IN THE COMING YEAR New Zealand politics will be driven by two inter-related forces: brown poverty and white guilt. Jacinda Ardern’s government will not be given a choice on the issue of brown poverty. Dealing with white guilt, however, will be very much a matter of opting to behave wisely or foolishly. It remains to be seen whether Labour possesses the wisdom to not act like a fool.
The capital city rumour mills have recently been grinding out an intriguing story involving a head-on stoush between Grant Robertson and Willie Jackson. It seems that Robertson carelessly reassured a group of Treasury bureaucrats that spending across all portfolios would be strictly constrained for the foreseeable future. Grant’s big mistake was to say this in front of the Maori Development Minister.
As a general rule, ministers do not contradict each other in front of their departmental advisers. As Don Corleone admonished his eldest son, Sonny, in The Godfather, it is most unwise to display the slightest disunity in front of anybody other than “family” members. Apparently (and understandably) Willie called BS on that – openly contradicting Grant’s fiscal reassurances, at least as far as spending on Maori issues is concerned.
The ensuing barney was, reportedly, so intense that the whole dispute was handed up to Jacinda for resolution. The fact that Willie is still in his post strongly suggests that if the rumour about this epic ministerial battle is true, then Grant did not win it.
What is indisputable about the current predicament of Maori New Zealanders is that if it is allowed to worsen, then some sort of explosion is likely to result. Poverty and homelessness are not improving with anything like the rapidity required to head-off major disturbances in the most deprived “brown” suburbs. One has only to read the Maori Party MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi’s, maiden speech to appreciate how angry Maori are becoming:
“I refuse to allow my tamariki or my mokopuna to one day sit in the same seat asking the same question. We will no longer accept this approach, as it allows the State to continue to feast on the dysfunction that it has created amongst our people. We will no longer accept that the State continues to fund itself every year to allow Oranga Tamariki to steal more of our babies, a justice system to lock up more of our people, a welfare system that keeps my people dependent and poor, an education system that keeps my people dumb, a health system that keeps my people sick, and a housing system that keeps my people homeless. This has to stop.”
Willie Jackson, with his longstanding and very close ties to urban Maori, knows that if he and Labour’s Maori caucus do not produce meaningful progress on the failings alluded to by Waititi, then the Maori Party will be quick to exploit their failure. That’s why Jackson is unwilling to keep silent about the prospect of an austerity budget. If they are to make a real dent in poverty and homelessness, then he and his Maori colleagues are going to need money – lots and lots of money.
Almost against its will, Ardern’s government is going to have to engage in massive amounts of public spending. What’s more, it will not be politically acceptable for this mobilisation of state resources to be directed solely at Maori communities. Working-class Pakeha, Pasifika and other immigrant families will have to be offered the same fiscal support. Jacinda and her colleagues are going to have to become socialists in spite of themselves!
It is at this point that so-called “woke” elements of the Professional & Managerial Class (PMC) will have to choose whether or not to make, or break, the Ardern government. This includes members of the PMC inside Labour’s caucus, as well as those outside it. If Labour MPs, under pressure from guilt-ridden white radicals, opt to offer legislative validation to the most divisive elements of the so-called “Culture Wars”, then the broad social unity needed to buttress a colour-blind programme of social uplift will be undermined. The war against poverty and homelessness will be fatally compromised by the war of the woke against the un-woke.
Sadly, there is a real possibility that the PMC will do exactly this. So great is its guilty sense of having been born with far too many advantages, and so certain is it that Pakeha workers, denied its guiding hand, will never be able to understand the true extent of their “privilege”, the PMC is perfectly capable of deciding that homelessness and poverty are second-order issues. Matters to be addressed only after the Pakeha working-class has proved itself worthy of enjoying the socially integrative benefits of warm, dry, affordable houses and well-paying jobs.
