The Standard on Pay Rates.

Kia-ora

The New Zealand left wing newsletter/blog, "The Standard" has some interesting discussions on wage levels.

It appears only the already rich work harder when they are paid more. The poor have to work for love.

The idea that we are not competitive unless wages are low wears a bit thin when those at the very top can pay themselves 17 to 20% more each year.

 Zetetic in The Standard on pay rates.

"As you know, the Right says more money incentivises harder work. John Key felt he wasn’t working very hard when he first became PM on a net $250,000 a year, so he gave himself tax cuts and pay rises worth $100 a day. Just look at the results!
But I’m confused: why’s he cutting our pay with youth wages, higher Kiwisaver, and higher student loan repayments? Is it that rich people work harder when they get more money and poor people work harder when they get less?
I guess the elite really do see us as a different species – mules, I suppose. And I see them as a different species but for different reasons and as a different species – leeches.

Banking.

Kia-ora

 The banking system has no cost of production. Adding Zero's to an account for a loan is effectively "free". Banks are then paid well for this 'service". The myth that banking is simply on-lending savings was exploded long ago.

Banks naturally favour "safe" investments for lending such as land and existing companies, tilting the playing field against new sustainable investment and artificially driving up the prices of "safe" investments against others.
The incentive is naturally to lend as much as possible, while using their financial clout to skew the economy and regulation to favour banks, getting an ever greater share of economic wealth.

Interest requires infinite economic growth. Not possible in a finite world.
The answer is public banking and the removal of interest.
Public Banking.

The "Wealth Creator" myth. Stealing the commons. Part two.

Kia-ora 

One of the memes the wealthy and their sycophants prefer to repeat is that, "the wealthy create wealth".

Lies the Rich Perpetuate.

That is demonstrably wrong.

"The wealthy got their wealth by entrepreneurship and starting new business" ?.
Well! no. Most are wealthy because they are born with it. The majority of the rest because they gamed our system to make money from existing assets and public utilities. Morally, no different from robbing someones house.

How Allan Gibb's made a Mint out of a Former Public Utility.
""Gibbs spotted his opportunity early in 1990 when he did his hallmark one-page analysis of what Telecom might be worth. "It was a lovely, fat company, with huge margins and a lazy balance sheet. It was obvious if you could keep the margins it would be a fantastic business." Like an alpha predator, he went for the throat"".

"The wealthy  became wealthy through start-ups and entrepreneurship. Selling people products they want".?

Less than 1% of the wealth held by wealthy households in the USA is invested as so called "angel capital". In reality the wealthy avoid risky start-ups, like the plague. They prefer privatizations of State utilities and financial products where there return is assured by tax payer funding. Those that are too big or too essential for the State to allow them to fail.
Affluent Survey.

In New Zealand many people bought into the myth that "if they wealthy were allowed to keep more of their wealth they would invest more in the productive economy and we would all be better off".
New Zealand went so far and fast with this Neo-liberal piece of B-s that, like Ireland, we were held out as a poster child for other countries.

The infamous "trickle down effect".

After 35 years of tax cuts for the wealthy, asset sales, anti-union legislation, deregulation of banking/finance and wage and welfare cuts.

We have;
 Huge capital losses to offshore bankers and profit takers.
Growth well behind the OECD average.
Increasing child poverty.
Steeply rising prices. Especially for privatised utilities.
Median wages are dropping while the wealthy get 17% annual increases.
Billion dollar bailouts for financiers.
Millions of dollars to reinstate previously privatised essential infrastructure.

Anyone who still believes that giving the already wealthy more of our wealth is the answer is either seriously deluded, or venal.

Agenda for today.

Kia-ora

NZ has a whole generation of managers, cannot call them leaders, who have no vision apart from cutting staff, costs and services.

It was an accountant who told me once, "do not put an accountant in charge, they know the cost of everything, and the value of nothing".

Then they act surprised when their skilled staff head for Australia, their customers head elsewhere and their business tanks.

The same logic has now been applied to the whole country.

On New Zealand's Retirement Income. Pension.

Kia-ora

 

The finance industry have been creaming their pants, for a return to the halcyon days, before the tax rebates were removed from superannuation savings. When they got to play with our money for free, and the negative returns and high charges were ignored, because of tax payer subsidies.

