Stop trusting in mere humans,
who have but a breath in their nostrils.
Why hold them in esteem? (NIV)
Ship of Union Fools. The Living wage.
Never underestimate the power of Idiots in large numbers!
The NZ Herald ran a story today about Union activism, lobbying for the raising of the minimum wage… under the emotive term ‘Living Wage’.
It was with great relief that I read further that John Key rejected the notion.
It currently sits at $13.50.
Read about it here:
Unions seek to compel employers to raise their minimum wage to between $18.00 to $20.00 an hour, under the pretext that this rate will mean “families can realistically live”.
As I was reading about this in the Smoko room at work, I could not help but mutter how insane I thought this Idea is and that it would only serve to hurt New Zealand, esp those this wage was supposed to help.
I was promptly challenged, and so I began to explain why this was both a stupid Idea and why it would make things worse for everyone.
I explained that $18.00 dollars an hour may indeed be enough to get by on…today… under the present cost of living, yet the very introduction of this ‘artificial’ wage increase would immediately cause a jump in living expenses… and thus the raise would only serve to inflate costs, and $18.00 would then not buy the same amount of goods and services as it does today… before the compulsory rise.
Ie it is a self defeating gesture.
It would cause the cost of living to rise for everyone, esp in regards to things like Bread, Bakery food, Petrol, etc… things which Kiwis buy from other Kiwis, rather than from overseas. Conversely it will hand a greater competitive advantage to imported Goods comparative to New Zealand produce. Imports will still be effected, yet not to the same degree as Kiwi made… and this disadvantage puts New Zealand business under greater strain.
Some businesses simply will not remain viable because the wage rise makes their products too expensive, and some will simply shut down their operations, others will move offshore to countries where they can get less expensive labour, and others will bring in Automation, because they can justify the expense in light of the New Wage laws.
In all these scenarios It will be bad news for the lower wage earners.
All these Evils will have resulted because of ridiculous Social engineering
The Unions and complicit Social democrats will have successfully cost workers their jobs proving that this type of Economic stupidity will surely hurt the very people this socialist compulsion was supposed to help!
It keeps getting worse because Unemployment will jump and so will numbers on the unemployment benefit (ramping up the costs to taxpayers)… and what is even worse is that because the costs of living have been artificially forced upwards… the buying power of welfare benefits will have shrunk too!
Then we will nodoubt hear Union cries to raise welfare benefits to ‘living proportions’, throwing even greater burdens on the workers… ie the taxpayers!
Some may say that $18-20/hour might encourage some people off welfare, yet where would these jobs come from?
You have in reality made it much harder to employ them!
And all this misery is a typical result of Government Regulation and interference in the market place and economy of the country!
The Socialist Unionists will not blink from blaming all this extra pain and chaos upon the greed of the capitalists!
That’s how this Malevolent virus of the mind maintains itself in it’s hosts.
Socialism maintains a Class warfare, always blaming the greed of the other side.
The truth is we don’t have a capitalist system, which is ‘Laissez Faire’… ‘Hands off’ Free market economics.
We have a Socialist regulated/ hands on economy!
So quit with the Rubbish that ‘Capitalism doesn’t work’.
It’s Socialism which is failing, and driving our country into debt and destitution!
I have much better solution than compulsory wage rises.
It would indeed help the lower wage earners.
Interested?
I suggest we get rid of income Tax upon the first $10- 15 000 dollars (per annum) earned by everyone!
This would give the poor a real increase in wages without adding costs to employers!
This would mean the costs of production would not increase, and the cost of living would not be artificially increased, nor would thousands be forced onto the Dole!
We don’t have to imagine why the socialist Unionists and Politicians have not put this suggestion on the table!
They want more taxes, not less! ( Think about how heavily unionized all the State employees are in Health , education, etc, etc)
I don’t have space here to talk about the fact that in reality reducing Tax rates can result in greater tax revenues for the government due to growth in the economy.
Nor will I go into the fact that if politicians agreed to lower taxes to win votes, they would probably borrow money at a faster rate rather than cut government spending. which is another shyster evil which ought to be illegal.
Nor will I go into the explanation that in the real world it is the Law of supply and demand which sets wage rates, not Dictators.
(I have written about this Here:)Nor will I present arguments for abolishing minimum wage laws altogether… though there is a very strong case for doing just that.
I must leave these subjects for a later date.
I t is enough for me to say that only the most ridiculously naive morons think economics can be ‘doctored’ so as to improve living standards by passing such farcical laws.
Tim Wikiriwhi
P.S
For Some time I have also been meaning to write a blog post upon what is going on in respect to the Highest wage/ salary earners… the CEOs etc… the Largess, and how this too is an aberration…an evil which is having very serious detrimental effects upon our society, yet it will have to wait.
It is enough to say that this largess actually encourages socialists to pass absurd yet draconian laws… just like this one…the living wage… believing they can wrestle money away from the Top wage earners and hand it to the lowest ones… and that no ill effects will result.
They are complete Morons.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian Libertarian.
Update: 7-10-13
Another delusion is the calculated cost of implementing this ‘Living wage policy’ as it fails to take into account the disgruntled workers who have taken the trouble to up-skill themselves yet find themselves earning little more than the those people with virtually no skills at all!
Human nature dictates that these workers will strike and demand higher wages too.
and thus there will be multiple unforeseen and un-calculated costs which will have ruinous consequences…. esp for taxpayers, rents,and ratepayers… and the Costs of essentials
Power to the people
Some of my best friends are socialists. One friend in particular often has good arguments in favour of government interventions in a variety of flavours. Here’s one of them, in response to this article in the NZ Herald on rising power prices.
