“The Magnitude…Is Pretty Overwhelming”: Wall Street Confronts an Abyss Without Precedent
“It’s a shitshow,” the senior Wall Street executive tells me. “I have a thousand balls in the air, trying to manage this, which is not easy.” His biggest concern? “A worry of the unknown.”
It will be far worse than the GFC, the Greater Depression is coming.
Westpac forecasts unemployment will climb by 200,000, and the nature of the virus being able to re-infect means businesses must be prepared to shut down again if new quarantine measures are required.
The hegemonic structure of neoliberalism will be destroyed beyond repair.
This Pandemic is a direct symptom of the climate crisis. As more habitats are destroyed with cheek to jowl over population, viruses that can spread between different species will increase not dissipate.
A vast reimagining of the economy with self sufficiency at its heart will replace globalised free market dogma as an economic philosophy.
A UBI replacing all benefits with fully funded public services designed to help and not punish will be required with enormous investment into a self sufficient economic Tino rangatiratanga.
The realisation that we need economic sovereignty to empower a functioning State that has the resources to protect us from external shocks in a world being defined by external shocks can have powerful consequences politically, culturally and economically.
A new Aotearoa Green Deal is a good starting point…
- Capitalist monopolies in energy, transport and finance have to be brought into public ownership and control. They should be subject to democratic plans drawn up by the whole community. Workers should have much stronger decision making powers within them.
- All economic sectors to be made take steps needed to decarbonise the economy as much as is needed to reach zero net emissions by 2030.
- Free and frequent public transport on electric buses and/or trains in all main cities.
- Health care and education for life should be free and universally accessible.
- Welfare, pensions, child allowances, should be universal wherever possible.
- Taxation should be on wealth before income.
- Public housing at fixed and affordable rents should be a right of all not just the desperately poor.
- All workers should have a right to a job and the workweek reduced with no loss of pay to make that possible.
- Local communes should be supported for control and delivery of as many functions of the centralised state as possible – including housing, education, health care.
- Local communes to support cooperative forms of production of food, solar and wind energy, electric transport, and media.
The Left have an opportunity in front of them to reshape the neoliberal structure, the question is do we have the courage and intellect to be able to do it? Ever since Labour betrayed us in the 1980s, the Left have refused to reengage with the free market debate because they are fearful of the vicious idealogical war it inspired, this crisis demands those fears are pushed aside for serious reconsideration.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice going into this pandemic and 2020 election – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media.
TDB Team 2020.
Nothing will happen unless we fight for it. Let’s all put it out there. It’s the workers who are on the front line of this virus keeping us all fed and cared for if we get ill. Not the rich who have decamped to their bunkers or holiday homes.
As well as beginning a massive online recruiting drive. It is time for the Unions to start flexing their muscles.
The demands on working people have never been harder, working people have never felt more insecure. On the flip side working people have never been in a potentially more powerful position. The need for unions has never been greater.
Suggested Demands:
1/ A government ordered nationwide moratorium on all mortgages and rents until the official declaration of the end of the crisis.
2/ No sackings, no dismissals, no forced redundancies.
(Excepting negotiated redundancies with job loss compensation to the satisfaction of the workers and their representatives).
3/ A union chair on the committee that discusses the return to work and the end of Lock-down.
4/ Danger pay for all essential workers to be negotiated with their representatives.
5/ Close of the Supermarkets on week ends to give these essential workers a break.
Failure to agree to these demands may entail workers being called to stay at home for their health and safety.
First step. A CTU (and non-affiliates) all up on-line leaders strategy planning conference.
First order of business agreeing to a massive coordinated on-line recruiting drive across all media platforms.
Second order of business to present the Prime Minister the united union movement’s minimum list of agreed demands.
(not necessarily the ones I have suggested above, but I would suggest the inclusion of at least 1/ and 5/)
If the government refuse to accept these demands: Especially clause 5/.*
Then the unions must call these workers to self isolate every weekend, for their own health and safety for the term of the lockdown.
