Open mike 03/03/2014

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, March 3rd, 2014 - 231 comments
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231 comments on “Open mike 03/03/2014 ”

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  1. Paul 1
    3 March 2014 at 7:20 am

    Another day, another story from the paper representing the 0% …….

    …………that frames the opposition .
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11212625

    …………that distracts with celebrity
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11212295

    And why are RNZ running advertorials for the 0% party as part of their news?

    • Paul 1.1
      3 March 2014 at 7:28 am

      I can’t believe …2nd ACT story in 45 minutes on ACT.
      It was presented without any questioning of the narrative.
      “Hoping to be 3rd in election”…no questioning of this claim.
      They know people who push their stories onto the news.
      Remember this party got 0% in the last opinion poll.
      BTW Alan Gibbs sounds mad.

      • Paul 1.1.1
        3 March 2014 at 7:31 am

        And an extended interview with Whyte.

        Please explain RNZ.
        0% in opinion polls.
        Where is the same focus on MANA? United Future? Maori Party? New Zealand First ?
        All of these minor parties got more votes!

        • phillip ure 1.1.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 8:33 am

          @ paul..

          ..i get yr point..

          ..but i do see an upside to this saturation-coverage..

          ..namely..before whyte it was chem-trails-col..

          ..and haven’t we all seen enough of him now to know all we need to know..?

          ..and that is only down to that saturation coverage/bias..

          ..no matter what chem-trails-col ever says/does in the future..

          ..he will always be that figure of fun..in most peoples’ eyes..

          ..and now it is whytes’ turn..

          ..and in a very short space of time..

          ..he has gone from the great whyte hope..

          ..to jostling with chem-trails-col for space over in the idjits’-corner..

          ..so..welcome the scrutiny..

          ..sit back and enjoy the ride..

          ..and you can even congratulate that neo-lib apologist corporate/access-madia..for once..

          ..for however inadvertantly..

          ..having done their job..

          ..they have shown us all what utter gibbering-clowns key has to look to for coalition partners..

          ..so a (rare) chrs to them..

          ..eh..?..

          ..(and i actually think whyte should push the radical-button a bit more..

          ..familial-polygamy/3rd-strike burglaries are not enough..

          ..he should go for compulsion with the family/marriage thing..

          ..and i reckon he should go for third-strike parking-offences..

          ..that’d make everyone sit up and take notice..

          ..eh..?

          ..phillip ure..

        • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.2
          3 March 2014 at 12:33 pm

          +1

          The MSM are giving preferential treatment to far right parties.

          • Rosie 1.1.1.2.1
            3 March 2014 at 2:02 pm

            +1

            “The MSM are giving preferential treatment to far right parties.”

            Their focus is shameless. Mana polls higher than ACT (easy to beat 0%!) yet there is no coverage for them…..or only anti Harawira framing on those rare occasions there is any coverage.

      • greywarbler 1.1.2
        3 March 2014 at 9:06 am

        Alan Gibbs sounds mad. Having too much money can do that to you. You will likely get the obssessive disorder of Seeking for the Holy Grail and The Answer to Life, HMMIIEFM (How Much Money and Influence Is Enough For Me) which is virtually incurable, and will spread throughout the brain and body until it consumes them utterly.

        • Tim 1.1.2.1
          3 March 2014 at 5:52 pm

          Check out Wayne Brittendon’s “Counterpoint” yesterday.
          (http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday)
          His ilk really should get themselves some decent drugs (and prefeeably overdose – no doubt he would since he does everything to excess). Either that or take up running.
          Far better than guilt, far better than being your stereotypical WASP-have you stopped beating your wife yet, far better than waking up when it’s too late to realise you can’t take it with you, far better than coming to realise (in your dotage) that the ‘product of YOUR/MY MY MY I I I loins) don;t actually give a fuck, far better than begging for sympathy by playing the victim role.
          Alan fucking Gibbs! sorry folks – no sympathy forthcoming from this end. His only hope is that he’s got company – i.e. a ‘collective’. Something like the Cnuts Union (based on the Taxpayer’s Union’s ‘bizznisss plan’)
          Oh Lordy, I feel for ya Al! (where can I take a piss?)

      • KJT 1.1.3
        3 March 2014 at 9:40 am

        Alan Gibbs, in today’s Herald, says we should be more like Singapore, and then promptly shows his cognitive dissonance, by advocating the opposite of Singapore policies.

        Privatise everything and unregulated “free enterprise” is exactly what Singapore did not do..

        Hasn’t he even heard of Tamesek holdings?

        Singapore is run as a giant, SOE.
        With a degree of State regulation, even Muldoon wouldn’t accept.

        And low taxes not because of “small Government”, but the opposite.
        The Government gets an income from all the “fingers they have in pies” including land rents and SOE’s.
        And, they export their welfare costs to their neighbours.

        I wonder if the Herald reporters are really advertising ACT?
        Maybe there is a bit of subversion happening and they are quietly showing everyone how totally nuts, ACT really are?

        But then there is the article insinuating that there was something fishy about Cunliffe’s leadership campaign funding. Using the classic “when did you stop beating your wife technique”.

        • Draco T Bastard 1.1.3.1
          3 March 2014 at 12:56 pm

          I think the RWNJs use Singapore as just a word. Before 1999 and China taking it back they would have used Hong Kong for the same purpose.

          It’s a far away place that most people don’t know anything about and most wont check (including journalists) and so they figure that they can make shit up about it and thus seemingly have a concrete example of their ideology working. They really don’t care what it’s like in Singapore, they only care about the meme that they’re creating.

          • KJT 1.1.3.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 4:12 pm

            They used to come to NZ to do marine certificates, when we had one of the highest standards for marine qualification in the world.

            All, I met then, wanted to live in New Zealand.

            This was pre Rogernomics, of course.

    • felix 1.2
      3 March 2014 at 8:01 am

      And how’s this little gem from ACT president, asked about ACT being an “angry old white man’s party”

      It’s no secret we’ve always struggled with the female vote, but Jamie, I think, is, um, photogenic and has a charisma, so we’re going to be more than that.

      Gee I wonder why they struggle with the female vote? They obviously totes take women seriously and everything 🙄

      • just saying 1.2.1
        3 March 2014 at 8:48 am

        Thanks Felix,
        Didn’t have the stomach for reading that stuff myself, but that little gem gave me a good laugh. Hope Cactus Kate responds….

      • phillip ure 1.2.2
        3 March 2014 at 8:51 am

        i think whyte has to ‘do a putin’..

        ..(no..!..not invade bondi to protect/save ‘our’ people from this most recent example of discrimination/prejudice from that mongrel-australian abbott/govt..silly you..!..)

        ..he should rip his shirt off..get oiled up..

        ..and give that easily-turned/stimulated ‘female-vote’..

        ..a bit of nip/pec-action..

        ..maybe striking hunting-leftie poses..?..

        ..destroying some symbol of big-government..?..(a poster of brownlee..?..)

        ..and i reckon he should challenge chem-trails-col to a bare-chested/oiled-up..

        ..arm-wrestle..

        .(.or even better..a full body-wrestle..)

        ..i’d watch that..

        ..i’d even like to commentate the bout..

        ..phillip ure..

      • greywarbler 1.2.3
        3 March 2014 at 9:12 am

        Struggling with females in various wrestling holds is quite the popular sport with autocratic types. Or they can flip around and embrace S-M behaviour where they are dominated for a change. And then they can flip around and think about males. Which is a more complex turn of the screw for this fast revolving group with flexible amorals.

      • Stephanie Rodgers 1.2.4
        3 March 2014 at 10:12 am

        If they adopt that strategy as well as John Boscawen’s idea to mobilise the Asian vote (because he doesn’t generalise about other races, but Asians are innately Act voters, somehow) they’ll be unstoppable!

      • Lanthanide 1.2.5
        3 March 2014 at 11:17 am

        Everyone knows the wimmin will vote for the party headed by a photogenic wealthy guy.

    • grumpy 1.3
      3 March 2014 at 8:49 am

      But it raises serious issues. Seems like Cunliffe took legal advice to avoid disclosing his donors. The question is “why?”. The inference is that Kim DC is involved.
      Look forward to Matt’s principled explanation.

    • TightyRighty 1.4
      3 March 2014 at 9:08 am

      So it’s ok for cunliffe to use secret trusts to funnel money to his leadership campaign? christ if national were doing that you’d be screaming about the law changes needed…. oh wait….

      • Hanswurst 1.4.1
        3 March 2014 at 9:51 am

        The reason is a conflict between the Labour Party’s rules and those of the Register of Pecuniary Interests. As for needing law changes, it would seem that the Labour Party is aware of a need for it to be examined, as Cunliffe talked about raising the issue with the Standing Orders Committee. In light of that, your comment looks entirely redundant.

        • One Anonymous Bloke 1.4.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 10:01 am

          Nah. It’s a bad look. The Party clearly didn’t think this through properly, or got poor legal advice.

          Seriously, did no-one think to compare the Party rules with those for the Register of Pecuniary Interests?

          SNAFU!

          And of course the sub-pontal wingnuts will make hay over it.

          • Enough is Enough 1.4.1.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 10:47 am

            Agreed.

            Another week, another gaffe from Cunliffe.

            Lets hope McCarten can toghten the ship because things operations are shabby at the moment.

          • cricklewood 1.4.1.1.2
            3 March 2014 at 11:36 am

            Agreed, any mechanism that a politician can use to hide who funds them needs to be banished all it does is raise suspicion. Just because you can it doesn’t mean you should…

            • Ant 1.4.1.1.2.1
              3 March 2014 at 5:21 pm

              Screw that, with people like Cameron Slater around I wouldn’t donate without a trust to protect my privacy.

              • cricklewood …
                3 March 2014 at 9:04 pm

                Obviously you would set a threshold but how would you feel if for example a charter school provider was funding John Banks personally through a trust? Ok by you that this could currently be within the rules?

        • TightyRighty 1.4.1.2
          3 March 2014 at 1:24 pm

          oh hans. trust a german not to appreciate not so subtle humour. nice attempt at the old wave along nothing to see here though. don’t think it’s going to work from what my sources at tv3 say. Gower thinks this goes a lot deeper

        • Nick 1.4.1.3
          3 March 2014 at 8:46 pm

          Oh sorry, I didn’t realise that the rules of the Labour Party trumped the rules of Parliament. Send a memo to the Speaker, i’m sure that will clear things up.

    • Jilly Bee 1.5
      3 March 2014 at 11:27 am

      And this little gem as well from Liam Dann http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11212563 – at least the comments to date aren’t all in agreement.

      • Puddleglum 1.5.1
        3 March 2014 at 1:52 pm

        I noticed this comment in your link, Jilly Bee:

        “Meanwhile, Cunliffe and his quietly spoken deputy David Parker seem determined to turn away a large and valuable chunk of the electorate – the business community.

        Positioning yourself so far to the left that you don’t think business is worth fighting for is not a strategy that has worked for Labour since Norman Kirk. The Lange government took business with them, the Clark government at least convinced business that it represented a tolerable and temporarily necessary change.

        A begrudging acceptance of change from the business community, even if most won’t change their vote, is something that reassures the nervous middle classes who do swing their votes.”

