We spend a lot of time talking about economics, but Jim Stanford’s book argues that fundamentally, economics is work.
In Chapter 3 of his book called “work, production and value”, he argues that the stereotype of a worker as someone who performs menial tasks on an assembly line is badly outdated and that workers today perform a wide variety of functions, many of them requiring advanced skills.
But they are still workers, as long as they perform the work for someone else in return for a wage or salary. This also includes many “self employed” workers and dependent contractors, because they perform their labour in return for money and they do not significantly own or control the organisation which they work for.
Some workers who are paid a “salary” assume that they must belong to a higher class, but Stanford says this is wishful thinking. They are still paid by someone else, still dependent on the decisions made by someone else and in some ways, more exploited that so-called “wage labour”.
Many salaried workers don’t have fixed hours of work and work unpaid overtime when required. The expectation of them as “professionals” and the pressure of the corporate world can mean that they will do more than they are paid for.
Similarly, some management, such as low level supervisors and technicians are really glorified wage slaves as well. They follow orders given by those in seniority to them, they are not expected to question them, they have little say in the running of the company and they are paid a fixed salary. Even although they can boss around underlings, they are just as dispensable as other wage workers.
The only positions that aren’t wage slaves are those at the very top. Sure, they work long hours and work hard. They have unique control over the operations of the company and their income depends on the profit of the company.
“Their direct and substantial economic stake in the profit of the enterprise and their unique control over its activity fundamental distinguish these top managers from other less powerful staff. But only a tiny share (perhaps 2%) of all work in the economy consists of this type of work.”
Then there’s the self-employed who work (nominally) for themselves. Often these workers see themselves as a step above wage labour. We so often hear the mantra about “small business being 95% of NZ business”, but the truth is that they are workers too, often being used by larger companies to avoid labour costs and benefits.
Modern corporations have found it profitable to shift (outsource) so-called “peripheral” service functions to outside contractors – from cleaning to transport to accounting. But in reality, these workers are not much different from workers performing similar functions who are on the company’s payroll. They still depend on the large company for their jobs and income but truthfully, their total income is often less than directly employed workers. They have no employment rights, they don’t get paid holidays or sick leave and they have no rights to minimum wage.
Interestingly, under ILO coventions, “workers” are more broadly defined beyond ”employees”, as in NZ’s national law and practice – and fundamental rights are supposed to extend to all workers.
Then there’s unpaid work. Household work, child rearing, caring for dependent family members and supporting the community. Not included in GDP statistics, mostly performed by women, but essential to our individual and collective well-being.
So, most work consists of wage labour (50%), top management and owners are only around 2%, self employed 10% and unpaid workers around 40%.
What does this all mean for policy making? I’ve long been an advocate for thinking beyond the traditional employer employee relationship and trying to consider how we extend both rights and recognition to all of those who work in our society. But there’s a significant debate to be had about unpaid work as well – how we value it, how we provide for it – and how we calculate (and compensate?) for the impact on lifelong economic well-being, especially given that most unpaid household work is still performed by women.
But there’s a whole other chapter on this!
Agreed
Hah great post Darien, gives me the perfect excuse to put in this link about how China is growing tired of being the cheap sweatshop labour for the world and sees its future in the owning of its own technology and brands.
nytimes.com/2010/07/06/technology/06iphone.html?pagewanted=1&ref=global-home
Also, you must be familiar with this Karl Marx term ‘Petit-bourgeois’ They include the salarymen and professionals you talk about who may fancy themselves ahead of the game but in actual fact…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie
Spud geee you always beat me to the top
Here are a few lessons in economics that the left could do with.
1. Self employed tend to be more efficient with higher productivity and better quality work that waged or salaried workers – hence they tend to earn more
2. No person should expect to be paid more than what their economic contribution is.
3. The amount a person can be paid in any instance is dependant upon their skill set, the demand for the their skills, the risk, and their perceived value.
Hence we now have the situation where youth unemployment has dramitically increased because they have effectively been priced out the job market because of the abolition of youth rates. The sharp increase is due to several factors (recession etc) but Labour with their popularist policy have now put in place a situation where an employer will not give a youth a chance because they are simply too expensive.
Hey, if the adults are taking up all the crummy jobs off the young people then they must really need the work.