*5/ Close the Supermarkets on week ends to give these essential workers a break.
Bit of a mixed bag here. Let’s go point by point:
• Capitalist monopolies in energy, transport and finance have to be brought into public ownership and control. They should be subject to democratic plans drawn up by the whole community. Workers should have much stronger decision making powers within them.
YES. “Winter energy payments” are a terrible indictment of the deregulation of the energy sector. And let’s not forget Air NZ – don’t you just love their present model of “privatize the profits, socialize the losses”?
• All economic sectors to be made take steps needed to decarbonise the economy as much as is needed to reach zero net emissions by 2030.
Shunt this one down the priorities list. Achieving zero emissions here won’t make a blind bit of difference to the planet while the US, China and India continue to pump vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.
• Free and frequent public transport on electric buses and/or trains in all main cities.
Subsidized public transport YES would be feasible. But with the low density of most NZs cities, the cost of “free and frequent” public transport would be astronomical.
• Health care and education for life should be free and universally accessible.
Again, have you any idea of the cost of universal free health care for life? Heavily subsidized universal healthcare YES might be feasible. As for education, YES the scandal of school “donations” must end. University education should be free, but with rigorous academic entry requirements – the present funding model requires universities to enroll many students who shouldn’t be there, leading to compromised academic standards.
• Welfare, pensions, child allowances, should be universal wherever possible.
NO, unless you think intergenerational welfare is a great idea. Our welfare systems needs a serious rethink – it’s plain the present model isn’t working. I don’t know what the answer is, but it definitely isn’t throwing endless free money at everyone who wants it.
• Taxation should be on wealth before income.
I don’t know. Taxation probably also needs a smart rethink. A problem with taxation on wealth is of course that wealthy people with clever lawyers will look for creative ways to hide their assets, reducing the tax-take and increasing administrative and enforcement costs. I wonder if it might help if we gave companies and wealthy individuals some say in how their tax dollars were spent – maybe invite them to choose from an array of options including local schools, hospitals etc. And I’m certainly NOT thinking of this as a PR exercise for the wealthy and companies – rather, a matter of private satisfaction for them. Unrealistic? I really don’t know.
• Public housing at fixed and affordable rents should be a right of all not just the desperately poor.
Public housing a right for all? At fixed rents? Seriously, comrade? Let’s move on to the next one.
• All workers should have a right to a job and the workweek reduced with no loss of pay to make that possible.
How can a government guarantee everyone the “right” to a job, unless everyone works for the state? You might consider moving to Vietnam or North Korea, comrade.
• Local communes should be supported for control and delivery of as many functions of the centralised state as possible – including housing, education, health care.
• Local communes to support cooperative forms of production of food, solar and wind energy, electric transport, and media.
Why not? While it’s hard to imagine a lot of angloceltic Kiwis signing up for life on a commune, the marae model is already there as a base.
Welcome to Cuba 2.0.
@ N?
Do you mean that as a negative ?
If so? What’s wrong with Cuba?
The riche bankster pimping yanks went there and shat all over the Cubans so the Cubans kicked their arses out?
What’s wrong with that?
Go the Cubans I say.
Are you wearing a Che Guevara T shirt or are you wearing a donald trump T shirt?
Neither of those t-shirts is particularly appealing.
But you do realise that without exports we can’t afford imports? So no new cars (or parts), no new computers, no new TV’s, no readily affordable clothes/shoes, no pharmaceuticals, no mobile phones (actually that would be a big plus) etc. We’re effectively exchanging all those things listed above that they produce in surplus for the things we produce in surplus. In our case, that would be the primary sector. And to do that in a manner to lift everyone’s standard of living, we need our primary export market to be a V8 that fires on ALL cylinders, not a broken two-stroke motor that only occasionally starts.
Martyn’s prescription is going to turn us into a slightly more modern version of Cuba (which is perfectly fine for some course, but I doubt the average NZer is eager for it).