        This point about Labour not taking business ‘with them’ seems to be being made a lot at the moment. David Farrar made the point in the lead up to the interview with Cunliffe on the Nation (‘Why don’t they run with Cunliffe’s business background???’); Josie Pagani made the same point (as felix noted in yesterday’s Open Mike, I think); and now Liam Dann says it as well.

        And, the point about the Clark government convincing business that it was a tolerable and necessary change seems to fly against the ‘summer of discontent’ from business that practically amounted to a declaration of war by business leaders on the government (I can’t remember which of the three elections it occurred after, but it was sometime during that period).

        Obviously, this line achieves a couple of mutually reinforcing rhetorical points. First, it supports the idea that Labour is ‘lurching to the left’ (and, hence, away from business). Second, it assumes that the announced Labour policies have to conform to the desires of (big) business in order to be ‘centrist’.

        That last point is odd because I don’t hear many political journalists currently arguing that, clearly, John Key’s government is not centrist and has ‘lurched to the right’ because he isn’t ‘taking along’ the unions with him.

        • Ant 1.5.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 2:26 pm

          Yeah it’s bollocks, the business community make these noises but are still tories so vote that way.

          • Colonial Viper 1.5.1.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 4:20 pm

            Way too broad an assumption.

            Many small business owners like myself understand full well that National is a political party for corporate business not small business.

            But until Labour comes up with plans to seriously economically revitalise local communities and provincial centres (and I don’t mean watery R&D tax breaks etc), what use are they to small and medium enterprise owners?

        • Saarbo 1.5.1.2
          3 March 2014 at 9:30 pm

          Agree Puddleglum.

          The attacks by the media against Labour almost seem concerted, From this Liam dann article to Gower’s piece on Saturday’s 3ox News. My view is the media, particularly NZ Herald is incredibly worried about Labour’s CGT and what it would do to its Real Estate revenues. New Zealand’s wealthy have made most of their money through lazy Capital Gains not clever dynamic businesses. Even National’s number one cheer leader John Armstrong alluded to it in his last paragraph on his Saturday opinion piece.

          http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11211729

          As soon as labour announced the implementation of a CGT they must have known they would get this reaction from the right aligned media…I reckon its concerted, its certainly dodgy and something akin to a banana republic. Surely New Zealand’s reputation as a highly trust, high integrity place to do business doesn’t relate to its media.

        • swordfish 1.5.1.3
          3 March 2014 at 11:23 pm

          Puddleglum: “I can’t remember which of the three elections it occurred after, but it was sometime during that period.”

          Not long after the Clark Labour-Alliance Government was first elected in 1999. Mid-2000 to be exact – Big Business (with Roger Kerr as chief agitator) launched its massive “winter of discontent”.

    • felix 1.6
      3 March 2014 at 9:05 pm

      Bit late to this, but it’s a response to the complaints about the media reporting on ACT in spite of the party polling 0%.

      Like it or not, ACT are part of the government and as such it would be highly irresponsible of the media to not report what they do and say, including shenanigans, brain-farts and absurdities.

  2. Jenny 2
    3 March 2014 at 7:51 am

    Unsustainable?

    Talk about a vicious cycle….

    High property values are determined by the rental they command. More expensive houses are forcing more families out of the home ownership, increasing the need for more rentals, but higher prices also put greater costs on the investment buyers to service their loans to the banks who are the ones making the real killings.

    Under the headline “Low rents deter home buyers” (the “buyers” obviously being referred to here, are the landlords seeking to make an investment income.) The society representing these investment landlords is claiming that rents should go even higher.

    Are they crazy?

    An NZPIF comparison of the costs a landlord, owner-occupier, or tenant would face for the same property, showed there was significant scope for rents to rise

    stuff.co.nz Low Rents deter Home buyers

    As most wages don’t meet current rental levels now. The impending collapse of the housing investment bubble is inevitable. That landlords may have to bear some of the pain that they have inflicted on their tennents will be little consolation to the families that still need to be housed properly and can’t afford to buy or rent.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/9776610/Low-rents-deter-home-buyers

    The NZPIF estimated and compared the likely costs of owning or renting a house that cost $425,000 to buy, which was just under the REINZ’s national median selling price of $427,000 at the end of last year.

    The rent was estimated at $450 a week, which means a tenant would pay $23,400 a year to live in it.

    “At this point in the property cycle you would have thought that the cost of owning above renting wouldn’t be nearly as big as it is,”

    “So it possibly suggests that there’s quite a bit of room for rents to increase.

    “With things like rising interest rates, it’s much easier for any costs that affect the owners to be added to rents.”

    Andrew King Executive Officer of the New Zealand Property Investors Federation (NZPIF).

    At a time of multi billion profits by the banks tenants are to be squeezed more by the investor landlords to give the bankers even more money.

    No doubt when the whole tottering edifice falls over the taxpayer will be called on to bail out the banks.

    • RedLogix 2.1
      3 March 2014 at 8:19 am

      At a time of multi billion profits by the banks tenants are to be squeezed more by the investor landlords to give the bankers even more money.

      Most landlords are not cash-flow positive and are subsidising from their own income, their tenants housing. That’s the point of the article you quote.

      Therefore the squeeze is the other way around. The banks hike interest rates on the landlords, who in turn have little choice but to pass it on to their tenants.

      • bad12 2.1.1
        3 March 2014 at 9:08 am

        RedLogix,”Most landlords are not cash flow positive and are subsidizing from their own income, their tenants housing”,unquote,

        Your comment could be read as a claim of you deliberately using your income to provide Social Welfare from your own income,

        Behind ever private Landlord though is another bout of house price inflation pushing forever upward the price of housing an thus the price of rentals in the private rental market,

        Behind the above is the sell off of the States Housing stock creating ever more demand for rental housing pushing investment imperatives to even more prospective landlords and further pushing up prices,

        A private landlord having bought an investment property at a price that the expected rents able to be obtained from the property does not match the costs of ‘owning’ the rental property might make a case that the tenant is being subsidized from the Landlord’s income,

        But, such subsidy can hardly be said to be of benefit to the tenant…

    • karol 2.2
      3 March 2014 at 8:27 am

      I read that article recently and wondered who the author thought shi was kidding. As an Auckland renter I know rents are way too high compared with incomes. I have been looking around at potential places to move to in the next year or so, so I have an idea of what’s on offer.

      The article is a clear call for landlords to raise rents. Shocking.

      I’m torn between moving further out of Auckland as I approach full retirement, and trying to get closer to Auckland CBD and the centre of the public transport network. The latter option seems pretty unachievable on retirement income.

      • bad12 2.2.1
        3 March 2014 at 8:51 am

        ON RadioNZ Nine to Noon this morning, two major NZ home builders are set to discuss plans for them to branch out into supplying prefabricated housing,

        Obviously a far more cost effective means of constructing housing this might make a good listen…

        • KJT 2.2.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 10:59 am

          Then there are the houses built by Unitec building students. Currently about 125k relocated for a 3 bedroom.

          A few families clubbing together in a provincial city to buy the land and then putting these on it could half their housing costs.

          Then start up some sort of co-op. Hemp??

          There is a company up here offering prefab factory houses, but I don’t think they have sold many.

      • RedLogix 2.2.2
        3 March 2014 at 8:58 am

        As an Auckland renter I know rents are way too high compared with incomes

        And way too low compared with the costs of owning.

        How do you solve that little poser?

        (I agree with looking outside of Auckland. Lots of smaller provincial towns are really nice places to live and housing costs are a fraction. We lived in the Wairarapa for years and I miss it a lot.)

        • bad12 2.2.2.1
          3 March 2014 at 9:26 am

          RedLOgix, what you describe is the result of too many people piling into what they see as a chance for them to use other peoples money, bank loans, to provide them an asset which in turn would use other peoples money, the tenants,to pay the cost of the original use of the first use of other peoples money,bank loans,

          Those who bought into this passive investment scheme befor the herd piled in helping to create the current over-inflation in prices are probably enjoying a cash positive or cash neutral investment with a great rate of capital gain,

          The others in the herd, slower to pile into this use of other peoples money might have some capital gain but do not enjoy a positive or neutral investment a situation soon to be aggravated by interest rate rises,

          Herd mentality has by its own actions in forcing over-inflation on the passive investment made using other peoples money less than a positive or neutral investment…

          • geoff 2.2.2.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 10:59 am

            We can all fleece each other to riches beyond our wildest dreams!

          • MrSmith 2.2.2.1.2
            3 March 2014 at 11:21 am

            Bad12

            Don’t we have a housing shortage and unless the Government or some generous donor is going to build all these houses it will fall on the private sector and if the profit/capital-gain isn’t there then the private sector will take there risks elsewhere, landlords have to factor possible interest rates rises into there sums if you don’t they soon go tits up, the monetary system is the main problem, stop beating up on the landlords this is exactly what the Banksters want.

            • Draco T Bastard 2.2.2.1.2.1
              3 March 2014 at 1:31 pm

              The landlords and their desire for passive income are still at fault.

            • bad12 2.2.2.1.2.2
              3 March 2014 at 4:03 pm

              Yeah we have a housing shortage alright,we also have crisis of affordability firstly brought about by the various Governments open slather lassiez fairre attitude to allowing population growth while leaving ‘the market’ to provide the necessary housing for population that has grown by a million souls in 30 years,

              Secondly we have the monied middle class, ever upwardly mobile leaping aboard the ‘rental investment’ as a means of escaping the Sharks in the deregulated share and financial markets creating house price over-inflation in housing specially in the larger cities,

              200,000 HOMES have made the transfer from being just that, homes, in the past 20 years to being rental investments and NO-ONE twisted the arm, nor put a gun to the head of those who piled into these rental investments as a Herd to get them to do so thus creating the over inflation of pricing for both buying and renting property,

              The Banksters, with the ability to produce ‘debt’ from thin air have simply done so to cater for the Herd of investors who act as facilitators for those Banks inflated profit taking, all of this is rational decision making brought about by ‘self interest, such self interest has another title many of us would apply, ‘Greed’,naked uncaring greed where the herd of investors couldn’t really give a fuck what they are doing to house prices with relation to those wishing to purchase to buy an actual family home, nor would the same herd seem to give a fuck what their individual actions of rational self interest do to the affordability of housing within the rental market,

              Government action or inaction, in the case of National, the ripping apart and selling off of the States housing stock, and, in the case of Labour both the seeming vows of silence over this issue and the refusal when in Government to treat a rebuild of State Housing to a sufficient number as a matter of the slightest urgency, (at least 100,000 homes of all sizes), simply encourages more of the same, more house price inflation in all sectors based upon the ‘rational self interest’ of that monied middle class,

              Had that monied middle class chosen a slightly harder route to achieve their aims of control of their rational self interest decisions of investment in housing, by building their requirements for rental housing i might well have had some small,(with an emphasis on the small),cause to cast a little applause in their direction, the fact is they mostly did not, choosing instead to play Monopoly with the under-supply of housing…

          • greywarbler 2.2.2.1.3
            3 March 2014 at 3:41 pm

            There used to be glossy mags with lots of glowing reports about young people owning five houses and they are only 28. I don’t hear so much about that. But it reminds me of the old saying that when the taxi drivers start investing in the stock market it is time to get out. That sounds undemocratic and elitist but just emphasises I think that when everybody is having a punt, the norms get lost and things go a bit mad.

