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Who is David Henderson?

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, June 15th, 2011 - 63 comments

Randian superhero David Henderson has withdrawn his genius from New Zealand in protest at the collectivist government that has persecuted him and attempted to distribute the fruits of his talent to parasites. In a short statement after leaving the country, Henderson said other Atlases would join him in strike and “stop the motor of New Zealand”.

SkyCity shows need to clamp down on lobbyists

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, June 14th, 2011 - 22 comments

“Substitute the words “convention centre” for “suitcase of cash” and the transaction looks very clear.”*

National wants to change the rules for another foreign corporate. Wouldn’t move an inch for Kiwirail jobs. Maybe that’s because Kiwirail didn’t donate 100K to National (and Labour) in the past decade like SkyCity did.

Law for sale, again

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, June 13th, 2011 - 17 comments

Auckland has 250 licenced gambling venues. SkyCity wants to build a $350m casino/convention centre but only if it gets a law change. Key has agreed to the law change. Calls it progress. Yet no help for Kiwirail jobs. National doesn’t believe in real jobs like manufacturing. Picking the pockets of gamblers is more in line with National’s economic vision.

Tell Key to keep Pharmac

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, June 2nd, 2011 - 35 comments

Like the ACC, Pharmac is a Kiwi institution that delivers benefits to everyone at a lower cost than other countries.  National has got ACC on the butcher’s block.  We must make sure that Pharmac doesn’t follow.

CTU research on minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, May 25th, 2011 - 24 comments

The response to two recent posts here at The Standard have shown what a contentious topic the minimum wage is.  So it’s timely that yesterday saw the release of the CTU’s summary of research on Minimum Wage and Jobs.

How’s this for employment conditions?

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, May 24th, 2011 - 33 comments

Here’s a stunning headline from the Herald on the glamour of working at SkyCity casino:

Flea collars for SkyCity staff

Perhaps next they could introduce compulsory de-lousing baths at the end of each shift?

There Is An Alternative

Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, May 16th, 2011 - 66 comments

The run up to the budget has all been about cuts.  How many?  How deep?  Like lemmings we’re accepting National’s framing, and marching even faster to our economic doom.  But, there is an alternative. Instead of slashing spending, we can raise government income. Here’s how.

Krugman: The unwisdom of elites

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, May 15th, 2011 - 19 comments

Paul Krugman on the real reasons for the economic carnage.  Not social spending policies, but the daft economic policies of the right-wing “policy elites”.  Our focus should not be on slashing spending, but on National’s stupid, unaffordable tax cuts.

Monbiot on the left

Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, May 8th, 2011 - 62 comments

George Monbiot on the psychology of political debate (and why we’re all screwed).

All quiet at the Commerce Commission

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, May 5th, 2011 - 23 comments

Since Paula Redstock was pushed out of the Commerce Commission with a lot of the other brilliant staff, there has not been one cartel or monopoly abuse case prosecuted by the Commerce Commission. This is the very same Commission that was previously saving us millions of dollars each year and paying for itself with its court settlements.

Money and happiness

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, May 1st, 2011 - 35 comments

How do we improve a society’s happiness most effectively?  By lifting the poor out of poverty.  By increasing wealth where we get more happiness bang for our income buck, and reducing the disparity between rich and poor.  So why are we currently moving in the opposite direction?

The Marketers

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, April 24th, 2011 - 30 comments

I got involved in marketing through my business and was a firm believer. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on marketing, advertising and training as most companies do; but in the end it felt like I was selling my soul and I quit the system. So much effort is expended trying to sell something to people that they either couldn’t afford or didn’t need.

Corporatism & Neo-Liberalism

Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, April 23rd, 2011 - 36 comments

The cult of management holds that  individual shareholders, managers or directors are the main contributors to the success of a corporation, and thence the economy. And deserve the greatest share of the rewards. The jobs and income of all other employees and State servants is a generous charitable gift from these people. It’s a bunch of crap.

Helen Kelly on the Hobbit dispute

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 pm, April 12th, 2011 - 66 comments

Helen Kelly has published a full and detailed account of the Hobbit dispute.

The result is a story that leaves you in no doubt about big business’s class war on workers.

Or which side this government has taken.

AMI socialises its losses

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, April 8th, 2011 - 70 comments

Another week, another massive corporate bailout as National reaches into our pockets to aid a company. Whatever happened to free-market ideology? Isn’t failure of bad businesses healthy? When did every financial sector company become ‘too big to fail’? We’re rewarding a bad business model and punishing good ones.

Armstrong on “Austerity”

Written By: - Date published: 5:24 pm, April 7th, 2011 - 12 comments

John Armstrong is losing patience with the Nats: “National is certainly consistent when it comes to cutting spending. It consistently fails to practise what it preaches…”

The New American Dream

Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, April 2nd, 2011 - 14 comments

Truthout is one of my favourite sources of political commentary in America.  Here’s editor William Rivers Pitt on “The New American Dream”…

Hickey on borrowing

Written By: - Date published: 6:58 am, March 28th, 2011 - 91 comments

The latest piece from economist Bernard Hickey is a despairing warning on the subject of borrowing.  With the current government making things worse not better, is there any way out of this downwards spiral?

