I am truly trying to understand left wing thinking when it comes to negative outcomes of left wing ideals.. I get the impression that many lefties don’t acknowledge any culpability from negative results of leftist policies.
I post my example from yesterday again to see if someone can explain why sugar production in Venezuela has fallen so dramatically after it was nationalised in the early 2000’s. This is not just a one off event that can be explained by the effect of drought. It was a sustained declined over a period of years. Why couldn’t Venezuela keep sugar production at the levels it was when it was largely controlled privately?
The only explanation I have been given so far is that it is related to the fall in the price in oil or sanctions imposed by the US. That doesn’t seem to make sense given that the sugar is for domestic consumption and therefore both those things would have made it more attractive to produce locally rather than import.
I’m struggling to understand the cognitive dissonance of the left wing mind set. I can quite easily accept the negative outcomes of right wing policies.
The elephant graph posted by Anthony Robins today is an example of that. Free trade has negative consequences for a sector of society and public policy needs to take account of that. However I have never seen any acknowledgment from left wingers that policies they support also have negative consequences.
The situation in Venezuela is entirely predictable in terms of outcomes economically. If you reduce private sector involvement and increase public sector participation in the provision of goods and services the right wing economic viewpoint is that you retard production. This us what has happened. However I suspect accepting this self evident truth is too much more many lefties (like Draco for example). They will attempt to deflect the cause to other areas. I find that fascinating.
You are fascinated by what you believe to be “left wing” thought and you struggle to understand it. As a consequence you demand that thinkers from that field explain themselves to you.
Truly. Fascinating.
I challenge left wingers to explain outcomes which can be attributed directly to the ideals they expouse (i.e greater involvement of State and workers in control of production). Are you stating thus is not a key ideal of the left?
I challenged you to demonstrate that any of that rote-learned lazy tripe you call an argument has a basis in reality. With references, to support your assertion of “attributed directly”, for example.
Otherwise, why should anyone answer your loaded questions, mendacity boy?
*yawn* after all this time pasting TS with Venezuela and not actually gaining any understanding of political thought on this site, there’s bugger all anyone can do to enlighten you now.
Anyways, you say Venezuela, I say Honduras. I doubt many want either extreme.
No he’s not, those don’t interrupt the global flow of goods, y’see, and of course they wouldn’t have had lives even that good under a non-capitalist regime.
There are examples in NZ of shortages caused by free market policies. Try housing.
See Gos the problem with the free market is that in it you only need a willing buyer and a willing seller for the free market to have the illusion of working.
Bob Jones buys a private jet. you have just shown the free market works. But you dont see the market adjusting so everyone can have a private jet do you.
Sure ridiculous example but it can be applied to any part and any level of society.
You can have a Kebab shop that has 1000 customers and as such the kebab shop can stay open and in business. Yet at the same time you could have 100000 people who cannot afford a kebab.
Shortage does not always need to relate to supply. it can relate to a persons ability to overcome the barrier of price in order to be able to obtain the desired product or service and for an individual or section of society who cant afford it there is a shortage and as such they may as well have been living in the soviet union just perior to its collapse because for them the outcome is the same.
A good system would enable every single person to meet their essential basic needs as a bare minimum. A shit system won’t even be able to do that. The free market doesnt do that. But you go on defending your shitty system if you can’t think any bigger or broader than it.
you suspect vs taking a look at examples of the principle I outlined in pretty much every single so called first world country.
You champion a system that is so poor it cannot provide essential basic needs for everyone.
Your in telligent In Vino I’ll give you that but your very entrenched in the current system.
Without being able to check the “replies” column is creating a few problems. Not complaining as such because lprent does a magnificent job but the sooner we get it back the better. 😕
Edit: I know we can access immediately after leaving a comment but that’s not always convenient. We all have other lives.
Which particular “left wing ideals” led to this particular outcome Gosman? I’m truly interested in your in-depth detailed analysis, with multiple references and an attempt to asses what bias if any they may contain, showing:
1. That you can accurately summarise left wing ideals and,
2. That your argument has any basis.
Please, I’m truly, sincerely interested in “your” “opinion”.
Do you disagree that the State in Venezuela has encourage greater worker control and State ownership of industry and that is (or at least used to be) a key element if left wing economic theory?
As I stated above, right wing economic thinking suggests the outcome from following such a path is usually reduced quality and/or quantity of goods and services. This is exactly what has occured in Venezuela (and lots of other countries).
I don’t know much if anything about Venezuela, and you tell too many lies for me to take your word for it, so that’s why I asked for multiple references.
Your dismissal of US interference, for example, indicates that you believe it had no effect on Venezuela’s economy. I don’t believe you, and you’re doing a very very shit job of persuading me or indeed, putting up any argument whatsoever.
I have provided numerous source on Venezuela even from a left wing perspective (Venezuelananaalysis). Are you disputing any if the facts that have been put forward such as the decline in domestic Sugar production? I would be quite willing to investigate US interference if you can explain how it is meant to impact production of goods and services within Venezuela in industries largely controlled by the State. Explain a mechanism that allows the US to influence that and I’ll look to see if that is the case.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand. the right makes unemployment and homelessness. No wonder you want to talk about sugar production in a falling global market.
I’m not reading your source until you meet the requirements I laid out in 1.2: write an in-depth detailed multi-referenced analysis that demonstrates why the assertions in your loaded questions are true.
You would certainly have to show how what happens in Venezuela relates to Green and Labour policies in New Zealand, for example.
Remind me what part of “Socialism” involves one person making all the decisions. It’s sad that you just blew over your own house of cards. I suppose I can always enjoy the schadenfreude 😈
Read your second sentence (The first should have been 2 sentences..)
It makes no sense at all. Try to explain it in real English, please. ‘Medium’ is singular, and how does control of ‘medium’ go to large business etc etc??
Who are the first ‘they’ in your third mangled sentence (oil prices?), and maybe you could confirm that the second ‘they’ refers to oil prices?
By the way, it was USA fracking that caused oil prices to fall. But you are one of those who denies any kind of US sabotage, aren’t you?
Hi Gos
Can you please explain what is happening in US politics right now when right wingers have voted in Trump to lead them and his party are trying their best to oust him? A lengthy analysis would be welcome. Cheers
Largely irrelevant in the context of domestic production for a domestic market. Why can’t Venezuelan producers of sugar do so cheaper than foreign producers?
Please post a link to a graph that compares Venezuelan domestic sugar prices with global prices over the period 1950 – 2016.
Then, provide an in-depth detailed multi-referenced analysis of sugar production, its history and methods, both globally and in Venezuela, so that I can put your assertions in context while I think about them.
