“He’s merely been telling the truth…. He should be congratulated for that, not threatened.”
Some who trust the anonymous editorial writers, the humorists and virtual government mouthpieces at the Grauniad, the Murdoch media and the BBC might have been led to think otherwise, but Daniel Ellsberg, the Julian Assange of the 1960s and 70s, is a man of formidable expertise, immense knowledge and unimpeachable integrity. He’s someone worth listening to….
Daniel Ellsberg: I Congratulate Ecuador for Standing Up to British Empire to Protect Julian Assange
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, I congratulate Ecuador, of course, for standing up to the British Empire here, for insisting that they are not a British colony, and acting as a sovereign state ought to act. And I think they’ve done the right thing. I appreciate what they’ve done.
AMY GOODMAN: And the British government first threatening to raid the Ecuadorean embassy in London, also saying they would arrest Julian Assange if he attempted to leave to go to Ecuador, but also saying they’d actually raid the embassy?
DANIEL ELLSBERG: It’s an outrageous proposal, which actually undermines the security of every diplomat in the world, in this country right now. I would say it has a chilling effect right now, the very fact that that possibility has been raised. I’m old enough to remember the occasion that gave rise to that, actually. I remember when a Libyan official shot from the Libyan embassy in London and killed a British female officer. … They didn’t raid the embassy on that occasion, but that led three years later to a law that permitted them, under extraordinary circumstances, to do that again. They obviously don’t have anyone here who’s been shooting from the Ecuadorean embassy at anyone. He’s merely been telling the truth, there as in London earlier. He should be congratulated for that, not threatened.
I have an interest in the Assange situation, although don’t follow it as much as other issues/stories. It is important. But….
…how long is this little feud between a handful of Standartistas going to dominate open mike with long strings of bitter exchanges from entrenched positions?
I would’ve thought the threats from the general economic situation and climate change are a lot more crucial.
I completely agree with Carol – as I said yesterday noone is going to move on this topic. My guess is anyone who could potentially be swayed no longer reads any of these posts. I know I don’t – it is getting to be far worse than anything Pete George ever did.
Chris seems a tad frustrated at having his or her peace of mind disturbed….
I would’ve thought the threats from the general economic situation and climate change are a lot more crucial.
You “would have thought” that, would you? How much reading have you done on this terrifying case? And please don’t think I am not concerned about our economic situation or global warming.
My guess is anyone who could potentially be swayed no longer reads any of these posts.
My intention is to bring to notice the work of people who are deliberately shut out of British state television, or distorted in newspapers like the Grauniad. People like Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein—all of whom have commented trenchantly on the state persecution of Assange. My intention is not to “sway” intransigent people. The likes of “weka”, “Pascal’s bookie” and the Banksy Award-winning “Te Reo Putake” are clearly not willing to treat this issue seriously, but they clog up this forum with their absurd quibbles and distractions. Your beef is with them, not with me.
I know I don’t – it is getting to be far worse than anything Pete George ever did.
That’s clever. Now I’m Pete George. That’s ethical and perspicacious of you.
As most readers are probably aware, there was an op-ed in the Saturday New York Times from Richard Muller announcing the Berkeley Earth team’s latest results. It was odd enough that a scientific paper was announced via an op-ed, rather than a press release, odder still that the paper was only being submitted and had not actually been accepted, and most odd of all was the framing – a ‘converted skeptic’ being convinced by his studies that the planet has indeed warmed and that human activity is the cause – which as Mike and Ken Caldiera pointed out has been known for almost 2 decades.
Grossman reports that most scientists with whom he has spoken expect a sea level rise of around a metre this century. But there is profound uncertainty about the behaviour of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Will these continent-scale glaciers remain languid in their transport of ice to the sea or under the influence of warming will they become more akin to bounding torrents? He explains very clearly for the lay reader the difference between the gradual surface melting of an ice-cube and the dynamics of glacier movement that can cast into the sea quantities of ice which dwarf the amounts that dribble off from surface melting.
Parasites look set to become more virulent because of climate change, according to a study showing that frogs suffer more infections from a fungus when exposed to unexpected swings in temperatures.
Parasites, which include tapeworms, the tiny organisms that cause malaria and funguses, may be more nimble at adapting to climatic shifts than the animals they live on since they are smaller and grow more quickly, scientists said.
“Increases in climate variability are likely to make it easier for parasites to infect their hosts,” Thomas Raffel of Oakland University in the United States told Reuters.
Australian scientists said Friday there was now “striking evidence” of extensive southward migration of tropical fish and declines in other species due to climate change, in a major ocean report card.
