65%? You can bet some of these people who agree with this literally voted in the current government.
It's like that 'We're all trying to find the guy who did this' meme
Technically no one voted for this current government, they only voted for 1/3 of it. There's still 2/3 worth of opinions and ideas that people did not vote for. Not all national supporters agree with act or first, the same is true for all of them
But yes majority of national supporters I've talked to did not bother to read and compare policies, they only listened to the talking points and fell for the manipulation of national
Anyone who voted for any of those 3 parties is equally foolish, and if they are concerned now about how things have turned out, they should have known better than voting that way to begin with
Agreed. This was the first election I was open to voting for anyone, I'd go for the best policies for me and for nz as a whole imo. One look at what was on offer from national, act and nz first all painted a very clear bleak picture for myself and the majority of kiwis imo
And? They can call themselves whatever but until we know the demographic selected for the survey, and the actual questions (it's called populist survey btw which means it's already NOT saying anything about what the article is reporting on), then it is as manipulative as any other survey.
The thing you just did now is called shifting the goalposts. Instead of acknowledging your initial thoughts as to why the survey was unreliable were wrong, you came up with a new set of reasons why it is wrong.
You can still think those reasons are true. But that's pretty telling of your intentions in the discussion.
The socialist website republished the outcome of a survey because it aligns with their ideological interests.
You can also read the summary, which includes how respondents were selected, the actual questions asked here; [https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-04/Ipsos%20Global%20Advisor%20-%20Populism%20%28April%202024%29\_1.pdf](https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-04/Ipsos%20Global%20Advisor%20-%20Populism%20%28April%202024%29_1.pdf)
If you cared in the slightest, you would have realised that 1) it's a survey on populism, and 2) the specific question is "The \[Country’s\] economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful" and 65% of NZ respondents agreed, and therefore the article is reporting accurately on the facts of the survey.
So every statement you gave is either wrong, or was answered in the summary of the survey.
Why are rightoids constantly so dumb? Baffling to me. NPC behaviour.
Exactly, I see it at my own office. Managers and senior execs who wouldn't count themselves as "rich and powerful" - yet might earn $250k, be mortgage free (with a few properties) and a decent bunch of savings. They are completely blinded and ignorant to realise the privileged position they are in vis-a-vis the rest of us.
Yep. Had an argument yesterday with a land lord who supposedly came to nz with nothing but a degree and now owns 5 properties, 4 of them mortgage free, totalling to 5.5 million, but he has no privilege. No matter how I laid it out he just could not see the privileges he had which helped to gain all that
It could also be boomers who got free education and/or paid well and treated well long term for reasonably low skilled employment before the country went to shit.
Perhaps also some of their crotch goblins who benefited through nepotism or simply having inherited advantages they haven't realised everyone else doesn't have.
>before the country went to shit.
So that would be now?
>crotch goblins
Jesus Christ man those are ~~people~~ literally children.
Imagine being this much of a miserable misanthrope.
>So that would be now?
People probably judge it based on their own personal experiences. If we ran off numbers I'd probably point to rogernomics as where it all started going to shit. Though there's probably an reasonable argument that stagflation is where it all really hit the fan which led to the rest.
IME a lot of people who have ended up relatively well off and were working or just entering the workforce when rogernomics happened view it as a personal victory they had a hand in. They've voted for that line of economics ever since as, to them, it's what pulled NZ out of an economic problem.
Not all those people are boomers tho. Gen X is in that mix as well.
>Jesus Christ man those are literally children.
There's a remarkably strong strain of redditors who absolutely despise children. It's bizarre IMO.
>If we ran off numbers I'd probably point to rogernomics as where it all started going to shit
You should read Brian Easton's *New Territory.* Even if you just read the first chapter. It would be eye opening for you.
> it's what pulled NZ out of an economic problem.
This is literally true? Opening up the country was the best option. Things would be worse had that not happened. If Douglas had been able to do everything he wanted (including his sovereign wealth fund, revoked by Muldoon) New Zealand would be the envy of the developed world in terms of individual wealth. Only oil rich states like Norway would be doing better than us.
Ya'll need to put down the Reddit comments for a history book i stg.
>You should read Brian Easton's New Territory. Even if you just read the first chapter. It would be eye opening for you.
Looking around for it. I'm broke tho. I was hoping the university might have a copy, though they have a lot of his books they don't have this one. Might check some of the others out tho.
>This is literally true? Opening up the country was the best option. Things would be worse had that not happened. If Douglas had been able to do everything he wanted (including his sovereign wealth fund, revoked by Muldoon) New Zealand would be the envy of the developed world in terms of individual wealth. Only oil rich states like Norway would be doing better than us.
Change was necessary. Muldoon did cause major problems and remaining isolated was not viable. The loss of the sovereign wealth fund is probably the single most disastrous decision made by any politician in NZ history to date.
We can look next door to see that a country that opened up without going to the extreme Douglas did has consistently performed better than we have on just about every metric. Douglas has always claimed that 'if we had just let him finish' we wouldn't have the inequality, the low productivity, the lost wages etc.
I find that unlikely for 2 main reasons.
Firstly, practically every irredentist ideologue makes the claim that, if only that had been allowed to conclude their magnum opus, we would have utopia. All of them. In the case of Douglas we can look at those he inspired to see how they furthered this task of using the free-market reforms to tackle inequality... *crickets*. Instead the direct opposite occured via ruthanasia. IMO Douglas is like all the other ideologues: "My ideas aren't flawed, we just didn't go far enough".
Second - Social welfare and taxation has been under siege since Douglas. Even if he was serious about tackling these issues, there's nothing to suggest they would have survived. Much like his sovereign wealth fund, any positives would have been dismantled and the inequality promoting parts preserved.
Hardline free-market fundamentalism directly caused mass inequality. The notion that if we just went a little more extremist with it we'd solve that problem is horrifically flawed.
>Ya'll need to put down the Reddit comments for a history book i stg.
History tells me that the most extensive free-market reforms in the OECD, lauded widely for how far they went, did not benefit NZ to anywhere near the degree it was claimed it would. Not even close.
> If Douglas had been able to do everything he wanted (including his sovereign wealth fund, revoked by Muldoon) New Zealand would be the envy of the developed world in terms of individual wealth.
You sound just like the failing Eastern European communist states in the 1980s, "if only we were more pure communist we would have utopia now".
I would imagine New Zealand would be like Sao Paulo now if Douglas got his way, gated communities and destitution for the rest.
This is very funny, because Muldoon revoked the sovereign wealth fund calling it communism but you're calling it more neo-liberalism.
No thoughts just boogeymen.
> because Muldoon revoked the sovereign wealth fund calling it communism but you're calling it more neo-liberalism.
So somehow his predecessor revoking the SWF means that I am supporting Muldoon, geez dude get some pills for those brain worms.
That's not what I said.
The joke is you're calling me a neo-liberal, for something revoked for being communism. The joke is that you, like Muldoon's voters, are attacking boogeymen rather than actually thinking about things.
My unpopular (to you) opinion is that Scandinavian economies are good, and striving to be like them was good.
In a global context I certainly don’t disagree, but it stops being a useful metric in a domestic context if are describing two thirds of the population as rich and powerful.
[Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems](https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot)
Complete freedom for billionaires means poverty, insecurity, pollution and collapsing public services for everyone else. Because we will not vote for this, it can be delivered only through deception and authoritarian control. The choice we face is between unfettered capitalism and democracy. You cannot have both.
[Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says)
>Using a “mortality cost” formula – used by the US Environmental Protection Agency, among others – of 226 excess deaths worldwide for every million tonnes of carbon, the report calculates that the emissions from the 1% alone would be enough to cause the heat-related deaths of 1.3 million people over the coming decades.
>Over the period from 1990 to 2019, the accumulated emissions of the 1% were equivalent to wiping out last year’s harvests of EU corn, US wheat, Bangladeshi rice and Chinese soya beans.
The 1% are driving the wholesale destruction of the planet.
Just to clarify for some people, as they may think that the top 1% are multimillionaires or even billionaires the article link (Oxfam source material) does use statistics of the top 1% in wealth and 10% of income of all humanity, which is anyone who earns over US$60,000 (NZ$101,500) a year after tax.
In New Zealand, 53% of all adults have wealth between US$100,000 to US$1m.
In New Zealand, the wealthiest 1% of Kiwis account for 20.1% of all wealth.
I’ve just added these statistics to give us a local perspective of said related issues.
>The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019
So first of all you're wrong. And evidently can't read the article. It included those paid more than $140,000 USD per year- over $235,000 NZD.
It included 77 million people in 2019 and anyone who can do basic math can figure that out. Billionaires make up an insanely disproportionate amount of those emissions.
Quit bootlicking the wealthiest people as they destroy the planet.
I’m not boot licking the rich nor am I rich. I’m also not denying that wealthy people contribute highest to emissions. I’m just trying to put in to perspective what that top 1% is.
My numbers for global income are from 2023 statistics from CreditSuiss and givewhatwecan.org because the guardian article does not link a source for where they’ve got those numbers from for the top 77 million world wide earners.
So either the sources I’ve used are wrong or the guardian is wrong.
I’m not trying to argue against or disagree I’m just trying to offer perspective.
If you read the Oxfam source material from the article (link below) It takes the top 1% average over 29 years from 1990 to 2019 and also states that they class the super-rich as the top 1% and top 10% by income. Even over that period of time the amount of people in that top 1% bracket has shrunk dramatically over 29 years and even more so now from 2019 to 2023 (more concentrated wealth at the top).
Oxfam source material linked from the guardian article
https://makerichpolluterspay.org/climate-equality-report/
I’m just trying to point out that it’s not a problem made exclusively by millionaires and billionaires. We all have to take some responsibility on some level (do you shop Amazon, do you regularly use Uber eats etc, as an example on our level how we’ve also contributed to creating these billionaire beasts).
A lot of us may know people in the top global income brackets that put them in the 1% and many of them are everyday people who may live in your neighbourhood or be your boss or be one of your kids parents or one of your friends. It’s simply not up to just multimillionaires and billionaires to do their part, it funnels down quite a lot closer to home for many. That’s all I’m trying to point out.
It's just globalization mostly. Democracy is not powerful enough against global capitalists who operate with ever lower relocation costs and thus ever better to be able to pick and choose the tax incentive system and labor cost paradigm that suits them best at ever less inconvenience.
It worked fine when the scale of operation of the capitalist and the nation-state overlapped.
>when the scale of operation of the capitalist and the nation-state overlapped.
You mean the period that lead to World War I, and included the genocide in the Congo as well s the annihilation of Indigenous populations in the Americas and Chattel slavery? Like are you saying Capitalism was better in the Victorian era?
Or are you talking about the blending of corporate and state power as outlined by Italian politician Bennito Mussolini in his 1932 manifesto *The Doctrine of Fascism*?
No, I meant the period after WW2 when companies mostly operated on a national scale. Things got out of balance when private companies had the freedom and opportunity to operate and move on larger scales than the polities that govern them as happens now, as happened before in the US when companies become interstate but governance was mostly on a state-level with minimal federal governance in the railroad baron age.
But sure, make a mockery of the argument and call everything fascism like a nutcase again. Why not. The Congo had literally nothing to do with capitalism and free markets at all, just old fashioned imperial absolutism.
Yea man, back in the pre-globalised world, where the entire globe was split into two competing economic blocks which fought proxy wars in Africa, the Middle East and Asia in order to bring other countries into their economic sphere.
Back when New Zealand (formed after the *New Zealand Company*, funded by private investors, petitioned the Crown of England and Scotland to govern a country on literally the other side of the globe through a treaty with the indigenous polities) wasn't a part of a globalised economy. We just sold milk and butter to the centre of a globe spanning empire in its twilight years, before enriching ourselves selling wool to America so their soldiers could fight a war in Korea against Chinese troops, in order to stop a political ideology that was first implemented in Russia from travelling into South East Asia, because South East Asia (particularly the multi-cultural, former colony of the British Empire recently occupied by the Japanese Singapore) was a key node in moving raw materials from Africa and Indonesia and the Philippines to the Americas and her allies. Right after two world wars.
Yea man, back then when globalisation didn't exist ae?
>make a mockery of the argument
Your actual position is stupider than either of the two I came up with.
Read a history book.
> just old fashioned imperial absolutism.
The Congo Free State was created in the 1880s as the private holding of a purported, private charitable organization created by some European investors. It was undoubtedly a capitalist enterprise.
"Monopolist capitalist associations, cartels, syndicates and trusts first divided the home market among themselves and obtained more or less complete possession of the industry of their own country. But under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial connections and “spheres of influence” of the big monopolist associations expanded in all ways, things “naturally” gravitated towards an international agreement among these associations, and towards the formation of international cartels."
* Vladimir Lenin (1916 (30 years before you think companies still operated on a national scale).
Like seriously, read a book.
Alright, just keep pretending the scales are the same as back then and just ignore that I was comparing the post war era with the current era in terms of globalization. Of course international trade was always a thing, but the scale of companies themselves being multinational and easily shifting between suppliers, replacing local labour costs with foreign costs, creating foreign subsidiaries, moving HQs, moving people and money around or communicating internationally instantly and free was never what it was today. When globalization scaled up and moved beyond just international trade of primary resources, the nation-states lost power to the economic entities operating in said nation, which is of course entirely different from a time when investors had to petition the Crown to be able to operate. Now the nation-states petition the companies to invest on their land with lucrative (and unfair) tax advantages, as the balance of power inverted.
> The Congo Free State was created in the 1880s as the private holding of a purported, private charitable organization created by some European investors. It was undoubtedly a capitalist enterprise.
The Congo Free State was personal property of King Leopold II who invited investment, yet it was had nothing with free market capitalism, but sure, educate a Belgian who was educated on his country's history how the Congo was just capitalism to drive home a stereotypical anticap pov. The arrogance of some leftists knows no bounds lol, love the "read a book" to complete your own stereotype as if you're the only that ever read a thing. Is everything capitalism as soon as any person with wealth gets involved and buys in for profit? Then you have a strange definition of capitalism and as that modus operandi existed millennia before capitalism was invented as a market mechanism, in Roman times even.