Egged on by the neo-liberals who prefer the elderly, the unemployed and the sick to starve in the streets, as an incentive to scare working people into accepting starvation wages, while they continue to get 17% increases in wealth, the finance industry is dreaming of getting more of their sticky hands on our wealth,  with private super funds.

Since the 70's they have been constant in the meme that we cannot afford super. A meme that has been driven entirely by the self interest of those, who are too wealthy to need super and too mean to pay taxes, and a greedy finance industry.

Unfortunately, it is true, that if you repeat bullshit often enough, even those who should know better come to believe it.

We cannot afford super is code for, "we should leave our elderly to beg on the streets". So that wealthy people can pay less tax and the finance industry can again lose our savings for us.

In fact the idea that State super is unaffordable is crap from the same people that cry TINA and reckon that all social insurance is unaffordable.

If they win with super, they will just start on other social wages.

In reality it is much more affordable than the finance company bailouts, which would be necessary with private super.

.

http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/what-superannuation-crisis.html

"So, in 2050, we're projected to be paying only 1% of GDP more in superannuation than we were paying in 1990. Quelle horreur! This is not a difference to be terrified of, and it is easily manageable with a modest increase in taxation, either now or in the future (though that perhaps is exactly what those pushing for change are frightened of: higher taxes)".

Intergenerational theft is another piece of oft repeated stupidity.

http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/on-retirement-pensions-and-age-of.html

"Do we really want to return to the days when most elderly people were totally impoverished when their working lives ended".

Super has always been paid for by current production. However you finingle it financially, whether through current taxation or savings, it still comes from the production of the current generation.

If we want to keep super affordable we should tax the current generation to invest in a sustainable future. Invest in energy, housing, education  and other  infrastructure so that we can keep all our people. Not in financial ponzi schemes which will fall over in the next GFC.

http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/

""Because our kids can’t afford to buy houses, we bought houses for them to live in using the equity from our house, and now all our money is tied up in mortgages. At the same time, we’re supporting our parents in their old age.

That’s how life is and always has been, for most of us. Our parents worked to give us a decent start in life, and we worked hard so our kids could have a fair go. We’re looking after our parents in their old age. We hope we’ll be looked after in our old age.

What about this is “intergenerational theft”?""

But. We can avoid the whole concept of retirement, intergenerational fairness and all the other sticking points by accepting that everyone in our society is entitled to a liveable share  in the society they and their ancestors have built up.

Whether you call it a Universal income,  Guaranteed minimum income (GMI) or a personal shareholder payment it is the same thing.

Replace all welfare, social insurance and pensions with a GMI.

We also get to solve many other problems such as child poverty, the unfairness of a present welfare system, and making our society more sustainable,   at the same time.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/235840-A-Town-Without-Poverty-Canada-s-Guaranteed-Income-Experiment

""Initially, the Mincome program was conceived as a labour market experiment. The government wanted to know what would happen if everybody in town received a guaranteed income, and specifically, they wanted to know whether people would still work.

It turns out they did.

Only two segments of Dauphin's labour force worked less as a result of Mincome - new mothers and teenagers. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies. And teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families.

The end result was that they spent more time at school and more teenagers graduated. Those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did"".

http://thestandard.org.nz/key-on-the-nation/comment-page-1/#comment-483385  The best way to deal with any problem is to eliminate it at root. The best way to deal with ‘retirement’ as a problem is to eliminate the entire concept. No I’m not being extreme.

The simple answer is a Universal Income""

http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/on-retirement-pensions-and-age-of.html

""In fact super has been so effective in removing poverty amongst the elderly it should be extended to everyone in the form of a guaranteed minimum income. There is no excuse for having people with inadequate food and housing in a country which is capable of supplying an excess of both internally"".

National 's Neo-Liberal trashing of New Zealand.

Kia-ora

I am mindful of the quote.
“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

Generally I have a somewhat optimistic view of humanity. I gave New Zealand's National Government the benefit of doubt, by ascribing their sheer lunacy to incompetence.

However, even politicians cannot be that incompetent.

Trashing a top class education system, trashing WINZ, trashing ACC. Not to mention trashing NZ as an egalitarian society and causing a recession to deepen with idiot policy like public service layoffs and tax cuts for Hawaii holidays.

