Call me twisted, but that failed bail-out package and the accompanying drops in the markets makes for a feel good news article. I guess when the Berlin Wall crumbled, the official news sources in the Soviet Bloc were somewhat negative in their reporting too.
I don’t think it’s time to bail out ‘the people’ as much as time for people to bail out of the whole shebang.
But since people are not able/prepared for that, it strikes me as a shame that the Labour party here embraced neo-liberal doctrine so completely, ’cause now would have been a really good time for them to repudiate their faith, embrace their doubts and set down social and economic policies that fall decidedly outside the realm of neo-liberal acceptability.
Theres a lot of really poor journalism going on around the bail-out, and a lot of misunderstanding.
We’re not talking about throwing $700bln USD down a drain – it’s a purchase of loans that are still backed – for the most part – by solid residential property (the security needs to be differentiated from the borrowers ability to repay the mortgage, two very different things)
The US government is going to be picking up these loans secured on housing at a substantial discount, so there is in all probability a positive return in future for the federal government as those loans progressively get paid back and/or the property market recovers. Add to that the prospect of holding a portion of the stock in banks (which are also at astonishingly low market valuations at present) and there is a very real opportunity to make an absolute fortune for taxpayers.
Of course, there also needs to be a change in the regulatory oversight. Not necessarily more, but certainly a change to the way banks are supervised by the likes of the Fed.
….
One thing that really concerns me though, is the pace of the legislative process here. Remember the last time the US government pushed something through this fast? It was the Patriot Act and associated counter-terrorist measures… some nasty stuff hidden in that.
“50 000 shares, I mean, um, ah, between 50 000 and 100 000″ Merchant banker!
” I don’t know if I met Ashcroft. Um, eh I met him at my home” Merchant banker!
I wont post any more. I’m sure others can come up with far better, but anyway, ever noticed he always seems to have one hand in his pocket…..merchant banker!
How many kleenex will be needed to clean up the mess this merchant banker will make?
ALERT! Don’t let this merchant banker near your assets!
I’d be interested to see if they’re going to put the hard word on executive bonuses and parachutes as a condition of the buyouts: I’d say “nothing” is about what they’re owed.
Phil has a couple of good points though –
1) The bailout isn’t just throwing money away, and it will hopefully ease some of the pain that will be felt anyway.
2) The Govt could quite possibly make money off this (But what the hell is Government doing in business? Isn’t that all *gulp* Socialist and stuff?)
3) Pushing legislation through so fast can be dangerous. Action has to be taken quickly, but I don’t think that Congress are wrong to defeat a bill that has been put together so hastily. I imagine most of the Rep’s haven’t even had a chance to read the fine-print (Of which there will be a lot) – always a smart thing to do when dealing with large sums of money.
Neo-liberalism is not a world wide phenomena. True, most developing and ex-state communist countries had it forced on them through SAPS and such like and the anglo-saxon world adopted it wholesale.
But that leaves a lot of countries that didn’t pursue neo-liberal economic doctrines.
This 700 trillion is only the amount they can have outstanding at all times but they can trade over and over again. Bloomberg reckons this bail out of the worthless paper junk bonds could cost the US taxpayer up to 5 trillion.
This bailout would give the banksters immunity from prosecution for fraud and give Paulson dictatorial power over the entire financial system of the US. No check and balances.
The speculative bubble created by John Key and his Wall street bankster mates is likely to exceed a Quadrillion dollars.
Why should the US taxpayer and make no mistake the UK population is also hit for up to a trillion pounds and the Federal Reserve of NZ will also start bailing out failing banks if need be so why should we the little people bail out the banksters speculative orgy of the last 20 years because that’s how long this has been going on. This did not happen overnight you know.
The derivative trade banned in 1933 because it was just to speculative was taken out of the mothballs by Alan Greenspan in 1987 and ever since the bloodsuckers on Wall street and in the city of London have been having a go at it.
If John Key has any remorse about his speculative past he should consider giving his fortune to the super fund it just lost over 880 million dollars the last year. but guess what I’m sure he would rather spend it on another house in Hawaii were he and his predatorial banking mates are going to enjoy the spoils of their drunken looting of the worlds populations when he is done selling of NZ’s assets to them.
I have the feeling a lot of NZers are going to be mightily pissed of with him in a year or so and he’ll be very happy to live in that resort.
Even if Congress backs the Paulson bail-out, the $700 billion blast cannot save the US, Britain or the world from the deepest economic slump since the Thirties. If Congress balks, God help us.
Emphasis mine. Read my post again – did I say that the bailout was a cure-all? Hell no. But if it doesn’t happen, the pain is going to be a lot worse.
As Mr Paulson says, US taxpayers are on the hook whether they like it or not. A $700 billion fund to soak up toxic debt and stabilise the credit market is the cheapest way out. It is certainly cheaper than Depression.
Stop lumping me in with the free-market idealists. I’m most assuredly not one. But that doesn’t mean I’m blind to the fact that things are incredibly fucked, and will quite likely get worse if the Fed doesn’t inject some cash shortly.
Oh, and one last quote from that article:
… claims that the US is going bust are frivolous. The US Treasury is not taking on permanent debt: it is behaving like a giant wealth fund, hoovering up mortgage securities selling far below their real value for reasons of panic. Famed investor Warren Buffett expects it to make “a considerable amount of money’.
That Buffett guy has had the odd dip in the financial pool. Maybe he’s not the worst person in the world to take advice from?
Only one thing worse than a bailout, & that is no bailout.
Although the bailout constitutes rampant govt socialism, via nationalisation of financial assets. Not a good thing. For my personal reasons, of which I won’t go into, I prefer no bailout.
Let’s see some solutions, instead of grandstanding & blaming “the system”. At the end of the day, taxpayers pay, one way or the other.
