Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, October 30th, 2008 - 151 comments
Categories: john key, labour, Media -
Tags: h-fee
It turns out the Herald’s story about John Key’s H-fee involvement is a bust. Aside from Key not being straight with the dates he worked at Elders there isn’t anything firm to tie him to the actual fraud.
That’s not the story I expected given the Herald had decided to lead with this story on their website yesterday afternoon and hinted at a ‘smoking gun’. The reason it wasn’t the story I expected is because about a month ago we had material anonymously emailed to us that gave the background to the H-fee and included a series of posts outlining the issue. We ran the first of these posts but after trawling through the story and checking as much as we could we decided there simply wasn’t enough substance to run with. It now looks like we weren’t the only ones who were receiving this information.
There are still questions to be answered about this story, such as why did John get his dates wrong with the inoculation he took to the Herald in 2007 and why was the Herald promising audio of the 2007 interview yesterday and treating the story like a scoop when it knew there was no hard evidence?
But I expect these questions will be lost in the mishandling of the issue. My advice to Labour? Make sure you’ve got your ducks lined up before you go to the media, and when National is releasing stuff like their appalling prison policy don’t waste your time on blind alley stories like this one.
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Rave
On the contrary
1. Where is the evidence Key was involved in the run on the $NZ
2. So what if he was – floating currencies go up and down depending on who’s buying and selling and regardless you’ll always have someone whining no matter which direction they’re heading in.
Wellingtonian: Batman was not a Labour Party member. But David Farrar is active for National(e-mails on Peters) as is Bill Bias Ralston, the independent media trainer for John Key.
You might also ask how did Wodney get in amongst the dirt on Peters, and how did National get its info to feed to Wodney to ask during Question time?
Williams went to do research in Aussie. So too did the Herald as said on Nat radio at 4:20 today. Herald announces the “bomb” but when it fails passed the blame to Williams. Williams did not go to the press. His research was very recent, Batman was weeks old. Give up??
HS
That says all we need to hear I think. Not that I was wondering.
You, like Key don’t care about the consequences of money trading for profit.
That by my definition is parasitism. And that is why Key is keen to avoid any association with Krieger at that particular time. He and you many not care, but the ‘punters’ do.
Evidence? Eve has done stirling work on this. Key has now confirmed that he was in NZ in 1987 working for Elders at the time of the attack on the dollar and not on ‘gardening leave’ and on the way to meet Krieger at BT. And we know that he advised Krieger on the NZ economy. Key led us to believe his advice came later while at BT.
Eve has shown that Key couldnt have worked with Krieger at BT, so when did he advise him on the NZ economy?
Key should prove that he was not advising him on that particular attack on the NZ$ in 1987.
You’re welcome to your opinion Rave but it’s one of the many I don’t share with you.
If you take your opinion on money trading for profit to it’s logical conclusion then all trading for profit is in your eyes a form of parasitism but I s’pose that would possibly be a good fir with the views of the Communist Workers’ Group of Aotearoa/New Zealand who are committed to building a new communist international to lead workers to the revolutionary overthrow of global capitalism.
HS,
In a not to distant past usury was condemned by Christians as sinful. Asking interest was a sin. Making money with money was a sin. Why? Because it extracted money from real wealth and contracted too much power into few hands.
It was the one thing Jesus ever became violent about when he kicked the money changers out of the temple. Go figure I’m not even a Christian but I sure can see what he meant.
In the next couple of months you will find out exactly what that means.
But just to give you an idea: It means that poor people all over the world will loose whatever they managed to scrimp and save while the Money Masters bask in obscene opulence. It means that cities all over the world will starve and that includes the inner cities of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and while I think that New Zealand can do pretty well since we have lot’s of land and the ability to grow vast amounts of food for our own population this will not be the case in America or China. It means that the Money Masters can pay mercenaries to protect themselves while their servants starve.
Exchanging goods to maintain yourself and your family and your community with the aid of a currency and to lend each other funds so that the other might prosper too is one thing but what you are going to see in the months to come has nothing to do with maintaining and prospering in you community.
