10:37 am

        I understand that Iraq had a flat 15% tax imposed by the interim authority that Bremmer headed.

        They also have – on the books from those same decrees – 100% foreign ownership permitted throughout the economy and 100% repatriation of profits allowed.

        Perhaps we need to be invaded?

    • Blighty 11.2
      19 October 2011 at 9:59 am

      explain how flat tax would raise wages.

      If you were going to flatten the income tax structure while retaining the same revenue from income tax, you would need to set the income tax rate at a higher rate than most people pay (think it through, it stands to reason).

      In fact, you would need a flat rate of 23% to raise the same amount of revenue. To have a total income tax of 23% of your gross income under the present system, you need to be earning over $100,000.

      Less than 4% of people have incomes over $100,000. Everyone else would be paying more tax under a flat tax.

      • freedom 11.2.1
        19 October 2011 at 10:11 am

        in a true flat tax, a whole lot of Companies would also be paying that ‘23%’ .

        If a Company/Corporation wants the same rights as a free person
        they should have the same tax obligations as well

      • Draco T Bastard 11.2.2
        19 October 2011 at 1:23 pm

        explain how flat tax would raise wages.

        It won’t and TR knows that. What will happen is that the rich will pay less tax as a proportion of their income than the poor.

    • mik e 11.3
      19 October 2011 at 6:11 pm

      Tighty almighty show me country that has that policy or a state in the US that has that policy and is growing its mythical propaganda promoted by ACT and Chicago school economists that has been proven time and time again as Failed economic policy.The countries that actually grow like Singapore South Korea China have central planning those who can pay pay more those who can’t pay pay less then when it comes to the USA states that have higher taxes actually grow much faster than states that have low flat taxes. TR keep putting your BS unresearched lies out their

  12. Afewknowthetruth 12
    19 October 2011 at 10:13 am

    ZETETIC

    I’ll let you in on a secret: we’re never going to be a high wage economy: global extraction of oil peaked over 2005-2008 and we are on the way down. High wages were a short term aberration in the grand scheme of things and will disappear over the next decade as global oil extraction plummets. (Okay, the numbers in pay packets might increase while the system continues to function, but the purchasing power will collapse as rampant inflation devalues all fiat currencies. People might earn $30 an hour but a loaf of bread will cost $10.).

    I’ll give you a second one for free: we’re not going to catch Aussie wage rates because we don’t have large amounts of minerals to dig up and sell to China (the only reason Australia has been superficually ‘doing well’). Australia is on the cusp of a severe downturn, of course, now that the Chinese bubble economy is starting to burst, but it will be able to sell minerals for as long as the globalised system continues to function -maybe another 3 or 4 years.

    The entire mainstream culture is built on wide ranging fabrications and delusions and is in the process of collapsing. These repeated discussions of redundant paradigms using irrelevant comparisions have become tedious in the extreme.

    The real action is now on the streets.

    • Lanthanide 12.1
      19 October 2011 at 10:46 am

      I’m just curious if back in 2005 you were saying “the world will end by 2010”.

      A lot of peak-oilers back then were, of course.

      • Blighty 12.1.1
        19 October 2011 at 4:39 pm

        the annoying thing is that peak oil is correct and the economic and social ramifications are serious but it gets taken up by doom merchants who discredit it when their predictions are wrong.

        • Lanthanide 12.1.1.1
          19 October 2011 at 6:42 pm

          Yes, that’s my frustration with it too.

          AFKTT is convinced that there are literally going to be people starving to death in Auckland within 10 years, and goes around saying things like that. That is exceptionally unlikely and I think could only be caused by something in addition to peak oil / energy scarcity (like a massive drought or pestilence or some-such).

          • Jasper 12.1.1.1.1
            19 October 2011 at 7:52 pm

            People always starve. It’s a reality. Whole civilisations died out because there was no food. Hardly different with the oncoming onslaught of global cooling which will essentially reduce growing times, reducing food supply.

