Divide pay rises equally

Alec Waugh, in How to fix obscene pay rates (Nov 1), might have commented on why excessive pay inequity is so evil.

Using data from 23 developed countries, including New Zealand, Nottingham University showed that the size of the pay gap correlates with all the social ills that we continually rail against, including obesity, mental illness, drug addiction, rates of incarceration, homocide, and literacy, etc. Reducing the pay gap would reduce these problems.

To do this, Waugh might have recommended that pay increases be given as fixed dollar amounts (the same for all staff), rather than as percentages of existing pay rates.

Percentage pay increases preserve the highest-to-lowest pay ratio and are manifestly unfair. A 1 per cent increase for someone on, say, $1 million would finance a overseas cruise, but only a couple of nights in a local hotel for someone on the minimum wage.

If firms have funds for pay increases, dividing them equally among all staff would moderate the increases of the higher paid and lift substantially the lower paid, thus reducing the pay gap.

What more noble an objective could firms have than to ameliorate the problems that divide and corrode our society? C Brian Smith, Wellington

Positives in capitalism

Karl du Fresne (Doco ignores inconvenient facts, Oct 31) makes excellent points favouring democratic capitalism. There are more.

It is solely capitalism that can make a success of the commodity cycle, optimising product quality, price and availability. It eliminated the fears of ‘‘peak oil’’, and will be vital to successfully coping with climate change.

Core to capitalism is competition, itself a moral hazard which, if unconstrained, results in appalling corruption. The West’s social contract between national and private interest curtails excess and provides a healthy, educated workforce, dependable resources, transport infrastructure, a population of consumers, and a stable political environment.

This contract requires the minimising of asymmetric information, comprehensive rules and controls, commitment, monitoring and punishment for infractions. The standards for this are highest in the capitalist Western world, which by no coincidence has the lowest corruption.

I would suggest it was tyrannical Marxist economics that messed its nest, rather than socialism, which brought us

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public funding of healthcare, welfare and education and comprehensively raised nations’ standards of living by accepting the social contract.

The economic system growing in the wings is sharia finance. Its historic dysfunction could be overcome and eventually displace democratic capitalism. Chris Slater, Silverstream

Wooden ideas

Minister Shane Jones really has some interesting ideas, especially those expounded in Minister seeks big, new ideas for wood (Nov 2). He comments: ‘‘In theory, everything that can be made from oil or non-renewable resources can be made from trees.’’

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I can’t wait to see wooden batteries driving wooden electric car engines and, after getting splinters following a crash, having a wooden catheter or hypodermic needle inserted somewhere tender. Ouch!

Mr Jones really needs to put his brain in gear before starting his mouth.

Allen Heath, Woburn

Bigger is more secure

Re Why aren’t we supporting NZ banks? (Nov 2), I support the bank that is bigger and probably offers greater security than a small one, which most NZ banks are by comparison.

Further, banks like Kiwibank do not gain any favours albeit from the few who may still be using chequebooks.

I use an Australian bank also because I have found no fault with them and have never been pressured to buy other products as insurance and the online system is very good.

Security and service, plus size, could be the answer to the question.

Stan Chun, Newlands

FPP not great either

I agree with Jim Cable (Letters, Nov 4) that MMP is not working well. It was based on the system in a huge European state with credible multiple parties and even grand coalitions that are unlikely here. However, I cannot accept that First Past the Post is all that flash.

The argument is that it gives ‘‘stable’’ government. That was Theresa May’s catchcry in 2017 when she called an election and snagged yet another hung parliament.

The next election may do the same. At present the Brits (using FPP) are calling out for a better system. In a recent general election UKIP secured almost a million votes and got one MP out of 650 seats.

In the 1978 election here National secured 11,000 fewer votes than Labour but won by 11 seats in a small Parliament through gerrymandering. Both that election and the 1981 one would have been won by Labour under a PR system. The latter was so ‘‘stable’’ that it led to a snap election.

The harsh fact is that electoral systems are only as good as the politicians (ab)using them. If, rather than honouring their intent and living the spirit of the underlying conventions, governments merely use systems to rort the voters and enrich themselves then no system can protect us.

We are still miles away from the excesses of Trump but both MMP and FPP have failed us too often.

Dave Smith, Tawa

Information freedom

For all its shortcomings, I, a news consumer since 1987, find Facebook has enabled far greater information freedom than that by the information-monopoly mainstream news media – and especially the tight gate-keeping newspapers practise.

Renowned American author and linguistic/cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky worrisomely noted that, while there are stories published about manmade global warming, ‘‘It’s as if . . . there’s a kind of a tunnel vision – the science reporters are occasionally saying ‘look, this is a catastrophe,’ but then the regular [non-environmental pro-fossil fuel] coverage simply disregards it’’.

Though I feel it’s a couple of decades late, massive environmental movements have been made possible by social media like Facebook.

Frank Sterle Jr, White Rock, British Columbia