Posts by George Darroch
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Does the Labour Party have any level of responsibility for losing the 2008 election, or do they just have the misfortune of being in a world that doesn’t deserve their incandescent collective righteousness?
That position won't find any dissent from me. I think worst of the last Labour Government is still unrecognised, because it pertains to issues where the disagreement between Labour and National is a matter of degree, rather than kind. Things like an unregulated housing market, food price affordability, laisse faire employment markets.
The political centre in NZ is actually pretty far from where it is in other countries, on a range of issues. Sometimes it's a good thing, other times obviously not.
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Just yesterday, I got a very dismissive response to a detailed, and I thought fair, set of criticisms of the Labour Party backing down from priniciples they claim as their core: "it must be nice to be up there on your moral high horse".
New Zealand's a small place, and you end up with pretty withering criticism of people you either know personally, or are friends of friends. It does seem to be hard to get the balance right. Either you're peddling softly, and stepping around what you feel amounts to the core of the issue - in which case you're ignored and the issue at hand isn't addressed, or you're hammering the issue, with all that entails.
Or maybe I'm just not very delicate. But I promise I'm not concern-trolling.
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I can't blame them, but they are wrong. If you're not planning for the future, you're not actually living within your means. But this is not a concept we readily accept here,
Television and advertising sell us an idea of what a good life involves. It is based on aspiration to things we currently don't have. Giovanni has a fascinating examination of the relationship between ourselves and our objects, and the mediation of advertising. Slightly off topic, but wonderful anyway.
So we get to the point where a good percentage feel we can just magic up that standard of living indefinitely, without savings. Politicians are reluctant to disavow them of this delusion, and in any case blame the actions of others. And it continues, the inevitable becoming more inevitable.
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Morgue's acidic response to the PM.
July 2008: sports broadcaster resigns after it emerges he violently and viciously assaulted his then-partner.
April 2009: sports broadcaster pleads guilty to the charge
Jan 2010: sports broadcaster back on the air!
Jan 2011: sports broadcaster begins weekly on-air chats with the Prime Minister.So there’s the lesson, people. If you are guilty of brutally assaulting a woman, it could be as long as TWENTY MONTHS before the Prime Minister jokingly tells you which celebrities he’d most like to have sex with. CRIME DOESN’T PAY
Is there suppression of outrage in the media (plenty of people I know are outraged), or do the majority of people think that it simply isn't a big deal?
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One point I would make on this is that all of these companies operate in a space where it’s hard to increase profits through operational innovation
That's not very ambitious. Surely if we privatise, companies will find other ways to make electrons fly through time and space? Tesla coils!
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regulation is a word that engenders responses similar to those one gets from bringing angels on horseback to a kosher dinner party.
For good reason
Regulators, mount up!
Warren G.
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It's like living in a country run by Ricky Gervais.
- Gordon Campbell
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those poor bastards who’re trying to raise a family on the back of two, or three, minimum-wage jobs.
The disgustingly discriminatory secondary tax rate still applies, right? If there's any tax that slugs the poorest, it's the one that means the person struggling to pull together 30 hours a week from two minimum wage jobs pays higher effective rates than someone earning large multiples of her income.
The Economist looked at New Zealand's taxes in 2006, after six years of Labour government ("The case for flat taxes" April 25 2006). They found that because of the low levels of progressiveness, tax exemptions, and the high level of GST, only the top 10% paid significantly more than they would have under a 25% flat tax system., and only the lower 10% paid less. With the recent increase in the flat tax (GST), and tax cuts to the top brackets, I'm sure those results would be largely replicated.
(This does not count after-tax redistribution of income and public/private-goods, which is another thing entirely)
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Thanks. Worth a read. And concise.
He always is. Gordon and Lyndon both deserve columns at a major newspaper, or at least regular slots. I'm sure there's a market for clear-headed analytic commentary. In the meantime, we'll just keep on Scoop'n.
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That's a delectable visual taster Lisa.