            Now that most of the arable land in the US and Europe has been given over to wheat crops for ethanol, what good is that going to do us?

            Stop looking at ethanol and turn those wheat crops into carbohydrates? Eating bread every day doesn’t sound that appealing.

            Global Cooling will contribute to a far more effective reduction in human population than anything else our much vaunted politicians will come up with.

            After all, even the met office just 10 years ago said there’d be less snow in the future and lets not forget children not having the opportunity by 2010 to play in snow

    • Chris 12.2
      19 October 2011 at 10:50 am

      So if Australia is on the cusp of a huge turn it would seem we are going to catch them then? That’s good news.

      • Colonial Viper 12.2.1
        19 October 2011 at 11:02 am

        You mean last one racing to the bottom is good news? Doesn’t sound like it to me.

      • Zaphod Beeblebrox 12.2.2
        19 October 2011 at 1:57 pm

        Highly unlikely. The Mining council have said Australia will need another 170K more jobs over the next 5 years in that sector alone. They are all high paying jobs. The new projects coming on line over the next ten years are staggering in their scale.

        They might be losing some manufacturing but wages are definitely not going to go down.

  13. Chris 13
    19 October 2011 at 10:49 am

    I’m confused by the fact that your post says basically Labour’s policy is a lot like Australia’s which should make us catch up. Surely if they are doing something and then we start doing the same thing at a lower wage level it won’t make us catch up?

    Also given your fact that Australia’s labour policies helped create their high wages etc but the 90 day bill is apparently the devil which is destroying wages around the country how is it that Australia also has the same policy.

    Or is them having the 90 day trial policy and us not, going to be the difference which makes us catch up with their wages. I really doubt that particularly since some anecdotal evidence I have (which is all the evidence I have seen offered against the trial policy) is that while there are some employers who have misused it there have also been cases of people taken on on higher salaries than they would have normally been offered – in order to ensure that they get the employee and not competitors – with the employer feeling safe knowing that if they don’t work out to be worth the higher value then they have the trial period.

    • Colonial Viper 13.1
      19 October 2011 at 11:04 am

      I’m confused by the fact that your post says basically Labour’s policy is a lot like Australia’s which should make us catch up. Surely if they are doing something and then we start doing the same thing at a lower wage level it won’t make us catch up?

      The more you think of an economy and the dynamics between capital and labour in simplistic car racing terms, the more you will fail to understand.

      • Chris 13.1.1
        19 October 2011 at 11:11 am

        Well maybe you can explain it instead of just saying it is too simplistic because I don’t see what advantage we have over Australia that would be the trigger for us to catch up with all other things constant.

        • Colonial Viper 13.1.1.1
          19 October 2011 at 11:17 am

          We have very few economic advantages over Australia at present. We’re not going to catch up with them in terms of wage levels. We can act to ensure that ordinary workers wages are livable however.

          • Chris 13.1.1.1.1
            19 October 2011 at 11:20 am

            So my original comment that you dismissed out of hand for being too simplistic was actually right then. Thanks.

            You’ll actually notice I never disagreed with any of the proposals as I think they are good (except removing the 90 day probation period).

            I was only arguing that it won’t catch us up to Australia as the post claimed.

            • Colonial Viper 13.1.1.1.1.1
              19 October 2011 at 11:24 am

              Oh, we’re not going to catch up with Australia, but your list of concerns was irrelevant and badly conceptualised with regards to that any way.

              90 day probation period will be gone, sooner or later, as it is part of a broad package of worker mobility and worker wage suppression implemented by National.

              • Lanthanide …
                19 October 2011 at 1:15 pm

                I wouldn’t be so sure. If Labour don’t win the election and there is more economic turmoil before the 2014 election (as seems almost certain), then they’ll be in a difficult position to justify the removal of something like the 90 day law.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  19 October 2011 at 7:57 pm

                  then they’ll be in a difficult position to justify the removal of something like the 90 day law.

