Posts by Tom Semmens
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So now everyone has allowed themselves to be successfully distracted by the ramblings of a dishonest right wing spin doctor who thought it was a lark to try and get Nicky Hagar killed by Chinese gangsters, can I ask a few questions regarding the policy itself?
1/ What is a UBI trying to achieve? It seems to me that if the purpose of a UBI is to guarantee a sufficient income for everyone to participate in society in a future where robots have largely replaced people for doing work then $211 a week is nonsense, unless we invent some sort of Star Trek style replicator. The amount would have to be more like the $792 PW of the living wage. On the other hand, if it is a wage subsidy, how is that supposed to work? Say Mary works five days a week, 8am-6pm a half day Saturday and two late nights for 60 hours at $18 an hour and makes $1080PW. Does a UBI assume she will cut back her hours to 45 per week, freeing up a part time job? Now, that might happen in a society like Spain, where (to put in bluntly) they lack our crass materialism and you can buy a three bedroom apartment for $250,000. But in neoliberal NZ wouldn't Mary just take the $1291 as a bonus? Which leads to the next question. WWF is effectively a giant, taxpayer funded subsidy that Labour put in place because it was to scared to force employers to pay decent wages. Much as rightwingers wail at communism by stealth, no one can get rid of it now because it was keeps a lot of the precariat middle class afloat. What would stop Mary's boss, when it came to her next pay review, saying "Hey! It's been a tough year, no money in the kitty for a pay rise but that's all right the government gave you a huge one anyway!"?
2/ How politically defensible is a UBI when you would have our hostile, reactionary pro-boss class media contrasting at every possible opportunity virtuous, hard working young middle class family trying to get ahead in the face of unfair huge marginal tax rates in a society that exclusively measures success in wealth with meth mums breeding for cash and living the high life?
3/ my last point. The Chicago economic gangsters loved the idea of a UBI because they envisaged that it freed the state from moral responsibility to its citizens. What would stop a right wing government upping the UBI and abolishing free health and public education? Starving in the gutter? Then it is all your own fault. YOU ARE AN INPERFECT IRRATIONAL ACTOR! The state is perfectly in its right to let you die there.
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I am puzzled by the politics of the media reaction back home to all this. Audrey Young, Claire Trevitt and (apparently) Paddy Gower wrote immediate pieces that amounted to being apologists for and defenders of Key, an extremely odd first blush anglet for a supposed independent media to do, and which only reinforces in the mind of an external viewer that this was always mainly all about John Key.
Secondly, I cannot believe Key’s basically walking away from his defeat by buggering off on holiday hasn’t attracted a storm of media scorn and unfavourable comment. Again, from a distance it seems an obviously petulant act that no one seems interested in commenting on.
The final peculiar thing that puzzles me is the near universal and undebated acceptance that this won’t damage his popularity. Surely it must? It seems to me that being exposed so comprehensively as egotistical and out of touch must rock voter faith in Key, it would anywhere else. Surely the ambient vibe towards Key must have taken a hit? What is going on?
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Hard News: More than a bang on the head, in reply to Maz,
And Richie McCaw is a commercial pilot...
Who already is struggling to tell the difference between our flag and Australias.
Do I want to come up for a spin Richie? Yeah.... Nah.
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Speaker: Are we seeing the end of MSM,…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
There is also the chance they enchased the suspect in carbonite.
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One other thing about living in a country old fashioned enough to have a proper news media. It opens your eyes to how really, really, really, really, really awful our media has become and how complete the collapse of real journalism is in NZ. The situation isn’t juyst desperately bad, it is worse than you now can all possibly imagine, because it doesn’t take long to forget what decent news and analysis actually looked like and assume the Bullshit being dished up to the public in NZ is still journalism.
My reactions to reading the MSM in NZ from here nowadays range between disgust, incredulity and anger.
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Polity: Key Derangement Syndrome…, in reply to Richard Mayes,
How cynical is it though?
The news media were interviewing people at the TPPA protest in Akl who couldn’t actually say what the TPPA was or why they were against it.
But somehow they “knew” it had something to do with the rich getting richer and John Key was behind it all, and John Key’s let us down, and John Key John Key John Key…“Deranged” seems about right!
What leaps out at me from this piece of rubbish is how perfectly it fits the whole meta of so-called Key Derangement Syndrome. The aim is to keep the debate focussed entirely on delegitimising the messenger so as to avoid discussing the message. The opponents of the TPPA? Talk about how ignorant they are. That avoids engaging on the issues their representatives want to discuss. Critics of John Key? Accuse them of having a mental health syndrome, rather than have a proper discussion of Keys rather shabby record of honesty.
As a meta, it is perfectly made for a degraded and decadent media. It is easier and cheaper and rastes better to have Hoskings sneer at the PMs enemies as morons or obsessives than confront the issues.
The media here in Spain is such a breath of fresh air. The other night on the news a rumpled, boffin like political scientist spent ten minutes(!!!!!!!!!!) going through the latest state of play in the talks to form a government, and that was followed later by a panel discussion. Spanish voters may be cynical and disillusioned, but unlike NZ voters, they are not ignorant of the issues.
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Speaking of the media, what the hell is going on back there in NZ??? Since voting started the MSM (as far as I can see from here) seems to have dropped any pretence of balance and launched into a frenzy of pro-change propaganda. It looks suspiciously like an almost coordinated pro-government PR blitz. Tell me it aint so.
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You know, if I were Andrew Little, the week after Key's flag humiliation I would announce a policy of a move to a Republic with a new flag, the required legislation to be triggered by the death of the Queen.
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Polity: Booze review! Brewday IV, in reply to Globalmitch,
Hahahaha
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The flag will come up again when we become a republic. However, you only get one chance to look John Key in the eye and kick him in the balls. You all know what to do.