        • Draco T Bastard 2.2.2.2
          3 March 2014 at 1:28 pm

          How do you solve that little poser?

          Stop the artificial inflation in house prices brought about by the private banks ability to create money. I suspect that you, and a lot of others, will whinge when house prices are brought back to two to three times the average wage though.

          Oh, and produce enough state housing to ensure a 1% to 2% over-supply of housing.

      • greywarbler 2.2.3
        3 March 2014 at 9:29 am

        karol
        Are there housing co-ops in Auckland? I wonder if a group with useful sums saved could combine and either buy a suitable house together with the right legal controls and shares, or leases to each other, and leaving and pay-out arrangements. There needs to be a way of getting together of people who meet at a cafe once a month so form a social group and get to know each other and share similar desires and disciplines so they could manage the project and live happily together. Individuals get picked off and overwhelmed by the players in the market, they need to combine and find their own solutions.

        They are talking on Radionz about pre-fab houses. This could be good – standardised, modular housing and people who are looking at methods. Could be good. But would result in 20th century single storey homes which means lots of land spread. Pity that housing co-ops weren’t prominent here and could do their own developing building individual buildings to house multiple units say 4 2-bedroom or small apartments for say eight on two or three levels.
        There is a body called Pre-Fab NZ with architects and industry members.

        DTB and Redlogix Has much of the rental housing been bought on leverage, with the low deposit and pushing rents up to pay off the hefty mortgage? That has happened so what proportion of low deposit sales would fit this type?

        And if banks borrow heavily overseas so as to expand their books so they have more money available to lend to the 10% of their books limit now set, won’t that increase demand for overseas dollars and flow back to a higher NZ exchange rate, making exports to a set world price less profitable because of a higher exchange rate?

        • karol 2.2.3.1
          3 March 2014 at 9:39 am

          Thanks for coming up with some ideas, gw. At my age a housing co-op doesn’t really appeal. I don’t have much hope of finding like minded people. Most people in my social and/or work circles are home owners.

          The prefab homes may be a solution. But I’m hearing that they wouldn’t be financially viable on Auckland city sections, but for outlying areas with low land values. It doesn’t seem likely to break the cycle with inner areas of Auckland being colonised by the wealthy.

          I am pondering moving out of Auckland, but I have a strong emotional attachment to central Auckland where I grew up – and don’t know a lot of people outside Auckland.

          • just saying 2.2.3.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 10:21 am

            Hi Karol,
            Earthsong is out your way.
            I’ve heard it is very expensive, but I tend to expect to hear that about anywhere in Auckland.
            I think you might find it an interesting place to visit re housing co-ops.

            • karol 2.2.3.1.1.1
              3 March 2014 at 10:28 am

              Thanks, js.

              It is out of my price range.

              Also, I’m just not into home ownership, mainstream style, or by another name.

              Home ownership seems to be such a dominant ideal in NZ, people just can’t seem to get their heads around that I don’t want any part of that.

              • just saying …
                3 March 2014 at 10:36 am

                Ouch. That is expensive.

                Papakura way has cheaper rents afaik, but that’s a long way from home for you.

                Feel free to join us in the South Island. We would welcome you with open arms

                • karol …
                  3 March 2014 at 10:49 am

                  Thanks, js. I’m not the most needy of renters. Whatever happens, there are affordable options for me. I just don’t have the full range of choices that some on higher incomes have.

                  If I move out of Auckland, it would be northwards. I prefer the weather there and do have some (limited) family and other connections up there.

                  My point was that, I have some first hand awareness of how tough the rental situation is. This makes for a pretty dire situation for those on lower incomes.

              • Lanthanide …
                3 March 2014 at 11:21 am

                And perhaps now, when you’re trying to find a rental in a particular area for a reasonable price, and can’t, you might appreciate why others choose to own homes in those areas, so that when they come to retire they can continue living there.

                • karol …
                  3 March 2014 at 11:25 am

                  I always understood that, Lanth. It’s no reason to follow the herd along a route that is ultimately damaging to the greater good.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  3 March 2014 at 11:33 am

                  And perhaps now, when you’re trying to find a rental in a particular area for a reasonable price, and can’t, you might appreciate why others choose to own homes in those areas

                  Oh yes, those who CHOOSE to be able to afford a $100K, 20%, deposit for a $500,000 Auckland home were simply SO clever to think ahead of their retirement!!!

                  What dream world do you live in Lanth, that of a top 10% income household?

                  • Lanthanide …
                    3 March 2014 at 3:11 pm

                    Oh yes, those who CHOOSE to be able to afford a $100K, 20%, deposit for a $500,000 Auckland home were simply SO clever to think ahead of their retirement!!!

                    I’m sure you’ll find that most people in the central parts of Auckland that own homes have owned them for 10+ years, ie before the recent price speculation frenzy.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      3 March 2014 at 4:25 pm

                      Well lucky them. For everyone else…even if you are earning say $60K to $70K pa…too bad, you’re locked out.

            • just saying 2.2.3.1.1.2
              3 March 2014 at 10:31 am

              Ooops just read it properly and you said you aren’t interested in co-ops.
              duh

          • greywarbler 2.2.3.1.2
            3 March 2014 at 1:04 pm

            karol
            It could be that there would be a number of people in a similar situation, looking for people they could co-habit with, sharing a small flat, having a room in a house, a bed-sit somewhere suitably placed to their lives.

            What if there could be a group that met once a month somewhere socially but where there was a structured plan of meeting each other. A sort of speed chat idea, so all could talk to each other, get to know each other. It could perhaps be advertised on Facebook, get onto google even. They would besides socialising, also keep an eye out for possible places to share, or possible homeowners who wanted to stay in a bigger house, but could only do so by sharing costs.

            It could be very good for a big city, where people are rather atomised. The trick is to find each other, to join and make friends, and have it as a resource, that one might have to use in the near future. In the meantime it would act as social times, and also as a base to bring possible addresses to scope, and perhaps groups could form and reconnoitre the information provided. A bit like a hive of bees, busy and looking out for sites, and then returning and passing on the information. Happy Bees! Name for group? Casafino, Familias, Cheerfull.?

          • Rosie 2.2.3.1.3
            3 March 2014 at 2:23 pm

            “I am pondering moving out of Auckland, but I have a strong emotional attachment to central Auckland where I grew up – and don’t know a lot of people outside Auckland.”

            karol, that would be a real wrench to move away from an area that you love and has meaning to you. I hope you find something suitable.

            However, If you were to move away, announce it to the TS crew and I’m sure you’d find like minded friends around the country supporting your adaptation to a new area.

            PS: We have good public transport in all or most areas here in Wellington, except if you live it the very top of hill up a one lane road 🙂

    • Ergo Robertina 2.3
      3 March 2014 at 10:03 am

      ‘At a time of multi billion profits by the banks tenants are to be squeezed more by the investor landlords to give the bankers even more money.’

      Which is why we need rent controls, to limit the capital gains from housing.
      Just look at Dunedin student quarter. Old houses with 6 or so bedrooms, the students pay $140 each, that’s $840 for a very average house! And some of these landlords hoovered up the houses in the 90s for a fraction of what they are now.
      The NZ taxpayer (and parents) funds this through student allowances and loans to pay living costs. So in part, we borrow from offshore, to pay for a ticket clipping bonanza.

      • bad12 2.3.1
        3 March 2014 at 10:31 am

        While a good idea Ergo Robertina, instituting a regime of rent controls in the NZ housing market would be in terms of politics, impossible,

        It is across the vast demographic of the NZ middle class where the ‘rental investment’ is to be found as the most loved of those with spare capital from their higher earnings,

        It is also across that vast demographic of the NZ middle class from where the politics of the country, both Left and Right are controlled,(that is IF we are to consider Labour as part of the left of politics),

        The only means of creating a rent controlled housing market would be with the ‘permission’ of this vast NZ rental property owning middle class would be as was suggested to me by one commenter recently to provide this middle class with a suitable CARROT,

        Such a CARROT i would suggest, needed to gain the permission of that middle class would mean that the difference between the controlled rents on the private property and the costs of the private landlord would have to be met from the tax base,

        The cost of subsidies to the private landlords through the current accommodation supplement is already said to be 1.5 Billion+ dollars annually, plus the cost of the right-off of taxation from the individual owners income of interest payments etc,

        The cost of funding a CARROT to gain the agreement of those private landlords to agree to rent controls i would suggest would be one the current tax base could not afford,

        Also, having an income in effect guaranteed by the State would drive even more of the middle class into rental housing which would simply drive house price inflation through the roof…

        • greywarbler 2.3.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 1:17 pm

          bad12
          Well explained I think. Too true about rent controls. Very difficult. Perhaps the market needs to be affected on the supply-side.

          And often beneficiaries helping each other mask the extent of the need for housing. This is where benes take in others – the pollies and strident bene haters also hate benes that rent out a room or space. Interestingly, considering that we have been short of housing for so long and the benefits have been ramped down for ages.

          Suddenly they become money-grubbing, government-rorting, dishonest landlords, rather than budget-strained strugglers adding to their money resources to provide some other needy person with a place to stay. Cramped conditions with strangers even distant family boarding, checking to prevent waste heating, hot water, electricity, food etc. doesn’t make sharing accommodation an easy option.

          • cricklewood 2.3.1.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 3:59 pm

            I think the supply side in certain areas will be very difficult to address, part of what is driving Auckland is the scarcity of space in the inner suburbs. No one if they can afford it wants to travel on the motorways so they look to buy centrally currently there are enough moneyed people to drive the prices ever upwards this may plateau for periods but im not sure if they will ever drop.
            Certainly at todays prices an interest only mortgage investment as a rental is unsustainable in the central suburbs from what I understand the investor types are now looking further afield where the prices are lower and the rent comparably a lot higher. Generally the are speculating as to where the working classes who previously inhabit Onehung Pt Chev etc will buy in the future..

          • bad12 2.3.1.1.2
            3 March 2014 at 4:40 pm

            Grey Warbler, too true, the only means of ‘fixing’ issues of affordability in either market, rental or ownership is to build a sufficient supply,

            The obstacle to this of course are the current owners who if as Draco suggests housing supply in the bigger cities need become a norm of 1–2% over supply would begin to loose chunks of equity which i suggest would have negative effects for any sitting Government,

            Its why i believe Slippery’s Government intends selling 20% of the States housing stocks so as to keep the over-inflation spiral on its upward trend thus pleasing the large demographic in the middle class by making them all feel richer,

            Labour have the same problem, the Party is chocka with the rental investment owning middle class who have a vested interest in seeing that the number of State Houses in no way matches the need of the cohort of low waged workers and beneficiaries that in my parents time qualified to be housed by the State,

            Such low wage workers are in monetary terms no better off than they were in my parents time, evidence would say a lot worse off, but 30 years of the Neo-Liberl experiment,(Winners and Losers),has simply created a beneficiary class even worse off than the low waged workers and thus making the beneficiary more qualified for State Housing than the low waged workers in a rationed ‘market’ for State Housing,

            There is of course a ‘Fix’ to all this, which i must admit Labour are unlikely to entertain having already cast the die in favor of building 10,000 homes for the children of the middle class thus rewarding their parents for having indulged in the inflationary game of monopoly,(winners and losers again),

            That is for Labour to allow those with the income to support a ‘new build’ home to in effect cash up their Working for Families payments so as to have the necessary deposit to enable a mortgage to be obtained for such ‘new builds’, and, put the resources of the State toward building either clusters or multi-storey State Housing on already existing property owned by the State…

            • greywarbler 2.3.1.1.2.1
              3 March 2014 at 7:53 pm

              Good ideas bad 12 and not untoward for Labour, they just have to get their heads around the idea that they have things to learn – that quoting slogans and saying encouraging things about the struggligh classes in a patonising way doesn’t cut the nmustard.