He is challenging group think on this site The response to challenging sacred lefty dogma with empirical observation highlights the religious zealotry and hate held by many here to any challenge to such dogma The right in turn are a lot more comfortable to ideas been challenged without the tantrums
Why can’t Venezuelan producers of sugar do so cheaper than foreign producers?
Perhaps the owners of the Venezuelan sugar cooperatives have decided that while up to 69% of sugar cane workers in other producer nations are affected by Chronic Kidney Disease, it’s not for them.
I hear the Philippines is importing sugar this year too. I guess the Coca Cola factories in Venezuela (ironic that the symbol of American affluence is produced there) aren’t importing from there.
It may be due to a move from “sweated labour” to improved working conditions. Or fewer workers wanting to work in the sugar fields when better jobs were available elsewhere.
Yep, Sugar is so good for you Gosman. I too am deeply concerned, but more about what concerns the right wing mindset. Worrying about sugar exports and I believe our very own government is deeply worried about luggage at present….
When are you going to own up about the toilet paper Gosman?
Seriously every time you open your mouth about Venezuela I just think you are talking a load of rubbish.
You lied for weeks about the toilet paper issue, and when it was pointed out that the supermarkets artificially created a crisis around toilet paper, you said nothing?
So to answer you question – why do right wingers lie and cheat the system, then blame the left for it?
My God……I hear your frustration Adam but remember……it’s not your fault that Gosman’s a twisted lying zealot with not a care for the world……aside from the miniscule and putrid part of it he inhabits. I mean who the fuck would regularly get on a more or less left wing blog and spiel such cruelty as moral gospel ? That’s a head that needs seeing to in my book. Poor man. Pity the people he/she lives with……if any.
Maybe a shift to stevia production could be better long term move for Venezuela. Stevia is grown in Brazil and Paraguay so may do ok in Venezuela. Getting rid of Coke is probably a positive change for Venezuela and the health of its citizens.
You are aware that simply because they don’t produce the product locally doesn’t mean they aren’t buying it aren’t you? They are importing it from other countries instead. This is costing them precious foreign exchange which they lack.
Gosman you are a bore. If you can’t do your own delving into USA overt and covert interference in central and southern American economies then go back to burying your head in the sand .
No, I challenge you to explain how US interference could lead to a catastrophic drop in production of sugar (amongst other products).
Your argument would be like stating the reason the USSR failed was because of US interference. There is a element of truth that the US was undermining the Soviet Union but the system itself was at fault for its eventual collapse.
Well, it cracked under the pressure of an arms race imposed by a technologically superior USA. But the fairy tale is that Capitalism is just so much better. No mention of the inconvenient fact that all the rich countries have been capitalist, and that no heavily industrialised, rich country has tried anything else, unless you go downscale to include Scandinavian countries small enough and isolated enough not to face that ire of American Capitalism in the way that Cuba, Chile, and Venezuela have had to do, along with others…
I have just watched the most appalling ever attempt on Q&A to politically assassinate Labour’s leader, Andrew Little. So much so that someone, somewhere, needs to publicly condemn TV1 for what was clearly a premeditated and politically motivated attempt to discredit him.
The panel guests consisted of Bryce Edwards, Phil Quin and Heather Roy. The subject matter… Nick Leggett. There was no attempt to explain what happened or what Little said – or why. Instead the public was subjected to a long rant from Phil Quin (which was why he was invited in the first place) about a restaurant dinner in Auckland where he and Nick Leggott spoke to the people gathered. Yeah… he talked about American politics – nothing else – and we weren’t told what Leggett spoke about but we can guess. According to Quin it was all an imagined conspiracy on Little’s part, but no-one (other than beltway types) would have known what he was talking about except that… Andrew Little is a really bad guy and so is the Labour Party.
The most telling moment was when Bryce Edwards tried to add his contribution – which I suspect was going to bring some semblance of balance to the discussion – but he was cut off by the host (whose name escapes me) and on came some ads. But not before a surprised Edwards let out an “aaagh” of frustration. Deliberate? You bet!
You should do a Broadcastings Standards complaint Anne.
I didn’t see it but it is very clearly lacking in balance with a panel like that. Roy is from ACT, Quin has been criticising Labour for decades now, wanting a return to the Rogernomics era. In the 1990s he tried to organise a coup against Helen Clark and Bryce Edwards is, at best, centrist. There should have been someone who could argue Labour’s position to meet the requirements of the act.
Been down that road Karen. Took Q&A to the BSA over their handling of the Hobbit dispute – must have been around 2010/11. It was a total sham. They made it about Helen Kelly (who received a drubbing on the programme in question) and said she was… quite capable of looking after herself.
My complaint had nothing to do with Helen Kelly as a person and whether she could look after herself. As if I would presume to be an arbiter of someone like Helen Kelly’s personal character anyway. Yes, I took the stinging rebuke personally, and just hoped that Helen Kelly (who I don’t personally know) did not buy their nonsense.
I agree your complaint may not be upheld but it may make TVNZ be a bit more careful next time. They hate having to spend time justifying themselves to the BSA.
This is just the start. The whole MSM are at it.
But like they were always assuring us that no one outside the Wellington beltway cares about National’s dirty deeds like the Saudi sheep saga, the Panama Papers, homelessness, dodgy steel, etc etc etc – this time it may backfire, because nobody outside the Wellington beltway truly cares about the Nash/Leggett/Little conflict.
The funniest thing is that the panel reckoned Little should have been talking about “Nick Smith not Nick Leggat”, apparently he opened his stand up doing exactly that.
But this is very clearly a beltway issue, its a shame Q&A have picked it up because they’ve been doing some excellent shows lately, imho.
This now is starting to look like an orchestrated beat up. Who is behind it? It was gallery journalists who brought up the topic when questioning Little so someone has primed them Quin? Pagani? Leggett? My guess is Quin.
Shame that so many gallery journalists have swallowed this.
You know I’m going back donkeys’ years like 40 when a minor ‘journalist’ in Wellington said to me “Well how can Norman Kirk control a country when he can’t even control his own weight?” and then another household name journalist Spiro Zavos said to me when challeneged about the legalities of racist South African rugby tours……”I’ve done Legal System” (the Law 101 at Vic’ at the time).
I have to say this. Our ‘jonolists’ being intellectually and socially pretty much nothing, cannot be trusted other than to pos’ themselves so as to lick the arse of power. In the expectation of being rewarded for it. By the arses they lick. And then they get ‘oh so up their own arses’ when it seems to work. Trev’ of the Hearld for example, junketing with Key.
