Does Not Work
Sunday Star Times reports:
“Record numbers violently abused South Auckland babies have been hospitalised with severe injuries in recent weeks, shocking police and child welfare agencies and leading to speculation that the economic recession is contributing.
“Detective Inspector Mark Gutry, of Counties-Manukau police, told the Sunday Star-Times that investigations had been launched into the cases of seven babies who were admitted to Auckland’s Starship hospital in the past six weeks with suspected non-accidental injuries.
“The number was far above the region’s average of one abused baby admitted every six weeks with severe non-accidental injuries and Gutry believed it was a record high.”
The Ministry of Health postulate that this may be a statistical “blip”. While this may be true of this data, it does not explain away the child abuse rate more than doubling in all (not just Maori) communities since 2000. This trend has not been arrested by any intervention. So to those who eagerly await the next great government program to prevent child abuse, I bring you this litany:
| Keeping Ourselves Safe | DOES NOT WORK |
| Breaking the Cycle | DOES NOT WORK |
| It’s Not OK | DOES NOT WORK |
| The Anger Change Programme | DOES NOT WORK |
| Intensive home visiting | DOES NOT WORK |
| Counseling for Families | DOES NOT WORK |
| The Family Violence Program | DOES NOT WORK |
| Throwing money at the problem | DOES NOT WORK |
Criminalising smacking |
DOES NOT WORK |
Isn’t it time we took a long, hard look at the underlying problems and work towards solving them? It is not as if we don’t know what they are:
- Poverty
- Broken families
- Drug and Alcohol abuse
- Any previous history of violence, particularly domestic
- Family history of child abuse.
- Poor family/whanau support.
These are the areas we should be concentrating on. Anything else just DOES NOT WORK.
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Mar 30 09 9:32 am
I’m interested now. You’re of course right to point out that poverty is a significant underlying factor here. Financial stress can turn a home environment toxic very quickly – and then there’s the disempowerment and subsequent frustration that goes with low social status.
Your fix for this would presumably be more free-market policies – which have been proven to spread the gap between rich and poor i.e. due to right-wing labour market reforms in NZ the hourly wage rate for the 300,000 in the secondary labour market (retail and hospitality) is lower than it was 20 years ago, whilst the incomes of our “MacDocs” have sky-rocketed.
Mar 30 09 9:43 am
Monkey with typewriter wrote a challenging piece yesterday about the apparent zero presence policy of the Police.
He ended it with saying we should start looking after our neighbours and our communities ourselves.
He has correctly identified the problem that we have. Our Society has become one where we expect “them” to do something about whatever afflicts our society.
We no longer are willing to do anything ourselves. Using the Nia Glassie case as an example, numerous individuals had a chance to intervene, and yet for various reasons chose not to. All expected “Them” to do something about it.
It is nothing to do with left or right wing policies. It is purely and simply a matter of being involved in society with all its warts and blemishes.
“They” are employed by us and perhaps “they” are reflecting the indifference of “their” employers?
Mar 30 09 9:59 am
pique oil – we’ve become a society of “me me me” people. It’s called “social atomisation” – and it’s a product of right-wing liberalist economics. As social relationships become commoditised (for example we now communicate with strangers through a dead machine rather than our neighbors over a pot of tea), we become more self-sufficient, and less community oriented. For the economy to grow as fast as is possible more ares of life need to be commoditised (involve commodities). So things replace people and relationships in our lives. That’s “progress” chums. That’s “development”.
We need to re-prioritise our politics. We need to focus on developing cohesive and sustainable communities, not growing “the economy” faster!
You’re living your right-wing dream, oblivious to what your system of thought has created.
Actully, Roger, “Social Atomisation” is considered to be a product of the technological advancement of civilsation and has little to do with right-wing philosophy apart from the generation of wealth required to make said advancement
Mar 30 09 10:23 am
Roger: Glad you think the income of doctors has “skyrocketed” – Mine has barely kept pace with inflation!
The income gap has little to with poverty per se. Most of the expansion in the income gap you get so excited about is purely an artefact due to two things. Firstly, inflation automatically increases the gap (Add 10% on to 10,000 and 100,000 – you have 11,000 and 110,000 and the income gap is now 9,000 more).
The second driver of income disparity is the hugely expansionary polices of governments and bankers. These generated a vast illusion of wealth (the cause of our current economic crisis) which artificially inflated the salaries of many top wage earners – particularly those involved directly with non-productive monetary activities (i.e. Bankers and Stock Brokers)
I spend time on this because it is one of the most frequent shibboleths of the left – the income gap. In real monetary terms, however, the increase in real wealth has benefitted the poor far more than any attempt at redistribution has. If you look at your income gap graph, you will see that successive Labour governments have made slight reductions in the income gap only for the gap to return to the trend line every time. This is not because the evil Nats have some wicked agenda to destroy the poor. It is because they cut taxes and increase productivity again.