                  National will look at extending the 90 day law if they get another term.

                  • Jasper …
                    19 October 2011 at 10:21 pm

                    Do you have that for a fact CV or is that just assertions given from an email source that inferred it from what may have been said?

                    The 90 day law has always been there. The only thing that National did was take away the employees right to seek redress.

                    Bring that back, and outline a proper procedure in law for employers to follow when they want to dismiss an underperforming employee.

                    Leaving it to the invisible hand of the market to what a reasonable employer would/could do is a fallacy.

                    Personally I’d like to see something like this;

                    1) Employee is given 1 warning for poor performance and has 14 days to turn it around
                    2) Employee gets given 2nd warning between 21 – 28 days if no improvement made over the previous two weeks
                    3) Employee is then released from employee if no improvement made at all.
                    4) The Employer must have weekly performance meetings with the Employee
                    5)The Employee has the right to rebut any and all arguments put by the Employer
                    6) If this process is not followed, the employee has the right to make a personal grievance on the grounds of unjustifiable dismissal.

                    A bit simplistic, but you get the drift.

                    To counter the “but too many employees make PGs” simply outline the process that must be followed by the employee/employer before a PG even makes it as far as the ERS.

                    That could go
                    1) Employee notifies Employer of Personal Grievance within 90 days of becoming aware of the issue that gives cause to a PG
                    2) Employer must respond within 14 days of notification of the PG.
                    3) Employee must obtain documentation from Employer outlining reasons why dismissal occurred
                    4) Employer must comply with s(3)
                    5) If the process has been followed (if in the first 90 days) the employee cannot raise a PG
                    6) If the process has not been followed, the employer has to retain the employee until the process is followed
                    and so on..

  14. randal 14
    19 October 2011 at 11:13 am

    Zetetic. You are right but if you keep telling the truth they will run you out of town. Kiwis are deluded into thinking that because they have been to mongolia or they have a hardly davison then somehow they’re wealthy and special people. No such luck. We have an obsessive media totally hooked into the consumerist retailer ethic and mindless pollies to match. They need to look at the Bhutanese and their concept of gross national happiness and forget about monetary wealth being the source of everything good. We should be smart enough to manufacture happiness without depending on goods to do it for us.

    • Draco T Bastard 14.1
      19 October 2011 at 1:30 pm

      They need to look at the Bhutanese and their concept of gross national happiness and forget about monetary wealth being the source of everything good.

      I wish. If people only took what they need from society and the environment we’d all be happier. Unfortunately we’ve got the psychopaths running the establishment and they promote the more, more, more paradigm that’s destroying the environment and keeping most people unhappy and stressed out.

  15. Richard Down South 15
    19 October 2011 at 2:23 pm

    “I refuse to believe that corporations are people until Texas executes one.”

  16. mik e 16
    19 October 2011 at 10:17 pm

    Many hopefully RDS

  17. HC 17
    19 October 2011 at 10:37 pm

    It is all too bloody late! Keep on dreaming now. I would like to keep on dreaming also, and perhaps, once a major disaster will be over in a few years, some of these measures can be implemented and bring some results.

    NOW it is TOO LATE. Read the insider economists assessments, read even the insider stock exchange specialists and finance experts opinions: THE WORLD ECONOMY IS GOING TO CRASH VERY SHORTLY!!!

    Read the NEWS!? YES, this is not a joke, I am sorry! It will happen in the coming months or couple of years the latest! Maybe the Mayan calendar had some meaning after all?

    Debt accrued in so many nations, representing credit given but being proved unretrievable now, will blow into our faces. There will be NO party, NO secured breakfast, NO jobs, NO planning, NO happy weddings and so forth, because there are NO means to PAY for it anymore.

    We need to start from very scratch, but little humpty dumpty NZ is part of a VERY big world out there, being very dependent. Unless you want to live off the land and go hippie, you are going to suffer even worse for some time.

