Show me

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, January 13th, 2017 - 45 comments
Categories: class war, Economy, employment - Tags:

At this moment for Trump it’s time to show some actual concrete deliverables.

And for the New Zealand electorate, it’s also well time we saw some actual cards on the table.

So there’s some common economy questions I’d have for Donald Trump, Bill English, or Andrew Little:

– Do your policy proposals strengthen – not gut – rules that support good jobs?

– Do your policies support full employment?

– Do your policies protect the basic human right of workers to organise for better pay and conditions?

– Do your policies help workers who have been hurt by trade agreements?

Do your policies raise top tax rates to reinvest in public services and restore power to the bottom 90%?

And then tell us how. And then deliver it.

It’s not everything, but no one’s getting my support this year without a yes to every one of them.

45 comments on “Show me ”

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  1. Carolyn_nth 1
    13 January 2017 at 9:49 am

    It’s not everything, but no one’s getting my support this year without a yes to every one of them.

    Good to have a focus for your choices of vote and/or writing.

    But Trump isn’t standing in NZ’s election, and there are more parties than National and Labour in NZ. Have you already discounted other NZ parties as worthy of your support?

    • weka 1.1
      13 January 2017 at 9:56 am

      Looking at that list I’m assuming he’s voting Green 😉 (would be interesting to run GP policy through those questions though and see how they stack up).

      • Carolyn_nth 1.1.1
        13 January 2017 at 10:02 am

        That’s true. And maybe Mana? I’d be also interested to see how TOP and the Māori Party stand up to these questions.

        I’d also ask other questions on the economy e.g. about social security, housing, education, health services and the impacts of economic policies on those with low incomes and/or limited wealth.

        • red-blooded 1.1.1.1
          13 January 2017 at 11:08 am

          To be fair to Ad, I think we have to concede that while other parties will play a role, the lead party in the next NZ government is going to be National or Labour. That makes their policies the ones that need the most scrutiny, because they’re likely to have more of their policies implemented.

          Plus, note, the post was headed “10 steps to victory for Labour”.

  2. Paul 2
    13 January 2017 at 9:56 am

    Trump appears to be doing something to protect and increase high quality manufacturing auto jobs in the US.

    • Ad 2.1
      13 January 2017 at 10:23 am

      Appearances are wonderful.

      Policy, budgets, and legislation is the work.

    • Siobhan 2.2
      13 January 2017 at 10:23 am

      Yup. Thats why he appointed Andy Puzder to head the Labor Department. Anti decent minimum wage, anti sick pay, anti-unions.

      “Speaking to Business Insider this year, Mr. Puzder said that increased automation could be a welcome development because machines were “always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall or an age, sex or race discrimination case.”

      (I’m just guessing your not being ironic, but if you are, well done)

    • Gosman 2.3
      13 January 2017 at 10:30 am

      Trump is going to cause lower income people to struggle to buy what they want to buy. He is going to make them even poorer as a result of his trade policies.

      • Clump_AKA Sam 2.3.1
        13 January 2017 at 10:47 am

        Wtf would you know [Snip]? You couldn’t even get trade predictions right. So thank you for your long, over used, unrealistic and considered opinion. Next time I want to lose brain cells. I’ll give you an oi

        [How about we improve the quality of responses – MS]

  3. Gosman 3
    13 January 2017 at 10:28 am

    Essentially you are asking Politician’s if their policies are left wing. I would hope a right leaning party would not have too many policies that are left wing. If you want left wing policies vote for a left leaning political party. Asking right wing politicians if they support left wing policies is a waste of time. It would be like asking if a left wing politician supports reducing the size of the State sector in the economy.

    • Psycho Milt 3.1
      13 January 2017 at 10:46 am

      Sure. But it would also be nice if the right-wing politicians would actually admit that they’re opposed to full employment and to workers improving their pay and conditions. I expect a left-wing politician would be happy to directly answer the question of whether they support reducing the size of the state sector with “No,” but right-wing politicians either obfuscate or outright lie when asked about whether they support full employment or workers’ rights to organise.

      • Clump_AKA Sam 3.1.1
        13 January 2017 at 10:48 am

        Starting off with essentially. Lel. Try tying your show laces first

        • Psycho Milt 3.1.1.1
          13 January 2017 at 11:10 am

          So, do you use a random sentence generator to create your comments, or what?