Its no surprise that electricity prices in NZ have doubled in real terms (compared with overseas) in the last 30 years (as per the article in your link).
Interesting to look at the wage bill, interest bill and profit (and where the profit went) for the old system and compare with the new.
And also look at the nature of the generation and distribution assets , old and new i.e. how much of todays electricity as supplied by dams and plants that were there 30 years ago.
I have no doubt the the old government owned system was:-
Simpler
Cheaper
More reliableAlso with the old system
little marketing and advertising costs
reduced management costs
greatly benefitted from orders of magnitude
reduced compliance costs (annual reports. legal costs etc)
profits went to the government to offset taxes
Central planning was done to benefit NZ – not to manipulate the system to the benefit of those receiving bonuses (smartest people in the room syndrome)Cutting the system up into competing entities means that in many cases where there used to be one job there are now about 6. Plus each of the new entities now has its own marketing department. I project managed the multi-million dollar computer that is required to calculate the billing between generators and retailers. Such complexity was unnecessary in the old system. And someone has to pay for all those people treading the streets trying to persuade households to switch from one retailer to another.
In the old system the best brains were used on engineering calculations – now they are used on how best to manipulate for profit.
It all wouldn’t be quite so bad if households could buy electricity at wholesale rates plus a margin and use smart meters to understand and adapt to the risks – but that particular vision still seems unreachable.
Anyway that’s my (admittedly one sided) rant.
My friend also admits it “was written very very quickly as an angry outburst. No real thought gone into it. It is filled with sentences and phrases that could be much better as well holes in the logic etc. and totally lacking in references or hard facts.”
Way too modest!
I think it deserves a response. Any takers?
Free will. What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
I’m fast coming around to the view that the concept of free will is what Ayn Rand called an anti-concept.
An anti-concept is an unnecessary and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept. The use of anti-concepts gives the listeners a sense of approximate understanding. But in the realm of cognition, nothing is as bad as the approximate …
Free will is designed to obliterate human decision-making.
It’s simple. We make decisions.
Other people (including God) hold us accountable (i.e., deserving of moral praise or blame) for our decisions. That’s all there is to it, and all you need to know.
The Singularity – the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence – is coming, as early as 2030 according to some estimates. The first smarter-than-human AI will make decisions, like we do, only better. Will it have free will? That depends on whether other people (including God) hold it accountable for its decisions.
“The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it. (NIV)
The neurophysiology of free will
Insha’Allah
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. (NIV)
Poi E
Sick of race-based politics in New Zealand? Me too.
Let’s celebrate New Zealand’s Maori culture instead, with this timeless gem from the Patea Maori Club.
Treaty of Waitangi – sleight of hand
The Treaty of Waitangi is a contract signed between two parties – Maori Chiefs and Queen Victoria’s representative.
The contract was intended to bind Queen Victoria and her successors and to bind Maori Chiefs and their successors.
If Maori leaders believe that there has been any breach of the Waitangi contract then they should seek compensation from Queen Elizabeth. If any injustice has been committed by the New Zealand government she is responsible. Her representative, the Governor General, is the overseer of the government and she ultimately has the authority and a duty to ensure the New Zealand government does not act unjustly.
Currently Maori leaders effectively seek compensation from the New Zealand taxpayers.
ASS says ‘Gay’ Jesus billboard not offensive
St. Matthew-in-the-City has been up to its usual tricks. The billboard pictured above appeared a week before Christmas last year and, as anticipated, a complaint was laid with the Advertising Standards Authority Society. But ASS deemed the billboard not offensive, said TVNZ today.
The complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority said the representation of Jesus was “akin to hate speech”.
However, a decision released yesterday found the billboard’s speculation about Jesus’ sexual orientation did not breach advertising codes.
It was “prepared by a Christian church to promote debate within the Christian faith, as opposed to a deliberately offensive advertisement by an outside party for commercial gain, had been prepared with a due sense of social responsibility”, the decision reads.
Is it within ASS’s remit to deem the billboad in exceptionally poor taste? Because it is. That sort of thing should be reserved for this blog!
Here’s an idea for St. Matthew-in-the-City’s upcoming Easter billboard.
That’ll promote debate within the Christian faith, for sure.
Paul Holmes on Waitangi day Stench.
‘Liberated’ the following speil from my facebook friend Stephen Maire…
It’s Holmes at his best.
the late Sir Paul Holmes – who had a wonderful way with words – wrote the following:
“Waitangi Day produced its usual hatred, rudeness, and violence against a clearly elected Prime Minister from a group of hateful, hate-fuelled weirdos who seem to exist in a perfect world of benefit provision. This enables them to blissfully continue to believe that New Zealand is the centre of the world, no one has to have a job and the Treaty is all that matters.
…
“I’m over Waitangi Day. It is repugnant. It’s a ghastly affair. As I lie in bed on Waitangi morning, I know that later that evening, the news will show us irrational Maori ghastliness with spitting, smugness, self-righteousness and the usual neurotic Maori politics, in which some bizarre new wrong we’ve never thought about will be lying on the table.
“This, we will have to address and somehow apply these never-defined principles of the Treaty of Waitangi because it is, apparently, the next big resentment. There’ll be lengthy discussion, we’ll end up paying the usual millions into the hands of the Maori aristocracy and God knows where it’ll go from there.
“Well, it’s a bullshit day, Waitangi. It’s a day of lies. It is loony Maori fringe self-denial day… No, if Maori want Waitangi Day for themselves, let them have it.”……