Last week, retirement-savers from around the country were shocked to discover that their hard-earned investment funds were potentially going towards funding the invention, sale and distribution of land mines, cluster munitions, and other nefarious products. Nuclear weapons are also apparently on the portfolio-books.
This is, predictably, quite shocking for many of us (particularly given all other Government long-term investment vehicles such as ACC and the Cullen Fund have stringent policies against pouring public money in these insalubrious directions); but sadly, what wasn’t shocking at all was the Government’s completely lackluster non-response to this pressing issue.
As in so many instances surrounding Kiwisaver’s ongoing fate under National – ranging from the official slashing of Employer Contributions, through to tens of millions of dollars effectively being STOLEN from employees thanks to bosses not passing money on to the fund, and on into the occasionally ruinously high fees charged by some fund-operators – the Government’s silence when it comes to proposing serious solutions has been deafening.
In stark contrast to this, there’s one party which has long believed in the advancement of citizen-based national savings (often in the format of state-directed sovereign wealth funds) … and it should therefore come as no surprise that New Zealand First has an elegant answer for pretty much all of the above issues:
We provide a #Nationalized option for employees’ retirement savings, called Kiwifund.
This policy was first put forward by NZF in reaction to news that private Kiwisaver providers had managed to cream off somewhere upwards of a BILLION DOLLARS worth of fees and assorted other charges thanks to lax oversight of the scheme by the state. (By comparison, the administration costs for the Government’s own superannuation vehicle – which is roughly the same size in dollar terms as the combined totals of Kiwisaver funds – comes in at a paltry 1.5% of that.)
But the reasoning for putting this idea back on the table now is a little different. The other chief advantage we have by farming our retirement savings out to the state rather than private fund managers is that there’s therefore a greater degree of ethical behavior and morality which we can thus expect from the scheme’s investment decisions. As already noted, this wouldn’t have happened at either ACC or the Cullen Fund – the Government’s other long-term investment vehicles – due to exactly the sort of legislative prohibitions which would also prevent Kiwifund from doing likewise.
What last week’s shocking developments have roundly evinced is that when it comes to managing our money, the private sector regularly engages in shonky practices. We’ve already known for quite some time that this includes rampant profiteering at our collective expense. However it is altogether disquieting to find out that their recklessness is not limited to the level of profit extracted from us, but also the specific sources and mechanisms used to generate same.
It is increasingly clear, now, that the only way to truly remedy and rectify this woeful situation is to bring a large portion of the scheme under the aegis of a public-managed and -overseen fund.
Thank goodness that one political party had the foresight and the vision some years ago to propose a policy which would do exactly that.
We shouldn’t need savings. In fact, as money is quite literally nothing then saving money achieves nothing.
When we take this into account then it becomes obvious that we have to address the delusion that a person having money entitles that person to have more money. In other words, we have to address the usury of capitalism.
A UBI removes the need for retirement income.
A good state house system removes the need for people to own homes.
The government creating money (balanced by taxes) to create the necessary infrastructure to ensure that everyone can have a reasonable living standard removes the apparent need for savings.
Money’s sole purpose is to get a nations resources moving. Saving money actually prevents that and interest/shareholding ensures that all money ends up the hands of the few imbalancing the flow of resources to those few as well as allowing them to control the nations resources.
The inevitable result is a feudal system and finally the collapse of society. This is the lesson that we’ve refused to learn over the last 5000 years. Every capitalist society has collapsed because of the imbalance caused by the rich.
The rich are not the solution, the rich are the problem.
I would have sent this message via an inbox rather than publicly so as gently as I can I just want to say UBI expands retirement payments.
The consumption of resources far exceeds the capacity of the Earth to produce them, and the generation of pollutants far exceeds the capacity of the Earth to process them.
People throughout the world have been lied to by governments for decades, and the crunch is coming soon. The current global population overshoot and current average standard of living cannot be sustained for much longer: both will collapse, either via starvation and disease or via military conflict.
The longer present economic arrangements are allowed to persist (propped up) the nastier the collapse will be.
The privileged few of the USA have ravaged the American landscape and seek to conquer and ravage Russia (the last large source of untapped resources).
America conquering Russia is something the Russians, understandably, are not at all keen on, so they have been preparing their both defences and their offensive capabilities.
‘A martial principle of great wisdom says that military stupidity comes in three grades: Ordinarily stupid; really, really, really stupid; and fighting Russia.’
http://www.unz.com/freed/hillary-trump-and-war-with-russia/
It’s shocking these savings are funding the killing of other humans. There is a better system coming our way:
http://inteldinarchronicles.blogspot.co.nz/2016/08/gesara-intel-sitrep-160000-wednesday.html
This is all BS, we should not even allow investment in arms peddling or manufacturing companies. Recall it, rename it, and so, that is not enough. And we have BS all over in the Mid East, as we learn today, how the treacherous US have once again betrayed an “ally”, the YPG, who were convenient before in the fight against ISIS, and who have instead sided with Turkey and the FSA to slaughter the very fighters they first supported.
The US and for that sake any ANGLO SAXON forces are the forces of treason and deserve NO trust. So the war will go on for a long, long time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2v1BJ3x2V0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktSv3hKpavI
Dream of “peace” when all the main players are traitors and back stabbers, who have no interest in peace and negotiations.
Commerce Minister Paul Goldsmith, a diehard neoliberal, you may even say libertarian, he sticks to his ridiculous line:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/311899/police-to-make-call-on-kiwisaver-investments-minister
As for the saver, it is apparently all about choice and taking own responsibility, oh yeah, have we not heard that before.
Why then do they not liberalise marihuana, perhaps even legalise it, as people may then be able to “choose” whether to consume and use it or not?
We see though, same with the shop trading hours, the government serves the interests of business, not the worker and ordinary citizen. Soon Councils will decide whether shops open on Easter Sunday.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/document/00DBHOH_BILL66378_1/shop-trading-hours-amendment-bill
And there have been other laws, that show the true face of a hypocritical, lying government, I could present a list, but will not bother.
Let’s not forget that nuclear weapons and cluster bombs were instrumental in preventing a Red Army invasion of Europe and hence WW3.
You may not like them but cluster bombs are an essential ingredient in a modern defensive arsenal.
Is NZ brass seeking expressions of interest for multi warhead munitions?
Never mind that “collateral damage” then, little babies torn to pieces, same as others, civilians same as fighters then?
Remember there have been international agreements against cluster bombs and mines!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
But Andrew does not care, I guess.
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