OnPoint: Two wallops of wonk, with a side of waffle
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caycos/stuart:
In relation to the 9 day working week or some other reduction in hours thing - can they guarantee that workers won't be expected to still do the same amount of work in less time?
Isn't there some legal requirement that the hours allocated have to be reasonable for the task?
But my point is that it's not a case of, "Congratulations! You're going to have an opportunity to take the day off!" With the prospect of layoffs looming over them, they're going to be pressured to eat a lot of shit - working more and getting less is just a part of that.
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A cycleway the length of NZ! Be still my heart!
Bet it still won't go over the Auckland harbour bridge, though.
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Bet you're right. Really looking forward to seeing the details. Love the idea. Seriously.
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My estimate is based on the concept that if a firm has 10 workers, they need 100 person days of work a fortnight to keep them productively occupied.
If sales only allow for 90 person days, then they would normally need to lose a worker.
If instead they put the whole place on a 9 day fortnight, then everyone is fully occupied again.
This doesn't allow for fixed costs, though.
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Conveniently enough, the Manhattan Project employed 130,000 people
Yes, and once we had the atom bombs, we wouldn't need to spend anything on defence until someone invented a working ray gun.
I think we should start now. Tauranga would be great for the test site.
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Keith, is there been any comments from the PM about the role of innovation, entrepreneurship and R&D at the job summit?
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Blake - see discussion of Chatham House rule above - you're not allowed to attribute comments.
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...although I'm sure JK will publish an edited speech on beehive.govt.nz at some point in the very near future.
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A cycleway the length of NZ! Be still my heart!
But will it go over the auckland Harbour bridge?
Anyway, as the people funding the talkfest, aren't we *entitled* to know who said what?
Seconded. in this case, using Chatham house just seems like an attempt to avoid accountability.
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3,700 jobs isn't something to be pooh-poohed at
It is if they pay third-world wages. $2.50 an hour? Is that the fat-cats future vision of New Zealand?
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A problem is starting to emerge. Like the four-day week, it's being presented as a no-loss option. Employers get to reduce their labour costs and keep going, while employees get to keep their jobs and have time off for "leisure" or training. At a cost of 20% of their pay. Ahem.
Which is what happens when you invite only rich business-owners to these sorts of things: complete obliviousness to how it looks from the other end.
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So if your aim is to try and prevent damaging job losses in the short term, it does make sense to target the sectors where the jobs are at risk, even if they're not where there might be the most compelling public good arguments.
Well yes. But there are some sectors which will be less affected than others by the downturn. Hospitals - much of their 'business' is going to keep on needing to be done, and unless the government makes a serious budget cut, they're not going to lose a lot of their staff. Universities likewise - in fact the general theory around here is that universities do better in recessions as more unemployed means more retraining, and student loans remain available.
So I think you'd struggle to build an argument that we should put more money into hospitals otherwise we're going to lose qualified staff. There probably are business sectors that will apply to more - manufacturing etc. And those are areas where you also get that multiplier 'bank for buck' effect from private business.
Here's the dirty little secret, Kyle - nobody is.
And if you put three experts on economic stimulus in a room, you'll get three totally different solutions to the problem, all of which will contradict. How many people are at the summit?
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Keith:
Prominent right-winger says, that now is "obviously" not the time to be adding climate change-related costs to the economy. Gets shot down by the chair.
Could carbon footprints replace the nuke-free policy as a sticking point in US free-trade talks? Were that to happen, I'd be interested to see the reactions of pro-USFTA lobbyists over the past several years or so.
Rich:
If we confiscated the wealth of the NBR rich list ($44 billion), we could keep that going for 5 years.
The best possible solution would be to take a leaf out of Westminster's book and declare Fay Richwhite a terrorist organisation.
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I/S:
Rich business-owners like (list from Beehive website):
Jeremy Baker
Industry Training FederationLen Brown
Manukau CityDr Rod Carr (SGL)
University of CanterburyAndrew Casidy
Finsec [Financial sector union]Leith Comer
Te Puni KÅkiriPeter Conway (SGL)
New Zealand Council of Trade UnionsJohn Forbes
Opotiki District CouncilDave Eastlake
NZ Meat Workers UnionAndrew Little
EPMU [and newly elected Labour party president]Dr Ngatata Love
Wellington Tenths TrustThere are others, but I'll stop there. Sometimes your reflexive hatred of private enterprise blinds you.
