Today’s DomPost editorial in error – sloppy journalism
Overall Adam broadly agreed with the editorial in the DomPost, except for this piece:-
PPTA members do not believe that an administration that has supported the Rugby World Cup, South Canterbury Finance, Warner Bros and hated private schools cannot afford to give them a 4 per cent pay rise.
Yet again the media report the fiction that the government supported South Canterbury Finance. It did not. The government under the terms of the deposit guarantee scheme introduced by one Michael Cullen in late 2008, prior to the last election with support from the then National opposition, repaid deposits to despositors when SCF went into receivership. This is quite different from ‘supporting’ SCF and is on a par with media comment such as government bailed out SCF and similar rubbish. The deposit guarantee scheme was introduced at a time of great instability in world markets, it may have been ill conceived in some respects, but the government complied with the scheme – for which companies had paid an ‘insurance’ premium to belong. This is very differnt from the implication in the editorial.
As for saying the government supported Warner Brothers, again a stupidity. The government with much public support negotiated to keep The Hobbit film in NZ. The support in $ terms provided being an expansion of a scheme originally introduced by Labour.
As for the union demands it is time these petty dictators and oppressors of truth were shown the door.
Comments are closed.
Chris
I was not bashing unions per se, as overall I think they can make and have made a valuable contribution.
I also agree that Adam Smith was not a conservative in the sense that some interpret the word today
My comment re the teachers unions in NZ is that they oocupy the position here that the NUM did in the UK under Scargill and by their own behaviour will bring themselves down.
Enjoy your site. But, I always worry when someone hijacks Adam Smith without having read the great mans work in full, so here are a few comments – esp. pertinent when you start bashing unions – see comment 3
Even today — in blithe disregard of his actual philosophy — Smith is generally regarded as a conservative economist, whereas in fact, he was more avowedly hostile to the motives of businessmen then most New Deal economists.
Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers,Chapter III, p. 62
All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Book 1 Vol III page 292
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of the workman. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.80
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.
Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.94
A great stock, though with small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have a little, it is often easier to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.
Book I, Chapter IX, pg.111
Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workman, its counsellors are always the masters
Book I, Chapter x, Part II, pg.168
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.
Book I, Chapter XI, Part II, pg.202
I think you could make a pretty good case for abolishing all teacher unions. After all, lying, deceit, greed, standover tactics, blackmail, class disruption at exam time, plotting, bullying of fellow teachers, disrespect of the boss and gross incompetence with the bottom 20% of the classes is hardly what we want as an example to the children..
And not to speak of the clear contradiction between values taught in the classroom and the antics of the teachers unions.
JC
Welcome back.
Thank you