It is malice.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/155484/ehrenreich%3A_how_corporations_and_local_governments_rob_the_poor_blind
“wage theft nets employers at least $100 billion a year and possibly twice that. As for the profits extracted by the lending industry, Gary Rivlin, who wrote Broke USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. — How the Working Poor Became Big Business, says the poor pay an effective surcharge of about $30 billion a year for the financial products they consume and more than twice that if you include subprime credit cards, subprime auto loans, and subprime mortgages.”


http://www.alternet.org/story/153858/5_biggest_lies_about_the_right-wing_corporate-backed_war_on_our_schools/?page=entire

“They want to dismantle public education altogether and run schools as businesses, judged as “successes” or “failures” based on abstract data taken from high-stakes standardized test scores.”


“The right are so envious of the poor, they want to take what little the poor have left”.


Our neo-liberals see how much wealth has been stolen by their counterparts in the USA and they want to repeat the process here.

They see tax payer dollars going into schools, Social insurance and infrastructure.

Even though they do not pay taxes themselves, their money is in trusts, untaxed capital gains or offshore shelters, they are trying to find a way of increasing their cut, of taxes WE PAY.

We forget, at our peril, why neo-liberalism is so popular among the wealth stealers.


Because it works for them!

Money and Debt. Explained by a 12 year old.

Kia-ora

A 12 year old Girl explains what economists will not.

Funny how a 12 year old can have a much better and clearer idea than all those university educated economists.

Or maybe they do, but know they will not be paid for questioning the current paradigm.

Note; New Zealand's Government, in the 30's, extracted New Zealand from the great depression, well before most others, by issuing Government money for public works and stimulus.

On Austerity

Kia-ora

NZ, and much of the rest of the world,  has a whole generation of managers, cannot call them leaders, who have no vision apart from cutting staff, costs and services.

It was an accountant who told me once, "do not put an accountant in charge, they know the cost of everything, and the value of nothing".

Then they act surprised when their skilled staff head for Australia, their customers head elsewhere and their business tanks.

The same logic has now been applied to the whole country.

House Price Inflation

Kia-ora

House price Inflation

 

It is a conventional economics axiom that increasing the money supply without a concomitant increase in production causes inflation.

In the last thirtyfive years we have had low inflation in  wages. 

Essentials, including  land , and thence housing and farm prices, have gone up many times the rate of wage rises. 

Land inflation is driven by private Banking's incentive to print money.  The more money they supply the more interest they can make.

Unfortunately, there is also a strong natural incentive  to lend only on solid security, such as land and buildings.

Banks know better than anyone the inherent insecurity and instability of financial instruments, including shares.

Mortgage law in most Western countries  favours lending on land. Unlike other investments, or lending, if the value of the security, land,  goes down, the borrower is still liable for the full amount of the loan and interest. The bank is indemnified against loss.

For example, in New Zealand, the bank has priority over all other creditors, including contractors.

Lending on business and other assets does not offer the same security. The bank has to wait in line with other creditors and, normally,  cannot continue claims in excess of their proportion of the sale.

Banks, while  reluctant to risk their own money, are happy to risk small savers investments.  Our pension funds, bank deposits and savings.

These schemes, whether shares, derivatives, hedge funds or other financial instruments are designed so that banks can gamble with our money. Win or lose they always get a cut.

De-regulation of banking has removed almost all constraints on lending and the amount of wealth banks can take.

Loses come out of our pensions and other savings.  Or, if they really stuff it up, taxpayers are expected to borrow more from them to pay for it. "The bailout".

The total monetary value of financial instruments and debt is now so great that a crash, or super inflation, is inevitable if it is ever fully spent on real production.

Does anyone really think that infinitely compounding interest is possible in a world with finite resources.

While we lose our savings, houses and farms, bankers still get richer.

Given the difficulty in obtaining bank finance without land as security, favourable tax treatments (in Western countries   for banks,  homeowners, landowners and farmers ), incentives for banks to avoid  risks inherent in other investment  (The inevitable crash of Banker's ponzi schemes and the likely devaluation of currency denominated investments) it is not surprising that  investors prefer land.

The Chinese Government buying up land worldwide with US dollars, before they become worthless, is only a minor example.

Hence land prices rising much faster than wages.