Are you asking for more of what we have before lockdown.
Imported junk that fills landfills and cars that last a handful of years.
We don’t need that shit.
Digital is a worry and retaining the net as an educational asset needs some conservative thinking for a low cost, low resource depleting national system.
That’s why 1000 of Americans have risked life and limb to cross from Florida to Cuba for the past 40 years…ops actually it’s the other way around. Ever once thought why?
May I ask if you have noticed the Cold War ended in the 90’s?
And Cuba may be better off without some of them.
Ah that old chestnut that perpetrators of despotic regimes love to trot out. “If you don’t like then fuck off and take your millions with you…we don’t need them.” Until someone asks “er…who pays for all this?”
Reenforcing the adage that socialists hate the rich, more than they care for the poor.
Have you forgotten what happened in 2008?
bg
“Reenforcing the adage that socialists hate the rich, more than they care for the poor.”
Evidence please.
Perhaps the slave should love his master might suit better do you think.
Bit of a mixed bag here. Let’s go bit by bit:
• Capitalist monopolies in energy, transport and finance have to be brought into public ownership and control. They should be subject to democratic plans drawn up by the whole community. Workers should have much stronger decision making powers within them.
YES. “Winter energy payments” are a terrible indictment of the deregulation of the energy sector. And let’s not forget Air NZ – don’t you just love their present model of “privatize the profits, socialize the losses”?
• All economic sectors to be made take steps needed to decarbonise the economy as much as is needed to reach zero net emissions by 2030.
Shunt this one down the priorities list. Achieving zero emissions here won’t make a blind bit of difference to the planet if the US, China and India continue to pump vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.
• Free and frequent public transport on electric buses and/or trains in all main cities.
Heavier subsidies of public transport YES. But with the low density of most of NZ’s cities, the cost of “free and frequent” public transport would be astronomical.
• Health care and education for life should be free and universally accessible.
Again, have you any idea of the cost of universal free health care for life? Heavily subsidized universal healthcare YES might be feasible. As for education, YES the scandal of school “donations” must end. University education should be free, but with rigorous academic entry requirements – the present funding model requires universities to enroll students who shouldn’t be there, leading to dumbing down and some unfortunate situations that we won’t go into.
• Welfare, pensions, child allowances, should be universal wherever possible.
NO, unless you think intergenerational welfare is a great idea. Our welfare systems needs a serious rethink – it’s plain the present model isn’t working. I don’t know what the answer is, but it definitely isn’t throwing endless free money at everyone who wants it.
• Taxation should be on wealth before income.
I don’t know. Taxation probably also needs a smart rethink. A problem with taxation on wealth is of course that wealthy people with clever lawyers will look for creative ways to hide their assets, reducing the tax-take and increasing administrative and enforcement costs. I wonder if it might help if we gave companies and wealthy individuals some say in how their tax dollars were spent – maybe invite them to choose from an array of options including local schools, hospitals etc. And I’m certainly NOT thinking of this as a PR exercise for the wealthy and companies – rather, a matter of private satisfaction for them. Unrealistic? Naive? I really don’t know.
• Public housing at fixed and affordable rents should be a right of all not just the desperately poor.
Public housing a right for all? At fixed rents? Seriously, comrade? Let’s move on to the next one.
• All workers should have a right to a job and the workweek reduced with no loss of pay to make that possible.
How can a government guarantee everyone a “right” to a job, unless everyone works for the state? You might consider moving to Vietnam or Cuba, comrade.
• Local communes should be supported for control and delivery of as many functions of the centralised state as possible – including housing, education, health care.
• Local communes to support cooperative forms of production of food, solar and wind energy, electric transport, and media.
Why not? While it’s hard to imagine a lot of angloceltic Kiwis signing up for life on a commune, the marae model is already there as a base.
I jumped up and ran outside and looked around and I couldn’t find any other way to agree more completely and totally with your Post @ MB.