We’ll be lucky to end up like say the Amish, living frugally of the land, very lucky.
But I wager you that in America it’s going to be more like a mad max movie.
Eve and I’ll wager you America is not going to be like a Mad Max movie and nor are 99% of their population are going to be living in abject poverty as you have asserted previously.
Is Eve employed by The Standard to derail Bad News Threads with her doomsday and/or conspiracy theories?
I only hope my taxes aren’t paying her wages.
HS,
We’ll see. Tell you what if you ever need a meal because you didn’t see it coming I bet ya I’ll be able to spare you one. How’s that?
And I’ll try not to say, “I told you so.” LOL.
In the mean time: Wall street is dropping again.
Pat,
I don’t get paid by anyone. My husband and I live on one income and I double it by growing our own veggies, keeping chickens, baking our own bread making our own booze, cheese and whatever you name it I do it.
I don’t know any of the moderators and in fact five months ago the were thinking of banning me. In fact suggesting the Standard would employ someone to help them divert bad new makes you sound like a CT.
Why don’t you give a couple of suckers some loans they can’t pay back before you loose your job too.
You sad cow.
HS,
Incontrovertable evidence has been provided that Key’s story about having worked closely with Krieger at either Bankers Trust cannot be true if Key left Elders in June 1988 and only started with BT 3 months later. These dates have been independently verified with linked articles that state Kreiger left BT in Febuary 1988 (in one case to an archived NYTimes article dated 28th Feb 1988).
Yet both Key and Krieger have clearly stated the trading relationship at BT existed.
By itself this is not proof of wrong-doing on Key’s part, but does mean that at least part of the story Key has given about his career MUST be wrong.
The question is, which part? And why ?
Eve
Thanks for the offer Eve but if things pack up to the extent you predict I’ll just depart to the farm and live there for a few years in between my other responsibilities.
Re Wall St meh – stock markets go up stock markets go down companies come and go.
Ps Pat may be a bloke – hence that would be “sad bull”
Redlogix
FFS who apart from those people with some kind of bizarre fixation on Key really cares ?
If he had been involved in any wrong doing let alone being the devil incarnate we would know by now as numerous of his political opponents have been sifting the dirt on him for some time just as they do on Helen with no joy.
Despite the crappola that’s spouted about both of them they’re both disturbingly dull on the scandal front.
HS,
So you cannot, nor care not to explain this major discrepancy?
Would you employ someone, if you found a major hole like this in his CV?
There is something not right with his timeline, and you know it.
Redlogix
Read my previous comment.
“FFS who apart from those people with some kind of bizarre fixation on Key really cares ”
hence I don’t care.
You do not care that John Key’s CV contains an impossible story. Thats OK .. we now all know exactly what your standard really is.
By your own admission.
Red all we may conclude is that you have some kind of bizarre fixation on Key.
The impossible story is a creation of that bizarre fixation of yours if he said he worked with or without Krieger I’m prepared to take him at his word – it is both ancient history and completely bloody irrelevant to the current election campaign.
Travellerev you are so full of it.
Proctor + Gamble lost money on interest rate derivatives, not currency derivatives as you are trying to insinuate. They bought (knowingly) interest rate instruments that blew up on them . These instruments were sold out of the New York branch of Bankers Trust. You are blatantly lying by saying that they lost money on currency derivatives.
As for Krieger, every FX dealer in New Zealand at every bank would have dealt with him including DFC who were very active in NZD currency options. He acted alone and used the banks to facilitate his own trading strategy. Although he worked at Bankers Trust he was a maverick who worked alone. I know this because I worked at Bankers trust in London at the time and he tried to crucify me in a transaction. Senior management then annulled the trade.
A pseudo-academic indeed with Helen Clark’s capacity for twisting the facts.
Can we please get rid of williams now? Everytime he tries something he fucks it up. At the convention it was just stupid, the owen glenn thing though? Fucking DUMB! This??? Fire him now!! not tomorrow, now because he just lost the election. How many mistakes were they going to tolerate?
