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Old 5th June 2018, 19:26     #4361
fixed_truth
 
Yep the economic incentive system is broken - employers should be giving employees incentives to work. Why should we expect someone to do a shitty job for shitty pay? Also a "skilled migrant" category means "skilled migrants" don't get paid unskilled wages and so suppressing overall wages and incentive to work.

Peter Lyons: Why our most profitable industries pay miserable wages
Quote:
The kiwifruit industry has bounced back from the PSA scare. It has innovated in developing and adopting new strains of kiwifruit that are resistant to the PSA virus. It is a great comeback story. It is a credit to its resilience and enterprise and government assistance.

A hectare of kiwifruit farm around Te Puke can sell for up to $1 million. Recent returns for orchards are between $50,000 and $100,000 per hectare. Kiwifruit are once again a very profitable crop.

Yet they can't afford to pay their pickers and packers above the minimum wage. They need Government assistance to increase the supply of migrant workers.

It is an interesting insight into how some labour markets work in New Zealand, especially for low income jobs. It helps explain some of the huge increase in income equalities in recent decades.
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Old 6th June 2018, 11:05     #4362
Nich
 
I agree with that article:

- Government welfare system creates a labour shortage through learned helplessness.
- Government minimum wage laws mean some businesses fail to make a profit. Some will opt to hire no one or try to automate a job instead of paying minimum wage.
- Government immigration is ramped up to create an excessive influx of migrant workers to compensate for the labour shortage created by the welfare system.
- Due to the abundance of temporary migrant workers, businesses have all the negotiation power when offering jobs to them.
- The best move for any business is to take advantage of whatever makes best business sense. They would be quite stupid if they didn't take advantage of the great hand the government is dealing to them.

The Government always says it's going to give us all jobs, jobs, more shitty jobs! And also that no family will be left behind, and also that all migrants are welcome. To say the opposite is political suicide. I wish they'd be real for a second and admit that they pull on the levers of the society and the economy just because it looks good in the short term, and long term the blame cannot easily be put on any one person, party, or political term. Politicians are also incentivised to not to give a fuck beyond 10 years.
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Old 6th June 2018, 14:16     #4363
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
I work close to the wine industry here in Oz and all the big producers are wetting themselves in excitement over autonomous vineyard vehicles with smart grape-picking hardware that learns how to improve its grape-picking efficiency. Picking fruit ain’t gonna be a human thing much longer.
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Old 6th June 2018, 15:44     #4364
fixed_truth
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nich
I agree with that article:

- Government welfare system creates a labour shortage through learned helplessness.
- Government minimum wage laws mean some businesses fail to make a profit. Some will opt to hire no one or try to automate a job instead of paying minimum wage.
-There's a lot of different types of welfare. People who can't work or are between employment don't deserve to have to struggle to survive. You're talking about a small subset of people who employees generally don't want to hire. Whether or not we need migrants to fill any gap - people still need to be payed adequately and people on benefits need to have enough to live. I hear what you're saying - why work when you can get not much less by not working. I would argue that there's more factors than pay when determining job quality and whether certain jobs add to our sense of well-being.
-If businesses can't afford to pay adequately then their price levels don't reflect actual costs and they're not sustainable. For a lot of businesses it just means trimming the fat at the other end.
-Job automation is an inevitable outcome. It's only becomes a problem if the income/wealth created by automation isn't taxed to fund support of people affected by this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nich
- Government immigration is ramped up to create an excessive influx of migrant workers to compensate for the labour shortage created by the welfare system.
- Due to the abundance of temporary migrant workers, businesses have all the negotiation power when offering jobs to them.
- The best move for any business is to take advantage of whatever makes best business sense. They would be quite stupid if they didn't take advantage of the great hand the government is dealing to them.
-You're effectively saying that people should have to work shitty jobs for shitty pay. Your ideal welfare system would have someone either extremely struggling on a benefit or doing a shitty job for maybe a slightly better income. Well no. People shouldn't have to struggle to survive on a benefit AND people shouldn't have to struggle on min. wage shitty jobs.
-Yeah that's true a lot of businesses will take advantage of the situation. That doesn't mean that it's a situation as a society we want.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nich
The Government always says it's going to give us all jobs, jobs, more shitty jobs! And also that no family will be left behind, and also that all migrants are welcome. To say the opposite is political suicide. I wish they'd be real for a second and admit that they pull on the levers of the society and the economy just because it looks good in the short term, and long term the blame cannot easily be put on any one person, party, or political term. Politicians are also incentivised to not to give a fuck beyond 10 years.
Yeah political parties do spin a lot of bs. Basically I think redistribution is needed because the system inherently creates inequality. Long-term automation is going to really change how we view what it means to be part of society and deserving of support. I look at over 65s where due to a universal benefit a lot don't need to work though so many still get involved in society as unpaid workers whether it's childcare, charity work and volunteering etc. I think a society where we aren't expected and don't need to work could be awesome.
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Old 6th June 2018, 15:58     #4365
Lightspeed
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nich
- Government welfare system creates a labour shortage through learned helplessness.
It does and it doesn't. Initiative is something we develop around age 3-5 years. It's why the previous Labour government had plans to have a staff member trained in human development at the masters level in all early childhood centres. To ensure that children we develop this capacity. By neglecting this, we do indeed impact our potential labour pool.

