Posts by Marcus Neiman
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Rich: I could be wrong here - but isn't Christine Rankin's partner the head bureaucrat of the Auckland City Council?
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Michael: Obviously, yes, but...
In the terms of Hannah Ho's essay this sort of particular disadvantage is not disaggregated either in terms of effects, nor across " Brown" ethnic groups. Nor is the intervening factor of class taken seriously....
The thing that annoyed me the most with her piece was her attempt to join-up Asian disadvantage (eg. petty racism on the street) with that of Maori disadvantage (e.g. employment, health care discrimination issues) as some sort of meta-phenomenon. I think it is clear that the disadvantage faced by these groups from her crude category of "White" people is significantly differentiated, ideologically and practically.
If we are going to talk about disadvantage it is not helpful to underspecify what we are talking about.
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Just to clarify about the second part of the above comment: it should read -
I think that it is unclear that there is a uniform phenomenon of "Brown disadvantage" covering Asian, Maori, Pacific peoples, Africans, and so on, that was seeming suggested.
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It was kind of interesting to read this post in next to Hannah Ho's piece on white privilege, and brings up the thought that kept going through my mind in reading her piece - yes, White privilege may exist in some circumstances, but it is not quite as uniform and deterministic as she seemed to be insisting... and conversely I am quite suspicious that there is a uniform "Brown disadvantage" covering Asian, Maori, Pacific people, Africans, and so on that she was implicitly suggesting.
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Yeah Angus, I've always wondered why in the ongoing frenzy for tax cuts no-one has talked about mirroring Australia and making the first $5-$10k of income untaxed, thus giving everyone a tax cut and especially helping out the poorest of the poor.
I guess Cullen or someone important at Treasury must really be against the idea for some reason...
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Sorry Keith, Rich of Observationz is right here - to assume a priori that Kiwisaver will drive wages down is the good old fashioned determinism that makes everyone else laught at economists and econometricians.
Wage and salary growth is far more contingent than you allow for.
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Jonty: I was making a general comment on McCarten's general tendacy to fail in advancing the Left in NZ long term and that it might be time to find a new strategist/commentator/leader.
On your second point, I find the argument that everyone's Kiwisaver savings will be at particular risk somewhat of a red herring.
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Jonty: The less anyone listens to Matt McCarten the better - it would that he cannot but help but undermining the Left in NZ despite his intentions.
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Craig: Using Esping-Anderson's famous typology of welfare states it would seem that retirement insurances is becoming an artefact of a "Conservative" state model (in the vein of Germany or Austria), where certain minimums of provision are set (i.e NZ Super) supplemented by programs that reflect existing inequalities in income (ie. the Kiwisaver).
These welfare state practices are seen as products of political compromises between socialists and the middle-classes (ie. standing between Swedish-style models, and US residualistic models), in allowing redistribution but also supporting higher levels of benefits for the monied classes.
In the NZ context, with a lack of a large historic socialist constituency and a generally Anglo- liberal political culture, it makes a lot of political sense.
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Ben: But you forget that people doing the sorts of jobs that young people do earn 50% more per hour in Australia.
As far as I can tell there are as many boy racers in Australia - however due to the tarriffs they drive Holdens and Fords instead of Japanese imports - and are thus seen as young patriots instead of young threats to all that is Good.