Everyone bar the tiny group of top capitalists is a worker, potential worker or unpaid worker. The trenchcoats of Lambton Quay or the IT guy with black jersey and nerdy glasses (me) shock horror are workers! The implication of this is that we have more in common with each other than we sometimes imagine. Neo liberal ideology has diverted kiwis to see themselves as competing individuals and consumers making “choices”. For example, power prices go up, so we are encouraged to ‘shop around’ rather than mount a political campaign to return power generation to public ownership.
Philosophers will argue the toss over terms such as false consciousness, but small business people, and farmers that think they are their “own boss” are usually beholden to banks and regulatory authorities one way or another. @Monty: if a business cannot afford to pay even the minimum wage they should not be in business, they are just a menace to society as immigrant restaurant workers know well.
Labour policy could include looking at income splitting, adequately recognising the volunteer/not for profit sector and seriously condsidering a form of UBI (Universal Basic Income) that people such as Sue Bradford have long promoted which would simplify welfare and remove the stigma.
Monty said:
Well I reckon:
[1] Where is your data to show this? What kinds of jobs/roles? Is someone who is a self employed medical doctor really 10% more productive than a doctor who works in a hospital on salary? Many self employed are professionals e.g. engineers or established tradesmen. Not a surprise they would earn more.
[2] How are you going to define the economic contribution of the hospital nurse who stitches up a cut on the Prime Minister’s arm? This thinking is the classic “know the price of everything, know the value of nothing” thinking.
[3] Agreed.
The recent stats I read on unpaid work, i.e. volunteer work, showed that more hours are dedicated to it in NZ than paid work… To pay people for it you’d have to employ a 100% tax rate on monetarily profitable work…
I’m not sure how you’d even begin to try and compensate people for raising the kids they’ve chosen to have or the time to take them to soccer, etc… How about leaving voluntary work voluntary instead of killing it..?
“@Monty: if a business cannot afford to pay even the minimum wage they should not be in business, they are just a menace to society as immigrant restaurant workers know well.”
Is it less of a menace to the taxpayer and society to have people sitting around on the dole long term..? Might be time for an independent look at a negative income tax…
JMH answer is to create an economy creatingly increasingly high value products and services. Step away from the hollowed out employment situation where a large proportion of jobs in the market place are minimum wage or within 10% thereof.
Marilyn Waring did some great work on unpaid work and economies back in the 80’s (? – OECD?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Waring
Spot the irony between this:
stereotype of a worker is … badly outdated
and this:
They follow orders given by those in seniority to them, they are not expected to question them, they have little say in the running of the company and they are paid a fixed salary. Even although they can boss around underlings, they are just as dispensable as other wage workers.
Stanford’s just a shallow hack; decrying the stereotypes and characterisations he doesn’t like, but then quite happy to perpetuate equally outdated notions in defence of his views.
Are you serious? You actually titled this post “economics for everyone”? It’s a social construct you are talking about, not an economic theory. This has so little to do with actual economics it’s laughable. No wonder no one believes the Labour party should be on the treasury benches.
Get with it insum, Darien is just working through a book by Jim Stanford with the title of her post. Stanford tries not to scare nervous horses like you too much but gives a solid critique of captialism. Several of his colleagues are engaged in real world projects in India and Italy testing their proposition that economics is too important to be left up to right wing orthodox economists.
Labour of all NZ parties should know that encouraging wider understanding of economic concepts will help it avoid total capture again by neo liberals.
@Loota – Thanks -I’ve been watching this (Chinese workers) and might post on it soon.
@Monty : No surprises from your post. Old neolib arguments – how about something new?
@True Wheel : Thanks for great comments and push back on insumnation.
@Insumnation : Your post proves my point really – economics isn’t about “theory”, it’s about people. It is fundamentally a social activity, whether you like it or not. We rely on each other, we interact with each other. Even the richest billionaire in the world doesn’t make it on their own. I’m trying to encourage people to believe that theory and important sounding economists are not what the economy is really about, when actually, it’s about them and their lives – and they have a say in it too.
Darien, The problem is that your lot on the left (especially the union faction) are so economically illiterate that I can only assume you are deliberately so. Do you not understand that getting rid of youth rates has significantly contributed to unacceptably high unemployment in this demographic. What are your solutions for fixing this problem? I would be unlikely to employ a 17 year old over a 20 year old at the same rate because the 17 year old is much less likey to be worth as much as a 20 year old.
