The social carnage our brutal monopolies can wage against the poor thanks to our under regulated capitalism is far larger than we have previously suspected…
Opponents of wealth taxes and housing and energy market reforms often complain those reforms would be too expensive for taxpayers, but not reducing our worst-in-the-world housing and energy costs is already costing taxpayers over $6.6 billion a year.
Solving the failures in our housing and electricity markets would reduce the taxpayer burden by that much, let alone unleashing massive improvements in public health, productivity and real wages.
A new official report quietly buried by the Labour Government in its final months in power identifies over 300,000 people are now living in housing and energy poverty so severe that they are unable to afford the power needed to stay warm in winter, have warm showers or cook their own food. Figures on the number of families who turn off their own power because they can’t afford to pre-pay aren’t even collected.
The report documented people who lived in homes without power because of bad credit records or their pre-pay plans had run out of money, forcing them and their children to sleep in cold, mouldy homes and cook food on fires outside.
This housing and energy poverty leads to thousands of unnecessary hospitalisations and hundreds of deaths from chest and skin infections, costing $1.14 billion each year in extra public health costs. That’s on top of income-related rent subsidies, accommodation supplements, First Home Buyers grants, progressive home ownership grants, emergency housing costs and winter energy payments totalling $5.5 billion per year.
The report recommends any new Government reform the electricity market to focus on improving affordability, rather than gentailer profits and dividends, along with monitoring disconnections from pre-pay power and forcing retailers to abide by a consumer care code, which is currently voluntary, along with increasing funding for insulating and retrofitting homes and appliances.
…the sheer scale of misery our system generates for the poorest amongst us should be a nationwide shame, but then again, so should the 600000 who need food banks each month, the 24 717 on the social housing wait list, the million spent per day spent kettling beneficiaries into unsafe Motels, the hundreds of thousands living in poverty, our suicide rte, the hundreds of thousands of domestic violence incidents that are eclipsed by ram raids.
Each should be a national shame, yet the idea of over 300000 unable to use electricity and being forced to cook on open fires is shocking in a supposed first world country.
The cost of refusing to fix the under regulated capitalism that underpins property speculation is $6.6Billion per year, this is a rigged casino economy ruled by Real Estate Pimps who are mercilessly abusing their political power to generate legislation that empowers them while robbing renters.
There is a naked class war erupting in NZ and we don’t have the political vocabulary to express that dimension because the woke middle class activists have stolen all the oxygen in the room with their identity politics virtue signalling.
Meanwhile the assault on the poorest and the most vulnerable begins at pace.
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Hmm all of that under a Labour govt most lead by the kind and caring Saint Jacinda.
Why do people keep voting for them? Expecting a different result next time?
They had a majority, knew how bad things were, and did nothing except mouth empty platitudes and spend millions on vanity projects like that cycle crossing over the bridge.
The near-total collapse of the labour movement means that there isn’t anyone left to even widely report such things to the public, let alone organise and fight actual campaigns.
This is probably compounded by the best leadership talent in working class areas being forced to flee the country.
The lack of public anger is a bit puzzling. Even the upper tier of the working class, the so-called white-collar middle strata (or ‘brain workers’), are doing rather poorly.
The line that it’s too much cost for taxpayers to fund social justice is all to do with framing the debate. There is just as much money in the world as their used to be but it’s gone to the top2 or 3 percent. Everytime we say “taxpayer” middle class people think they’re going to be funding it and they freak out because their wealth has gone down in real terms as well.
We should be looking at a financial transactions tax and we should not do an inheritance tax unless it comes with a complete overhaul of the economic system. A lot of middle class families are trying to preserve what money they do have so their kids can own a house.
We have to get the middle class on the right side of the debate.
technically GST is a financial transaction tax.
No ity isnt.
GST IS A CONSUMPTION TAX ON GOODS AND SERVICES.
A Financial tax taxes finance movement.
There is the difference.
A financial only needs to be 0.01 or 0.001% to bring in mega millions daily .
While a GST tax on a smaller range of Goods and Services has to be over 10% and still not bring in the same amount.
The banks and Financial services fought against it tooth and nail when Jim Anderton’s Alliance party suggested it when GST was being mooted.
An article elsewhere on the internet informs me the cost of living in Spain is 1/3 of NZ.
Well past time we enforce rules to promote competition in just about everything in NZ.
Jacindas Labour were a complete and utter failure.
Shame she overseas living in fake glory. She should be here helping to fix the issues she helped create.
Jacinda was way too soft on the power companies. She should have gone in hard, and split the generators off from the retailers. Clark broke up Telecom and internet prices fell.
I Agree.
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