    Do not believe me? Well, wait and see, it is all on its way right now. Keep following stock reports, daily news, your own life story and what happens around you, it will be TOO LATE to act when you are out, done, lost, fixed and stuffed.

    So get ORGANISED NOW, get together, force councils to offer communal gardens to grow food for affordable fees, get out to build networks to help each other when no more WINZ, food banks and others can help you, DO IT, or you will llikely run into devastating situations.

    Too many grew up with a spoon full of sugar, honey and milk, mixed with nice morning cereals fresh from the factory, with secured study options, career plans and so forth, maybe join the ranks of the ones in the 3rd WORLD for a change and wake up.

    This message is NOT a joke – it is a true and honest wake up call and warning, because soon nothing we rely on now will be reliable in the near future.

    Good luck to those that get it and will understand!

    H.C.

    • Colonial Viper 17.1
      19 October 2011 at 11:18 pm

      We need not just communal gardens, but we need local authorities to start backing community currencies.

      Because as you say the international monetary system is about to collapse – a deliberately engineered event if I might hazard a guess, designed to centralise remaining assets and wealth in even fewer hands – and we will need something to keep local and neighbourhood trade and commerce going.

      • HC 17.1.1
        19 October 2011 at 11:35 pm

        Well, it may interest, that even Geroge Soros, one of the leading speculators of past ages, is growing up now, and in the Financial Times Deutschland he favours the nationalisation of European banks! What about that? They must be desperate, the capitalists with some insight are even ASKING FOR IT, because they know they never can pay back the debt accrued, so they want the tax payer to take it over! HA!

      • HC 17.1.2
        19 October 2011 at 11:41 pm

        It could be resolved on an international scale, but that would meanf a revolutionary and selfless approach by ALL governments and involved parties, certainly the people all over countries, but that is the highly unlikely scenario. Ideally we should be able to establish a clearing house for all international financial issues, credits ,debts and so forth, but that is like re-inventing the UN for financial policies. The UN is redundant for many countries, because they have largely decided to follow own agendas. We are back to the times like before the League of Nations, the divisions will become clearer when economic and social pressures will bring about new global wars for dominance, that is my negative assessment. It is up to people to decide beyond their selfish interests to realise that this is greater than a NATiONal question, so bigger measures are needed. Sadly history tells us that few will realise and accept this. NZ has a good chance to survive though, but we will have some powers approach the shores to take over. Be mindful and realise you are one if alone you are more if you unite!

      • HC 17.1.3
        19 October 2011 at 11:53 pm

        CV – goung back to local or regional levels and bringing in such “local” currencies is of course possible. It would simply be a process of harmonising and controlling the exposure so to say, as it was also common in early times of banking and trade to do this. But that will mean bartering between regions will happen, and it is really possible, yet cumbersome to trade and exchange that way. It is possible though. It goes back to the origins of trade and exchanges before our modern day banking took hold. See following links for some enlightenments:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_Jew

        So some will go on about “racism” and other issues here, but this is about a rather realistic history of banking, interest and what else may be of interest (not financial here) for people to learn about!

  18. HC 18
    19 October 2011 at 11:13 pm

    Most commenters in this website are simply living in lala land and gaga land. If you believe that the system we have can be changed by a bit tit for tat here and there, you are dreaming. It is far too late. NZ is part of a global capitalist conglomerate system, it is a tiny wheel in it and people here are totally politically, socially and economically IMPOTENT!

    How are you going to change anything with most the land owned by certain freehold and leasehold farmers, with a few rich controlling most wealth, with the economy run by a small elite, some of them may be genuinely interested in NZ’s future, but others just there to fill their pockets or those of overseas investors.

    A revolution will NEVER happen here with the sort of people living here. Yo u are yourselves making so many compromises, showing your weaknesses to be putting your personal interests FIRST. YOUR security, YOUR jobs, YOUR careers and YOUR stakes, so where does this lead to? NZ is screwed right, left and centre, and it will only get a wake-up call with total economic and social collapse, when everyone or at least most will realise, we better work together and get on with each other to survive.