In fact? If you go back through some of my comments you will see a similar sentiment throughout.
Forget wall st. Forgetaboutit. We, as a country are unique and they are irrelevant.
We must cut the banksters off from our $6 billion and arrest and take into custody roger douglas pending his trial. Then our SIS/GCSB/SAS must hunt down his known associates then freeze their assets and hold them in custody too.
That, is the first thing we must do. Fuck with letting the little prick/s away with anything.
Then? Every single thing you suggest above.
Farmers? I’d suggest you sharpen your plowshares because here comes demand !
You’ll no longer be hindered by crushing debts swindled onto you by fat freaks in suits spreading Blue Herpies. You’ll no longer have to watch as your money’s drained off and away to some foreign fucker.
While some of you might despair at us seemingly hurtling to a terrible demise, I have great hope.
On a darker note.
Beware of the ‘Them’s’. They’ll not go quietly.
With what Dr Doom has recently ‘predicted’. The US has reacted too slow and too late to steer this virus off. A recession for the US is a definite and a depression is likely.
The bounce in the US stock market is just that and the US Treasury doesnt have anymore fire power left because buyers of US Bonds are few and far between, meaning, they won’t be able to guarantee their bonds and the Feds money printing habit and this is why the Billionaires arent playing the game like they use to. They too are cashing in, gold is on a slide, bitcoin tanked, pump & dump(ed).
The ‘Rain Man’ Ray Dalio; market makers are saying if he can’t make it rain, nobody can.
The EU is impotent and China is going to have to create a supply problem to stave off domestic inflation. Putting a leash on trade growth/expansion for years.
MBS & Putin are happy to crash the oil price and keep it below $30USD/brl to kill off US Fracking/Shale Oil.
NZ being a wart on the arse end of the big blue bubble has got a good credit score but thats no good when nobody is lending?
The 2600 billionaires have sucked up the worlds liquidity and done a runner!
Corporate parasitic companies are dead in the water, buried in debt.
Trumps fuck’d is about the only good news.
What absolute dribble.
Mike Hosking is a tinfoil hat for the neoliberal apologist. Mr Hosking underlies the systemic problems in neoliberalism, he’s dramatic and headline grabbing but it’s important to understand the underlying systemic problems that was exposed by Winston choosing Labour over National. It’s low key racism and a kind of rendering parts of the economy into subdominant secondary positions which is also sexist, but it’s very old.
The neoliberal social and work view is out of date. For one, the limitation on the economy and politicos was that you had to convert people for an economy where sales just isn’t there any more, and you need the economy to get higher paying jobs to do stuff people need and that takes a lot of mingling. Flattening the curve doesn’t just mean level 4 restriction for 4 weeks and then take our foot off, it means redoubling efforts into public health initiatives to keep infection rates down, as much as practicable.
Nowadays, New Zealand face energy challenges, medical challenges, immigration and tourism can no longer be relied on. The government is trying to pump billions into the economy but there’s no where to spend it besides into a grocery duopoly between Foodstuff and I forget the other one.
The neoliberal response is also very old, it is rooted in long lasting religion and culture we all know this. Neoliberalism promised prosperity, unity fraternity, democracy and in this corona crises it has failed to deliver. The crucial problem that needs to be addressed is the distribution of wealth between employer and employee. Clearly Mike Hosking’s has huge psychological problems with employees getting a fair shake and he has horrible ideas of how to practice his neoliberal views and he goes about acting out his issues and problems in the media. But it’s neoliberalism that put him there with his vast problems.
What do I mean well first of all the employer can deprive the employee of PPE, penalty rates for working through a public health crises and now they can simply with hold pay because essential services have to continue or people will die.
This situation is made to order for Mike Hoskings neoliberal apologies, business over the people and employers over employees. That’s an extraordinary power to have over people, the power over who eats, lives and who dies all in the hands of the neoliberal apologist, no longer.
“The neoliberal social and work view is out of date.”