Our economy, along with most other Western economies has been skewed, towards speculation in existing assets, by banks following their own self interest. The "invisible hand" has failed

What is Neo-Liberalism?

Kia-ora

What is Neo-Liberalism.

Neo-Liberalism is a moral and intellectual justification for greed.

A way for those few who accumulate wealth, by impoverishing many, to justify themselves, and keep those they are stealing from docile and compliant.

This purpose for centuries has been fulfilled by religion.

We still see echo's of the religious  attitudes. The idea that the poor are poor because of personal defects,  American exceptionalism, the banker who reckons, "God wanted me to be rich",  Ayn Rands "wealth creators".

Neo-liberals outwardly believe in small Government, minimal regulation, taxation and social security,  individual freedom and responsibility and the primacy of the market in fostering economic efficiency.

In fact their leaders and intellectuals believe in anything which enables them to accumulate wealth at the expense of the rest of us.

Neo-Liberalism would be more appropriately called Neo-conservatism. It is an attempt to return to pre-enlightenment times when the idea of "each is born into their proper place" was undisputed.

Neo-Liberalism has become common usage, unfortunately we are stuck with it.

Neo-Liberalism itself has all the characteristics of blind belief and faith inherent in religion.

Despite its only success being in making a very few people wealthier, millions of people, including most politicians, blindly adhere to the faith. 

http://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/junk-science-voodoo-economics.html

'It doesn't seem to matter that they NEVER get it right. It doesn't seem to matter they are promoting economic theories that are junk. But unlike Ring's quackery, the quackery of neoliberalism is treated with reverence, it is ascribed legitimacy'. 

 "The first of these shifts was the Great Depression or, more precisely, the feckless response of both American mainstream political parties to the economic collapse that followed the 1929 stock market crash. In the crucial first years after the crash, Democrats and Republicans alike embraced exactly the same policies they are embracing in today’s economic troubles, with exactly the same lack of success, and showed exactly the same unwillingness to abandon failed policies in the face of economic disaster. Then as now, the federal government launched a program to bail out big banks and corporations—it was called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in those days—and pumped dizzying amounts of money into the upper end of the economy in the belief, real or feigned, that the money would work its way down the pyramid, which of course it didn’t do. Then as now, politicians used the shibboleth of a balanced budget to demand austerity for everybody but the rich, and cut exactly those programs which could have helped families caught by hard times. Then as now, things got worse while the media insisted that they were getting better, and the mounting evidence that policies weren’t working was treated as proof that the same policies had to be pursued even more forcefully." (John Micheal Greer).

Their Apostles are Adam Smith,  Ayn Rand, Von Mises,  the Austrian, and Freidman, the Chicago,  schools of economics.

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is often quoted. Adam Smith's "you should pay your workers fairly because they are the source of your wealth" and "tax capital and land instead of workers and entrepreneurs" is, of course, ignored.

Von Mises and Freidman advocate a totally unregulated market and a Government as one adherent famously said, "that you could drown in a bathtub". Except for police and military to protect their wealth, of course! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

Ayn Rand considered the owners of capital "wealth creators" although she had to live off the real wealth creators, the rest of us, towards the end of her life.

http://www.alternet.org/story/154153/how_the_1_destroys_jobs_and_the_real_heroes_are_everyday_people

"So before we consider having another trickle-downer in the White House, let’s talk about the failure of this idea and why if you want to see a real job creator, you should look in the mirror".

In fact they support their own freedom to make money regardless of social, environmental or economic effects. At the same time restricting individual freedom to protest, or co-operate to challenge their primacy.

Supporters do not seem to see the conflict between saying they support  individual freedom  while at the same time restricting the majorities individual freedom to withdraw their labour or protest. These freedoms are restricted, often violently.

http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/protecting-winning-ticket.html

"Let’s recap. You’re rich, and you want to stay that way. So, to protect your ticket; to safeguard your $50 million prize; you need to find a way to eliminate, or at least minimise, the threats posed by taxes, unions, and democracy. What’s your strategy?

Essentially, there’s only one winning strategy. It requires you to convince all those who are not wealthy that whatever status and security they do enjoy is the result of your own superior imagination, risk-taking and skill. You have to paint yourself and your fellow millionaires and billionaires as a “wealth creators” and, more importantly, “job creators”. You have to convince your fellow citizens that any attempt to restrict or redistribute your wealth will not only put their jobs at risk, but that society as a whole will become poorer.