Compiled by more than 80 of Australia’s leading marine experts for the government science body CSIRO, the snapshot of global warming’s effects on the island continent’s oceans warned of “significant impacts”.
“Climate change is already happening; widespread physical changes include rapid warming of the southeast and increasing flow of the east Australia current,” the report said.
I would suggest that Climate Change is of far more importance and gains far less attention.
Of course Climate Change is of paramount importance. And you don’t think governments harassing and trying to silence Assange will not have a chilling effect on other protesters and dissenters—like ecology activists?
I totally agree with Carol… Let’s give it a rest.
That’s the kind of thing global warming deniers say. Have you thought of working for ACT?
Carol I think you are being a bit unfair in calling this a “feud” implying equal culpability of all parties. I take my hat off particularly to Weka and Mcflock in intelligently challenging the rape-culture aspects of the discussion itself, which inevitably arise in a case of this kind independently of whether Assange is guilty of the charges.
I had decided to start putting rolleyes as a response to Morrisey’s seeming never-ending campaign salvos.
I also understand how the evil US empire to stifle dissent. 2 sides to a complex situation. I don’t think anything’s to be gained from each side constantly repeating their position.
I personally don’t consider myself to be on a ‘side’ in this. I don’t generally get involved in the debate about the Assange case itself, apart from as js mentions challening rape culture issues as they arise here on TS.
One of my points in the rape culture conversation is that we don’t have to ‘take sides’. This intersects nicely with the small discussion yesterday about the Order of Relations vs the Order of Things that Anne Salmond wrote about.
However I agree with your and Chris’ points, and have been biting my tongue for a while now about naming Morrissey the new Pete George, esp for the hogging of the first post of Open Mike so often. We can now anticipate protestations of free speech or such.
I agree: I don’t quite grok the idea that “challenging rape culture” and “opposing US imperialism” are somehow equivalent/complementary “sides” of an argument.
I had decided to start putting rolleyes as a response to Morrisey’s seeming never-ending campaign salvos.
How very juvenile!
Here’s one for you…
🙄
And I will put some rolleyes under Weka and McNutmeg each time they accuse people like – oh me, for instance, of “supporting rape culture” because we refuse to judge and sentence Assange for ‘raping’ a couple of cat-fighting groupies!
Because calling complainants “cat-fighting groupies” is in no way supporting rape culture
🙄
Oh McNutmeg, did I ever say that all rape complainants are ‘cat-fighting groupies’? No, I didn’t and I never will.
These women, however, the jury’s definitely out. I am a woman, and I have had the usual exposure to rape-like behaviour – but these women can’t claim they were raped – not in any logical world!
If the young women were asleep consent cannot be given.
Seems quite simple to me.
I would never behave like that to my wife, let alone a stranger I’d just met.
I’m pretty respectful of a woman’s right to decide when and if I’m allowed to touch. Consent for one instance does not give me blanket permission, marriage does not give me any non-consenting access either.
It’s not that difficult to ensure you’re both agreeable each and every time.
I would never behave like that to my wife, let alone a stranger I’d just met.
Well my partner quite enjoys it. The map of human sexual behaviour is neither narrow nor wholly domesticated. And this is true for both genders.
Consent for one instance does not give me blanket permission, marriage does not give me any non-consenting access either.
Do you have a mutually signed legal document that is a record of every time you and your wife have made love? Can you prove your claim to have gained this consent on each and every occasion in Court?
Or would it just come down to your word against hers?
“Do you have a mutually signed legal document that is a record of every time you and your wife have made love? Can you prove your claim to have gained this consent on each and every occasion in Court?
Or would it just come down to your word against hers?”
Now you’re just being an idiot.
Anyway her word would support mine not be in opposition to it.
The point I was making, which seems a little obtuse for you, was that the Swedish law does represent a not unreasonable social more.
It may not be one you share but it is their law and likely in reasonable close context to many of their social mores. I’m actually very liberal in my view of what others are able to do sexually but I’ve always had that attitude in the context of clear consent.
Anyway her word would support mine not be in opposition to it.
But what if it were not? What if your relationship had broken down and suddenly your loving partner of many years was no longer a person you recognised?
Still happy for it to be just your word against hers? Or maybe in hindsight maybe a stack of those ‘legal consent’ forms would come in handy just now.
“But what if it were not? What if your relationship had broken down and suddenly your loving partner of many years was no longer a person you recognised?
Still happy for it to be just your word against hers? Or maybe in hindsight maybe a stack of those ‘legal consent’ forms would come in handy just now.”
