Of course greedy venal corporations price gouging is driving up inflation and unemployment
As unemployment ticks up now Orr doesn’t have to care about jobs, we are seeing inflation continue to cause cost of living pressures without clearly defining the problem as Corporate price gouging!
Too much of the inflation we are seeing is actually being driven by greedy corporate margins…
…Crikey over in Australia picks this argument up…
Profiteering is driving inflation, says former ACCC head. And here’s the hard evidence
Want evidence that inflation is caused by price-gouging corporations? Allan Fels has it in spades.
Profiteering has played a major role in inflation in Australia, Professor Allan Fels has argued in a report released today, in which the economist and former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chair provides extensive evidence that Australian firms have exploited a lack of competition to push up prices over the past two years.
The report is the result of an inquiry commissioned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and comes after an extended debate between progressive economists, the US Federal Reserve, the OECD, the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank (all of which have identified the significant role of profiteering in the post-pandemic inflation spike) and the Reserve Bank and conservative economists here (who insist profits have played no role in inflation and that it is the fault of wages growth and excess demand).
….it is the lack of proper regulation that allows these monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies to manipulate market dominance for their benefit.
New Zealand is already grossly under-regulated but look at the drive to dismantle what little we have for donors and Trans National Mining Interests…
Govt to free up foreign investment in ‘sensitive’ NZ land and assets
Ministerial scrutiny of whether overseas investments are in New Zealand’s national interest is to be significantly reduced in a move critics say risks eroding sovereignty but supporters believe will enrich New Zealand.
National and Act’s coalition agreement says the Government will amend the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to restrict ministerial decision-making to national security concerns only and make these decisions “much more timely”.
The act requires overseas investors to obtain consent from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) before acquiring interests in significant business assets, sensitive land or fishing quota.
…and lo and behold, Dr Pork Shane Jones is bing appointed unprecedented fast track powers…
Fast track consenting in the fast lane
The Government is progressing changes to resource management laws as part of its 100 Day Action Plan, with the first steps taken to establish a new fast-track consenting one-stop shop regime.
“This new regime, which forms part of National’s coalition agreement with New Zealand First, will improve the speed and process for resource approvals for major infrastructure projects, unlocking opportunities in industries such as aquaculture and mining in our regions,” Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says.
Cabinet has agreed that our new fast track consenting regime will consist of:
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- A new fast-track process contained in a standalone Act, with its own purpose statement focused on economic development;
- A priority for regionally and nationally significant infrastructure and development projects;
- A process for projects to be referred by Ministers into the fast-track process if it meets appropriate criteria;
- A list of projects that will be first to have their consents approved and conditions set by an Expert Panel;
- A process where referred projects will go to an Expert Panel which will apply any necessary conditions to ensure adverse effects of the project to the environment are managed appropriately, and where the panel will have only a limited ability to decline a project once referred.
- A “one-stop-shop” where other relevant permits are obtained in addition to resource consents.
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“The Government is committed to upholding Treaty of Waitangi settlements as part of the new fast-track regime.
“The full details of this Bill are being worked through by Minsters now, and the aim is to have the Bill introduced into Parliament by March 8 as part of our 100 Day Action Plan.
The Government repealed the Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA) and Spatial Planning Act (SPA) in December 2023.
Phase two of our RMA Reform agenda includes introducing this permanent one-stop-shop fast-track consenting regime, as well as progress on our Going for Housing Growth package, and other amendments to make it easier to get things done in New Zealand across aquaculture, farming, energy and other industries.
…come on.
Are we really going to give Unca Shane that level of power?
Come on?
There is an attempt to usurp democracy and hand power to corporations, and the Atlas Network is at the forefront of this agenda.
The ATLAS Network is the international Hard Right Think Tank that have links to ACT, Taxpayers’ Union and The NZ Initiative. They are providing the blueprint for free market far right tactics attacking. the Left and are funded by the petroleum Industry. George Monbiot explains what ATLAS Network is…
A crash programme of massive cuts; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations and oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people and the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest; restricting the right to strike. Anything ring a bell?
…demolishing public services, privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations and oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people and the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest AND restricting the right to strike?
THIS IS ALL POLICY THE NEW HARD RIGHT RACIST CLIMATE DENYING GOVERNMENT HAVE ADOPTED!
The Atlas Network have deep links with most of the NZ Right Wing Think tanks and with ACT…
…the more Kiwis learn about the Atlas Network, the more deep concerned they will become about who is actually generating social policy here and why.
In the meantime, their Corporate agenda continues unchallenged.
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Ministry of Regulation will reduce excess profits for Corporation s. With a new regulation to put more profits back into the community via sponsorship and grants.
Riiiight and we have a bridge to sell you.
Facial recognition tech is being trialled in 25 Foodstuffs supermarkets today. This is the equivalent of being fingerprinted before you shop.
How can they be allowed to do this??????
Think of the fascist numbnuts holding this data at the supermarkets!!!
Boycott all Foodstuffs outfits in protest.
I’ve believed this lot would destroy the economy by February – it seems I was right.
Tax cuts are not going to help anyone at this point, and the economy is going sideways with this sort of shitfuckry.
Because the economy is you and yours – not the bloody corporations bottom line.
I seem to remember that when the Gst went up to 15% Key announced that it wouldn’t cause inflation.Somebody told him that – I suspect one of the economists. And inflation is all that matters – must be controlled because it eats into real profits!
But when an economy goes whoopsy, when the economists bets and tips don’t become winners, having 15% added to rising prices DOES CAUSE INFLATION, OR RATHER PUSH IT UP. So ergo, says my simple mind, reduce GST, and the return to the gummint will not fall that much because it is a percentage applied to prices which have risen unconscionably.
Anyway my prescription for reducing inflation now in NZ/AO is to reduce GST to 10% for three years and ignore wails from business who have to reset everything, and forbid any extra charges be incorporated into any new programs or systems that are initiated to enable this. We don’t want surreptitious cost burdens added directing money to business in the absence of the extra government tax. Really clever business people are devoted to making more money – whatever the market will stand eh!
The Atlas networks name is obviously a tribute to Ayn Rand’s Novel, ‘Atlas Shrugged’: …. A badly written book exposing ‘greed is good’, ‘worship the rich’ and ‘fuck the poor’ ideology….. Ayn Rand is one of ACT’s secular saints.
The Atlas network , Act & National, and corporations all love and are balls deep into the tax haven/shadow banking network….. Through this they starve Govt’s/country’s of revenue and income,,, creating the very conditions where Austerity and the cutting of Govt spending, privatizations etc is justified.
As a side note Alan Greenspan The Usa Federal Reserve chairman and disciple of libertarian icon Ayn Rand is one of the main figures blamed for the 2008 financial crash which saw millions of Americans lose their jobs and homes ,,, later he admitted he had “made a mistake in presuming” that financial firms could regulate themselves.(deregulation).
Voodoo economics and corruption are what the new Govt will deliver ,,,, it’s a toss up as to whether its that or the warmongering they are keen to get onboard with which will cause the crash that these dangerous ideologues always bring about.