              Another thing they can do is virtuous circles where the house gets sold at a reasonable rate that covers the costs plus administration and R&M, then is bought back at a value that gives a return of term deposit p.a. back to the owner who has to sell back to the state. This means that a group of good houses, keeps being available without the inflationary market-unhealthy prices building on each sale.

              • bad12 …
                3 March 2014 at 8:34 pm

                Lolz Grey Warbler, your quoting Green Party housing policy at me, Lolz again, yes of course besides houses owned by the State and rented to tenants at 25% of income the Green Party housing policy is of course the most forward thinking ever proposed here in NZ,

                That magic circle is brilliant where upon the ‘owner’ for whatever reason not wanting/needing the house anymore any equity in the house is given back to the owner or the estate of the owner and the house has another family installed as owners which means that inflation as you say is kept out of the equation,

                The real impediment to this type of mass housing is the lack of will from either of the large political party’s to produce its own capital,

                Simply printing the capital to build the homes would create an excellent means of gathering revenue to the Government, with the repayments from the owners going into the Cullen fund we could kill two stones with one bird,

                Way too forward thinking for the mass of people in NZ to get their nuts around in the here and now, give it 25-30 years and this will be the only means of affording house…

                • greywarbler …
                  3 March 2014 at 9:54 pm

                  I actually didn’t know it was green party policy bad12. And should because that is the Party I go for though I’m also supporting Labour when I can.

                  But the housing idea would be good, and it only needs a bit of will to add it to the hosing mix that Housing NZ or whatever the bureaucrat/estate agents call themselves these days. It helps people to get into their own place, and off the state’s back. They put their own money into it, which might include some grant to be added to deposit, and then they should be able to get a mortgage from a bank.

                  That would fit people into the current credit set-up while intelligent people work out how to get the economy going from other sources of finance in other directions ir co-operatives and national funds for important purchases. The house should be self supporting and pay back to the government which should satisfy accountants’ balance sheets. .

  3. Belladonna 3
    3 March 2014 at 7:59 am

    Our media are not only a disgrace but they are too stupid to realise that approximately half of this country are not rightwing. I turned Radio Live on recently at 5.30am to hear James Coleman say he was the MC for the ACT conference. I turned the radio off – just as well they can afford to lose listeners.
    I wont watch TV3 either as long as Patrick Gower is around.

    • Enough is Enough 3.1
      3 March 2014 at 10:50 am

      I am convinced Gower is a paid up Nat.

      His interview of Cunlife on the Nation was disgraceful

      • Rosie 3.1.1
        3 March 2014 at 2:24 pm

        “I am convinced Gower is a paid up Nat.”

        You’re not the only one……………..

  4. phillip ure 4
    3 March 2014 at 8:05 am

    “..A lethal ignorance: We could make drugs safer. We choose not to..”

    .“Prohibition has led to the attempt to avoid prohibition –

    and therefore the production of more toxic substances.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-lethal-ignorance-we-could-make-drugs-safer-we-choose-not-to-9162854.html

    phillip ure..

  5. Skinny 5
    3 March 2014 at 8:13 am

    Former CEO Of Kiwi Rail, Jim Quinn chooses to drive off into the sunset by car, not trusting to travel by rail or sea ferry as their both too unreliable for a safe getaway with taxpayer loot.

    After pocketing more than 4 million dollars (courtesy of Key-National) for his 5 years work. We will be reminded of Quinn’s legacy for many years to come. In his final week ( last week) here are clear examples;

    http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11212556

    http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11212539

    Let’s look at some of his handy work.

    He signs off on Chinese made trains and wagons.

    Comes up with a turn around plan which;

    Closes workshops sacking hundreds of
    highly skilled workers.

    Sacks hundreds of track maintenance workers.

    Contracts track maintenance work to a Aussie/ Kiwi joint venture.

    Imports thousands of rotting Peruvian hardwood sleepers.

    Contracts electrification of the Auckland Metro to an Australian firm.

    Signs off on electric trains to be built in Spain.

    Contracts a major alteration to a ferry to an oversea’s shipyard.

    Seems the only thing Quinn got right was the turn around plan released under the official information act which suggested “things will deteriorate”. 

    Look for fireworks in parliament this week! 

    • Pasupial 5.1
      3 March 2014 at 8:41 am

      Skinny

      Speaking of those Chinese made trains and wagons:

      “The discovery of asbestos in KiwiRail trains built in China… 40 of KiwiRail’s locomotives were withdrawn from service following the discovery of the potentially deadly material in a soundproofing compound inside one of the vehicles on Friday.”

      “KiwiRail at the weekend said the inclusion of asbestos in the trains was in breach of a contract specification which clearly stated the material should not be used.”

      http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/293679/counting-cost-asbestos-find

      [edit; I see your first link covers it, the ODT article only really adds a Hillside closure/ jobs loss perspective]

    • Tim 5.2
      3 March 2014 at 8:41 am

      It’s an appalling record @Skinny by any measure. Just watch though …. if he’s not retiring, just watch him pop up somewhere else wreaking havoc in corporatesville as though he is the best thing since sliced bread.
      Did you ever see the guy in the media btw? Fark!

      • Skinny 5.2.1
        3 March 2014 at 9:02 am

        “have you ever seen him in the media”

        I’ve dealt to him thru the media and the House *wink

        Babbling Quinn carved up NZ Post then moved on to Kiwi Rail. Yeah he will pop up somewhere once the current heat subsides. He won’t get jack all peddling his CV around a Labour/Green camp.

    • greywarbler 5.3
      3 March 2014 at 9:53 am

      Thanks Skinny for that list of Quinn’s transgressions. I have got gradually more frustrated as he has appeared on Radionz to spell out the latest excuses for bad management and bad policy along the cheapest is the best line (which line showed up in loss of railway line as they were shut down in his time.) It’s almost Blip-like in its straightforward display of ineptness, slippery thinking and bad business decisions.)

      And Pasupial – did that newspaper item mention the interesting bit about Australian trains from the same Chinese firm also having asbestos? No doubt they specified against that or should have. And also this is another example of us being influenced by what Australians do instead of first checking our options, deciding what we want, looking then at what others have done, and then back to seeing whether we can do it ourselves for close to the price demanded elsewhere.

      It wouldn’t have to be that much cheaper. There should be a government guarantee on any money raised which would keep the cost of NZ input to the rail improvement program down. We could do this now, if our government had any goolies, but if we join TPPA there would be more hurdles than an athletic event, and a high jump too far even.

      @ Skinny I see further down you say Quinn carved up NZ Post!! And what a pathetic example of lost opportunities (for growing the business), poor public relations (ensuring that everything was done well and efficiently so they could tell people so, and not she’ll be right which led to the Queenstown debacle), and not following up customer criticism, complaints and feedback to ensure that confidence and support from the public continued. Instead they concentrated on selling their programs overseas to places that had a lesser service than we had, but in the process took their eyes of what we did have and so didn’t maintain it and also look to see where it could be improved and grown.

      • Skinny 5.3.1
        3 March 2014 at 10:18 am

        Oh yes thanks Grey Warbler well spotted, add closing Rail Lines to the list. The guy is a hatchet man he cut our Postal service beyond the bone and has done the same in Rail.

        Lunatic’s like Quinn have not one blood cell of a moral compass in their entire body.

        • greywarbler 5.3.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 11:03 am

          I listened to Quinn quite often on Radionz and he never seemed to doubt what he was doing, even when it turned out to be a Wrong Decision in anyone else’s mind.

          And he is inclined to stutter, yet is so determined to say his piece that he can control it, and make his excuses for his management with hardly a tremor, just a slight hesitation. Great elocution. But a sign of the determination and drive that such managers of the Right bring to their task of advancing the policies of the Right, economic and social, and wrecking the people’s economy as a collateral damage to the Grand Plan.

  6. Sanctuary 6
    3 March 2014 at 8:59 am

    The Ukraine crisis is going to end badly for the west, because all Putin is doing is exposing the desperate recklessness and naivety of western policy towards Russia’s ex-USSR “near abroad” since the 1990s.

    First of all, the recklessness of western policy. People fail to understand the basis of Soviet – and Russian – foreign policy since 1945 has been a “never again” to an invasion from the west. In 1941 the USSR had a barrier of half of Poland, and they barely survived an unprovoked surprise fascist attack. In 1945 they built a buffer of client states in Eastern Europe to keep the Atlantic alliance at arms length. When the USSR collapsed there was a clear understanding that, in exchange for allowing German reunification, there would be no eastward expansion of NATO. Since 1990 12 new NATO members have done just that. The Baltic states are NATO members that already share a common border with Russia, albeit a short one and they small and weak nations. It should have been obvious to the west that Russia would not tolerate the Ukraine becoming a NATO partner/member with such a long shared border.

    Another aspect of the recklessness of western policy is the encouraging of Russia’s near abroad like the Ukraine (and Georgia) to defy Russia when they are militarily to weak to resist a Russian retaliatory attack. Since these countries cannot defend themselves from Russian attack and the West is to terrified of Russia’s nuclear arsenal to confront Putin, When the Russians attack western diplomacy is inevitably exposed as little more than hot air and false promises. It just hands an easy win to Putin.

    Secondly, the naivety. The aftermath of the second world war saw the largest ethnic cleansing in history. Forced population transfers and border readjustments ensured that racial tensions within nation states would no longer be an issue between nations. Whether we like it or not, this post WW2 ethnic cleansing worked in maintaining peace in Europe. The outbreak of vicious ethnic violence in the Balkans (where Yugoslavia had repressed minorities) in 1990s should have been a reminder of what happens in Europe when ethnically divided communites are forced to live together in the same country. Yet that is exactly what was set up in the Ukraine, with a strong Russian ethnic minority. A re-run of some variation of the 1990s Balkans crisis was inevitable in the Ukraine.

    • grumpy 6.1
      3 March 2014 at 9:00 am

      Interesting stuff in Ukraine where I have quite a few friends. Interestingly the people I know there are all Russian speaking and identify as Russian.
      The whole thing is, of course, about controlling the energy pathway to Europe and Keery’s rubbish just shows the hypocracy of a country that invades anyone at the drop of a hat when it’s own energy interests are threatened.

    • phillip ure 6.3
      3 March 2014 at 9:12 am

      i give you this ‘cos you probably won’t get it anywhere else aside from my place..or where i found it..

      “..Obama and Putin Engage in 90-minute Phone Call..”

      “..President Obama spoke to Russia’s President Putin today for about 90 minutes –

      and told him that he’s violating international law with Russian troops leaving their bases in Crimea to seize control of the Ukraine territory.

