Kicking away the ladder.

Kia-ora

Advocates of Neo-Liberal, "free market" idealogy claim that the prescription they want to impose on other countries is the one that made them prosperous.

Not only is this manifestly wrong by any empirical measurement, (Compare poster boy, "free market" New Zealand to largely still socialist and protectionist Norway, or Australia, for example) it also ignores the protectionist history of every successful economy.

Notable in the USA, the more protectionist, socialist and publicly co-operative the State, the more succesful their economy. High tax, more socialist States are propping up the more Neo-Liberal States.Compare North Dakota and Texas for example.

The height of Neo-liberal absurdity is when Chile under Pinochet is held up as an example of successful Neo-Liberal economic.

How Neo-Liberal ignore evidence, and History!
"

"Almost all of today’s rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies".

 

Living wages.

Kia-ora

One of the "grass roots" initiatives that has arisen partly out of the occupy movement is The living wage movement. Living Wage

Predictably those who award themselves 100k bonuses and 17% pay rises, while dodging taxes are opposed.

Zetetic on a living wage.

"Don’t you love hearing the rich say the working poor can’t have more pay? The faux concern that higher wages cost jobs from the same people who support huge executive pay packets and tax cuts? If you really believed higher wages meant fewer jobs, you would cut the CEO’s pay in half, not dick around over a few dollars an hour for real workers. (Emphasis mine).

Of course, the truth is more money in working people’s hands means more demand for the basics, meaning more jobs. It’s well-established empirical fact. Anyone who argues otherwise is just using a false justification that masks their real – much less altruistic reasons – for wanting the poor to stay poor.""

 How, if low wages are good for the economy, do the  wealthiest justify awarding themselves higher pay while the rest of us have pay cuts.?
 We have a shortage of skilled technicians and trades in New Zealand. How is it econmically justified that their pay has been cut year by year, while financial finaglers, directors and "managers' where there is no shortage continually award themselves more pay? Japan and Germany seem to find competent managers, with pay differentials much less than ours.
How do managers, bankers or politicians, and other non-producing parasites, sleep at night when they collect 100's of thousands a year and put a miserly $13.50 an hour into their hard workers pay packets.

 At the same time, in New Zealand, half of our wealtheist people pay little or no tax. Wealthy dodge tax
One of the main reasons the PIG's went under is the lack of tax take from the wealthy. In Greece dodging taxes was a national sport. In New Zealand we just make the wealthy avoiding paying for the social and natural capital they use, legal.

Kia-ora

Apologies to readers for the lack of postings.
I've been involved in New Zealand Green party policy formation groups among other things.
Including, I admit, enjoying a sunny summer. Stopping and 'smelling the roses' is good for the soul.

Livable income.

Kia-ora

A liveable income should be a human right.

We accept that someone can inherit unearned millions, but we do not accept that someone else should inherit enough, from our society, to live on, as of right.

Who actually has the culture of unearned entitlement?
The Koch’s, Romney’s, Bennets, Shipley and Keys getting thousands a day for contributing very little.
Not a teenager who has been struggling unsuccessfully to find work for two years and is expected to live on $130 a week.

The days of constant growth and full employment are gone.

We can produce enough for everyone to live in comfort in NZ with fraction of our present activity/employment.

I do not have the figures for New Zealand, but, rather than a more equal distribution of income making everyone poorer, if the USA’s current production was shared equally, every family in the States would have an income of around 180k annually.

The right wing idea that a more equal distribution of income means equality in misery, is an obvious fallacy.

A surgeon, teacher or entrepreneur should earn more than an unqualified cleaner, but by cutting extreme wealth there is plenty of room to eradicate poverty in New Zealand. Or the US.

No one except for some rare exceptional entrepreneurs, “earns” millions.

Note that in both the USA and New Zealand when they were at their most prosperous the top progressive tax rate was much higher and inequalities in wealth much lower than they are now.
Trickle down does not work.  http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/blog-post.html

The "Culture of Entitlement".

Kia-ora

Welfare recipients “Culture of Entitlement”.

Unintentional irony from individuals who are sitting on 100 thousand dollar pay rises, while their company tanks in the recession, salt their income away offshore to avoid taxes, prefer to spend on bidding up prices with unproductive speculation, expect taxpayer bailouts when their gambling fails, and ask for tax cuts while the deficit increases.

Why do "they" want our schools?

Kia-ora

Ever wondered why we have the push for charter schools when the evidence is so solidly in favour of State run unionised schools. The worlds top school systems are all State run and most are unionised.

Ever wondered why we are repeatedly told our State schools are failing, when they have been proven to be amongst the worlds best. PISA rankings at High school level.

Ever wondered why we are being pushed towards Charter/privatised schools when all the evidence shows they do not do as well as State schools.  Stanford University Study. Despite all the extra funding charter schools have obtained, and the often extra effort and pupil selection poured in to make them work, all but a few demonstration schools, have done worse in the USA than State schools.

Sweden and UK's schools are also falling in standards since charter schools were introduced.

Ever wondered why State schools are being starved of funding while extra money is put into private schools.

