I suspect some wag in Treasury converted Grant Robertson to nudge theory. If you nudge a complex system, the influence cascades down through all the levels within, transforming all subsystems & interrelations subtly. It likely derives from the butterfly effect.
So the general idea would be that a wee nudge of top income earners will transform the behaviour of all in the economy, and everyone will live happily ever after.
In 2020, the UK government of Boris Johnson decided to rely on nudge theory to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, seeks to encourage “herd immunity” with this strategy.
You got it, it's a sophisticated form of herding. Well, better not oversell the concept, so maybe replace sophisticated with trendy.
Leading Silicon Valley companies are forerunners in applying nudge theory in corporate setting. These companies are using nudges in various forms to increase productivity and happiness of employees.
Happy valley? Well, toss in the even trendier notion that spiritual consultants will turn zombie employees into inspired new-agers, and you can see why capitalism still hums along eh?
In 2008, the United States appointed Sunstein, who helped develop the theory, as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
Nudge theory works in governance by escalating compliance. Nowadays, when folks are getting increasingly random, administrators need all the help they can get.
Cass Sunstein has responded to critiques at length in his book, The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science (2016) making the case in favor of nudging against charges that nudges diminish autonomy
Yeah but since when have wage slaves ever needed autonomy? The social system is meant to work like a well-oiled machine. Humans as cogs are habitual. It's why National & Labour think the way they do.
There was, btw, a prior, more elaborate version of the theory in 1971 (google nudge nudge wink wink say no more).
I wondered why I saw those pics of USA people elbowing each other as an alternative to shaking hands. You nudge people with your elbows, but hey, giving someone the elbow means to get them to go away. If nudging is taking off what does it really mean? What springs to mind is a saying about 'nudging someone off their perch'. In these precarious times we want to feel safe on our perch. So we need to watch to see what this new craze is really about! Some new conspiracy??
yes. all the experts and economists(often two different groups) predictions about the economy, should be given full airtime, showing how far from reality most of them have been.
Treasury mandarins know what to do with Labour ministers of finance. The working model was devised as Muldoon lost the plot, and got traction within a few months of being applied to the incoming socialists during early '85. Obviously the rerun of the application was always gonna happen once the update got bolted on.
No Ad, it is about the control of the money. You know, who gets what, who has more than they need, who gets to keep it, et cetera. It should be about fairness and equality but these are just words without meaning in the real world. It is not about the money, but about how you toil away and spend a large chunk of your life because you have been brainwashed that it is about the money. When we go completely cashless, I cannot even show you my money, I’ll have to log into my bank account and show you a number, on my screen, that tells how much I have toiled and how many more years I have to toil – the toil calculators are the best thing since sliced bread.
Unheralded, a brave new world of social engineering via algorithmic control is dawning. Universities breeding behavioural scientists that view humans as similar to pinballs in that, if you zap them, they will ping off others and you can cause a chain reaction, have been pushing the mechanist-materialist worldview for a century.
That's due to Freud & Jung advocating depth psychology, then other psychologists reacting by pointing out that you can't measure the psyche so `we can only study behaviour' – and because behaviour can be measured and counted psychology won't seem pseudoscience.
From this past, we get this future:
Neoliberalism was based on a crude and limited understanding of the human condition. Neuroliberalism is based on a much more realistic and accurate grasp of human motivation and frailty. But in a digital future it’s the systems of algorithmic learning and psychological prompting that know us best that should worry us the most.
Don't worry. She'll be right. All one need do is spot the manipulation techniques, then do the opposite of what is intended – if you're nonconformist. If you like being part of the herd, accept your fate with equanimity. Vote National/Labour.
‘Neuroliberalism’ refers to the use of psychological techniques to shape human behaviour in free societies. As a political project it has become particularly popular over the last decade, during which it has been deployed to address the evident shortcomings of neoliberal society and its associated systems of government.
As both a psychological diagnosis of neoliberalism’s problems and a proposed solution, neuroliberal policies are now evident in most countries and are increasingly promoted by international organizations such as the World Bank, the OECD, the European Commission, and the World Economic Forum. They came to particular prominence in David Cameron’s ‘Behavioural Insights Team’ in the UK, Barack Obama’s ‘Social and Behavioural Sciences Team’ in the US, and Angela Merkel’s ‘Behavioural Insights Applied to Policy Unit’ in Germany.
The control system is moving with the times. Fed up with neoliberalism? Don't worry, your liberal paternalist controller has something better awaiting your subscription.
"Climate change is my generations nuclear free moment."
Around 2 years ago it was stated by those at the frontlines of climate study that we had a little over a decade to make serious changes to our emissions profile in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change (a timeframe since shortened)
We have witnessed the previous 3 years of inaction by the Coalition and with the general tone of the current electioneering it is almost certain we waste the next 3 years as well.
What was an almost impossible ask to achieve in 10 years will need to be achieved in half that.
We have to check in now and then to remind ourselves and the people we care enough about to converse with, that there are some positives. Personally I do this so I can get out of bed in the morning and keep fighting for a better pathway even if it gets down to a wormhole in the garden. Worms are good! Hooray for worms. I have a ton in my compost who know nothing compared to me and yet are possibly saviours of the planet.
Thanks for that xenophobia comment you sound like Michael Joseph Savage in some of his highly racists speeches regarding the 1920 immigration act that continued through to his time as PM.
so you think Chinese are so stupid that they cannot think for themselves and act as Lemmings following the one in front?.
That's what prior media commentary based on polling of that ethnic community has suggested, and the stats were extremely one-sided. It was a while back & I can't recall details. Re xenophobia you ought not to read motives into online opinions as if you're operating on autopilot – I have no such fear!
How the ignorant operate. Take some time out and look at the Botany Electorate. I will even help you out. Many with preconceived attitudes have this " I have nothing to fear", You have no links to support such statements. ps there is a difference between Chinese and Asian.
Aucklander Jim Zheng has been a firm National supporter during his 26 years in New Zealand. He likes the message of self-sufficiency.
"I always vote for National. I think they're quite good in economy. I dislike government which gives so many support to people who don't like to work," he said.
In the survey, almost two out three (62 percent) ethnic Chinese said they would vote for the National Party.
While still enjoying a healthy lead, that support rate is down 9.1 percent from the 2017 version of the same poll.
National's loss almost exactly mirrors an equivalent rise in Chinese New Zealanders who now say they like David Seymour's Act Party.
I had a lengthy conversation with one of "them Chinese immigrants" from the Botany electorate on Sunday. He was well versed on what was happening in their electorate, knew the names of all the candidates and was not inclined at all to vote for Jamie-Lee or Chris Luxon.
Like all opposition when they get into power the world becomes a lot more complex, pet favourites now need to be balanced against complexity of the system, trade offs and unintended consequences Any one overly focus in one area ( a luxury of opposition) in a complex system can have massive affects elsewhere. Labour has learnt that, the Greens to a degree in perennial opposition have not. Winstone has, hence the 2 Winstons, when he is in power and when he is not
If the world is too complex for them now then they are soon to be provided with far more complexity than they ever imagined….a monkey can kick a can down the road.
All it does is highlight how ineffectual our (so called) leaders are, so what is their purpose?
Gradual change based on evidence based policy and managing the trade offs for the common good ( you can’t make every one happy or eliminate all trade offs and risk) which the electorate will determine every 3 years. Likewise acting decisively and proportionately when the situation dictates, ie Covid Not many would agree how the government has responded to Covid is how you should run and economy long term In regard to state intervention and control
What a load of bollocks….minimalist change in order to manage the narrative of the common good while maintaining the advantage to the investor class regardless of the detriment to the majority, the country or even the survivability of society or even the environment that maintains all …..with no little self interest as a bonus.