Free trade and capitalism is one thing. But wanting free trade and capitalism when it’s profitable and socialism and regulation when your business goes bankrupt because you’ve been gambling with it? come on.
Capitalism is about the freedom of enterprise whether you make it or break it that’s up to you.
The banksters betted with other peoples money and made gazillions while doing it. Now let them pay the price for their greedy irresponsible behaviour.
Dismantle the Federal Reserve system, abolish the monopoly of the privately owned banking cartel and let’s go back to the time of social credit. We own this country. We the people and not a bunch of parasitical low lives speculating with the fruits of our labour, our hard earned money.
Spending anywhere between 700 billion to 5 trillion of the already maxed out taxpayers money to prop up corrupt financial institutes is day light robbery. Getting out of two illegal wars of aggression and spending the money (last week the congress passed another trillion to be spend in the wars) on rebuilding the crumbling American infrastructure creating jobs, invest in schools etc. is more in order.
Eve: the problem is that the bankers won’t be the ones paying the price… They’ve already had their multi-million dollar bonuses, they’ll be ok. It’s the people who have mortgages on their homes, which will be foreclosed upon to pay the debts these banks have incurred, who will suffer.
Hence me being in favour of the bailout (in some form, it will have to happen – either in welfare payments for the unemployed or in cash for the banks to retain liquidity) while completely removing the bonus system for bankers (ideally this could be applied retrospectively, say by a 100% tax bill on any such payment in the last 6-12 months). It won’t cover the bailout, or anything near, but it’ll mean that the money goes where it’s needed, and if an executive has to sell his house because he can’t make the payments? Well, too bad.
I’m all for helping the Americans who have lost their jobs because the same scum from the banking world who are also on the boards of big corporations and who for profit outsourced all the well paying jobs to china and who sold suckers the idea that their overvalued houses would always go up in price expensive mortgages.
Those people need jobs and income to pay their mortgages and feed and clothe their kids. So if you’re going to bail out anybody why not them. They just passed another trillion for their wars so why not for their own people.
The truth is that giving Wall street banksers unlimited amounts of money is only going to increase inflation on a massive scale. In fact it will destroy the dollar altogether. It will start the sell of of the dollar by China and Japan and it will be the end of the Anglo-Saxon financial system.
But perhaps that is what should happen because then perhaps we can make the criminal banking elite pay for their monstrous speculative bubble and their wanton looting of the worlds resources.
worthless paper junk bonds
RMBS means ‘residential mortgage back security… as in there is a whopping great house and piece of land behind each and every loan. For the security to be worthless, it would have to be the case that every single one of those homes and the land with them was also worth $0 – to say the bind is ‘worthless’ is simply not accurate.
This bailout would give the banksters immunity from prosecution for fraud and give Paulson dictatorial power over the entire financial system of the US. No check and balances.
“Over the entire financial system” is a bit of a stretch, Trav…
I doubt this ‘dicatorial power’ is really going to be true following the failed house vote overnight. I fully agree that there needs to be acceptable checks/balances, but we probably disagree on the nature of them. I’m not so sure about the avoidance of prosecution as, as I understand it, there has not been a systematic breaking of any particular laws, just some shockingly unethical practices.
The speculative bubble … is likely to exceed a Quadrillion dollars
Erm, so?
The Fed/Treasury is not there to bail out the whole industry. It’s there to provide a degree of confidence that has been lacking recently. There is going to be a need for banks to ‘hold hands and work through this together responsibly’ (as, I think we can both agree, there should be).
Federal Reserve of NZ (sic) will also start bailing out failing banks
Our banks have not taken on RMBS to anywhere near the extent of the US or other countries. Our banks strike me as being sound, and well oversighted by the RBNZ, so I dont accept a bank failure is remotely possible for NZ any time soon.
banksters speculative orgy of the last 20 years because that’s how long this has been going on. This did not happen overnight you know
I put this to you; Where do you think all that money came from? It wasn’t created out of nowhere (please don’t start on this…)
It came from all the funds, investors, etc that had excess cash sloshing around, and were looking for somewhere with a juicy interest rate return. These investors need to take a share of the blame for ignoring the real risk there were getting themselves into. they wanted more of this stuff, and the banks were only too happy to securitise sub-prime loans and get them off the balance sheet.
Then we need to look at the original borrowers. They suddenly thought they could have a home that five minutes earlier they couldn’t afford? More of my favourite bug-bear; financial illiteracy in the general populace.
Blaiming the banks alone for where we are now is myopic, and ignores the demand side of supply and demand.
The only problem I have is that we don’t get the bailout we want, we only get the bailout on offer. That bailout was one that would be administered by the Bush administration. I simply don’t trust them.
The politics of it are a mess, and the GOP congress critters have decided that having no deal is better than any deal that involves ‘socialism’. They want to be able to run against the deal, blaming the Democrats.
If I was the Dem’s I’d respond with a New Deal 2.0. Include all sorts of populist stuff marketed around a slogans like the one in the poster and “Too big to Fail? Too big to exist!”. Break the banks. etc.
The way the GOP has poilticised this is disgusting, but if that’s the way they want to roll, then Obama has a shot at setting the playing field for some dramatic reform. Ideally he should put himself as a conservative check on a populist Democratic congress. Let the GOP rant on the sidelines for a decade.
This financial crisis was predictable and was predicted by some. But the ‘doomsayers’ were voices in the wilderness. The ‘herd’ just kept straight on, smokin’ those cigars and celebrating that ‘tomorrow was another day.’
So now it’s all come crashing and there’s panic and all sorts of mayhem. Fine.
But what was that mentality that persisted on a disastrous trajectory by employing wilful blindness and suspending disbelief? More importantly, what is that trait going to lead us to on matters that are not abstract products of human cunning; that lead to far greater consequences than the collapse of an idea?