Honestly at least national don’t piss their donors off enough to have them take time out of their schedule and fly halfway round the world just to make them look shit. Fuck sakes, where did they find him and why is he still employed?
Helen Clark is on record as saying that this was not a story she was handling at all.
But today we have this!
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=147118
And she is campaigning on trust? Be honest here lefties, If John Key had behaved in this manner you would have been all over him like a swarm of killer bees, just like you were with the Tranzrail share issue, which should now be seen for the petty politics it was.
As if to underline the fact. toady we have this!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10540230
A portent I hear you say? Or is the last vestige of the Labour campaign relying on putting the pressure on Key because he could not recall who paid for lunch 20 years ago.
This is desperate politics from a party bereft of direction, and this time, it shows!
HS,
The impossible story is a creation of that bizarre fixation of yours if he said he worked with or without Krieger I’m prepared to take him at his word
It is not a matter of taking the man at his word or not; the simple facts appear to contradict him.
1: Andrew Krieger left BT in Febuary 1988.
2: John Key joined BT in August 1988 at the earliest.
3: They have both independently claimed to have worked together while at BT.
Surely you can spot the problem here.
We have not created this. These items are independently documented in several different places. We have provided authoratative links.
Can you offer any sort of credible explanation for what we are talking about? Because on the face of it there is none.
Here I am watching Labour self-destruct. Thought the leaders debate and the fall-out from that was the seminal moment in the campaign but no, bull in the china shop Williams comes galloping to the rescue to trump that one and the nightmare day ends with that TV shot of Hulun falling flat on her face.
The imagery was priceless and better than any election advert.
And to compound the problem you plonkers can’t even get your story right about who picked up the tab for the trip.
Hulun … Mike did.
Mike … Labour (code for taxpayer) did.
Its called shooting yourselves in the foot and mouth disease.
‘sod said:
Me neither. It really is weird, and I guess we’ll never get the story of why they did it without slippping some E into someone’s beer, waiting for a bit and steering the conversation. I can’t be arsed doing that, and it’d be a waste of good drugs so spekulatin will have to suffice.
It appears that ‘batman’ was shopping the story around, that much is clear. As well as The Standard, the Dom got it, the Herald got it, and Mike Williams got it.
The Standard put up the teaser piece and didn’t run anymore.
The MSM sources seemed to be investigating it, as did Williams.
The Herald ran their teaser piece online yesterday, promising more in today’s print edition.
In today’s print edition they do an about face and the story is about Williams investigating the story. The story arc that was promised got abandoned for some reason. If we assume that there was a story written that followed the promised arc, why didn’t they run it? What changed between yesterday arvo and 4AM, and why wasn’t that change in circumstances mentioned in today’s story?
I can’t think of a plausible answer to the italicised question. Anyone?
One possible answer (with only a small amount of tinfoil required) is that there wasn’t a story written that followed the initial story arc. The Herald knew how much the story panned out but didn’t know who else knew.
Publishing the teaser may have been an attempt to get the other people (Williams and media) who were investigating ‘batman’s’ claims to come forward with what they had.
If the Herald was confident they had the story right, and someone else announced something different the Herald would have looked ever so clever when their final story came out. (complete with a recap of the late breaking changes, developing, ‘other media taken in by caped figurine’, ‘politicians in shooting off at the mouthgate’).
Ouch – you lefties got that sinking feeling in your gut?
Are any of youse going to give mike and the research unit a hand to go through 24 kgs of paper work looking for JK’s credit card reciept for that lunch 20 years ago….
captcha “pinkola in” -not after todays double face plant
Hey Mike – I know that useless drunk cunt Williams has given y’all something to cling to but mate – you’re still in for some real disappointment come election day…
Mike, can you provide an answer to ReLogix post at 8.10?
Nah? thought not.
HS
Glad you mentioned communism. Its coming back into fashion.
Seems that what we have now is socialism for the rich and private penury for the poor. Need to reverse that.
At least Labour is coming up with some policies that will help tide people over in the coming months and years. That’s a good platform from which to fight the rich socialists from plundering our wages, taxes, and wealth, and natures resources, so that we can socialise them and survive off them ourselves.
