bnz boss likes high wages - especially his own

Andrew Thorburn, the boss of bnz, owned by nab (both excellent names) said on a TVNZ interview a few days ago that, "One of our issues in New Zealand is that we do have a low wage economy, and I think if we want to break out of that cycle, that is a critical thing to focus on," and that workers need more training and a greater hunger to succeed.

That's similar to what some politicians and economists have said, but coming from someone who struggles along on only $2 million a year before bonuses of about as much again, it simply comes across as disingenuous.

The Bank Workers' Union says he short-changed his own staff.

"He is paid 60 times more than the usual average front line worker in the BNZ and he's out there on national television, lamenting low wages in this country...that's obscene," First Union finance spokesperson Maxine Gay said. "He signed off less than six months ago on a wage increase of just 2.3% for those workers," she said.

We have had plenty to say about bnz, the most economically damaging financial institution in NZ's history and which had to be bailed out by the government at the end of the 1990 - before nab of Australia, recognizing a bargain, snapped it up.

One of the problems with high wage thinking is that high prices usually accompany them - you only need to visit Switzerland or Scandinavia to realize that.  New Zealand ranked number one in the 'most socially advanced nations' list (ahead of Sweden) last month - article - and its environment and infrastructure (with the notable exceptions of the railways and Internet) are as good as it gets.  All that people like Mr Thorburn do is promote the 'greed is good' mentality.