If you can convince people of these things, then they will, perfectly democratically, eliminate wealth taxes, truncate workers’ rights, and reconfigure their entire political system to favour the tiny minority fortunate enough to hold the multi-million-dollar winning tickets"

Neo-Liberalism. Like all religions, is a way for the already wealthy to delude everyone else from rebelling, so they can keep their "winning ticket".

While many followers of religions have the best of intentions, their leaders have no such illusions. The intent is to keep wealth and/or power.

The overall effect of Neo-Liberal economics is to "privatise profits while socialising the losses".

Hugely increasing inequality and economic and social dysfunction.

Country after country adopts Neo-Liberal economics and rapidly goes downhill even by Neo-Liberalism's own measures such as GDP. And we still believe it is the solution!

Compare Argentina and the BRIC countries to the Anglo Saxon countries that are slavishly following the Neo-Liberal religion.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/dont-cry-for-argentina/

Truly voodoo economics.

Ports of Auckland and Union Busting.

Kia-ora

For non-New Zealand readers.
 Ports of Auckland have just engaged in an episode of managerial self indulgence to try and remove Union members from the port and replace them with casual contracted labour. FYI. The port manager is paid more than 750k. Board members are paid 100 to 200k for one days work a week.
 There has been a big push from the usual suspects to take the port out of public ownership. Most of the prospective buyers are anti Union.
Unions and workers are being attacked on all sides, and public assets given away to the private sector as fast as possible, as our current right wing Government is unlikely to get another term.
 

On Incompetent Management.

Once upon a time, decades ago now, ports were run by a person called the Harbourmaster.

He used to be a highly qualified and experienced Master Mariner, who had extensive knowledge of shipping and decades of experience, at sea and within the port.

All this competence and experience came at a wage  at most five times the average wage. 

Then, along came the cult of management, and the Neo-liberals. The idea that a jumped up accountant could run anything. 

They can, into the ground. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2011/04/kia-ora-corporatism-and-neo-liberalism.html

"The corporations with the largest income gap between Directors/Managers  and employees have proven to be the least  functional.

Corporate income gaps.

The star managers paid in millions have proven to be much less effective than, lesser paid,  experienced promotions from within the organisation.

Twenty year research into Management effectiveness study

"companies that exclusively promote CEOs from within outperform companies that recruit CEOs from outside the company."

Best to Promote from within."

Now.

We have a board and managers who have lost the port's public owners 21 million dollars and counting, lost more customers in a few months than have been lost to Tauranga in years, cost the ports customers millions, and demoralised and lost the co-operation of their trained labour force, all to make savings that have been shown to be available anyway by talking to the Union.

(There was  a 25 to 30% increase in the box rate last year in the brief period when the Wharfies thought management were not going to continue the adversarial politicking of the past).

An honourable management and board would all be tendering their resignations after a debacle like this.

The amount of spin and outright lies about the workforce from POAL management shows they are incapable of working co-operatively with their labour force.

For example Labour utilisation rates, costs of Labour and pay rates are not out of line with similar jobs.

Still looking for the wharfie who gets 91k a year.  (A foremen doing double shifts all year maybe).

The relationship is broken. It is much easier and less costly to replace the managers with ones capable of working with people than retrain a whole ports labour.

It has become apparent that the whole exercise was an ideological attempt to break one of the last vestiges of Union power, most likely with the covert backing of the NACT Government. The  huge costs for the ports public owners and customers does not matter to an ideologically driven board put in place for that purpose by ACT hacks..

Disaster Capitalism

Kia-ora

 

Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein on Disaster capitalism is an interesting book to re-read, especially in light of recent events in Europe. http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

One cannot help thinking that National, in New Zealand, (NZ's GOP) and their supporters have taken it to heart. They certainly seem to be keen on precipitating an economic disaster.  The only possible reasons are either they have bought into their own propaganda, 

OR they expect to gain by it.

It has been obvious for a long time that political parties that support Neo-Liberal economics cannot survive on funding from individual party members. They just do not have enough public support for this to occur. Almost all their funding comes from corporates and a very few wealthy individuals.
Only by bearing this in mind does their determination to socioeconomically wreck whole countries become understandable.