If its good enough for them, its good enough for us.
Tax the bastards, shove the RMA up them, nationalise their booty, outlaw the banksters, make them sweat for carbon credits, force them to ride on Kiwirail, and I havent even started.
Rave
I recommend an enema followed by a good sleep.
Sod – I agree Williams appears to be an inept buffoon but remember the Nat’s Boag (hopeless) the list goes on and on – you should start listing the useless twat politicians and party presidents from all the political parties at your blog – I suspect by the time were finished we’d be lucky to have more than a couple of dozen who pass muster. Feck I despair of our politicians and political parties at times.
LP et al
I appreciate the opportunity to ask uncomfortable questions and get replies. Frankly, given the blurred lines between the party and party members, this type of issue had to happen some time. Ha ha ha … this indeed is Lynn’s point that the Standard is not the individuals … but we only see the thought of individuals.
I genuinely hope that the Standard can retain some semblance of independence. There is a role in NZ for robust discussion and beyond that fostering an interest in politics and politicking.
It’s a pity that there isn’t a drinking for liberals meeting – it would be fascinating to have a beer or two.
Ok, on to the next issue
HS – that’s two enema recommendations in as many weeks? I figure you’re either a midwife or a dude with some serious psycho sexual development issues…
And Williams is an outstanding fuck-up. Even amongst the pantheon of fuck-ups that is NZ’s political scene…
Robinsod: in Williams defence he is beyond satire, and beyond caricature. He is creating a whole new genre of his own. It’s like watching Bart before the Simpsons were released. There’s something weird there, but just what the hell is it? I don’t think we have the context to understand Mike Williams. And we probably never will.
Hi John,
The term currency derivatives did not come from me but from the article I linked to.
I’m not a derivatives trader and took their word for it, that’s hardly lying.
Lying is when you tell people you have no conflict of interest while you damn well know that you do like oh, the amount of shares you own in transrail.
Lying is when you tell people in one article you left Elders in early 1987 and in another in 1988 in order to avoid an unsavoury connection. John Key anyone?
I fail to understand the difference between currency and interest derivatives though. They both deal with a derivative based on money and we don’t know what interest and from which currency’s. A couple of swaps and futures down the road and who knows what you’re betting on.
What we do know is that there were rumours in the months before these derivatives were sold was that Alan Greenspan was going to change the rules and it was those changes which caused the losses.
P & G may or may not have known but Bankers Trust surely did and yet it’s bankers sold the derivatives to P & G anyway.
I’m sure Proctor & Gamble’s finance guys are as complicit as the Bankers from Bankers Trust. They would have been too smart not to have been but I did not speak in defence of P & G. The Bankers Trust tapes did show a callous mentality with regards to the truth and they did show the way the Bankers Trust CEO’s encouraged a greedy dishonest mentality in it’s Bankers. I mean the term ROF or Rip of Factor is hardly a testimony to the Bankers Trust Banksters integrity is it?
As one of the articles I link to states:
From which it follows that although for the Bankers Trust Key was the sole trader for Bankers trust, the Bankers Trust would not have been the only bank Krieger traded with.
If Krieger was the market on the Bankers Trust side than yes, he most probably dealt with more banks in NZ. The point I was trying to make is that if John Key was the sole dealer who was responsible for every trade Krieger made with the Bankers Trust he can’t have done so in late August 1988 because at that time Krieger wasn’t trading with anyone anywhere.
John Key is in other words lying. That’s the point I’m trying to make OK?
Judging from this link he was not a very nice person indeed. He apparently bulldozed public parkland because his son “needed” a tennis court.
So hey, in Andrew Krieger’s i.e. John Key’s high flying banking world you just bulldoze several hundred trees from a publicly owned park.
And yes, he was very much a maverick. All super greedy, megalomaniac massively egotistical assholes invariably are and I’m not at all surprised to hear he was happy to try and crucify you.
So what does it tell you about John Key if he can get along spiffingly with such an obvious asshole and is happy to lie about his relationship with him?