They are basically very poor examples of humanity. To a man and a woman not very bright. Otherwise they would have done ‘Law’. Not that the rote shit of ‘Law’ speaks of bright. We are so ill-served by the media.
They are such wannabees. And double-shotters. Saw Duncan Garner and his production man I guess, all skinny jeans and florid shirts and RM Williams boots disporting themselves in McDonalds in Wellsford 7.00 am one morning. Talking loud, musing loud, “look at me look at me” Fuck ! what cheapies. In Kaikohe they mighta’ got a well deserved hiding for being so up-themselves waha’.
Chuck, Jason Ede ran a Dirty Politics “black ops team alpha 2 bravo” from John Keys office, tax payer funded dirty tricks where he had access to secret SIS files (for PMs eyes only!) where he had a network of complacent journos & bloggers to smear the opposition & manipulate the last few elections. So there is form of state sponsored smearing & you seemingly support it?
Ann has just posted this below “I noted some comments from Quin the other day about some very, very nasty stuff doing the rounds about him after he left Labour. How did he know it came from L.P. members?”
My guess… all 3 of them – Quin, Pagani and Leggett. Josie loves hanging out with TV celebrities and Gallery types. They are happy to oblige her for tidbits from the enemy camp – Labour. Since I doubt she’s still a member (certainly not an active one) she doesn’t actually know anything of worth.
I noted some comments from Quin the other day about some very, very nasty stuff doing the rounds about him after he left Labour. How did he know it came from L.P. members? If there was anything it was confined to the Wellington beltway. Never heard a whisper in Auckland. Have my doubts it was as serious as he’s making out, but all good with which to bash Labour over the head.
This Gorman reminds me of ShonKey…… Ask him to put up some evidence , and he goes off on to some other blah mindless drivel….. Key does it to use up media airtime….. Sounds good and confident, but no substance….. And certainly no answer.
Sunday morning, I’ll take a look at The Standard for a while, to see what interesting topics are being discussed there…what’s this? Some person named “Gosman” is demanding we answer questions on his chosen topic! How quaint he is! How petulant and righteous he acts when people point to his churlish behaviour.
Other threads, thankfully, are not infested with his pabulum. I’m look to those.
I started a business 10 years ago this November. I started it because I wanted to generate passive income. I wanted enoughy passive income so that I could as much as possible live the life I want to live. It is my life afterall.
To make this happen there are others who work for me. For many years and still to this day they have been paid and I have not.
If I could I would generatew enough passive income and put in place enough automation so that those working for me no longer had to work unecessarily eaither and could then live the life that they each in turn would like to live.
The realisation I came to and the reason I am wqriting this is that in my view every single person should have passive income. Every person should be ( in a good system…. one designed to work for us ) able to live the life they want to live.
Each person should be able to meet their essential basic needs for themselves and their family. Our system doesnt enable this. People are run ragged and in talking to those in the community the one thing everyone lacks is time.
Time is the other thing that is required for me and you and everyone else to be able to live the life that we would like to live. Whatever that life may be and yours will differ from mine and thats ok.
Having passive income that is enough to live on gives you time also. Time so that you can live the life you want to live.
In living the lives we want to live we currently have to work to earn money in order to survive let alone be able to live the life we want to live. So before we can do that we have two barrieres we need to overcome under the current system. We need to make money for ourselves (enough to live the life we want to live) and before we can do that we need a job of some description.
A system that enables humans or in other words a good system does not put in place barriers. In facrt it seeks to remove them.
Having an entire system where everyone has passive income removes those barriers.
We then have a system that enables each and everyone of us and gives us the time to life the lives we each would like to live.
In our current system their are limited options to enable this to happen and each of them is a barrier to having a system of passive income so each of these should not be used but an entirely new and different way found to enable a better system.
The current options are
tax and redistribute wealth – somewhat illogical if you are changing the system to one that gives people money. Why would you take it from some in the first place besides this only gives those it is being taken from a reason to vote against it.
Increase debt to pay for it. We struggle to pay for essential services such as health and education as it is and we have the highest debt our nation has ever had. It is also counter intuitive to a system designed to give people money to enable them to live the life they want top live. Debt forces people rto work not because the work is rewquired and needs to be done for society, No it requires work top be done to earn money to pay back the debt. It is enslavement by debt so again not a good option.
Printing money well this simply in the current system devalues the currency and reduces purchasaing power so not necessarily a good option either at lewast not within the current currency markets.
Nobody said we had to have a debt based monetary system and if having one enslaves people at a time where there are going to be less jobs available therough technological automation then perhaps we should be looking at the same technological automation to replace thew debt based monetary system with one that generates passive income for everyone and enables us all to have time and to be able to live the life we eaxch woulsd like to live. Not only for us but for every single generation that comes after us.
Participation sounds egalitarian, but it leads to some interesting contradictions. The most elaborate camps and spectacles tend to be brought by the rich because they have the time, the money, or both, to do so. Wealthier attendees often pay laborers to build and plan their own massive (and often exclusive) camps. If you scan San Francisco’s Craigslist in the month of August, you’ll start to see ads for part-time service labor gigs to plump the metaphorical pillows of wealthy Burners.
The rich also hire sherpas to guide them around the festival and wait on them at the camp. Some burners derogatorily refer to these rich person camps as “turnkey camps.”
And yet the festival thrives despite these aberrations. The people who go truly come in all shapes, sizes and agendas. It’s inevitable there will be contradictions and tensions. With in excess of 60,000 people in one place, it’s far too big to experience the whole of it in the time you are there.
But the point is that for just one week, many people get to live an alternative way of experiencing the world … and that alone energises them.
how about a worker owned business, organised along burning man/permaculture principles, looking to transfer to a sharing economy?
less about $ (although they are handy), but stronger in building communities, bringing together the like minded and showing a powerful positive example of cooperation.
You gotta love Iceland. First they tell the global banking system to fuck off, then the world’s first lesbian PM … and now this:
One of Europe’s most radical political parties is expected to gain its first taste of power after Iceland’s ruling coalition and opposition agreed to hold early elections caused by the Panama Papers scandal in October.
The Pirate party, whose platform includes direct democracy, greater government transparency, a new national constitution and asylum for US whistleblower Edward Snowden, will field candidates in every constituency and has been at or near the top of every opinion poll for over a year.
As befits a movement dedicated to reinventing democracy through new technology, it also aims to boost the youth vote by persuading the company developing Pokémon Go in Iceland to turn polling stations into Pokéstops.