Ever wondered why we are funding tests to tell us what we already know.  Poor ,and hungry, kids do not do as well in school.

So they can claim the tests show State schools are failing.

Ever wondered why we are trying to imitate the USA, number 29 in school results, where poor kids are simply excluded from secondary education, and not Finland or even Korea, which are 1 and 2 respectively.

As always. Follow the money!


The finance industry has proven to be almost totally ineffectual in supporting entrepreneurial and productive business.
What they are good at is obtaining tax payer funding to add to their profits.
When tax payers are not bailing out their failures.

Education provides a certain source of tax and publicly funded wealth that, until recently, has been largely unavailable to the corporate pirates.

Education Profiteering Wall Streets Next Big Thing?page=0%2C0
 "Education privatization would not, per se, create a net new stimulus for the economy. But by diverting large existing flows of money from the public to the private sector it would create new profit-making ventures that could be capitalized and transformed into stocks, derivatives and leveraged securities."

"The Chief Finance Officer of JP Morgan reports that some 75% of the net increase in corporate profits between 2000 and 2007 -- before the financial crash -- was a result of cuts in workers' wages and benefits. Given that unions are the only serious vehicles for resistance to the corporate low-wage strategy, ................"

A challenge 

The attacks on State schools and their Teachers is entirely so that corporates can make money from the taxes we pay for education.

As usual the private sector are so poor at doing the thing they claim is their strength, starting viable businesses, that they want to steal "the socialists" successes. Ours!

Added. 17th. 
New Zealand's Charter schools are to be exempted from the official information Act, so the public will not even be able to assess how they are performing. Charter, sorry, "partnership" schools exempted from OIA.

The Poor don't ask for much, but apparently it is too much!.

Kia-ora

"I hate the sense of entitlement some people have - thinking they should have food, shelter, clothing etc. How dare they."

The poor do not ask for much.

The rich think they are entitled to millions, usually just because their parents had it, or they succeeded in gaming the system (stealing) it.


Like these, Corporate Thieves or these, Stealing the commons. or these, Bankers pay them selves highly while they destroy real wealth. or these. How Wall Street made Money by starving millions.

Is it too much to ask that everyone is entitled to a share in the prosperous societies, and plenty built on their ancestors and their own efforts. Not just the rich!

A living income.

"Printing Money". Banking. Part Two.

Kia-ora

The Greens talk about Necessary Changes to Monetary Policy.
"Time to stop fighting Yesterday's war."

Gareth Morgan.

And why I do not agree with him this time.

Borrowing money, "printed money" from foreign banks, and paying 14 billion extra a year for the privilege, is sensible?
http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2...
Do I detect a bit of self interest here?


In fact "printing money" worked very effectively for NZ in the 30's. So well it was copied by other countries.
All the howls about Zimbabwe and the Weimer
republic forget that their productive sectors were first destroyed,
before they started printing money, When there was nothing to buy with
it.

Not a lot different from Nationals present efforts!

A lot different from lending to ourselves to invest in paying our
under-utilised and capable construction industry to rebuild
Christchurch.
Vital infrastructure which will return the investment many times in future.

Also we did exactly the same thing from 1935 until the 60?s. Called the
Development finance corporation for a long time.
Worked well for us. Got us out of the depression before the US and UK for a start.
We are still using a lot of those assets. Apart from the ones our idiot
Governments sold, so someone else could profit from them.

National still seems to want to follow the USA, UK, Ireland and Greece down the tubes.

National's race to the Third World.

Kia-ora

The-race-to-the-bottom

National has re-introduced youth rates.
At a level it is not possible for a youth to live on.


Pretending  that it will help unemployment.
In reality it is just another ploy in their attempt to satisfy their large corporate donors, by driving wages down to third world levels.

Young people being expected to subsidise their employers, even more than they are already, with the inadequate minimum wage, is not going to make for more employment.

There is a justification for a lower wage when the employer is contributing towards apprenticeship training for a valuable career. Not for, no future, McJobs.


National shuffling the deck chairs again while the ship heads for the icebergs.


Base-wage-for-youth-is-a-joke
 "The Government hasn't a clue about what to do about the job market, we can at least agree on that. The best they can do is play up to the most blinkered members of their congregation. They pulled the same stunt a while back with their 89-day sacking law, at the time spouting how much it would help youth into jobs. Result? Well, the youth unemployment rate is still a horror show and unprecedented numbers of youngsters are migrating to Aussie".


Wages are already too low. Enabling multinational employers to remove too much money from NZ.

Or Maybe Richard Boock has it right.
 "Slashing the minimum wage for teenage workers will create jobs? What nonsense, it's simply a case of the most vulnerable being sold off so the Government can keep its fat cats purring. It isn't a helping hand for the youth market, it's just a cheap and nasty sop to employers".

This will bite NZ business on the butt. Employees, especially young ones, are also paying customers.

NZ employers have already managed to shuffle off most of their training costs onto employees and tax payers. What more do they need.

Slaves!

Oh! I forgot. Slaves actually cost more, as you have to pay enough to feed and house them.

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.