Open mike 21/03/2010
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6:00 am, March 21st, 2010 - 12 comments
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There was a report in Stuff ? a few days ago re changes in average wages by an international mastercard analyst. I cant find it again
The values from memory were a small increase (20%?) from 1990 to 2000 BUT a doubling from 2000 to 2008.
Can any one else link to this report as I thought it was quite telling.
Noticed in the news there were some people arrested for flag burning last week. I haven’t had time to go onto Kiwiblog yet, but am quite looking foward to the spectacle of Murray and co explaining how flag burning is ok in princepal but how in every conciveable situation it is wrong to do so for some other reason such a fire hazard.
D14
I googled to see what came up. Found some interesting figures on the site I got.
” The Selig Center’s estimates and projections of buying power for 1990-2013 show that minorities–African Americans, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics–definitely share in this success, and together wield formidable economic clout. The numbers are impressive. In 2008, both the African-American market ($913 billion) and the Hispanic market ($951 billion) are larger than the entire economies (2007 GDP measured in U.S. dollars) of all but thirteen countries in the world.”
So the black and hispanic sector of consumers alone together form a buying group bigger than all but 13 countries’ economies.
link – http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:XmTR6C_dqGkJ:www.scribd.com/doc/20247797/2008-Multicultural-Buying-Power-Executive-Summary+master+card+analysis+average+wage+rise+1990-2008&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz
Maybe not what you were looking for but shows the enormous size of the total USA market. It will be so good for us as we nestle down with them in a free-market deal!
Thanks, but this was a report in NZ on NZ incomes. I have not seen any reference to it in any blogs.
I thought I had seen a graph like this on The Standard, but have not been able to find it. I couldn’t find the reference that Prism apparently googled (3.59pm comment).
I have suggested before that when research is done to produce an informative graph on a current but ongoing issue – such as average wages, GDP, ‘wage gap’, minimum wage compared with average wage; etc; it be filed in a separate area of The Standard with links back to the original article. Too often we find with the news media that figures are published without giving adequate definitions, or in a form that makes historical comparisons difficult – and a simple chart can tell a story that is difficult to determine from raw numbers..
Further, I googled with this – “master card analysis nz average wage rise 1990-2008” and got two that looked interesting but they are in pdf format and don’t want to spend the time looking at that.
D14 – Look down to 3.59 pm comment.
Recently I saw in one of the blogs here an interesting quote made by Roger Kerr referring to, among other things, NZ democracy referring to small numbers of (swinging) voters being decisive in policies. Could someone give me a link to that?
Prism:
here’s i/s on it, being all savanty:
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/03/act-and-democracy.html
and here’s me, being all me:
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18032010/#comment-199021
and here’s roger, being all disingenuous:
I just hate these captchas, cheaper than psychiatrists for reading your mind though – ‘confuse’
Thanks pb you’re a pearl.
[lprent: it is random. Chicken entails anyone? ]
Waikato Trains Now. The Campaign for Better transport has been running a petition for the past 3 months for a Hamilton to Auckland commuter train. CBT wants a daily return Hamilton-Auckland commuter train service. The Hamilton City Council supports the issue as does our local Labour MP. Unsurprisingly our 2 local government MPs don’t. They’d rather have the money put into roads. The regional council, Environment Waikato, is sitting on the fence.
The petition has largely been based in Hamilton. It is a local issue, not a national one, and has been run by local people seeking local support within the near Waikato. The petition is nearly finished. Thus far we have 8,500 signatures in our hands. There are some hundreds of signatures still out with various petition gatherers. By the end of this week we expect to have well over 9,000 signatures, maybe close to 10,000.
That is a massive result for Hamilton. I am unaware of a local Waikato issue that has had that sort of support on a petition in recent years. On the weekend alone we collected over 3200 signatures. A crew of 8 got 1900 on Saturday and a crew of 6 got 1300+ on Sunday. Other people were also collecting & we do not yet know how many hundreds they got.
I think this story is worthwhile sharing with you simply because of the great response it has received. There is genuine widely & deeply felt support for a commuter train service to Auckland. It is a local issue being driven by local people. We have a great petition to place under the noses of our local and national politicians. The handover is to local Labour MP, Sue Moroney, on Monday 29 March. Govt MPs David Bennett & Tim McIndoe are also expected to attend the petition handover.
This is an issue we will run during the upcoming local body elections and hope to turn it into a local issue at the next general election. Community campaigns can be popular and successful. This one has been enjoyable to be a part of. Taking it to the streets does work.
Deny it all you like, lprent, we *know* you and the contributors sit around in your bunker typing in entries to the captcha database to amuse yourselves and confound us poor commentators.