I fail to understand why we should allow a young person to get the dole at say $150 a week because the law says they must be paid about $500 per week even if they could find a job at $400 a week (where they learn skills and work habits and can eventually warranty being paid $500 per week or more)
You deliberately avoid answering this and rather take the easy road of accusing me of being neo-lib as you answer to me being wrong. That catch all is weak and you know it.
How about entering into a discussion and telling me why I am wrong and de-constructing my argument if you truly believe I am. I look forward to your response.
How much has it contributed Monty? And in which report did you get the figure from? Specifics if you could.
Go and have a read of this http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2010/02/youth-rates-revisited.html – maybe this will help – but again – leftists fail to prove otherwise.
The good thing about youth, Monty, is that they will grow older and qualify for the minimum wage some day
Don’t feel too bad for them 
Monty – what is there to prove otherwise? That guy’s self admitted “first cut” at demonstrating some kind of mathematical association between two factors but not necessarily any causality and before taking into account other factors not considered by the model?
No, its laughable sorry.
Far better is this article on economists who actually did their homework, putting a knife into the fads and fashions of modern economics as theoretically and mathematically elegant but largely impractical and unrealistic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=data%20mining&st=cse
People of Monty’s bent are really just supporting low wages, any kind of minimum puts in a floor which they don’t like. During Labours last term the minimum wage was regularly raised and unemployment kept dropping.
If you support youth rates, why not Pasifika rates? It is a similar principal.
Typo, -principle-thinking about “National” standards maybe…
Loota,
Make your case by pointing to facts and stop arguing with yourself, which you’re quite good at it on this blog. God, you’re everywhere in your comments and referencing contradicting facts to your own, without you realizing it.
I think that your problem here is that you think, you know about everything that is on discussion on this blog and that reflects in the number of comments per day you’ve made here on RedAlert.
You stated…
what is there to prove otherwise?
I suspect that you haven’t read a single citation from the excellent references that Dr. Eric Crampton put up on his blog site (Monty linked to it above), in which makes you arguing from a position of ignorant. Read some of the references there, which quoted economic scholars from overseas who have published their studies/papers on refereed journals.
You also stated…
Far better is this article on economists who actually did their homework, putting a knife into the fads and fashions of modern economics as theoretically and mathematically elegant but largely impractical and unrealistic.
Well, I agree with that point above, but I also know why, while you don’t. You seem to think that everything mathematical economics is a fad and unrealistic, but that is not the case. The math is not the problem, but the theory formulations. If you start with wrong assumptions in formulating your theories, then of course, you will get nonsense as a result and I have pointed out a video lecture by Stiglitz earlier this year which he had heavily highlighted the wrong assumptions of mainstream economic theoretical formulations. There is more to be discovered in the field yet, but at least some of those previous wrong assumptions/formulations have been corrected (not all because of all the unknowns), and yes, they’re being corrected with mathematical fads (as you labelled them).
On a previous thread here on RedAlert, I said that government policymakers (such as the US Feds) do make decisions based on advise from economists who use the useless Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE), but you think (from your comment on that thread) that DSGE must have some valid predictions most of the times. Most of the times, DSGE has been wrong and way off, (getting it wrong most of the times is not the same thing as getting it right to be valid most of the times). The formulations of DSGE was based on a set of wrong assumptions everyone knows this today and Stiglitz highlighted that point in his 2010 Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) talk. The correct assumptions are not yet known at this stage (also Stiglitz mentioned that too), but at least, the wrong assumptions like market equilibrium (which doesn’t exist in the real world) are being trashed. So, you can’t dismiss mathematical economics (as you’ve done above here on this thread) and then partly or wholeheartedly believe they’re still valid (as you seemed to have done on the other thread, thinking that DSGE is somehow still valid) and that’s a contradiction. Can’t you see a contradiction there, perhaps without you realizing it?
I agree with a comment on that article (”They did their homework (800 years ago)“) of which you linked to above, which I have pasted below, which is absolutely true:
“The mainstream of academic research in macroeconomics puts theoretical coherence and elegance first, and investigating the data second,”
It should be the data that drives the theory & policies (i.e., economic theoretical formulations) and not the other way round. Here is a comment from a physicist who’s a strong critique of mainstream economics:
—————————–
Jo McCauley…
…empirically based modelling where one asks not what we can do for the data (give it a massage), but instead asks what can we learn from the data about how markets really work.