The woke are very big supporters of “intersectionality” – the concept of fighting all the ills of society simultaneously, rather than “privileging” one form of injustice over another. It’s a concept that conflicts fundamentally with the idea of politics being all about the ordering of priorities. What is often called “the art of the possible”. With Labour’s Maori caucus prioritising action on poverty, housing, education, justice and health, about the best thing the PMC’s woke intersectionalists could do to assist the Ardern government, and working-class people of all ethnicities and genders, is maintain a solidaristic silence.
“Jacinda and her collegues are going to have to become socialists despite themselves”
Thanks Chris. Best prediction I have read for 2021 and if only one prediction is true then I hope it is this one.
That’s more of an instruction really, not a prediction. They won’t do it though, I bet my bottom dollar. That would entail actually ‘doing’ something as opposed to ‘saying’ a whole lot. Doing is not what Jacinda does…we all know that.
These two…
“The war against poverty and homelessness will be fatally compromised by the war of the woke against the un-woke.”
This is just annoying – what war against poverty and homelessness are you talking about? There isn’t one and there isn’t going to be one regardless of Willie Jackson and Maori MP’s making impressive speeches.
I think you misunderstand democracy – 60% of NZ own property and they turn up to vote in the greatest numbers and they have consistently elected governments that disregard the poor and overlook wealth re-distributive policies.
Somewhat derisory though it is I’ll accept the label of “guilt-ridden white radical” but there simply isn’t enough of us to exert any significant pressure on the current government. The vast majority of the 60% of property owning NZer’s are not guilt ridden white radicals – they are the ordinary middle and working class who take little interest in politics beyond it’s affect on property prices and anything that may take even a tiny slither of their accumulated wealth.
There is no mandate for ending poverty in NZ so the supposed threat to it from Woke policies is mute and I think simply misdirected and over stated any way. (that’s a whole other issue in itself.)
The types of economic policy shifts that are needed to alleviate poverty are enormous and will require an equally enormous cultural shift amongst the property owning majority in NZ.
History tells us that economic and social injustice is only addressed through violent revolution or the threat of it and this only happens when a large enough proportion of the population have nothing to lose. That proportion of the population in NZ is not yet large enough (or conscious enough) to present a threat.
The current government will be able to rest on the assurance that maintaining the comfort of middle class NZ is really all it needs to do. Sure there’ll be a handful of social houses and lot’s more rousing speeches by Maori MP’s and that will be all that’s needed to win the next election and carry on as before.
So, no, woke politics isn’t going to undermine efforts to alleviate poverty because there aren’t going to be any.
And if there is ever “a war against poverty” in NZ it won’t be undermined by the woke – it will be undermined by the middle class baulking at paying a cent more in tax and the working class despising their unemployed neighbors.
Yes, that is the way of it.
” 60% of NZ own property”.. Way to oversimplify, to the point of misrepresentation… As of 2018, “64.5 per cent of households owned their own homes” according to the official stats.. This does NOT equate to 60% of New Zealand.. In fact, the vast majority of land ownership is held by only around 50 people/corporations/businesses.. A large proportion of them overseas owned… We currently have the lowest level of kiwi home ownership for the last sixty years.. So unless you have something that exists in the real world to show, then maybe it’s time to give the petty point scoring a miss.. As a person who was trapped here as a result of having to rush back for family reasons just before it was finally acknowledged by the people who had known about it for months, I have become increasingly disappointed and disturbed at the sheer childishness of “political” debate here.. I have real fears, after reading some of the self serving drivel that appears in all the comment sections here, and on other sites, that we are on the verge of a giant “Earth to whiney bitches” moment.. God help us if nobody listens…
If you’re allowed to constantly whine whine whine when you’re not exactly Einstein yourself, have a little class and stop the personal insults which achieve zilch.
Not quite sure who that’s aimed at, but the only “personal insults” are the ones you just wrote… Thank you for proving my point for me in such a concise way though…
I thought “guild ridden white radical” was reasonably insulting but “whiny bitch’ does take it too a new level. My preferred term is “Champagne Socialist”.