    Good luck lost country!

    • Colonial Viper 18.1
      20 October 2011 at 12:37 am

      How are you going to change anything with most the land owned by certain freehold and leasehold farmers, with a few rich controlling most wealth, with the economy run by a small elite,

      This was virtually the NZ of the 1880’s and 1890’s. And it was turned around by decisive leadership at all levels of society.

      The land reforms of 1896 smashed the stranglehold a few very wealthy individuals had on most of NZ’s highly valuable land.

      There is hope but yes it will be a fight and there are not yet many ready to step forward to the line.

      • HC 18.1.1
        20 October 2011 at 12:47 am

        What we are likely to face very shortly is looking that we will likely finally break that line to a degree at least. I would look forward to go out country and call an honest farmer a “mate” again, more or less meaning “comrade farmer” who has been entrusted by us all to look after the land he or she believes he/she can look after and best manage to our all best well being. I would not even want the land, it should just be managed is a sustainable, reasonable, fair and healthy way for humans and animals that will generate the best resulsts for all – whether we export meat, wool, cheese, milk powder or preferably something more enhanced than that . We also need to ensure that the Treaty of Waitangi gets respected in true meaning, so that NZ is ONE and one for all in the end, not a National and ACT perversion of society benefiting simply an elite of selfish bastards that are the biggest liars and crooks under the sun. Don Keypone is still a very nice chap, but he just happens to have the wrong job, do you not agree?

        • Colonial Viper 18.1.1.1
          20 October 2011 at 1:08 am

          Yep. The Left/Right, rural/urban, Maori/Pakeha, etc. splits are all meaningless and bullshit in one context:

          the standpoint of our people successfully dealing with the financial, economic, social and resource/energy depletion storm about to be visited upon us.

          We have to stand and move forwards as ONE New Zealand.

          Give John Key job as host of NZ Idol, he’d get plenty of photo ops and would be a popular MC.

  19. Campbell Larsen 19
    19 October 2011 at 11:41 pm

    I knew that you wouldn’t abandon us and The Standard, H.C.
    I concur with many of your points – people don’t tend to make an uncomfortable change when a comfortable delusion is still able to be maintained, which of course just makes the change even uncomfortable. But maybe thats just how it’s going to be – sustainability and self sufficiency isn’t rocket science, we could do it here if we tried, for some inexplicable reason though it is not a priority for either of our major political parties – sigh – maybe mistakes really are the only way to learn, let’s just hope it’s not the last lesson that we have the opportunity to set for ourselves.

    • HC 19.1
      19 October 2011 at 11:58 pm

      CANNOT DENY THE TRUTH AND HENCE CANNOT SUPPRESS THE TRUTH! So I feel unable to resist to put in some views that some struggle to relate to. Also I am fighting serious battles on another front, that is NOT just for myself, but I have a formidable enemy, who deserves to be taken on by ROBIN HOOD or better to deal to them. Thanks and Best of Luck!

  20. HC 20
    20 October 2011 at 12:16 am

    http://www.ftd.de/politik/international/:top-oekonomen-george-soros-europas-pfad-durchs-minenfeld/60117961.html?page=2

    Sorry, but this is the only source I have for Soros giving Europe the final chance to resolve debt and economic issues, otherwise they will go BUST!

    He actually recommends bank nationalisation for the last resort solution, so does this tell us something? I have no English language source for this article, maybe that also tells us something? The Anglo Saxon media do not like to tell the whole truth to people concerned, do they? It may speed up the process of revolt, unrest and actions they dread.