I can see another Turkey event here – with outside interests stoking unrest. Heaven forbid that a country would offer Edward Snowden asylum and direct democracy, that’s never going to happen – to close to the US and his sphere of interest. Fun times ahead for the plucky Iceland. Would that we could grow some cajones and do something similar..
The USA still has a base on the North East of Iceland I think. They will have an interest in politics!
Icelanders think that the name Iceland is a bit strange since Iceland is a very green country yet Greenland is almost totally covered in snow and therefore be better called Iceland.
And yes Iceland has people-power and holds their money players accountable. A model for us?
People may have heard of the “Alt-right”, championed by the likes of the racist troll Milo Yiannopoulos. It’s a mish-mash of reactionary conservatism (of the Gamergate variety), right-wing libertarianism, “meritocracy” and neoliberalism that inevitably metasizes into oligarchism and adulation of dictatorship.
It’s apparently rife among the tech industries and attracts many who at one stage might have described themselves as liberal. I’ve a few friends from Europe old enough to remember the first time around…
Hi Poisson, that link helps to explain how aspartame, phenolanylin(?) etc got into the food system.
‘Sabbaticals’ for executives between Monsanto and the fda.
I’ve just got into my Jim-Jams – the ones with the little WWI RAF and Fokker biplanes all over them – I’m now in the process of running upstairs to comb my hair and brush my teeth and then I’ll be tucked up in bed, with tears streaming down my cheeks.
Tomorrow, I might have a bit of a tantrum when I’m in the Supermarket, lying on my back, kicking my feet up in the air. Manager will no doubt come over and ask sympathetically: “Oh now, what’s upsetting ya, young fella, eh ???”. Between all the crying and sobbing, all I’ll be able to blurt out is “Colmar Brunton, No Colmar Brunton !!!”.
i’ve had half a day with a lap top refusing to pick up wifi i was bloody close to tantrum time my self , fortunately for me one of the many icons or buttons i pushed did the trick, buggered i know which one though.
An instant analysis from Climate Nexus refers to today’s Louisiana rainstorm as a “classic signal of climate change.” It’s right. The NWS maintains a statistical database used to calculate the “annual exceedance probability” of a given rainfall event — basically, the expected frequency this event would occur in any given year.
Today’s rainstorm in Louisiana is at least the eighth 500-year rainfall event across America in little more than a year, including similarly extreme downpours in Oklahoma last May, central Texas (twice: last May and last October), South Carolina last October, northern Louisiana this March, West Virginia in June, and Maryland last month.
“Remember when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to help “fix” Newark’s public schools? In 2010, Zuckerberg — perhaps hoping to improve his image after his callous depiction in biopic The Social Network — donated $100 million to Newark’s education system to overhaul Newark schools.
The money was directed as a part of then–Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s plan to remake the city into the “charter school capital of the nation,” bypassing public oversight through partnership with private philanthropists.
Traditionally, public education has been interwoven with the democratic process: in a given school district, the community elects the school board every few years. School boards then make public decisions and deliberations. Zuckerberg’s donation, and the project it was attached to, directly undermined this democratic process by promoting an agenda to privatize public schools, destroy local unions, disempower teachers, and put the reins of public education into the hands of technocrats and profiteers.”
Well, you have to have the right people running the shop.
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Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
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I am truly trying to understand left wing thinking when it comes to negative outcomes of left wing ideals.. I get the impression that many lefties don’t acknowledge any culpability from negative results of leftist policies.
I post my example from yesterday again to see if someone can explain why sugar production in Venezuela has fallen so dramatically after it was nationalised in the early 2000’s. This is not just a one off event that can be explained by the effect of drought. It was a sustained declined over a period of years. Why couldn’t Venezuela keep sugar production at the levels it was when it was largely controlled privately?
The only explanation I have been given so far is that it is related to the fall in the price in oil or sanctions imposed by the US. That doesn’t seem to make sense given that the sugar is for domestic consumption and therefore both those things would have made it more attractive to produce locally rather than import.
http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-venezuela-imports-20160809-snap-story.html
Truly, I am. Truly.
I’m struggling to understand the cognitive dissonance of the left wing mind set. I can quite easily accept the negative outcomes of right wing policies.
The elephant graph posted by Anthony Robins today is an example of that. Free trade has negative consequences for a sector of society and public policy needs to take account of that. However I have never seen any acknowledgment from left wingers that policies they support also have negative consequences.
The situation in Venezuela is entirely predictable in terms of outcomes economically. If you reduce private sector involvement and increase public sector participation in the provision of goods and services the right wing economic viewpoint is that you retard production. This us what has happened. However I suspect accepting this self evident truth is too much more many lefties (like Draco for example). They will attempt to deflect the cause to other areas. I find that fascinating.
You are fascinated by what you believe to be “left wing” thought and you struggle to understand it. As a consequence you demand that thinkers from that field explain themselves to you.
Truly. Fascinating.
I challenge left wingers to explain outcomes which can be attributed directly to the ideals they expouse (i.e greater involvement of State and workers in control of production). Are you stating thus is not a key ideal of the left?
I challenged you to demonstrate that any of that rote-learned lazy tripe you call an argument has a basis in reality. With references, to support your assertion of “attributed directly”, for example.
Otherwise, why should anyone answer your loaded questions, mendacity boy?
*yawn* after all this time pasting TS with Venezuela and not actually gaining any understanding of political thought on this site, there’s bugger all anyone can do to enlighten you now.
Anyways, you say Venezuela, I say Honduras. I doubt many want either extreme.
Do you have evidence of serious shortages in Honduras caused by free market policies? If so I will have a look.
Getting specific aren’t you? Not at all interested in widespread poverty, societal breakdown and murders of environmentalists at all?
No he’s not, those don’t interrupt the global flow of goods, y’see, and of course they wouldn’t have had lives even that good under a non-capitalist regime.
Or so the right wing tell themselves.
+1
There are examples in NZ of shortages caused by free market policies. Try housing.
See Gos the problem with the free market is that in it you only need a willing buyer and a willing seller for the free market to have the illusion of working.
Bob Jones buys a private jet. you have just shown the free market works. But you dont see the market adjusting so everyone can have a private jet do you.
Sure ridiculous example but it can be applied to any part and any level of society.
You can have a Kebab shop that has 1000 customers and as such the kebab shop can stay open and in business. Yet at the same time you could have 100000 people who cannot afford a kebab.
Shortage does not always need to relate to supply. it can relate to a persons ability to overcome the barrier of price in order to be able to obtain the desired product or service and for an individual or section of society who cant afford it there is a shortage and as such they may as well have been living in the soviet union just perior to its collapse because for them the outcome is the same.