You make it sound like an unfashionable hairstyle. The neoliberal model never was any good.
The collapse of the economy has lead many to speculate about the Wuhan virus. Unfortunately many have taken pieces of the truth and added pieces of their own., what resulted in this are dangerous and damaging conspiracy theories. The decades of neoliberal propaganda have taken its toll. The neoliberal apologists argue that socialists are attempting to take over democracy, because of this fabrication many ranging from media personalities to conspiracy theorists online believe that lefties are evil. Despite neoliberalizm having its flaws the neoliberal apologists believe that even lefties are beyond the evils of neoliberalism.
Time has not been kind to left wing politics as many believe the Labour Party betrayed them for rogernomics but many lefties wrongfully deduce that Jacinda wil maintain the status quo. But how could she maintain the status quo when the Wuhan virus has utterly destroyed it. Because of this there is no discernment between neoliberalizm and who ever holds the office of The Prime Minister no mater who that might be. The logic being that neoliberalizm has ceased to function and no amount of PR management can resurrect it’s corpse.
As many still hold the belief that the left is responsible for much heart ache it will only be after years of explanation will many be persuaded that neoliberalizm is in fact right wing and not left wing politics.
“neoliberalizm is in fact right wing and not left wing politics.”
Yes in fact the far far right.
Sam there are many details to discuss and argue about but the creation of money is the fundamental underlying problem with our economy. We are bled continuously.
How did we operate before tourism, wine and a few other luxury based operations existed in any significant measure.
Our export dollar as it is, gets chewed up with exported dividends from offshore owned corporations including our power companies, private hospitals, age care institutions, retail chains and so on. Whats left is offset by importation of goods that keep Kiwis out of a job.
Free global trade is a disease we will continue to suffer from until the power to make decisions is taken from behind closed doors and out into free and open public discussion of the bigger issues with a free press not owned by the same cartel that run corporations and banks.
How many pairs of shoes do you need. We made them in NZ once.
Those shoes were hideous. So 2 things there’s fashion design and then there’s textile design. While I think the government could pay people to produce textile designs and commodities for primary industry I don’t think they can pay people to design trendy fashion items for the government. I think the government could produce blanks (so they say in the industry) but I don’t think they can reproduce trademarks, that’s what we need entrepreneurs for. Okay 3 things.
It’s extraordinary. What enables John Key and Bill English to openly and covertly oppress kiwis the people who came forward against them (Dotcom, ponytail gate, Bill English’s Texts and all the people who chose not to come forward because of all the humiliation and embarrassing consequences of being treated as second class citizens. What enables them to harass hundreds of thousands of people is the system that allows those problems to be so devastating for so many. The bottom line here is how we organize something as fundamental as money.
80% of taxpayers allow a small number of people to have extraordinary wealth and power over them. Can the 20% use it against the majority of course they can. Do the 20% use there wealth and power to humiliate the bottom 80%? Yes! That’s what John Key literally paid Cameron Slater to do and the problem is I if we don’t deal with the problem of inequality then we haven’t really dealt with the issues that Cameron Slater put up to slow down and prevent 80% of all taxpayers from getting a fair shake.
johnky and blinglish had the backing of the wealthy cabal who own MSM and have direct influence on what gets on our TV screens and radio.
Looks good Martyn. Watch out for the local commune thought. Their heads are often filled with hopeful drivel, or they masquerade as being community minded but not willing to walk the talk.
When looking at the co-housing idea, I wanted a system where there is a limit on house price inflation; they wanted a village but they wanted to participate in the rising housing prices as well. I thought we have got to a stage where any joint thing has to be done with the market in mind, but the seller of a house or unit would be hobbled, perhaps have to sell back to the Housing Trust for an agreed system of value, and then put back after painting and repairing.
We need smaller houses to live in. They are to live in not act as opulent status symbols often filled with junk.
Many single men and women could do well in a single roomed house designed to have all functions, or a group of simpler single roomed houses and shared communal facilities.