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We already have a (mountain) bike track the length of the country - what we really need is a new state highway 1.
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9-day fortnight WITHOUT Govt compensation must be the Finance Minister's dream!
Option A: 10 staff, make one redundant - that one has to be paid welfare
Option B: 10 staff, all take a 10% pay cut - sweet! No need for Gummint to pay out and largely similar tax take. Hizzah!They will have to compensate at least to the level of welfare - i.e. each of those 10 staff get 1/10th of the dole for that 10th day.
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Eddie: cherry-picking simply demonstrates your own intellectual dishonesty.
The majority of the guests are representatives of the business community. Here's the Herald's assessment:
The guest list, released on Monday night, includes only three people from the community sector: Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson, Salvation Army social services director Campbell Roberts and a policy adviser for the disability group DPA, Wendi Wicks.
Instead, 118 of the 194 invited are from the business sector - mostly from big businesses (62) and finance (22), but including 30 from smaller businesses and sector groups and four from state-owned enterprises.
The rest are from central and local government, education and training organisations, unions, iwi groups and a handful of academics and researchers.
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I should add that the business representatives form a coherant faction in the ways that others do not, with the result that their worldview and ideology is going to dominate the conversation. In a real sense, the others are simply window-dressing, there to make up the numbers and hide the fact that this is a right-wing talkshop.
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I should add that the business representatives form a coherant faction in the ways that others do not, with the result that their worldview and ideology is going to dominate the conversation. In a real sense, the others are simply window-dressing, there to make up the numbers and hide the fact that this is a right-wing talkshop.
Stephen Tindall, being a member of the NZBCSD, seems to be one of the minority independent voices at the summit. Other than that, are there any others of his ilk at the summit, or is he in there as a token representative?
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Oh FFS, I/S.
I'm not being intellectually dishonest, unless pointing out a massive generalisation that you make is intellectual dishonesty. You said:
Which is what happens when you invite only rich business-owners to these sorts of things: complete obliviousness to how it looks from the other end.
ONLY. Not most. ONLY. You seem to object to the domination by business interests, and I to some extent agree with you there. But you stated, unambiguously, that there was a problem with having ONLY big business. Not most. You've shifted position, and that's fine, but don't call me intellectually dishonest to cover that up.
Also, you highlight one passage in that herald article, while ignoring the fact that 1/3 are from elsewhere. 1/3 isn't a majority, but it isn't insignificant. Also, there are a good number more people in a union that those who work for businesses.
Look, I love reading your blog, and my politics are broadly leftward. But the contemptuous tone you almost univerally use for anyone who owns a business (I don't) or who earns more than 20 bucks an hour (I do, by a fair bit) really, really grates sometimes. And I think it does blind you sometimes. (I feel similarly about Glenn Greenwald, as a mildly related point)
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And in the meantime, the key point - that the participants in the conferance represent a particular worldview, which is oblivious to the actual effects of their "no lose" solutions - is completely ignored...
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"The participants?" All of them? Andrew Little to Stephen Tindall to Charles Finny all have the same worldview? And EVERY business owner that was invited subscribes to neoliberal economics?
You've proved my point rather nicely, I/S.
And I don't think its worth engaging any further, cos you're sure as hell not going to change your mind due to what I say. An apology for questioning my intellectual integrity would be nice, but I don't really expect that.
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And in the meantime, the key point - that the participants in the conferance represent a particular worldview, which is oblivious to the actual effects of their "no lose" solutions - is completely ignored...
Isn't it a Jobs Summit?
Remind me again, don't many people in NZ work at businesses?
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BTW, has David Slack been invited to discuss his plan for a trans-Waitemata harbour transparent tube travelator link?
I reckon that could employ 2768 people for 34 months at a cost of only $94,580,123. The resulting tourist income (what other city has a subsea transparent tube travelator) will be at least $47,651,987 per year.
(Precise figures always make it look as if you thought about it).
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