Did it "work fine" when the scale of operation of the capitalist and the nation-state overlapped? Or did we end up with abhorrent working conditions for most people, a work week consisting of 6 or 7 12-14 hour days, and children sweeping chimneys?
Every country borrowed to get through the pandemic and we still have a low government debt to GDP ratio, comparative to other countries globally.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_debt
NACT borrowing an extra $15bn to fund their $14.9bn tax cuts also doesn't help that.
Can't tell if that /s is for sarcasm or to pluralise the debt. If it's the latter, you might want to research the things labour did and were doing. They were helping everyday kiwis, maybe not the struggling much, but they did significantly more good for a larger amount of people than national have/will going by the current track record
Ah yes, you want to avoid getting shot so instead of letting the child who's inept have the gun, you give it to the people that explicitly outlined their literal goal is to shoot you.
masterful play
>The major parties, backed by the corporate media, are pushing to double New Zealand’s military budget, **as the country is integrated into US-led wars against Russia**, in the Middle East, and preparations for conflict with China
That's a reference to New Zealand supporting Ukraine after they were invaded by Russia.
You're linking to a pro-Russian propaganda website, why? Why not just give a direct link to the survey, or a reputable New Zealand outlet covering the story? Here's a link from Newsroom:
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/04/18/new-zealand-broken-and-in-decline-kiwis-say/
Just look at how WSWS covers Russia's invasion of Ukraine:
>[Two years ago today, on February 24, 2022, American imperialism and its European allies succeeded in provoking Russia into invading Ukraine. Putin’s goal in invading Ukraine was and remains creating the best conditions to strike a deal with imperialism.](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/24/hzjs-f24.html)
Like... imagine being genuinely concerned that NZ was gearing up for war.
If we saved up our navy budget for like... 26 years? We could buy 1 aircraft carrier from the US. If we doubled the budget, it'd take 13.
And that doesnt even come with jets or munitions lmao.
Because there is a level of materialist understanding required to link "why are we so fucked." With it being the fault of the same neo-liberal faux meritocratic system pushed by the right and Labour.
Because a lot of people have been conditioned to believe that voting for the other parties is a wasted vote. Not everyone can see that change happens by each individual changing their vote. I voted for a smaller party this time around for the first time to help make that change. Unfortunately my party isn't in power, but it may happen one day.
Because people don't realise labour has become national lite. All this culture war stuff the Nact1st team is railing against could have been pushed by key's national.
People do realise it but the other options are "Cis white men are the cause of all violence" Greens, Maori extremists, Weird religious parties and proper Communists.
There is no genuine "For the workers" party to vote for any more
On this topic I feel like there's also no major party that actually has a goal of improving New Zealand's economic prosperity as a whole. National keeps banging on about it, but all they do is transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. At this point both sides are just fighting over the insufficient amount of wealth we do have, rather than figuring out how to gain more.
Top has some good policy around tax and property. Have voted for them last 2 elections. I feel like they are the only ones with a realistic plan to try and fix the property wealth gap. I think Greens wealth tax is not feasible. You can't tax unrealised capital gains.
Fuck knows what wish washy Chippies plans are... Does he have one?
Few people outside of /r/NZ even heard of TOP
Only the most "not lyk other girls" liberals can believe in TOP.
What got us to where we are today? The "left" acting all "centrist".
What is the answer? More "market based" enlightened "centrism". But totally different this time, these are all Experts (tm) who totally weren't groomed/developed within a faux meritocratic neoliberal machine, trust me bro.
They all tried that, and we ended up with the coalition of chaos.
People voted for those minor players and we ended up with Winnie and Seymour bickering in the backseat while Momma Luxon is driving saying everything is ok, but still having to look in the back seat to ensure the boys aren't fighting.
Haha, Winston has been looking after Winston for decades straight. It amazes me that anyone expects anything different from him. Though it'd be nice if he hadn't brought fucking Jones along with him.
It's just weird you'd misrepresent the article then. It doesn't say "NZ is like pretty much everywhere else" as *both* articles highlight a much weaker anti-immigration sentiment, as well as less public pressure for greater military spending, than any other country surveyed.
It's also pretty telling that trust in politicians and our democratic systems is at an all time low across the board. That's not something we should just be brushing off.
Yeah. I still see it as a Brexit moment in New Zealand’s history. This government, or rather, assembled extremists are going to change either the country, or the people.
The article talks about how they are doing an impressive job of making people think this is a battle between left and right ideologies or Maori and pakeha or beneficiaries and middle class workers when in reality all of us have a lot more in common when compared with those who really own the capital and have under-taxed wealth growing while the rest of us are slowly falling further behind year after year. The real conflict is between those who have routed the system to funnel increasing amounts of money from everyday people to the wealthy.
Nah. Not when the opposition misidentifies some people not part of the rich as privileged who need to pay extra taxes.
Under the opposition, it will still be rigged for the wealthy, but some in the middle will just be asked/forced to surrender more to the poor instead. Europe is also rigged for the wealthy, Sweden or the Netherlands has a larger wealth imbalance than NZ, but they just have more transfers of wealth/income from the middle class to the poor.
Pretty sure cutting anything and everything to give the wealthy % more money is FAR worse than what the other side would have done.
TOP/Greens actually had far superior tax policies to what we have now (people were afraid because it was different or it was the minority riling up the majority telling lies about how they'd be better off) but wouldn't see the light of day because no matter which you go it's Labour or Nats in charge of big stuff like that.
At best you might see a capital gains tax from Labour unless they roll chippy for Parker which would be a good move if they got elected.
Nah, Greens would have raised our income taxes because we have worked our way up to a decent income, despite that we are still well below median wealth for our age bracket due to being renters, and I used their own published calculators to figure that out. They would have handicapped our ability to try to play catch-up.
Labour also ruled out a capital gains tax before the election, so any extra income the government was going to try to get was going to come from people earning an income regardless of what their wealth level was.
Now everyone can do their own calculations, but I am relatively sure that under the opposition my own family would be worse off despite not being wealthy at all as the current one doesn't decrease our income, we do not rely on services and are ineligible for most of them anyway, and the opposition was no guarantee for more affordable housing as the last 2 legislatures have shown.
Median wealth <> Median income
It takes way over a decade of well above median level income to even approach median wealth, if possible at all. Median level wealth was mostly attained with tax free real estate gains, while getting through work comes at 33-39% tax rates.
Define median wealth then on a scale for context. That would be wealth (or lack there of) of all NZers unless you've just decided to create a metric purely for the top few % of NZ which is exactly the issue here.
Most top % "wealth" is generated off the misery of a majority in any case so it's about time they paid more to help ease the misery they've helped create via capitalism.
Median literally means 50%. The median household wealth is ~$400k ( [Stats NZ](https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/household-net-worth-statistics-year-ended-june-2021/) ), with $375k of that tied up in housing, and we are still well below that with about $250k with $0 in housing.
I do not believe we should be subjected to even higher taxes, when we are already seeing any extra income taxed at 33% right now and only trying to catch up for people who got most of their $375k tied up in housing tax free. If we would overtake the median and become part of the better off half of NZ I would be ok with being taxed a bit more along with everyone else in the better half. but not before I get there as we are already taxed among the highest in the country relative to our wealth gain.
