There was a fascinating exchange between Jack Tame and Brooke Van Velden on Q+A over the weekend that actually deserves and demands closer inspection because it really does illuminate what ACT are truly are all about.
Brooke was fatuously claiming that Bosses are so frightened by WorkSafe that they dare not dream ever again in colour for fear of persecution, and because of this culture of fear, she was changing WorkSafe from punishment to cuddles (despite 70 people a year dying on the job plus almost a thousand who die from their work environments).
Her argument is that if we cuddle the bosses and provide carrots, the fear of sanction will lift and a workers utopia where family members can expect their loved ones to return safely from word each night will flourish.
Yet, as Jack so eloquently put to Brooke, ACT have pushed for vast punishment sanctions against beneficiaries, beneficiaries with children and state house tenants so why does the sanction and punishment system work for the poor, but ACT are changing it for the bosses?
When it’s the Bosses, it’s all cuddle and carrots, yet when it’s the poor, the beneficiaries, the disabled, the state tenants – it’s all punishment and sticks?
Why is the culture of fear acceptable for the poor, but not the bosses?
ACT is a far right fringe libertarian cult who have manipulated culture war talking points to create a facade of free speech liberalism when they are the same old jack boot of the Billionaire club stamping on the face of the poor they’ve always been.
To quote Mike Hosking.
Happy Days.
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Because in the minds of far right libertarians the poor are undeserving; it’s the wealthy who are the movers and shakers. Despite the clear gains the thinking of some probably hasn’t changed much since Elizabethian times, the Middle Ages or even way back to Biblical times.and beyond.
No doubt she will be appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
As was Ruth Richardson just recently.
Capitalism is imploding .What these people dont realize is as they continue to crush the working classes they are in fact diminishing their customer base .Labour governments negotiated free trade with China ,UK and EU which allowed farmers to sell milk butter cheese and beef along with lamb to a much bigger market .Just as well they can do that because the local customer is now becoming very rare and heading to extinction .National lead governments have decided the workers need to be crushed and forced to live in poverty on many levels .This in turn takes away end users of everything produced in NZ .The local customer is a person from the past now .I buy peanut butter made in India because it is under $3 compared to $6 for the cheapest local brand .Take away all the marketing bull shit it is 2x the price .We all know what is happening with butter and cheese .So Crooke and her mates are going to leave a hell of a mess and if the world continues to fall apart there will be a sudden over supply and the farmers that are creaming it now will expect the crushed workers to buy up to keep them afloat .No doubt the current government will slash health and education to give them a handout .
It’s over a hundred years ago Henry Ford discovered if he produced a cars but didn’t pay his workers enough to buy cars he lacked demand.
Just like Seymour … she’s weird , fundamentally stupid..lacking any real knowledge combined with zero critical thinking….what a waste of taxpayer’s money they are!
What they do have in spades, is their siloed ill conceived reckons based on…well, based on thin air.
As the mask falls their vote has plummeted by 20%.
Now …94% of the country can see the fraudsters for what they are…but they still can’t…
That tells you everything you need to know!
“What these people don’t realize is as they continue to crush the working classes they are in fact diminishing their customer base”
Indeed. You hit the nail right on the head, Gordon.
Too many professional MPs. Uni then MPs gopher then parliament. They talk about running the country like a family budget while never having had a family.
Yep Crook and Slymour are the result of never having had real job experience of which 91.5% of voters agree.
Too many professional MPs. Uni then MPs gopher then parliament. They talk about running the country like a family budget while never having had a family.
Kinda like a pink panther joke
“Carrots for the bosses and sticks for the poor” might look like a contradiction – but only if you approach it from the logical standpoint of how people respond to different incentives.
But if you approach it from the standpoint of ACT party ideology, there is no contradiction. That’s because “sticks for the poor” are just another “carrot” for the rich. A cowed, desperate workforce will obviously be more likely to accept lower wages, worse conditions and lower H&S standards. Everything for ACT is about shovelling wealth upwards – all dressed up in the rhetoric of a totally empty notion of ‘freedom’.
She a bot didn’t even see her blink once
For the same reason we needed to create a whole new tier of benefits during the Covid lockdowns. The struggling ‘middle’ would have found that you cant actually live on the normal ones.
my caucus made me do it – such a lightweight. came across her once, scuttling around the local supermarket – a weak looking individual with no riz – and Tame had it all on display. A brain in a tank.
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