Looting by another name

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, March 11th, 2011 - 126 comments

Mayor Bob Parker has described landlords hiking rents in Christchurch as “looting by another name”.  I think the majority of us would feel as Parker does — it seems simply wrong to exploit people for profit in a time of tragedy.  But look around.  It’s just unregulated capitalism in action.  There’s an awful lot of it about.

Anarchy to the rescue in Chch

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, March 3rd, 2011 - 62 comments

Farrar says it’s ‘ghastly’ to discuss how to pay for rebuilding Christchurch, since the obvious answer is by reversing the tax cuts rich people like him have pocketed. Well, I think how the poor eastern suburbs of Christchurch have been ignored is ghastly. Fortunately, resilient communities are organising themselves, without government.

The benefits of public spending

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, February 21st, 2011 - 97 comments

We know from history, and from our own recent experience, that tax cuts don’t cause growth.  Privatisation and public service cuts don’t do us any good either.  What does cause growth?  Public spending.  What’s more, public spending is much more efficient than the private sector too…

Why Revolutions Stumble and Fall

Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, February 15th, 2011 - 28 comments

Democracy doesn’t suddenly magically appear as though from a conjurers hat. We know that, right?  So why are revolutions seeking democracy  D.O.A?

The too big to fail myth

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, February 5th, 2011 - 33 comments

All over the globe we the tax payer recently got stuck with a bill for trillions of dollars to bail out banks that were “too big to fail”.  Or were they?  One country, Iceland, went against the trend, and let its banks go under.  What happened next?

Bunch of bankers

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, February 2nd, 2011 - 13 comments

In America a federal enquiry has now confirmed what we already knew. The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by multiple failures of regulation and good old fashioned greed.  If we don’t make some fundamental changes it is all going to happen again…

The Two Nations: or, Why Won’t They Bail Me Out?

Written By: - Date published: 11:47 pm, January 11th, 2011 - 38 comments

Under the supposed rules of capitalism, investors take a “haircut” if an investment goes bad – no reward without risk. It’s also Economics 101 that giving relief to the ‘little people’ will have a more stimulating effect on the economy than if you bail out the wealthiest interests in society. But the powers that be are breaking the rules to aid the rich.

John “30-sec” Key…. smile and walk away.

Written By: - Date published: 8:33 pm, January 3rd, 2011 - 103 comments

The two significant things from the Herald interview: #1 The signalling by John Key of his willingness to step down. #2 The view of John Key that “essentially there is no money”. “There won’t be money for us and there won’t be money for Labour,” John Key. The significant thing about the first statement is, […]

Clipshow – Jackson’s bad faith posturing

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, December 29th, 2010 - 14 comments

From the ‘I told you so’ file comes IrishBill’s first post on the Hobbit dispute after Jackson suddenly announced that a settled dispute with a small union was forcing Warner Bros to abandon a $100m investment and move overseas. We now know Jackson was lying to extort more money and a law change but Irish called it at the time, resulting in 516 comments – a record.

Nats & Jackson played us for fools

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, December 21st, 2010 - 130 comments

The Herald has used the OIA to get hold of emails Peter Jackson sent Gerry Brownlee during the Hobbit shakedown. They show that the Actors’ Equity blacklisting was not a threat to the film staying here – yet Jackson and Brownlee told us it was to justify handing Warners $34 million and rushing through an anti-worker law.

Human Nature and Propaganda

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, December 17th, 2010 - 63 comments

We don’t have to care so much about beneficiaries any more. Or those single parents. Or the trials and tribulations of anyone else at all really. We have to be grown up. And we are more mean and lean than we used to be. Hell, even those pesky parliamentary lefties have abandoned the beneficiaries and the single parents. Yup. Nothing to see there. Life is good. We’re getting ahead. And we sure know what’s what. Don’t we?

Sykes on neoliberalism & the iwi elite

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, December 15th, 2010 - 18 comments

Annette Sykes recently delivered the annual Bruce Jesson Lecture concerning ‘The Politics of the Brown Table’. Much of her address is a harsh critique of the so called ‘iwi elite’ and their neo liberal agenda. In my opinion her assessments are true and justified. Without doubt neo liberalism undermines Maori efforts for self determination

Nats’ ideology: outsourcing NZ

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, December 15th, 2010 - 29 comments

3 under the radar stories yesterday. All linked by ideology. Kiwirail to buy 300 wagons from China because its cheaper than building them here. Not allowed to consider wider economic gains. Collins outsources her new prison to a multi-national with a history of prisoner abuse. English wants more ‘value’ from public assets. Value for whom? The likes of Serco?