Monday, May 04, 2009



"Protecting jobs"

National has promised to protect jobs during the recession. It takes great pride in announcing that its nine-day fortnight plan has saved 123 jobs. Meanwhile, according to the latest Quarterly Employment Survey (tables here [XLS]), there have been 47,000 jobs lost in the last quarter. 47,000. Against that, the government's pathetic 123 jobs saved is not even a drop in the ocean.

This is what happens when you get a party which believes the market should be left to "sort itself out" in power during a recession - people are abandoned to the scrapheap. Each of those 47,000 people has a life and a family. But National does not care about those. The market demands that their lives, their dreams, and their living standards be sacrificed because a bunch of rich prick bankers played too many financial games. And under National, what the market wants, it gets. And the rest of us just get trampled underfoot.

[Hat-tip: The Standard]