We limit our labour pool by learned hopelessness. People are rational, based on their lived experience. A punishing welfare system indeed teaches many people they cannot improve their situation and so we give up trying. People who achieve the capacity of initiative as children want to be productive, we want to make something of our lives.

We didn't become the dominant species on the planet by making irrational decisions, by investing energy where there is no expected return. We think people are irrational because we haven't lived their lives, we haven't faced the choices they've faced. We tell ourselves we know better, and we do, but only for our own circumstances, which we tend to generalise as everyone's circumstances. We become irrational when we try make decisions for others, which for most of human history has been impossible. It's only contemporary power structures which allow people to make decisions which impact wide swaths of humanity.

It seems the dominant rationale is that we can motivate people with suffering. We'll work shits job for little money if the alternative is worse shit. This only works in extremes. You can compel slaves when there's no limit to the suffering you can impose, but if you want a free society, it doesn't work. Some will work shit jobs because something makes it worthwhile - often our children. We will suffer tremendously if it means we can spare our children some small measure of suffering. But we can see that many will put up with the misery they're subjected to than subject themselves to misery. And then we blame them for not trying. But we're all evolved organisms, we're all doing what we think is best, as far as life has taught us.

The nature of our schools impacts our labour pool, because we're cheap. We know how to effectively educate children. But we want to save our money instead. And besides, educated adults will use their education, so we better leave some stupid and desperate, to work the shit jobs for little money. We limit our labour pool when we abandon people to their trauma. Again because we're cheap and lack compassion. We're cheap because we're compelled by consumerism and marketing that tells us we need our money for ourselves, the rare social science that actually enjoys significant investment. It's a feedback loop we're caught in.
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Old 7th June 2018, 18:37     #4366
Nich
 
Good points all round.

I don't think people should work shit jobs for shit pay. I also don't think people should work shit jobs for decent pay.

I think as much as a job can be automated, it ought to be automated. If there is no other pleasure or human good to be derived from the doing of the job, then no one should be forced to take it on unless the monetary reward is compensates sufficiently. If it's picking kiwifruit, perhaps being outdoors in nature, in clean green NZ is also a form of payment.

Of course, a trench digger may hate to dig trenches all day without machinery if it were their job. But perhaps someone who's job was not digging trenches might find some satisfaction from digging a trench by hand if it were on their own accord and for their own benefit. This can be applied to almost any job that may also be someone else's hobby.

While our jobs may be shitty and boring, we are at least taking that money and circulating it in the economy. A robotic workforce will never spend money back into the economy, and the owner of the robots doesn't suddenly become a billionaire philanthropist. Especially not in today's winner-takes-all mode of thinking.

So perhaps there is some calculation of all the "liberated" labour hours and economic worth of all the many automated systems coming online. Kind of like how horsepower is used to describe a car's engine. So too will an automated system be calculated in human effort saved. Then the market might have a new price discovery on that human effort and the benefit to society because there may be a new abundance of a service. Ok, now perhaps the calculated economic worth of the automated processes could be redistributed to everyone regardless of present need.

But at what stage of automation do we start counting this saved human effort? Perhaps there used to be a job position as "Spell Checker"... and now every device in the world can check spelling. How valuable to society is correct spelling?

Yes, I am describing UBI, but we are coming to a point where big swathes of society are being displaced by automation. The biggest of which will be freight and driving which will soon be just a thing we do for leisure. All the shit driving jobs will disappear, but the economic benefit will probably increase... what the hell is going to happen then? It could broaden the gap between rich and poor, or it could be a great leveler.