Putting all that to one side – other then being annoyed by comments – do you have any opinion yourself on whether or not the current government will enact the type of economic policies needed to genuinely alleviate poverty? And will these policies (in the unlikely event they are enacted) be undermined by woke liberals?
” I think you misunderstand democracy – 60% of NZ own property and they turn up to vote in the greatest numbers and they have consistently elected governments that disregard the poor and overlook wealth re-distributive policies ”
Well written and right on the nail.
Thanks Peter i was saying similar things on this site a few short weeks ago.
What is a “slither?”
That’s a good question and I’m not sure of the answer – I’m going to have to google it.
I think the ‘reforms’ in the mid-1980s of the treacherous ‘Labour’ government (that were further enhanced by successive National and ‘Labour’ governments) achieved what they set out to achieve: a divided society in which wealth is transferred from the have-nots to the haves, and every aspect of life is open to exploitation by the haves at the expense of the have-nots.
Along with this disastrous division of society and explosion in the wealth gap, the ‘reforms’ achieved changes to other aspects that were desirable to the sociopaths who took over NZ society, such as faster looting-and-polluting of the commons and an explosion of financialisation, including basics such as education.
Education was no longer a right or even a privilege but was an opportunity for establishment and operation of Ponzi schemes and corporate exploitation. Want an education? Take out a loan at a high interest rate and become a debt slave early in life.
Want a home? Sorry, no low-interest rates and capping of prices for you any more -Housing Corp sold off and market rates (or higher than market rates )of interest charged. Join the rate race and sink or swim, and if you sunk it’s your own fault. (No rigged game here, ha, bloody ha.) Stae houses sold off cheaply to ‘developers’ and demolished or converted into up-market dwelling fetching close to a $1 million.
The same phenomenon has been seen throughout the ‘capitalist’ world (there is no capital these days, just debt). In the UK, social housing sold -off, unions smashed, and Ponzi financial schemes established and operated.
In the US, all financial safety measures put in place in the 1930s were removed/repealed, and a ‘free’ market bonanza of financialisation that enriched the top 1% of the social-financial pyramid whilst impoverishing everyone else was established -along with faster looting-and-polluting of the commons.
Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy…..all the same kind of shit, with local variations.
And so, we arrive at 2021, with maniacs still in control.
However, there current conditions are vastly different from when the ‘experiment’ was commenced.
Baseline interest rates pushed down from 20% to 2% to 0.2%: no wriggle room there.
The energy supply that was still being developed (raided) is post peak, particularly for the most desirable liquid fuels that the system most needs to survive.
The environment that was beginning to suffer the effects of human activity is now well and truly fucked-up, with ever-increasing ‘headwinds’ of drought, inundation, and physical damage to infrastructure, along with melting ice caps, deforestation and monoculture food production (based on liquid fuels) where there were forests and jungles. Even the oceans ae messed-up via acidification, overheating and plastic everywhere. And few fish.
Against this backdrop we have economic criminals at the helm….people who believe in infinite growth on a finite planet, people who believe Ponzi schemes can go on for ever, and people who believe the environment can absorb whatever we decide to throw at it with little or no consequence.
The economic madmen (and women) who run the system are unreachable, and dismiss every argument put to them that we are not only on the wrong course but that the course we are on is both unsustainable and catastrophically bad. These maniacs advise the PM and ministers, who, being scientifically and financially and economically illiterate, follow the advice.
So, good on Willie Jackson for challenging the nonsense.
However, I don’t think we will see any significant movement away from the financial-economic-social-environmental madness that has characterised live since the 1970s. After all, every call for policy based on reality since ‘Limits to Growth’ was published has been ignored. So we are going to witness the effects attempting to defy the laws of mathematics, chemistry, physics and ecology very soon. My guess is within 6 months.