      Both sides put out descriptions of the lengthy discussion.

      First – here’s the White House’s explanation of how the call went..”

      (cont..)

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37812.htm

      phillip ure…

    • greywarbler 6.4
      3 March 2014 at 10:29 am

      Sanctuary
      I think this Russian approach is equivalent to the USA approach to safety from reading your comment. The USA has ringed itself with island states with various warring and warning equipment. It doesn’t want to be attacked on its own ground. That why 9/11 was so much of a shock. It seems to me that the west particularly USA and its acolyte UK, seem to stir up trouble deliberately on any spurious ground they can. A sort of sabre-rattling which keeps a show of ready force apparent to Russia and now China.

      This business of splitting ethnic minorities for the sake of better borders, resources and political allegiances for larger countries is problematic for stability in the smaller countries. Tibet to China which has increased Han Chinese settlement, Rigas in north west China, the Kurds in Turkey, new settlers in Israel, Russians settled in outlying neighbours to the former Soviet.

      I dragged out my old large atlas that has so many political boundaries changed, and my notes about that, and a newer map beside to check today’s realities. But the geography is the same, and Russia I think really needs the Black Sea ports so it has southern access to oceans. Vladivostock on the east, used to be their only all-season port there, and is very distant from Moscow in the west. The northern ports are distant, often ice bound, or were. There is Estonia or Latvia on the west, and I don’t know what their relationship is now with Russia. So the Black Sea from Crimea is important to them. And if there are many Russians there I do not see how Ukraine can refuse to come to terms with Russia. Ukraine apparently supplies electricity to Crimea, but this does not give them the biggest bargaining chip. And now the Ukrainian Navy Chief has pronounced his allegiance to the Russians. Is there a way that Ukraine could connect with Europe as a trading bloc without being in NATO (which seems too hawkish for comfort)?

      My old economic texts made a point that too much money was spent by the USA government on welfare and more should go on defence. I wonder if those brainy people now apply their fine minds to the opposite situation and find it also unsatisfactory?

      • Sanctuary 6.4.1
        3 March 2014 at 11:17 am

        The most obvious example of U.S. hypocrisy on this issue is the Munroe Doctrine. The United States simply regards any foreign power operating in the Americas as an act of aggression. Somehow, the NATO allies seem to think though that it is fine to recklessly meddle in the affairs of Russia’s near abroad.

        The only people who can save the Ukranian now is the Ukrainians themselves, and I see they are calling up reserves and mobilising. If history teaches us one thing, it is that mobilisation usually means war. When they are ready, the Ukraine may attempt to re-capture the Crimea and that will lead to a general war with Russia. The Russians may be repulsed though. Although the Russian military is on paper much larger, so is Russia, and the Russian military was exposed in Chechnya as completely inept. Also, whereas the Ukraine can deploy its entire armed forces in such a fight, the Russians must retain troops in the far east and other places like Chechnya. To my mind the situation in such a war would be very dangerous. Should the Ukrainians initially repulse the Russians, the Russian military response will be similar to the tactically inept, brutally indiscrimate war they waged in Chechnya. The longer that goes on, the more likely it could develop into a wider war, for instance drawing Belarus in on the Russian side. And how long could the west put up with images of Russian brutality before it would succumb to temptation and try and intervene?

        of course, it should never have come to this. Instead of formenting mischief the west should be encouraging Countries like the Ukraine to develop friendly relationships with Russia. Even a client state one insofar as security guarantees go. Ukraine could still be western orientated, just not western aligned.

        • greywarbler 6.4.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 11:44 am

          @Sanctuary
          It does seem a good idea for the west to encourage and assist Ukraine and Russia to have good relations. Is it possible that the people at the top are not interested in world peace? But perhaps fomenting trouble, that being a moral hazard in the position of having power in a state that has military pretensions, giant military – based industries and loves dressing up in military uniforms. (I really liked the hologram’s salute in Red Dwarf. What style, panache.)
          As that excellent saying goes – Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.

      • greywarbler 6.5.1
        3 March 2014 at 11:15 am

        OOh-er. What a clear diagram joe90. The political and economic implications for Russia of those pipelines flowing in multiple lines across their country mean that Russia must feel confident that it has good relations with Ukraine.

        What can a smaller less economically powerful state do, when a larger one turns hostile and decides to flex its muscles in ways that are not compatible with the wishes and needs of the smaller one? For instance, New Zealand and Australia? I wonder what directions and actions NZ will take to improve its future options? There are pipelines of money flowing out of NZ across the Tasman. If we do anything to interrupt that flow would they bring political or armed pressure on us. The joint exercise under the aegis of the USA with some strangely prescient scenarios – could the joint be round about our kneecaps?

      • Zorr 6.5.2
        3 March 2014 at 11:18 am

        Yeah – not looking forward to this. Ultimately, it is a war for control of resources and would Europe sit idly by while Russia strengthens its grip on their fuel supplies.

        Ah well… who needs international stability? >_<

        • Draco T Bastard 6.5.2.1
          3 March 2014 at 2:31 pm

          Ultimately, it is a war for control of resources and would Europe sit idly by while Russia strengthens its grip on their fuel supplies.

          Possibly not but do the EU actually have the ability to take on Russia militarily? I think not.

      • joe90 6.5.3
        3 March 2014 at 11:31 am

        Google translation:

        in / hr 4515 Bel’bek Sevastopol.Russkie shutrmuyut part trying to capture armory now!

        https://twitter.com/ukrpravda_news/statuses/440243676359311360

      • grumpy 6.5.4
        3 March 2014 at 11:52 am

        Yep, says it all. Russia is in no mood to be pissed around on this. They are paranoid about the creep of NATO, they are deeply hurt by the rejection by a large part of Ukraine and they need to keep control of their energy distribution to the West.
        The west does not understand the tough mentality of the Russian people. For them WWII is very real. The West being obsessed with criticism of Russia’s “Gay Rights” just emboldens Russia to make a stand as they see the West as weak.

        • greywarbler 6.5.4.1
          3 March 2014 at 11:56 am

          Putin the strong man of Russia – I hope not a little Hateler.

          • grumpy 6.5.4.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 12:22 pm

            …indeed….but Putin just reflects Russian attitudes. If not him, then someone else and they would probably not be as smart and open.

      • Rosie 6.5.5
        3 March 2014 at 2:29 pm

        Thanks joe90. Says a lot.

      • miravox 6.5.6
        3 March 2014 at 8:47 pm

        A very good reason why the EU should [have] curbed its enthusiasm for courting Ukraine. Recent democracies in the east of Europe like Poland have interests in the East that are quite distinct from the established western European EU states.

        I’d love to see a bit of reporting on the agreement, or not, that exists within the EU on the involvement in Ukraine.

    • RJL 6.6
      3 March 2014 at 12:07 pm

      I don’t disagree with the substance of what you are writing, except that this bit:

      “In 1941 the USSR had a barrier of half of Poland, and they barely survived an unprovoked surprise fascist attack.”

      is not really true.

      The attack in 1941 might have been a surprise attack in the sense that the timing of it may have been surprising.

      However, much of the literature of the mid-to-late 1930s is dominated by the looming threat of an inevitable war between Germany and Russia. The surprising thing was the Nazi/Soviet alliance formed to attack Poland in 1939; everyone expected that alliance to collapse eventually.

      • Colonial Viper 6.6.1
        3 March 2014 at 12:13 pm

        Yep; both the Soviets and the Germans knew that war was inevitable, but both decided to delay the onset of hostilities for their own reasons. Hitler because he wanted to move into western Europe first, the Soviets because they knew that their forces were nowhere near ready.

    • Draco T Bastard 6.7
      3 March 2014 at 2:00 pm

      When the Russians attack western diplomacy is inevitably exposed as little more than hot air and false promises.

      The US still thinks it’s a world power. I’m increasingly of the opinion that it’s not.

      • greywarbler 6.7.1
        3 March 2014 at 3:35 pm

        Hrrmph! I’ve got an assenal that proves you
        Wrong!

        • Draco T Bastard 6.7.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 5:26 pm

          The US has one very major weakness – Oil. They don’t have a lot of it anymore and they need oil to project power. Russia, on the other hand, has a lot of it. Then there’s the commercial reality – the US is no longer the productive hub of the world.

          Both of these work to undermine the armed strength that the US has.

  7. One Anonymous Bloke 7
    3 March 2014 at 9:19 am

    Brownlee wants answers? I’ll give him answers.

    1. Tory incompetence.
    2. Failed Tory ideology.
    3. We told you this would happen you fucking idiot.
    • Draco T Bastard 7.1
      3 March 2014 at 2:05 pm

      +1

      We did say this sort of shit would happen. Hell, substandard construction was specifically mentioned in the BERL report as to one of the reasons making the trains here would be a better option which the RWNJs poo-pooed and now we’re having to deal with their incompetence.

    • Tracey 7.2
      3 March 2014 at 3:59 pm

      Or what rent hes getting for his fendalton and ilam homes.

  8. Justliketigerwoods 8
    3 March 2014 at 9:20 am

    What do John Banks and David Cunliffe have in common?

  9. travellerev 9
    3 March 2014 at 10:21 am

    New Zealand joins the Ukraine and NATO in the Indian Ocean to (a href=”http://wp.me/p638n-4i4″>fight “piracy” in operation Ocean Shield but don’t worry we’re only partners and not members of NATO.

  10. Tracey 10
    3 March 2014 at 10:33 am

    grumpy

    wont russia be upholding the regime just run out of town… less a chane of regime more a reinstating.

    • grumpy 10.1
      3 March 2014 at 11:23 am

      I think it will be a different, more popular regime. The guy just chucked out would be just too unpopular. I doubt that Russia will annex the whole of Ukraine, just the bit that identifies as Russian.
      You need to realise that Russia hold Ukraine as the birthplace of Russia. They maintain that they “gave” that territory to Ukraine because of that special relationship.

      • Murray Olsen 10.1.1
        3 March 2014 at 7:36 pm

        It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening there, apart from the fact that a reconstructed Ukrainian fascist movement makes up a large part of what the West is supporting. I’ve seen some reports saying that many of the Ukrainian people are turning on the new government already, as they don’t really look forward to a fascist government that sells everything off either to Europeans, or the Ukrainian oligarchy. (Note that the movement uses the symbols and nationalistic hatreds of fascism, but is prepared to bow to foreign capital. It is a weak country type of fascism, such as we have previously seen in Central and South America) Jews in particular are getting a hard time, which will cause the seppos problems with AIPAC. There are reports that even ethnic Ukrainians are welcoming the Russian presence, and raising Russian flags.

        Between Western supported fascists and authoritarian Russians, I hope the Ukrainian people, the workers and peasants, can find a way through to a sovereign and independent Ukraine. At the moment, it’s a mess made by leaders who are like maladjusted children playing with matches.

  11. Disraeli Gladstone 11
    3 March 2014 at 10:51 am

    http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/david-cunliffe-unethical.html

    As usual NRT is harsher than I would be, but this really isn’t a good look from Cunliffe.

    • grumpy 11.1
      3 March 2014 at 11:24 am

      ….meanwhile Shane Jones makes every post a winner.

