The Great Depression birthed Social Security. The Covid Depression could kill it.

Social Security benefits were legislated in 1938. The Labour government harnessed the collective financial power of all workers to provide for those who fell on hard times through no fault of their own (quite removed from today's premise where own-fault is ignored).

Participation was  a personal process with each citizen having their own recorded contributions and a pocketbook notating them. The money originally went into a distinct fund from which the government invested. State forests for example. It started going into the consolidated fund during the sixties.

It all worked well for a period. People had common values and didn't abuse benefits. They had been bruised by the Great Depression and the First World War.

But a 'free' money genie can never be kept in a bottle.

As societal values changed, calls for greater widening of the safety net came. For instance, Family Benefits were relatively (but decreasingly over the years) generous and paid to the mother. But only married mothers qualified. Resistance to benefits being restricted to the nuclear family grew and from the mid 1960s all mothers qualified.

As communities became more tolerant of human frailty, especially drug addiction, sickness and invalid benefit qualification criteria loosened.

That's just two examples of how social security has evolved.

Add in another compounding condition. The more normalised benefit dependence became, the greater the uptake.

The recession of the late 1980s wrought havoc and receipt blew out in the 1990s to eye watering levels. While academic lefties will tell you that the welfare state was dismantled under Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson that's rubbish. Yes some cuts to rates were made (but eventually effectively  restored via other new forms of second and third tier assistance). The Family Benefit was abolished but half of the savings were redistributed to needier families (a little known fact). While numbers relying on an unemployment benefit gradually fell uptake of the other three - Sickness, Invalid's and Domestic purposes continued to climb.

This century receipt had gradually declined (after the GFC spike) but only to levels viewed as reasonable when compared to the early nineties, not the 1960s or 70s. Dependence is still historically high at around 1 in 10 people.

The current Labour government was in the process of turning the downward  trend around. More people were accessing benefits despite the unemployment rate being low and jobs plentiful.

And that was before Covid.

Now?? Here's a few future scenarios.

Social security is the greatest $ liability the govt has, though the majority was in Superannuation. The wage subsidy is heading towards the total annual Super bill. Means-testing and lifting the qualifying Super age cannot be avoided. NZ was out of step with Australia, the US and the UK anyway in not raising the age. Though everyone seems to have forgotten we still have a rapidly ageing population.

With dwindling income ACC will seek to offload as much of its caseload to MSD as it can, increasing pressure on the MSD budget. At the same time more people will pile up on the sickness-type benefits as the health system struggles either playing catch-up after weeks of unnecessary inactivity or coping with new Covid outbreaks. The payment rate of the highest paying benefit, the Supported Living Payment, will drop.

There will be cuts to the accommodation supplement as the property market adjusts downwards.

More assistance will be provided as repayable regardless of whether that prospect is realistic.

As the imperative to get anybody they can into work ramps up the sole parent benefit will go. Paying people to look after their own children will be seen as a luxury.

Instead of the current move to NOT chase fathers for child support, the reverse will occur.

The lower age limits for benefits will rise and families will be expected to provide for previously independent children.

Working for Families will be severely curtailed.

Paid Parental Leave axed.

That's just a few possibilities.

Social Security is the very opposite of its name. It is not secure. It relies wholly on revenue from taxation or borrowing. It's sustainability cannot and should not be taken for granted as we go into a depression of unknown depth and extent.

It won't matter whether the government is Labour or National. The former will just delay the inevitable.

Rawinia Barrett ... or not

In 2015 I came across this photo of an unidentified Maori woman on the internet.

Because I used it to produce the painting below I came to know it quite intimately.

Early January 2020 I walked into the Taranaki Museum and came across this exhibit:

I stopped in my tracks. My unidentified subject was revealed as Waikawa, or Rawinia, Barrett the wife of whaler and trader Dicky Barrett - after whom Barrett's Hotel and Barrett's Reef are named.

In my mind there was no doubt at all that the photo had lent itself to the woodcut. This was a fairly exciting discovery to me.

