“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies”.
NZ Post use Fleetwood Mac’s anthem as a gentle cheeky Christmas TV advert all about telling little white lies to make Christmas a secret.
More on that in a second.
Bernard Hickey reflecting this week on how the mass immigration policies our free market capitalism has locked us into an infrastructure doom loop…
A record-high net 44,730 New Zealand citizens left the country permanently in the year to the end of September, Stats NZ reports. They were more than replaced by an also-record-high net 163,570 non-citizens arriving permamently, but mostly on temporary work visas.
Our ‘Churn and Burn’ economy of a housing market-with-bits-tacked-on that is fueled by record-high migration, low investment and rising residential land prices is churning and burning faster than ever. The escape valve of young New Zealanders with skills and connections jumping on a plane to Australia is working better than ever, but it’s creating new negative feedback loops of more staffing stress in health, education, construction and transport. These in turn squeeze the economy’s ability to raise productivity and real wages and increase desperation for yet more temporary migration, let alone address the core of the problem: insufficient and brutally expensive housing for renters and buyers.
The ultimate exit valve in this pressure cooker is the poorest renters under the most stress falling into homelessness and food poverty. Our nation’s ‘Churn and Burn’ dashboard is now full of blinking red lights, including:
- record-high outward migration of our best-trained young people to Australia and elsewhere at a rate of 200 a day;
- record-high inward migration of 585 mostly young workers on temporary visas who live under a cloud of uncertainty and in constant fear of exploitation and deportation without equal or free access to our welfare or health systems;
- Auckland house prices bouncing strongly again at double-digit annualised growth rates, given its population is growing at a rate three times faster than new homes consented, some of which just replace existing homes, rather than adding to the total stock;
- use of food banks having risen 165% to 480,000 per month since early 2020, the NZ Food Network found in a survey this year as the most stressed renters in the world can’t afford food; and,
- the number of households formally registered as homeless rising 9% to 25,284 in the nine months to the end of September, including almost 500 who said they were living in their cars, five times higher than five years ago.
…our nation is built upon exploiting a low wage economy.
NZ’s free market capitalism sees labour as a trans national cost and brings in cheaper workers from overseas and exploits them as ‘contractors’.
Bringing in exploitable workers, providing them with no security and then allowing them to vote seems like a really stupid idea.
We see this flawed immigration policy undermining our infrastructure and exploding on our streets.
One of the issues rarely highlighted in ram raids is that you have angry damaged Māori/Pacifica youth attacking exploited migrant workers while European New Zealander’s grasp their pearls and scream for paramilitary policing.
Let’s get back to that NZ Post TV advert.
Because the middle class woke have stolen all the political oxygen for their virtue signals, their woke dogma is the prevailing lens from the Left and the problem with making identity the only lens you see the world through, you become the problem not the solution.
Why are all the couriers in those NZ Post adverts Indian?
You can’t ask that question because intersectionist wokeness demands identity above all else and asking “Why are all the couriers in those NZ Post adverts Indian”, will get you cancelled for thought crimes.
The reason of course as to why so many couriers are Indian is because they are the ones most exploitable by NZ free market capitalism.
This isn’t a race issue, it’s a class issue!
These Indian workers have been lured to NZ to be exploited by ruthless contracts which exploit them for our low wage economy.
This entire business model of importing desperate workers and exploiting them as contractors is about to erupt next year in Court as domestic couriers being abused fight NZ Post’s new plan to slash them all from rural delivery services to gain more overseas workers!
The way we can end exploitation of migrant workers is by making every international worker a compulsory member of a Union so that they can be collectivised and their conditions strengthened but the whole low wage economy is reliant on that exploitation so of course the solution of universal union membership will be ignored.
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“NZ’s free market capitalism” is the western world’s free market capitalism, at the very least. As such, mass immigration is a common issue all throughout the western world. Why, why do our pollies adopt these common goals when a good deal of us – everywhere – finds them troublesome.
Who is really pulling their strings…we don’t need an answer – we just need to put a stop to it by pressuring our politicians to act for us for a change. Sooner, rather than later, we will wake up.
This from Lower Hutt Foodbank’s chairperson Antonia Haythornthwaite
““When you can’t afford all the other costs of petrol, housing and utilities then food becomes the one expendable thing; the thing you can economise on but at the peril of your own health.”
” Later, in a rare moment of cynicism, and with assurances of gratitude for donations, she’ll admit to being frustrated that voluntary organisations have been left to do the heavy lifting in the fight against hunger.