Last edited by Nich : 7th June 2018 at 18:40.
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Old 8th June 2018, 09:21     #4367
fixed_truth
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nich
While our jobs may be shitty and boring, we are at least taking that money and circulating it in the economy. A robotic workforce will never spend money back into the economy, and the owner of the robots doesn't suddenly become a billionaire philanthropist. Especially not in today's winner-takes-all mode of thinking.

So perhaps there is some calculation of all the "liberated" labour hours and economic worth of all the many automated systems coming online. Kind of like how horsepower is used to describe a car's engine. So too will an automated system be calculated in human effort saved. Then the market might have a new price discovery on that human effort and the benefit to society because there may be a new abundance of a service. Ok, now perhaps the calculated economic worth of the automated processes could be redistributed to everyone regardless of present need.
That's the crucial requirement for things not going to shit. People generally don't give much of a shit about bad things unless they're happening to them. So as job losses get more and more widespread I hope our democracy is robust enough to enable the majority to demand redistribution.
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Old 8th June 2018, 11:05     #4368
Nich
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by fixed_truth
That's the crucial requirement for things not going to shit. People generally don't give much of a shit about bad things unless they're happening to them. So as job losses get more and more widespread I hope our democracy is robust enough to enable the majority to demand redistribution.
Maybe Project Cybersyn is the answer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
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Old 8th June 2018, 11:16     #4369
Nich
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nich
Maybe Project Cybersyn is the answer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
Sadly, this economic system cannot be allowed to exist in the current world if the US dollar is to remain strong. So Nixon and Kissinger setup yet another CIA run coup and had Allende assassinated in a military coup.
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Old 12th June 2018, 22:46     #4370
Lightspeed
 
Police to compensate Hager over Dirty Politics raid

So I'm guessing we're believing this was just a whoopsy by the police. There was no other influence involved, just like with the Dotcom debacle.
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Old 13th June 2018, 11:21     #4371
fixed_truth
 
Winston still suing people including Bennett. Looks like dirty politics really did cost National a 4th term.
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Old 14th June 2018, 15:00     #4372
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Isn’t “the prime minister suing the head of the public service” a bit of a problem?
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Old 15th June 2018, 18:13     #4373
CCS
Stunt Pants
 
Can you imagine if NZF had gone with National and then Winston decided to sue a bunch of them?
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Old 22nd June 2018, 09:42     #4374
CCS
Stunt Pants
 


That could be misinterpreted...
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Old 22nd June 2018, 11:40     #4375
fixed_truth
 
Arggh. Calling the baby Prime minature is actually more cringy that yesterday's 'have you heard Jacinda Ardern is in Labour' jokes.
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Last edited by fixed_truth : 22nd June 2018 at 11:41.
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Old 23rd June 2018, 14:05     #4376
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Rip Charles Krauthammer. Learned a lot about what I think by reading what he did.

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/21/174908...-dies-obituary
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Old 29th June 2018, 16:06     #4377
Lightspeed
 
All this ongoing drama about how to deal with migrants in Europe seems like fighting over how to deal with the trickle while oblivious to the impending flood.
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Old 5th July 2018, 23:53     #4378
Lightspeed
 
Malaysia's former prime minister swore that $680 million found in his bank account is actually a donation from Saudi Arabia

That's some good friends right there.
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Last edited by Lightspeed : 5th July 2018 at 23:55.
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Old 6th July 2018, 01:38     #4379
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
All this ongoing drama about how to deal with migrants in Europe seems like fighting over how to deal with the trickle while oblivious to the impending flood.
how is it not a flood already?
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Old 6th July 2018, 02:38     #4380
Lightspeed
 
I'm just looking at some figures which I assume are reliable:
https://www.iom.int/wmr/wmr-2018-infosheets

~50% increase in raw numbers in Europe over the past 15 years is a lot, but I'm not sure it's a flood. Overall international migration isn't up that much, an increase of about 0.5% of the world's population in 15 years.

I think once we see some extreme climate events hit, we'll see the global migration jump dramatically. Give it another 15 years.
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Old 10th July 2018, 09:34     #4381
pxpx
 
Back into house prices; two deals that I've been involved in recently have involved finance from china being declined/intercepted by the Chinese govt.

Interesting.
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Old 10th July 2018, 15:05     #4382
Lightspeed
 
You're selling and the deals have fallen through?
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Old 11th July 2018, 08:13     #4383
pxpx
 
Nope, buying and competing with other people.
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Old 11th July 2018, 09:25     #4384
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Well this Phil Goff vs free speech fiasco is exactly what you’d expect.
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Old 11th July 2018, 09:56     #4385
pxpx
 
lolling @ the (bi-partisan) free-speech coalition getting their $50k legal fund to sue the council in less than 24 hours.