But as I absorbed the information overnight I realised that there was a fly in the ointment. Next day I went into the reference section of the Taranaki library and read all I could about Dicky and Rawinia Barrett. Plenty about him but very little about her. Then I went and visited their joint graves.

Rawinia lived between 1811 and 1849. Before photography.

So I sent the following email to the curator:

I visited your museum for the first time on 4/1/20. You are displaying an image of Rawinia Barrett, Dicky Barrett's wife as per attached.

The image was immediately familiar to me because I produced a painting from a photograph with the same face, pose and clothing details:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C4%81_moko#/media/File:Femme_Maori_1998-3160-173.jpg

The photo is in a collection held by the French National Library and labelled as created between 1860 and 1879.

The similarity between the 'woodcut drawing' and the photo is unmistakable. I believe the woodcut drawing was executed from the photo.

But the photo could not be of Rawinia Barrett who lived between 1811 and 1849 - before the age of photography in New Zealand.

Perhaps you can check the provenance of your display image to ascertain whether she is indeed Rawinia Barrett.

Not long after I received the following response:

I've had a look into the woodcut image that is described as depicting Rawinia Barrett, and what I've been able to find is that the image was published in the book 'Early Days Taranaki' by local historian and collector Fred B. Butler, with a credit line stating that the image was reproduced with permission from Mr and Mrs W.T. Duffin of New Plymouth (descendants of the Barretts), and that the woodcut block was loaned by the Taranaki Herald.
But as you say, the woodblock image is very clearly an artistic derivative of the photograph that you found online, and it's certainly highly unlikely that Rawinia was ever photographed as I don't believe she left the country. So I suspect that someone along the line has incorrectly attributed the woodblock.

The writer assured me that she was going to do "some more digging" and I inquired again mid March but was told nothing definitive had been discovered. I now expect the issue is not of great urgency given recent events. BUT...

This is a prime example of how errors - even unintentional - become 'truths' over time.

I note that there are a couple of family trees into which descendants have put a lot of time and energy using the woodcut image to depict Rawinia.

Sadly it is not.

"...you're going to do WHAT!!!?"

Another wonderful Wahlberg creation

I love this work. The hammer cowers like a supplicant dog being menaced by a more aggressive beast who may not be bigger and stronger but is defiant and dominant. I like the hammer because she reminds me of my dog Limmey. Not a nasty bone therein .... Wahlberg's sculptures always evoke a response in me.

Prisoners on remand double

In the first three periods charted just over one in five prisoners was on remand - awaiting trial. The latest March statistics show the ratio has climbed to 38.5% - almost 2 in 5.

What is the saying? Justice delayed and all that.

And it is projected to get worse.

The number of prisoners held on remand over the period from June 2017 to June 2027 is projected to nearly double from 3,000 to 5,400, the Ministry of Justice says.

Brave new world makes no sense

Simplicity of idea is always desirable. But the idea still has to make sense. A professor reported on RNZ says:

"I think the pandemic spells the end of the neoliberal era and I think the idea that government should be small and inactive and everything should be left to market forces has seen its day."

People had few possessions until there was an explosion of prosperity in the 20th Century, and now people have garages, basements and houses full of stuff, and full themselves with too much food, Westacott said

But if Westacott wants to frame matters historically the, "small and inactive" government he decries coincided with when, "people had few possessions". His nirvana.

Some people have 'too much stuff' even for the size of their homes as evidenced by the explosion of the storage industry but their consumerism has contributed to voluntary wealth redistribution  globally, lifting many out of poverty. Voluntary is indisputably better than  forced wealth redistribution.

I wonder how the professor squares the well being of people in developing nations making our imports - those emerging from poverty -  against ours? Or does philosophy have geographical borders?

It's an indulgent novelty for rich countries to play at non-consumerism. 

The pandemic should not be encouraged to end the general progress to a richer, more peaceful globe.

Colonisation key driver in men's violence

Released last month from the Family Violence Death Review Committee.

Sixth report | Te Pūrongo tuaono Men who use violence |
 Ngā tāne ka whakamahi i te whakarekereke


The report looks at 97 men, from between 2009 and 2017, whose family violence resulted in death (not theirs).