( investor class….🙄) You may not like it but it’s reality, and if you think different go form your own party and convince the majority, don’t ask labour to commit electoral suicide on far left ideology, similar National on far right
Unearned income is derived from control of an already existing asset, such as land, buildings, technology, or money, that others lack but need or want, and who can therefore be charged for its use. Those who receive it are ‘rentiers’. Mere ownership or possession produces nothing, and so any return to an owner merely for access or use is something for nothing.
If you buy some shares in M&S or BP on the stock market, the money you pay goes to the previous owner, not the company. You are what Keynes called a ‘functionless investor.’ When such so-called ‘investments’ pay off they extract wealth from the economy without creating anything in return. They are parasitic.
Our minor finance on “that radio show” both the left and right are unhappy about the tax , so we must have got it right.
So now we have a Labour Party that views their agenda as if everyone is unhappy that labour has got the balance right. No wonder so much attention on some left wing sites is directed at National. It is hard to accept what has just been announced. 3 more years of this transformational government. More like continuation from 1999 with nothing changing. 😢
Tactically Labour did not really need to do anything, just run the clock down to October 17. But I guess the TV debates mean some “qvestions vill be aksed” by Frau Collins, so answers were going to be needed for the PM.
Crusher–“What unfair tax increases on the hard working, god fearing, salt of the earth, white, heartland kiwis will you be inflicting?”
Jacinda–“already released, will not affect 98% of New Zealanders” (including obviously the new Labour voters Chris mentions).
I am not going to revisit ( today anyway) my usual litany on the class collaborationist, weak as piss Labour Caucus and chief mini-me Blairites like Mr Robertson. I just want them re-elected so political struggle can resume in earnest in the time of opportunity created by the Covid plague.
Expecting the lumpen elements of town or country to come to anyone’s rescue is indeed a forlorn hope. “she’s a pretty communist” is about the peak political analysis those wretches are capable of! Did anyone ever identify that clown holding the sign by the way?
Also what our Min of Finance may not have thought of. In a time where businesses are struggling, should Labour had proposed an increase in the coy tax rate +1-2% (to reduce those able to manage their incomes), this would delay those companies who are currently making losses in paying tax once they regained profits that exceeded these losses(and next years ?). As you do not pay tax (Provisional or Terminal) until all carried forward losses have been wiped out with profits. So it would have assisted business in need in the short term, for long term benefits. And isn't that what a helping hand is – when in need assist and when times are good to return the favour, in this case by paying a slightly larger tax bill.
Red, good to read a balanced post. It seems to me many commenters have unrealistic expectations of what is possible and not possible and they expect transformation in all areas to happen within months. When there is so much to be done it is going to take years. Governing is a slow and cumbersome process and will never please everyone.
Legal but a bit like friends and family bidding for your item on Trademe to inflate the price.
Farah Hancock: The National Party has spent almost $30,000 getting people to 'like' Judith Collins' Facebook page.
Since July her Facebook page has gained roughly 20,000 new likes, at a potential cost of $1.50 each if they were all gained from the advertisements. Her page is the only politician's page with significant funds spent on it.
. National spends Quarter of FB Budget on chasing Likes for Judith Collins
The National Party has spent almost $30,000 getting people to ‘like’ Judith Collins’ Facebook page … Since July her Facebook page has gained roughly 20,000 new likes, at a potential cost of $1.50 each if they were all gained from the advertisements. Her page is the only politician’s page with significant funds spent on it … Collins now has 56,235 people who like her Facebook page and 58,725 followers. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has not spent any money on Facebook advertising for her page, has 1.7 million followers and 1.4 million likes.
I need help setting up a Givealittle page. On RNZ this morning I heard people being interviewed about the tax increases for those on $180,000+ a year.
Apparently they'll be down the tubes to the extent of around $20 a week. Some woman (in Karori?) is going to find it really tough. If I can get some charity for her to save her the devastation of the tax increase my life would have been worthwhile.
Apparently $180,000 a year 'isn't much really' especially when you look at the cost of housing. Imagine being in a household of one income and it being that low. Maybe there's someone else in the house can go to work.
If I can rally a group from the under 60k band and set up a Givealittle maybe we can save her. Failing that maybe I can direct her to some budgeting advice place.
for gods sake don't give her cash, she'll just spend it on booze and cigarettes. Instead teach her how to grow vegetables, how to cook from scratch and how to budget.
maybe this one should be send to Grant so as to re-consider the hardship espoused by losing $ 23 while on a 180.000 NZD income, and to maybe find it in his hard to add another $ 23 to the beneficiaries that barely make 13.000 grand after tax for the full year?
In case anyone was wondering why that rotting rage-gargoyle lurking under the road-kill hamster was completely unfiltered in spilling his guts to the journalist that's done the most in history to expose presidential misconduct, here's a good explanation:
Cripes weka, you are taking away the employment of numerous right wing academics who would have spent x hours and days to say what you have expressed in one line. If this sort of thing keeps happening there will be bucketfuls of newly unemployed uni grads.
Awww, that's sooo cuuuuute! I wonder if his letters to Ivana and Marla and Melanoma were just as sweet.
In his letters to Trump, Kim addresses him as "Your Excellency" and punctuates them with flowery prose.
"Even now I cannot forget that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency's hand at the beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope to relive the honor of that day," Kim wrote to Trump on December 25, 2018, following their first meeting in Singapore.
…
In a June 2019 letter to Kim, just before Trump proposed on Twitter that the leaders meet at the DMZ, Trump wrote that "you and I have a unique style and a special friendship."
"Only you and I, working together, can resolve the issues between our two counties and end nearly 70 years of hostility, bringing an era of prosperity to the Korean Peninsula that will exceed all our greatest expectations — and you will be the one to lead," Trump wrote. "It will be historic!"
The super debate fails to revisit the Norman Kirk scheme which was trialed by local and gvt workers in the last term before it was to become compulsary if Labour won the next election. This was a scheme where the worker contributed %2 and the employer matched it. That money was held in a pool and was to be managed by the gvt on the contributers behalf. Local bodies would be able to borrow from that pool at %1 interest in order to carry out local maintainance and infrastructure projects. The howl from the Nats, bug business and insurers waa deafening with cries of socialism through the back door. Unfortunately Big Norm was as some including Bob Harvey believed was assasanated (cia apple ple).before that third term was up. Labour lost the election and Muldoon scraped the scheme immediately. We who had trialed the scheme got our money back and were surprised at the ammount which seemed substancial for such a short time in operation, but it showed how it would have allowed working class pensioners to retire with dignity and not like today where we live on or below the poverty line. Also local bodies would not be in dire straights as they now are. The poor poor cousin of that scheme, Kiwi Saver which is not kept in one pool but administrated by the wily nilly can never reach the heights og Big Norms socialist scheme. Why wont Labour revisit that scheme.
Doctoring the intelligence to fit the propaganda is straight out of the neo-conBushPutin emperialist playbook.
Washington (CNN)A whistleblower is alleging that top political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly instructed career officials to modify intelligence assessments to suit President Donald Trump's agenda by downplaying Russia's efforts to interfere in the US and the threat posed by White supremacists, according to documents reviewed by CNN and a source familiar with the situation.
On Peter Thiel and how well he is doing out of Covid-19.
By 20 April,Palantir was emailing to say it had to set up platforms to track Covid-19 and help combat it in 15 countries, including hard-hit Italy. "We could establish similar capability here in New Zealand within a matter of days," the company said. Overseas media have reported that the UK government gave Palantir access to sensitive patient data. (Health data is highly valued and sought after by tech firms.) The Ardern government declined Palantir’s kind offer. As Business Insider reported earlier this year, Palantir is now likely to become profitable for the first time in its 16 year history and will (perhaps) soon be listing publicly:
Could government do that? Would Treasury let them? What barriers apart from their own wetness and timidity, would be against them purchasing the EFTPOS etc – it must be such a good money-maker for the banks.
