We’re leaving & we’re taking the dams

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, May 7th, 2013 - 18 comments
Categories: boycott, capitalism, class war, energy, privatisation, Satire - Tags:

Following the Labour and Greens’ rejection of their demand that the parties drop their NZ Power policy to lower power prices, the business elite has announced capital flight. ‘If Origin Energy loses its rentier profits, who’s next? said Phil O’Reilly,close to tears, ‘The banks? The Telecoms duopoly? The petrol companies?* The construction materials oligopoly? The ports and airports? We’re out of here, and we’re taking the dams with us.’

It’s understood that the 100 or so people run all the major rentier companies are planning to charter a fleet of private jets and ‘take their skills elsewhere’, rather than live in a New Zealand where the regulatory conditions that created those rents are fixed.

“I’ve made $15 million as the head of Mighty River,” said Doug Heffernan, “that self-evidently means I’m brilliant. For 15 years, I’ve singlehandedly kept the turbines we inherited in working order with only the help of the workforce we inherited. Not just any dumbarse could do that. And I’m so sick of people complaining we charge too much for power just because we do. It’s the market people, the artificial market the way God would have made it if he had read his Friedman. But, if you don’t like it, we’re out of here.”

“What’ll the little parasite fucks do without us?” said Joan Withers of Mighty River and Auckland Airport. “Once we take all the capital, I give them until about lunchtime before they revert to cannibalism – just like it was before neoliberalism”

The rentiers haven’t yet decided whether they’ll set up a Galtian retreat in isolated mountains or a build a Freedom Ship and live their lives in rule-free opulence on the high seas. Whatever it is, at least they’ll be able to keep what’s theirs without the serfs complaining all the time about being exploited.

At press time, the rentiers still haven’t worked out how they’ll get their money out of their New Zealand assets if there’s no-one to buy them or how they’ll take the dams and ports and ‘all the other shit’ with them. But they confidently predict that their undeniable brilliance will soon supply an answer.

“Think about it, scum,” said Contact CEO Dennis Barnes “I’m paid 100 times the median income per year. That must mean I’m worth 100 of you – if I’m not the market’s broken and that’s blasphemy. Seeing as I’m so brilliant, there’s no way me and my class would threaten capital flight unless there was some way we could actually take the capital with us.”

Ordinary New Zealanders have expressed strong support for the capital flight and planned to organise groups to round up the rentiers and make sure they all get on their flights.

[this is satire, so the quotes are fake – which means you electricity bigwigs can’t sue us for writing what we know you’re thinking]

*I didn’t realise until this that the ‘importer margin’ (the money left over after the cost of crude and taxes used for retailing, refining, transport, and most importantly profits) has doubled since 2005.

18 comments on “We’re leaving & we’re taking the dams ”

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  1. mickysavage 1
    7 May 2013 at 9:08 am

    Very good. Reminds me of what George Monbiot wrote a while ago about similar threats by the UK equivalents to leave. It started off:

    “It’s a bitter blow. When the ­government proposed a windfall tax on bonuses and a 50p top rate of income tax, thousands of bankers and corporate executives promised to leave the country and move to Switzerland. Now we discover that the policy has failed: the number of financiers ­applying for a Swiss work permit fell by 7% last year. The government must try harder to rid this country of its ­antisocial elements.”

    The full column is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/22/bankers-executive-flight-tax-avoidance

  2. Maggie May 2
    7 May 2013 at 9:16 am

    Very good article, we need more of them.

    BUT… they can’t take the dams we own them, we built them at least our parents and grandparents did, so they had better leave what is not theirs.

  3. vto 3
    7 May 2013 at 9:26 am

    Let them leave.

    Nobody is irreplaceable.

    These people live in such a micro-world with tight tight blinkers and undies. They don’t yet realise how silly they look in such garb.

    See ya later then fullas, thanks for nothing.

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      7 May 2013 at 10:54 am

      Nobody is irreplaceable.

      Indeed. A lot of talented NZ managers would come back for a chance to live in NZ with their families and would do a lot of these executive jobs for 1/2 the price.

      Honestly, the income tax rate on anything over 10x the median wage (circa $41,000 pa) should be approaching 89%.

      • Phil 3.1.1
        7 May 2013 at 12:53 pm

        Indeed. A lot of talented NZ managers would come back for a chance to live in NZ with their families and would do a lot of these executive jobs for 1/2 the price.

        So, wages are too low in NZ, but a lot of talented people would be willing to come back from o’seas for half the pay?

        Right….

      • Populuxe1 3.1.2
        7 May 2013 at 6:24 pm

        “Indeed. A lot of talented NZ managers would come back for a chance to live in NZ with their families and would do a lot of these executive jobs for 1/2 the price.”

        Obviously they wouldn’t, otherwise they would still be here.

    • Draco T Bastard 3.2
      7 May 2013 at 6:25 pm

      Nobody is irreplaceable.

      I do wish more people would realise that.

  4. Tiger Mountain 4
    7 May 2013 at 10:45 am

    Capital flight happens every day already as per NZ’s ‘foreign account deficit’ which largely consists of the outflow of profits to offshore owned corporates head offices and bank accounts.

    This scaremongering over NZ power is nothing to do with the miserable amounts of cash involved, useful as it will be to those of us doing it hard, it is evidence of the ongoing existence of class war, the politics “that dare not speak its name”.

    The neo libs are filling their pants at the prospect of the 99%ers waking up from their flat screen individualist slumber and reclaiming some power and influence. The only worry is will Labour and Greens stick to it? If you know anyone in those parties it is time to get in touch.

  5. Phil 5
    7 May 2013 at 12:58 pm

    the ‘importer margin’ (the money left over after the cost of crude and taxes used for retailing, refining, transport, and most importantly profits) has doubled since 2005.

    Gotta link for that? I would be interested to see how the relationship between the price of crude and changes in taxes compare.

  6. ghostrider888 6
    7 May 2013 at 2:00 pm

    Enjoyed the article Zet; we all did. 😉

  7. Murray Olsen 7
    7 May 2013 at 7:48 pm

    If they don’t like it, sack them. Plenty of people more competent than that lot would do the jobs for half the price. The reason this doesn’t happen is that we have been victims of a huge con – that these Galtian Randbot heroes are actually competent and worth their salaries. All they do is administer what we’ve all built and run for years, and conspire to sell it off cheap to each other. Prison is too good for most of them.

  8. B Burton 8
    8 May 2013 at 3:25 pm

    I loled