A good system would enable every single person to meet their essential basic needs as a bare minimum. A shit system won’t even be able to do that. The free market doesnt do that. But you go on defending your shitty system if you can’t think any bigger or broader than it.
I suspect there is a serious shortage of proper democratic lifestyle, but your blinkered market mentality won’t recognise such a thing, will it?
you suspect vs taking a look at examples of the principle I outlined in pretty much every single so called first world country.
You champion a system that is so poor it cannot provide essential basic needs for everyone.
Your in telligent In Vino I’ll give you that but your very entrenched in the current system.
Coffee, I was replying to Goosey Gosman. Your well-written comment sneaked in before mine. I have no argument with what you wrote.
Without being able to check the “replies” column is creating a few problems. Not complaining as such because lprent does a magnificent job but the sooner we get it back the better. 😕
Edit: I know we can access immediately after leaving a comment but that’s not always convenient. We all have other lives.
Which particular “left wing ideals” led to this particular outcome Gosman? I’m truly interested in your in-depth detailed analysis, with multiple references and an attempt to asses what bias if any they may contain, showing:
1. That you can accurately summarise left wing ideals and,
2. That your argument has any basis.
Please, I’m truly, sincerely interested in “your” “opinion”.
Do you disagree that the State in Venezuela has encourage greater worker control and State ownership of industry and that is (or at least used to be) a key element if left wing economic theory?
As I stated above, right wing economic thinking suggests the outcome from following such a path is usually reduced quality and/or quantity of goods and services. This is exactly what has occured in Venezuela (and lots of other countries).
Gosman you’ll get better engagement if you don’t put up straw man arguments.
What element is a strawman and why so I won’t attempt to bring it up again.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I don’t know much if anything about Venezuela, and you tell too many lies for me to take your word for it, so that’s why I asked for multiple references.
Your dismissal of US interference, for example, indicates that you believe it had no effect on Venezuela’s economy. I don’t believe you, and you’re doing a very very shit job of persuading me or indeed, putting up any argument whatsoever.
Apart from your habitual ad nauseam, that is.
I have provided numerous source on Venezuela even from a left wing perspective (Venezuelananaalysis). Are you disputing any if the facts that have been put forward such as the decline in domestic Sugar production? I would be quite willing to investigate US interference if you can explain how it is meant to impact production of goods and services within Venezuela in industries largely controlled by the State. Explain a mechanism that allows the US to influence that and I’ll look to see if that is the case.
You’ve provided no sources here.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand. the right makes unemployment and homelessness. No wonder you want to talk about sugar production in a falling global market.
I provided a link to the source. Are you disputing the source and if so why?
I’m not reading your source until you meet the requirements I laid out in 1.2: write an in-depth detailed multi-referenced analysis that demonstrates why the assertions in your loaded questions are true.
You would certainly have to show how what happens in Venezuela relates to Green and Labour policies in New Zealand, for example.
Or alternatively, you can fuck off.
Venezuela is a basket case I think you can agree with me on that OAB.
Hugo Chavez 2 decades of centralizing all decisions (into his hands) the state taking control of medium to large business etc etc has lead to this.
While oil prices were high they masked the issues at hand, however once they started to fall so did Venezuela.
Half of all oil exported today from Venezuela goes to paying back a $50 billion loan from China.
Remind me what part of “Socialism” involves one person making all the decisions. It’s sad that you just blew over your own house of cards. I suppose I can always enjoy the schadenfreude 😈
Read your second sentence (The first should have been 2 sentences..)
It makes no sense at all. Try to explain it in real English, please. ‘Medium’ is singular, and how does control of ‘medium’ go to large business etc etc??
Who are the first ‘they’ in your third mangled sentence (oil prices?), and maybe you could confirm that the second ‘they’ refers to oil prices?
By the way, it was USA fracking that caused oil prices to fall. But you are one of those who denies any kind of US sabotage, aren’t you?
Oops.
Do you honestly think the decision to “frack” for oil in the US was to screw with the Venezuelan economy?
For profit in general, and then the Russian economy, but Venezuela was no doubt a minor bonus, much to your joy.
“It makes no sense at all.”
Of course it does my friend…that is why you are reduced to playing the English teacher.
“By the way, it was USA fracking that caused oil prices to fall. But you are one of those who denies any kind of US sabotage, aren’t you?”
Venezuela was sabotaged by Socialism.
“This is exactly what has occured in Venezuela (and lots of other countries).”
Name em
To give you a start I will name one for you, Ukraine. Please carry on
Hi Gos
Can you please explain what is happening in US politics right now when right wingers have voted in Trump to lead them and his party are trying their best to oust him? A lengthy analysis would be welcome. Cheers
What happened to global sugar prices over the period in question?
Largely irrelevant in the context of domestic production for a domestic market. Why can’t Venezuelan producers of sugar do so cheaper than foreign producers?
Please post a link to a graph that compares Venezuelan domestic sugar prices with global prices over the period 1950 – 2016.
Then, provide an in-depth detailed multi-referenced analysis of sugar production, its history and methods, both globally and in Venezuela, so that I can put your assertions in context while I think about them.
Hahahahaha. LIAR. Like YOU would ever post that kind of detailed analysis if ever called to task.
Bwahahahahaha.
Gosman has a habit of setting homework for people. I doubt the real Nelson Muntz would need that explained.
What homework have I set before?
Thank you for making my point. You think I’m going to trawl through your troll effluent for examples. Get a clue.
Gosman, was that your first try at real wit??
I am not sure you showing off that you may have done a paper in post grad research techniques is really adding anything here OAB
I have not done a paper in post grad research techniques. Perhaps I should write one, since they seem so friggin’ obvious.
In your own words, explain the sum of Gosman’s contribution to this and/or any other debate on this forum.
Sum Contribution Gosman = Sum Contribution OAB = 0
He is challenging group think on this site The response to challenging sacred lefty dogma with empirical observation highlights the religious zealotry and hate held by many here to any challenge to such dogma The right in turn are a lot more comfortable to ideas been challenged without the tantrums
“He is challenging group think on this site ”
no – hes posing straw man time wasting goal post shifting arguments, just like he always does
Perhaps the owners of the Venezuelan sugar cooperatives have decided that while up to 69% of sugar cane workers in other producer nations are affected by Chronic Kidney Disease, it’s not for them.
http://sugarcane-solidaridad.org/combatting-epidemic-chronic-kidney-disease-amongst-canecutters
http://www.aaas.org/news/science-researchers-hunt-origin-enigmatic-kidney-disease
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_nephropathy
I hear the Philippines is importing sugar this year too. I guess the Coca Cola factories in Venezuela (ironic that the symbol of American affluence is produced there) aren’t importing from there.
