Search Results

  1. Wishing Chris Carter well

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 2:30 pm, September 8th, 2011 -  23 comments
    Categories: labour, parliamentary spending
    Tags:

    Chris Carter’s egocentric valedictory earlier this week didn’t exactly cover him in glory. Whether it should ever have gotten to this point is another matter. It’s interesting to review the evolving views of Standard authors on the issue. Did Carter do this to himself or did mismanagement from the leadership escalate the situation?This guest post takes the second view.

  2. Turning Green

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:40 am, August 31st, 2011 -  49 comments
    Categories: election 2011, greens, labour, phil goff
    Tags:

    Tracy Watkins admits today’s Fairfax poll is pretty out of whack but there’s no denying the trend has turned against Labour in the past few months. People back the policy. That’s not the problem. Labour will still be hoping to close up 5% or so in the campaign. On the positive side: what a result for the Greens!

  3. Revolution and hunger

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 9:51 am, August 28th, 2011 -  44 comments
    Categories: climate change, disaster, food, International
    Tags: ,

    What provokes a populace to take to the streets in violent uprising?  Is it the inexorable power of a demand for justice and democracy?  Or is it something much simpler than that…

  4. Nats talk to locals in [insert region here]

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 6:32 am, August 25th, 2011 -  42 comments
    Categories: same old national, spin
    Tags:

    John Hartevelt ran a piece yesterday about National’s paint by numbers press releases. The problem here is not with National MPs and candidates using the same words to describe their policies or government spin. It’s when they claim, in identical words, to have had information from the public when that isn’t true, it’s just a cookie-cutter line and a lie.

  5. Getting to know Goff 2

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 3:55 pm, August 20th, 2011 -  15 comments
    Categories: election 2011, labour, phil goff
    Tags:

    Today Part 2 of The Herald’s profile of Phil Goff is out, and once again it’s a very interesting read.  It debunks some of the spin surrounding Goff’s ideology and the  Lange / Douglas government.

  6. Q+A interview – Key still lying

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 7:20 am, August 15th, 2011 -  61 comments
    Categories: class war, cost of living, john key, poverty, tax, wages
    Tags: , ,

    A better than usual interview of John Key by Guyon Espiner on Sundays Q+A.  On the plus side Espiner was raising some serious issues. On the minus he let Key get away with his usual lies and evasions.

  7. Key fiddles while our youth burns

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 1:27 pm, August 14th, 2011 -  329 comments
    Categories: benefits, jobs
    Tags:

    Like the UK, we have a crisis in youth poverty. We don’t have riots, yet, because we lack the population density. There’s no jobs. Increasingly, no hope. Key’s solution? Tinkering. A bureaucratic, easily beatable system where young people on benefits get food stamps and basic costs paid directly. Where are the jobs, Key? Or have you given up?

  8. Compassionate conservatism

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:30 pm, August 13th, 2011 -  12 comments
    Categories: benefits, class war
    Tags:

    Fran O’Sullivan reveals her softer side today. No, she’s not against National’s benefit cuts for the unemployed, the sick, and invalids. Nor against cutting the wages of the 103,000 working 15-19 year olds on the half-baked premise that will create more jobs. But leave single mums alone, she says, because she had one. It reminds me of something I saw on the Daily Show.

  9. FFS

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 9:40 pm, August 8th, 2011 -  107 comments
    Categories: accountability, Politics
    Tags:

    It’s bad to have a senior frontbencher attack the media.

    It’s really really bad when that frontbencher is in charge of your election campaign.

  10. Myth busting – reducing agricultural emissions

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 9:31 am, August 8th, 2011 -  60 comments
    Categories: ETS, farming
    Tags:

    We commonly hear the vested interests (Fed Farmers, National, Fonterra) saying that agriculture should continue to get a 100% subsidy on its greenhouse emissions because there’s no way for farmers to reduce their pollution aside from producing less. That’s rubbish. In fact, as BR shows, agriculture is already producing more value for less pollution.