A reminder of what all politicians and economists continue to ignore at their peril and everyone else’s peril:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI1C9DyIi_8
‘Professor Al Bartlett began his one-hour talk with the statement, “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
…He then gave a basic introduction to the arithmetic of steady growth, including an explanation of the concept of doubling time. He explained the impact of unending steady growth on the population of Boulder, of Colorado, and of the world. He then examined the consequences steady growth in a finite environment and observed this growth as applied to fossil fuel consumption, the lifetime of which is much shorter than the optimistic figures most often quoted.
He proceeded to examine oddly reassuring statements from “experts”, the media and political leaders – statements that are dramatically inconsistent with the facts.’
https://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy.html
The facts are about to catch up with Grant Robertson, Jacinda Adern, and everyone else.
Meanwhile, across the Pacific, CHS has published a biting article on the Ponzi nature of American finance, its wealth-gap enhancement, and its dire effects on most of the populace:
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec20/phantom-middle-class12-20.html
You may err in thinking that individual New Zealanders carry burdens of white guilt, many don’t, and nor should they.
When Jesses Kempson’s vile name was made public, I waited for somebody called perhaps M or M or D, to say that poor Kempson was a victim of colonisation.That’s the way things are now.
When charges against The Roast Busters were recently made public, my first thought was of two middle-aged men, both politicians, playing devil’s advocate for them, and quizzing a teenage girl on talkback radio about her sexual activities, and how, had I been that girl’s father, I would have sought a quiet word with both fellows about the appropriateness of their conduct, colonisation or not. Rightly or wrongly, I told a Labour pollster I wouldn’t vote Labour again when they welcomed one back, because, rightly or wrongly, I expect all parents to protect all young people, even though I long long ago abandoned my story book notionthat it is men’s brief to protect women from other men.
Does anybody really think that Oranga Tamariki goes out looking for Maori babies to steal the way that Aussie Pommies went out hunting Aborigines with guns ? That somewhere it was dept policy to steal babies for the sake of it, without rhyme or reason ? Perpetuating this myth is plain wrong, and deliberate shit stirring.
I know nobody opposed to justice for Maori where Brits were involved in land theft or other chicanery, and as long as the Waitangi Tribunal continues it’s work, or is replaced by another legal body with robust legal processes, compensation will continue, and have to continue, and that’s that. I accept that more police will be murdered on the job, because sections of New Zealanders have been brain washed into believing them to be the enemy, and I desperately hope that children do not lose a parent in the process, and I weep for the parents who raise then lose a child. Doubtless govt dept actuaries factor in x number of dead cops.
That we are now a violent brutish society impacts upon everybody regardless of colour, race, or creed, and, our
second -rate education system captured by intellectual morons may bear much responsibility for this, and the big question is whether government has the tools or the will to fix it. Depends on what they’re there for really.
Well stated point of view Snow White. There are as many poor white people as Maori but no one speaks for them or tries to excuse their plight by saying they are there due to colonization. Most people I know want to see all people rise not just one colour at the expense of the other.
But the Irish and Scots who colonized NZ were colonized people Trevor, before they immigrated to Aotearoa. I know I am descended from a bunch of them who had no money but the fare to to the Pacific. Irish Catholics where the underclass in the Deep South of heavily Pakeha NZ when I was a child in the 1960’s. And NZ Labour Party was made up of atheists and Catholics originally.
Agree 100% Shona. Histories of Scots and Irish immigrants often don’t bear thinking about, and the anti-Irish discrimination in particular was continued here in New Zealand often in straight out thuggery, and all are assumed to be privileged persons because of their skin pigmentation, and that in itself is racism, and inexcusable when, unbelievably, it is still used as a weapon, by so-called politicians.
2 of the Birmingham pubs I drank at in the late 60s had signs up No dogs No Irish then in Sydney it was no Abos or Irish. No wonder some carry a deal of hurt .
We should be judged by what we do not by our origin .
