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Rules are for you, not for big money

Written By: - Date published: 6:51 pm, October 14th, 2010 - 17 comments

In the US banks that turned mortgages into “complex financial instruments” that were so complex nobody knows who owns what are foreclosing on homeowners.

That’s despite the banks having failed to prove they have a right to. And the justice system is backing the big money. It’s gangster capitalism at its finest.

Congressman Alan Grayson explains…

Capitalist Ten Commandments

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 pm, September 30th, 2010 - 22 comments

A Capitalist Ten Commandments.

Do unto others…

Hickey sees the light

Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, September 29th, 2010 - 73 comments

Bernard Hickey, one of the country’s leading economic commentators, was a hardline neo-liberal – ie. the market is god. Now, he’s changed his mind. He’s come to the realisation that there’s no invisible god’s hand directing capitalist markets. Instead they are directed by short-termist elites. We need to take back control.

Jackson threatens capital flight

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, September 29th, 2010 - 36 comments

I thought Peter Jackson was an ordinary guy made good who hadn’t let success make him an elitist prick. I was wrong. New Zealand taxpayers contributed hundreds of millions to his <em>Lord of the Rings</em> trilogy and what thanks do we get? Threats of capital flight, which will probably soon be followed by demands for taxpayer subsidies.

China rising

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 25th, 2010 - 37 comments

The idea of The Chinese Century has been around for a long time now.  But a couple of articles that caught my eye recently make me think that the start of that century is well and truly upon us.

Pause For Thought # 1

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, September 24th, 2010 - 30 comments

The suspension of normal democratic processes in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake should be an occasion to pause for thought in the light of likely future events.

Amongst the rubble: a look at the Christchurch earthquake from the bottom up

Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, September 18th, 2010 - 16 comments

First posted on the excellent Beyond Resistance blog: While the dust settles and Christchurch recovers from the 7.1 earthquake, people have begun to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives. But for many working class people this is not so easy. Those most affected by ‘natural disasters’ are those already on the margins of despair.

The contradictions of charity

Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, September 14th, 2010 - 24 comments

Continental Philosopher Slavoj Zizek talks about ethical buying and charity and the contradictions they entail. I’m not sure I agree with him (I often don’t) but it’s certainly worth thinking about.

Equality of opportunity

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, September 13th, 2010 - 194 comments

“The Spirit Level” is a book with a simple message: An unequal society is a sick society.  It’s a message that has the right wing running scared, and trying to dodge the issue by pretending that they believe in “equality of opportunity”.  But across society there’s no such thing…

The next financial crisis

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, September 11th, 2010 - 42 comments

If you have some time to spare this Saturday morning, check out the documentary “Overdose” – The story of the greatest financial crisis we will ever see… The one that is on the way.

Mystery rant

Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, September 8th, 2010 - 32 comments

Here’s an interesting rant.  I’m not going to link to it, because I want you to spend a moment trying to work out who (which raving leftie blogger?) is the author.  So read it, and make your guess, then Google for the answer…

SCF bail-out gets much, much murkier

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 pm, September 2nd, 2010 - 14 comments

A few people have made a hell of a lot of money off the South Canterbury Finance collapse and bail-out. Are these the same people behind the mystery company that was created just three weeks ago and wants to buy SCF for $1.57 billion? Whether it’s been an organised plan or just lone sharks attracted by blood in the water, the result is the same: the rich win, we lose.

Our $20 million bill for Nats’ expediency

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 pm, September 1st, 2010 - 28 comments

Many argue English should never have extended the deposit guarantee to South Canterbury Finance in April, or question whether the terms of the guarantee called for the pay-out. Then there’s the stink around the payment of SCF bonds. One thing’s for sure, the Nats didn’t need to spend $20 million on foreign depositors – they did it to try to kill the issue faster. Plenty of meat for Labour. Will they bite?

Anything too big to fail should be publicly owned

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, August 31st, 2010 - 96 comments

South Canterbury Finance is on the brink of collapse. The plan appears to be for the government to purchase the bad loans from the company at twice their book value, giving SCF the cash it needs to get back on its feet. That’s a dumb idea. The owners of SCF have taken huge profits in the good times, they can’t be allowed to pass their losses on to the rest of us now and continue as if nothing happened.

Crime and punishment

Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, August 23rd, 2010 - 25 comments

White collar crime is on the increase in NZ. The government talks tough and postures about crime in its other forms, how will it respond to white collar crime?

The Irrationality of the Free-Market

Written By: - Date published: 12:29 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 74 comments

There really isn’t any doubt about this any more, the free-market ideology put forward by the Chicago School of Economics (and the Austrian school) and slavishly followed by National, Act and Labour is predicted on fully informed individuals making rational choices. But individuals just don’t have enough knowledge to know what is best and the market as a whole is irrational as a result.