I hoped for some real insight and recommendations. But my anticipation was short-lived.

The report very quickly draws attention to, " ... the historical and ongoing impact of colonisation, which includes unchecked privilege, and how colonisation contributes to chronic and complex trauma for both individuals and communities. We believe these factors are central reasons why Māori and non-Māori experience violence across generations. Addressing these issues requires an honest partnership between the Crown and Māori, leading to decolonised services and measures that address structural racism."

More specifically,

Colonisation and Aotearoa New Zealand society 

Different groups in a population will always vary in their behaviour and episodes of violence. However, here we raise questions about cultural norms and how society responds to them. Indigenous researchers both in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally see a patriarchal social structure as removing the natural supports and caring that people had for each other before this structure was imposed. Mikaere, for example, describes how Māori before colonial times understood the roles of men and women as part of the interrelationship or whakawhanaungatanga of all living things.  

Both men and women were essential parts in the collective whole, both formed part of the whakapapa that linked Maori people back to the beginning of the world, and women in particular played a key role in linking the past with the present and the future. 

It goes on to describe how colonisers came here with notions of men owning women and children. That may be but they didn't practice slavery. And Chiefs must have 'owned' their highly born daughters because they gave them away in marriage to useful traders.

Yes there was tension between the Maori and Pakeha cultural beliefs and behaviours but some of us have moved on. For instance, women fought to be free as individuals, to be educated and independent. New Zealand has evolved and this whole backward-looking narrative about the superiority or otherwise of anthropological worldviews of 200 years ago is pointless.

But the academic authors do not think so. Thus their recommendation  to stop the violence is decolonising institutions and services, which means infusing those institutions and services with Maori tikanga and Maori worldviews (already rife in the public service). Ending institutional racism and properly honouring the treaty.

This will stop men murdering, including the 64 who are European, Asian, African, Pacific and other ethnicity.

Right.

In my humble opinion the only offenders who truly reform are those who look in the mirror, see themselves for what they are and resolve to change. If they can't achieve this, they need to be locked up to keep innocent people safe.

But there I go with my patriarchal unchecked-privileged point of view...

Excuse me. We'll take that prize.

Here's an interesting chart from Jim Rose's blog.

I don't know why there is "no data" for NZ. From the 2013 census - within the period they analysed -from NZ Stat chart,  "Number of dependent children and total number of children, for one parent families in occupied private dwellings, 2001, 2006, and 2013 Censuses (RC, TA)"  in 2013 =  201,804 out of a total of 671,287. 30 percent. Higher than any other number on the graphic above.

But that would have spoiled the title.

Censorship by omission: importance of family

A reader sent this interview to me. I have selected the passages that particularly interest me:

On April 14, 2020 Gonzalo Schwarz, President and CEO of the Archbridge Institute, conducted the following interview with Dr. James J. Heckman. Dr. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the Director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development at the University of Chicago. 

S: Without going into detail, what do you think are the main barriers to income or social mobility? (Could be micro level such as agency and family structure or on a bigger scale in terms of labor markets, entrepreneurship, etc.)

H: The main barriers to developing effective policies for income and social mobility is fear of honest engagement in the changes in the American family and the consequences it has wrought. It is politically incorrect to express the truth and go to the source of problems. Public discourse, such as it is, cannot speak honestly about matters of culture, race, and gender. Powerful censorship is at play across the entire society.

S: In your research you discuss the key importance of family structure for social mobility. Why do you feel so strongly about this issue?

H: The family is the source of life and growth. Families build values, encourage (or discourage) their children in school and out. Families — far more than schools — create or inhibit life opportunities. A huge body of evidence shows the powerful role of families in shaping the lives of their children. Dysfunctional families produce dysfunctional children. Schools can only partially compensate for the damage done to the children by dysfunctional families.

ME: Despite the "censorship at play"  American academics are still far more open and prone to research families objectively. NZ just doesn't go there. For instance NZ has little interest in the relationship status between couples with dependent children and how that impacts (but I am working on how to correct that.)

A 'tool buy-back scheme'

Son has been made redundant two years into a building apprenticeship. Employer laying off over a third of their workforce.