    • Saarbo 11.2
      3 March 2014 at 9:52 pm

      More Left attacking the Left…I just don’t understand this. Any Lefty that uses their valuable time to post an attack on another Lefty this close to an election is an absolute fuckwit as far as Im concerned.

  12. big bruv 12
    3 March 2014 at 10:57 am

    I love David Cunliffe!

    He is the gift that just keeps on giving. Do you think that Winston might let Cunliffe use his ‘NO’ sign?

  13. fender 13
    3 March 2014 at 12:14 pm

    The great hunter-gatherer Jordan Williams must enjoy eating his own feet judging by how he shoots himself in the foot again

    • joe90 13.1
      3 March 2014 at 12:53 pm

      ++ to Mr Geddis.

    • floyd 13.2
      3 March 2014 at 1:22 pm

      I read lately in one of our newspapers that the opening of the new Velodrome at St Peters School at Cambridge has been delayed because jonkey wanted to do the opening. Why? Hasn’t he got enought to do. And is this good use of taxpayers money.? How much would this little photo op exercise cost?

      • fender 13.2.1
        3 March 2014 at 2:13 pm

        “And is this good use of taxpayers money.? How much would this little photo op exercise cost?”

        Jordon Williams will no doubt look into that after he’s examined the costs involved in the items Frank Macskasy lists in his comment.

    • BM 13.3
      3 March 2014 at 1:31 pm

      Let’s all pick on the deaf girl!

      Why not?

      I couldn’t give a shit if Mathers is deaf, if she’s been taking the tax payer for a ride, she needs a swift kick up the slats.
      In this incident, it’s a bit of a storm in a tea cup and there’s no need for any one to lace up their kicking boots.

      • McFlock 13.3.1
        3 March 2014 at 1:39 pm

        Once again, you skilfully use mental acrobatics to miss the obvious point.

        As per usual.

        • fender 13.3.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 2:01 pm

          Yeah he missed the point alright, and failed to detect who’s really in need of “a swift kick up the slats”; could help take Jordans warped mind off the gunshot wound to his foot perhaps..

          • North 13.3.1.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 5:08 pm

            Williams is a little lawyer fellow seeking to be seen as earnestly principled by the public and possessed of safe biddable hands by those who make the bullets he fires. The sort baggage social climbing snob types get delirious to have for a son-in-law. There are hundreds of them around the edges of politics – Luigi Weweges with the law degree.

            All risible, all with a sly eye to the personal mainchance and a spot at the guzzling trough. Which spot ultimately renders them grossly pompous, bloated, disgusting.

            You watch. Jordy Boy will make it – High National Party office, appointment to some board or authority, “shoulder tapped” for Parliament, District Court judge perhaps. There’s a huge array of baubles out there for the well connected punk. Was about to say “a right little Wayne Mapp in the making” but that just might be a bit harsh on Wayne.

            Certainly something of a coward however as remarked by one of the commenters on (I think) Geddis’s blog. The foray falls over………”No further comment”. What an arsewipe !

      • Murray Olsen 13.3.2
        3 March 2014 at 7:41 pm

        Sure BM, you like to kick women whether they’re disabled or not. What a guy!!

        • BM 13.3.2.1
          3 March 2014 at 8:14 pm

          No, I just don’t treat people with disabilities such as deafness as being inferior, deafness != get out of jail for free card.

          If Mathers was doing a dodge, she should be done for it not excused because she’s deaf.

          • McFlock 13.3.2.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 8:25 pm

            “If Mathers was doing a dodge”
            She wasn’t. Nobody have even claimed that. Why aren’t you asking “If Key was doing a dodge” in relation to flyg him and his entourage down to the golf?

            Actually, don’t bother answering that, because we all know the answer already: you’re a snivelling piece of shit who likes to pretend that opposition MPs are even half as corrupt as the poisonous regime for whom you’re shilling cut-rate propaganda.

    • Hayden 13.4
      3 March 2014 at 8:20 pm

      It’s a nice change from trying to shoot himself in the face.

  14. greywarbler 14
    3 March 2014 at 12:20 pm

    A man is punched in the face and suffers broken teeth but – though the assault was caught on
    a security camera the police didn’t follow it up.
    Contrast that with the way that traffic police are being utilised to set up road blocks and check on your drinking, your personal details, details about your car – so they can see if your documentation is up to date. We might as well be under martial law.

    When people themselves get attacked they may not get any protective police action. It is hard for women to protect themselves against male nutters, and sometimes vice versa, who would do them harm or kill them, or their children at the same time or even when the partner kills themselves.

    Awful things are happening out there but the public are being preyed upon by nutters who won’t control themselves and who police won’t bring under control. Then add to that we also have to worry about police preying on us, hoping that we will be technical lawbreakers by catching us without some required certification.

  15. Tracey 15
    3 March 2014 at 12:43 pm

    just because the law says you cant reveal your donors… but you would need the permission of those who already donated to release who they are…

    is it a death knell to fundraising at this point to say from today onwards we will reveal our donors but not how much or variations thereof?

  16. captain hook 16
    3 March 2014 at 1:22 pm

    I see garth mcvicar and the punishers were at the act conference. encouraging the non regulators to enforce even harsher penalties and build more prisons. I bet mcvicar has shares in serco.

  17. Tim 17
    3 March 2014 at 1:46 pm

    @ Rhino …. I hope you were listening to the sage Mora during his musshin to Mars today.
    Distinct change in tone when the geeeehest wanted to take Garrison Keillor with him. I think Jum at that point might have realised his guest could very well claim left wing creds.

    I’m about to ‘off’ Mora – so I’m hopeing you’ll take up the listening (A herrr herrr herrr hahhhh hahhh hahhh hahhh hahhh a -herr herr hah! I’m thoroughly nice don;t ya know)….
    Or as some of those Injuns over here on study visas (tied to specific employers – often who hold their passports and pay below minimum wage) would say – “I’m about to ‘close’ Afternoons with that nicest man on Erf)
    B jesus ….. even his right wing bosses have discovered he’s so stale the mould is beginning to appear – shame he hasn’t yet realised ‘The Panel” needs a kick in the balls as well
    Christ what a crock!

    • captain hook 17.1
      3 March 2014 at 1:55 pm

      I’ll hold em and you can kick em! Hope its the afternoon with edwards and boag on and we can get both of the banal poltroons in one go!

      • Tim 17.1.1
        3 March 2014 at 2:00 pm

        It’d be bloody noice if there was ekshly a mussin to Mars with Garrison Keillor on board.
        The buggers would freak!

    • rhinocrates 17.2
      3 March 2014 at 9:04 pm

      I’ve long ago given up listening to the almost-aptly named Mor[on]. I would destroy my keyboard and desk if I did again, and probably inflict permanent scars on my forehead. I really struggle to believe that anyone could be so stupid and vain as him, but apparently it’s true.

    • bad12 18.1
      3 March 2014 at 5:24 pm

      Paul, fascinating,especially the last link of the 3,and, i totally agree with most of the blokes analysis especially His insight into Putin in His current guise as the Russian Prez,

      i am sure tho that fans of ‘Pussy Riot’ will have another view of the Russian Prez…

  19. fender 19
    3 March 2014 at 4:50 pm

    “Taking a more sober view, it may be more of a case of letting some hens back into the henhouse and frog-marching the foxes out; hardly a cause for general public alarm.”

    Puddleglum nails it (as per usual)…

    Foxes, hens, the hard left and the myth of the time warp

  20. Morrissey 20
    3 March 2014 at 4:52 pm

    Brian Edwards’ crazed ideas about the U.S. assault on Vietnam
    This old codger is getting older, but not a whit wiser
    The Panel, Radio NZ National, Monday 3 March 2014
    Jim Mora, Michelle Boag, Brian Edwards

    Long time sufferers of this ever-worsening programme will be all too familiar with the ignorant and often rancorous contributions by such guests as Michael Bassett, Stephen Franks, Garth “Gaga” George, Nevil “Breivik” Gibson and Jordan Williams. But it’s not only the extreme right that spews nasty, foolish rhetoric on Jim Mora’s show. Today that old fool Dr Brian Edwards had a few ill-considered words to say about the crisis in the Crimea and Ukraine. He, naturally, is opposed to Russian aggression. Forty-something years ago, when he was posing as an educated broadcaster, he was apparently opposed to American aggression too. But not any longer. Today he made one of the stupidest statements to ever be uttered on the Panel.

    I sent off the following email to Jim Mora…..

    Destroying Vietnam was “a good outcome”? The U.S. tries to “export democracy”?!!??!?

    Dear Jim,

    Brian Edwards made the remarkable claim that the United States’ devastating decade of attacking Vietnam was “a good outcome.” Michelle Boag could not agree quickly enough with that hare-brained statement.

    Then, a little later, you made the even more preposterous claim that the United States has been “trying to export democracy to the middle east.” Either you have absolutely no knowledge of what the U.S. has done and continues to do in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Yemen (to name just a half dozen of the worst examples) or you are exercising a particularly wicked sense of humour.

    Are you going to reconsider and retract your “exporting democracy” claim? And if not, why not?

    Yours in horror at the standards of discussion on The Panel,

    Morrissey Breen
    Northcote Point

    • North 20.1
      3 March 2014 at 5:44 pm

      Good stuff Morrissey.

      Didn’t hear that bit but perhaps Brian will put me right on the tears I ran around a corner to weep – when after several days of giving money to crippled people in Ho Chi Minh City it dawned that these weren’t ‘merely’ disabled – these were people not even alive when it all ended, genetically fucked up by US agent orange – the other “gift “which came with the democracy “gift”.

      If you want to know how I deduced disability unlike any other just think about your toes pointing backward rather than forward. Your elbow all back to front. And the back of your hand being the palm of your hand.

      I certainly hope for Brian’s sake that the intended sale of his and Judy’s house (about which he burbled to Michelle’s rapt fascination – “lovely house….lovely house”) – doesn’t deliver the disastrous “good outcome” which so favours those lucky Vietnamese.

    • phillip ure 20.2
      3 March 2014 at 6:08 pm

      to moras’ credit..

      …a couple of times he tried to bring up the regime-change machinations america has been involved in in the ukraine..

      ..edwards-the-elder just poo-pooed/ignored them..both times..

      ..if edwards-the-elders’ neck gets any redder..

      ..those waliking behind him will need to wear welders-masks..

      ..and if his views of complex geo-political situations get any more simplistic..

      ..he will need to be issued with crayons..

      ..phillip ure..

      • Morrissey 20.2.1
        3 March 2014 at 6:43 pm

        …. if his views of complex geo-political situations get any more simplistic..

        He’ll be joining ACT next.

    • Te Reo Putake 20.3
      3 March 2014 at 6:56 pm

      As usual Moz, you’ve got it wrong. Or you don’t know what the word ‘outcome’ means. Or both. Edwards didn’t say the war itself was a good outcome (presumably partially because he knows what the word means). What he actually said was that the Vietnam war had a good outcome. Which it did, given that the aggressor lost a war for the first time and the Vietnamese won a united country.

      No doubt you’ll be writing to Mora to apologise. Would you mind publishing that? I like a laugh in these dimming autumn evenings.