Data massaging is both dangerous and misleading. Econometricians mislead themselves and others into thinking that their models help us to understand market behaviour. The reason is that economists assume a preconceived model [22,23] with several unknown parameters, and then try to force fit the model to a non-stationary time series by a ‘best choice of parameters’ (using ‘rigorous and robust methods’). Their conclusion is that the data are too hard to fit over long time scales [23].
—————————–
Loota, I’ve noted that you’re supporter of David Cunliffe’s economic view here on this blog, which is basically David’s views’ is still mainstreamist , i.e., mathematical theory driven (data-massage) rather than data-driven (fact-based). See, you have a contradiction here without you realizing perhaps. I mean you’re dismissing theoretical math-based economics on this thread but then you agree with David Cunliffe’s view (which is basically a mainstreamist – Keynesian).
Monty how do you explain the CTU Economist and the Northern Employers and Manufacturers Economist agreeing on a number of issues?
I also note in the anti union sentiment that rears from time to time that we NEVER see the kind of action taken, toward accountability, as has just happened with prison officers union. When was the last time BRT or NEM were “raided”, or their books made public, or their own members spoke out against them.
You might not agree with unions but because of the nature of their membership base they are accountable and do have occassional divisions
“JMH answer is to create an economy creatingly increasingly high value products and services. Step away from the hollowed out employment situation where a large proportion of jobs in the market place are minimum wage or within 10% thereof.”
You’re never going to have an economy like that unless something drastic changes in the world economy…
As wages go up the government puts the minimum wage up so when 95% of the population works for someone else a large percentage of the population will earn between, the minimum wage –> double the minmum wage…
We should focus on either raising the GDP faster than we raise the minimum wage or increasing employment while improving the least wealthy’s lot (a negative income tax might be worth investigating)…
Monty, you are a useless troll. You know that nobody buys that theory because it’s been disproven in the real world and is clearly neo-liberal clap-trap used to drive wages down to push profits up. I mean, don’t let the facts get in the way of you spinning some lame bullshit or anything, but you’ll find that unemployment, especially youth unemployment, has been trending downwards until the GFC despite consistent rises in the minimum wage.
But nice try bro, too bad you got schooled by people you think have no idea about economics. Now off you trot, back to school so that you might learn something and thereby contribute more than trite bollocks.
Great idea Monty. So, after reading the research, it appears that the “financial” industry (including Jonkey) owes us trillions of dollars for their economic contribution and we owe hospital cleaners 11 times what we’ve paid them so far (this can be paid once the bankers have paid their contribution).
JMH, individual countries have moved towards high value added economies in the recent economic past. There is nothing to stop NZ from doing the same (except willpower…). You want to raise GDP, but we know GDP is a poor measure. An economy full of waste and inefficiencies raises GDP quite nicely, for instance.
F.F., to my mind action has to come from a synthesis of many different view points. I always think to myself, how did Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. go from backward, low earning, low income, low tech countries to being high tech, high income per capita economies over the course of 40-50 years.
Was it through consistently adhering to the theories espoused in peer reviewed scientific economics journals?
My view point on mathematical models of economics is rather pragmatic: if it has been tested and shown to be predictive and useful, use it to that extent. Otherwise, do not, and under no circumstances remove from the process the viewpoint of the generalist to let the “experts” run the agenda.
FF said
I must say I am learning a lot of useful things from Red Alert about a lot of areas I haven’t thought about before. Very edumacational.
F.F. said
You are right, didn’t care about the references in the least, only cared about the end product – the fact that Crampton’s model is a (solid) first cut but which requires a heck of a lot of fleshing out before drawing conclusions from like Monty did.
The blog post I’d put up is indeed just a first cut. I think it was more than enough to have warranted Douglas’s bill making it to first reading, at which point Treasury (or somebody!) could have been asked to spend the month or two doing a far more thorough analysis. If I had to bet on it, I’d reckon three chance in four that such analysis would show a substantial effect of the change in minimum wage on youth unemployment rates, one chance in five of no statistically discernible effect, and one chance in twenty of zero or opposite effect. That residual pattern is just too odd. I wouldn’t bet my life on that it was the elimination of the youth rate that caused the run up in the youth unemployment rate, but it is my odds-on bet given the preliminary work.