Trevor – A Scots Presbyterian relative often boasted of throwing Dan Davin out of an Invercargill Saturday night dance, because he was a Marist boy.
His son used to throw stones at school- bound Catholic children in Southland, chanting, “Catholic dogs stink like frogs.” By the 1980’s he had progressed to calling women, “ Bloody Catholic bitches”, while his G.P father referred to wrinkled old ladies’ faces as looking like a map of Ireland.
It’s more than a matter of carrying hurt – systemic deprivation and abuse may cause genetic damage, but not everybody has the luxury of
wallowing in past grief, they’re busy earning a living – and maybe writing a poem if they’re a Baxter – or writing on life if they’re a Davin – or just collecting cigarette butts from bus shelters and the front steps of hospitals.
“One has only to read the Maori Party MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi’s, maiden speech to appreciate how angry Maori are becoming”
Or maybe Waititi’s speech just confirms his status as a professional grievance monger and demagogue. Have Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer put forward any practical and sustainable policies that are likely to improve the lot of ordinary Maori?
One of the angriest men I’ve ever known is missing three toes on his left foot as a result of a forklift accident. He isn’t Maori. But according to peddlers of intersectionality and critical race theory, he has white male privilege.
As for white liberals and the PMC, I don’t think the story is just about white guilt – we need to factor in the careerist opportunism that rides on the guilt. “Look at me, I’m part of the solution, not part of the problem. I implemented unconscious bias training. So you should promote me”. I see that sort of thing regularly in my own workplace.
That article started being interesting, before going off on a tangent about PMC’s.
It appears that Jackson fully remembers his experiences as a Alliance backbencher back in 2000, when despite left leaning parties holding a comfortable majority (and throw in the support of NZ First for certain policies as well), the main tenents of Rogernomics and Ruthenasisa were left in place. Clark and Cullen sat on their hands for 9 years and stuck to the ‘centre ground’ and ‘maintained tight fiscal control’, while houses prices and rents went up, schools fell down, and families rotted in substandard accomodation.
I fully expect the Maori Party to sweep the Maori seats in 2023, after which, Labour will not win them again.
Yes good points, about the Alliance and its demise, they did so little really.
I for one am looking to vote for the Maori Party next time.
I think the tokenism by the Labour party for Maori is just that tokenism. The maori seats have been taken for granted by Labour practically forever.
Kiwibank and maternity leave were Alliance initiatives.
Your statement ‘ they did so little really.’ is not correct.
The Alliance kept the labour party more left than it felt comfortable with. Ergo Clarke and Anderton manufactured its demise.
“…Matters to be addressed only after the Pakeha working-class has proved itself worthy of enjoying the socially integrative benefits of warm, dry, affordable houses and well-paying jobs.”
Yeah well if that’s the case, then the PMC Party have had a serious case of amnesia when just a few years ago they were bumping on about how it is proven that no stable home is a major driver of poverty, globally. I agree NZders are really thick, like willfully deeply concieved in the womb, thick, but how they manage to wipe their memory of all knowledge of reality each day is begining to wear thin. Somehow, in NZ, the scientifically proven hierachy of needs is turned on its head for the sake of personal egos. Now we are to believe that employers are lining up to hire hardworking yet uneducated addicted starved and ill homeless people for office jobs all around the country. Seriously. University students receiving their caps at Canterbury University claim to have no idea how someone could become a terrorist and want to shoot them. They probably were part of a campus social club that protested the oppression of minority groups in Palestine. So that’s their education a complete waste of time and money. The classic middle class amnesia in it’s purest form.
good luck to the Maori Party organising their people. At least half of them have bought into the unpside down world of pakeha insanity, especially the ones living in “Brown suburbs”.
Anyone dumb enough to think somewhere to live is a privilege will likely escape the violence of revolution by accidentally bludgeoning themselves to death.