There is one big difference though between Andrew Krieger and John Key.
Andrew Krieger, a scholar in Sanskrit before he became a banker was once married to Indian woman. He lived in India and developed a passion.
A real passion, not like Jon Key who professes a passion for NZ but whose actions and lying give to no credence to that professed passion, he fell in love with India and it’s people and with that came compassion and the true need to help that country.
So what did he do? Become a Nationalised Indian and try to become the president so he could lead that Nation to greatness like John Key wants to do?
No, he actually began to spend his money on the poor and the neglected. He organised schooling and jobs for those same people and when the Tsunami hit his organisation provided thousands of thatched roofs and fishing nets and kitchen utensils and supplies within weeks so people could go back to providing for their families as quick as possible.
Catch my drift John? Andrew Krieger became a humanitarian philanthropist while John Key remained greedy and power hungry and is prepared to lie to get to were he wants to go.
By the way Krieger actually apologised for the damage he caused after he was fined a huge sum of money to repay for the damage he caused in the public park.
Captcha: specially friend. Hmmm.
Sod
Think Jack Nicholson – “this town needs an enema” I thought wit the Batman fiasco it was appropriate.
Re Williams – I disagree I think it’s just more of the same bunch of political dunderheads we’ve been subjected to on all sides for decades.
Daveski: It is pleasant getting asked questions rather than the usual round of accusations. It means that we can be pleasant rather than irritated.
HS
I’d offer you the same advice, except you’d still be full of it.
What did you think of National’s latest attempt at socialism for the middle class?
John,
“Proctor + Gamble lost money on interest rate derivatives, not currency derivatives as you are trying to insinuate. They bought (knowingly) interest rate instruments that blew up on them ”
Correct: On currency deals we know of the particular BT dealers enabled the PG CFO make money off the peso. In terms of the BT strategy to get a line into this corporate treasury – which only recently at the time had triggered trader interest by establishing itself as a profit center – a relatively simple and trust-making peso trade or two were run. Still, as PG were ultra-conservative and one can reasonably presume its new, albeit ambitious, CFO needed to ask around what the BT guys were talking to him about, nothing happened for a while.
Interesting from the time, however, were suspicions that those currency deals were sweeteners. For suckers, if we are to make rational sense of taped BT evidence. And by this I mean to have us (today) understand the considerable aggression evident back then in dealers’ jargon, attitudes, competitiveness and so on. Understand, too, how corporates like PG were looking for corporate structures similar to their own—not sole traders or individuals. Even tho there was a good deal of money to made by individuals what mattered to PG was that soloists played, as it were, the corporate bow..
I am saying am I not that there are two sides at least to business dealings.
As to the financial instruments that “blew up on them”, as you put it, there would be firm contention as to PG buying them “knowingly”. Given sellers’ gain contingent only upon the sale and not consequences arising, we could fairly and honestly say how not explaining those sales satisfactorily (or even adequately) was in the sellers’ interest/s.
No, I’ve no intent whatsoever of assuming devil’s advocate for a substantial ‘soap maker’ as numerous reports circa 1994 were to call PG. Arguable at the time and since has been well, one corporate against another. Both big enough to look after themselves. Looked at now though – and all the fuss today about ‘don’t understand these swaps and derivatives’ etc – shouldn’t we declare how that precedent has enabled the lack of corporate self-regulation to evolve. Big time!
Yet in the court proceedings against BT by a number of its victims in in these matters we see majority settlements against the bank.
Eve has linked to several to enable folks confirm this.
BT exercised a right to not admit culpability and there matters appear to rest. Well, not quite, a corporate doubtless pressed its own aggrieved purpose among the American corporate community and voila! BT ambitions were curtailed.
But goodonem for the tapes.. and their specific value in enabling many of us to figure out just how those interest rate instruments came to operate and slam PG’s ‘profit center’ policy for USD150+mn. And tell how callous those self-justifying BT dealers were. How slack BT management was for allowing it.
What has this got to do with JK..? Remains to be seen.