Well I guess I’d be in a slightly better position than you would be in the same situation cause I’ve never had sex with her while she’s asleep and I’ve never posted on the internet that I have.
On the other hand I’ve never posted on the internet that my head is up my arse.
My point is simple. You are pointing to ‘social mores’. Fine, but just exactly how do you propose that detailed compliance with them be established in a Court?
Because that is precisely what is being asked for here.
My point is simple. You are pointing to ‘social mores’.
I’m pointing out that the Swedish law is not unreasonable or out of kilter.
“Fine, but just exactly how do you propose that detailed compliance with them be established in a Court?
Because that is precisely what is being asked for here.”
The same way they decide other cases of complaint using the laws they have passed. Gather evidence, interview witnesses, lay charges, examine case law – whatever it is that they do.
OK in the hours since you last accused me of having no sense of right or wrong I’ve been in the local mountains with a fine group of friends. One of whom recently came out of hospital because her ex-husband put her there. Or how about the woman I was with last year on a five day trip who has only one working eye for the same reason. Or the woman who did my hair last month in a neck-brace and her boyfriend in Rimutaka prison.
That’s rape culture for you. Right here at home and it’s an innate consequence of the property-owning patriarchal death-cult we currently call society. All the snobbery, bullying, abuse, violence, addictions and dysfunction of our so called ‘society’ has it’s direct roots in this deep unequal distribution of power that has been a feature of most human life for the last 10,000 or so years.
Now if you want to change all this with laws which define in minute details exactly what consenting adults can or can’t do in bed together … then good luck to you. If you want adults to sign up to a 32 page legal document detailing in precise detail what sex acts they are going to consent to … and you think that will help then again best of luck.
Personally I’ve read the complainants accounts several times. They invited Assange into their beds. Now that of course does not give anyone a free pass to commit what ever act they like, but in this case I don’t see violence or coercion on Assange’s part. What I do see is miscommunication, misunderstanding and bad timing. Still if Swedish law makes a criminal offence of these events then I’ve consistently argued for a routine legal process to take it’s course.
But the wider context of events makes it clear that the Swedish authorities are making a very special case of Assange for reasons that probably have very little to do with the welfare of the women involved.
I’m late to this as I’ve been busy all weekend as well but in response to what you just said:
“They invited Assange into their beds. Now that of course does not give anyone a free pass to commit what ever act they like, but in this case I don’t see violence or coercion on Assange’s part. What I do see is miscommunication, misunderstanding and bad timing. ”
Can’t be communication if you are asleep. Sure he mayt have felt he had consent based on previous activity but that didn’t mean that he did.
“Still if Swedish law makes a criminal offence of these events then I’ve consistently argued for a routine legal process to take it’s course.”
Agree.
“But the wider context of events makes it clear that the Swedish authorities are making a very special case of Assange for reasons that probably have very little to do with the welfare of the women involved.”
Both agree and disagree. Sweden has passed these laws and it’s their call. Here there is a hue and cry when celebrities get special treatment and I’m sure it’s no different there either. In fact they may be more determined to have him back in Sweden the longer this goes on.
You cannot however also deny the international political ramifications of his leaking the information and the desire in particular of governments wanting their hands on him.
It’s an extremely difficult position that he’s in and I’m not sure that there is an easy solution.
Can’t be communication if you are asleep. Sure he mayt have felt he had consent based on previous activity but that didn’t mean that he did.
Asleep or half-asleep? Can you always tell the difference? And when they were awake did they demand he stop? Or was it a few days later that they decided differently? And what if Assange’s version of event’s is different? Who to believe?
All questions that would be best answered if we installed recording video cameras in every bedroom … no?
Or perhaps more realistically maybe Assange should have gotten her to sign a form before each and every sex act. Which prompts me to ask exactly how you would define a ‘sex act’ for the purposes of gaining consent of each occasion. Clearly signing a form before each pelvic thrust is a tad over the top, but what about a 10 min pause before switching between say fellatio and a spot of g-spot massage. How about multiple orgasms? Should be sign the form between each one? Or does a 30 minute refractory period mandate a new sex act?
Just curious to see how you see these things working.
(Actually I do know of a way around all of this. It’s very ancient and effective … but no-one here would listen.)
Assange stayed in Sweden and cooperated with the first investigation for five weeks. As a result of that no charges were laid and he was given permission to leave the country.
Only after the whole affair became so overtly political did he become a ‘flight risk’. Whose fault is that?
