Open mike 04/03/2010

24 comments on “Open mike 04/03/2010 ”

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1. Janice 1

   4 March 2010 at 8:27 am

   I am heartily sick of everything that happens in New Zealand being compared to what is happening Australia. It feels like some magician asking people to look over there and miss the sleight of hand happening under their noses. I even heard Steven Joyce comparing our youth road fatalities negatively with Auz to justify more draconian laws against young drivers. Every time one of these tricksters says that all our best and brightest will go to Auz if we don’t do (whatever their latest rort is), I think that if I considered myself one of the best or brightest what would wonder what I was still doing here? I am trying to think of a term to cover this fixation but can only come up with tax or mineral envy, but then I am still here so I am obviously not one of the best or brightest.
   • r0b 1.1

     4 March 2010 at 8:46 am

     I am heartily sick of everything that happens in New Zealand being compared to what is happening Australia.

     Me too. However, having made it a defining issue in the last election, National need to be hung with it.

     It feels like some magician asking people to look over there and miss the sleight of hand

     There’s a lot of that going on!
   • prism 1.2

     4 March 2010 at 9:12 am

     Janice I think the Wizard of Oz syndrome might be a good term. In Dorothy’s story he was an ordinary guy trying to make decisions and backing them up with smoke and mirrors. Our politicians would love us to fall for this keeping up with Australia as it turns us many degrees from our real object, that is looking at ourselves and doing the best we can to meet our own needs.

     But let’s follow what everyone else does is the call, despite the cost of advisors and the work that our own academicians do. We definitely should look at what ‘overseas’ does, see its efficacy, and then make our own useful policy.
     • Bill 1.2.1

       4 March 2010 at 10:18 am

       Can you imagine every policy or stat in France being compared with the same in Belgium…or Holland?

       Of course not. ( Maybe a pan European standard though)

       Now, can you imagine every policy or stat in NZ being compared with the same in Samoa..or Fiji?

       Nope.

       How about Scandinavia then? Or Chile or Argentina perhaps? Chile could be a good marker given its neo liberal experiment. So could Britain I guess.

       But heres the unspoken bottom line. NZ consists of far too many poor wee Polynesian whities who feel lost in a brown, brown sea…

       “But wait!, they exclaim. Over there in Terra Nullius they be white..So lets compare to them and strive to be just like them and then we will never have to embrace the reality of being Polynesian!

       Hell, we can even claim Europeaness in our official forms…that’s white too! So we can be white Australasian Europeans in Polynesia (although we won’t mention that last bit too often…too brown) And we can have Maori mates! Cause we’re not racist. Not us.”

       “Now look here! We compare to Australia only because it is geographically the closest comparable society…of course we don’t ask why two societies on opposite side of the world from where their dominant cultures originated should be so bloody similar in the face of the massively divergent indigenous cultures that flourished before ‘discovery’. And anyway, we’re not the same. Those Aussies are bloody racist!”
       • Draco T Bastard 1.2.1.1

         4 March 2010 at 5:43 pm

         We don’t have any culture because:

         A) We haven’t imported enough from the US/Europe/Australia
         B) We haven’t developed any yet, but, once we copy US/Europe/Australia we’ll have lots of it
         C) We ignoring all the culture that’s already here because it’s not from US/Europe/Australia
2. vto 2

   4 March 2010 at 8:54 am

   I see that Benson-Pope has been made an RMA commissioner in Dunedin. Lordy lordy why do these types always gravitate to and end up in positions like these?

   A man of deception making decisions about peoples lives like this appears to be not good at all. He always appeared to be the type to be vindicative and the like. I do despair at times … …

   Please reassure me that this si not the case with this man, all you Labourites, for the sake of the good people of Dunnos.
   • r0b 2.1

     4 March 2010 at 9:01 am

     A man of deception making decisions about peoples lives like this appears to be not good at all

     Do you pay much attention to politics vto? We have a man of deception as our PM at the moment.

     Please reassure me that this si not the case with this man, all you Labourites, for the sake of the good people of Dunnos.

     I’m sure the residents of the Jewel of the Arctic can take perfectly good care of themselves! Very sensible people down there, both Dunedin MPs are Labour if I recall…
3. oz is not nz 3

   4 March 2010 at 9:33 am

   Australia is very very large.
   New Zealand is very very small.

   Australia has many millions
   New Zealand has only four

   Australia is full of lands the public never see,
   New Zealand’s being smaller aren’t destroyed so easily

   but if you think the game is good
   and mining should win out

   then please just leave New Zealand
   we will gladly do without
4. dave brown 4

   4 March 2010 at 10:20 am

   About turn for prominent conservative educator against “No Child Left Behind” fad.
   Proves yet again that NZ is tailing the radical right in the US down the path of more market when the market is only kept alive by huge transfusions from the wages and living standards of the working people.
   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?ref=us
5. Killinginthenameof 5

   4 March 2010 at 10:21 am

   So, to all you who support raising GST to 15%, why not 50%?
   • vto 5.1

     4 March 2010 at 10:23 am

     So, to all you who supported raising the top income tax rate to 39%, why not 79%?

     sheesh
     • Bill 5.1.1

       4 March 2010 at 10:32 am

       To discourage the psychotic pursuit of money for money’s sake, a 79% rate sounds fine (UB recipients get taxed at 80% on anything over $80 gross at the moment, so it’s not so unusual).

