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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, February 17th, 2012 - 54 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Pretending they didn’t know this was coming.
The Nats. soften us for extreme austerity measures.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6434093/Global-economy-may-hit-Budget
As in Greece struggle between bailing out the bankers and financiers and cutting everywhere else, means that a victory of the wharfies takes on a greater significance.
From now on, a defeat for any organised workforce will mean less ability for working people to resist austerity.
Yes, of course they knew it was coming, and still they try to gild the lily:
And did anyone really believe the “Dutch” auction when Nat and Lab were out doing themselves to achieve a surplus around 2015?
Unfortunately it will we you and I who suffer from these fools false hopes.
As a note I saw on the news last night that 2/3 of the reduction in the armed forces is from uniformed servicemen and that the corporate office is still untouched at 70, and we were informed that there was to be no loss in front line serviceman.
I knew New Zealand would end up copping some form of austerity. The list of cuts is probably sitting in a drawer waiting to be dusted off.
Given that we are still feeling the effects of our last set of austerity measures, the 1991 budget, and to a lesser extent, the 1997-98 cuts in response to the Asian crisis, things arent going to be good.
And what is worse, is that the wealthy won’t be called upon to pay a single cent in extra tax. It will be everyone else who will bear the burden.
Hmmm… maybe the hairpiece hasn’t totally backed off his original asset sales position?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/6434289/Fay-group-would-meet-Chinese-undertakings
So, first cracks (or maybe the second after the Maori Party issues) in this “landslide” government. Good on the opposition for the early concerted pressure. I’ve liked the way in Pariament this week, that the opposition parties have come in with various supplementaries following a primary question on Crafar/assett sales by one of the parties – a concerted & fairly united approach to keeping the pressure on the government..
Michael Fay’s PR team have not yet put up a proposition to the seller Westpac. Any contract is willing buyer willing seller not a PR exercise.
They sort of talked about offer is $57 million below the Chinese, with all sorts of promises.
Crafer now says that he wants to buy back his onetime farms, which he disgracefully ran into the ground, and went bankrupt.
To cancel the Chinese bid would be a shocking look for New Zealand, but I assume that is what so many want ?
The James Cameron sale would have to be cancelled along with a number of other potential purchases currently with the IOI.
In Britain free labour from young people started with intern schemes for graduates, then community work for the dole schemes that are expanding quite rapidly into big high street firms, like Tescos
Get that? The taxpayer is paying people to work in menial jobs at big firms – how can this reduce unemployment? or provide skills training? A revolving door of people being paid job-seekers allowance for 26 weeks to stack supermarket shelves and the like, will surely increase unemployment as big firms use free labour.
Coming to a work and income job board near you?
Great link. Ta.
Probably, this government will do pretty much anything to boost the profits of the corporates. I’ve already heard of some businesses wanting a two week period to “see if you fit the culture” where you work for nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people, desperate for work, are falling for it.
A British friend of mine (a retired economist!) is helping organise protests against Tescos this weekend…
I was reading a site about propaganda earlier today, and the guy has a list of ‘positive’ words Newt Gingrich was distributing to Republicans … the last word on the positive list (for candidates to use) was “workfare“.
of course “workfare” is nothing more than a kind of subsidised corporate welfare.
Good to hear, at least the Brits protest injustice… It gets worse though. I’d read about the new assessment procedures for disability that, now, almost everyone acknowledges are faulty, but I’d not realised this was in the pipeline
So a free permanent workforce for the corporates, without the 26-week limit. Who cares about productivity when you’re not paying for workers yourself.
See Mr English on the News last night.
Apparently the revenue from the sale of the SOEs is
JUST A GUESS.
And not even a “best guess” either.
Funny he didn’t say it was just a guess BEFORE the election eh?
That is totally unfair. He has worked backwards from – We need a surplus in year 2015: We have these income and these expenses = A deficit. Asset sales = deficit + $1b = $1b surplus. So aseet sales = X. Not a real guess just a means of balancingthe books 😉
And laughing while he said it. The arrogance astounds
but does not surprise.
Oh, I do like The Hairs response:
Yep, not his problem and not his responsibility even though he happens to be part of the government.
If he is not taking responsibility for his portfolio and decisions made by the government, he must be dismissing himself from the government. Early election here we come.
Do you really think that English/Treasury do not have a very good idea of the partial sales share values.
They are not going to tell you, or me, as its commercially sensitive, as to offer price.
John Armstrong in the Herald today believes that there was a great deal of media dissing yesterday in English’s comments, and that he fooled them sucessfully, along with many others.
Funny, not sure how it can be “commercially sensitive” when the offer price has to be released well in advance in a prospectus???
The other point being that the actual price, like any export product (sorry “mums & dads”, you don’t have the capital to be a player in this game), will vary wildly with the exchange rate at the time.
Which throws another flavour into the mix. 5-7bil is a best guess, 6bil is an arbitrary stab within that, and it’s all based on the entrails-reading that is economic prediction.
And the funny thing is that it’s so easy to determine what they’re actually worth – just calculate how much it would cost to build them at today’s prices. Anybody paying less than that isn’t paying enough and, I suspect, that price is far above the guessed $6b.
Replacement value. Now that’s a good measure.
borrowing bungling blithering bills english double dipping double downgrader DIPstick from dipton,
Worst finance minister in modern New Zealand history!
Rebalancing the economy in favour of a few very well off.
“…The Decorah Bald Eagle Cam, last year’s runaway internet sensation, is back.
Go do whatever you need to for the next few months right now.