It may be due to a move from “sweated labour” to improved working conditions. Or fewer workers wanting to work in the sugar fields when better jobs were available elsewhere.
Yep, Sugar is so good for you Gosman. I too am deeply concerned, but more about what concerns the right wing mindset. Worrying about sugar exports and I believe our very own government is deeply worried about luggage at present….
When are you going to own up about the toilet paper Gosman?
Seriously every time you open your mouth about Venezuela I just think you are talking a load of rubbish.
You lied for weeks about the toilet paper issue, and when it was pointed out that the supermarkets artificially created a crisis around toilet paper, you said nothing?
So to answer you question – why do right wingers lie and cheat the system, then blame the left for it?
My God……I hear your frustration Adam but remember……it’s not your fault that Gosman’s a twisted lying zealot with not a care for the world……aside from the miniscule and putrid part of it he inhabits. I mean who the fuck would regularly get on a more or less left wing blog and spiel such cruelty as moral gospel ? That’s a head that needs seeing to in my book. Poor man. Pity the people he/she lives with……if any.
From what I have read in the time I have been reading, I think you have sussed Gosman very well, North.
Maybe a shift to stevia production could be better long term move for Venezuela. Stevia is grown in Brazil and Paraguay so may do ok in Venezuela. Getting rid of Coke is probably a positive change for Venezuela and the health of its citizens.
You are aware that simply because they don’t produce the product locally doesn’t mean they aren’t buying it aren’t you? They are importing it from other countries instead. This is costing them precious foreign exchange which they lack.
Gosman you are a bore. If you can’t do your own delving into USA overt and covert interference in central and southern American economies then go back to burying your head in the sand .
No, I challenge you to explain how US interference could lead to a catastrophic drop in production of sugar (amongst other products).
Your argument would be like stating the reason the USSR failed was because of US interference. There is a element of truth that the US was undermining the Soviet Union but the system itself was at fault for its eventual collapse.
How could it not !
Well, it cracked under the pressure of an arms race imposed by a technologically superior USA. But the fairy tale is that Capitalism is just so much better. No mention of the inconvenient fact that all the rich countries have been capitalist, and that no heavily industrialised, rich country has tried anything else, unless you go downscale to include Scandinavian countries small enough and isolated enough not to face that ire of American Capitalism in the way that Cuba, Chile, and Venezuela have had to do, along with others…
I have just watched the most appalling ever attempt on Q&A to politically assassinate Labour’s leader, Andrew Little. So much so that someone, somewhere, needs to publicly condemn TV1 for what was clearly a premeditated and politically motivated attempt to discredit him.
The panel guests consisted of Bryce Edwards, Phil Quin and Heather Roy. The subject matter… Nick Leggett. There was no attempt to explain what happened or what Little said – or why. Instead the public was subjected to a long rant from Phil Quin (which was why he was invited in the first place) about a restaurant dinner in Auckland where he and Nick Leggott spoke to the people gathered. Yeah… he talked about American politics – nothing else – and we weren’t told what Leggett spoke about but we can guess. According to Quin it was all an imagined conspiracy on Little’s part, but no-one (other than beltway types) would have known what he was talking about except that… Andrew Little is a really bad guy and so is the Labour Party.
The most telling moment was when Bryce Edwards tried to add his contribution – which I suspect was going to bring some semblance of balance to the discussion – but he was cut off by the host (whose name escapes me) and on came some ads. But not before a surprised Edwards let out an “aaagh” of frustration. Deliberate? You bet!
You should do a Broadcastings Standards complaint Anne.
I didn’t see it but it is very clearly lacking in balance with a panel like that. Roy is from ACT, Quin has been criticising Labour for decades now, wanting a return to the Rogernomics era. In the 1990s he tried to organise a coup against Helen Clark and Bryce Edwards is, at best, centrist. There should have been someone who could argue Labour’s position to meet the requirements of the act.
Been down that road Karen. Took Q&A to the BSA over their handling of the Hobbit dispute – must have been around 2010/11. It was a total sham. They made it about Helen Kelly (who received a drubbing on the programme in question) and said she was… quite capable of looking after herself.
My complaint had nothing to do with Helen Kelly as a person and whether she could look after herself. As if I would presume to be an arbiter of someone like Helen Kelly’s personal character anyway. Yes, I took the stinging rebuke personally, and just hoped that Helen Kelly (who I don’t personally know) did not buy their nonsense.
Once bitten like that and twice shy.
I agree your complaint may not be upheld but it may make TVNZ be a bit more careful next time. They hate having to spend time justifying themselves to the BSA.
This is just the start. The whole MSM are at it.
But like they were always assuring us that no one outside the Wellington beltway cares about National’s dirty deeds like the Saudi sheep saga, the Panama Papers, homelessness, dodgy steel, etc etc etc – this time it may backfire, because nobody outside the Wellington beltway truly cares about the Nash/Leggett/Little conflict.
I think the explanation as to why our media have become such toadys to the national party is quite simple They all voted blue .
Oh diddums Anne, this happens to Key all the time !
“this happens to Key all the time !” Citation please, I have never seen Key beat up by the media, ever! Just 1 example will suffice.
National Party suck up Tracy Watkin’s piece on this issue…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/83106498/Labours-tent-no-longer-big-enough-for-the-right-wingers?cid=app-iPhone
I suspect its the old story, Leggatt and Quin have contacts in the gallery who are happy to do some shit stirring.
The funniest thing is that the panel reckoned Little should have been talking about “Nick Smith not Nick Leggat”, apparently he opened his stand up doing exactly that.
But this is very clearly a beltway issue, its a shame Q&A have picked it up because they’ve been doing some excellent shows lately, imho.
And it seems Stacey Kirk has joined in the let’s do some Andrew Little bashing.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/83097599/stacey-kirk-opportunity-squandered-labour-flounders-without-focus
This now is starting to look like an orchestrated beat up. Who is behind it? It was gallery journalists who brought up the topic when questioning Little so someone has primed them Quin? Pagani? Leggett? My guess is Quin.
Shame that so many gallery journalists have swallowed this.
“This now is starting to look like an orchestrated beat up. Who is behind it?”
Most likely it was “black ops team alpha 2 bravo” 🙂
Come on really though…Andrew Little was a idiot and brought it on himself.