It’s a shame Parliament didn’t let it get to committee.
I would write standard of living Loota but GDP is quicker…
Another factor to consider re youth employment figures, as Spud (well know economist) alluded to here yesterday, in ‘entry’ level ie low paid jobs these days-service sector, cleaning, retail, gofers, etc. a fair few older, possibly over qualified people have appeared to serve you your eggs benedict or petrol, nudging out younger people. Plus tertiary institutes are toughening up on new entrants, even distance learning, due to funding changes.
I am on the lookout for more modern studies, DOL has some figures, but according to the NZCTU “a 2004 Treasury Treasury working paper in 2004 (1) found that a 69% increase in the minimum wage for 18 and 19 year olds in 2001 and a 41% increase in the minimum wage for 16 and 17 year-olds over a two year period had no adverse effects on youth employment or hours worked. In fact hours of work increased for 16-17 year olds relative to other age groups,”
“as Spud (well know economist) alluded to here yesterday,” LOL
At the moment there are also more than a few employers around paying new university graduates less than minimum wage on the basis that the grads are not ‘employees’ but ‘interns’ and getting “training and experience” from them.
F.F. said:
The contradiction that you have tried to set up for me is by saying that my position is anti all math-based economic theorems. I am not. Just the ones which are so much unusable academic deritus, peer reviewed or not.
Now I wonder if D.C. considers himself mainstreamist and Keynesian in terms of economic outlook. Because the term “mainstream” implies a way of thinking which the bulk of economists pursue and subscribe to, but frankly there don’t seem to be many economists in NZ who have espoused these same views in the last 10 years. (And if they have, no one has founded policy on it). How ‘mainstream’ can that possibly be? Do you know any National policies which follow D.C.’s “mainstream” concepts?
@True Wheel: you’re citing the what’s a very nice paper, but a paper which covers years in which we’d least expect any effect of minimum wage increases. Massively tight labour market 2000-’07 or so, very low unemployment. It’s like increasing the minimum price of a liter of water from $0.10 to $0.50 for folks in the desert dying of thirst – it won’t make much difference. But have the same increase in a recession….
Good point Loota, I know several young people (final years) in exactly that “intern” situation, and now realise how prevalent it has become.
Eric: classic goal post shifting. A wage floor is important particularly with reasonably low union density. In some jobs the minimum becomes a default maximum wage. The 2006 census gives interesting information about who earns what. I mean really if some tinpot employer is going to go bust over $2.50 per hour in wages do they deserve to be there?
Goal shifting? Pick up just about any intro micro textbook. Look in the index for “Price Floor”. If the equilibrium price is above the floor, it’s non-binding and has no effect. If the equilibrium price is below the floor, it’s binding and you have surplus at the regulated price. Start with the floor being non-binding, then shift the labour demand curve inwards. The non-binding floor becomes binding. This is principles-level stuff.
Sorry old chap, I neglected to qualify adequately to whom a wage floor might be important. Just as you did not describe who might be most interested in a text book ‘equilibrium’. Please, Darien continue with this series, it is getting interesting.
@ True Wheel – don’t worry I will continue this series. I’m not doing much arguing myself because others are doing such a good job of it- as often happens!
@Eric Crampton – I’ve read your research on youth minimum wage – there is a problem however with the way the statistics are recorded and used. The only workers who received a change from youth rates to adult wages were 17 and 18 year olds; 15 year olds don’t have a minimum wage and 19 year olds were already receiving adult minimum wage. Any data on the effect on 17 and 18 year olds?
@Monty –
You said my calling you a neolib was a weak catch-all. Aren’t you using a weak catch all argument against the so-called “lot on the left”?
The StatsNZ data has numbers for the 15-19 group as a whole; getting the disaggregated data would be a first step in the “couple months” version of the work. I would expect that the effect shown was a mix of the effect on 16-17 year olds coming under the adult rate and the adult rate becoming a binding constraint on the 18-19 year olds.