A way of doing business is over and it’s going to have effects in the real world that will hurt a lot of people. That’s one thing.
But more important, MUCH more important, is the ecological and climatic disaster that is facing us down right now.
I can see the same pattern of denial…the wilful blindness and suspension of disbelief. In a financial meltdown it is arguably possible by means of shifting money and developing rules to ameliorate real world consequences.
But rules and money will do nothing for our ability to grow crops when seasons are no longer the broadly predictable affairs we have become accustomed to. Money and rules will do nothing to ameliorate chaotic weather or shifts in ecological systems or any of the real world consequences of climate change.
Since we failed/refused to foresee and avert a disaster in a financial model that was merely a product of our own cunning imagination, then it has to be wondered what chance with real world systems that are far more complex and utterly crucial to our survival?
Just a thought.
Ah jeez, me cigar’s gone out! Oh well, tomorrow’s another day.
PB: Yeah, a New Deal for the 21st Century appeals to me too. But it won’t happen, because Bush would never let it through, and if it’s not signed and sealed before Obama takes office it’ll likely be too late – seen the markets this morning?
Why don’t you watch this documentary about the Money Masters
If you can say money wasn’t made out of thin air than you’re going to have to deal with my response whether you like it or not.
This is a very nice video that will teach you about money creation.
The fractal banking system has created over a Quadrillion (1000 trillion) dollars out of thin air speculating in unregulated financial products.
The worlds GDP is no more than 60 trillion a year in real goods.
It is that bubble that is now deflating. This bubble has nothing to do with the real economy. It is just speculative crap betting hedging also known as gambling.
Banks in the US are walking away from the property the foreclose on because they don’t want to get into the real estate maintenance business. LOL.
Ironically the democrats had already capitulated to Bush with a token oversight, equity (ha ha paying twice what the bad debts are worth now – even less in the future) and some token protection for homeowners.
It was the House Republicans who pulled their free market outrage that socialism was stalking the land of the free.
There will be a further compromise but meanwhile more banks will deservingly go bust. That is the whole purpose of a recession/depression – the destruction of overvalued value.
All these crocodile tears for Wall St is a bit rich when they sat back and let the market rip in Asia in 97 and Russia in 98.
Talk of socialism via the Treasury is crap. The state has always propped up capitalism, its just that the marketeers try to deny it in good times. And its no use thinking that deal they eventually arrive at will do anything for workers.
Homeowners should sit tight occupy their homes and stop further sales. Those already living in Walmart carparks should go home and stake out their property. The idea that homeowners are to be blamed for getting into mortages they couldnt afford is crap. We are talking about a credit card culture promoted by the financiers, why should homeowners be blamed for this?
They have been conned and found the cost of housing too high when wages were declining and jobs being lost. Many will have paid more than the likely new value of their houses anyway.
On the basis of mass occupations homeowners should demand the nationalisation of housing and the cancellation of their mortgage debt. They can then pay rent to the state at a rate pegged at no more than 20% of their wage.
over a Quadrillion (1000 trillion) dollars out of thin air speculating in unregulated financial products.
The worlds GDP is no more than 60 trillion a year in real goods.
Sorry, I missed the significance of the decimal placing… It’s a verrrrry big scaaaaary number,. until you put it in context.
When you work it out per person on the planet (6 billion, roughly) that’s about $160k USD. I’d think that’s probably an accurate reflection of the net worth of each person on average, when you take into account the skewed nature of wealth distribution.
I think you’re also confusing GDP (which is the ‘flow’ of what’s produced in a year) with the actual ‘stock’ of wealth underlying it. If global GDP is 60 trillion, a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation puts the global stock of wealth at $1,200 trillion (assuming that GDP represents the return on the underlying assets, and is on average a real 5%)… which still leaves us $200 trillion in ‘capital’.
Banks in the US are walking away from the property the foreclose on because they don’t want to get into the real estate maintenance business.
LOL
That’s their prerogative. The Fed and Treasury can’t/won’t do the same.
I actually think there is quite an opening for an investor/institution to get a property empire on the cheap. You look for properties about to be foreclosed, and agree on a purchase price with the current occupant where you take ownership, they pay you rent as landlord, and they don’t have to move out.
As investor, you get a house at a discounted price, the bank doesn’t lose out on its original mortgage, and the tennat doesn’t get foreclosed and kicked out.
“Dismantle the Federal Reserve system, abolish the monopoly of the privately owned banking cartel and let’s go back to the time of social credit”
Keep dreaming travellerv.
By the way, did you incredibly smart woman get to the bottom of the conspiracy theories behind 9/11 and the moon landing hoax? Good on you, Dutch Einstein!
claiming ‘squatters rights’ would work, if people displayed solidarity for one another. But in an environment where looking after number one and getting ahead of the Jones’ has become the acceptable norm, I can’t see a culture of solidarity flourishing. Still, worth a go.
Something along the lines of a defaulting mortgage becoming a rent payable to a government agency (after re-evaluation) sounds too easy and sensible. Can’t have that!
At the end of the day, the ‘big boys’ will work or stumble something out ( by accident or design) that is to their mutual benefit and that at the very least preserves a semblance of the present system ticking along after a fashion.
I just can’t see the point myself. Capitalism will always come to a point where it produces more than it can consume and the only way out, insofar as seeking profit maximisation is through speculation. Even when this shit is ‘sorted out’, it’ll only be a matter of time before it all comes around again.
I remember the days when kids used to stick their hands in a fire and learn something from the experience. Alas, no more it seems.
As investor, you get a house at a discounted price, the bank doesn’t lose out on its original mortgage, and the tennat doesn’t get foreclosed and kicked out.