You might not get much done once the eaglets hatch.
Last year, more than 200,000 people from about 180 countries watched eagle parents hatch three eggs – brave bad weather – raise their chicks and teach them to fly in Decorah, Iowa.
The eagle cam, Wired Science’s most popular post of 2011 created our very own online community of eaglophiles.
So many people tuned in the traffic crashed our website more than once.
But this year we’re ready!
And now the eagles are back.
The mom’s about to lay her eggs any day now…”
(cont..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2012/eagle-cam-returns-new-chicks-coming-soon/
phil-at-whoar.
Yup. Uh huh.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6436289/ACC-levies-may-climb-again
Simple see. We have to put an extra charge onto the ACC levy, a top up if you will, on account of how the private sector wouldn’t be able to compete with ACC because ACC doesnae have to make a profit. This means that ACC can provide the service for a lower cost to employers, obviously enough, so we oughtta make the ACC charge more so that employers will pay more in the new competitive era, which will be more efficient all round. Unfortunately, this might mean that the ACC will build up lots of money in its accounts, because we will be making it charge more than it needs to, so we’ll make them give any excess money they might build up to treasury. This is the only way we can make the new competitive model work and thereby deliver efficiencies to the economy.
Nick Smith. Class idiot.
.
So we have to pay more in order to allow competition, which is meant to result in us paying less.
Fuck, that is just fucking dopey dumb, brainless logic out the window, head in the clouds, looney tunes, crappola of the highest order.
Smith should be put in the stocks for public ridicule for the most brainless type of thinking EVER exhibited by a politician. Surely this cannot be so – someone please tell me it is not going to be…
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
You’d think the economists and politicians would be starting to wake up to reality by now wouldn’t you? Considering that all their theories are falling down and this (competition reduces prices) was a main one. Now, in the real world, we’re finding that it doesn’t – it raises costs but reduces profits.
This numbskull thinking must be rammed at the Nats….
…alongside the sideways glances the public are already throwing their way for the brainlessness of foreign landlords, asset sales, Crafar Farms decision and the like…
I am gobsmacked.
The rest of NZ surely will be too when they read it.
Wow, really? Now, will you (Labour) get around to saying the same thing about telecommunications and power?
Meanwhile, inspite of having paid my ACC levies, most people who know how serious my injury was, and how far I am from full recovery can’t believe that, not only did ACC stopped giving me physio a while ago and are continuing to quibble about re-instating it, but people can’t believe I haven’t been given a regular long-term allowance for physio.
Cutting costs and services provided by ACC, and raising the levies so that parasitic businesses can make a profit from providing an even worse service for ordinary Kiwi levy-payers…..
So, ordinary tax & levy paying Kiwis, if you can’t stop this privatisation of ACC, be VERY careful that you don’t get injured in future, because you probably won’t get the care you need…..AND, watch out for those employers who try to get away with cutting Health and Safety provisions….
Didn’t make any sense to me, either.
Perhaps the clearest and simplest example of double-think to come out of this government so far.
Hone vs Holmes: was history the winner?
http://www.readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/hones-sentimental-history.html
i dunno about history…but hone was a winner…
..calm/reasoned/historical-perspective..vs. choleric-racism…
phil-at-whoar.
David Carter – extreme biosecurity risk
Why would we reduce security measures further when the consequences of doing so are financially disastrous?
Poverty in America
Not sure how I feel after watching that, many more people need to take 30 minutes out of their lives to watch it.
It is coming to a town near here in the very near future.
Thanks for posting the link.
In here looking for any commentary on the Tania Wysocki business.
http://nowoccupy.blogspot.com/2012/02/tania-wysocki.html
For what its worth, many students resort to prostitution to pay for their studies. At least, that was the case in the late nineties when I interviewed some students who were doing so for a newspaper article. I also quoted the regional head of the Prostitutes’ Collective who confirmed that was the case.
No, really, it isn’t. Life is learning to meet new challenges – not giving up to make do with you already have. And it only makes you poor and depressed because our society likes to punish people for no reason.
In looking at her photo I do not think she would make a very good prostitute – she is “most” unattractive. A Greenpeace party stunt. And she gets $43,000 after tax -very good I believe.
Does she not get anything from the fathers of her children, assuming she knows who they are?
Well, if the ugliness of your comments is reflected in your face, you won’t be making a dime either. BTW, $43k isn’t a decent wage for a single person, let alone someone bringing up kids.
While not wanting to pass any comment on Ms. Wysocki’s looks, you would be surprised who gets paid for their services. As someone else has said “God gave men a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to run one at a time”.
I can’t see where it says she receives $43k after tax.
It’s like the POAL $90K income calculation. They’ve thrown everything bar the bridge into the number.
@ Colon Wiper
Hold on you seem to be selective in how you believe the media, when it cam to the tea tapes you were ranting about that, but now you think the media are exaggerating in this case. I think you must wear rose coloured glasses.
Thanks for your oddly irrelevant non-points.
That’s because it doesn’t – it says she receives the equivalent of a $43000/year income. I’d assume that was before tax.
fotran are you sure you are not the neanderthal red-neck King Kong
in drag!
It must make an emotionally aloof Bigoted red-neck misogynist feel good with that pathetic sexist comment.
The crisis in child poverty and welfare grows but so does the government’s determination to ignore the cause!http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/child-poverty.html
Some new pics…link
Sorry, here’s the link
Lockjaw Smith guard dog
Why is Lockwood Smith claiming in the media that changes will ensure more integrity and increased public scrutiny, when this obviously not the case?