  21. HC 21
    20 October 2011 at 12:29 am

    http://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/boerse-maerkte/boerse-inside/die-schweinehunde-bestimmen-wo-es-langgeht/5204910.html

    http://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/boerse-maerkte/boerse-inside/wir-sind-in-der-endphase/5148778.html

    These are a couple of links to very interesting articles in ‘Handelsblatt’, being one of the leading German economic dailies. Mueller is a finance and exchange expert who considers himself one of the good ones, he admits the finance and investment world is split in between bad and better ones. So his report shows a grim portray of what we are about to face. But again, this is only in German, and I know NO English language paper that has published the same condemning and highly valuable report. If you know a German speaker to translate this, the STANDARD will have another BIG headline very soon! We are stuffed, more or less is the resume, unless some miracle happens.

    • Afewknowthetruth 21.1
      20 October 2011 at 7:52 am

      Thanks for that.

      We are indeed ‘stuffed’, not just financially and economically but also socially, energetically and environmentally.

      Another way of putting is that we have been stuffed by money-lenders, global corporations and the bought-and-paid-for politicians who have promoted their agendas.

      As we have been discussing on the other thread, anyone looking to political candidates to save them is deluded. The political system is very much a part of the problem and is broken. My local Labour candidate (Andrew Little) has demonstrated both unreliability and his unwillingness to change paradigms. And from what I have heard and seen, Ben Clark has been provided with all the crucial information needed to deal with reality but also continues to promote reduntant paradigms and dysfunction. Why would anyone vote for these people?

      As has been noted many times, the system is incapable of changing and the people in the system are in incapable of changing. the system will ether be taken down or will collpase. We are not sure which it will be at this stage but the latter looks the more likely unless the ‘ignorant masses’ wake up,

      Let’s hope that the ABs get thrashed and we can get some semblemnse of normality in teh country, even though that hope dashed last week

      • Lanthanide 21.1.1
        20 October 2011 at 10:04 am

        “Ben Clark has been provided with all the crucial information needed to deal with reality but also continues to promote reduntant paradigms and dysfunction. Why would anyone vote for these people?”

        Why would anyone vote for you? If Ben Clark started repeating your nonsense, no one would vote for him either.

        Before you accuse me of being a denier – the above statement is an indictment on the public who don’t want to face up to reality. It’s obvious why people would vote for Ben Clark and not you.

  22. Afewknowthetruth 22
    20 October 2011 at 7:31 am

    Lanthanide

    I normally no longer bother responding the nonsense you keep posting but I do find it particularly irritating when you constantly misquote and constantly promote delusions based on Greenwash.

    In this thread there is yet another one: ‘I’m just curious if back in 2005 you were saying “the world will end by 2010″. A lot of peak-oilers back then were, of course.’

    Nobody in the peak oil movewment ever said ‘the world will end by 2010’. Thje world will probably not end for another 4.5 billion years (though it is extremely likely it will be rendered unihabitable for most mammalian species, including humans, before the end of this century).

    What peak-oilers did say was TEOTWAWKI would almost certainly occur by 2010.

    Surprise, surprise. It did. The markets peaked in late 2007 (just I I pointed out to NPDC in November 2007) and economic the collapse which commenced in the late 1970s took a rollercoaster ride in 2008. For the past 3 years we have been subjected to a nearly continupous matra about ‘recovery’ as the system collapses faster.

    I remember Harold Wilson (1960s UK PM) saying to the nation: This devaluation will not affect the value of the pound in your pocket. Yeah right!

    Now we are being subjected to drivel about a better brighter future from both the reds and the blues. It’s all bullshit, of course, designed to keep the ignorant masses beliving in teh sytem as it collapses, taking down the Earth’s life-support systems as it goes.

    I know that is not what you want to hear.

    Nevertheless, please do not misquote me or anyone else in what remains of the future.

    (By the way in 2001 I suggested 2010 to 2015 would be the period when ‘the shit wouild hit the fan’ but in 2003-2005 was influence by people like Matt Simmons, who suggested that extraction of oil from Saudi Arabia would start to plummet in 2006: he turned out to be wrong. We did hit peak oil in 2005 but unconventioanal oil managed to prop up the system a little longer than poeple though it would and extrraction from Saudi Arabia did not fall as fast as many anticipated{the Saudi government does lie about practically everything -reserves, extraction rates, human rights, women’s rights etc., of course)

    • Lanthanide 22.1
      20 October 2011 at 9:59 am

      “What peak-oilers did say was TEOTWAWKI would almost certainly occur by 2010.”