The government’s emergency funding for community food providers during the pandemic has gone, yet Crown agencies continue to refer customers to foodbanks having to scratch for grants and donations.
she says the problem is simple – poverty – but the solution is relatively simple too: low wage work, inaccessible social services and insufficient benefits and housing must be addressed.
“It’s ironic that Aotearoa is such a big food provider exporting so much of our kai but so many people here go hungry because they don’t have the money.
https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/350111848/welcome-foodbank-charities-do-heavy-lifting-fight-against-hunger
“The reason of course as to why so many couriers are Indian is because they are the ones most exploitable by NZ free market capitalism.
This isn’t a race issue, it’s a class issue!”
Indeed!
And after their families have sacrificed savings, mortgaged land, begged, borrowed and stolen in order to get their kids what they’ve been told is a ‘good education’ at some shitty PTE.
What amuses me most, is that we then go begging for a “free” trade agreement. I’d have thought by now all those policy boffins at MFAT, MBIE and elsewhere would have realised Indians (in India) really don’t like seeing their fellow countrymen and women treated like shit – even though some of them in NZ are prepared to pull up the ladder Paula Bennett style.
And not just NZ Post, ANZ Bank, UBER and elsewhere in the gig economy.
It’s taken a bloody long time of MBIE/The Labour Expectorant to start taking exploitation seriously, and even as they do, they’ve been in large part responsible through idiotic, facile policy advice to Munsters (often based on copying it from elsewhere in the Empire).
You know Tim that the $2m tauiwi house flipp’n policy is pullah benefits. Shes the unofficial mouthpiece for the real estate industry who want to make a killing. But fortunately, it looks like its dead.
Ae! She’s one classy specimen eh? No more Ugg boots or Leopard skins for PB.
Must be that media finishing school she’s been attending
“so of course the solution of universal union membership will be ignored”
Really? I reckon the solution is to agree that a population of 5 million is the max the environment can afford when primary production and tourism are almost the only source of overseas income.
Then without the immigration companies would have to invest to increase profit through productivity, salaries will rise and the young will stay.
Unions reps could stand at the airport and sign up arriving workers but they don’t. And if they did it would be in their interest for more immigration.
For years I oversaw building projects. I LOVED walking on site and seeing lots of Indians, be they from India or Fijian Indians, they have a awesome work ethic. They got paid not a cent less than the NZers or Aussies, not a single cent, which is a bit shit really as their productivity far exceeded the NZers or Aussies.
Last Friday I was talking to our main truck driver (big name company) and he earns above the median wage. He’s from northern India and a damn nice chap.
Our Courier drive is Maori and also a damn nice chap. No idea what he earns but he’s hinted it’s pretty good, mind you he does big hours so it would want to be.
Immigration is a great short-term fill gap, but we seems to be relying on migrants for cleaning, working in subways, uber driving, farm help, petrol stations, hotel porters etc..most of this is low skill jobs. Why are our low skill labour not taking on these jobs?
“Why are our low skill labour not taking on these jobs?”
That’s a good question Benny. I can’t throw any light upon it other than some wild guesses.
– drives down labour costs
– a back door to PR. After all, given birth rates are decreasing for those in the European/Caucasian category, who in the future are going to be the taxpayers who facilitate the standard of living we now all aspire to – not to mention funding NZ Super and the social support net?
– not enough capacity. We have been far too good at tertiary education and more and more people are now ‘qualified’ and don’t see ‘unskilled labor’ as a career choice – but take note of the long tail of underachievement
– not enough capacity (for another reason): just can’t keep up with the increasing demands of our service-orientated society and/or construction needs
– a lot of unskilled Kiwis are rather lazy, for lack of a better word (but a bit more complex perhaps)
– migrant workers are exploitable, in a number of ways, eg, they put up with stuff Kiwis won’t
-many migrant workers are simply an asset, eg, RSE workers work so damm hard and are good at it, others have attention to detail not apparent with home grown unskilled, some are indeed skilled (and educated) in their own countries but end up down-skilling in NZ, eg bus drivers
Add your own.
“……………but we seems to be relying on migrants for cleaning, working in subways, uber driving, farm help, petrol stations, hotel porters etc..most of this is low skill jobs….”
It’s working as designed.