Not lolling that my rates will pay for the defense.
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Old 12th July 2018, 14:58     #4386
Lightspeed
 
I think people are worried about the undermining and denigration of intelligent, disciplined, rational discourse, coupled with growing hate based movements which exploit ignorance, fears and prejudices as a way of gaining political support. I don't think it's a straightforward issue.

It's not like we haven't seen examples of this working with terrible consequences in the past.

It's along the same lines, but not exactly the same issue; the way we're giving equal airtime to ignorance as expertise on the issue of climate change for the sake of balanced debate is going to have devastating consequences.
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Old 12th July 2018, 16:24     #4387
CCS
Stunt Pants
 
A politician preventing people from speaking about politically controversial issues seems kinda... I dunno... bad stuff.
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Old 12th July 2018, 19:06     #4388
StN
I have detailed files
 
My grand-pappies found the Nazis and the Japs to ensure anyone should have the right to make a cock of themselves.

(Even Liz Shaw)
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Old 12th July 2018, 19:11     #4389
CCS
Stunt Pants
 
Where did they find them?
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Old 12th July 2018, 22:57     #4390
Lightspeed
 
I think we can agree people getting arrested or disappeared for voicing their opinions is unacceptable.

But does that mean that all opinions need to be listened to, no opinions should face resistance of any kind?

I'm not sure where the line is.
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Old 12th July 2018, 23:09     #4391
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
the thing that depresses me the most about the modern Left is that it is so fucking GULLIBLE.
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Old 12th July 2018, 23:43     #4392
Lightspeed
 
It seems we're all extremes, no centre these days. And shit's dopey at either end.

What worries me is that this isn't a mistake.
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Old 13th July 2018, 08:17     #4393
StN
I have detailed files
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by CCS
Where did they find them?
Bloody auto correct - well, um... El Alamain and The Solomons I think.
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Old 13th July 2018, 09:56     #4394
fixed_truth
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
It's along the same lines, but not exactly the same issue; the way we're giving equal airtime to ignorance as expertise on the issue of climate change for the sake of balanced debate is going to have devastating consequences.
Yep in this age with social media & political marketing agencies etc the adage 'let them be judged on the merit of their speech' - can be dangerous.
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Old 13th July 2018, 14:21     #4395
BoyWonder
 
What Phil Goff has achieved is making Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux household names, at least for a week or so. Perfect example of the Streisand effect.
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Old 13th July 2018, 18:40     #4396
blynk
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BoyWonder
What Phil Goff has achieved is making Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux household names, at least for a week or so. Perfect example of the Streisand effect.
And I have no doubt part of their marketing is to hopefully be banned so they can make a big deal about it.

Phil Goff did it wrong, should have spoken with immigration, to have them look into if they should come into the country.
If they don't classify it as hate speech then they can come in.
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Old 13th July 2018, 20:12     #4397
[Malks] Pixie
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by blynk
And I have no doubt part of their marketing is to hopefully be banned so they can make a big deal about it.
This has been the marketing playbook for the alt-right for a fair while now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blynk
Phil Goff did it wrong, should have spoken with immigration, to have them look into if they should come into the country.
If they don't classify it as hate speech then they can come in.
Why would a mayor have any reason to discuss the immigration status of any individual coming into the country? This would have been a far bigger issue (in legal and ethical terms) than the council determination about the use of council property.

Plenty of activities, groups & individuals get told they can't use council resources for their profit making.
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Old 14th July 2018, 16:46     #4398
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Getting banned and having one's visa revoked is a key part of the alt-right Youtuber's business model. Without leftie snowflake outrage there are no vlogs to monetise.

The worst possible thing that could happen to them is for them to be allowed to visit, be allowed to speak, and for no-one to give a shit because we're not gullible knee-jerk idiots.

But we are.
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Old 14th July 2018, 19:10     #4399
Lightspeed
 
It seems more like a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation. It's as elegant as it is grotesque.

History has shown indifference is just as easy to exploit as knee-jerk outrage. "First they came for the..."

Education and insight are the weapons we need to fight hate, but it's been politically and economically pragmatic to leave a significant proportion of the population struggling and desperate. The gutting of the middle class. Leaving the excessively rich keen to stay that way along with the excessively poor unable to think about more than how to juggle the next pay cheque. Anyone left in the middle doing what they can to keep them and theirs on the right side of the divide.
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Old 15th July 2018, 16:49     #4400
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Stephen Fry sums up my feelings well.

https://youtu.be/xv8QvnrUyUs
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