Labour / NZ First Government

[Balance]

Thats twice in a week now Balance and it needs to stop

Bet you feel good for being the bigger & better person for doing so?

As you should be. 👍

Suitably chastised, I am . 🥴

[moka]

You have a sad attitude. There is no need to envy success. It should inspire you, but appears to make you envious. I've been hovering around the business world for decades and have rarely encountered this lack of honesty, ethics and integrity that you speak of. On the contrary, I have found those who have attained success, either through self employment, or have climbed high on someone else's ladder to generally be helpful with a joyful spirit. Of course there are exceptions, but they're not common in my experience. You reek of the green eyed monster.

I don’t envy success if it deserved, and I see people who work hard who do deserve success.
I am talking about predatory capital and an obvious example was finance companies around GFC.

You are assuming that my attitude is envy, and it is not envy I feel when I look at homelessness and child poverty with the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. I am talking about the big picture with increasing inequality because of neoliberalism and freemarket policies which transfer wealth from the have-nots to the haves.

The free-market economy assumes trickledown economics works when it does not.
The extreme wealthy can actually resource and fund themselves to avoid paying things like fair tax, whilst 75 percent of New Zealand's economy - small business - they are actually paying tax.
It's not fair if multinationals and the extreme wealthy around the world are not paying their fair share of tax.

[moka]

There are rules, set by those actually in power. If people and organisations stay within those rules how is that predatory? Individuals and business owners have always, and will always, look out for their households and stakeholders. If they stray outside the rules there are consequences.

Households and business owners might be well off or they might not. But to suggest they should not act within the rules and in their own interests because that is lacking honesty, integrity and ethics? Really?

It is predatory because there is a power imbalance between capital and labour and the rules to protect both workers and consumers have been weakened by neoliberalism through the mantra of less government and less regulation.

People interpret the rules to suit themselves e.g. employers with the wage subsidy. The Council of Trade Unions received a staggering 2100 complaints by 17 April 2020, with people often being forced to take annual leave, redundancies being progressed improperly, so proper consultation not happening, and health and safety concerns.

Wage subsidy complaints soar, including employer fraud - Labour Inspectorate
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/414453/wage-subsidy-complaints-soar-including-employer-fraud-labour-inspectorate

A lot of the time there are not consequences if people stray outside the rules. Certainly with white collar crime you aren’t as likely to be prosecuted as someone who is not in a trusted position and steals money. Often fraudsters are asked to leave with their reputation intact, and their next employer is unaware of their history. Being tough on crime for the National Party meant targeting gangs not corporate crime.

There is a double standard in attitudes to tax avoidance and benefit manipulation: while around half or more regard both as wrong, benefit recipients are judged more harshly than tax offenders for what might be considered similar ‘offences’. People are often judged more on who they are than their behaviour.

[artemis]

It is predatory because there is a power imbalance between capital and labour and the rules to protect both workers and consumers have been weakened by neoliberalism through the mantra of less government and less regulation.....

There have been changes in the last three years, and more promised for the next three. Let's see how they work out.

As an example, we have already seen some results of government dealing to the 'power imbalance' between tenants and landlords. It has actually been pretty good for landlords, tenants not so much.

Some asset owners will take their ball and go home. Others will adjust their processes and investment to minimise cost and risk. WHS being just one recent example, in the news because of scale. But not the only one. And most asset owners are not required to tell the market, they just quietly do what they do.

There is a quiet revolution based on automated systems, AI and robotics. It has been going on for decades and ain't stopping any time soon.

I watched a vid recently about an automated picking system in the US - taking goods from warehouse shelves and funnelling them to packers for shipping. It is designed for smaller enterprises, takes just days to get up and running for that part of the order and ship process. Not talking scale of Amazon or Ocado here but with online shipping and dark distribution centres increasing, there is a market here for sure. Low wage jobs gone.

[jonu]

The free-market economy assumes trickledown economics works when it does not.
The extreme wealthy can actually resource and fund themselves to avoid paying things like fair tax, whilst 75 percent of New Zealand's economy - small business - they are actually paying tax.
It's not fair if multinationals and the extreme wealthy around the world are not paying their fair share of tax.

It depends on your definition of "works".