The average fee charged for credit cards is 1.6 per cent but they can top 2 per cent. That compares to 0.8 per cent on average in Australia and 0.5 per cent in the United Kingdom. In New Zealand, a typical contactless debit card payment costs 1.2 per cent, compared to 0.6 per cent in Australia and 0.2 per cent in the UK.
There's a reason why the banks keep reporting record profits and its not because they're doing a sterling service.
that must be in regards to pay wave who raised their fees after dropping them during L4 and brought them back up in Level 1.
You know what is a really good way for small businesses to avoid these charges? Not using the credit cards and or pay wave.
Use cash. That easy. But hey Labour is finally doing something for the small businesses that are closing shop up and down the country because no one has any money left to spend. Good fucking grief, that bunch of doodas can not not find the most useless shit to 'deliver'.
“Approximately two-thirds of total spending in New Zealand is done electronically on eftpos and credit cards,” says Paul Whiston, spokesman for electronics payment provider Paymark.
Yeah, I really don't think any business is going to go that way.
But hey Labour is finally doing something for the small businesses that are closing shop up and down the country because no one has any money left to spend.
I suspect that the actual reason why small businesses are closing is because they just can't compete with large business.
I've seen the surcharge and even the credit card refusal. Haven't seen paywave refusal although plenty of places that haven't updated their EFT-POS which maybe a result of the paywave cost.
Teach me for not fully comprehending my own quote.
Still, there's really two issues here:
More and more people are using electronic payment as a sole means of paying
Why do the private banks get to charge us for us using our money? We really can call such charges a tax.
So, the best way to get over those two issues is government ownership of the EFT-POS system and making it a state monopoly.
Although the banks do operate the system that makes EFT-POS happen it's pretty close to a monopoly system which simply should not be allowed in private ownership because, as we can see here, they abuse it.
The second is just an ongoing lie at this point. It was proven years ago that the banks don't need our money to make loans. It's also been proven that the reason why we have such massive capital gains is because of the private banks creating so much money for housing and other speculation.
Payment systems and money creation need to be under government ownership/control so as to prevent the abuse of the system that happens under a private, for profit, corporation. And, yes, keep cash for a while longer.
Sabine – agree with your comment about using cash. However the banks are hell bent on having cheques no longer accepted as legal tender by June 2021 ; many shops / all public transport here in Auckland don't accept cash. Countdown grudgingly open a dedicated "cash only" check out but have to be reminded at times.
The banks have long wanted a cashless society and Covid has provided the perfect situation for this to happen. There will be little demand for face to face contact so local bank branches will be few and far between.
There are many elderly people who don't / can't use computers and have no desire to learn about online personal banking, They will be greatly disadvantaged without cheques or cash in their day to day lives.
Few seem to understand the importance of having cash available to use for our transactions if we so wish. The power that authorities would have over us as we try to live our private lives if we had to pass everything through a machine is immense. Part of the surveillance of the fascist state. Keeping track of what you do, who with, how much, where did you get it, what haven't you disclosed. Bugger off all you machine-mad people, you have already left planet earth and are standing on some invisible one that has lost its connections with simple humanity.
Greywarshark berated my negativity earlier today and he/she was correct to observe my posts have been less than uplifting of late…..I suggest with good reason.
An excellent comprehensive and fundamental explanation by Nate Hagens (thanks to powerdownkiwi over at Interest.co.nz)
"Many challenges we face appear as classic social traps, whereby short-term social pressures guide individual behavior in opposition to the best long-run interest of the individual and society (Costanza, 1987). Cognitively, the implications presented in this paper are understandable to most people fluent in the issues, but behaviorally remain almost the perfect storm for the human brain to ignore or deny. The issues are: complex, abstract, in the future, threatening to politicians and business owners, difficult to answer, largely ignored by leaders, and depressing to think about. Typically, a description of our biophysical reality is met with denial or nihilism.
Both denial and nihilism help the mind remove dissonance and thus emotionally absolve a person from working to make (uncomfortable) changes that might improve our chances. This and other social traps appear to mitigate against meaningful action. Our super sociality results in valuing conformity over science, and valuing fairness of process over quality of results. We attempt to use social sorting mechanisms (popularity/status) to solve complex problems. Perhaps the biggest social trap of all is that we don’t actually need all this energy and material stuff to be happy or healthy. Nevertheless, led by the emergent drive of the Superorganism, we let pecuniary metrics, social comparisons, and novel technology, drag us into unnecessary and wasteful consumption."
Ta for that Pat Not recommended bedtime reading I think. But top of the list for soon, in the light of day. Perhaps understanding will result in surmounting.
A song comes to me, hopeful to keep in the back of the mind. We need some sweet and good thoughts as mind wallpaper.
I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day…
I Can See Clearly Now Jimmy Cliff
We are amazingly miraculous really and being here is so random. When we make children we unwittingly are making life, so like Gods. But that's nothing, we can't be bothered – turn everything over to the machines.
Another set of words to keep in mind are those written by Shakespeare centuries ago – fresh each day. 'What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason'.
Fresh – Hamlet soliloquy by Kenneth Branagh. But stop it quickly as a dross piece of everyday cop show follows to invade your ears.
The crux of issues facing us now are because we do not want to give up or lower our energy use.
As the article poses, "Recognition that the future exists" already is uncomfortable and perhaps we do not see changing our own individual lives now as a huge part of the 'crisis'. There's always tomorrow.
" Perhaps the biggest social trap of all is that we don’t actually need all this energy and material stuff to be happy or healthy. Nevertheless, led by the emergent drive of the Superorganism, we let pecuniary metrics, social comparisons, and novel technology, drag us into unnecessary and wasteful consumption."
Then this quote from same text,
" …. there is no instinctual ‘full’ signal in modern brains – so we become addicted to the ‘unexpected reward’ of the next encounter, episode, or email, at an ever increasing pace (Hagens, 2011; Schultz et al., 1997). Our brains require flows (feelings) that we satisfy today mostly using non-renewable stocks. "
The business world exploits that insatiable wants of humans offering its glittery rewards and most uphold that exploitation by our own daily behaviours.
This week was a work email from Spark , ' sign your business up to our new business plan and you will get a free phone and wait… a second phone free too."
Not many would hestitate and think about the whole process to have that phone, let alone the unneeded second phone. That aside from cheap labour to make that phone, its harvesting of elements from a finite source, ( more likely 'mined' creating negative impacts in someone else's village), is increasingly a lost view in our consumption.
" Despite the pervasive belief that more money and energy makes us happier, evidence suggests this is mostly not true. After basic needs are met, additional energy use yields a slower growth of the Human Development Index (Smil, 2017)."
In a few short years we've forgotten that we could still be happy and healthy using less.
The "disconnect" the article leads too makes some election promises laughable in a sense…
So collective care is now deviously evolved to getting on board with a " strong team", come on you weaklings ! Let's build a road so high energy users can get to the shops faster and more comfortably, so we can all buy some walking shoes, a sham of an election prize.
Ah well, must've misread the intent of your post adding such unchilled serious information then. Here's me genuinely bothering to read all your article's verbiage. Foolish me , lesson learnt.
Dont know what intent you attributed to me but I think the following (accurate) description could be reasonably described as chilling…
"We can’t precisely predict the future, but we can increasingly be confident of what won’t happen. Given the biological and social underpinnings of growth and kicking the can described above, we can hypothesize what scenarios are unlikely:
•
Growing the global economy while simultaneously solving climate change (reducing CO2) or avoiding a 6th mass extinction.
•
Growing the economy while replacing hydrocarbons with low carbon energy.
•
Voting en masse to keep remaining carbon compounds in the ground.
•
Leaders embracing or preparing for an end of growth before it happens.
To avoid paying the societal debt bill we’ve amassed over past decades, we tend to keep kicking the can forward, with more financial guarantees, stories, and rule changes – all in increasingly less sustainable ways. With the backdrop of the Superorganism we might make some predictions:
•
As more people recognize that energy underpins our futures, we’ll witness more schemes focusing on gross energy as opposed to its net contribution to society. Many technologies will be promoted that are viable, but not relevant, affordable or scalable.
