If National wins ...

[Sgt Pepper]

Interesting to note that Lange arrived at a crossroads in his life where he had the option s of becoming a politician or a comedian - he chose the wrong option. He then had the option of staying with his wife or running off with his assistant - he made the wrong choice again. He had the same choice with his cake - keep it or eat it - he ate it, again and again. And this is your idea of the ideal example of a national leader? The "desperate" desire of John Key for a knighthood? and his vanity? Where are you getting these myths from?

Do you seriously believe he would turn down a knighthood?? Prepare to be disappointed. Apparently last year it was disclosed he spent hours looking at Bill Clinton speeches, he has about as much chance of matching Bill Clintons oratorical skills as I do of getting a place in the Rio Olympics.

[westerly]

Look at Wikipedia international currency adjusted column. We are well above 17th.More important than all this is the simple fact that neither you, or I, have ever been to a country with a better standard of living in general, including for those on minimum wage (and all the subsidies and WFF etc). So stop grizzling.

Mention taxes and Fungus gets all agitated. Almost as upset as when he spots an error in punctuation.

westerly

[BlackPeter]

Norway, Singapore, Denmark, Sweden, Canada??

Sgt, would agree that many of the companies on your list have a similar or even higher standard of living than NZ does. Obviously - standard of living is sort of subjective.

However - here is an interesting observation: None of the countries you listed has a higher minimum wage than NZ - and some of them have no minimum wage at all.

Do we need more evidence that minimum wage and standard of living are either uncorrelated (or perhaps even negatively correlated)?

Unions and Labour trying to push the minimum wage into the stratosphere are not concerned about the living standard of anybody (well, maybe their own), they are just concerned about being in power (cheap election bribes) and they want to increase unemployment (unemployed people are more likely to be Labour voters - i.e. lets get more people onto the doll).

[fungus pudding]

Mention taxes and Fungus gets all agitated. Almost as upset as when he spots an error in punctuation.

westerly

Not so. Errors in punctuation don't upset me. That doesn't stop me applying my free correction and advice service which is so often needed on this forum. Not quite sure what started you up about taxes.

[craic]

I have no idea whether or not John Key would or would not accept a knighthood, nor do you but you have somehow concluded that he is hell bent on it based on nothing more than a leftist slant. And as to reading Clintons speeches, all that proves is that he is interested in self-improvement - something that the left might find helpful - those that are not firebombing ministers offices.

Do you seriously believe he would turn down a knighthood?? Prepare to be disappointed. Apparently last year it was disclosed he spent hours looking at Bill Clinton speeches, he has about as much chance of matching Bill Clintons oratorical skills as I do of getting a place in the Rio Olympics.

[winner69]

Twitterland all go on impending blowup in Labour ranks

A selection

@bryce_edwards: Hooton: “McCarten & his far-left friends are well on the way to reducing Labour to... one day be the junior partner in a Green-led Govt”

@bryce_edwards: Hooton: After Clark left, “Labour resembled a zombie bank”; “McCarten and his far-left friends saw an opportunity to be vulture investors”

@bryce_edwards: Hooton’s moderate centre of Labour: Phil Goff, David Shearer, David Parker, Stuart Nash, Clayton Cosgrove, Peeni Henare and Kelvin Davis

@bryce_edwards: Hooton: “the moderate centre of the party… plan to launch an offensive against the party’s direction in May, they have no chance of success”

@couchexprt: @bryce_edwards they should just join the Nats so we can replace them with Corbyn/Sanders mold. #fixinequality

@bryce_edwards: Hooton: “1/3 of Labour MPs are appalled by the sharp shift to the left but the entrists in the unions and local branches are in control”

@bryce_edwards: Hooton writes of “1930s French Trotskyists”, 1960-70s “subversion of the UK Labour Party by Militant Tendency”; says now in happened in NZ

[blackcap]

Blackcap, don't be so sensitive. It's anecdotal, how can a statement like that be disproven or proven? It would be a lot of data to be collected. Employers aren't so crazy, and here I'm talking about operations that perhaps aren't wildly profitable. After they decide if a person is keen to work, has (or could be trained to have) the skills needed for the job, the next thought they have is "Can I afford to employ this person, what are they expecting?", or even better "Can I have a good worker and cheekily offer them a lower pay rate?"

I had another employer phone me up once, to ask what I was paying my staff. I gave him a rough idea. Then he said I was paying too much, I should trim it back, and I'd still get staff. No bull. This is going on all the time. I always pay staff well above the liveable wage, after all they're the guts of my business.

More about John Key and the Waitangi Day decision.

http://thestandard.org.nz/waitangi-c...hn-plucks-off/

HI ElZorro, I was not being pedantic or sensitive. If you are using such a statement to make a case or try to help your position its better not to lie about it. I see NZ are 7th or so out of all countries. That does not put us in the "relatively low minimum" wage category. Rather it places us NZ in a unique position of having nearly the highest minimum wages in the world.
Anecdote... I just had 2 cousins from Holland come on a working holiday. They could not believe how much they were being paid. In Holland the minimum wage does not kick in till you are 23, before that its graduated. Many supermarket (for use of an example) workers aged 17 are paid $7 per hour and are happy with that. No wonder my cousins (both 20) were so happy to get $14.75 and thought we NZ were crazy for legislating such largesse.

[macduffy]

No wonder my cousins (both 20) were so happy to get $14.75 and thought we NZ were crazy for legislating such largesse.

Not quite as crazy as agitating for a "living wage" - based on the needs of a wage earner with dependents - for every 20 year old living at home with his/her parents!

(Sorry to bring that one up.)

[elZorro]

I've just looked at Westerley's list where we are 'well down' (according to Westerley) We're about forth or fifth from the top.

I have to pick you up on this typo, FP. Forty, fourth, etc. It's a weird rule but it must be followed.

These minimum wage rankings, do they allow for costs like rent or accommodation to be factored in, or is it just using the relative strength of international currency tables?

[fungus pudding]

I have to pick you up on this typo, FP. Forty, fourth, etc. It's a weird rule but it must be followed.

These minimum wage rankings, do they allow for costs like rent or accommodation to be factored in, or is it just using the relative strength of international currency tables?

Thank-you. My mistake. As far as whether lunch money, rent, booze, travel costs etc. are included, it's a completely stupid question.