Search Results

  1. Straw Men

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 11:40 am, December 22nd, 2010 -  11 comments
    Categories: national
    Tags: , ,

    On ACC, National are running out their favourite tactic again – the Straw Man.

    We see it regularly with every highly-paid “Working Group” they establish.  They choose the participants to make sure they get the ideas they want to implement, plus a bit more.  Then they cleave off the extra bits to look “moderate”.

  2. Tax Cuts or High Wages?

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 9:00 am, October 27th, 2010 -  17 comments
    Categories: benefits, bill english, election 2008, jobs, john key, labour, national/act government, unemployment, wages
    Tags:

    At the last election we chose tax cuts and unemployment instead of stimulus and stability – which was the more ambitious, high wage way to go?

    National are not fulfilling their government’s core reason for existence: closing the wage gap with Australia.  No, we’re fast going backwards on that score, and it’s predictable: high unemployment causes low wages.

  3. Key the real target of Hobbit producers’ game

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:01 pm, October 24th, 2010 -  75 comments
    Categories: business, capitalism, film, john key, tax
    Tags:

    The Hobbit ‘crisis’ is all about money. It’s about the producers of this long-troubled production, who are in financial difficulty, wanting to minimise their up-front costs. The mark in the con is the only one with cash to offer on the scale they need – the Prime Minister. He’s the one with the most to lose and the most ability to pay.

  4. Digested Read – Spirit Level 6: Future Options

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 10:00 am, October 10th, 2010 -  11 comments
    Categories: equality
    Tags:

    The last in a series of 6 summarising the argument of The Spirit Level. This post looks at how we might achieve a more equitable future.

  5. Nats’ shortsighted penny-pinching will cost us big in the end

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 12:28 pm, September 28th, 2010 -  52 comments
    Categories: education, same old national, wages
    Tags:

    While the cat’s away the mice will play. And while the clown’s sunning himself in Hawaii the ideologues in his Cabinet will launch vitriolic attacks on public service workers. As teachers are forced to endure another day of the country’s most powerful figures attack them, lets consider the consequences of undermining vital public services.

  6. The Shock Doctrine

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:40 am, September 19th, 2010 -  23 comments
    Categories: democracy under attack, Parliament
    Tags: , , , ,

    The ‘shock doctrine’ is how (capitalist) elites use moments of crisis to make power grabs while the normal checks are offline and/or the political opposition and media are swept up in a ‘unity’ mantra that prevents them acting to protect democracy. Last week, National used it to make us a dictatorship.

  7. The economics of the Christchurch earthquake

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 1:00 pm, September 7th, 2010 -  30 comments
    Categories: Economy
    Tags:

    There’s been some frankly bizarre talk about the earthquake being an economic boon for the country. I guess the Right is just desperate for anything to improve the economy under National. So, I thought it would be worthwhile going through the economic ramifications of the earthquake from the immediate effects to long term.

  8. Broken principles and broken windows

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 7:33 pm, September 5th, 2010 -  48 comments
    Categories: class war, jobs
    Tags: , , ,

    Rich investor and you put your money in a dodgy finance company? Did the company collapse? You get your money back. No questions. Lost your job thanks to this endless recession? Couldn’t afford insurance? Property damaged in the quake? Key says you can get stuffed. It’s called class war. Also, Key thinks the clean-up will be an economic stimulus. Someone tell this money-man about the broken windows fallacy.

  9. Newsflash: Nation not a Business

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 8:11 am, September 2nd, 2010 -  50 comments
    Categories: business, Economy, same old national
    Tags:

    National don’t understand macroeconomics. As such they are inflicting massive and unnecessary harm, with high unemployment and a long time until recovery.

  10. You know your policy sucks when…

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 12:42 pm, April 9th, 2010 -  21 comments
    Categories: privatisation, public services
    Tags: , , ,

    Even Guyon Espiner is concerned about the lack of quality analysis and policy design. If the government were serious about helping families in need it’s priority would be getting people back into work and better pay and conditions for low income workers. The fact that is has gone with this Whanau Ora nonsense shows it has no real intention of tackling the causes of this country’s social ills.

  11. Goff’s response to Key

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:53 pm, February 9th, 2010 -  79 comments
    Categories: Parliament, phil goff
    Tags:

    Even National Party pollster, David Farrar, could only give Key’s speech a B Goff says that it’s ‘Alan Bollard 1, John Key 0’. There’s talk of a step change but no actual plan that will close the gaps. ‘No bold plan, no plan at all’ ‘Big Tuesday? More like tip-toe Tuesday’ Rubbishs the notion that […]

  12. Maori Party meltdown

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 9:39 am, November 26th, 2009 -  12 comments
    Categories: maori party
    Tags:

    How long can the Maori Party survive before it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions? The idea of a single party to represent all Maori has always been a fallacy. When the Maori Party first appeared, I wished it well as a left-wing fellow traveller but since then, because of its impossible goal […]

  13. Climate Change: Looney Tunes from Lord Monckton

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 1:15 pm, November 6th, 2009 -  121 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    Rob Salmond In attempting to cover for DPF’s embarrassing disaster of a post on climate change, in his comments section some prominent right wingers (most notably John Ansell) pointed to a recent presentation by Lord Monckton. The presentation got a lot of publicity this month, including thinly veiled advertising from Fox News’ Glenn Beck, for arguing […]

  14. It’s called politics, Colin

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 4:11 am, October 16th, 2009 -  30 comments
    Categories: ACC, Media
    Tags:

    Colin, I think we need to discuss your work: the conspiracy theory peddled by Labour and the EPMU (i.e. Labour) that somehow this is all just a VRWC to derail the ACC, lower public confidence in it, and then sell it to the highest (or any) bidder just doesn’t ring true for me. Don’t you […]

  15. Key on wages

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 8:09 pm, March 18th, 2009 -  93 comments
    Categories: john key, national/act government, wages, workers' rights
    Tags: , , , ,

    Key’s speech to the CTU today showed an interesting inight into how he thinks you lift wages. NZPA reports: He said it was not good enough for New Zealand to be in the bottom third of the OECD for per-capita incomes, but was cautious about tackling the issue by lifting minimum wage rates. “In reality, […]

  16. Policy

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 6:51 pm, January 25th, 2008 -  372 comments
    Categories:
    Tags:

    Rules Banning Moderation Privacy Explicit or implied consent on privacy Logins Rules We encourage robust debate and we’re tolerant of dissenting views. But this site run for reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints and we intend to keep it operating that way. What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or […]

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.