      IMO TWOTWAKWI has not happened yet. I can still go to the supermarket and buy whatever food I like, a lot of it being out of season imported from other countries. Television shows and movies are still made. You can still go buy fuel at a petrol station to use in your lawnmower or in your boat and go pleasure-boating out in the sea if you like – there is no fuel rationing. We haven’t had rolling power blackouts.

      Changes in those things would be indications of TEOTWAWKI. But so far none of that has changed. Sure, we’ve gone through a rough patch financially, but the current recession and slump doesn’t even look as bad as the great depression yet.

      It turns out that complex systems actually take a long long time to fall apart and also hold huge amount of inertia. Especially when there are people at the top who have no problem with kicking the can down the road a few years.

    • mik e 22.2
      20 October 2011 at 5:37 pm

      Afew what are you worried about the world is going to end tomorrow

  23. Afewknowthetruth 23
    20 October 2011 at 7:58 am

    Sorry about those typos. The edit device is not user-friendly.

  24. vto 24
    20 October 2011 at 10:15 am

    Good policy methinks, but not presented too well. In the Press editorial today it was canned because the angle was taken that this policy must be about growing employment and the economy in general, which it claimed it will not do.

    Goff should frame the policy along the lines that these policies is not about growing the pie but rather dividing up the pie. Other policies deal with growing the pie.

    Something like … “The current rules and regulations governing the distribution of wealth in NZ result in a decreasing proportion going to the actul workers and an increasing proportiong going to the capitalists. We want to change those rules and regulations so that a greater propotion of NZ’s wealth goes to the workers. It is really as simple as that – the rules have favoured thr rich for too long … etc blah de b;lah”

    • Lanthanide 24.1
      20 October 2011 at 10:39 am

      Yeah vto, that’s a good point. It needs to be clearly pointed out that this policy is for cutting the pie up. National doesn’t have a comparable policy – they just leave it to the market.

    • Puddleglum 24.2
      20 October 2011 at 11:19 am

      The Press editorial – after marginalising the policy announcement in Wednesday’s paper (page 8, small article) – was framing the policy without the context of what was claimed by Labour in announcing it.

      I simply don’t believe that the editor was aiming at a reasoned, objective analysis. Which is fine apart from the fact that the editorial staff consistently claim that they are politically ‘neutral’ (and use the usual lame ‘evidence’ that those on the right also think they’re biased – but never, it has to be pointed out, on economic matters).

      How Goff may or may not frame it would not have altered one jot the way the editorial framed it. I’ve been reading The Press for over 30 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen editorial support for remotely left-wing economic or workplace policy.

      But you are right that – for anyone who’s interested as opposed to ideologically blinkered – that’s the way it should be framed by Labour. But, additionally, I think there should also be some aside to the effect that present policy settings hardly look like they’re ‘growing the economy’ or ‘reducing unemployment’ either.

      And I also think there needs to be some push back on the claim that abolishing youth rates – and minimum wages in general – leads to increased unemployment. It’s now becoming ‘gospel’ when it is a much more complicated and tenuous connection than that. The editorial just asserts that “a large chunk” of the growth in youth unemployment is down to the abolition of youth rates, as if any sensible person would have to agree.

      From the crowd that gave us ‘pain with no gain’ in the 1980s as if it was good for our national character, there’s a distinct lack of appreciation for the possibility that giving employers some pain in the short term might give them some real gain in the longer term.

  25. randal 25
    20 October 2011 at 11:59 am

    according to richard loe and duncan garner on live new zealand sport national will cut 2,000 jobs inthe public service so those people wont even get any money at all.

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