Bowalley Road: The Auckland Ports Dispute: An Injury To All

Bowalley Road: The Auckland Ports Dispute: An Injury To All

"Auckland Regional Holdings was clearer in 2009 stating: “The sector is engaging in destructive interregional competition that is detrimental to New Zealand’s long-term productivity and competitiveness, and could be considered an instance of “market failure”. For the good of the country, it is clear that the port sector needs to change and focus on the real threat – not from each other – but from outside.” 2

The current move to slash employment costs by making staff on-call, round the clock casual workers without compensation for lifestyle or job insecurity is another step toward creating a third world nation"".

Kia-ora

Show me the Money??

Kia-ora

Show me the Money??

Easy. The wealthy stole it!

One of the No-Liberal memes is if you allow more of the wealth produced by workers to be retained by the wealthy they will invest more and everyone will benefit. The trickle down theory.

This graph from the New York Times NYT gives the lie to this theory.

Given more money the wealthy simply spend of gamble it in more and more dysfunctional ways.

The effect of policy on inequality

 We can see the same effects in Britain and New Zealand. The effects of Britains belief in voodoo economics.

In New Zealand we have an even stronger correlation.

NZ Governments economic records.
From the Nationalisation of banks and a socialist Labour Government which ended the 1930's depression ahead of most of the rest of the world. To the great recession caused by the adoption of Neo-Liberal dogma from 1984. The rise in incomes and prosperity generally when the Neo-Liberal prescription was relaxed a bit in 2000.

The detrimental effects on a country, by all measures, even their own ones.

of the Neo-Liberal, cut wages, cut taxes, sell everything, deregulate give to the wealthy are conclusively proven.

Looks like even the ratings agencies prefer more left leaning administrations.

"We had to wait 5 days to pump the oil out of the Rena"

Kia-ora

The contradictory statements and outright spin coming from Maritime New Zealand and National are excuses for delay, not reasons.

I know,, that given the resources, pumps, tugs, helicopters, barges, hoses and other equipment available in Marsden point, Tauranga and Auckland, oil could have been pumping off the vessel within 24 hours of the grounding.

We know the ship had power and heating to the bunker tanks for the first few days.

It was obvious to mariners that with damage forward and the depths below the ship she would be aground for many weeks, if she could be refloated at all.

Given that,  power and fuel oil heating would be lost if the ship was more damaged, bad weather was forecast within a week and the ship was only supported along half her length, making breaking up in bad weather almost certain, getting the oil off should have been top priority.

MNZ's on scene commander has the legal powers to commandeer equipment, vessels and personnel to avoid oil pollution.

Ships piping can be adapted to pump overside to a barge within a lot less than 4 days.

Heating would have been on for at least the tanks in use. Takes less than a day to heat further tanks.

If the pipework was too damaged to use, which was highly unlikely for the after bunkers, portable pumps and generators could have been choppered to the vessel within hours.

While the oil was hot almost any pumps could have been used at rates of hundreds of ton an hour. Instead of a specialised displacement pump, required, after it had cooled.

Any barge or vessel capable of holding oil, which there were several around, could have been used to pump into, initially.

Awanuia does not take 4 days to go to Marsden point, empty, and return to Tauranga. More like 8 hours to Marsden point. About 7 to discharge and no more than 12 hours to Tauranga.

Bunker piping is available on the wharf in all three ports.

We have Mates, Masters and engineers in NZ that have years of experience on pumping fuel between ships and making things work in adverse conditions.

When we have a valve failure in a tanker we do not leave it sitting around for 5 days at 60k plus a day while we wait for an overseas expert or for negotiations with insurance companies.  . We open a manhole and pump it out using a salvage pump.

If fuel pipes or anything else fails at sea. We fix it

The whole thing is an in indictment on the lack of preparedness of MNZ, helped by lack of funding and lack of experienced and qualified seafarers in the top ranks.

It has become obvious that MNZ had no idea of the personnel and equipment, already on hand, that could be used.

Strange, considering that some of the skilled personnel work for MNZ.

This episode has also exposed the lack of preparedness and equipment for a serious spill. Due to lack of funding.  To keep the costs of oil pollution levies, and hence shipping costs down.

Successive Governments have been told many times  the race for the cheapest shipping costs makes more of this sort of accident inevitable. They all failed in their duty to prepare for it.

