Earlier this week I published a blog on the subject of
poverty and greed, well this morning while at the ‘Eyes on Broadway’ having my
eyes checked, I picked up the Dominion and read Rosemary McLeod’s opinion piece
on the subject of NZ’s billionaires.
Her brilliant comments about stupid Steven Joyce and his
idiotic comments were just so true and to the point.Yes honesty amongst some journalists may still exist...
Where have all our so called investigative reporters gone…do any still
exist. Here is what she wrote and as weird as it may sound the Dominion
actually published it, uncut I presume.
OPINION:
Your definition of obscenity may be what Donald Trump is accused of getting up
to in a hotel in Russia. Mine is about the money he's worth, which is more
obscene than any random combination of adult orifices could be.
I don't hold with billionaires. The news this week that two New Zealanders are worth as much as the poorest 30 per cent of adults here is, then, not thrilling news to me. We're told that Graeme Hart is worth $9 billion and Richard Chandler $3.8 billion, and Finance Minister Steven Joyce seems to think that's a good thing. Just so long as everyone gets the chance to get that rich, he says, there's nothing to worry about; besides which, lots of people are motivated by such trailblazers.
Oh really. Tell that to the families living in cars and garages while landlords hike up rents. Tell it to sick kids in poor families who can't get them to the doctor, and to all the kids who go without food. You don't hear billionaires offering solutions to that. You hear about their superyachts, and the pretty girlfriends they woo with their wallets.
 |
| Graeme Hart |
We
are right in fashion with our economic dysfunction, as if that's a comfort.
Eight billionaires now have as much combined wealth as the poorer half of the
whole world, Oxfam says. Its British chief executive, Mark Goldring, calls that
beyond grotesque, and that's an understatement.
Yes,
some people will be motivated by the sight of an ugly superyacht moored in
their harbour, and will aspire to own something even bigger and uglier. Half of
them will be rewarded with jail sentences, and the other half are likely to
have been well educated, well fed, and comfortably housed from birth, with
family money to back them if they stumble, and good connections to jolly them
along if they falter. They will not be among the one in five New Zealanders who
live in poverty, and are as likely to get rich as I, who don't play chess, am
to become a grand master.
The
Harts and Chandlers of this world are not an inspiration to the bottom 30 per
cent. They neither know nor care about them. They'd like simple things like a
job with fair pay that can support their family, and a home to call their own,
but they have a fat chance of that, with home ownership shrinking at an
alarming rate while property values soar.
 |
| Richard Chandler |
The
moderately rich farm the less rich as tenants, who live in their investments
without the benefit of rent control, and with minimal security of tenure. If
that's emulating billionaires it shows how socially irresponsible the rich are.
As
Oxfam says in its report this week, big businesses are "structured to
dodge taxes, drive down workers' wages and squeeze producers instead of
contributing to an economy that benefits everyone".
I'm
old enough to remember trade unions, and belonged to one. Now the only unions I
notice footing it with employers are white collar – police, junior doctors, and
teachers. Meanwhile, people on welfare who can't work face ritual humiliations
to get an income that Hart and Chandler would fritter away over a single lunch,
call it work, and write off to expenses. And Joyce suggests they're role
models.
Hart
and Chandler are immune to our social problems because they live overseas.
Their nostrils never recoil from the smell of poverty because they never get
close enough. They could never spend their wealth if they worked at it
full-time for the rest of their lives.
A
few very rich people – Bill Gates, Warren
Buffett – willingly share their riches. The rest call avoiding tax good
business practice. I've heard Donald Trump, another billionaire, on that theme,
and can only marvel at the suckers who voted for him believing that somehow his
wealth will trickle down on them.
There
is no trickle down. It does not happen. The very rich are too mean to share
their sandwiches, let alone their dollars, as my family's experience with the
merely moderately well-off would suggest.
My
great-grandmother was a dairy maid on a colonial station. She had no diamonds.
Her daughter, my grandmother, was a servant to various families, one of which
memorably gave her a set of weird white Wedgewood stuff of no discernible use
as a parting gift. It had "rejected wedding present" written all over
it. As for my mother, who worked as a housekeeper for a while, I remember her
being given a pair of white slip-on shoes that the daughter of one house had
grown out of. Such largesse, and they were too small for either of us
We all saw a wonderful example of the wealthy donating other peoples money when
John Key donated $13.7 million dollars to the Clinton Trust the only problem
was…it was NZ tax-payers hard earned cash. Couple that will his five million dollar
gift to Hollywood, who in turned backed the Democratic Party push for Hillary
Clinton. No wonder Key slid out of the PM's job once his donation was revealed.
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