While the income gap is massively bigger than it was 50 years ago, the poor are also hugely better off in terms of most of the markers of living standards especially life expectancy, nutrition, housing, transport, healthcare (apart from waiting lists – a classic hallmark of spending health dollars in the wrong places).
I conclude the socialist redistribution policies make next to no difference to people’s standard of living – it is the generation of wealth that does that. And for that you need a free market.
Mar 30 09 12:03 pm
What with a decade of record low unemployment plus WFF it’s obvious that child abuse should have gone down if poverty was the big driver it’s made out to be.. so it’s indeed something else causing the problem.. in the main.
We also have about the worst child abuse stats in the developed world, so it’s equally obvious that our problem is a structural one in our society.
It’s hard to avoid a conclusion that we have a group or class of people who abuse kids.. in the main. They are almost certainly identifiable at the birth of the child by the various characteristics we already know.. and maybe we need to isolate mother and child from that group and put them in some sort of Kibitz for five to ten years.
JC
Mar 30 09 1:02 pm
“Glad you think the income of doctors has “skyrocketed” – Mine has barely kept pace with inflation!”
The 2007 Labour Market report shows a jump of $10 per hour ($400-$500 per week) over 8 years (since 1999) for the average male professional. So i don’t believe for a second that your salary has “barely kept pace with inflation”. That’s got to be rubbish.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/37702FDC-90A1-41D2-B333-9521FBB4A34F/0/labourmarketstatistics2007.pdf
Also – if you look at income reports, real income has not grown at all for the bottom 20% of earners for the last 20 years. So while the top 40% of income earners consume vastly more, the exceptions of the bottom 20% grow, whilst their abilities to consume more don’t. That’s where relative poverty, and the stress it causes comes in. It’s not simply about “absolute poverty”. You actually show an ignorance of human nature thinking it is. Most people would rather be poor in absolute terms and rich in relative terms than the other way around. People want to feel big and important. It’s about feelings of status and the self esteem which is derived from that. In evolutionary terms, animals of status have better reproductive success (are more reproductively fit) and therefore have better self-esteem – and humans with good self-esteem are less likely to misbehave, because they have something to lose by doing so. Whereas if you feel like scum, you’ll act like scum.
Right wing economics relegate people to the scrap heap, then expect them to behave properly. That’s not reality unfortunately.
Furthermore, the growth of income inequality is not a foregone conclusion. Nearly all the European countries have far lower income inequality levels than us – simply because of government policy.
Mar 30 09 1:41 pm
Wow, It’s amazing that you know more about my salary than I do, Rog!
My first year’s salary in this country was $87,000 in 1995. I could get around $135,000 on average in hospital employment. That is slightly over the official inflation rate. Amazing what we can see when we look at individual figures instead of hiding behind statistics, isn’t it.
Talking about statistics, the “bottom 20%” have their income severely skewed downwards by people who are not wage earners (OAP, Benefits, DBP). When you take those people out of the stats and the top 2% whose salaries have been inflated by expansionism you will find that the bottom 20% of wage earners consume much the same has the top 20% vis a vis their respective wage packets (You would expect someone earning twice as much to consume twice as much)
Mar 30 09 3:14 pm
MacDoc – According to you, you were earning $118,000 (in 2008 dollars) in 1995, and are now earning $17,000 a year more.
Use this CPI calculator to check my findings:
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/0135595.html
Now, in 2006 over 30% of New Zealand adults were earning less than $15,000 per year – so your income has increased in real terms by a larger amount of money than one third of NZ adults receive in total!
http://www.stats.govt.nz/census/2006-census-data/quickstats-about-incomes/quickstats-about-incomes.htm?page=para002Master
- and you have the cheek to say that your salary has barely kept pace with inflation! Shows how divorced from every day reality you are.
Mar 30 09 3:28 pm
\ “Social Atomisation” is considered to be a product of the technological advancement of civilsation\
Not necessarily. It depends where you focus technological innovation. If you leave it down to market forces you will simply get the comodification/commoditisation of social relationships, whereas if you were to incentivise development in there areas of renewable energy and public transport (remove all tax on profits), whilst disincentivising atomising devices with higher taxes (i.e. cars) you would get vastly different outcomes in the trajectory of society.
Mar 30 09 3:30 pm
“When you take those people out of the stats”
But why would you take the bottom 20% of people out of your measurements? Do they not matter?
“(You would expect someone earning twice as much to consume twice as much)”
That’s beside the point I was making. wealth inequality increases, then the poor’s expectations increase whilst their income doesn’t – then you get frustration, alienation and social dysfunction.
Mar 30 09 11:03 pm
Roger:
Rich Prick Salaries
My, what a rosy CPI! 2.3% compound! Hard to believe when inflation has not been under 3% for at least 5 years. I used an average of 3% which I thought was pretty conservative.