You know I’m going back donkeys’ years like 40 when a minor ‘journalist’ in Wellington said to me “Well how can Norman Kirk control a country when he can’t even control his own weight?” and then another household name journalist Spiro Zavos said to me when challeneged about the legalities of racist South African rugby tours……”I’ve done Legal System” (the Law 101 at Vic’ at the time).
I have to say this. Our ‘jonolists’ being intellectually and socially pretty much nothing, cannot be trusted other than to pos’ themselves so as to lick the arse of power. In the expectation of being rewarded for it. By the arses they lick. And then they get ‘oh so up their own arses’ when it seems to work. Trev’ of the Hearld for example, junketing with Key.
They are basically very poor examples of humanity. To a man and a woman not very bright. Otherwise they would have done ‘Law’. Not that the rote shit of ‘Law’ speaks of bright. We are so ill-served by the media.
They are such wannabees. And double-shotters. Saw Duncan Garner and his production man I guess, all skinny jeans and florid shirts and RM Williams boots disporting themselves in McDonalds in Wellsford 7.00 am one morning. Talking loud, musing loud, “look at me look at me” Fuck ! what cheapies. In Kaikohe they mighta’ got a well deserved hiding for being so up-themselves waha’.
Chuck, Jason Ede ran a Dirty Politics “black ops team alpha 2 bravo” from John Keys office, tax payer funded dirty tricks where he had access to secret SIS files (for PMs eyes only!) where he had a network of complacent journos & bloggers to smear the opposition & manipulate the last few elections. So there is form of state sponsored smearing & you seemingly support it?
Cry me a river…
So called Dirty Politics is played by all sides.
Ann has just posted this below “I noted some comments from Quin the other day about some very, very nasty stuff doing the rounds about him after he left Labour. How did he know it came from L.P. members?”
That’s a form of “dirty politics”…do I care? no.
Who is behind it?
My guess… all 3 of them – Quin, Pagani and Leggett. Josie loves hanging out with TV celebrities and Gallery types. They are happy to oblige her for tidbits from the enemy camp – Labour. Since I doubt she’s still a member (certainly not an active one) she doesn’t actually know anything of worth.
I noted some comments from Quin the other day about some very, very nasty stuff doing the rounds about him after he left Labour. How did he know it came from L.P. members? If there was anything it was confined to the Wellington beltway. Never heard a whisper in Auckland. Have my doubts it was as serious as he’s making out, but all good with which to bash Labour over the head.
This Gorman reminds me of ShonKey…… Ask him to put up some evidence , and he goes off on to some other blah mindless drivel….. Key does it to use up media airtime….. Sounds good and confident, but no substance….. And certainly no answer.
“No, I challenge you…”
Tan
Trum
Sunday morning, I’ll take a look at The Standard for a while, to see what interesting topics are being discussed there…what’s this? Some person named “Gosman” is demanding we answer questions on his chosen topic! How quaint he is! How petulant and righteous he acts when people point to his churlish behaviour.
Other threads, thankfully, are not infested with his pabulum. I’m look to those.
I started a business 10 years ago this November. I started it because I wanted to generate passive income. I wanted enoughy passive income so that I could as much as possible live the life I want to live. It is my life afterall.
To make this happen there are others who work for me. For many years and still to this day they have been paid and I have not.
If I could I would generatew enough passive income and put in place enough automation so that those working for me no longer had to work unecessarily eaither and could then live the life that they each in turn would like to live.
The realisation I came to and the reason I am wqriting this is that in my view every single person should have passive income. Every person should be ( in a good system…. one designed to work for us ) able to live the life they want to live.
Each person should be able to meet their essential basic needs for themselves and their family. Our system doesnt enable this. People are run ragged and in talking to those in the community the one thing everyone lacks is time.
Time is the other thing that is required for me and you and everyone else to be able to live the life that we would like to live. Whatever that life may be and yours will differ from mine and thats ok.
Having passive income that is enough to live on gives you time also. Time so that you can live the life you want to live.
In living the lives we want to live we currently have to work to earn money in order to survive let alone be able to live the life we want to live. So before we can do that we have two barrieres we need to overcome under the current system. We need to make money for ourselves (enough to live the life we want to live) and before we can do that we need a job of some description.
A system that enables humans or in other words a good system does not put in place barriers. In facrt it seeks to remove them.
Having an entire system where everyone has passive income removes those barriers.
We then have a system that enables each and everyone of us and gives us the time to life the lives we each would like to live.
In our current system their are limited options to enable this to happen and each of them is a barrier to having a system of passive income so each of these should not be used but an entirely new and different way found to enable a better system.
The current options are
tax and redistribute wealth – somewhat illogical if you are changing the system to one that gives people money. Why would you take it from some in the first place besides this only gives those it is being taken from a reason to vote against it.
Increase debt to pay for it. We struggle to pay for essential services such as health and education as it is and we have the highest debt our nation has ever had. It is also counter intuitive to a system designed to give people money to enable them to live the life they want top live. Debt forces people rto work not because the work is rewquired and needs to be done for society, No it requires work top be done to earn money to pay back the debt. It is enslavement by debt so again not a good option.
Printing money well this simply in the current system devalues the currency and reduces purchasaing power so not necessarily a good option either at lewast not within the current currency markets.
Nobody said we had to have a debt based monetary system and if having one enslaves people at a time where there are going to be less jobs available therough technological automation then perhaps we should be looking at the same technological automation to replace thew debt based monetary system with one that generates passive income for everyone and enables us all to have time and to be able to live the life we eaxch woulsd like to live. Not only for us but for every single generation that comes after us.
A thoughtful comment CC. Here is an alternative:
http://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/
In the context of the festival it works. It changes lives, it opens up a whole sense of possibilities that are entirely shut down in ‘normal life’.
Scratch a hippy…….
Participation sounds egalitarian, but it leads to some interesting contradictions. The most elaborate camps and spectacles tend to be brought by the rich because they have the time, the money, or both, to do so. Wealthier attendees often pay laborers to build and plan their own massive (and often exclusive) camps. If you scan San Francisco’s Craigslist in the month of August, you’ll start to see ads for part-time service labor gigs to plump the metaphorical pillows of wealthy Burners.
The rich also hire sherpas to guide them around the festival and wait on them at the camp. Some burners derogatorily refer to these rich person camps as “turnkey camps.”
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/burning-man-one-percent-silicon-valley-tech/
And yet the festival thrives despite these aberrations. The people who go truly come in all shapes, sizes and agendas. It’s inevitable there will be contradictions and tensions. With in excess of 60,000 people in one place, it’s far too big to experience the whole of it in the time you are there.