RL: the prosecutors and his lawyer seem to differ in their accounts on that. But it’s not the same lawyer who came up with “sex by surprise”, so I’ll just say it seems undetermined. As opposed to jumping bail in the UK.
CV: Paragraph 149. Knock yourself out. There’s no point in the second interview without the possibility of a charge. That’s the bit where the present the evidence to him and ask if he has anything to say. Which is probably why he skipped it the second first time.
It’s interesting, Vicky, to see that some of these people are now giving YOU this juvenile treatment. I was disturbed to see the rolling eyes campaign against Pete George a few weeks ago; I thought then that it could be utilized against anyone.
Still, when you have no credible argument to offer, using the rolling eyes graphic is an eloquent way to say: “I got nuthin’.”
You’re exactly right, Morrissey… I was upset about the rolleyes campaign against PG for the same reason! Aside from anything else, it’s very juvenile – I can imagine year 9s in a classroom sniggering at someone they can’t answer…
And, uh, presumption of innocence remember. They might decide to drop further action against Assange if there are no grounds to proceed.
CV, there’s no reply button on yours, so I am answering you here – it seems to me, we didn’t get the memo – the one saying that Assange is uniquely * not entitled to the presumption of innocence!
Richard Wolff: bringing Democracy to the Workplace
This is how its done. This is what the unions should have been doing 40 years ago. Except they always just held on to the limited vision of fighting The Man.
Imagine a union that had an official two-pronged strategy. Prong one, you bargain collectively, you do what unions traditionally do. Prong two, we’re going to organize workers into self-directed enterprises. We’re going to move energetically the minute we hear that there’s a factory or enterprise planning to shut down, to close a facility, to move a facility, we’re on it like white on rice. We’re in there saying go, we’ll take over. You can leave, but you’ve got a whole new problem here, Mr. Corporation. You think you’re moving, you’re not moving, you’re adding capacity in China, in Bangladesh—we’re going to continue here, and we’re going to be a competitor of yours. Because we’re American, we’ll be producing locally, we’re not going to have your transport costs, we’re going to have a lot better PR than you are, because we’re going to tell everybody, you’ve got a choice, we, who kept it going, or them, who are exploiting cheap labor over there.
Then, what happens to the bargain between the union and the boss about that move when that’s in the wings? That’s a very different conversation. If I’m sitting across the board from the boss, begging and pleading, that’s a very different conversation from “When you leave, we’re going to be right here, we’re going to make your life so unpleasant.” That is much more powerful.
Add to that a compulsory labour think-tank that produces opinion on the effects on the workforce of proposed legislative changes, that the government has a legislative duty to take into account.
All employees, apprentices, persons on maternity (paternity) leave, as well as the unemployed are subject to compulsory membership; civil servants and agricultural workers are exempt. Total membership is 3.2 million. The Chambers of Labour also represent the interests of retired employees.
Excellent links and ideas. And the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour is easily financed:
Finances
The financial basis of this entire structure is the so-called “Chamber of Labour levy” amounting to 0.5% of all members’ gross wages or salaries up to a certain maximum basis of assessment. More than 80% of these funds are spent on direct services to Chamber of Labour members.
Organisations with cashflow like that can add small businesses (purchasing them or starting them up) to their asset base rather quickly. In a co-op model, the Chamber of Labour would then become an employer of considerable scale to be reckoned with. Employees could then make an active choice between working for a typical capitalist firm, taking a wage and taking orders from the top. Or work for a co-op where they would have an ownership stake and participate in decision making at all levels.
You’d have to deal with the two different objectives – legislative power and business. But I do agree there is dire need to find a funding mechanism for the ownership of business through workers co-ops.
Question: Does incorporating worker interests into the capitalist model evens out some of the highs and lows in the business cycle? That would be economic incentive for workers over and above the traditional capitalist model. Workers require stable incomes over time – compared with capitalists who are often willing to accumulate as soon as they can, and carry the risk of this not continuing in the future.
Question: Does incorporating worker interests into the capitalist model evens out some of the highs and lows in the business cycle?
Yes it does. Reading the article, Richard Wolff describes how Mondragon has had to cope with the majocr Europe-wide recession. In a capitalist corporation, directors will often cut loose money losing units and lay staff off, in order to protect shareholder returns. In Modragon, the workers ARE the shareholders. So they have gone to extraordinary lengths to redeploy, retrain, reassign those workers.
BTW the usual business cycle of being up 4-5 years then being down 1-2 years has been destroyed by the debt deflation/energy trap the world economy is now caught in. IMO co-ops will become even more important economic structures as this drags on for another 10-20 years.
