Posts by SteveH
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Russell Brown,
Natalia Kills says what we all thought was the case: they were “encouraged to be outspoken and things got out of hand.” Yeah, duh.
Willy Moon tweets in similar vein.
Still not an actual apology from either of them. Just a plea to be forgiven.
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Someone must surely be resigning over this, right?
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I like the UK MasterChef, because it is a reality TV show that doesn’t forget it is about cooking. Apparently, the Australian version, which I stopped watching when it turned into a soap opera targeted at high school kids, suffered a big ratings drop until it also returned to its knitting and re-focussed on food last season.
MasterChef is the reality show we're hooked on. I think the Oz version learnt their lesson from the previous season because last season was the best I've seen (better than any of the NZ seasons too). Really competent contestants who generally got on very well and no gimmicks in the format of the show. There is an audience for a show that isn't like MKR after all.
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to nzlemming,
The Mirror has jumped on it.
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All I'm interested in at this point is the apology. There hasn't yet been one, has there?
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to Yamis,
If it were true then countries without minimum wages for decades would all be earning shitloads by now since they must have high rates of employment and mass competition. They aren’t. They are by and large earning miserable amounts of money.
Right. For example:
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByA2MoNIUAA56EM.png
That graph is also a bit of a blow for the "trickle-down economics" lie. -
Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to tussock,
There was a big debate. Youtube. Climate voter. 99 minutes.
Less than 3,000 views. That kind of proves my point doesn't it?
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
But that’s countered by the common sense idea that working harder earns more money.
That one gets the immediate retort of "you've never worked a day in a manual labour job in your life, have you?" On the whole the people on minimum wages are the ones working the hardest. Those jobs are often relatively unskilled which means employees have little power and therefore the toughest conditions. Because minimum wage is not high enough a second job or longer hours is more common - you can particularly see this trend in the US. The idea that those people are not working hard enough is frankly insulting (I know you're playing the devil's advocate here).
A lower minimum wage “creates more jobs” which increases competition making thus naturally driving up wages.
Employers don't say "we've got X to hire with" and then divide that by the minimum wage cost to figure out how many people to hire. They say "we require Y people" and then pay whatever is required to get the Y people they need (within the limits of profitability). That argument hinges on the idea that lower wages allow businesses to expand quicker and therefore employ more people, but that can obviously only work if the demand is there and even then in many case other factors will be the limit (e.g. capital).
And minimum wage is just one example
Right, but my point is that many of these policies aren't that hard to rebut. They only seem like common sense on a very superficial level. And often you can always point to the US for an example of where they take us.
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
Look at Jamie Whyte’s argument against raising the minimum wage in the Campbell Live minor leaders dinner… It makes sense that raising the cost of something (human labour) will reduce demand (jobs) for that thing. The reality is that it doesn’t, but that isn’t intuitive so in that discussion it’s too hard to present the alternative point of view.
There's a pretty easy counter for that particular example. If the minimum wage is not a living wage then those people on minimum wage need to be topped up with benefits. Thus a lower (or no) minimum wage is in fact corporate welfare. I thought you were against corporate welfare Dr Whyte?
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
As soon as Labour does that, it is saying "we are not one of the big two mainstream parties, alongside National, but just one of a bunch of parties on the 'progressive' side of politics".
But that's the reality of the situation as far as I can see. Perhaps not "one of a bunch", but certainly it seems highly unlikely that they will ever be in a position to govern alone. It's time to acknowledge that fact. A swing to the left that would help Labour will also help the Greens. Labour have been ignoring the Greens for more than a decade, hoping they would go away. They haven't, and won't unless they self-destruct somehow. They're not some puppet party like ACT or United Future being kept a float to game the system. If Labour thinks the way forward is to continue to pretend they are the only significant party on the left then good luck to them, but they have no chance.
Personally I believe climate change is the most significant issue the world has faced since the second world war. I have voted Green purely on this issue and I will continue to vote Green at least until another party makes it the top priority. This election climate change got zero attention. The One News Vote Compass didn't even have a question about it for fuck's sake. That makes me very angry.