      Actual transcript here (Edwards from about 12 minutes in, the comment Moz misunderstood at about 14 minutes): http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2587632/the-panel-with-brian-edwards-and-michelle-boag-part-1

      • Morrissey 20.3.1
        3 March 2014 at 7:08 pm

        If I got it all wrong, I’ll apologize immediately. If I misconstrued his remarks, which I only heard the tail end of, then that’s unforgivable. Utterly unforgivable.

        Here I am; feel free to come and have a shot at me, fellas…..
        http://cannonsgreatescapes.com/images/PilloryMarkSheila.JPG

        So I apologize to Dr. Edwards, assuming I got it wrong.

        I’m trusting your integrity here, Te Reo.

        • phillip ure 20.3.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 7:12 pm

          you didn’t get it wrong..

          ..edwards essentially listed all the american invasions..recent and past..

          ..as having ‘good outcomes’..

          ..i mean..syria..?..libya..?..

          ..edwards is a fool..

          ..phillip ure..

          • Te Reo Putake 20.3.1.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 7:16 pm

            Oh, Phil, so very very wrong. Actual transcript here (Edwards from about 12 minutes in, the comment Moz and Phil misunderstood/misreported at about 14 minutes): http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2587632/the-panel-with-brian-edwards-and-michelle-boag-part-1

            • Morrissey 20.3.1.1.1.1
              3 March 2014 at 7:46 pm

              Actually, Edwards is even more indolent than I first thought. I did not misconstrue him at all. Thanks for putting up that link, Te Reo—now YOU need to listen to the old fool sounding off. His complacency and woolly-mindedness are on a par with the likes of that incest-touting ACT leader.

              He’s backed up enthusiastically all the way by his good friend Michelle Boag. This is commentary of the standard you would expect from the more deranged and drunken callers on NewstalkZB in the small hours of the morning….

              Boag condemns Vladimir Putin for not being democratic. She regrets that Russia lacks our “Western values”. In a speech of breathtaking hypocrisy, she pontificates: “When you open up a country and give people access to freedom and free media, you can’t harness people… It’s a different WORLD now… People don’t like being constrained…” One wonders where Michelle Boag was as the U.S. and its vassals (Britain, Australia, Canada) defied overwhelming public opinion in the buildup to their illegal wars a decade ago. I cannot recall her uttering even one word of stern admonition against Bush, Blair, Howard and their cronies.

              If some kid in a Year 9 class came up with something like Brian Edwards’ “analysis” of Putin, he or she would be mocked as particularly dull, and lazy…..

              EDWARDS RE PUTIN: You can tell a lot about Putin just by looking at pictures of him. I don’t think I can recall a leader who is so perpetually grim and quite clearly has never smiled since birth and is quite clearly a dictator…. I think that was an excellent summary that Michelle just gave. …. It doesn’t matter what anybody says, you can’t do much against a dictatorship.

              EDWARDS RE U.S. “INTERVENTIONS”: Well these outcomes have not been too bad. I mean, look at North Korea and South Korea. Would you wish to be living in North Korea at the moment? Although you can cast doubt on the motives of the Americans and the Brits and the New Zealanders, because we have been involved in a lot of it, the outcomes seem to have been pretty good on the whole.

              Just as outrageously, Michelle Boag took the opportunity to somehow use this to express her support for illegal government snooping and to belittle those who object to it.

              BOAG: And I think it’s very difficult for us never having been in a regime where you are truly oppressed and you know we get rhetoric about you know the government is spying on us but ….

              So you were wrong, Te Reo. I should have known better than to trust you.

              • McFlock …
                3 March 2014 at 8:15 pm

                Just to clarify, mos, where exactly was it that:

                Brian Edwards made the remarkable claim that the United States’ devastating decade of attacking Vietnam was “a good outcome.”

                That was your claim. TRP said you were wrong.

                • Te Reo Putake …
                  3 March 2014 at 8:17 pm

                  Don’t hold your breath …

                  • Morrissey …
                    3 March 2014 at 8:25 pm

                    Don’t hold your breath …

                    I’ve transcribed part of the audio you so helpfully provided. So you can stop pretending I was wrong.

                    As is clear to anyone who listens to that godawful audio, I am right, and you are (yet again) wrong.

                    • Te Reo Putake …
                      3 March 2014 at 8:41 pm

                      Yeah, of course you are 🙄 Because that transcript clearly shows that “Brian Edwards made the remarkable claim that the United States’ devastating decade of attacking Vietnam was “a good outcome.”

                    • McFlock …
                      3 March 2014 at 8:45 pm

                      I’ve transcribed part of the audio you so helpfully provided.

                      Sigh.

                      Brian Edwards made the remarkable claim that the United States’ devastating decade of attacking Vietnam was “a good outcome.”

                      does not equal your “transcript”

                      Well these outcomes have not been too bad. I mean, look at North Korea and South Korea. Would you wish to be living in North Korea at the moment? Although you can cast doubt on the motives of the Americans and the Brits and the New Zealanders, because we have been involved in a lot of it, the outcomes seem to have been pretty good on the whole.

                      which does not equal 14m10s

                      Well these outcomes have not all been too bad. I mean, you look at North Korea and South Korea. Would you want to be living in North Korea at the moment? um Or – I mean there’s a whole variety of places you could look at in this sort of way, North Vietnam South Vietnam and so on. So I think that Although you can cast doubt on the motives of the Americans and the Brits and the rest of us and the New Zealanders as well, because we have been involved in all this sort of thing, the outcomes seem to have been pretty good on the whole.

                • Morrissey …
                  3 March 2014 at 8:28 pm

                  “Clarify”? I got it right first time, erring only in not capturing precisely what that old fool Edwards said in his gouty rambling. I have now put up exactly what he did say—and it’s worse than anyone might have suspected.

                  • McFlock …
                    3 March 2014 at 11:05 pm

                    no, no you didn’t. and then, no you didn’t.

                    And if “it’s worse than anyone might have suspected”, then how could your initial summary of it have been accurate? If you had started off being at all accurate, then what he did actually say would be a surprise to nobody.

                    • Morrissey …
                      4 March 2014 at 7:14 am

                      You’re quibbling again. I was correct in my original assessment, as you know perfectly well. Yes, as you gleefully point out, I left out a couple of words in my hasty first take on that old poseur’s confused and wandery locution, but I got the essence of it just right.

                      I trusted Te Reo to have made a genuine criticism; he let us (and himself) down.

                    • McFlock …
                      4 March 2014 at 1:16 pm

                      Oh fuck, now we’re back to arguing about whether a “transcript” is a record of what was said, or merely the essence of what you believe was said.

                      Your original assessment was “Brian Edwards made the remarkable claim that the United States’ devastating decade of attacking Vietnam was “a good outcome.””.

                      You made that up.

          • Morrissey 20.3.1.1.2
            3 March 2014 at 7:19 pm

            Thanks for that Phillip. I thought that Edwards’ wandery ruminations were along those lines, but I didn’t hear the whole thing. Te Reo has given me pause for thought, though: I shall listen to the transcript our friend has provided and get back to you later.

          • Morrissey 20.3.1.1.3
            3 March 2014 at 7:57 pm

            The only thing I got wrong was I underestimated just how cynical and hypocritical Boag and Edwards are.

            Many years ago, Edwards never tired of telling his listeners and viewers how he hated reading, and almost invariably watched television instead.

            Muddle-headed, ignorant, ill-informed opinionating like he indulged in this afternoon is the result.

    • rhinocrates 20.4
      3 March 2014 at 9:15 pm

      That’s the journey that a lot of privileged liberals take. There are distinct stages:

      Progressivism: “Yeah, I’m against The Man, man.”

      Acclaim: “Thank you, thank you… see, they’re thanking me!”

      Comfort: “We have achieved so much, or I have… mostly me, dare I say it.”

      Smugness: “You must listen to me, I am the elder statesman.”

      Solipsism: “We had a wonderful dinner party last night and my friends agreed with me.”

      Belated attempt to remind people of previous progressive gestures: “I’m cool, remember?”

      Accommodation of reactionary forces in the guise of open-mindedness: “Now you must admit that he has a point and you shouldn’t be rude about him even if he does talk about concentration camps.”

      Support for reactionary authority pretending to be progressivism: “We have to be realistic, even if it is unpleasant, that would be mature, like me.”

      Unashamed reactionary authoritarianism and worship of dictators: “Get off my lawn!”

      Edwards is now at the last stage and Russell Brown is getting pretty close now.

      • North 20.4.1
        3 March 2014 at 10:56 pm

        How about you get off Morrissey’s back McFlock and Te Reo ? Rhinocrates says it second @20.4 basically as Morrissey said it first.

        And as for Edwards’ “……..the outcomes seem to have been pretty good on the whole. ” – by what bloody standard ?

        The standard that the US and its allies raped Vietnam for ‘only’ a decade or so ?

        Or the standard that ‘only’ 3 million plus Vietnamese died rather than say 6 million ?

        Or the standard that maybe not ‘every’ sibling of those I witnessed begging in the street in Ho Chi Minh City has five thumbs ?

        Or the standards of a dotage enjoyed in a wing back chair and carpet slippers and bestie Michelle round for dinner………its warmth and security threatened only by the impending sale of a fucking house ?

        Ah, I’ve got it. It’s the standard that Morrissey is so churlishly beastly that his comments re the revisionist ramblings of the “Waiting for God” duo Edwards/Bogue are just not permitted.

        Check out the name and nature of the blog you both contribute to.

        • McFlock 20.4.1.1
          3 March 2014 at 11:15 pm

          well, I like to see people get shit ripped from them for what they did actually say, rather than what some delusional idiot half-remembers what he believed he heard them almost say.

          Personally, I think north vietnam was probably preferable to south vietnam, especially under diem. But edwards was right about the koreas. And he sure didn’t say that the United States’ devastating decade of attacking Vietnam was “a good outcome.”

          • phillip ure 20.4.1.1.1
            3 March 2014 at 11:40 pm

            yes he did..he said it was ‘a good outcome’..

            ..because vietnam got a united country..(!)

            ..he is almost at the stage of needing a note pinned to his jacket..

            ..to make sure he gets home again..

            ..phillip ure..

            • McFlock 20.4.1.1.1.1
              3 March 2014 at 11:56 pm

              Use your nouns, phil
              “he”?
              “it”?

              Frankly, I disagree with trp’s interpretation, too.
              But edwards was talking about western states’ geopolitical shenenigans as a whole, not declaiming solely about the US in vietnam. Which makes morrissey’s complaint just so much marsh gas.

              • phillip ure …
                4 March 2014 at 6:33 am

                stop squashing yr sentences all up together..

                ..let them breathe..

                ..give each idea its’ own line..

                ..and edwards endorsed all american empire activities since forever..

                ..with vietnam as just one ‘good outcome’ example cited by him..

                ..why are you so nit-pickey all over morrissey..?

                ..do you two + trp have a ‘thing’ going on..or something..?..

                ..have you got a bit of a ‘bad’-complex/obsession with him..?

                ..phillip ure..

                • McFlock …
                  4 March 2014 at 1:18 pm

                  I get fucked off when people are repeatedly careless with the truth. Morrissey is just as bad as BM.

                  There’s enough shit in the world to get angry about without inventing fantasies.

          • Morrissey 20.4.1.1.2
            4 March 2014 at 7:19 am

            If Edwards knew ANYTHING about “the Koreas” he would know something about the United States’ destruction of the country in the early 1950s. The regime that emerged in the devastated north, like the regime that emerged a generation later in Cambodia, is a direct result of American total war.