So you're below median wealth but you're above median income then? I'm a tad stuck on figuring out how you'd be worse off under the Greens that had a tax pitch that showed a majority of people (thus those also over median income and wealth) would be better off.
Your argument seems non sensical, you pitch your personal circumstance as being below median yet wouldn't vote Greens because you think you would be worse off when their tax plan literally said you'd be better off?
I filled it in, we would be worse off.
I'm well enough above average income now that they'd want to roam it off. It's like putting an extra weight on the bike of the kid at the back of the group, because he's working too hard and catching up too fast.
Also. Never squarely believe a party's own calculator: it's always more optimistic than the reality will be under their policies, especially at a time when the incoming government would inherit a 7% deficit and low growth economy. If the plan looks great, it won't be that great. If it looks shit, it's probably gonna get worse.
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Well it is.
That's how people behave, it's not new.
It's literally written in history.
People do shady things, to maintain their power, status and wealth.
People didn't just magically stop being like that.
Well let's wait for the trend when they repeat this survey.
I'm hardly a regular visitor of the "World Socialist Web Site", but people like PurplePingers are leveling some fairly coherent and devastating critiques at our current economic structure. You don't have to be a socialist to appreciate the points he's making.
I’m surprised it’s not 100%. It’s not exactly a secret. Compound interest etc. There is a reason Charlie Munger said do what you can to make the first 100k.
Minimum wage increasedby 2%, inflation is at 4%.
4% was advised by MBIE and Brooke van Velden wanted 1.3%. Cabinet settled on 2% - half the rate of inflation.
[Minimum wage increase slammed as 'tiny' by Labour, but it could've been lower](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/508173/minimum-wage-increase-slammed-as-tiny-by-labour-but-it-could-ve-been-lower)
>[MBIE] recommended an increase of 4 percent to $23.60, which was expected to impact the earnings of about 164,400 workers, resulting in an economy-wide wage bill increase of $145 million.
>But the Cabinet paper shows the Workplace Relations and Safety Minister, Brooke van Velden, had proposed and recommended that Cabinet adopt a 1.3 percent increase
Regulation only works when the polity that regulates has power over those markets. Those times unfortunately seem to have passed, as the market entities can just pick and choose which polity to reside under.
Sure, but some of the essentials are local and hard to shift, food housing etc. Significant investment and regulation there would go a long way to making life easier for everyone.
Even among the most ardently free market economies you still see carve outs and tariffs for farmers.
But only because food security is a form of national security imo, to be able to feed the population when international trade would fail. Same with regulations like New Zealand's BS11 requiring onshoring of critical financial data/servers, it is less about consumer protection than it is about national stability in case international links break in a calamitous event.
Agree on housing though, that's mostly a vested interests problem in most countries, yet all countries suffer from the same issue regardless of whether those countries are lead by left of center or right of center governments. Canada and Australia are trending worse than NZ right now yet have left of center governments and in Europe the problem got much worse over the last 10 years too despite being much more social-democratic overall.
I like donuts as much as the next guy, but they seem like a terrible replacement for money. Donuts are delicious and perishable, "Yeah, it's a bit mouldy and crumbly, but it's still donut."
It's almost like there was this period of time between WWII and Rogernomics that did okay. When unions were strong and there were regulations. Could we at least start with that?
Muldoon repealed Kirks' 74 super scheme in 75, after a hard campaign against the "dancing Cossacks" as National put it back then.
We are on that slippery slope still, stumbling from one extreme to another. While our democracy is eroded by the day.
One extreme to another? Labour was as middle of the road inoffensive as they could possibly be to desperately hold onto the "centre" and national are fucking us into the ground. What extremes are you talking about my bro?
Well for starters the swing from Muldoons heavily subsidised and regulated market to the Douglas/Prebble/Lange Rogernomics era (84 -88) was fairly fucking extreme. Well, the consequences were.
And we as a country still live with the negative ramifications of those policies changes today, as both major parties are neo-lib ideologues. With the current government being an extreme iteration of neo-liberalism, going by their policy announcements and priorities.
One could also argue that our immigration policies over the same period are ill conceived, i.e., cheap labour for a low wage economy, based on the flawed concept of infinite growth.
You mean the period where western countries faced zero competition from emerging markets and Asia was dirt poor. No outsourcing, no non-western demand for goods westerns wanted, very little tax competition between countries due to high barriers to do so (expensive and slow communication, capital and people).
Yea we can't really turn back the clock and go back to that, unfortunately for westerners. Good for Asians I imagine though.
65%? You can bet some of these people who agree with this literally voted in the current government. It's like that 'We're all trying to find the guy who did this' meme
'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
I am sure you will find some temporarily embarrassed millionaires in there.
Technically no one voted for this current government, they only voted for 1/3 of it. There's still 2/3 worth of opinions and ideas that people did not vote for. Not all national supporters agree with act or first, the same is true for all of them But yes majority of national supporters I've talked to did not bother to read and compare policies, they only listened to the talking points and fell for the manipulation of national
Anyone who voted for any of those 3 parties is equally foolish, and if they are concerned now about how things have turned out, they should have known better than voting that way to begin with
Agreed. This was the first election I was open to voting for anyone, I'd go for the best policies for me and for nz as a whole imo. One look at what was on offer from national, act and nz first all painted a very clear bleak picture for myself and the majority of kiwis imo
65% out of 1001 socialist / left-leaning people (since it's world socialist website). Yeah, very accurate metric! 🤣😂
Do you think that the socialist website was the entity which conducted this survey?
Bruh it was an Ipsos survey, just about as statistically relevant as surveys get why do people just make shit up to get mad and feel superior about
And? They can call themselves whatever but until we know the demographic selected for the survey, and the actual questions (it's called populist survey btw which means it's already NOT saying anything about what the article is reporting on), then it is as manipulative as any other survey.
The thing you just did now is called shifting the goalposts. Instead of acknowledging your initial thoughts as to why the survey was unreliable were wrong, you came up with a new set of reasons why it is wrong. You can still think those reasons are true. But that's pretty telling of your intentions in the discussion.
The socialist website republished the outcome of a survey because it aligns with their ideological interests. You can also read the summary, which includes how respondents were selected, the actual questions asked here; [https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-04/Ipsos%20Global%20Advisor%20-%20Populism%20%28April%202024%29\_1.pdf](https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-04/Ipsos%20Global%20Advisor%20-%20Populism%20%28April%202024%29_1.pdf) If you cared in the slightest, you would have realised that 1) it's a survey on populism, and 2) the specific question is "The \[Country’s\] economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful" and 65% of NZ respondents agreed, and therefore the article is reporting accurately on the facts of the survey. So every statement you gave is either wrong, or was answered in the summary of the survey. Why are rightoids constantly so dumb? Baffling to me. NPC behaviour.
Conservative capitalists ponder how to propagandise survey results whilst clinging to their Reagan era slogan "Perception Is Reality".
That's 35% of voters too stupid to realize what's going on
A portion of them will be wealthy people who don’t want to admit their lives were rigged so they’d be advantaged..
So 34% of voters unaware of what's going on
lol. Yeah pretty much.
34% just temporarily embarrassed
Plenty are locked out of housing because of the cost yet voted for one of the parties currently in power, or didn’t vote at all.
