Posts by Sacha
-
Everyone is going on like this is some sort of inexplicable lapse, or out of touch oversight.
Not here - think we're pretty well aware how constructed the whole discourse is.
However, I'd hope the media might show more brain cells and balls. Must be hard to feel proud and professional when it's that easy for spinmeisters to get the better of you.
-
possibly Afghan flu
something you're not telling us about your friend Mr Key? :)
-
Webweaver, your skills are valuable too - can I interest you in some pro-bono work for a good cause?
-
I reckon Danyl is dead right about the government's Budget media management and the poor response from the left.
* Whatever you think of the budget itself we have to admit that it was a masterpiece of media strategy: they got the issue of tax-cuts for the rich out well in advance, set expectations around it, took the critique from the opposition and then reversed all the expectations. The rich still get massive, MASSIVE tax cuts but the story is around the larger than expected changes to lower and middle income brackets – because those are news, the changes to the top end aren’t.
* Labour still haven’t figured this out – they’ll still explaining to middle income earners that they get nothing when those people can just look at the charts in the newspapers and see that they do actually get quite a lot. Sure, they lose some of it through GST, inflation etc – but if you’re explaining you’ve lost. I’ve been saying for years that National’s media strategy is in a whole other class to Labour’s and this is yet another example of that disparity between the parties.
* Part of the strategy was a disinformation campaign: English has been solemnly telling us for months that tax changes had to be ‘revenue neutral’. The package he released today is not even remotely revenue neutral. He’s borrowing around half a billion dollars a year (at least) to pay for all of this. Naturally all the the pundits that criticised Labour’s plans to borrow for more government spending as ‘irresponsible’ are falling over themselves to praise English’s ‘solid’, ‘sensible’, etc borrowing for tax cuts. Jackasses.
Journos are also letting Key and others give examples of $50k salaries as if that is "average" - when it is well above what most New Zealanders bring in, sadly.
And no sign of any way to change that other than the same old magical thinking about "incentives" and "encouragement" that we saw the last time English et al had their hands on the tiller. If we can't make that approach work with one of the lowest personal tax rates and costs of doing business in the world, isn't it about time to acknowledge that those are not the things that are holding us back as a nation?
-
Apparently it's only 174,000 new jobs according to Treasury - even my hearing is optimistic, see.
I wonder if they factored in the jobs that will continue to be be lost as public sector budgets stay below the rate of inflation and cost increases? Maybe the private sector will hire those people for all that policy devleopment and research and so on that they do? Or perhaps we will have a real brain drain, not just plumbers moving to the gold coast.
-
Helpfully, TVNZ Ondemand includes the ep title.
I did not know that. Thank you, maam
-
I too will be interested to see the employment effect of this little disaster
Will have to find more time tomorrow, but saw cycleway maestro Key claiming Treasury projecting 190,000 new jobs as a result of all the "growth" caused by cutting rich people's tax (or is it the socking it to them?).
Anyway you'll be stunned that I remain unconvinced, having some memory of the 1990s unlike most of the media it seems.
-
peak oil (which WILL have happened by 2040)
happened last year didn't it?
Where did they announce this?
Don't be silly, that would make them look weak, especially Tolley the decider. Media will realise it tomorrow, though no doubt it will be spun to death as well.
-
Loving the True Blood minisodes - though they are the very definition of tease
-
Wouldn't it be helpful if they overlaid the actual episode number around ad breaks - like "s5e12". Then you could link what you read with what they broadcast, no matter how delayed it is.