In any case, the actual point was that very FEW people, including me, have “skyrocketing” salaries.
And you forgot to count the drop in my salary when the Labour government increased my tax rate to 39% for no apparent reason other than envy of “rich pricks”
Social Atomisation
Ah. The joys of social engineering with tax incentives. Pity the results of engineering social relationships is not nearly as predictable as changing economic incentives.
Technology has a way of rendering your social engineering effort worthless. Take CFLs, for instance. Within five years LEDs will replace them, leaving an enormous mercury problem to deal to.
But why would you take the bottom 20% of people out of your measurements? Do they not matter?
Of course they matter. But they are not working and therefore not earning an income in the market place. It is stupid to talk about income gaps while weighting your statistics with people who depend on government largesse. This is not economics, it is parlour games. These people are not earning a salary, they are being given a stipend. The level of this stipend is entirely dependent on political inclination, rather than economics.
Mar 30 09 11:11 pm
Roger, for someone to earn $15,000 a year they would be on $7.50/hr working a 40 hour week. That is less that the minimum wage. Anyone on a benefit is not earning so I doubt you 30% figure.
In any case your envious talk about someone who has worked to get the skills to earn a good wage is off the topic of abusing babies.
I know people on the DPB who do not bash their babies. Poverty, would play a small part in child abuse. Possible an envious chip on the shoulder attitude might.
Mar 30 09 11:14 pm
“the poor’s expectations increase whilst their income doesn’t” perhaps they have had too many years of Labour spin and expect a plasma TV and Sky to be part of the social contract. Perhaps a lower expectation is required.
Meanwhile back on topic. I wonder if The MSD keep tabs on things such as marital status, income, ethnicity, age, religion etc of all those kids “care-givers”. I’m certain CYFS has them all. I wonder if it would tell us anything we can publicly talk about.
Mar 31 09 9:15 am
“My, what a rosy CPI! 2.3% compound!”
Take it up with the reserve bank of New Zealand! I wonder who is more likely to be right about CPI – “MacDoc”, or our Reserve Bank? A tough choice i know, but i think you’ll arrive at the same answer as me.
“In any case, the actual point was that very FEW people, including me, have “skyrocketing” salaries.”
I’ve produced the figures which put the lie to that. Simply shouting otherwise does not prove me wrong.
BTW – Labour didn’t increase your tax rate to 39% – your total tax rate would have been significantly less than that, as everything earned under $60,000 (or there about) is taxed at a lower rate.
“Technology has a way of rendering your social engineering effort worthless.”
So we shouldn’t have phased out CFCs? Europe shouldn’t have put scrubbers on their smoke stacks to fix the acid rain problem? The reality is that regulation can have a very powerful positive impact on society. Simply asserting otherwise does not prove your argument.
“It is stupid to talk about income gaps while weighting your statistics with people who depend on government largesse.”
No it isn’t. These people often have children – and if they’re under financial stress and suffer very low social status, the children are more likely to suffer abuse. This is the topic of your post. You defeat yourself by asserting that the incomes of these people don’t matter.
Mar 31 09 9:21 am
Chuck Bird:
“Anyone on a benefit is not earning so I doubt you 30% figure.”
Many people who are on benefits work part time. You didn’t visit the official government site i linked to did you? Jesus man.
Mar 31 09 11:16 am
Roger:
I wonder who is more likely to be right about CPI – “MacDoc”, or our Reserve Bank?
I know which one of us lives in the real world. Oh, and a colleague has pointed out to me that the $135,000, I quoted is for rural doctors with a 16 hour on-call component. The base salary is more like $120,000, which is even less of a “skyrocket” (note that my original salary was for a 40 hour week – no on call).
Labour didn’t increase your tax rate to 39%
Picky, picky. It was, of course, my marginal tax rate. The point is that my take home pay dropped by several thousand dollars for no better reason than envy.
The reality is that regulation can have a very powerful positive impact on society.
I never asserted it did not. I simply suggest that regulation has unpredictable and, usually, temporary results on society, so some thought is needed before inserting incentives into a situation before the situation is completely understood.
You defeat yourself by asserting that the incomes of these people don’t matter.
Nice circular reasoning. We were talking about income gaps as a measure of poverty – to which I say horse puckey. I am all for addressing poverty, just not by inanely trying to address some magical “income gap” statistic that has nothing to do with real wealth.
I get annoyed by left-wing aspersions that only they care for the poor. As a doctor, I see that a large proportion of serious illness is directly related to poverty. However, there is no evidence at all that spreading wealth a bit more evenly does anything for these people. There is much evidence that increasing overall wealth does.
In addition, while left-wingers like to sit smug in their statistical glow of self-righteous group-think, it is usually the right-wingers who get their hands dirty and care for individuals who fall through the myriad gaps in an uncaring system.