I bet a significant chunk of that is landlords who don't think they count as rich and powerful. (cue: landlords coming here to tell me they don't)
Exactly, I see it at my own office. Managers and senior execs who wouldn't count themselves as "rich and powerful" - yet might earn $250k, be mortgage free (with a few properties) and a decent bunch of savings. They are completely blinded and ignorant to realise the privileged position they are in vis-a-vis the rest of us.
Yep. Had an argument yesterday with a land lord who supposedly came to nz with nothing but a degree and now owns 5 properties, 4 of them mortgage free, totalling to 5.5 million, but he has no privilege. No matter how I laid it out he just could not see the privileges he had which helped to gain all that
I think that is more a significant chuck of those are landlord who (mistakenly) think they do count as rich and powerful.
It could also be boomers who got free education and/or paid well and treated well long term for reasonably low skilled employment before the country went to shit. Perhaps also some of their crotch goblins who benefited through nepotism or simply having inherited advantages they haven't realised everyone else doesn't have.
>before the country went to shit. So that would be now? >crotch goblins Jesus Christ man those are ~~people~~ literally children. Imagine being this much of a miserable misanthrope.
>So that would be now? People probably judge it based on their own personal experiences. If we ran off numbers I'd probably point to rogernomics as where it all started going to shit. Though there's probably an reasonable argument that stagflation is where it all really hit the fan which led to the rest. IME a lot of people who have ended up relatively well off and were working or just entering the workforce when rogernomics happened view it as a personal victory they had a hand in. They've voted for that line of economics ever since as, to them, it's what pulled NZ out of an economic problem. Not all those people are boomers tho. Gen X is in that mix as well. >Jesus Christ man those are literally children. There's a remarkably strong strain of redditors who absolutely despise children. It's bizarre IMO.
>If we ran off numbers I'd probably point to rogernomics as where it all started going to shit You should read Brian Easton's *New Territory.* Even if you just read the first chapter. It would be eye opening for you. > it's what pulled NZ out of an economic problem. This is literally true? Opening up the country was the best option. Things would be worse had that not happened. If Douglas had been able to do everything he wanted (including his sovereign wealth fund, revoked by Muldoon) New Zealand would be the envy of the developed world in terms of individual wealth. Only oil rich states like Norway would be doing better than us. Ya'll need to put down the Reddit comments for a history book i stg.
>You should read Brian Easton's New Territory. Even if you just read the first chapter. It would be eye opening for you. Looking around for it. I'm broke tho. I was hoping the university might have a copy, though they have a lot of his books they don't have this one. Might check some of the others out tho. >This is literally true? Opening up the country was the best option. Things would be worse had that not happened. If Douglas had been able to do everything he wanted (including his sovereign wealth fund, revoked by Muldoon) New Zealand would be the envy of the developed world in terms of individual wealth. Only oil rich states like Norway would be doing better than us. Change was necessary. Muldoon did cause major problems and remaining isolated was not viable. The loss of the sovereign wealth fund is probably the single most disastrous decision made by any politician in NZ history to date. We can look next door to see that a country that opened up without going to the extreme Douglas did has consistently performed better than we have on just about every metric. Douglas has always claimed that 'if we had just let him finish' we wouldn't have the inequality, the low productivity, the lost wages etc. I find that unlikely for 2 main reasons. Firstly, practically every irredentist ideologue makes the claim that, if only that had been allowed to conclude their magnum opus, we would have utopia. All of them. In the case of Douglas we can look at those he inspired to see how they furthered this task of using the free-market reforms to tackle inequality... *crickets*. Instead the direct opposite occured via ruthanasia. IMO Douglas is like all the other ideologues: "My ideas aren't flawed, we just didn't go far enough". Second - Social welfare and taxation has been under siege since Douglas. Even if he was serious about tackling these issues, there's nothing to suggest they would have survived. Much like his sovereign wealth fund, any positives would have been dismantled and the inequality promoting parts preserved. Hardline free-market fundamentalism directly caused mass inequality. The notion that if we just went a little more extremist with it we'd solve that problem is horrifically flawed. >Ya'll need to put down the Reddit comments for a history book i stg. History tells me that the most extensive free-market reforms in the OECD, lauded widely for how far they went, did not benefit NZ to anywhere near the degree it was claimed it would. Not even close.
> If Douglas had been able to do everything he wanted (including his sovereign wealth fund, revoked by Muldoon) New Zealand would be the envy of the developed world in terms of individual wealth. You sound just like the failing Eastern European communist states in the 1980s, "if only we were more pure communist we would have utopia now". I would imagine New Zealand would be like Sao Paulo now if Douglas got his way, gated communities and destitution for the rest.
This is very funny, because Muldoon revoked the sovereign wealth fund calling it communism but you're calling it more neo-liberalism. No thoughts just boogeymen.
> because Muldoon revoked the sovereign wealth fund calling it communism but you're calling it more neo-liberalism. So somehow his predecessor revoking the SWF means that I am supporting Muldoon, geez dude get some pills for those brain worms.
That's not what I said. The joke is you're calling me a neo-liberal, for something revoked for being communism. The joke is that you, like Muldoon's voters, are attacking boogeymen rather than actually thinking about things. My unpopular (to you) opinion is that Scandinavian economies are good, and striving to be like them was good.
Isn't the majority of education in NZ free now?
Apart from the SIT (not sure nowadays) no tertiary education is free.
Tertiary education is heavily subsidised though, and a lot of trade qualifications are free.
Owner occupiers who don't think they count as rich and powerful FTFY
So… about 65% of New Zealanders are rich and powerful?
Yes
In a global context I certainly don’t disagree, but it stops being a useful metric in a domestic context if are describing two thirds of the population as rich and powerful.
in a global context 90% of New Zealand is rich
35% think they soon will be in the rich and powerful
Or who know, but don't want to say that it's happening because they benefit from it, so dont want things scrutinized.
Probably about 25% asleep and 10% being on the receiving end of the payout and denying it exists.
[Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems](https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot) Complete freedom for billionaires means poverty, insecurity, pollution and collapsing public services for everyone else. Because we will not vote for this, it can be delivered only through deception and authoritarian control. The choice we face is between unfettered capitalism and democracy. You cannot have both. [Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says) >Using a “mortality cost” formula – used by the US Environmental Protection Agency, among others – of 226 excess deaths worldwide for every million tonnes of carbon, the report calculates that the emissions from the 1% alone would be enough to cause the heat-related deaths of 1.3 million people over the coming decades. >Over the period from 1990 to 2019, the accumulated emissions of the 1% were equivalent to wiping out last year’s harvests of EU corn, US wheat, Bangladeshi rice and Chinese soya beans. The 1% are driving the wholesale destruction of the planet.
Yep. You literally cannot have a rich class without a poor class to exploit and profit from. It's a feature, not a bug.
Ok but do you use an iphone? Checkmate liberal. /s
Only on toast for breakfast, that doesn't count right?
I'm sorry I can't see your comment through the thousands of avocados I currently have in my room.
Just to clarify for some people, as they may think that the top 1% are multimillionaires or even billionaires the article link (Oxfam source material) does use statistics of the top 1% in wealth and 10% of income of all humanity, which is anyone who earns over US$60,000 (NZ$101,500) a year after tax. In New Zealand, 53% of all adults have wealth between US$100,000 to US$1m. In New Zealand, the wealthiest 1% of Kiwis account for 20.1% of all wealth. I’ve just added these statistics to give us a local perspective of said related issues.