But the country does end up with near monopoly landlords which will come together into an oligarchy – exactly what we have now and what added to the crisis.
The big stink being kicked up by workers on the streets is collectivism at a very minimal level. Its only one step for them to set up neighborhood committees to defend their homes from foreclosures.
If its OK for the bosses to gang up and hold up the government for a hand out, its OK for workers to gang up to keep their homes. Then when theyve done that they can gang up to take over the hospitals, transport, and other services and run them collectively.
Its another step forward in industry. Section 11 bankruptcies has seen companies bail out of jobs and workers pensions. Usually the assets get grabbed cheap by some other boss. Workers need to gang up and take over the plants in lieu of their back wages stolen by these put up bankruptcies. This has happened in Argentina and Venezuela so its not outlandish in the US facing a big crisis. Here workers go from being collectives of taxpayers to being collectives of producers of wealth.
What has been set in motion with this crisis opens up this prospect of a collective consciousness developing among the working class majority. We can go from a rebellion against bailouts for the rich to stakeouts of industry etc to provide jobs, housing, jobs, services etc
When the Republicans talk about ‘socialism’ we should say “you havnt seen anything yet”
I predict that there is no saving this one and I hope I’m wrong and with me some very smart people whose articles I’ve been reading from both sides of the political spectrum. I can assure you that these people all hope they are very, very wrong.
In fact I predict an economic meltdown of biblical proportion and have prepared for it.
I hope I’m going to be one of those people that in a couple of years looks at herself in the mirror and things Jeez girl did you get that wrong or what. I really do.
‘Vanilla Eis’ & ‘Phil’: opposition to the US “Bailout” seems to have been a Bipartisan thing. Could something like that happen in Aotearoa / Neu Seeland ?
“It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people’s money being used to pay the fiddler…all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel.” – Abraham Lincoln, January 11, 1837
Rave.
Don’t get me wrong. I basically agree with what you say. But I question the existence of the will and don’t see where the historical knowledge to carry things through is going to come from.
In Argentina, workers didn’t take over the factories because they thought it was a good idea (unfortunately) but out of desperation and complete lack of any other option.
And then in Argentina and elsewhere, when the workers had it all on a plate, they gave control away to the government..(not all of them, but a goodly number)
Trav – I can see why you’d say that, but I’m not convinced actually. The economy is a weird thing. Like you say, the US is hugely in debt… but what does that mean really? I mean do you actually think they’re going to go bankrupt? That makes no sense. It’s a fiat currency – there are 300 million people and a huge amount of infrastructure and resource base and technology backing it. Saying “I think the US government will go bankrupt” is also a bit of a non-statement. How? What currency is their debt held in? What is to stop them from just printing more money (as they’ve essentially been doing hand over fist for the last few months). I mean they’ll devalue their currency, sure, but they won’t be bankrupt.
I agree there are going to be a lot of big ripples, but I don’t think it’s as simple (or as catastrophic) as the armageddon scenario you portray. Do you think trade is just going to stop? Can you think of any reason WHY it actually would?
I’m quietly pleased the bailout got rejected. It’ll get passed eventually, but I think it SHOULD be a struggle if any good is to come from it. It should be painful enough that people really stop and reconsider the systems in place.
The Daily Show last week on the issue was truly awesome.
Has anyone noticed how the ETS, which has been under consideration and development for… what… about 3 or 4 years now… anyway, it’s “A rushed and reckless piece of legislation”. But the “Pick up the tab for the gross incompetence, huge salaries, and abominable risk assessment skills of the finance industry act” or whatever it’s called is “An urgently required measure for the good of the economy”?
Interesting to see priorities and planning horizons. Spending 700 billion now for the sake of stupid lending practices with questionable consequences is prudent economic management… but GOD help you if you try to suggest spending a fraction of that on renewable energy development funding… I mean that would be meddling in the market, who knows what might happen?!
Oh wait, that’s right, the coal industry would tank. My mistake… everyone knows what might happen.
Bill
I don’t disagree that overcoming the isolation of individuals is a problem. But if Michael Moore and others are right, then it was the collective rage that stopped the bailout yesterday.
Moore thinks that the system can be rescued but its worth pushing him as far as he will go. He’s calling for a national mobilisation to stop the bailout period. That’s a good starting point.
I also agree that Argentinian workers occupied out of desperation. There are still many under occupation but it is a struggle given the recovery of the economy. In Venezuela I would say that the conditions are much better and important occupations and nationalisations are still happening.
But isnt the situation in the US for homeless people desperate?
Ive seen TV interviews and coverage of the homeless. It reminds me of the desperation of the unemployed in Argentina until they started organising road blocks. Its a big psychological shift to go from an insolated jobless person or loan defaulter to a pissed off home defender grouped to others in the block and getting organised like the piqueteros in Argentina.
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Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
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Call me twisted, but that failed bail-out package and the accompanying drops in the markets makes for a feel good news article. I guess when the Berlin Wall crumbled, the official news sources in the Soviet Bloc were somewhat negative in their reporting too.
I don’t think it’s time to bail out ‘the people’ as much as time for people to bail out of the whole shebang.
But since people are not able/prepared for that, it strikes me as a shame that the Labour party here embraced neo-liberal doctrine so completely, ’cause now would have been a really good time for them to repudiate their faith, embrace their doubts and set down social and economic policies that fall decidedly outside the realm of neo-liberal acceptability.
Oh well.
Maybe I misread the placard and the ‘Bail out people’ is an instruction rather than a plea?
On another track, since ‘merchant banker’ is just a piece of rhyming slang, why hasn’t it been applied to JK before now? Just a question.
Picture of JK. ‘Why vote for a total merchant banker.’ etc, etc
I agree Bill. I’m sure North Korea, Cuba and Albania will be immune from these neo-liberal failings!