Appointing chair polishing ignoramus as bosses in MNZ, allowing substandard FOC ships, many of which which would not be allowed on the EC coasts, to  starving emergency response planning and equipping of funding, is at the door of all our Neo-Liberal Governments since 1984.

The ineptitude and lack of preparedness does not make me confident of their ability to monitor deep sea drilling.

The Rena. A Neo-Liberal failure.

Kia-ora

Nearly two weeks ago now a container vessel grounded on Astrolobe  reef near Tauranga, New Zealand.

Shipping accidents like the Rena are entirely at the door of Neo-Liberal economics.

The foreseeable results   of Globalisation, de-regulation, the endless search for the cheapest, the socialisation of risks and the privatisation of benefits..

Tired, overstressed, low paid  crews,  cheaply built and maintained ships, inadequate or ignored regulation and excessive workloads are the norm at sea.

Flags of convenience exist entirely so that shipping companies, and shippers, can reduce the costs: of corporate and income taxes, safety  standards, operating standards, crew conditions and wages and build standards of shipping.

They allow a competitive race to the bottom to see who can become the cheapest.

There is no reason whatsoever to use a flag of convenience if you intend to operate a vessel to a high standard. There would not be any cost savings.

The constant struggle to maintain cheaply built ships, designed and built for a 15 year life. Is bad enough when they are new.  5 or 10 years  beyound their design life , keeping them going is a 24 hour a day job.

Low wages, mean that high quality well trained crew find other work ashore or in higher paid work like the oil industry.

Masters and Chief engineers are often the only properly trained and skilled members of the crew, with the numbers made up of cheap labour with dodgy qualifications.

It is common for crew to be on board working shifts with less tha 8 hours off a day for more than 9 months.

Training standards are variable, with a noticeable drop in the standard of training, even from first world countries.  At the same time crew numbers have been dropped so there are not the personnel available to babysit and train.

Seafarers are expected to rest in ships with levels of noise and vibration that would have been totally unacceptable thirty years ago.  Ashore in NZ it is illegal to get people to work, let alone sleep, in those conditions

In New Zealand, Masters who refuse to sail because of broken equipment or rough weather and crew members who refuse to falsify rest hour,  maintenance, safety  and leave records are protected by our employment laws.

A sacking for those reasons, in New Zealand,  would be a legitimate case for unjustified dismissal..

 On FOC ships  they are sacked or their contracts are simply not renewed.

The worst of it, since the 1980's and Governments cave in to the farming lobby on Cabotage, in NZ, even local shipping companies, whatever their intentions , are also cutting standards to compete with cheap overseas shipping.

New Zealands credit downgrade. Or the Story of more Neo-Liberal economic "successes".

Kia-ora

It would be funny if it was not so serious.

NACT (New Zealand,s,  Right wing, Neo-Liberal Government) cannot even meet performance targets from, the totally discredited, "credit rating" agencies.
Agencies which are on the side of the same economic dogma as NACT.

This could have been avoided simply by legislating that no private finance companies would be bailed out.

The New Zealand Government, like, the other failing States, Ireland, UK, Greece and the US etc, has made it obvious that private finance debt is a taxpayer liability.

Look to Argentina and Iceland to see the benefits of telling the banks to get stuffed. Argentina, one of the worlds fastest growth economies since 2002, when they told the banks to take a bath.

Noting that most lenders to Governments have taken no notice of States credit rating downgrades recently.
Government bonds are still considered much safer than private lending.

One of the reasons for the continuing recession in the USA.  The cashed up  prefer to lend to the Government instead of industry and development. Government lending at 0% intended as a stimulus is being invested in 3% yeald Government bonds.

Meanwhile the Media have had almost no coverage of Nationals failure to succeed, even under their own terms. If we had a credit downgrade under Labour it would have been frontline news.

A rugby players nuts are more important!

For Those Who Still Think Man Made Global Warming is a Beat Up.

Kia-ora

Those who went on forever about a mistake in the IPCC report ignored the real story.

The fact is, the glaciers are disappearing!
Watching a glacier die.

And the polar ice. Arctic Ice Shipping Routes.

Not that you could tell from the response of the New Zealand Government.
Even Labour, lets us down.