For those here whom their only education about economics were gained from their undergrad uni study or from reading internet blogs/newspapers/etc…, here are 2 excellent pointers and repositories of economic research papers which are mostly free to download. These are the best. Discussion papers, (peer review) pre-print papers, working papers, etc…
#1) RePEc (Research Papers in Economics)
#2) SSRN (Social Science Research Network – Economics Research)
One can even find the discussion papers from NZ Reserve Bank which have been made available from those sites. Any topic in economics can be found there including the relevant papers relating to the topic/s one is searching in those sites.
Some papers are not freely available (i.e., those which are only available in economic peer review journals), but one can request free copies from the (co)authors of those papers. Mostly, they (researchers) will send you free copies.
The problem with the sort of public discussion in a forum like this is that many here don’t have a grasp of the subject in discussion (e.g., economics). This means that guys like Eric Crampton and myself are mostly hesitate to cite the full & proper references (publication titles) here, since there is no point in doing that because those that the citation are intended for, would find it hard to read those references or perhaps they find it unreadable. The reason is that those papers are well, not mean to be read by the general public or members of blog discussions, because they could be very complex (papers which involve analytics).
I have been posting references here to materials on minimum wages, but I feel that I am wasting my time, because the topic keeps coming up on discussions here, which indicates to me that my effort of posting links to those references were wasted. Either those that I aimed the references for didn’t read the references or perhaps they looked but didn’t understand the analytics being used in those papers, which explains why the subject keeps coming up here again and again.
Darien, mentioned to me on a previous blog post of hers that she could cite some references to studies, which refutes the studies that I had linked to in the past here at RedAlert. I am still waiting Darien. C’mon, go on, show me the references. You better show me peer review references and not online opinion articles. Peer review articles are not the same thing as online opinion articles.
Not sure why going down the path of citing journal papers is going to mover forward a topic described as “Economics for Everyone”.
In a few words I can describe how a laser works, how it can be applied, the practical problems a laser can be used to solve, and cite concrete examples of all of this in action.
Economics theory on the other hand? What long standing problems has the application of academic papers on minimum wage managed to solve – anywhere, and in particular, New Zealand?
So searching on “minimum wage” in the RePEc material (thanks for the links F.F. very handy, esp since it looks like you can get a lot of material at no charge) I come across a handful of references since 2005, few of which seem to directly focus on the youth minimum wage. In one review (a working article) it says:
So how do I read this? There is not much non US empirical research on the minimum wage per se let alone the youth minimum wage.
Yes some data says that there is some depressive effect on employment but at worst it tends to be less than the amount the minimum wage goes up by, and recent data suggests that the effect of minimum wage increases is around zero – i.e. no net change in employment. Further the actual effect varies widely from country to country.
My first reaction is – wehat’s the big deal people are going on about. This author’s survey of the evidence says that there are no hard and fast answers in the literature. If one thinks there is, its probably around a belief system more than it is around the empirical evidence.
So my gut feeling is – unless we see data on the effects of changes to the minimum wage from an Australia/NZ perspective we are wasting our time. There are too many country specific variables at play to say that the minimum wage is the main determinant – or even a major determinant – of unemployment.
One thing is certain though – the minimum wage gives hundreds of thousands in NZ a protection from being ripped off at used.
Thanks again F.F. for those links.
@FF and others : a reminder why I am doing these posts : I’m working through the Jim Stanford book called “Economics for Everyone”. The book is especially for people who think the economy is about someone else and only “experts” can tell us what the economy means for them. So, yes I read yours and others’ references, when I can find the time, but I don’t pretend to be an expert or an economist. However, I do know how the economy affects people because I’ve been in all parts of the economy – as a worker, as an employer, as self employed, and as an unpaid worker, as a mother and a workers’ advocate – and that’s the point of the book – to encourage people who are on the receiving end of advice like yours, that the economy is about people, not about research that never touches on real people’s lives.
I suspect that whatever you and Eric say, we will never agree. For example, I see that Eric has written a post called “in defence of the sweatshop”. Says a lot really.
This recent post on The Standard is on topic (Youtube video)
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/rsa-animate-crises-of-capitalism/
Now the question I have come across is…in a time when some people in NZ society have accumulated so much capital (tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth each) and there is so much unemployment…why are so many needs of communities and citizens going unmet?
There appears to be a class of very high net worth individuals in this country, a class of people who are struggling to get a few hundred thousands of dollars of net worth (usually in a home), and then a class of people with near zero or negative net worth.
@Loota : thanks – hope to post more on this theme soon.