  11. Economist on US debt politics

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 12:00 pm, August 4th, 2011 -  34 comments
    Categories: Economy, International, us politics
    Tags: ,

    KAL (the cartoonist for The Economist) expresses my feelings about the political process over the last couple of months in the US. Their Washington correspondent after looking at the detail of the eventual ‘solution’ concludes with In the end, hopes for a grand bargain that addressed entitlements, taxes and near-term economic support ran aground on […]

  12. Breeding for a business?

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 9:07 am, August 1st, 2011 -  76 comments
    Categories: class war, employment, jobs, welfare
    Tags:

    A typical shock horror headline on Stuff in the weekend – “Pre-teens dream of kids and dole”.  So what’s going on here, and is it an argument for “welfare reform”?

  13. Cooperation vs the tea party

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 3:42 pm, July 30th, 2011 -  23 comments
    Categories: Economy, International, us politics
    Tags: ,

    Cooperation is one of the characteristics that defines humans in evolutionary terms. However true to their intellectually intransigent nature derived more from their enjoyment of a good old randian tantrum, the tea party is holding everyone to ransom. I suspect that the republicans are not going to like the consequences because voters value cooperation more.

  14. Political crisis, not debt crisis

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:00 am, July 29th, 2011 -  10 comments
    Categories: debt / deficit, us politics
    Tags:

    The media are reporting the chance of the US defaulting as a ‘debt crisis’, as if the problem is too much debt and people won’t lend to them. It’s not. The US is still borrowing at half the cost we borrow at. The problem is the debt ceiling. A purely political invention that lets lawmakers cut taxes, add spending, and then refuse to allow the resultant borrowing.

  15. Polls and policies

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 7:30 am, July 28th, 2011 -  160 comments
    Categories: election 2011, labour, phil goff, polls
    Tags: ,

    Much ado in the commentariat about the latest Farifax poll, another poor result for Labour.  But some of these commentators could do to brush up on their history…

  16. No byline

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 11:43 am, July 25th, 2011 -  26 comments
    Categories: Minister for Overseas Holidays
    Tags: ,

    Gotta love the piece in the Herald today about Key[s]’s meeting with Obama. No mention of what was discussed or achieved (nothing). Just ‘oh they got along. And Key would have made Obama laugh. If Obama wasn’t busy with important stuff’. Best part in this non-bylined article is the list of what makes them such good buddies.

  17. Brownlee’s dirty little deal

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:30 am, July 20th, 2011 -  12 comments
    Categories: corruption, Gerry Brownlee
    Tags: , ,

    I/S has revealed how Gerry Brownlee handpicked the “independent” body that is meant to monitor the use of his CERA powers. He appointed Jenny Shipley to the panel and got her $1000 a day, three times the usual pay. Brownlee said the extra was needed to get the people he wanted. But the chair says money didn’t enter into it for him.

  18. Reaction to Labour tax package

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 9:32 am, July 15th, 2011 -  179 comments
    Categories: capital gains, election 2011, gst, labour, wages
    Tags:

    The media have provided us with five people examples of people who will be affected in different ways by Labour’s tax package. Ordinary families win big and they know it. The vested interests moan and reveal the pure greed that underlies their worldview. Frankly, I think Labour will win support due to both who supports and who opposes its tax policy.

  19. Another deregulation fiasco

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 7:28 am, July 14th, 2011 -  36 comments
    Categories: disaster, Mining
    Tags: ,

    A former chief inspector of coal mines yesterday told the Pike River inquiry that the underlying cause of the disaster was the weakening of mining regulations in the 1990s.  Yet another example of the frequent and costly failures of deregulation.  RIP the Pike River miners.

  20. Police to investigate TVNZ

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 7:23 am, July 12th, 2011 -  50 comments
    Categories: crime, police
    Tags: ,

    Police have launched a criminal investigation in to TVNZ’s Sunday piece on Christchurch “looter” Arie Smith.  Why?

  21. Sweeping the board

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:38 am, July 10th, 2011 -  56 comments
    Categories: capital gains
    Tags:

    The genius of Labour’s (not yet official) capital gains tax is not just the policy itself but the way it has picked the public mood. Support has been near-universal. The Left loves the fairness aspect – workers won’t be subsidising landlords anymore. The Right loves the implications for capital allocation, interest rates, and the exchange rate. The Nats look isolated and hysterical.