The age of recession sharpens class war

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 13th, 2010 - 23 comments

So, it looks like we’re heading back into recession. We’re going to have to get used to the idea that we can’t depend on perpetual economic growth to deliver rising living standards to all. We could make nearly everyone wealthier with a fairer distribution of wealth but the opposite is happening. This is simply class war; a battle over shares of a diminishing prize. And we’re letting the rich win.

Where’s their evidence?

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 26th, 2010 - 13 comments

National wants to make a change, they’ve got to make a powerful case that the change will have the results they claim. So where’s their evidence? Where are the models, the studies, the scenarios? They haven’t got any. This is faith-based government. Based on faith in the neo-liberal god. This is guess based government. The guess being that we’ll keep voting for that Nice Man Mr Key.

Financial regulation in USA

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

The recent global recession represented a spectacular failure of unfettered capitalism. We never felt the full force and completeness of that failure because the worst was averted – or rather just delayed – by vast injections of Government bailout money. America has learned its lesson, yesterday passing the strictest restrictions on banks and Wall Street since the Great Depression.

I was just following the market’s orders

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 am, July 14th, 2010 - 31 comments

Should be no surprise to anyone that the Nats and Maori Party are cutting help for tobacco addicts while upping the cost of their ciggies. They don’t care about better health. Don’t care about helping poor people get off an expensive habit. It’s all about sopping the poor and give aways for the rich. But you know who did grind my gears? Those tabacco execs the other week.

Private prison a money-waster, despite Collins’ spin

Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, July 13th, 2010 - 9 comments

Judith Collins is lauding the $1.2 billion of economic activity that will suppoedly result from the private prison at Wiri. But wait, the government is planning to spend $101 million on construction and $40m per year for 30 years on wages. That’s $1.3b spent for only in $1.2b of economic activity. How’s that? Oh, yeah, the private foreign owner who will be taking hundreds of millions offshore.

Deepening the stockmarket

Written By: - Date published: 11:26 pm, July 11th, 2010 - 48 comments

Can someone explain to me this ‘deepening the stockmarket’ line that the Right uses for privatisation? I consider myself reasonably well informed on these issues but I just can’t see the value to the country of the government selling public assets to a handful of stockmarket participants. Why is ‘deepening’ the stockmarket by giving up our public assets a good thing?

Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, July 10th, 2010 - 52 comments

This guy writes what I would aspire to write if I had the time and the cojones. For a lazy Saturday morning rant, read on.

Landlord charges market rent

Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, July 10th, 2010 - 10 comments

Thousands of tenants in Auckland’s CBD face rent rises from next year as the landlords start, after a 15 year moratorium, to charge market rental. Why is that news? Ahh well, read on…

Supermarket capitalism

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, July 7th, 2010 - 72 comments

Supermarkets are squeezing producers while marking up the prices of fruit and vegetables by up to 500%. The worst side of capitalism in action. Support your local farmers’ market, and the Green’s call for a supermarket code of conduct.

The Failure of Neo-Liberalism

Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, July 6th, 2010 - 49 comments

Neo-Liberalism is a failure; not just in human terms, but by its own measures. Since the concepts of neo-liberalism were taken up by Roger & Ruth 26 years ago neo-liberalism has driven down wages as a share of GDP, massively increased inequality and stripped workers rights.

English’s faith-based economics

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, July 2nd, 2010 - 90 comments

Bill English claims that our low national savings rate is due to the ‘government paying for everything’. According to English, people don’t need to save because the government pays for early childhood education, superannuation, Working for Families, and interest-free student loans. Does he have any evidence that is the case? Of course not. The evidence points the other way.

Key comes clean on the ETS

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, June 30th, 2010 - 28 comments

In a moment of uncharacteristic political honesty, John Key has come clean on his ETS. It loads “disproportionate” costs on to householders. National’s scheme is all about keeping things sweet for their business mates – muffling the price signal that an ETS is supposed to send by (as usual) socialising the costs.

British austerity budget

Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, June 24th, 2010 - 28 comments

The first budget from the new Tory-LibDem government is a shocker, with massive austerity cuts and a rise in VAT to 20%. This is the bill for the £850 billion bail out of big banks coming home to roost.

Speculators – Our Evil Overlords

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, June 21st, 2010 - 44 comments

Many think that Capitalism has been corrupted, socialised. It hasn’t – it’s been purified. We used to have capitalists that produced things; they weren’t the worker’s friend, but they did actually serve a purpose, setting up factories, providing the machinery for workers to use. But now we have a new class of capitalist that doesn’t […]

Dancing on a head of a pin on asset sales

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, June 5th, 2010 - 59 comments

National really, really wants to sell assets – it’ll be worth a fortune to their rich mates who can’t seem to generate any success on their own without a government hand out. But the public is firmly against asset sales. It would be an election losing campaign issue. So, National will play a game of ambiguous promises and confusing financial moves to sell without appearing to sell.