New Zealand at the Crossroads

Kia-ora

 The NYT on the "success" of Neo-Liberalism.

As "No Right Turn" says this graphic is "an appalling indictment of Neo-Liberalism".

In New Zealand we have seen the effects just this year. Over 17% increase in wealth for the top few percent while 200 000 children live in relative poverty.

The pattern in New Zealand, since our great Neo-Liberal experiment, following the USA, Ireland and UK, has been the same.

 Coddling the rich is destroying the American dream.

"No matter how many times it's said, lowering tax rates for the highest income Americans does not create jobs or stimulate the economy. In fact, a detailed look reveals that the overall economy does slightly better when taxes at the top are significantly higher. This also holds true on the state level, as states with higher top personal tax rates have growth rates and median incomes that average greater than those with low (or even no) taxes. No matter how many times the experiment is repeated, or how long you extend the results, cutting taxes for the wealthy does not stimulate growth."

Most of the wealth earned by Americans went to corporates.
"Corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of the growth in real national income".

In New Zealand cutting taxes for the wealthy was supposed to stimulate the economy. Since the first round of high end tax cuts,  investment in the productive economy, wages and manufacturing, in New Zealand, stagnated, and capital flew to gambles on offshore markets.

Decimation of Union and employee rights, and cuts in Government spending  has resulted in huge drops in real income, for all but a few New Zealanders.

New Zealand is at the crossroads.
We can vote for National and ACT, and join the list of failed States like the USA and UK.

Another three years of failed Neo-Liberal policies will destroy the country we know.

Do we want third generation unemployment and riots in the streets like the UK. Or the repressive, unequal, surveillance society the USA has become.

For the first time since 1984 we have a clear choice. Continue down a failed Neo-Liberal road, or Own our Future.

We can vote for the Greens   and Labour. For  sensible policies, which were middle of the road, before Neo- Liberal religious hysteria took over.

In search of a justification.

Kia-ora

Many laughable statements come from the Neo-Liberal right, but the ones that seek a moral or economic justification for greed and meanness are the most comical. (If the effects were not so serious).

Like the one from a bailed out US bank manager. "God thinks I should have a bonus". :-)

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
– John Kenneth Galbraith 

 The Standard.
 Debunks the idea that taxing the rich more cuts total tax take. In fact the opposite has happened. As taxes to the rich have been cut in Western countries, Government revenues have decreased in most cases.
As I have said before. In the time of its greatest prosperity the US top tax rate was 90%.
Recent top rate tax cuts in New Zealand have resulted in decreased revenue each time.


Decreasing taxes on business and high incomes means more capital  is free for more investment.
Did not work. Capital investment by private investors in NZ, the UK and the USA has decreased while they hid the money offshore, to dodge even more of the tax they should pay, or spend it on holidays in Hawaii. AND financial gambling. (Where we will have to bail them out next time they lose).

What's worse.
Cutting tax rates, and therefore revenues, cuts Government investment in the local economy in favour of those who take the money offshore. Never to be seen again.
In New Zealand the Government is borrowing offshore to pay for tax cuts to the rich. A double blow to the national deficit.

Similarly. Cutting wages is supposed to be an incentive for business to invest.
Trouble is cutting the wages of the businesses customers is even more of a disincentive. Low wage workers do not buy much.
Since the 1984 attacks on Unions and steadily dropping wages in New Zealand, direct investment in New Zealand production has dropped to 1/3 of what it was in the 70's.

Make the rich richer and they will give people jobs.
Jobs are not something the rich gives. Jobs are workers supplying their labour.
The rich are awash in money at present. 20% increase in the wealth of the richest in New Zealand. In the USA the rich are sitting on trillions. Where are the jobs??


In recent history job growth has come from State initiatives. It was not the private sector that pulled the USA out of the 30's depression, it was massive State spending, on the new deal, then WW2.

Lastly. The idea that the rich earn their money and we have no right to take it from them.
Who earns millions?
Most have millions because their family had millions. They contribute nothing and consume much more than poorer people.

Some entrepreneurs  have started new business, produced services and ideas of great benefit to many people. It can be said that they earned their money. 

It is notable that most of these people are philanthropists.

The rich benefit so much from our society it is only fair that they give back.

 Better to take some if this money back and reinvest in infrastructure and the necessary green technology to ensure humanities future survival.