        • red-blooded 3.1.1.2
          13 January 2017 at 11:10 am

          ??? Clump, presumably you think you are saying something meaningful, but it would be nice if you did more to let the rest of us in on the secret.

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.3
          13 January 2017 at 2:03 pm

          You’re lucky I’m not a moderator as that trolling would have got you banned for a couple of weeks even if you had got the correct reply button.

          [lprent: 🙂 Sounds like I should have a look. ]

          • Clump_AKA Sam 3.1.1.3.1
            13 January 2017 at 2:08 pm

            You fools. Goose is talking about reducing the state sector which is reducing the economy by taking money out of the economy while advocating boosts to the economy. Figure out how to tie your shoe laces first and pull yourselves up

            • Clump_AKA Sam 3.1.1.3.1.1
              13 January 2017 at 2:11 pm

              Don’t expect me to be nice to bad economic theory. Those times have passed.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                13 January 2017 at 2:25 pm

                I don’t expect you to be nice to bad economic thinking. I do expect you to

                1. Hit the correct reply button
                2. Actually provide an argument against what has been said – preferably one that actually makes sense
                3. Don’t use ad hominems which is what you did there

                • Clump_AKA Sam …
                  13 January 2017 at 2:29 pm

                  Thanks for pointing that out, I’ll leave you guys to expand on gooses insanity

                  [lprent: Draco and others called it correctly.

                  Personally I’d have been insisting that you desisted from ingesting whatever intoxicating substance you were using (and suggesting which orifice you had used to ingest it) when you had made that comment for exactly the reasons that Draco outlined.

                  I’d suggest that you re-examine Draco’s comment for better behavior pointers. It is easier than attracting my attention. ]

                  • Clump_AKA Sam …
                    14 January 2017 at 10:32 am

                    After looking over your suggestions Iv decided to reject them as it assumes Iv consumed intoxicating substances, which leaves me thinking, how the fuck do you know that? Is that a real world prediction or a made up one?

      • BM 3.1.2
        13 January 2017 at 11:00 am

        Apart from the state creating labour sponges like the railways and the post office full employment seems nigh on impossible.

        • adam 3.1.2.1
          13 January 2017 at 11:12 am

          Reaching for one of you own BM, how funny.

          I know you like to think Muldoon was a raving left winger, but the reality was he was a lazy liberal who used things like work schemes and inflated public service to get, and keep votes. It was, and is the type of lazy political solutions the national party are famous for.

          So BM, why do you support a national party who have a long history of dumb plans to get votes, which put the country into trouble over the medium to long term?

          • Clump_AKA Sam 3.1.2.1.1
            13 January 2017 at 11:28 am

            Trade also means the free flow of capital AND labour, and immigration has turned into a problem so that theory needs a serious look at. Seeing as how, for a nationa to run a trade surplus, other nations must run an equal and opposite trade deficit.

            So Chinese government for example spends money in to thier economy and ships goods out to us, that magnifies our trade deficit.

            If we had effective trade the Chinese would borrow from NZ to spend into there economy and ship goods back to us, that would mean we run an equal and opposite trade deficit

            • Draco T Bastard 3.1.2.1.1.1
              13 January 2017 at 2:19 pm

              So Chinese government for example spends money in to thier economy and ships goods out to us, that magnifies our trade deficit.

              True but this is actually because:
              1. China purposefully keeps its currency below its true value and
              2. They don’t have the worker protections that we have
              3. Don’t have the same environmental protections that we have

              The correct response to this is to:
              1. Set our exchange rate as a function of the trade balance between countries (This would set the NZ$ well below the Chinese yuan)
              2. Require the same or better worker protections that we have
              3. Require the same or better environmental standards

              In other words, set standards rather than sign FTAs that force us to trade with countries we really shouldn’t be trading with.

              • Clump_AKA Sam …
                13 January 2017 at 2:21 pm

                I’m watching all that emplode in real time. Instead of clearing bank reserves, it’s expanding bank reserve there by killing the economy.

          • Nic the NZer 3.1.2.1.2
            14 January 2017 at 9:48 am

            Muldoon had work schemes because this was government practice at the time. In fact full employment is one of the main practices abandoned by Labour4, and the country has not seen the like since.

            Attacking what Muldoon did because he was a Tory is a failure of an argument.

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.2.2
          13 January 2017 at 2:11 pm

          The problem being that the railways weren’t make work scheme any more than the road building today is a make work scheme. Building and maintaining essential and efficient infrastructure is exactly what the government should be doing.