•
We will continue to create money and credit expecting their abundance to overcome physical world problems, until they too reach limits (no credit-worthy lenders, interest too high of % of growth, fiscal cliffs, etc.).
•
To avoid social instability, we will remediate wealth inequality via programs like Universal Basic Income (If such ‘wealth transfers’ are direct, they will stabilize society but access more carbon as they are transfers of bank digits to direct calls on resources and energy. (Good for low income humans, bad for dolphins).(These transfers can be indirect e.g. ecological restoration, local public infrastructure etc.)
•
Around the world, as economic prospects deteriorate, people will foster group cohesion by blaming their problems on outgroups, and tend to vote for leaders who promise better economic futures, or things to be more like the past, (linked to more economic growth, linked to energy, linked to carbon). Trump, Bolsonaro, Matteo, LePen, Morrison, etc. are but recent examples. (Conservative names listed, but most liberal types also promise "better economic futures.").
•
As USA and Brazil attest, one of the few remaining economic cans to kick is de-regulation and removal of environmental protection. As the economy gets worse, environmental initiatives (e.g. climate mitigation) will become less popular – not because people disbelieve or care less but because they’ll have less financial and emotional bandwidth to advocate for them.
•
As a globally tethered economic system, we will likely do anything we can to kick the can further down the road. We are caught in a spiral of growth, limits to growth, response to limits, more growth, more limits, more response.”
Im sorry you felt obliged to read the article for my benefit….that was unnecessary.
Sorry about that Pat. I thought you were being dismissive, with "chilling" being ambiguous. My bad, apologies. And no I was not obliged to read the article, I enjoyed absorbing the take and thanks for your added commentary.
Should I trust the The New Zealand Initiative? Do they represent a fair and reasonable opinion?
The New Zealand Initiative is a pro-free-market public-policy think tank and business membership organisation in New Zealand. It was formed in 2012 by merger of the New Zealand Business Roundtable and the New Zealand Institute.
And I say raise the inflation level to allow some maneouvrability. And that money is a system devised by man for man and this country wants the Imf and their acolytes to remember that.
We have to act in the most canny way we can to get our own way, with as little fall-out as possible from outside. Inside it's too dark to read. (Allusion to Groucho Marx.) If you can confuse them enough, you can steal their gold and run away down the beanstalk.
The old raise the age of Superannuation eligibility canard. Eh? Brash wanted it at 75 IIRC and others want Covid-19 to see all of us shuffling off the mortal coil ASAP so that business can get back to the normal amassing of private fortunes at the expense of the public good.
Remember there'll be "Pie in the sky when you die!" Woody Guthrie.
"Working folks of all countries unite
Side by side we for freedom shall fight
When this world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain
You will eat, you will eat, by and by
When you've learned how to cook and how to fry
Chop some wood, it'll do you good
And you'll eat in that sweet by and by, that's no lie."
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Photo by Jari Hytönen on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Next week the government will again next try to get its legislation through to deal with non-citizens who won’t cooperate with efforts to deport them. The bill, which the opposition and crossbench refused to rush ...
A long-term project that will set out an alternative vision for Aotearoa that looks beyond the narrow confines of the policy straight jacket adopted by successive governments. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bree Hurst, Associate Professor, Faculty of Business and Law, QUT, Queensland University of Technology TK Kurikawa/Shutterstock A much-awaited report into Coles and Woolworths has found what many customers have long believed – Australia’s big supermarkets engage in price gouging. What started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney The Albanese government wanted to avoid an inquiry into its migration amendment bill. The report, handed down yesterday by a senate committee that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne Lobbying is at the heart of government. Who has access to and influence over key government officials shapes the decisions governments make – and how they make them. The ability to influence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Myfany Turpin, Associate Professor, Ethnomusicology, Linguistics and Ethnobiology, University of Sydney The act representing Australia at this year’s Eurovision contest has sadly not qualified for the grand final. Yet for Zaachariaha Fielding and Michael Ross, the duo that makes up Electric Fields, ...
In announcing changes to the school lunches programme, David Seymour said kids would no longer be served ‘woke’ foods. To clear up any confusion, The Spinoff has compiled a guide to the wokeness levels of some common food items. Apple = NOT WOKE Avocado = WOKE Avocado, smashed = EVEN ...
The Minister Responsible for GCSB and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security have been notified of this review, and have been provided a finalised Terms of Reference. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Minglu Chen, Senior Lecturer, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Robert Way/Shutterstock As the past few years have illustrated so clearly, the Australia-China relationship is complicated. As such, it is crucial for Australians to develop a more nuanced understanding of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mariana Campbell, Research Lecturer, Conservation, Charles Darwin University Marilyn Connell Australian freshwater turtles are facing an alarming trend. Almost half of these species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. The Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) is one of Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritise the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University Unsplash We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that everyone thinks, interacts and experiences the world differently. In the past, autistic people, people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder ...
PNG Post-Courier Papua New Guinea’s deputy opposition leader James Nomane has accused the government of “reckless economic management” that has forced devaluation to manage loan repayments in foreign currency and placate the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prime Minister James Marape “must stop lying to the people of Papua New Guinea”, ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Jane Arthur, author of Brown Bird, and former bookseller at Good Books.The book I wish I’d writtenI have been working on not comparing myself to others. On accepting that what I can ...
The final decision on the Wellington District Plan makes it official: High-density housing is legal across most of Wellington. Housing minister Chris Bishop has announced his decision on the Wellington District Plan, approving a series of amendments to radically upzone most of Wellington, allowing tens of thousands of new townhouses ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to ...
RNZ News As Israel presses ahead with strikes in Rafah and seizing the Rafah crossing from Egypt, aid agencies are sounding the alarm of a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”. Rafah was “significant” because it was the only part in Gaza that had not been terribly damaged by the conflict, United Nations ...
With funding set to be scrapped for the Hamilton-Auckland commuter train, Te Huia enthusiast Georgie Dansey argues for it to be thrown a lifeline. It’s 5.45am and the chain of my crappy old bike falls off slugging up the one hill in Hamilton. I contemplate yeeting the bike into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Cooke, Honorary Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland We feel ecological grief when we lose places, species or ecosystems we value and love. These losses are a growing threat to mental health and wellbeing globally. We all see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shauna Brail, Associate Professor, Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto A shift to hybrid and remote work continues to affect worker presence in Toronto’s downtown.(Shutterstock) Downtown Toronto, the core of Canada’s largest city, continues to reel from the lingering ...
Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
Productivity apps now make up a big chunk of the software market. But do they work? And why do they all have AI integrations?Despite being firmly on the record as a physical planner fan, I sometimes dream of something better than my pretty diary and its scrawled, ugly, interior ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
An objective list of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand, as judged by the Spinoff Editorial Board. It’s power list season, baby, and we want in on the action. Sure, there’s the rich list and the powerful “c-suite” list and the young people with power (hmmm) but here, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the names of deceased people, and describes ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. First Nations people in Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University Netflix Baby Reindeer’s phenomenal success has much to do with its writer and lead, Richard Gadd, who plays Donny in a tender semi-autobiographical account of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking. Gadd’s story has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle KarolinaGrabowska/Pexels If you didn’t have food allergies as a child, is it possible to develop them as an adult? The short answer is yes. But the reasons why are much ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Moon, Professor of History, Auckland University of Technology Ans Westra, self-portrait, c. 1963. National Library ref AWM-0705-F They try but invariably fail – those writers who believe they are capable of encapsulating in prose or verse the essence of ...
Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the growing concern around the world in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. What’s all this? When Covid-19 arrived on our shores in early 2020, some argued we were too slow, or crucially, ill-prepared for a pandemic. So ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Franco Montalto, Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Director, Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Laboratory, Drexel University Water runs into a storm drain in a Los Angeles alley on Aug. 19, 2023, during Tropical Storm Hilary.Citizen of the Planet/Universal Images ...
The inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones has turned up a new witness who says he saw two teenagers and a small child in a high vis vest in the area where the boy’s body was found the day he died. Lachie’s body was discovered face up ...
Stories from the tenancy trenches, featuring spider infestations, cupboard rats and same-sex discrimination. Lucy’s brother was living in a damp 1930s building in Mt Eden where “he had to tie the cupboard doors closed so the rats didn’t get in”. Although he shared custody of his six-year-old son, his property ...
Simeon Brown, Chris Luxon, and Wayne Brown climbed into a hole and announced a plan to solve Auckland’s water woes. This is how it’ll work. New Zealand’s pipes are munted. They’re cracked and leaking, and struggling to handle all the extra poos excreted by our rising population. It’s a big, ...
I knew Taika Waititi quite well when he was a kid. His mother lived in a tall narrow house in Aro St, and my youngest sister had a similar house two doors along. They were both single mums, they each had a son aged seven. Taika and my nephew Stepan ...
Opinion: “As time passes, knowledge of the circumstances of the August 2016 outbreak will fade and its immediate impact will be lost.” This statement is from the 2017 report of the Official Inquiry into the Havelock North campylobacteriosis outbreak. The then National-led government established the inquiry after the outbreak left ...
Opinion: Nicholas Khoo looks at two key points in the high-stakes foreign policy pact debate – and asks if NZ can engage with as little drama as possible. The post Where to next for the Aukus ruckus? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Wednesday 8 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: ‘Reference-class forecasting’ is at the heart of improving pricing a project and identifying the expected timeframe but it doesn’t appear to be in use here The post ‘Think fast and act slowly’ is failing big projects appeared first on Newsroom. ...
What do a sombrero in Argentina and cognitive driving tests have in common? Don’t worry, we’re not setting up a bad joke. Hinengaro Clinic dementia clinician Gregory Winkelman has the answer on today’s episode of The Detail. “We ask a patient’s spouse or son or daughter: If you went to ...
Wellington long jumper Phoebe Edwards is back and she’s having fun again. Until this year, Edwards, a top athlete in her teens, had never competed as a senior athlete in New Zealand. In March, the 26-year-old won a national long jump title in a lifetime best of 6.28m after ...
After replacing a fifth of their caucus in just four months, the Greens’ opportunity to reset, reshuffle and refocus on the Government is quickly slipping away The post Persistent Green Party scandals delay caucus reset appeared first on Newsroom. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
By Robin Martin, RNZ News reporter A New Zealand local authority, Whanganui District Council, has passed a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, condemnation of all acts of violence and terror against civilians on both sides of the conflict and the immediate return of hostages. It comes as ...
Asia Pacific Report The Aotearoa chapter of the Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has appealed to the New Zealand government to call out Israel over the “cruel and barbaric use of force” in Gaza and demand a permanent ceasefire. The league’s open letter was sent to Prime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will invest $566 million over a decade on data, maps and other tools to promote exploration and development in Australia’s resources industry. The project will fund “the first comprehensive map of what’s ...
Asia Pacific Report Following an open letter by Auckland University academics speaking out in support of their students’ right to protest against the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza, a group of academics at Otago University have today also called on New Zealand academic institutions to “repair colonial violence” and end ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda J. Graham, Professor and Director of the Centre for Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology Ryan Tauss/ Unsplash, CC BY Two male students have been expelled from a Melbourne private school for their involvement in a list ranking female students. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The Reserve Bank is now assuming Australians will see no interest rate cuts this year – and quite possibly none before the next federal election, due next May. That’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University The Victorian budget offered more of the same on Tuesday, with the only change being how the budget papers were packaged. The usual shrink wrap was gone, hinting at savings in the pages ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Coalition is demanding extensive amendments to the government’s legislation targeting non-citizens who refuse to co-operate with their removal. In a dissenting report to the senate inquiry into the legislation, the Coalition says it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanita Yadav, Senior Research Fellow, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University Brett Boardman/Belvoir The complex and grappling issue of violence against women takes centre stage in the soul-stirring solo dance drama Nayika: A Dancing Girl. During a dinner conversation ...
Disruption to patient care from a nationwide junior doctors strike is bordering on unsafe, a senior doctor claims, despite what health officials say. ...
I suspect some wag in Treasury converted Grant Robertson to nudge theory. If you nudge a complex system, the influence cascades down through all the levels within, transforming all subsystems & interrelations subtly. It likely derives from the butterfly effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
So the general idea would be that a wee nudge of top income earners will transform the behaviour of all in the economy, and everyone will live happily ever after.
You got it, it's a sophisticated form of herding. Well, better not oversell the concept, so maybe replace sophisticated with trendy.
Happy valley? Well, toss in the even trendier notion that spiritual consultants will turn zombie employees into inspired new-agers, and you can see why capitalism still hums along eh?
Nudge theory works in governance by escalating compliance. Nowadays, when folks are getting increasingly random, administrators need all the help they can get.
Yeah but since when have wage slaves ever needed autonomy? The social system is meant to work like a well-oiled machine. Humans as cogs are habitual. It's why National & Labour think the way they do.
There was, btw, a prior, more elaborate version of the theory in 1971 (google nudge nudge wink wink say no more).
My Nudge Theory is that when you nudge a sleeping dog, it is not going to wake up.
I wondered why I saw those pics of USA people elbowing each other as an alternative to shaking hands. You nudge people with your elbows, but hey, giving someone the elbow means to get them to go away. If nudging is taking off what does it really mean? What springs to mind is a saying about 'nudging someone off their perch'. In these precarious times we want to feel safe on our perch. So we need to watch to see what this new craze is really about! Some new conspiracy??
Listening to RNZ during Checkpoint and the financial news was on.
The news was rosy. ANZ survey business confidence is up 16 points, ASB have revised their figures for the GDP from falling by 20% to falling by 11%.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018763314
Senior economists are scratching their heads and coming up with reckons left right and centre. Bring back the horoscopes, they are based on science.
yes. all the experts and economists(often two different groups) predictions about the economy, should be given full airtime, showing how far from reality most of them have been.
I am a great believer in the saying, Put 5 economist’s in a room and they will come up with 8 different answers and none of them will be right.
No Dennis it's about the money.
Enough with the tortured analogies.
Ad @3
well nudge theory sounds a bit kinder and gentler then 'trickling down' theory. That always had a certain nasty tone to it.
Treasury mandarins know what to do with Labour ministers of finance. The working model was devised as Muldoon lost the plot, and got traction within a few months of being applied to the incoming socialists during early '85. Obviously the rerun of the application was always gonna happen once the update got bolted on.
Grant was never likely to reject a formula approved by "the World Bank, the OECD, the European Commission, and the World Economic Forum". https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/neuroliberalism-welcome-government-21st-century/
No Ad, it is about the control of the money. You know, who gets what, who has more than they need, who gets to keep it, et cetera. It should be about fairness and equality but these are just words without meaning in the real world. It is not about the money, but about how you toil away and spend a large chunk of your life because you have been brainwashed that it is about the money. When we go completely cashless, I cannot even show you my money, I’ll have to log into my bank account and show you a number, on my screen, that tells how much I have toiled and how many more years I have to toil – the toil calculators are the best thing since sliced bread.
Unheralded, a brave new world of social engineering via algorithmic control is dawning. Universities breeding behavioural scientists that view humans as similar to pinballs in that, if you zap them, they will ping off others and you can cause a chain reaction, have been pushing the mechanist-materialist worldview for a century.
That's due to Freud & Jung advocating depth psychology, then other psychologists reacting by pointing out that you can't measure the psyche so `we can only study behaviour' – and because behaviour can be measured and counted psychology won't seem pseudoscience.