Theres a lot of really poor journalism going on around the bail-out, and a lot of misunderstanding.
We’re not talking about throwing $700bln USD down a drain – it’s a purchase of loans that are still backed – for the most part – by solid residential property (the security needs to be differentiated from the borrowers ability to repay the mortgage, two very different things)
The US government is going to be picking up these loans secured on housing at a substantial discount, so there is in all probability a positive return in future for the federal government as those loans progressively get paid back and/or the property market recovers. Add to that the prospect of holding a portion of the stock in banks (which are also at astonishingly low market valuations at present) and there is a very real opportunity to make an absolute fortune for taxpayers.
Of course, there also needs to be a change in the regulatory oversight. Not necessarily more, but certainly a change to the way banks are supervised by the likes of the Fed.
….
One thing that really concerns me though, is the pace of the legislative process here. Remember the last time the US government pushed something through this fast? It was the Patriot Act and associated counter-terrorist measures… some nasty stuff hidden in that.
On a Tui theme I guess, tidy up the quotes and…
“We won’t sell Kiwi Bank…yet. Merchant banker!”
“50 000 shares, I mean, um, ah, between 50 000 and 100 000″ Merchant banker!
” I don’t know if I met Ashcroft. Um, eh I met him at my home” Merchant banker!
I wont post any more. I’m sure others can come up with far better, but anyway, ever noticed he always seems to have one hand in his pocket…..merchant banker!
How many kleenex will be needed to clean up the mess this merchant banker will make?
ALERT! Don’t let this merchant banker near your assets!
Ah shit. Stopping now.
I’d be interested to see if they’re going to put the hard word on executive bonuses and parachutes as a condition of the buyouts: I’d say “nothing” is about what they’re owed.
Phil has a couple of good points though –
1) The bailout isn’t just throwing money away, and it will hopefully ease some of the pain that will be felt anyway.
2) The Govt could quite possibly make money off this (But what the hell is Government doing in business? Isn’t that all *gulp* Socialist and stuff?)
3) Pushing legislation through so fast can be dangerous. Action has to be taken quickly, but I don’t think that Congress are wrong to defeat a bill that has been put together so hastily. I imagine most of the Rep’s haven’t even had a chance to read the fine-print (Of which there will be a lot) – always a smart thing to do when dealing with large sums of money.
daveski.
Neo-liberalism is not a world wide phenomena. True, most developing and ex-state communist countries had it forced on them through SAPS and such like and the anglo-saxon world adopted it wholesale.
But that leaves a lot of countries that didn’t pursue neo-liberal economic doctrines.
Phil,
This 700 trillion is only the amount they can have outstanding at all times but they can trade over and over again. Bloomberg reckons this bail out of the worthless paper junk bonds could cost the US taxpayer up to 5 trillion.
This bailout would give the banksters immunity from prosecution for fraud and give Paulson dictatorial power over the entire financial system of the US. No check and balances.
The speculative bubble created by John Key and his Wall street bankster mates is likely to exceed a Quadrillion dollars.
Why should the US taxpayer and make no mistake the UK population is also hit for up to a trillion pounds and the Federal Reserve of NZ will also start bailing out failing banks if need be so why should we the little people bail out the banksters speculative orgy of the last 20 years because that’s how long this has been going on. This did not happen overnight you know.
The derivative trade banned in 1933 because it was just to speculative was taken out of the mothballs by Alan Greenspan in 1987 and ever since the bloodsuckers on Wall street and in the city of London have been having a go at it.
If John Key has any remorse about his speculative past he should consider giving his fortune to the super fund it just lost over 880 million dollars the last year. but guess what I’m sure he would rather spend it on another house in Hawaii were he and his predatorial banking mates are going to enjoy the spoils of their drunken looting of the worlds populations when he is done selling of NZ’s assets to them.
I have the feeling a lot of NZers are going to be mightily pissed of with him in a year or so and he’ll be very happy to live in that resort.
How amusing is the sight of the enemies of capitalism and free-market economies rejoicing at this time.
Phil & Vanilla Eis,
.. where have you guys been hanging out for the last year or two ? Worshiping at the feet of von Hayek in the National party common room ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3088685/US-Economy-Even-Hank-Paulsons-bail-out-plan-cannot-detox-global-banking.html
and
http://optionarmageddon.ml-implode.com/2008/09/28/a-picture-of-the-apocalypse/
might give you a taste of what is around the corner.
Electorally, who would want to be in power right now ?
People love a bad news story Santi – human nature sadly.
Tara: Did you even read the first article?
to quote:
Emphasis mine. Read my post again – did I say that the bailout was a cure-all? Hell no. But if it doesn’t happen, the pain is going to be a lot worse.
Stop lumping me in with the free-market idealists. I’m most assuredly not one. But that doesn’t mean I’m blind to the fact that things are incredibly fucked, and will quite likely get worse if the Fed doesn’t inject some cash shortly.
Oh, and one last quote from that article:
That Buffett guy has had the odd dip in the financial pool. Maybe he’s not the worst person in the world to take advice from?
Only one thing worse than a bailout, & that is no bailout.
Although the bailout constitutes rampant govt socialism, via nationalisation of financial assets. Not a good thing. For my personal reasons, of which I won’t go into, I prefer no bailout.
Let’s see some solutions, instead of grandstanding & blaming “the system”. At the end of the day, taxpayers pay, one way or the other.
Santi,
Free trade and capitalism is one thing. But wanting free trade and capitalism when it’s profitable and socialism and regulation when your business goes bankrupt because you’ve been gambling with it? come on.
Capitalism is about the freedom of enterprise whether you make it or break it that’s up to you.