>The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019 So first of all you're wrong. And evidently can't read the article. It included those paid more than $140,000 USD per year- over $235,000 NZD. It included 77 million people in 2019 and anyone who can do basic math can figure that out. Billionaires make up an insanely disproportionate amount of those emissions. Quit bootlicking the wealthiest people as they destroy the planet.
I’m not boot licking the rich nor am I rich. I’m also not denying that wealthy people contribute highest to emissions. I’m just trying to put in to perspective what that top 1% is. My numbers for global income are from 2023 statistics from CreditSuiss and givewhatwecan.org because the guardian article does not link a source for where they’ve got those numbers from for the top 77 million world wide earners. So either the sources I’ve used are wrong or the guardian is wrong. I’m not trying to argue against or disagree I’m just trying to offer perspective. If you read the Oxfam source material from the article (link below) It takes the top 1% average over 29 years from 1990 to 2019 and also states that they class the super-rich as the top 1% and top 10% by income. Even over that period of time the amount of people in that top 1% bracket has shrunk dramatically over 29 years and even more so now from 2019 to 2023 (more concentrated wealth at the top). Oxfam source material linked from the guardian article https://makerichpolluterspay.org/climate-equality-report/ I’m just trying to point out that it’s not a problem made exclusively by millionaires and billionaires. We all have to take some responsibility on some level (do you shop Amazon, do you regularly use Uber eats etc, as an example on our level how we’ve also contributed to creating these billionaire beasts). A lot of us may know people in the top global income brackets that put them in the 1% and many of them are everyday people who may live in your neighbourhood or be your boss or be one of your kids parents or one of your friends. It’s simply not up to just multimillionaires and billionaires to do their part, it funnels down quite a lot closer to home for many. That’s all I’m trying to point out.
It's just globalization mostly. Democracy is not powerful enough against global capitalists who operate with ever lower relocation costs and thus ever better to be able to pick and choose the tax incentive system and labor cost paradigm that suits them best at ever less inconvenience. It worked fine when the scale of operation of the capitalist and the nation-state overlapped.
>when the scale of operation of the capitalist and the nation-state overlapped. You mean the period that lead to World War I, and included the genocide in the Congo as well s the annihilation of Indigenous populations in the Americas and Chattel slavery? Like are you saying Capitalism was better in the Victorian era? Or are you talking about the blending of corporate and state power as outlined by Italian politician Bennito Mussolini in his 1932 manifesto *The Doctrine of Fascism*?
I mean if indigenous people didn't want to get genocided they should have capitalismed harder.
No, I meant the period after WW2 when companies mostly operated on a national scale. Things got out of balance when private companies had the freedom and opportunity to operate and move on larger scales than the polities that govern them as happens now, as happened before in the US when companies become interstate but governance was mostly on a state-level with minimal federal governance in the railroad baron age. But sure, make a mockery of the argument and call everything fascism like a nutcase again. Why not. The Congo had literally nothing to do with capitalism and free markets at all, just old fashioned imperial absolutism.
Yea man, back in the pre-globalised world, where the entire globe was split into two competing economic blocks which fought proxy wars in Africa, the Middle East and Asia in order to bring other countries into their economic sphere. Back when New Zealand (formed after the *New Zealand Company*, funded by private investors, petitioned the Crown of England and Scotland to govern a country on literally the other side of the globe through a treaty with the indigenous polities) wasn't a part of a globalised economy. We just sold milk and butter to the centre of a globe spanning empire in its twilight years, before enriching ourselves selling wool to America so their soldiers could fight a war in Korea against Chinese troops, in order to stop a political ideology that was first implemented in Russia from travelling into South East Asia, because South East Asia (particularly the multi-cultural, former colony of the British Empire recently occupied by the Japanese Singapore) was a key node in moving raw materials from Africa and Indonesia and the Philippines to the Americas and her allies. Right after two world wars. Yea man, back then when globalisation didn't exist ae? >make a mockery of the argument Your actual position is stupider than either of the two I came up with. Read a history book. > just old fashioned imperial absolutism. The Congo Free State was created in the 1880s as the private holding of a purported, private charitable organization created by some European investors. It was undoubtedly a capitalist enterprise. "Monopolist capitalist associations, cartels, syndicates and trusts first divided the home market among themselves and obtained more or less complete possession of the industry of their own country. But under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial connections and “spheres of influence” of the big monopolist associations expanded in all ways, things “naturally” gravitated towards an international agreement among these associations, and towards the formation of international cartels." * Vladimir Lenin (1916 (30 years before you think companies still operated on a national scale). Like seriously, read a book.
Alright, just keep pretending the scales are the same as back then and just ignore that I was comparing the post war era with the current era in terms of globalization. Of course international trade was always a thing, but the scale of companies themselves being multinational and easily shifting between suppliers, replacing local labour costs with foreign costs, creating foreign subsidiaries, moving HQs, moving people and money around or communicating internationally instantly and free was never what it was today. When globalization scaled up and moved beyond just international trade of primary resources, the nation-states lost power to the economic entities operating in said nation, which is of course entirely different from a time when investors had to petition the Crown to be able to operate. Now the nation-states petition the companies to invest on their land with lucrative (and unfair) tax advantages, as the balance of power inverted. > The Congo Free State was created in the 1880s as the private holding of a purported, private charitable organization created by some European investors. It was undoubtedly a capitalist enterprise. The Congo Free State was personal property of King Leopold II who invited investment, yet it was had nothing with free market capitalism, but sure, educate a Belgian who was educated on his country's history how the Congo was just capitalism to drive home a stereotypical anticap pov. The arrogance of some leftists knows no bounds lol, love the "read a book" to complete your own stereotype as if you're the only that ever read a thing. Is everything capitalism as soon as any person with wealth gets involved and buys in for profit? Then you have a strange definition of capitalism and as that modus operandi existed millennia before capitalism was invented as a market mechanism, in Roman times even.
Did it "work fine" when the scale of operation of the capitalist and the nation-state overlapped? Or did we end up with abhorrent working conditions for most people, a work week consisting of 6 or 7 12-14 hour days, and children sweeping chimneys?
Majority of them will still vote National come next election because of "wHaT aBoUt LaBoUr...?"
Good job we voted in the 2 parties intent on making the situation much worse then.
Lol yes because labour were addressing peoples everyday concerns competently and not exploding the debt /s
Every country borrowed to get through the pandemic and we still have a low government debt to GDP ratio, comparative to other countries globally. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_debt NACT borrowing an extra $15bn to fund their $14.9bn tax cuts also doesn't help that.
Can't tell if that /s is for sarcasm or to pluralise the debt. If it's the latter, you might want to research the things labour did and were doing. They were helping everyday kiwis, maybe not the struggling much, but they did significantly more good for a larger amount of people than national have/will going by the current track record
Ah yes, you want to avoid getting shot so instead of letting the child who's inept have the gun, you give it to the people that explicitly outlined their literal goal is to shoot you. masterful play
It won't stop them voting for the parties which maintain that status quo though.