Said to me this morning, "Do you think the government should run a 'tool buy-back scheme' for apprentice builders? The tools in my boot are worth more than my car!"

Quote of the Day

"...if you are worried about stupidity in high places, your best solution would be to get rid of high places."

Eamonn Butler, Adam Smith Institute

Weirdos

I know I should be sleuthing for serious stuff but it's Friday night and I really can't be bothered. This whole lock down debacle has made me realise the government is a law unto itself. If the necessary legislation doesn't exist in the here-and-now, it can be conjured up retrospectively.

But I did have a half-hearted look at the papers dumped today. Being a visual person, shortly into my perusal I was caught by the signatures:

Ashley's signature is terribly, incredibly elegant and David's is a dog's breakfast and looks like ... well I won't say what immediately springs to mind.

But it recalls my thoughts today (and every day) listening to the press conference addresses with the requisite Maori greetings. "How many times do they rehearse the phrases to get the pronunciation right?"

Similarly, now I wonder, how many times have they practiced their signatures - or variations of - to get those just right? I mean, look at them.

Weirdos.

(Disclaimer: The only time I ever practiced a signature was when trying to forge my mother's on absentee explanations at college.)

Spurious comparison

Here's what Grant Robertson said at noon today:

He said 40,000 people had signed up for the jobseeker benefit since 20 March.
Robertson said the increased number of people on the benefit represented 0.8 percent of the country's total population.
"For comparison, in the United States, they have had new jobless claims relating to Covid-19 of 33 million, or 10 percent of their population."

The elephant in the room is the wage subsidy. Yes NZ has fortunately not had a huge call on the jobseeker benefit yet because of the 1.7 million wage subsidies being paid out.
Which totally muddies the picture.

Even when the subsidy ceases there will be a lag while WINZ makes covid-response collateral use any redundancy, sick and annual leave payments before 'commencement day' begins.

I don't even know why Robertson brought it up. Just another instance of treating us like numpties.

Update. I checked out the rule re redundancy payments before I wrote this post. Now it would appear that WINZ has been acting unlawfully in taking redundancy payments into account. Good sleuthing on someone's part.

Individualisation of benefits not imminent

A Stuff ("trustworthy, accurate and reliable news") headline reads:

Government considering change to benefit access rules

A spokeswoman for Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni said entitlement to most benefits and social assistance was reliant on the "couple" unit of assessment.
“Moving to an individual unit of entitlement would be very complex however it is something that is in our medium to long-term work programme.”

Despite the headline which infers something that might happen shortly in response to the pandemic, I doubt there's any immediacy regarding  individualising benefits.

In 2018 economist and social policy advisor Michael Fletcher was commissioned by Superu to investigate individualising entitlements in New Zealand’s benefit system.  Fletcher cites investigations as far back as the Royal Commission on Social Policy 1988 which concluded, “…a rapid move to individual entitlement would mean a very large increase in government expenditure…”
Fletcher goes on to model changes that “… suggest the cost of individualising all entitlements would be in the order of $1.5 billion to $2 billion.” But he also cites forthcoming work from Anderson and Chapple that estimates individualisation would cost several billion dollars per annum.

On the one hand, compared to what has been spent on wage subsidies to date, "several billion" might seem palatable. Bear in mind though that those estimates are based on 'normal' levels of benefit uptake. Not during a recession or depression.

To make this change in the near future could only be achieved by more borrowing.

(BTW I cannot leave this article without a further comment. Geoff Simmons from the TOP party says,"“Relationships aren't life-long like they were in the 70s and 80s when these rules were designed. I don't know many people who even have joint bank accounts any more.” What a sad observation. I really don't give a monkeys if people want to flip in and out of relationships. That's their business. But very little thought is given to the effect this has on their children...a whole other topic for another day.)

Who cares?

The years stolen from this baby would probably exceed all of the years left to those who've died from Covid 19.

Oh well. Who cares?

Hold your nose

Help me out here. Below is a selection of passages from Bomber Bradbury's blog. Now I know Martyn likes to use hyperbole and stir people up but surely, he can't really believe what he writes? Perhaps it's a case of saying it enough will make it true.