The banksters betted with other peoples money and made gazillions while doing it. Now let them pay the price for their greedy irresponsible behaviour.
Dismantle the Federal Reserve system, abolish the monopoly of the privately owned banking cartel and let’s go back to the time of social credit. We own this country. We the people and not a bunch of parasitical low lives speculating with the fruits of our labour, our hard earned money.
Coge,
Spending anywhere between 700 billion to 5 trillion of the already maxed out taxpayers money to prop up corrupt financial institutes is day light robbery. Getting out of two illegal wars of aggression and spending the money (last week the congress passed another trillion to be spend in the wars) on rebuilding the crumbling American infrastructure creating jobs, invest in schools etc. is more in order.
Eve: the problem is that the bankers won’t be the ones paying the price… They’ve already had their multi-million dollar bonuses, they’ll be ok. It’s the people who have mortgages on their homes, which will be foreclosed upon to pay the debts these banks have incurred, who will suffer.
Hence me being in favour of the bailout (in some form, it will have to happen – either in welfare payments for the unemployed or in cash for the banks to retain liquidity) while completely removing the bonus system for bankers (ideally this could be applied retrospectively, say by a 100% tax bill on any such payment in the last 6-12 months). It won’t cover the bailout, or anything near, but it’ll mean that the money goes where it’s needed, and if an executive has to sell his house because he can’t make the payments? Well, too bad.
WALL STREET…. the place where people go for advice from people who go to work on the subway!
where people go in rolls royces to get advice from people who go to work on the subway.
I’m sure our wonderful politicians will sort this mess out, if we just let them appear in the TV debate. That’s what really matters, eh?
God, we’re fucked.
Vanilla Ice,
I’m all for helping the Americans who have lost their jobs because the same scum from the banking world who are also on the boards of big corporations and who for profit outsourced all the well paying jobs to china and who sold suckers the idea that their overvalued houses would always go up in price expensive mortgages.
Those people need jobs and income to pay their mortgages and feed and clothe their kids. So if you’re going to bail out anybody why not them. They just passed another trillion for their wars so why not for their own people.
The truth is that giving Wall street banksers unlimited amounts of money is only going to increase inflation on a massive scale. In fact it will destroy the dollar altogether. It will start the sell of of the dollar by China and Japan and it will be the end of the Anglo-Saxon financial system.
But perhaps that is what should happen because then perhaps we can make the criminal banking elite pay for their monstrous speculative bubble and their wanton looting of the worlds resources.
worthless paper junk bonds
RMBS means ‘residential mortgage back security… as in there is a whopping great house and piece of land behind each and every loan. For the security to be worthless, it would have to be the case that every single one of those homes and the land with them was also worth $0 – to say the bind is ‘worthless’ is simply not accurate.
This bailout would give the banksters immunity from prosecution for fraud and give Paulson dictatorial power over the entire financial system of the US. No check and balances.
“Over the entire financial system” is a bit of a stretch, Trav…
I doubt this ‘dicatorial power’ is really going to be true following the failed house vote overnight. I fully agree that there needs to be acceptable checks/balances, but we probably disagree on the nature of them. I’m not so sure about the avoidance of prosecution as, as I understand it, there has not been a systematic breaking of any particular laws, just some shockingly unethical practices.
The speculative bubble … is likely to exceed a Quadrillion dollars
Erm, so?
The Fed/Treasury is not there to bail out the whole industry. It’s there to provide a degree of confidence that has been lacking recently. There is going to be a need for banks to ‘hold hands and work through this together responsibly’ (as, I think we can both agree, there should be).
Federal Reserve of NZ (sic) will also start bailing out failing banks
Our banks have not taken on RMBS to anywhere near the extent of the US or other countries. Our banks strike me as being sound, and well oversighted by the RBNZ, so I dont accept a bank failure is remotely possible for NZ any time soon.
banksters speculative orgy of the last 20 years because that’s how long this has been going on. This did not happen overnight you know
I put this to you; Where do you think all that money came from? It wasn’t created out of nowhere (please don’t start on this…)
It came from all the funds, investors, etc that had excess cash sloshing around, and were looking for somewhere with a juicy interest rate return. These investors need to take a share of the blame for ignoring the real risk there were getting themselves into. they wanted more of this stuff, and the banks were only too happy to securitise sub-prime loans and get them off the balance sheet.
Then we need to look at the original borrowers. They suddenly thought they could have a home that five minutes earlier they couldn’t afford? More of my favourite bug-bear; financial illiteracy in the general populace.
Blaiming the banks alone for where we are now is myopic, and ignores the demand side of supply and demand.
VE, I pretty much agree.
The only problem I have is that we don’t get the bailout we want, we only get the bailout on offer. That bailout was one that would be administered by the Bush administration. I simply don’t trust them.
The politics of it are a mess, and the GOP congress critters have decided that having no deal is better than any deal that involves ‘socialism’. They want to be able to run against the deal, blaming the Democrats.
If I was the Dem’s I’d respond with a New Deal 2.0. Include all sorts of populist stuff marketed around a slogans like the one in the poster and “Too big to Fail? Too big to exist!”. Break the banks. etc.
The way the GOP has poilticised this is disgusting, but if that’s the way they want to roll, then Obama has a shot at setting the playing field for some dramatic reform. Ideally he should put himself as a conservative check on a populist Democratic congress. Let the GOP rant on the sidelines for a decade.
This financial crisis was predictable and was predicted by some. But the ‘doomsayers’ were voices in the wilderness. The ‘herd’ just kept straight on, smokin’ those cigars and celebrating that ‘tomorrow was another day.’
So now it’s all come crashing and there’s panic and all sorts of mayhem. Fine.