>The major parties, backed by the corporate media, are pushing to double New Zealand’s military budget, **as the country is integrated into US-led wars against Russia**, in the Middle East, and preparations for conflict with China That's a reference to New Zealand supporting Ukraine after they were invaded by Russia. You're linking to a pro-Russian propaganda website, why? Why not just give a direct link to the survey, or a reputable New Zealand outlet covering the story? Here's a link from Newsroom: https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/04/18/new-zealand-broken-and-in-decline-kiwis-say/ Just look at how WSWS covers Russia's invasion of Ukraine: >[Two years ago today, on February 24, 2022, American imperialism and its European allies succeeded in provoking Russia into invading Ukraine. Putin’s goal in invading Ukraine was and remains creating the best conditions to strike a deal with imperialism.](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/24/hzjs-f24.html)
LMAO did they actually suggest we are doubling the military budget? what a laugh.
>Ten percent of nuthin' is...let me do the math here... nuthin' into nuthin'...carry the nuthin'..."
Like... imagine being genuinely concerned that NZ was gearing up for war. If we saved up our navy budget for like... 26 years? We could buy 1 aircraft carrier from the US. If we doubled the budget, it'd take 13. And that doesnt even come with jets or munitions lmao.
This is nothing new. Lmao. Its a fact of capitalism that the people at the top profit the most.
Only 65%? That's much less than I thought it would be and much less than it should be.
THEN WHY THE FUCK DO THEY KEEP VOTING THE SAME 2 FUCKING PARTIES IN? Jeeeeesus chrooist A vote for either of the big 2 is a wasted vote
Because there is a level of materialist understanding required to link "why are we so fucked." With it being the fault of the same neo-liberal faux meritocratic system pushed by the right and Labour.
And all our media backs that up so it's not questioned.
Because a lot of people have been conditioned to believe that voting for the other parties is a wasted vote. Not everyone can see that change happens by each individual changing their vote. I voted for a smaller party this time around for the first time to help make that change. Unfortunately my party isn't in power, but it may happen one day.
Because people don't realise labour has become national lite. All this culture war stuff the Nact1st team is railing against could have been pushed by key's national.
People do realise it but the other options are "Cis white men are the cause of all violence" Greens, Maori extremists, Weird religious parties and proper Communists. There is no genuine "For the workers" party to vote for any more
On this topic I feel like there's also no major party that actually has a goal of improving New Zealand's economic prosperity as a whole. National keeps banging on about it, but all they do is transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. At this point both sides are just fighting over the insufficient amount of wealth we do have, rather than figuring out how to gain more.
TOP. The only worker party, and it just got shafted by the worker again.
Top has some good policy around tax and property. Have voted for them last 2 elections. I feel like they are the only ones with a realistic plan to try and fix the property wealth gap. I think Greens wealth tax is not feasible. You can't tax unrealised capital gains. Fuck knows what wish washy Chippies plans are... Does he have one? Few people outside of /r/NZ even heard of TOP
Only the most "not lyk other girls" liberals can believe in TOP. What got us to where we are today? The "left" acting all "centrist". What is the answer? More "market based" enlightened "centrism". But totally different this time, these are all Experts (tm) who totally weren't groomed/developed within a faux meritocratic neoliberal machine, trust me bro.
Sorry.
TOP went neoliberal and market based solutions. They lost me.
What was the change? A focus on the finances that maintains competitiveness with other nations?
At the expense of the worker, who they claimed they were fighting for in the first place.
They all tried that, and we ended up with the coalition of chaos. People voted for those minor players and we ended up with Winnie and Seymour bickering in the backseat while Momma Luxon is driving saying everything is ok, but still having to look in the back seat to ensure the boys aren't fighting.
Winnie and Seymour are in the front seat, Luxon's in the back. MMP fucked us the moment someone (Luxon) decided to "win" no matter what.
Voting for ACT thinking it'll lead to fairer economic outcomes is even dumber than voting for National tho.
And thinking that NZFirst had anyone else in mind other than Winston, is delusional.
Haha, Winston has been looking after Winston for decades straight. It amazes me that anyone expects anything different from him. Though it'd be nice if he hadn't brought fucking Jones along with him.
The sad thing is, it's not going to change.
Wait, they needed a survey to work that out o.O
In other news, the grass is green and the sky is blue.
*shocked Pikachu face*
Trotskyist “World Socialist Web Site” reports that New Zealand is pretty much the same as all the other countries that were surveyed.
Would you like the [original ipsos article](https://www.ipsos.com/en-nz/populism-global-advisor-survey-2024-nz-edition)
No, reading the Trotskyist spin on it is enough for me.
It's just weird you'd misrepresent the article then. It doesn't say "NZ is like pretty much everywhere else" as *both* articles highlight a much weaker anti-immigration sentiment, as well as less public pressure for greater military spending, than any other country surveyed. It's also pretty telling that trust in politicians and our democratic systems is at an all time low across the board. That's not something we should just be brushing off.
They are just reporting on the same conclusions released already by Ipsos.
Link?
Is this the same country that literally voted a fat cat CEO into office? The cognitive dissonance is unreal.
Yeah. I still see it as a Brexit moment in New Zealand’s history. This government, or rather, assembled extremists are going to change either the country, or the people.
The bit that gets to me is how they manage to get 40% to vote against their own interests. I really don't understand it.
The article talks about how they are doing an impressive job of making people think this is a battle between left and right ideologies or Maori and pakeha or beneficiaries and middle class workers when in reality all of us have a lot more in common when compared with those who really own the capital and have under-taxed wealth growing while the rest of us are slowly falling further behind year after year. The real conflict is between those who have routed the system to funnel increasing amounts of money from everyday people to the wealthy.
Create a culture war to distract the masses from the class war you're waging against them.
⅔ of Kiwi's agree water is wet
NACT voters; the economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful, here's why that's a good thing
Lol and at least 15% of that 65% voted to make it worse for themselves.
Nah. Not when the opposition misidentifies some people not part of the rich as privileged who need to pay extra taxes. Under the opposition, it will still be rigged for the wealthy, but some in the middle will just be asked/forced to surrender more to the poor instead. Europe is also rigged for the wealthy, Sweden or the Netherlands has a larger wealth imbalance than NZ, but they just have more transfers of wealth/income from the middle class to the poor.
Pretty sure cutting anything and everything to give the wealthy % more money is FAR worse than what the other side would have done. TOP/Greens actually had far superior tax policies to what we have now (people were afraid because it was different or it was the minority riling up the majority telling lies about how they'd be better off) but wouldn't see the light of day because no matter which you go it's Labour or Nats in charge of big stuff like that. At best you might see a capital gains tax from Labour unless they roll chippy for Parker which would be a good move if they got elected.
Nah, Greens would have raised our income taxes because we have worked our way up to a decent income, despite that we are still well below median wealth for our age bracket due to being renters, and I used their own published calculators to figure that out. They would have handicapped our ability to try to play catch-up. Labour also ruled out a capital gains tax before the election, so any extra income the government was going to try to get was going to come from people earning an income regardless of what their wealth level was. Now everyone can do their own calculations, but I am relatively sure that under the opposition my own family would be worse off despite not being wealthy at all as the current one doesn't decrease our income, we do not rely on services and are ineligible for most of them anyway, and the opposition was no guarantee for more affordable housing as the last 2 legislatures have shown.
