Our pretension of being an egalitarian country deserves some formal burial. 30 years of neoliberal mythology has marinated into the culture so that selfishness becomes a preferred flavour rather than an altruistic societal gag reflex.
News that NZ CEO’s are earning 10% increases on their already astronomical salaries while quarter of a million children live in poverty is just the latest example of how we’ve allowed the ‘market’ to determine our values.
Some of these CEO’s earn $2million per year.
No human being is worth $2million per year.
Plutocracy isn’t just the wealthy having power, it’s a way of being so that the rich not only take more, they bias the system in every structure. What was once the land of the Long White Cloud has become the Land of the Wrong White Crowd as a tiny beige elite turn Aotearoa into a one party state.
In John we trust.
Look at the fact we have so many illegal quarries in NZ. Worker rights to simply be able to come home in one piece without injury or death are so watered down and poorly regulated that we don’t even have a register of how many bloody quarries are officially operating in our country. When workers are merely replaceable, they have become serfs in a feudal corporate state.
Look at how debt collectors have been allowed to warp justice for the poor. The madness of making Legal Aid a loan that attracts interest and penalty payments means the poor and the working poor are forced to decide if pleading guilty is just cheaper than demanding justice. To then pursue those Legal Aid recipients and mutilate their credit rating dooms them to a life of misery every bit as immobilising as a cell in a private prison.
Look at how the Government has already sold 443 state houses in 2014, at an average of 13.3 per cent below the government valuation. Despite needing to steal Maori Land to continue with their supply side fantasises (which are purposely designed to not end the property speculation because it’s creating the illusion of economic growth), privatising state houses so that the Government can continue affording to borrow tax cuts for the rich is a kick in the teeth to those who are frozen sick shivering in poor housing this winter.
When Mike Hosking saying he’s over news about who is hard done by or ripped off becomes the benchmark for public broadcasting, the flower of social justice will struggle against the thistle of vanity.
Re-seeding these barren Isles will take a decade.
Yeah well Mike Hosking is a wanker and an idiot to begin with and the only 80-90% he is drawing those figures from ,…are his own sycophantic little Key groupies .
Not only is it a purely subjective and ‘ loaded ‘ truckload of consumerist tripe barely concealed as vitriol to foment controversy ….but as per usual – has no references whatsoever to back up any of his claims.
Just a fleeting and irrelevant claim of stats that quotes some outfit that is never tested against the findings of another group of stats saying entirely the opposite.
So …that takes care of the idiot Hoskings…now…the legal aid thing……seems rather like financial entrapment to be honest ,….
The CEO’s….well ,…we’ve had 35 years of them rorting , pilfering from the public purse and not paying their taxes…
Indeed….it is not that hard to see how revolutions start.
And we have richlisters who fear the poor in their own country’s who come here and buy luxuriant rural property’s thinking they have found a safe haven in NZ.
What makes them think they will be any safer with NZ poor?
“I only want to hear good news” = “I don’t actually want to hear the news, I just really like the chalkboards outside cafes.”
If you make enough people’s lives merely a struggle for survival there will always be blowback – revolution. There is not a single example in history where this doesn’t happen. The war on democracy has already been won, so seeking a political solution is no longer available. If you doubt the reality of this, check out Chris Hedges’ latest take on the US election farce – and look for the parallels and options available.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_electoral_farce_20150616
The only variable is the tipping point, which with NZ’ers, is likely to be at the ‘late adopter’ end of the scale. It’s time to be realistic about choices; It’s either blowback or suck it up. I know what my choice is.
Right there Martyn, Plenty more of these Tom Hayes characters around today until the next gigantic crash eh!
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/world/a/28227449/alleged-libor-ringleader-motivated-by-greed-trial-hears/
We now have a heartless country, under six long years of a greedy mob of rustlers & carpetbaggers within National that are fighting over the bare bones of our once rich equally shared egalitarian society.
A very sad day we are living amongst as Bilderberg is plotting to control us all while we are disarmed without a safety net of democracy to fall back on.
…and the landowners with mud-for-brains, not even good compost, continue to vote for them on the basis of greed.
Giant strides toward the reestablishment of the medieval social order.
The only place New Zealand the egalitarian society exists anymore is in television advertising.
Last week the DomPost ran a front page headline to the effect “They are making P in our baches”. Our baches? Only very wealthy people and people who have kept it in the family for generations own a bach anymore.
With government’s poorly thought out land/housing *initiative* (read theft) about to hit the skids in Auckland, as Ngati Whatua and Tainui consider challenging the Crown in the courts on the issue, wait and watch for the diversion to appear.
That’s right. The flag issue will be rolled out once again! You know the one. That which is kept aside for when government gets into the proverbial! Just a matter of time now … countdown has begun!
And – short of arming yrself to the teeth and storming the halls of power, what can we do about it! Most people have just given up, hunkered down and hope it’ll all crash around their ears.
Look to history…….
Well said. Addressing the supply side, FULLY knowing that this can’t be achieved in a reasonable time-frame (given how long it takes to build a house), is purely smoke and mirrors bullshit. This housing bubble could be instantly solved very simply by introducing (for e.g.) a 50% capital gains tax on all Auckland home owners with more than two houses (being very generous) and ALL non-NZ residents who have a house in Auckland. Naturally this Government would never even entertain such a solution, since they know full well that the “rockstar” NZ economy is being financed to a massive degree by this very property market (along with the Christchurch rebuild). It’s very telling that pretty much everything we have seen done so far to “help make houses more affordable” has been to ADVANCE the bubble, not to pop or slow it.
“Re-seeding these barren Isles will take a decade.”
Perhaps longer.
Right on Martyn. Just noticed the flag too. A picture says 1000 words. People keep saying Grocer will not accept a TPPA deal that is bad for NZ. Just accepting a secret deal without allowing the scrutiny of the NZ public is bad, unless of course Grocer knows everything about everything.
Better start the re-seeding and planting now. It would be nice to have a country that our future generations can be proud of again, even if it takes a decade or more to do. Thanks for nothing National.
Yes but we have to fight the hidden enemy Kim Dandy.
Check this out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYWx_cFzqro
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