If this is ‘not so bad,’ then what have you got for afters? [updated with audio]

The headline says “Economy not doing as bad as some feared.”

But the article reports “One thousand people a week are joining the dole queue as the recession bites.”

Peter Conway of the CTU suggests this morning on Nine to Noon the number unemployed is currently about 115,000 with more than 1200 people added per week, and getting worse [audio here].

And the Herald reports that numbers on the dole represented only around 32 per cent of the officially unemployed in New Zealand [hat tip Lindsay Mitchell].

If this is ‘not so bad,’ mate, then I’d hate to see what you’d be calling tragic.

The first step in conquering disaster is facing up to reality. Roger Douglas quoted Ayn Rand recently on this point, saying:

“When a man, a business, or an entire society is facing bankruptcy, there are two courses that those involved can follow: they can evade the reality of their situation and act on a frantic, blind, range-of-the-moment expediency – not daring to look ahead, wishing no one would name the truth, yet desperately hoping that something will save them somehow – or they can identify the situation, check their premises, discover their hidden assets, and start rebuilding.” - Ayn Rand

As a nation, [responded Douglas] New Zealand faces a choice over which course of action we adopt. So far, it seems as if New Zealand is following the first course of action. . .

Headlines like this ne above seem to underscore his point, don’t you think?

PS: Perhaps for an exercise you could ask yourself what effect a raise in the minimum wage law would have on the numbers joining the dole queue? A fall? Abolition of the minimum wage law? Please send your working to Peter Conway and his fellow unionists, who still insist on raising the legal minimum wage in the face of rising unemployment.