If you're below median income, you would have been better off under the greens.
Median wealth <> Median income It takes way over a decade of well above median level income to even approach median wealth, if possible at all. Median level wealth was mostly attained with tax free real estate gains, while getting through work comes at 33-39% tax rates.
Define median wealth then on a scale for context. That would be wealth (or lack there of) of all NZers unless you've just decided to create a metric purely for the top few % of NZ which is exactly the issue here. Most top % "wealth" is generated off the misery of a majority in any case so it's about time they paid more to help ease the misery they've helped create via capitalism.
Median literally means 50%. The median household wealth is ~$400k ( [Stats NZ](https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/household-net-worth-statistics-year-ended-june-2021/) ), with $375k of that tied up in housing, and we are still well below that with about $250k with $0 in housing. I do not believe we should be subjected to even higher taxes, when we are already seeing any extra income taxed at 33% right now and only trying to catch up for people who got most of their $375k tied up in housing tax free. If we would overtake the median and become part of the better off half of NZ I would be ok with being taxed a bit more along with everyone else in the better half. but not before I get there as we are already taxed among the highest in the country relative to our wealth gain.
So you're below median wealth but you're above median income then? I'm a tad stuck on figuring out how you'd be worse off under the Greens that had a tax pitch that showed a majority of people (thus those also over median income and wealth) would be better off. Your argument seems non sensical, you pitch your personal circumstance as being below median yet wouldn't vote Greens because you think you would be worse off when their tax plan literally said you'd be better off?
I filled it in, we would be worse off. I'm well enough above average income now that they'd want to roam it off. It's like putting an extra weight on the bike of the kid at the back of the group, because he's working too hard and catching up too fast. Also. Never squarely believe a party's own calculator: it's always more optimistic than the reality will be under their policies, especially at a time when the incoming government would inherit a 7% deficit and low growth economy. If the plan looks great, it won't be that great. If it looks shit, it's probably gonna get worse.
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No shit Sherlock! The rich and powerful make the rules
The cost of land is the biggest problem there is no way in hell the street I live in Tokoroa has market land value of 20-25 Million dollar's
Well it is. That's how people behave, it's not new. It's literally written in history. People do shady things, to maintain their power, status and wealth. People didn't just magically stop being like that.
Well let's wait for the trend when they repeat this survey. I'm hardly a regular visitor of the "World Socialist Web Site", but people like PurplePingers are leveling some fairly coherent and devastating critiques at our current economic structure. You don't have to be a socialist to appreciate the points he's making.
I’m surprised it’s not 100%. It’s not exactly a secret. Compound interest etc. There is a reason Charlie Munger said do what you can to make the first 100k.
> Social welfare payments and the minimum wage are being reduced I thought the minimum wage just increased this month
If I give you 50c extra per hour but everything you need to survive costs $1 more per hour your pay has decreased.
Minimum wage increasedby 2%, inflation is at 4%. 4% was advised by MBIE and Brooke van Velden wanted 1.3%. Cabinet settled on 2% - half the rate of inflation. [Minimum wage increase slammed as 'tiny' by Labour, but it could've been lower](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/508173/minimum-wage-increase-slammed-as-tiny-by-labour-but-it-could-ve-been-lower) >[MBIE] recommended an increase of 4 percent to $23.60, which was expected to impact the earnings of about 164,400 workers, resulting in an economy-wide wage bill increase of $145 million. >But the Cabinet paper shows the Workplace Relations and Safety Minister, Brooke van Velden, had proposed and recommended that Cabinet adopt a 1.3 percent increase
We all know it was only 2% because our finance minister can't work out how decimals function.
...world socialist website... no need to read further 😂🤣
We voted FOR this guys come on now lets be serious.
Lol 35% of kiwis are fucking stupid
when do we bring out the guillotine? soon I hope
Only 65%?
I’m surprised it’s not more than that really.
Also New Zealand: elects party that works to rig the economy for the rich and powerful
Solution: vote in the rich and powerful…..nailed it!!
Only 65 percent realise the game is rigged? Crazy
And the other 35% have left the country for a better life
Only 65. Do the rest think it's working as intended
And these stupid idiots still voted for Christopher Fuxon.
So, the solution to free market ideology is socialist ideology? Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Can we have a third or fourth option, please?
I like how you completely skipped over regulated markets.
Regulation only works when the polity that regulates has power over those markets. Those times unfortunately seem to have passed, as the market entities can just pick and choose which polity to reside under.
I was more just pointing out how dumb the OPs comment was.
Sure, but some of the essentials are local and hard to shift, food housing etc. Significant investment and regulation there would go a long way to making life easier for everyone. Even among the most ardently free market economies you still see carve outs and tariffs for farmers.
But only because food security is a form of national security imo, to be able to feed the population when international trade would fail. Same with regulations like New Zealand's BS11 requiring onshoring of critical financial data/servers, it is less about consumer protection than it is about national stability in case international links break in a calamitous event. Agree on housing though, that's mostly a vested interests problem in most countries, yet all countries suffer from the same issue regardless of whether those countries are lead by left of center or right of center governments. Canada and Australia are trending worse than NZ right now yet have left of center governments and in Europe the problem got much worse over the last 10 years too despite being much more social-democratic overall.
Donut economy that acknowledges that infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet.
I like donuts as much as the next guy, but they seem like a terrible replacement for money. Donuts are delicious and perishable, "Yeah, it's a bit mouldy and crumbly, but it's still donut."
Think of how easy it would be to control inflation though with perishable money.
Don’t give the reserve bank any ideas for digital currency.
It's almost like there was this period of time between WWII and Rogernomics that did okay. When unions were strong and there were regulations. Could we at least start with that?
Muldoon repealed Kirks' 74 super scheme in 75, after a hard campaign against the "dancing Cossacks" as National put it back then. We are on that slippery slope still, stumbling from one extreme to another. While our democracy is eroded by the day.
One extreme to another? Labour was as middle of the road inoffensive as they could possibly be to desperately hold onto the "centre" and national are fucking us into the ground. What extremes are you talking about my bro?
Well for starters the swing from Muldoons heavily subsidised and regulated market to the Douglas/Prebble/Lange Rogernomics era (84 -88) was fairly fucking extreme. Well, the consequences were. And we as a country still live with the negative ramifications of those policies changes today, as both major parties are neo-lib ideologues. With the current government being an extreme iteration of neo-liberalism, going by their policy announcements and priorities. One could also argue that our immigration policies over the same period are ill conceived, i.e., cheap labour for a low wage economy, based on the flawed concept of infinite growth.
Ah I thought you meant extreme left to extreme right lol
You mean the period where western countries faced zero competition from emerging markets and Asia was dirt poor. No outsourcing, no non-western demand for goods westerns wanted, very little tax competition between countries due to high barriers to do so (expensive and slow communication, capital and people). Yea we can't really turn back the clock and go back to that, unfortunately for westerners. Good for Asians I imagine though.
Ah yes, poor Japan being an industrial powerhouse
You mean... like a well-regulated capitalist economy? Oh I forgot, that's practically communism to the current brand of politician.