But what was that mentality that persisted on a disastrous trajectory by employing wilful blindness and suspending disbelief? More importantly, what is that trait going to lead us to on matters that are not abstract products of human cunning; that lead to far greater consequences than the collapse of an idea?
A way of doing business is over and it’s going to have effects in the real world that will hurt a lot of people. That’s one thing.
But more important, MUCH more important, is the ecological and climatic disaster that is facing us down right now.
I can see the same pattern of denial…the wilful blindness and suspension of disbelief. In a financial meltdown it is arguably possible by means of shifting money and developing rules to ameliorate real world consequences.
But rules and money will do nothing for our ability to grow crops when seasons are no longer the broadly predictable affairs we have become accustomed to. Money and rules will do nothing to ameliorate chaotic weather or shifts in ecological systems or any of the real world consequences of climate change.
Since we failed/refused to foresee and avert a disaster in a financial model that was merely a product of our own cunning imagination, then it has to be wondered what chance with real world systems that are far more complex and utterly crucial to our survival?
Just a thought.
Ah jeez, me cigar’s gone out! Oh well, tomorrow’s another day.
PB: Yeah, a New Deal for the 21st Century appeals to me too. But it won’t happen, because Bush would never let it through, and if it’s not signed and sealed before Obama takes office it’ll likely be too late – seen the markets this morning?
hahaha…its just a correction for irrational exuberance…wheeeeeee
Phil,
Why don’t you watch this documentary about the Money Masters
If you can say money wasn’t made out of thin air than you’re going to have to deal with my response whether you like it or not.
This is a very nice video that will teach you about money creation.
The fractal banking system has created over a Quadrillion (1000 trillion) dollars out of thin air speculating in unregulated financial products.
The worlds GDP is no more than 60 trillion a year in real goods.
It is that bubble that is now deflating. This bubble has nothing to do with the real economy. It is just speculative crap betting hedging also known as gambling.
Banks in the US are walking away from the property the foreclose on because they don’t want to get into the real estate maintenance business. LOL.
randal,
Hilarious.
Ironically the democrats had already capitulated to Bush with a token oversight, equity (ha ha paying twice what the bad debts are worth now – even less in the future) and some token protection for homeowners.
It was the House Republicans who pulled their free market outrage that socialism was stalking the land of the free.
There will be a further compromise but meanwhile more banks will deservingly go bust. That is the whole purpose of a recession/depression – the destruction of overvalued value.
All these crocodile tears for Wall St is a bit rich when they sat back and let the market rip in Asia in 97 and Russia in 98.
Talk of socialism via the Treasury is crap. The state has always propped up capitalism, its just that the marketeers try to deny it in good times. And its no use thinking that deal they eventually arrive at will do anything for workers.
Homeowners should sit tight occupy their homes and stop further sales. Those already living in Walmart carparks should go home and stake out their property. The idea that homeowners are to be blamed for getting into mortages they couldnt afford is crap. We are talking about a credit card culture promoted by the financiers, why should homeowners be blamed for this?
They have been conned and found the cost of housing too high when wages were declining and jobs being lost. Many will have paid more than the likely new value of their houses anyway.
On the basis of mass occupations homeowners should demand the nationalisation of housing and the cancellation of their mortgage debt. They can then pay rent to the state at a rate pegged at no more than 20% of their wage.
A slightly less biased and more reasonable analysis than most.
http://myslu.stlawu.edu/~shorwitz/open_letter.htm
Trav,
over a Quadrillion (1000 trillion) dollars out of thin air speculating in unregulated financial products.
The worlds GDP is no more than 60 trillion a year in real goods.
Sorry, I missed the significance of the decimal placing… It’s a verrrrry big scaaaaary number,. until you put it in context.
When you work it out per person on the planet (6 billion, roughly) that’s about $160k USD. I’d think that’s probably an accurate reflection of the net worth of each person on average, when you take into account the skewed nature of wealth distribution.
I think you’re also confusing GDP (which is the ‘flow’ of what’s produced in a year) with the actual ‘stock’ of wealth underlying it. If global GDP is 60 trillion, a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation puts the global stock of wealth at $1,200 trillion (assuming that GDP represents the return on the underlying assets, and is on average a real 5%)… which still leaves us $200 trillion in ‘capital’.
Banks in the US are walking away from the property the foreclose on because they don’t want to get into the real estate maintenance business.
LOL
That’s their prerogative. The Fed and Treasury can’t/won’t do the same.
I actually think there is quite an opening for an investor/institution to get a property empire on the cheap. You look for properties about to be foreclosed, and agree on a purchase price with the current occupant where you take ownership, they pay you rent as landlord, and they don’t have to move out.
As investor, you get a house at a discounted price, the bank doesn’t lose out on its original mortgage, and the tennat doesn’t get foreclosed and kicked out.
“Dismantle the Federal Reserve system, abolish the monopoly of the privately owned banking cartel and let’s go back to the time of social credit”
Keep dreaming travellerv.
By the way, did you incredibly smart woman get to the bottom of the conspiracy theories behind 9/11 and the moon landing hoax? Good on you, Dutch Einstein!
rave
claiming ‘squatters rights’ would work, if people displayed solidarity for one another. But in an environment where looking after number one and getting ahead of the Jones’ has become the acceptable norm, I can’t see a culture of solidarity flourishing. Still, worth a go.
Something along the lines of a defaulting mortgage becoming a rent payable to a government agency (after re-evaluation) sounds too easy and sensible. Can’t have that!
At the end of the day, the ‘big boys’ will work or stumble something out ( by accident or design) that is to their mutual benefit and that at the very least preserves a semblance of the present system ticking along after a fashion.
I just can’t see the point myself. Capitalism will always come to a point where it produces more than it can consume and the only way out, insofar as seeking profit maximisation is through speculation. Even when this shit is ‘sorted out’, it’ll only be a matter of time before it all comes around again.