From this past, we get this future:
Don't worry. She'll be right. All one need do is spot the manipulation techniques, then do the opposite of what is intended – if you're nonconformist. If you like being part of the herd, accept your fate with equanimity. Vote National/Labour.
The control system is moving with the times. Fed up with neoliberalism? Don't worry, your liberal paternalist controller has something better awaiting your subscription.
Oops, forgot the source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/neuroliberalism-welcome-government-21st-century/
Don't forget the sauce, it makes the thing just about edible, though not digestible.
"Climate change is my generations nuclear free moment."
Around 2 years ago it was stated by those at the frontlines of climate study that we had a little over a decade to make serious changes to our emissions profile in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change (a timeframe since shortened)
We have witnessed the previous 3 years of inaction by the Coalition and with the general tone of the current electioneering it is almost certain we waste the next 3 years as well.
What was an almost impossible ask to achieve in 10 years will need to be achieved in half that.
Transformational?
Are you always negative Pat? I forget the positives.
Take a look around greywarshark and regale me of all the 'positives' you foresee for our species
We have to check in now and then to remind ourselves and the people we care enough about to converse with, that there are some positives. Personally I do this so I can get out of bed in the morning and keep fighting for a better pathway even if it gets down to a wormhole in the garden. Worms are good! Hooray for worms. I have a ton in my compost who know nothing compared to me and yet are possibly saviours of the planet.
Perhaps worms should be in Parliament
JLR’s competition has been awfully quiet.
Luxon doesn't need to campaign. All them Chinese immigrants will dutifully vote National. Then there's god's will. He knows it. 😉
Thanks for that xenophobia comment you sound like Michael Joseph Savage in some of his highly racists speeches regarding the 1920 immigration act that continued through to his time as PM.
so you think Chinese are so stupid that they cannot think for themselves and act as Lemmings following the one in front?.
That's what prior media commentary based on polling of that ethnic community has suggested, and the stats were extremely one-sided. It was a while back & I can't recall details. Re xenophobia you ought not to read motives into online opinions as if you're operating on autopilot – I have no such fear!
How the ignorant operate. Take some time out and look at the Botany Electorate. I will even help you out. Many with preconceived attitudes have this " I have nothing to fear", You have no links to support such statements. ps there is a difference between Chinese and Asian.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/mps-and-electorates/historical-electorate-profiles/electorate-profiles-data/document/DBHOH_Lib_EP_Botany_People/botany-people#_45
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botany_(New_Zealand_electorate)
Well here's the polling on how Chinese vote in this country:
I had a lengthy conversation with one of "them Chinese immigrants" from the Botany electorate on Sunday. He was well versed on what was happening in their electorate, knew the names of all the candidates and was not inclined at all to vote for Jamie-Lee or Chris Luxon.
Cool, glad to know some have transcended the hive mind thingy. 👍
Building up the guy being doorstepped and asked a few questions about COVID response and responsibilities. Wonder if he’ll answer the door?
Like all opposition when they get into power the world becomes a lot more complex, pet favourites now need to be balanced against complexity of the system, trade offs and unintended consequences Any one overly focus in one area ( a luxury of opposition) in a complex system can have massive affects elsewhere. Labour has learnt that, the Greens to a degree in perennial opposition have not. Winstone has, hence the 2 Winstons, when he is in power and when he is not
If the world is too complex for them now then they are soon to be provided with far more complexity than they ever imagined….a monkey can kick a can down the road.
All it does is highlight how ineffectual our (so called) leaders are, so what is their purpose?
Gradual change based on evidence based policy and managing the trade offs for the common good ( you can’t make every one happy or eliminate all trade offs and risk) which the electorate will determine every 3 years. Likewise acting decisively and proportionately when the situation dictates, ie Covid Not many would agree how the government has responded to Covid is how you should run and economy long term In regard to state intervention and control
What a load of bollocks….minimalist change in order to manage the narrative of the common good while maintaining the advantage to the investor class regardless of the detriment to the majority, the country or even the survivability of society or even the environment that maintains all …..with no little self interest as a bonus.
( investor class….🙄) You may not like it but it’s reality, and if you think different go form your own party and convince the majority, don’t ask labour to commit electoral suicide on far left ideology, similar National on far right
I ask Labour to do no more than endeavour to achieve their stated goals
The investor class are bludgers. Nothing more – they don't even invest:
The evidence calls for immediate action – not trade-offs and more kicking the can down the road to make the capitalists happy.
Our minor finance on “that radio show” both the left and right are unhappy about the tax , so we must have got it right.
So now we have a Labour Party that views their agenda as if everyone is unhappy that labour has got the balance right. No wonder so much attention on some left wing sites is directed at National. It is hard to accept what has just been announced. 3 more years of this transformational government. More like continuation from 1999 with nothing changing. 😢
I thought Tiger Mountain on TDB has a 'balanced' realistic view in Chris Trotter's latest on why the lost thousands of voters may never be found:
Tiger Mountain September 10, 2020 at 8:42 am
Tactically Labour did not really need to do anything, just run the clock down to October 17. But I guess the TV debates mean some “qvestions vill be aksed” by Frau Collins, so answers were going to be needed for the PM.
Crusher–“What unfair tax increases on the hard working, god fearing, salt of the earth, white, heartland kiwis will you be inflicting?”
Jacinda–“already released, will not affect 98% of New Zealanders” (including obviously the new Labour voters Chris mentions).
I am not going to revisit ( today anyway) my usual litany on the class collaborationist, weak as piss Labour Caucus and chief mini-me Blairites like Mr Robertson. I just want them re-elected so political struggle can resume in earnest in the time of opportunity created by the Covid plague.
Expecting the lumpen elements of town or country to come to anyone’s rescue is indeed a forlorn hope. “she’s a pretty communist” is about the peak political analysis those wretches are capable of! Did anyone ever identify that clown holding the sign by the way?
Also what our Min of Finance may not have thought of. In a time where businesses are struggling, should Labour had proposed an increase in the coy tax rate +1-2% (to reduce those able to manage their incomes), this would delay those companies who are currently making losses in paying tax once they regained profits that exceeded these losses(and next years ?). As you do not pay tax (Provisional or Terminal) until all carried forward losses have been wiped out with profits. So it would have assisted business in need in the short term, for long term benefits. And isn't that what a helping hand is – when in need assist and when times are good to return the favour, in this case by paying a slightly larger tax bill.
https://www.business.govt.nz/tax-and-accounting/business-finance-basics/what-to-do-if-your-business-is-operating-at-a-loss/
Red, good to read a balanced post. It seems to me many commenters have unrealistic expectations of what is possible and not possible and they expect transformation in all areas to happen within months. When there is so much to be done it is going to take years. Governing is a slow and cumbersome process and will never please everyone.
Legal but a bit like friends and family bidding for your item on Trademe to inflate the price.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/a-quarter-of-nationals-fb-ad-spend-chasing-likes-for-collins?utm_source=Friends+of+the+Newsroom&utm_campaign=12e5e9be25-Daily+Briefing+10.09.20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-12e5e9be25-95522477
An unkind opponent would suggest that it's a shame she has to buy friends.
.
National spends Quarter of FB Budget on chasing Likes for Judith Collins
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/a-quarter-of-nationals-fb-ad-spend-chasing-likes-for-collins
I need help setting up a Givealittle page. On RNZ this morning I heard people being interviewed about the tax increases for those on $180,000+ a year.
Apparently they'll be down the tubes to the extent of around $20 a week. Some woman (in Karori?) is going to find it really tough. If I can get some charity for her to save her the devastation of the tax increase my life would have been worthwhile.
Apparently $180,000 a year 'isn't much really' especially when you look at the cost of housing. Imagine being in a household of one income and it being that low. Maybe there's someone else in the house can go to work.
If I can rally a group from the under 60k band and set up a Givealittle maybe we can save her. Failing that maybe I can direct her to some budgeting advice place.