Employing as much objectivity as I can muster, among my small circle of immediate friends and family - and whose views I know - support or otherwise for the PM is 50/50. I listen to talkback most days, especially when out walking dogs, and again my sense is that the country is split. There maybe a gender bias operating also, with males tending to not support the PM more than females. Of course there is another younger generation I don't know much about.

But if Bomber is right the silent majority must all be as enthralled as he is. What do you find in your circles?

Warning. Hold your nose.

"Voters who have voted Blue their entire lives have been bewildered by Jacinda’s competence and are considering voting Labour in gratitude..."

"Jacinda’s extraordinary leadership not only through this plague but through the White Supremacist Terror attack and the volcanic eruption (all the while being  new mother) have lifted her to legacy level."

"We are seeing a political leader who has every chance of being Prime Minister for 4 terms."

"Jacinda has won the vast majority of New Zealanders over. She asked for lockdown sacrifice and the nation obliged, there is a real sense of pride and gratitude in her leadership that builds an electoral loyalty."

Covid 19 in context

Here's another viewpoint on Covid 19 from a retired English professor.

"Robert Watson: A comparison of the relative magnitude of ‘COVID-19’ and ‘All other causes’ of deaths per 1,000 for age and sex cohorts

The analysis indicates that:

(i) whilst COVID-19 is most certainly a new cause of death, its victims are predominantly older men (75+) and very elderly women (80+); as both these cohorts are already very small (particularly so in the case of males) and also suffer from very high rates of death from all other causes, COVID-19 deaths only make up a small minority of the deaths (many of which would have occurred anyway within a few months); hence, it seems highly unlikely that COVID-19 will result in a long-term increase in death rates even amongst these vulnerable age cohorts.

(ii) Covid-19 does not kill off young people at all or even the middle aged to any significant extent; indeed, the pattern of deaths largely replicates existing patterns of deaths from all other causes; moreover, COVID-19 actually marginally reinforces the existing pattern of early male death rates
and the very high death rates experienced by the very elderly of both sexes;

(iii) as a new ‘killer’ disease, COVID-19 has the benign characteristic of choosing its victims from the already elderly, i.e., it is best seen as reinforcing the natural order of death; essentially, is there an alternative age cohort that one would rather this new disease decimates?; COVID-19 really would be a human life game-changer if it drew its victims from the young and/or otherwise healthy people in their prime of life!

(iv) If the blither being put about in the media that ‘every life saved is worth it’ really is to be taken seriously, then it is clear that we ought to forget about COVID-19 and instead throw vast medical resources at trying to reduce the existing massive premature slaughter of males in their 40s, 50s and 60s."

Hat tip Rodney Hide

PM's patronising accolades are misguided

The police are running around ordering people off Christchurch beaches. Their message: "If you're not exercising, clear out." So you can skip on a beach but not sit on it.

It's a revolting and indefensible state of affairs.

But it set me off again on trying to get my head around another consideration.

Many New Zealanders are not law-abiding. Think the size of the black economy. Or that some don't bother to register a birth. Or that substantial numbers lie about their family circumstances to qualify for a benefit. Or the extent of still-illegal cannabis use. Just a few examples I can substantiate for any readers who think I make stuff up.

Despite the PM's patronising and puke-making accolades for our en masse efforts, do YOU honestly believe the level 4 lock down was dutifully observed across the country?

I don't. Not for a minute.

Yet the Covid incidence reduced anyway.

Which explains why Australia's far less intrusive and stringent lock down measures achieved similar results.

Forget Level 4 - Here's Wave 4

Source

Birthdays during the debacle

We've had three April birthdays during the debacle.

My dear Mum turned 88. Yesterday we were at last able to play a few games of Scrabble in her and dad's house at the village she now calls Stalag Summerset. My son turned 26 and was happily at home (choosing more space over his small flat for the duration). And my beloved Limmey turned 2.

I was slightly hesitant about taking on a newborn but she has grown quite painlessly into a charming young adult.

1,000 people a day going on a benefit

Source

God, I really feel for them. That's all.