          The problem that the private sector had about them was that they were make work schemes but that they simply could not compete with the government. And that still applies today.

          Think about this:
          Due to climate change it’s essential that we go to full renewable energy use across the board. This will take a lot of work from a lot of people over many years both in R&D and building the infrastructure. IMO, So much work that there wouldn’t be anyone left to work for present minimum wage jobs.

          Would this be a make work scheme?
          Would the businesses that presently depend upon minimum wage work have any reason to complain that they wouldn’t be able to hire anyone?

        • Nic the NZer 3.1.2.3
          14 January 2017 at 9:32 am

          Too right BM. There should of course be some acknowledgement on this fact and then the government should be empowered to setup employer of last resort schemes commesurate with reality.

          Note, its good to see you don’t agree with the belief that the economy has ‘full employment’ right now. That is however an assumption used to make policy as it stands today.

          • Clump_AKA Sam 3.1.2.3.1
            14 January 2017 at 2:45 pm

            I can also see how I was wrong to label all of the comments in and around gooses insane. BM and Nic are correct to point out that there are serious issues with jobs figures

  4. Olwyn 4
    13 January 2017 at 10:50 am

    I would add a robust, meaningful housing policy to your list. Robbing people of housing places them at the mercy of others at the most fundamental level, and is the very essence of slavery.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.1
      13 January 2017 at 2:20 pm

      +1

    • Ad 4.2
      13 January 2017 at 5:28 pm

      I’m pretty comfortable with the Labour housing policy as it is, so didn’t bother with that. If you are unaware of it I can direct you to the relevant links.

      • Olwyn 4.2.1
        13 January 2017 at 7:06 pm

        Thanks Ad. Yes I am aware of it, but that doesn’t make housing any less of a “must.”

    • AB 4.3
      14 January 2017 at 9:30 am

      “At the mercy of others”
      Agree completely. At a high level that is the question I’d ask political parties – what are you doing to eliminate the private power of one citizen over another?

  5. red-blooded 5
    13 January 2017 at 11:15 am

    You want to see policy, Ad. Fair enough. However, substantial Labour policy is being signalled in areas such as housing, and thinking is being explored in terms of jobs and income. The detail of that is unlikely to be released this far out – partly to focus thinking during the election, and partly because this government has a habit of nicking ideas and presenting them in a substantially watered down form as their own thinking, as a way of neutering criticism and being seen to be “doing something”.

    There’s long-standing policy about issues such as union rights.

  6. adam 6
    13 January 2017 at 11:23 am

    Ad, your conservative approach to issue of labour/employment is a good bottom line.

    You know me, I’d like to take it further, but I can’t argue with the fundamentals you have put froward.

    And I agree all parties should put up where they stand on these issues, and be called on it if they don’t.

  7. Jenny Kirk 7
    13 January 2017 at 2:00 pm

    Ad, Labour has been working on their policies – and have announced a few. See link below . But you’ll have to wait a while longer for them to announce all the rest. But you’ll get an inkling of their thinking from the few that they’ve so far publicised.

    http://www.labour.org.nz/announced_policies

  8. Jenny Kirk 8
    13 January 2017 at 5:10 pm

    “There’s long-standing policy about issues such as union rights.”

    And alongside that, is a new policy on procurement ie giving support to govt tenders going to NZ-based companies rather than to overseas companies which do some lousy jobs aka new rail engines from China versus Hillside who could have done the job.

  9. Andrea 9
    13 January 2017 at 8:33 pm

    I find most of those questions to be very ‘last century’.

    I totally agree many workers are doing it very hard indeed in the current adversarial, authoritarian environment.

    If there’s one thing Authoritarian does very well it’s building large frontal defences. Carnegie worked that one out a LONG time ago. Workers getting stroppy? Move the factory out of town. The good ones will follow. Or not. But labour’s renewable.

    Which of the dinosaur parties (they’re ALL dinosaur) is focused on the future and what’s possible and doesn’t bleat about ‘hardworking New Zealanders, ageing population, distance from markets, etc’?

    Whiich if them has even the slightest inkling about how to change the context for the betterment of most to all who live here?

    Which range of questions would reveal whether they’re willing to serve the people – not simply ‘workers’ – or whether they still believe that buckling under to business is the way to ‘success’?