I remember the days when kids used to stick their hands in a fire and learn something from the experience. Alas, no more it seems.
Moon landing hoax that’s Ian Wishart’s. Don’t you know Jesus lives on the moon.
But the country does end up with near monopoly landlords which will come together into an oligarchy – exactly what we have now and what added to the crisis.
Bill:
On collectivism.
The big stink being kicked up by workers on the streets is collectivism at a very minimal level. Its only one step for them to set up neighborhood committees to defend their homes from foreclosures.
If its OK for the bosses to gang up and hold up the government for a hand out, its OK for workers to gang up to keep their homes. Then when theyve done that they can gang up to take over the hospitals, transport, and other services and run them collectively.
Its another step forward in industry. Section 11 bankruptcies has seen companies bail out of jobs and workers pensions. Usually the assets get grabbed cheap by some other boss. Workers need to gang up and take over the plants in lieu of their back wages stolen by these put up bankruptcies. This has happened in Argentina and Venezuela so its not outlandish in the US facing a big crisis. Here workers go from being collectives of taxpayers to being collectives of producers of wealth.
What has been set in motion with this crisis opens up this prospect of a collective consciousness developing among the working class majority. We can go from a rebellion against bailouts for the rich to stakeouts of industry etc to provide jobs, housing, jobs, services etc
When the Republicans talk about ‘socialism’ we should say “you havnt seen anything yet”
He Santi,
Great debating skills. If you can’t debate on facts you go for the personal insults.
‘higher standard’
That isn’t a well-reasoned argument. It’s all non-sequitors and rhetoric. Sheds no light at all.
Phil,
Let’s agree to disagree on this one.
I predict that there is no saving this one and I hope I’m wrong and with me some very smart people whose articles I’ve been reading from both sides of the political spectrum. I can assure you that these people all hope they are very, very wrong.
In fact I predict an economic meltdown of biblical proportion and have prepared for it.
I hope I’m going to be one of those people that in a couple of years looks at herself in the mirror and things Jeez girl did you get that wrong or what. I really do.
‘Vanilla Eis’ & ‘Phil’: opposition to the US “Bailout” seems to have been a Bipartisan thing. Could something like that happen in Aotearoa / Neu Seeland ?
See WSJ link below.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122273395169288417.html
.. and again ..
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008093928/top-5-reasons-vote-against-paulsons-700-billion-bailout
Abraham Lincoln on Bank Bailouts
“It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people’s money being used to pay the fiddler…all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel.” – Abraham Lincoln, January 11, 1837
Rave.
Don’t get me wrong. I basically agree with what you say. But I question the existence of the will and don’t see where the historical knowledge to carry things through is going to come from.
In Argentina, workers didn’t take over the factories because they thought it was a good idea (unfortunately) but out of desperation and complete lack of any other option.
And then in Argentina and elsewhere, when the workers had it all on a plate, they gave control away to the government..(not all of them, but a goodly number)
What a progressive bailout could look like
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/100491/trickle-up%3A_what_a_progressive_bailout_would_look_like/?page=entire
Trav – I can see why you’d say that, but I’m not convinced actually. The economy is a weird thing. Like you say, the US is hugely in debt… but what does that mean really? I mean do you actually think they’re going to go bankrupt? That makes no sense. It’s a fiat currency – there are 300 million people and a huge amount of infrastructure and resource base and technology backing it. Saying “I think the US government will go bankrupt” is also a bit of a non-statement. How? What currency is their debt held in? What is to stop them from just printing more money (as they’ve essentially been doing hand over fist for the last few months). I mean they’ll devalue their currency, sure, but they won’t be bankrupt.
I agree there are going to be a lot of big ripples, but I don’t think it’s as simple (or as catastrophic) as the armageddon scenario you portray. Do you think trade is just going to stop? Can you think of any reason WHY it actually would?
Also: Did you see this article? http://www.stuff.co.nz/4711218a30.html
—
I’m quietly pleased the bailout got rejected. It’ll get passed eventually, but I think it SHOULD be a struggle if any good is to come from it. It should be painful enough that people really stop and reconsider the systems in place.
The Daily Show last week on the issue was truly awesome.
Has anyone noticed how the ETS, which has been under consideration and development for… what… about 3 or 4 years now… anyway, it’s “A rushed and reckless piece of legislation”. But the “Pick up the tab for the gross incompetence, huge salaries, and abominable risk assessment skills of the finance industry act” or whatever it’s called is “An urgently required measure for the good of the economy”?
Interesting to see priorities and planning horizons. Spending 700 billion now for the sake of stupid lending practices with questionable consequences is prudent economic management… but GOD help you if you try to suggest spending a fraction of that on renewable energy development funding… I mean that would be meddling in the market, who knows what might happen?!
Oh wait, that’s right, the coal industry would tank. My mistake… everyone knows what might happen.
Bill
I don’t disagree that overcoming the isolation of individuals is a problem. But if Michael Moore and others are right, then it was the collective rage that stopped the bailout yesterday.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0809/S00391.htm
Moore thinks that the system can be rescued but its worth pushing him as far as he will go. He’s calling for a national mobilisation to stop the bailout period. That’s a good starting point.
I also agree that Argentinian workers occupied out of desperation. There are still many under occupation but it is a struggle given the recovery of the economy. In Venezuela I would say that the conditions are much better and important occupations and nationalisations are still happening.
But isnt the situation in the US for homeless people desperate?
Ive seen TV interviews and coverage of the homeless. It reminds me of the desperation of the unemployed in Argentina until they started organising road blocks. Its a big psychological shift to go from an insolated jobless person or loan defaulter to a pissed off home defender grouped to others in the block and getting organised like the piqueteros in Argentina.