But the point is that for just one week, many people get to live an alternative way of experiencing the world … and that alone energises them.
hi cc, thanx for the comment.
how about a worker owned business, organised along burning man/permaculture principles, looking to transfer to a sharing economy?
less about $ (although they are handy), but stronger in building communities, bringing together the like minded and showing a powerful positive example of cooperation.
You gotta love Iceland. First they tell the global banking system to fuck off, then the world’s first lesbian PM … and now this:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/12/polls-suggests-icelands-pirate-party-form-next-government
I can see another Turkey event here – with outside interests stoking unrest. Heaven forbid that a country would offer Edward Snowden asylum and direct democracy, that’s never going to happen – to close to the US and his sphere of interest. Fun times ahead for the plucky Iceland. Would that we could grow some cajones and do something similar..
The USA still has a base on the North East of Iceland I think. They will have an interest in politics!
Icelanders think that the name Iceland is a bit strange since Iceland is a very green country yet Greenland is almost totally covered in snow and therefore be better called Iceland.
And yes Iceland has people-power and holds their money players accountable. A model for us?
How self-pity turns toxic, how demagogues use it, and where it leads:
http://thebaffler.com/salvos/pity-o-god-republican-faludi
People may have heard of the “Alt-right”, championed by the likes of the racist troll Milo Yiannopoulos. It’s a mish-mash of reactionary conservatism (of the Gamergate variety), right-wing libertarianism, “meritocracy” and neoliberalism that inevitably metasizes into oligarchism and adulation of dictatorship.
It’s apparently rife among the tech industries and attracts many who at one stage might have described themselves as liberal. I’ve a few friends from Europe old enough to remember the first time around…
http://thebaffler.com/blog/mouthbreathing-machiavellis
https://medium.com/welcome-to-the-scream-room/im-with-the-banned-8d1b6e0b2932#.mri33abl3
http://boingboing.net/2015/01/28/a-beginners-guide-to-the-red.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/05/meet-milo-yiannopoulos-the-appealing-young-face-of-the-racist-alt-right.html
Thought for the day,ethics of civil service
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpvqwWMWEAAMfJ7.jpg:large
Hi Poisson, that link helps to explain how aspartame, phenolanylin(?) etc got into the food system.
‘Sabbaticals’ for executives between Monsanto and the fda.
Civil service indeed!
in the meantime over in the us another riot brewing after another ‘fleeing’ suspect was killed.
the worlds has become a fucked place
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ex414
this is actually chilling to watch and to listen to it.
as the guys on the life feed says, the Mainstream Media is not alive.
holy shite, this is the ‘how to create a riot’ by simply not doing anything when one still could.
Couldn’t get that to run on the link provided Sabine.
its a life feed and needs refreshing quite a bit. i
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ex414
follow the comments on the side of the screen .
fox6news here now.
http://fox6now.com/on-air/live-streaming/
seems to be cooling down. the commentary is just spectacular.
Wayyyy past time for another Colmar Brunton. Always release on a Sunday. There’ll be tears before bed-time if we don’t see one in about half an hour …
Perhaps such a poll has bad news for the Government so they have sent it back to be checked and “adjusted?”
I’ve just got into my Jim-Jams – the ones with the little WWI RAF and Fokker biplanes all over them – I’m now in the process of running upstairs to comb my hair and brush my teeth and then I’ll be tucked up in bed, with tears streaming down my cheeks.
Tomorrow, I might have a bit of a tantrum when I’m in the Supermarket, lying on my back, kicking my feet up in the air. Manager will no doubt come over and ask sympathetically: “Oh now, what’s upsetting ya, young fella, eh ???”. Between all the crying and sobbing, all I’ll be able to blurt out is “Colmar Brunton, No Colmar Brunton !!!”.
i’ve had half a day with a lap top refusing to pick up wifi i was bloody close to tantrum time my self , fortunately for me one of the many icons or buttons i pushed did the trick, buggered i know which one though.
Been there done that. On mine it turned out there is a little slide switch on the side that turned the wifi on and off.
Swordfish love the story of your jim-jams ! But no Swordfish, no tears please. His Effeteness is gone by 2017 if not before.
Oh dear, you’ve got it bad swordfish. But don’t worry. It probs. coming tomorrow night – the day after they did the Q&A hatchet job on Andrew Little.
Once in 500 year flood number eight.
An instant analysis from Climate Nexus refers to today’s Louisiana rainstorm as a “classic signal of climate change.” It’s right. The NWS maintains a statistical database used to calculate the “annual exceedance probability” of a given rainfall event — basically, the expected frequency this event would occur in any given year.
Today’s rainstorm in Louisiana is at least the eighth 500-year rainfall event across America in little more than a year, including similarly extreme downpours in Oklahoma last May, central Texas (twice: last May and last October), South Carolina last October, northern Louisiana this March, West Virginia in June, and Maryland last month.
https://psmag.com/americas-latest-500-year-rainstorm-is-underway-right-now-in-louisiana-98acbdf435d0#.c59wau8hn
More from Jeff Masters.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/record-flooding-in-southeast-louisiana-may-get-worse
“Remember when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to help “fix” Newark’s public schools? In 2010, Zuckerberg — perhaps hoping to improve his image after his callous depiction in biopic The Social Network — donated $100 million to Newark’s education system to overhaul Newark schools.
The money was directed as a part of then–Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s plan to remake the city into the “charter school capital of the nation,” bypassing public oversight through partnership with private philanthropists.
Traditionally, public education has been interwoven with the democratic process: in a given school district, the community elects the school board every few years. School boards then make public decisions and deliberations. Zuckerberg’s donation, and the project it was attached to, directly undermined this democratic process by promoting an agenda to privatize public schools, destroy local unions, disempower teachers, and put the reins of public education into the hands of technocrats and profiteers.”
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/burning-man-one-percent-silicon-valley-tech/
Well, you have to have the right people running the shop.
/
Perhaps the one thing uniting all neoreactionaries is a critique of modernity that centers on opposition to democracy in all its forms. Many are former libertarians who decided that freedom and democracy were incompatible
https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement
Money rules whatever the provenance, even if it be seeming good guy ‘giving back’…….money rules. We know this.
Remember Peter Talley got knighted.
We honour the wrong people in this country.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503423&objectid=11693272
Bludgers.
Until Friday of last week, council CEO Kym Fell had been talking with Affco, the major trade-waste user, to find an alternative treatment solution that may have resulted in lower costs for the new plant. Affco, Open Country Dairy and Land Meats had indicated they wanted to build their own treatment plant but use the city pipes and consents to discharge into the ocean.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503426&objectid=11690404