            But Edwards probably doesn’t know much about Korea at all; he boasts about his dislike and disdain for reading. And ignorant rants like we were subjected to yesterday are the result.

        • Morrissey 20.4.1.2
          4 March 2014 at 7:24 am

          North, these two are on a mission. It doesn’t matter to them what they say, as long as they discredit me. Well, that’s what they intend to do.

          It goes back to their utter fury at being called on their craven support for official black propaganda (i.e., lies) aimed at Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. They have never forgotten that; if supporting an ignorant radio opinionator is tactically necessary, they’ll swallow that slimy dead rat.

          • McFlock 20.4.1.2.1
            4 March 2014 at 1:40 pm

            It’s actually much more simple.
            If your delusional crap goes completely unchallenged, you discredit everyone here by association.

            • Morrissey 20.4.1.2.1.1
              4 March 2014 at 7:39 pm

              It’s actually much more simple.
              If your delusional crap goes completely unchallenged,

              Certainly I have made the odd slip-up with my rush transcripts. But, as proved to be the case yesterday, my initial reaction to them is usually spot on. Yesterday I misguidedly trusted that one of your partners in crime was telling the truth when he claimed that Edwards had not uttered an inane defence of America’s destruction of Korea and Vietnam. I trusted your comrade so much that I even issued a provisional apology to Edwards.

              Of course, as the transcript you provided shows clearly, I was correct, and our friend Te Reo was (unwisely) attempting to be tricky. My provisional apology to that old fool has been revoked.

              In your ideologically charged malice, you choose to portray the odd minor error of transcription as “delusional crap”. There was nothing delusional about my pinging that silly old codger for his depraved and ignorant comments, just as there was nothing delusional about my calling Chris “Haw Haw” Trotter for his windy oratory on behalf of the Florida jury that found Trayvon Martin’s executioner not guilty last year.

              ….you discredit everyone here by association.

              I have discredited YOU, repeatedly. Or perhaps it’s more a case of you discrediting yourself.

              • felix …
                4 March 2014 at 8:32 pm

                Nah, McFlock’s right. You talk a lot of shit and you claim it as fact. It’s a really bad look for the site if no-one calls you on it.

                • Morrissey …
                  5 March 2014 at 5:41 pm

                  Nah, McFlock’s right.

                  No he is not right. He has unwisely waded in over his head yet again, and has been outed as a cynical, conscience-free liar for what must now be something like the twelfth or thirteenth time.* He is an ideologically charged zealot, who is quite happy to say anything at all in an attempt to belittle me. Unfortunately for him, and for his lesser supporters like yourself, he has been systematically shown to be a liar and a pettifogging quibbler so many times now that he has nothing left to offer other than bawling witlessly that anything he doesn’t like is “delusional crap”.

                  You talk a lot of shit and you claim it as fact. It’s a really bad look for the site if no-one calls you on it.

                  Your dismissive and flippant tone does nothing to alter the impression that you are out of your intellectual depth.

                  * Perhaps some Standardista with a little time on his/her hands might like to check on how many occasions poor old McFuck has been keelhauled over the last couple of years.

                  • McFlock …
                    5 March 2014 at 11:59 pm

                    “keelhauled “?
                    sounds like a pwned argument to me.

                    [lprent: Nope. Just a particularly good reason to avoid the dutch navy. In this context more about the gruelling punishment than a peal of victory methinks. ]

                    • McFlock …
                      6 March 2014 at 12:25 pm

                      pity 🙂

                    • Morrissey …
                      6 March 2014 at 7:34 pm

                      “keelhauled “?
                      Yes indeed….
                      https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/2765918976/hE822A324/

                    • McFlock …
                      6 March 2014 at 11:10 pm

                      morrissey, I was aware of the term, you dipshit.

                      I just thought that maybe you were under the delusion that maybe any punishment you’d inflicted upon me was by way of some manner of semantic victory.

                      But maybe you were instead referring to the sheer tedium of dealing with a delusional fuck who provides two different “transcripts” of what was said and then insists that both are completely accurate. Although in that case I still think that the term is somewhat overblown for a blog argument.

                  • felix …
                    6 March 2014 at 6:22 am

                    QED Moz.

                    Not a shred of reasoning or evidence to back up anything in that comment, and nary an example even.

                    Just talking a lot of shit and claiming it as fact.

                    • Morrissey …
                      6 March 2014 at 7:46 am

                      “QED”?

                      You obviously don’t even know what that means. I, and others, have exhaustively and frequently refuted your comments and those of your betters on this board for longer than would be necessary if you had any sense of shame or decency.

                      I note that even after I call you on your vacuous repetition of the “talking shit” reflex—that’s ALL you have to contribute to any discussion, I note—you continue to employ it. That’s more than sad. Standardisti might care to consult a thesaurus and find a more colorful synonym than “loser” to describe this bloke. I just can’t be bothered.

                      Except I WILL say this: our abuse-spraying friend “felix” should not be on the internet, digging ever deeper into his deep hole of shame. He should be in a ditch somewhere, or under a hedge, licking his wounds. The sad thing, though, is that he is too insensate to even recognize what desperate straits he is now in.

                    • felix …
                      6 March 2014 at 8:20 am

                      Yawn. In this instance I used it to mean that you have provided the demonstration for me. You can’t link to a single example of anything you claim.

                      Just talking shit, as usual, and expecting everyone take your word for how omnipotent you are.

                    • Professor Longhair …
                      6 March 2014 at 12:10 pm

                      I see that one “felix” has made quite a duffer of himself recently….

                      “Yawn.”
                      To combat Breen, I would have thought you’d try to match wits with him. “Yawn” indicates that you lack the wherewithal to do anything. Not a compelling start.

                      “In this instance I used it to mean that you have provided the demonstration for me.”
                      You failed to do anything of the sort.

                      “You can’t link to a single example of anything you claim.”
                      Breen has done exactly that, on more occasions than you, certainly, like to recall. A quick Boolean exercise shows that only too clearly.

                      “Just talking shit, as usual…”
                      Again, that’s an abject admission of not only your own lack of wit, but of complete and utter defeat.

                      As Breen did the other day, I warmly commend you to retire behind a hedge somewhere and salve your rather embarrassing wounds.

                    • felix …
                      6 March 2014 at 11:16 pm

                      Doesn’t matter how many logins you use to type the same non-arguments, you’re still just stating opinions as if they were self-evidently true and I still have no interest in responding to your dull insults.

      • phillip ure 20.4.2
        4 March 2014 at 1:49 pm

        one thing i find hilarious about edwards-the-elder is his getting all sniffy/pretentious at anyone suggesting he is a p.r-trout/spinner/master of those dark-arts..as he clearly is..

        ..he so much prefers to be referred to as a ‘media adviser’…eh..?

        ..one persons’ ‘spinner’ is clearly anothers’ ‘media-adviser..

        ..when they look in the mirror..

        ..phillip ure..

  21. CC 21
    3 March 2014 at 5:04 pm

    Email from GENESIS ENERGY received today – just proves they think their customers are really thick!!!

    Dear Customer,

    We’re writing to let you know that your electricity prices are changing and to explain how these changes will affect your energy bill.

    Your bill reflects a variety of costs, including generation and transmission costs, metering charges and our own business costs. Some of these costs we pass on to you such as those from your local network company Wellington Electricity and various industry levies.

    We have recently reviewed our electricity prices in your area and from 6 April 2014 your electricity prices at xx xxxxxx Road, xxxxxxxxx will increase. Our prices have been adjusted to reflect the changing costs outlined above. Details of your new electricity prices are outlined in the Pricing Table below.

    The weighting of the two components of your pricing plan has also changed. The daily fixed charge (the fixed cost of supplying energy to your property) and the variable charge (the cost of electricity you use) have been aligned to better reflect the cost structure used by your network company.

    If you switch plans prior to 6 April 2014 your new plan’s prices will also change on 6 April 2014.

    Our goal is to provide competitive products and services to all our customers. If you would like more information about this price change or have any other questions you can visit genesisenergy.co.nz or please call us on 0800 300 400, Monday to Friday 8.00am to 8.00pm. Alternatively you can email us at customercare@genesisenergy.co.nz.

    Regards

    • bad12 21.1
      3 March 2014 at 5:36 pm

      Yeah the same day petrol is said to have risen in price by 2 cents a liter my power co has also bumped it’s prices by 2 cents a unit…

    • RedBaronCV 21.2
      3 March 2014 at 7:24 pm

      Wellington got a 6.8% rise. After the big storms last year the lines coy said it would need to put up prices to get the cost of the line fixing back. It took 6 days to get power back on in some parts of Berhampore so it doesn’t look like they are doing any maintenance. Owners is just pocketing monoploy cash and I saw somewhere not even paying much in the way of taxes. A complaint to ComCom might be worth it – monopoly gouging by overseas owner perhaps?

  22. bad12 22
    3 March 2014 at 5:39 pm

    News to gush over, the descendants of a former Kings Piss Pot emptier are said to be coming, AND,they are bringing the newest descendant with them,

    You may now indulge in an orgy of suitable gushing and fawning…

  23. Morrissey 23
    3 March 2014 at 6:20 pm

    Drippy ignorant Hollywood “liberal” of the week
    No. 1: JARED LETO

    This guy is a dope. He would do well to read a few books and eschew the gin and coke circuit, from where he obviously draws his ideas….

    http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/jared-leto-oscars-speech-ukraine-venezuela-104161.html?hp=r1

  24. rhinocrates 24
    3 March 2014 at 6:49 pm

    More self-pitying bullshit from Hill-Cone. Apparently she’s the real victim, or so she thinks.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11212559

    Really, does being a thick as shit narcissist a real job requirement there?

  25. karol 25
    3 March 2014 at 6:54 pm

    David Shearer on the Ukraine – so much for UN experience in providing insightful understanding what’s happening there, then?

    • rhinocrates 25.1
      3 March 2014 at 6:58 pm

      Typical banality produced by an intern in Mumblefuck’s office though. I suppose that they can tick a box now.

      Ever want to know why the UN is so ineffective? Because they employ people like Mumblefuck is the answer.

    • Murray Olsen 25.2
      3 March 2014 at 7:51 pm

      Labour, representing US interests since 1945. How can Mumblefuck talk about respecting Ukrainian sovereignty and ignore the $5 billion the seppos spent on promoting the coalition of the disgusting, while pointing the finger at Russia? How long before they’ll be standing beside Abbott, telling Putin to back off?

    • greywarbler 25.3
      3 March 2014 at 9:41 pm

      Golly, we could make a very insightful statement about the Ukraine from a combination of two or three writers here on TS.. I must have a practice and see if I could write a David Shearer type comment that just repeats the truisms and memes around expressed in such an objective way.

    • Poission 25.4
      7 March 2014 at 12:58 am

      Given the seriousness of the situation we support the withdrawal of Tim Groser from negotiations over the free trade agreement with Russia.

      Given the seriousness of the situation the US will not stop importing weapon’s grade plutonium from Russia (albeit used for generation),or stop importing the rocket engines that support the heavy lift capability for Military,and surveillance satellites on Platforms such as ATLAS 5.

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