No austerity for housing capital gain speculators they’re rolling in the dosh thanks to Blaircinda’s no cgt policy! Also the reserve bank lending billions more dosh to commercial banks who’ll just lend more to the same speculators. Blaircinda’s just do twinking of the neoliberal settings makes a farce of so called democracy in this country. Banks and the Business class are the actual government here, the people are merely fed BS like the mushrooms they are!
I know lots of people who are thinking they will quite possibly vote for the Maori party at the next election. Given Adern’s refusal to the 60+ organisations that asked her to raise benefits before Christmas then why would you vote for Labour at all and that probably includes my local MP who is good – Duncan Webb. The idea that we should wait for them to do something is appalling. All the Maori Labour MPs know that they are on notice by the two strident new Maori Party MPs.
Yes Maori and The Greens along with Social credit would turn this country back 40 years to a pre 1980 social democratic country it was. There are a million people in NZ right now being denied access to modern medicines due to inadequate medicines funding . Then you add in those who are in relationships who have health issues being denied access to Health Welfare benefits due to the atrocious rules put in place to access them. Then even if you get one the amount you get is totally inadequate. So labour sitting on it’s ass going the old slowly slowly way is going to blow up in their face.
It’s kind of obvious but it is now semi-official:
‘The benefits of rising wages and lower interest rates on mortgage payments for first home buyers have been more than wiped out by rising house prices’
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/108495/benefits-rising-wages-and-lower-interest-rates-mortgage-payments-first-home-buyers
Spot on Chris.
3 more years of the current hands off our dysfunctional health and welfare system to keep the middle class happy IS NOT AN OPTION Labour have to act . They have 12 months at the most or it will be all downhill to them losing the next election. I can quite easily see a shifting of left progressive votes to the Greens and The Maori party . Because one thing is for real Labour will not be getting my seat vote next election if they don’t.
As 2020 draws to a close it has been illuminating just how conservative Jacinda has become. She’s probably removed Michael Savages portrait from her office and replaced it with Keith Hollyoake’s photo. Trouble is, Keith was revolutionary compared to Jacinda and this Labour government.
But Jacinda must be slow, the iceberg of housing is looming and it is playing havoc and yet she is doing her best Titanic Captain impression because she just can’t see it.
Like housing investors are finding, the market is a watch way to get rich but equally on the flip side renting is quickly becoming the quickest way to going broke.
Regardless of this governments total indifference to housing, this problem is NOT going away and they won’t be able to ignore it for much longer. It is going to bite them so it surely will be better not to let it dictate the terms because they woke up too late.
Isn’t her conservatism to do with ‘governing for all’ well some of it will be. Imagine the outcry if she had actually done something about benefit levels. They make me puke, why do they bother having Savage’s portrait it is such a nonsense for them all.
among my friends the only voice against legitimate benefituries getting more was someone who proudly said he had voted Labour. When I questioned him he said there was plenty of work so they should get a job.
Maori and non Maori are being manipulated by a class of human, the origins of which I still don’t fully understand. I could suspect an alien species that’s somehow infected humanity? Or perhaps [it’s] a mental illness for the want of a better term? Or is it a cynical choice by a few weirdo types who have a sideline fetish in bicycle seat sniffing when they’re not deliberately upending the healthy minds of people for giggles to enslave them into ignobly working all hours at the expense of family and friends to make the money fetishist seat sniffers ever more millions and billions.
And I write that, because what ever it is that’s ‘going on’ clearly isn’t healthy.
I, as a white fellow, don’t want to be lumped in with racists. Even for the purposes of debate.
No Maori person has ever done me in. Neither has any other non -white-skin person.
The only people who’ve done me in and taken my life’s work from me was a couple of old white fuckers sitting behind desks in banks who were in turn facilitated by other old white fuckers sitting behind desks and were in turn etc etc… and now we have a lazy, worthless, manipulative minority strata running through our society who are adept at manipulating the rest of us for their wealth creation, which is considerable.
It’s not the colour of the skin so much as the smell of the bike seat.
Is this interesting…?
The Guardian.