Was that the poor dear who reckned 180G wasn't much but $23 was a swingeing shitload?
for gods sake don't give her cash, she'll just spend it on booze and cigarettes. Instead teach her how to grow vegetables, how to cook from scratch and how to budget.
maybe this one should be send to Grant so as to re-consider the hardship espoused by losing $ 23 while on a 180.000 NZD income, and to maybe find it in his hard to add another $ 23 to the beneficiaries that barely make 13.000 grand after tax for the full year?
In case anyone was wondering why that rotting rage-gargoyle lurking under the road-kill hamster was completely unfiltered in spilling his guts to the journalist that's done the most in history to expose presidential misconduct, here's a good explanation:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/why-trump-talked-to-woodward/index.html
tl;dr massive ego makes man stupid.
Cripes weka, you are taking away the employment of numerous right wing academics who would have spent x hours and days to say what you have expressed in one line. If this sort of thing keeps happening there will be bucketfuls of newly unemployed uni grads.
Awww, that's sooo cuuuuute! I wonder if his letters to Ivana and Marla and Melanoma were just as sweet.
Shots fired..
https://twitter.com/MaryLouMcDonald/status/1303789547461971969
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/pelosi-warns-no-chance-of-us-uk-trade-deal-passing-congress-if-brexit-law-breached-1.4350920
The super debate fails to revisit the Norman Kirk scheme which was trialed by local and gvt workers in the last term before it was to become compulsary if Labour won the next election. This was a scheme where the worker contributed %2 and the employer matched it. That money was held in a pool and was to be managed by the gvt on the contributers behalf. Local bodies would be able to borrow from that pool at %1 interest in order to carry out local maintainance and infrastructure projects. The howl from the Nats, bug business and insurers waa deafening with cries of socialism through the back door. Unfortunately Big Norm was as some including Bob Harvey believed was assasanated (cia apple ple).before that third term was up. Labour lost the election and Muldoon scraped the scheme immediately. We who had trialed the scheme got our money back and were surprised at the ammount which seemed substancial for such a short time in operation, but it showed how it would have allowed working class pensioners to retire with dignity and not like today where we live on or below the poverty line. Also local bodies would not be in dire straights as they now are. The poor poor cousin of that scheme, Kiwi Saver which is not kept in one pool but administrated by the wily nilly can never reach the heights og Big Norms socialist scheme. Why wont Labour revisit that scheme.
Because it doesn't give bludging shareholders free money.
Oops. Spellcheck needed
Byd0nz Please paragraph – easier to read and absorb in the mind.
Doctoring the intelligence to fit the propaganda is straight out of the
neo-conBushPutinemperialist playbook.Washington (CNN)A whistleblower is alleging that top political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly instructed career officials to modify intelligence assessments to suit President Donald Trump's agenda by downplaying Russia's efforts to interfere in the US and the threat posed by White supremacists, according to documents reviewed by CNN and a source familiar with the situation.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/dhs-whistleblower-white-supremacist-threat/index.html
Gordon Campbell on Scoop. Interesting. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2009/S00042/on-saving-small-firms-and-disowning-peter-thiel.htm
On Peter Thiel and how well he is doing out of Covid-19.
By 20 April,Palantir was emailing to say it had to set up platforms to track Covid-19 and help combat it in 15 countries, including hard-hit Italy. "We could establish similar capability here in New Zealand within a matter of days," the company said. Overseas media have reported that the UK government gave Palantir access to sensitive patient data. (Health data is highly valued and sought after by tech firms.) The Ardern government declined Palantir’s kind offer. As Business Insider reported earlier this year, Palantir is now likely to become profitable for the first time in its 16 year history and will (perhaps) soon be listing publicly:
https://twitter.com/DracoTBastard/status/1303202039711719424
Could government do that? Would Treasury let them? What barriers apart from their own wetness and timidity, would be against them purchasing the EFTPOS etc – it must be such a good money-maker for the banks.
Our government can, pretty much, do whatever it likes. There's nothing to legally stop them.
Treasury probably wouldn't let them but, in this case, Treasury would be wrong.
And its an excellent money maker for the banks that own it. As the article you link showed:
There's a reason why the banks keep reporting record profits and its not because they're doing a sterling service.
lol
that must be in regards to pay wave who raised their fees after dropping them during L4 and brought them back up in Level 1.
You know what is a really good way for small businesses to avoid these charges? Not using the credit cards and or pay wave.
Use cash. That easy. But hey Labour is finally doing something for the small businesses that are closing shop up and down the country because no one has any money left to spend. Good fucking grief, that bunch of doodas can not not find the most useless shit to 'deliver'.
Well, that's certainly one way to miss out on 70% of business. Had to use the WaybackMachine:
Yeah, I really don't think any business is going to go that way.
I suspect that the actual reason why small businesses are closing is because they just can't compete with large business.
There are quite a few small businesses around that outright refuse credit card payments, or add a surcharge to pay for the fees.
My local chippie is a refusenik – eftpos with no paywave or credit.
And I just paid a bill with a 1.5% credit card surcharge – 2degrees I think.
So in the real world, it happens.
I've seen the surcharge and even the credit card refusal. Haven't seen paywave refusal although plenty of places that haven't updated their EFT-POS which maybe a result of the paywave cost.
Teach me for not fully comprehending my own quote.
Still, there's really two issues here:
So, the best way to get over those two issues is government ownership of the EFT-POS system and making it a state monopoly.
They get to charge us because we use a service they developed. Just as they pay us to use our cash.
At the moment, for maybe a limited time, we can still choose (as vendors and as customers) to not use that particular service.
Maybe EFTPOS should be nationalised. But maybe we should also keep the use of legal tender for a while yet, for those who don't wish to use it.
Although the banks do operate the system that makes EFT-POS happen it's pretty close to a monopoly system which simply should not be allowed in private ownership because, as we can see here, they abuse it.
The second is just an ongoing lie at this point. It was proven years ago that the banks don't need our money to make loans. It's also been proven that the reason why we have such massive capital gains is because of the private banks creating so much money for housing and other speculation.
Payment systems and money creation need to be under government ownership/control so as to prevent the abuse of the system that happens under a private, for profit, corporation. And, yes, keep cash for a while longer.
1: yeah they did
2 meh. Go with the analogy of paying bus companies to ride on their buses then. They provide the service, people choose to use it – or to not use it.
Didn't know that Paymark was around in 1870.
And I think riding on buses should be free as well so as to bring about a more economical result.
Sabine – agree with your comment about using cash. However the banks are hell bent on having cheques no longer accepted as legal tender by June 2021 ; many shops / all public transport here in Auckland don't accept cash. Countdown grudgingly open a dedicated "cash only" check out but have to be reminded at times.
The banks have long wanted a cashless society and Covid has provided the perfect situation for this to happen. There will be little demand for face to face contact so local bank branches will be few and far between.
There are many elderly people who don't / can't use computers and have no desire to learn about online personal banking, They will be greatly disadvantaged without cheques or cash in their day to day lives.
Few seem to understand the importance of having cash available to use for our transactions if we so wish. The power that authorities would have over us as we try to live our private lives if we had to pass everything through a machine is immense. Part of the surveillance of the fascist state. Keeping track of what you do, who with, how much, where did you get it, what haven't you disclosed. Bugger off all you machine-mad people, you have already left planet earth and are standing on some invisible one that has lost its connections with simple humanity.
Dennis Frank Chinese migrants are for more freedom of enterprise less taxes.
Greywarshark berated my negativity earlier today and he/she was correct to observe my posts have been less than uplifting of late…..I suggest with good reason.