In my experience, Indians (AND others from Asia and African nations) don’t generally come to lil ‘ole NuZull that punches above its weight to do unskilled and semi skilled work. Often they do so to pay back parents and others who’ve got themselves in hoc to send them here for a supposedly decent education ($30K minimum a few years ago – more when you consider exchange rates, and they do whatever is necessary to survive. Even tolerating exploitation. Exploitative practices not JUST from fellow developing nations’ countrymen either. Equally by little ripoff networks built between people HERE and those in India, or elsewhere in Asia/Africa – even South America.
Working as designed because that’s the policy advice given Munsters and PMC public senior/muddle management servants scratching each others’ lazy-arsed backs, and who’ve had imagination bypass surgery giving them an inability to see the bleeding bloody obvious (Such as tying visas to a specific employer; high fees in order to change visas and so on). Policies that have been copied.
Sadly Benny NZ’s welfare system allows the lazys to be lazys. As immigrants generally come here from no welfare systems and to get ahead in life they expect to work hard and they do. Some Ahole’s exploit that but as usual the majority don’t.
If it wasn’t for immigrants NZ’s productivity would be far less than zero.
Maggie, for years we lived under a self proclaimed low wage economy run by the National government, still a better lifestyle for some Indians and Fijians but morally corrupt none the less. That’s why the business fraternity love National, bigger profits because of low wages.
And yes, you know I’m on the button.
Here’s what your post said to me, which as a FYI applies to at least 95% of your posts.
“As I have no real idea all I can do is just vomit out some political bullshit as that’s all I have in my life, bitterness and delusion”
Poor Maggie is triggered!
Here’s what your post said to me, which as a FYI applies to at least 95% of your posts.
Blah blah left wing bad, right wing good, blah blah blah!!
Peter Barry on the button.
Another very simple post by Bob. Simple is Bob’s middle name.
The immigration issue is only one facet of the complete abandonment of responsibilities that characterizes our political classes.
We’re not training our people anymore.
We’re not building enough.
We’re not taxing enough to maintain core services like health.
And our delinquent political classes dare to show their shameless faces in public.
Tiger food the lot of them.
the fact is stuart all those things cost money and kiwis though the lowest taxed in ‘western countries’ are full of trumpian fuckwittery….if we were civilized we could have nice things
Here’s a golf course looking for some houses to be built on it!
‘Let’s Do This’ whilst we haven’t got a government in place to fuck things up!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/golf/301009285/one-of-nzs-most-prestigious-golf-courses-now-overgrown-and-neglected?cid=app-android
The root cause is always the same….as simple as Maslows law…food and shelter.
When people can have a secure place to live ,and enough food to eat,everyones…better off.
In theory Blazer yes!
In practice, not so much….KO housing is chokka full of people wanting a peaceful life but one bad tent/family ruin it for a while street/neighbourhood.
I hope the new Govt is not like the last, where scarce few evictions were actioned when they should have, for the well being of the neighbours affected.
The needs of the many, definitely outweigh the needs of the few in these instances.
hear hear ‘i’m right’
the thing is importing a cohort that have medival attitudes to women etc is a bad idea even sweden now has ‘integration classes’ and the uk tories are a fine example of caste(and I do mean caste not party affiliations) values over riding democracy…pretending people share our values is fruitless we must educate/intigrate them or they are just a problem
And we have to know what our own values are – it see ‘Remind me, well actually I have remembered I don’t’. I strike kindness from other citizens but it doesn’t reflect the ruling motivation or beliefs from above.
I’ve read that a good many consider immigration in parts of Europe a “failed experiment” but I haven’t been there to see it with my own eyes or talked in depth to those with a view. Mind I get the feeling immigration in Europe consists mostly of refugees fleeing trouble and seeking a new start. Angela Merkel was strongly criticized for opening Germany up to Syrian refugees some 5 years back – setting an unwanted precedent – but from recent accounts the Syrians have integrated well. Germany may not be the best case study. After all it is the powerhouse of the EU economy and can easily absorb migrants.
NZ is a different kettle of fish. Yes we do resettle a few refugees, but only those UN approved (other than a relatively few asylum seekers). Ours is an economic model. Labour or National it makes little difference to the settings. Treasury sets these with an eye to growing the population for future tax intake and the funding of NZ Super. Yes, on the face of it its all about meeting current labour needs, some semiskilled or unskilled, much legitimate but some rather dodgy, but 20 years hence the kids of many of these new immigrants will be the new professionals. Especially those that have educated parents. Evidence from Aussie suggests the kids of migrants (and refugees) who do best are those with educated parents. Its already happening. The kids of those immigrating in the late 90s and early 2000’s – before the explosion’s in work / work to resident visas – have largely done pretty well from where I’m sitting.