The Conservatives are pitting the white working class against black people
Simon Woolley
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/23/conservatives-white-working-class-black-racial-inequality
Yes exactly.
@countryboy. ‘I, as a white fellow, don’t want to be lumped in with racists.’
That cracked me up. Oh the irony. Yeah you and everyone else.
And then an op-ed from the Guardian, mix in some signalled virtue. Next stop – white liberal silencing black conservative.
@ Chris
If true, you don’t know how happy this little tale makes me feel because its possible JA has come to realise that this term COULD be the last dance at the OK Corral and they ekshully need to start doing stuff in this space – not just the Covid space, going forward. And that the fullness of time is rapidly running out.
Not only are senior ‘officials’ going to have to start earning their keep, but that core of half a dozen Munsters aren’t going to be able to carry the load alone. (btw – f-f-f-f-f-Fafoi s-s-s-s-surpirsed me this week by doing something, s-s-s-so m-m-m-maybe there’ll be s-s-s-s-something on PSB and d-d-d-diversity of v-v-v-v-voice).
Prepare yourself Clarke G, it could be a rough ride – although you did sign up for it.
“not just the Covid space” Exactly.
Jacinda is spending far too much time in that space because it’s safe. Shit is starting to get away on her.
Matthew Hootons comment, “No more excuses for Ardern in 2021”, this morning in the Herald is deadly accurate.
Countryboy. Yes. But there are bad women too, with and without colour, and the congenitally brainless whom Ethnic Jedi has identified, and the brainless are the idiots fostering racial division like braying asses.
There are a hell of a lot of poor white people doing it vey hard out there and they don’t care about brown or white they just want to survive for another week.
Labour and National are interchangeable and continue to govern for three groups , business/ corporate , the top twenty and the middle class.
There will be no trickle down that has been proven to the biggest con of the last thirty years.
I agree with all you say, but would like to point out that it’s going to get a lot harder for anyone who is not an insider, with a secure income, i.e. not a politician, not the CEO of a council or not a director of a bank etc.
As Gail Tverberg points out*, in very simple but very accurate terms, we are all on an escalator that is going down, not up. We run to stay in the same place relative to our surroundings. However, the speed of the escalator’s descent is gradually increasing. .
No ‘rising tide lifting all boats’. That was very much and 1950s to 1990s story. Now it’s ‘a falling tide lowering all boats’.
Under such circumstances, those at the top of the financial pyramid will continue to extract far more than their fair share by taking even more from the poor.
No politician is going to admit that, even though it is plain to see.
* ‘2020: The Year Things Started Going Badly Wrong’
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/23/2020-the-year-things-started-going-badly-wrong/
Bollocks to the “white guilt” contention. Providing 21st century housing, services and incomes for those that do not have them, is known as solidarity by leftists. NZ will never banish inequality by pandering to 1%ers and the middle class.
Chris’ transferred defeatism is really saying-let Roger’n’Ruth’s toxic legacy continue!
The general idea Willie Jackson is going to fight for his share of the financial pie is in itself false as there is no pie. This Government won’t print any more money than it has to, and neither should it. So willie better come up with some sensible projects that might create jobs and lots of them if he is going to get onside with Grant. What’s left then, redistributing whats already in the pot. JA and Co aren’t capable of anything meaningful as we know. Won’t even look at CGT (Cullen must wonder what party he belongs to) although Dulllight might get the go. More unhappy people I’m afraid. Imagine four years of nothing! and could JA sit on her hands for an xtra year.
I agree Chris.
But Jacinda knows her base now. The right has turned left and the left turned right.
She will do absolutely nothing to help the poor and the rich will get even richer. At least on paper with their house prices.
Labour has turned into the new Nats which puts Crusher in the ridiculous position she will have to advocate for the poor.
Strange times.
There will be no uplifting of the brown underclass. In fact it will probably go the other way.