Nothing new but seem to have been forgotten.
We used to have that with boarding houses and flatmates… Compass seems to be providing a boarding house type service at great cost for social housing. The premise of the low cost housing has gone, but the lack of amenities for tenants has been adopted. Not sure if that is a win. Sarcasm.
Not to mention the growing Meth and dysfunctional people needing accomodation.
Not much environmental ‘green’ in your list.
As people normally under the business umbrella, are allowed to destroy the earth under the guise of capitalism, communism or even the new Labourite speak ‘green deal’ (sounds like greenwashing) there doesn’t seem to be much attention to what happens when the frequency of natural disasters, viruses/plagues, decreased natural diversity, decreased healthy/safe food and increased air, water and land pollution and increased human population does to the ‘green deal’.
Report reveals ‘massive plastic pollution footprint’ of drinks firms
Report says plastic from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Unilever products could cover 83 football pitches every day
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/31/report-reveals-massive-plastic-pollution-footprint-of-drinks-firms
‘Green deals’ can’t work under the current climate of large multi national polluters ‘gaming’ the system in a harmful way, then profiting from it, and avoiding responsibility through prolonging litigation and hiding documents while lobbying (and paying off via donations and future jobs) governments and officials. (The Tobacco strategy).
Internal documents describe how to profit from farmer losses and desire to oppose some independent testing
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/monsanto-crop-system-damage-us-farms-documents
Also the above Monsanto/Tobacco strategy is used for for leaky buildings in NZ, where the product makers hide behind the same excuses, it was not our fault, it was the operators (weird how practically every house that was built with the faulty products, failed no matter who built them).
With leaky building government also gave free rides to the haloed construction industry and glossed over their officials own role in approving not fit for purpose construction products and ways of building that were not fit for purpose (aka using non tantalised pine/soft woods for framing, no cavities, external cladding that is not watertight for very long and need replacing extensive maintenance within years, still happening with Grenfell style cladding that actually spreads fires, Skycity burning down recently which seemed to rely solely on fire sprinklers not actually having fire retardant materials or good practise in constructing the building).
A few headlines showing big business going strong or asking for/about to receive government handouts.
Coronavirus: Cigarettes are essential, MBIE confirms
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120654996/coronavirus-cigarettes-are-essential-mbie-confirms
(not doctors prescribing nicotine patches to save our health system!)
Emitters offered extra time to report footprints
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/120686469/coronavirus-emitters-offered-extra-time
Government looks to fund large ‘shovel-ready’ infrastructure projects after COVID-19 lockdown
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/04/government-looks-to-fund-large-shovel-ready-infrastructure-projects-after-covid-19-lockdown.html
Coronavirus: The shocking numbers that reveal how tough Air NZ’s fight for survival is
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/travel/2020/03/coronavirus-the-shocking-numbers-that-reveal-how-tough-air-nz-s-fight-for-survival-is.html
Coronavirus: Paymark figures show 50 percent increase in spending in days before lockdown
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2020/03/coronavirus-paymark-figures-show-50-percent-increase-in-spending-in-days-before-lockdown.html
Ruby Princess passengers deemed ‘low risk’
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/ruby-princess-passengers-deemed-low-risk
This is the stupidest public movement ever. We are sacrificing the low paid, the underemployed, the struggling small business owner, the gig economy worker purely to save the boomers. The most spoiled generation in history. Free education, including uni, while those who have to borrow can’t work to pay it back.
Let them go. They’ve had the opportunity to save enough to afford self isolation in one of their many homes.
The rest of us need to be able to save for the future while building immunity. Shame on jacinda for pandering to the boomer vote. She knows better
Hey! Capitalist monopolies in energy, transport and finance have to be brought into public ownership and control.
I don’t expect any real leadership from the neo-liberals in power nor those waiting in the wings. I expect this to be the latest trigger to collapse;
https://kevinhester.live/2019/09/05/collapse-the-only-realistic-scenario/
Comments are closed.