  22. The housing market implications of capital gains tax

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 12:27 pm, July 7th, 2011 -  126 comments
    Categories: capital gains
    Tags:

    The landlords’ lobby group is making a lot of noise over Labour’s, still unannounced, capital gains policy. They say rents will go up, the supply of housing will fall, and it won’t stop house prices bubbles. Examining those claims shows that there would be little impact on rents while housing bubbles would be reduced and home ownership would be more affordable.

  23. Vote for Change’s heart of darkness

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:06 pm, July 4th, 2011 -  52 comments
    Categories: electoral systems, MMP, racism, referendum
    Tags: , , ,

    Peter Shirtcliffe’s Anti-MMP Vote For Change group has just 16 members and one of them has turned out to be a neo-Nazi. Is it a case of being so short of mates they’ll accept anyone who turns up, or does this give us a truer picture of who really wants to get rid of MMP? The latter, I think.

  24. Anti-MMP group white supremacist link

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 8:39 am, July 4th, 2011 -  60 comments
    Categories: MMP, racism
    Tags: , , ,

    A good piece of detective work at TUMEKE! has revealed that a founding member of the anti-MMP group “Vote for Change”, one Alex Fogerty, is a white supremacist.  Labour Party candidate for Dunedin North, David Clark, notes an interesting entry on Fogerty’s friend list…

  25. MMP rules, FPP/SM drools

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:32 pm, June 29th, 2011 -  49 comments
    Categories: elections, First Past the Post, MMP, referendum, Supplementary Member
    Tags:

    Times that the Government had the support of the majority of voters under FPP from formation of Reform (beginning on multi-party system) in 1911: 7 out of 27 (26%)

    Times that the Government has had the support of the majority of voters under MMP: 4 out of 5 (80%)

  26. Gutting the state housing system

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 3:26 pm, June 28th, 2011 -  25 comments
    Categories: housing, national
    Tags: ,

    No Right Turn on the Nats’ cynical plans. “And its here that National’s true goal becomes apparent: they’re planning to effectively gut the state housing system…”

  27. Mana a victory for the Left

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:44 am, June 26th, 2011 -  177 comments
    Categories: by-election, hone harawira, mana-party
    Tags:

    A victory for Mana or a victory for Labour? Actually, it was a win for both, and a win for the Left. The losers in Te Tai Tokerau were the true enemies of the Left – the kupapa Maori Party and National. Turia put up a weak candidate hoping to concentrate the anti-Hone vote behind Davis. Now, the Maori Party faces a three-way fight it can’t win.

  28. That’s it?

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 12:22 pm, June 24th, 2011 -  10 comments
    Categories: disaster, Gerry Brownlee, housing, john key
    Tags:

    Amazing what political pressure can do. Christchurch package was clearly put together in the space of a couple of days. Buy-out at GV the obvious basic solution but will see many out of pocket. Option 2 is an admission of that but only open to some. None of the fish-hooks have been worked out. What’s Gerry been doing all this time?

  29. It’s begun

    Written By:  Anthony R0bins -  Date published: 9:02 am, June 19th, 2011 -  141 comments
    Categories: climate change, disaster, International
    Tags: ,

    Argue with the science if you must, but it’s pretty hard to argue with the world.  The effects of climate change are upon us..

  30. The war on drugs is lost

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 12:01 pm, June 17th, 2011 -  28 comments
    Categories: crime, drugs
    Tags:

    The Global Commission on Drug Policy have just released their latest report on the global war on drugs. Its message is quite simple; the war has failed, and it is time to begin new dialogue on what has become the greatest social failure of the last fifty years.

  31. Back to High School for English

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 6:20 am, June 15th, 2011 -  86 comments
    Categories: bill english, education, wages
    Tags:

    My jaw dropped when I heard this listening to Question Time yesterday. Mallard: “Does he understand that real average wages go up when high-income earners get massive tax cuts-$1,000 a week, in his case-and low-income workers lose their jobs?” English: “No, I do not understand that, because it is not true.” Can’t English do simple maths?

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