By the next election there will be more homelessness because even if this government had the wit to enact policies that would start to solve the problem (it doesn’t), the ink on the new rules would barely be dry by 2022 and they would have had no effect by that time. The unavailability of rental accommodation will have reached crisis point by that time and Labour will own the problem because it will be theirs to own.
Ardern knows she was elected purely on the basis of seeing the Covid 19 thing done. She has no mandate for change and apart from some minor virtue signalling, it will be a ‘steady as she goes’ government.
Maori in caucus can make a fuss, but where else do they have to go?
Chris Hedges -Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper- one of America’s greatest commentators and critics, wrote a magnificent piece in August, pointing out that America is in its death throes as a consequence of the two-party system promoting neoliberalism and corporate control of society, for profit.
Whilst NZ is not as far down the road of corruption and decay as America, the parallels between what has been happening in NZ and America are very disturbing.
As Jacinda and co. lead NZ into the biggest set of crises in all of history (financial, economic, energetic, environmental and social), applying strategies that make everything worse, we can only hope that the US collapses quickly, shaking the ‘elites’ and their acolytes out of the complacency, denial-of-reality and business-as-usual narratives that define the government, and that the collapse of the US forces rapid political, economic and environmental change in NZ.
The alternative is that NZ continues along the road that makes everything that matters worse faster.
‘The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults…’
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/10/chris-hedges-americas-death-march/
No white guilt here, me and mine delivered from slavery from a treaty of hope.
But I still speak the wage slave tongue.
So one form of bondage to another, always the way of the poor who let thinking slide.
Good Bless Chris, hope you had a holiday.
Mine, like all forms of incrementalism a endless supply of nothingness felt here. Apart from the “Boys will be Boy’s”, crew from the refrain of donkey, finally seeing the inside of a court room.
The essence of slavery is owning 100% of another human being’s productivity and labour. We are free to work or not to work, but never free to pay or not pay tax. Therefore, we are tax slaves, not wage slaves, if you want to invoke and employ the word “slave” in a modern sense or context. But yeah, let’s keep hating on Big Business while we are regularly milked by Big Brother.
Not much agreement here, Chris.
Chris – you have really mobilised the right wing with this story. I say to Jacinder and Labour just stay on the current course for the next 18 months and concentrate on assisting the needy, eradicating poverty and changing the tired neo-liberal policies of the greedy boomers.
I dont mean throwing cash at welfare beneficiaries but helping them directly with improving domestic needs. Make sure children are safe even if it means removing them from their home and finding a safe haven. Ive seen the benefits to our tamariki of doing this. The days of having our kuia or whaea around within a papakainga/village setting are gone. We are on our own in the burbs of the city.
Housing became out of reach of NZers in 2012 and will never again be affordable. Govt should Embark on a mass social housing/rent to buy, housing project – get Chinese or Koreans to convert the logs they take, into kit set housing units, put them into containers and bring a work force over to assemble them here with help of NZers – start building on papakainga land. Kiwi builders are too busy building expensive mansions or renovating our villas.
Our Tamariki seem to be as enthusiastic as others with school when they are young but at about 9-10 years old they seem to get left behind. I say improve teacher student ratios and concentrate on those lagging behind. Encourage them after school and at home – more one to one.
Education leads to jobs. I hear and see a lot of Maori talking about employment and jobs but see no action. Maori officials need to engage with whanau in the community at an early stage to encourage learning and prepare for work.
The alternative to the above are gangs, jail, drugs and all those other negative stats. We need to raise the mana and self belief of our tamariki.
Ive seen how the social scene has changed over the last 72 years and how the impacts of the Crown have not been helpful to the uneducated and poor whanau. My way out was via education and a good paying jobs and am thankful for the whanau for their guidance.
‘“the art of the possible”’ frequently mouthed by the same people that adhere to ‘lesser evil voting’. And look at where that has got us. Since Friedman, the Chicago Boys, Hayek, Thatcher, Reagan, and Douglas.
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