       But 79% shouldn’t be the top rate. The top rate should be 100%. That way, the incentive for ripping people off and paying no heed to the environmental or human impacts of your money making is gone. After a certain point, the naked truth of what you do is sheeted home with no amount of money available to bribe your conscience with.
       • vto 5.1.1.1

         4 March 2010 at 10:46 am

         Money money money. Your obsession with your perception of others approach to ‘money’ is, lets say, interesting. Betcha you have never made much, which is why you have no concept of anything of any relevance.
         • Bill 5.1.1.1.1

           4 March 2010 at 11:32 am

           I have no obsession at all with my perception of others’ approach to money.

           I was commenting on the psychotic pursuit of money for money’s sake. It’s a real phenomenon. Some people have more money than they know what to do with and just keep accumulating for the sake of accumulating. It’s an illness.

           Interesting that you believe the closer one approaches such a state ( or are you just referring to an unquantified level of material wealth?) coincides with ones ability to conceive reality.

           There is some logic underpinning your claim? Thought not.
       • vto 5.1.1.2

         4 March 2010 at 10:51 am

         Actually, Bill, there is a stronger argument for tax rates to drop as incomes rise.
         • Bill 5.1.1.2.1

           4 March 2010 at 11:33 am

           Really? Go on then. All ears.
     • Killinginthenameof 5.1.2

       4 March 2010 at 10:53 am

       That sounds like a good idea, if we raise the upper tax rate, then people will have to work longer hours to make as much money, therefore more work will get done.
6. Jum 6

   4 March 2010 at 10:27 am

   Lord Ashcroft – would he have something to do with Key’s plans to create what sounds to me like a money-laundering business in NZ? He’s under fire in UK. for not paying tax. Here, he’s a bloody hero!

   Obviously, a strategic game plan and Ashcroft stands to gain residency here from Key and a role in administering the euphemistically termed ‘financial services hub’ which has ‘grabbed the imagination’ according to Key’s No 1 fan Fran O’Sullivan. I remember Fay and Richwhite, Brierley’s etc not only grabbing the imagination in the 80s and 90s but also most of our assets.

   There are thousands of businesses operating in NZ with nameplates but no public faces. We are so naive here concerning the financial scams of the world. Yet we happily vote in a moneytrader to welcome them through the portal from the underworld.

   Key, the moneytrader who helped a client make a speculative run on the NZ dollar – scary futures trading I see ahead.
   • Bill 6.1

     4 March 2010 at 10:41 am

     How do we know that credit swap or/and whatever ‘arrangements’ haven’t already been entered in to?

     If they have, would there be any way of knowing or finding out?

     And if it’s possible for a NZ government to dabble in these packages and deals, what are the chances that John Boy hasn’t?

     When and how do you cash these bets in? How much gain/loss are we talking and how is he hoping to fund his unaffordable tax promises?
7. Jum 7

   4 March 2010 at 12:50 pm

   Did I hear right just then on Radio New Zealand; pigs welfare code awaits submissions until 16 April then 3 months plus to analyse the submissions, before reporting back because this government wants to keep cruel farming practices going for as long as possible.

   With the 3rd bill we had submissions until 12 Feb, select hearings for 2 odd weeks and then reporting back on 4 May, or earlier according to one of the officials.

   When this government wants to delay something like getting rid of farrowing crates, they can listen forever. When this government wants to rush something through that removes all sorts of people’s rights and riches it just takes a snap of JKeyll and Hide’s fingers.
8. walter 8

   4 March 2010 at 1:41 pm

   A statistical study has found that higher intelligence is associated with liberal political ideology and atheism. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science has found that-

   “Young adults who subjectively identify themselves as ‘very liberal’ have an average IQ of 106 during adolescence, while those who identify themselves as ‘very conservative’ have an average IQ of 95 during adolescence’

   “Young adults who identify themselves as ‘not at all religious’ have an average IQ of 103 during adolescence, while those who identify themselves as ‘very religious’ have an average IQ of 97 during adolescence.’

   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm
9. ak 9

   4 March 2010 at 3:01 pm

   By crikey. So the more intelligent choose progressive policies? Jingoes. Who’d have thought it after looking at NACT parties personnel and right-wing bloggers?
10. Jan 10

    4 March 2010 at 10:23 pm

    A mighty oak has fallen. Michael Foot former British Labour Party Leader and Deputy PM has died at 96. He was first elected as an MP in the successful post 2WW Labour Government and was in Parliament until 1992. He was a true radical, pro-trade union and supportive of the Campaign for Nuclear Department. He was a prolific author including under the pseudonym of Cato and a sometime journalist for the Tribune left wing magazine.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/03/michael-foot-appreciation-michael-white

Links to post

1. Listening to the evidence on national standards « The Standard: posted on 5 March 2010 at 7:45 am

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