Trickledown works in an overall sense. The human race has never enjoyed such a high standard of living and life expectancy. In fact in first world countries this has resulted in a number of self inflicted health problems around dietary choices etc (I realise that invites another discussion).

What Trickledown doesn't do is diminish the "gap" between rich and poor, in fact it can exacerbate it. That is where the tension arises. I'm not saying it is fair, but it is more nuanced than just saying it doesn't work.

[Balance]

It depends on your definition of "works".

Trickledown works in an overall sense. The human race has never enjoyed such a high standard of living and life expectancy. In fact in first world countries this has resulted in a number of self inflicted health problems around dietary choices etc (I realise that invites another discussion).

What Trickledown doesn't do is diminish the "gap" between rich and poor, in fact it can exacerbate it. That is where the tension arises. I'm not saying it is fair, but it is more nuanced than just saying it doesn't work.

China and other once upon a time third world countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Japan (totally devastated after WW2) are proof that trickledown economics work - as long as the people are prepared to work hard and be self reliant.

Compare and contrast with NZ today where handouts are more attractive than working on a farm - you have your answer why the wealth gap in NZ will never close.

[Balance]

It is predatory because there is a power imbalance between capital and labour and the rules to protect both workers and consumers have been weakened by neoliberalism through the mantra of less government and less regulation.

People interpret the rules to suit themselves e.g. employers with the wage subsidy. The Council of Trade Unions received a staggering 2100 complaints by 17 April 2020, with people often being forced to take annual leave, redundancies being progressed improperly, so proper consultation not happening, and health and safety concerns.

Wage subsidy complaints soar, including employer fraud - Labour Inspectorate
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/414453/wage-subsidy-complaints-soar-including-employer-fraud-labour-inspectorate

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money...cheme.amp.html

And the result is that few employers and businesses were found to have abused the wage subsidy scheme when the complaints were investigated.

[justakiwi]

You are seriously going to use China as a “good” example? Yes, the Chinese are incredibly hard working people but the gap between wealthy and poor is huge. China’s poor, see no benefit whatsoever form your trickle down economy. The same applies to Japan and probably to the other countries you have mentioned.

China and other once upon a time third world countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Japan (totally devastated after WW2) are proof that trickledown economics work - as long as the people are prepared to work hard and be self reliant.

Compare and contrast with NZ today where handouts are more attractive than working on a farm - you have your answer why the wealth gap in NZ will never close.

[fungus pudding]

It depends on your definition of "works".

Trickledown works in an overall sense. The human race has never enjoyed such a high standard of living and life expectancy. In fact in first world countries this has resulted in a number of self inflicted health problems around dietary choices etc (I realise that invites another discussion).

What Trickledown doesn't do is diminish the "gap" between rich and poor, in fact it can exacerbate it. That is where the tension arises. I'm not saying it is fair, but it is more nuanced than just saying it doesn't work.

Trickle down: That is the only way money can travel, so that's what it does. As living standards rise throughout the world, which they are doing, the gap grows. It shouldn't matter as long as the poor are getting richer, which they are. Clobbering 'the rich' will always have consequences on the poor, generally reducing their living standard. Strangely enough various studies have shown people generally accept poverty well as long as others aren't seen to be better off. Envy is a strange animal.

[Balance]

You are seriously going to use China as a “good” example? Yes, the Chinese are incredibly hard working people but the gap between wealthy and poor is huge. China’s poor, see no benefit whatsoever form your trickle down economy. The same applies to Japan and probably to the other countries you have mentioned.

Open your eyes and ears, justakiwi and review the China situation from the perspective of the Chinese, not the biased Western commentaries which cannot rise above the West vs Communism narrative.

You are right about the wealth gap in China where there are some very very wealthy individuals (sounds similar to the US, UK and NZ, right?) but never in the history of mankind have so many people been lifted out of abject poverty and basic existence as in China over the last 30 years.

https://www.business-standard.com/ar...1300027_1.html

But don't take my word for it, have a read of the article above.

Several of my business contacts are from China and they have nothing but praise for the way that their leaders have lifted their country out of the miserable state China was right until the 1990s.

Meanwhile, in NZ we have gone from first world during the 1950s to the 1970s to school children needing to be provided with lunches these days so they do not go hungry & can focus on their studies - what happened? What an absolute disgrace!