An excellent comprehensive and fundamental explanation by Nate Hagens (thanks to powerdownkiwi over at Interest.co.nz)
"Many challenges we face appear as classic social traps, whereby short-term social pressures guide individual behavior in opposition to the best long-run interest of the individual and society (Costanza, 1987). Cognitively, the implications presented in this paper are understandable to most people fluent in the issues, but behaviorally remain almost the perfect storm for the human brain to ignore or deny. The issues are: complex, abstract, in the future, threatening to politicians and business owners, difficult to answer, largely ignored by leaders, and depressing to think about. Typically, a description of our biophysical reality is met with denial or nihilism.
Both denial and nihilism help the mind remove dissonance and thus emotionally absolve a person from working to make (uncomfortable) changes that might improve our chances. This and other social traps appear to mitigate against meaningful action. Our super sociality results in valuing conformity over science, and valuing fairness of process over quality of results. We attempt to use social sorting mechanisms (popularity/status) to solve complex problems. Perhaps the biggest social trap of all is that we don’t actually need all this energy and material stuff to be happy or healthy. Nevertheless, led by the emergent drive of the Superorganism, we let pecuniary metrics, social comparisons, and novel technology, drag us into unnecessary and wasteful consumption."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310067
Not for the faint of heart but worth the read
Ta for that Pat Not recommended bedtime reading I think. But top of the list for soon, in the light of day. Perhaps understanding will result in surmounting.
A song comes to me, hopeful to keep in the back of the mind. We need some sweet and good thoughts as mind wallpaper.
Thanks for that, Greywarshark
I listened to this today, by Joni Mitchell, on youtube. It has hope and reality too.
"We are stardust. Billion year old carbon.
We are golden. Caught in the devil's bargain.
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."
We are amazingly miraculous really and being here is so random. When we make children we unwittingly are making life, so like Gods. But that's nothing, we can't be bothered – turn everything over to the machines.
Another set of words to keep in mind are those written by Shakespeare centuries ago – fresh each day. 'What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason'.
Fresh – Hamlet soliloquy by Kenneth Branagh. But stop it quickly as a dross piece of everyday cop show follows to invade your ears.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxvvkXYN7wg
Thought provoking read Pat.
The crux of issues facing us now are because we do not want to give up or lower our energy use.
As the article poses, "Recognition that the future exists" already is uncomfortable and perhaps we do not see changing our own individual lives now as a huge part of the 'crisis'. There's always tomorrow.
" Perhaps the biggest social trap of all is that we don’t actually need all this energy and material stuff to be happy or healthy. Nevertheless, led by the emergent drive of the Superorganism, we let pecuniary metrics, social comparisons, and novel technology, drag us into unnecessary and wasteful consumption."
Then this quote from same text,
" …. there is no instinctual ‘full’ signal in modern brains – so we become addicted to the ‘unexpected reward’ of the next encounter, episode, or email, at an ever increasing pace (Hagens, 2011; Schultz et al., 1997). Our brains require flows (feelings) that we satisfy today mostly using non-renewable stocks. "
The business world exploits that insatiable wants of humans offering its glittery rewards and most uphold that exploitation by our own daily behaviours.
This week was a work email from Spark , ' sign your business up to our new business plan and you will get a free phone and wait… a second phone free too."
Not many would hestitate and think about the whole process to have that phone, let alone the unneeded second phone. That aside from cheap labour to make that phone, its harvesting of elements from a finite source, ( more likely 'mined' creating negative impacts in someone else's village), is increasingly a lost view in our consumption.
" Despite the pervasive belief that more money and energy makes us happier, evidence suggests this is mostly not true. After basic needs are met, additional energy use yields a slower growth of the Human Development Index (Smil, 2017)."
In a few short years we've forgotten that we could still be happy and healthy using less.
The "disconnect" the article leads too makes some election promises laughable in a sense…
So collective care is now deviously evolved to getting on board with a " strong team", come on you weaklings ! Let's build a road so high energy users can get to the shops faster and more comfortably, so we can all buy some walking shoes, a sham of an election prize.
thought provoking is one way to describe it…..Im inclined to 'chilling' myself.
Ah well, must've misread the intent of your post adding such unchilled serious information then. Here's me genuinely bothering to read all your article's verbiage. Foolish me , lesson learnt.
Dont know what intent you attributed to me but I think the following (accurate) description could be reasonably described as chilling…
"We can’t precisely predict the future, but we can increasingly be confident of what won’t happen. Given the biological and social underpinnings of growth and kicking the can described above, we can hypothesize what scenarios are unlikely:
•
Growing the global economy while simultaneously solving climate change (reducing CO2) or avoiding a 6th mass extinction.
•
Growing the economy while replacing hydrocarbons with low carbon energy.
•
Voting en masse to keep remaining carbon compounds in the ground.
•
Leaders embracing or preparing for an end of growth before it happens.
To avoid paying the societal debt bill we’ve amassed over past decades, we tend to keep kicking the can forward, with more financial guarantees, stories, and rule changes – all in increasingly less sustainable ways. With the backdrop of the Superorganism we might make some predictions:
•
As more people recognize that energy underpins our futures, we’ll witness more schemes focusing on gross energy as opposed to its net contribution to society. Many technologies will be promoted that are viable, but not relevant, affordable or scalable.
•
We will continue to create money and credit expecting their abundance to overcome physical world problems, until they too reach limits (no credit-worthy lenders, interest too high of % of growth, fiscal cliffs, etc.).
•
To avoid social instability, we will remediate wealth inequality via programs like Universal Basic Income (If such ‘wealth transfers’ are direct, they will stabilize society but access more carbon as they are transfers of bank digits to direct calls on resources and energy. (Good for low income humans, bad for dolphins).(These transfers can be indirect e.g. ecological restoration, local public infrastructure etc.)
•
Around the world, as economic prospects deteriorate, people will foster group cohesion by blaming their problems on outgroups, and tend to vote for leaders who promise better economic futures, or things to be more like the past, (linked to more economic growth, linked to energy, linked to carbon). Trump, Bolsonaro, Matteo, LePen, Morrison, etc. are but recent examples. (Conservative names listed, but most liberal types also promise "better economic futures.").
•
As USA and Brazil attest, one of the few remaining economic cans to kick is de-regulation and removal of environmental protection. As the economy gets worse, environmental initiatives (e.g. climate mitigation) will become less popular – not because people disbelieve or care less but because they’ll have less financial and emotional bandwidth to advocate for them.
•
As a globally tethered economic system, we will likely do anything we can to kick the can further down the road. We are caught in a spiral of growth, limits to growth, response to limits, more growth, more limits, more response.”
Im sorry you felt obliged to read the article for my benefit….that was unnecessary.
Sorry about that Pat. I thought you were being dismissive, with "chilling" being ambiguous. My bad, apologies. And no I was not obliged to read the article, I enjoyed absorbing the take and thanks for your added commentary.
Not at all….it IS food for thought, but I also see the inevitability he describes.
Of course.
https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1303716729609048066
Should I trust the The New Zealand Initiative? Do they represent a fair and reasonable opinion?
For example:
lol…think you answered your own question
And I say raise the inflation level to allow some maneouvrability. And that money is a system devised by man for man and this country wants the Imf and their acolytes to remember that.
We have to act in the most canny way we can to get our own way, with as little fall-out as possible from outside. Inside it's too dark to read. (Allusion to Groucho Marx.) If you can confuse them enough, you can steal their gold and run away down the beanstalk.
The old raise the age of Superannuation eligibility canard. Eh? Brash wanted it at 75 IIRC and others want Covid-19 to see all of us shuffling off the mortal coil ASAP so that business can get back to the normal amassing of private fortunes at the expense of the public good.
Remember there'll be "Pie in the sky when you die!" Woody Guthrie.
"Working folks of all countries unite
Side by side we for freedom shall fight
When this world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain
You will eat, you will eat, by and by
When you've learned how to cook and how to fry
Chop some wood, it'll do you good
And you'll eat in that sweet by and by, that's no lie."
Was that not called way back the Business Round Table, later known as the Libertarian Party now known as A,C,T.