You’d have to deal with the two different objectives – legislative power and business.
Indeed. It is a different mode of operating, but there are existing examples. Eg the many large corporations who also do political lobbying do these days. What would be nice would be large organisations who do exactly the same for workers and the underclass.
Yeah, i have a suspicion that worker focus evens out the highs and lows, but am not sure the research has been done to support it. co-ops John Lewis and Waitrose in the UK seem to have weathered the downturn better than most (and they’re high-end retailers). Also Co-op and Mondragon and at a national level Austria.
For me, this would be the biggest buy-in reason for a focus on workers interests… Stable profit and income over time. The exact opposite to the precarity model being implemented across the western world right now.
And consumers get a choice of supporting businesses owned by local workers.
Yeah, i have a suspicion that worker focus evens out the highs and lows, but am not sure the research has been done to support it.
IMO research can often give retrospective insights, but rarely prospective guidance, as organisations and market niches tend to be quite individual.
The main question I think needs to be answered is: can co-op enterprises help solve any/many of the problems our communities face today. I think its YES.
A private enterprise needs to focus on serving shareholders. So much the better if those shareholders are local workers, and not a bunch of faraway investors based in Sydney, New York or London, and who have zero care and interest in your local community.
We know that people work the best, the most creatively, and the hardest, when they feel they have a real stake in the enterprise. I have no doubt that a co-op enterprise can outperform any standard enterprise on a routine basis.
A co-op enterprise can also choose to be not for profit. On that basis it will be able to undercut or outlast corporate enterprise almost always. Eg. let’s say a foreign owned factory in your town employs 100 people. The factory is busy, sales are decent, and the workers are busy, but the factory can’t make any real profit against low priced products out of Thailand. Corporate based out of USA shut the factory down because even though its not losing money its not making money for shareholders, and shift production to Thailand, where it will make money for shareholders. The shift doesn’t cost the Corporate anything, but costs your local community 100 jobs. You can see how a locally owned co-op might make different decisions in the same situation.
Unions in NZ being productive? Yeah right, far easier to dictate to the bosses how things should be done then actually get of your (workers) collective chuffs and take the responsibility yourselves.
What the unions want is all the rights and privileges without any of the responsibilities.
Having said why the unions won’t (general laziness and irresponsibility) I’ll say its a damn good idea in theory.
Would you ban unions then Chris?
– No, unions are dying out so they don’t need my help
Do you accept that union members enjoy better wages and conditions than those who arent union members?
– Yes, undeservedly
Do you want to bring back slavery?
-I’m not entirely sure how you made the jump from me thinking union employees are lazy and irresponsible to me thinking slavery should be brought back but I’m guessing you probably had one too many red bulls and didn’t get enough sleep
Employers and corporations and farmers LOVE unions (for themselves). They know the power and leverage that organisation and co-ordination brings to the table.
One thing I well remember ,in the days when I was an acive unionist was that bluggers like you refused to pay the union fee but were first in line to get the gains the union had fought for. You are typical of the anti-worker ,anti -union low life it has been my misfortune to sometimes have worked with. Working Class Tories ! nothing is lower .As my Spanish Civil war father classed them “They are that low they could crawl under a snake with top hat and stilts on” That that type are still with us today is sad !sad! sad!
You could try not talking SHIT, show us where there is a workplace where the unionized workforce is not productive,
There is NO difference in the poductivity of a unionized workplace versus a non-unionized workplace,
Oh except of course if you consider productivity to be an employers ability to exploit workers in a non-unionized workplace by paying workers lower rates of pay than what they would receive in a unionized workplace,
But then, that aint got anything much to do with worker output or productivity…
From time to time I’ve mentioned that very possibility in the company of union officials, organisers, members and in general company too.
In short, negotiate with an aim to assuming control of the company if and when the correct circumstances arise. (In NZ there is a perfectly legal route to pursue in such an instance) The two basic hurdles are that unions (or those aho comprise the heirarchy of unions) simply aren’t familiar with the basic structures that would need to be developed to facilitate worker’s control. (If they were, an outline of necessary structures and procedures could become part and parcel of any union’s membership literature as a way of introducing workers to the concept and the possibilities it contains.) And ordinary workers are in the same boat and in addition have a lot of resistance vis a vis their idea of what a work place is and their fears with regards being in control and responsible.
I had thought of doing a post on it a while back to compliment one I’d done on what policies a genuine left parliamentary party would pursue. (Use their position in government to distribute the power of the state outwards and downwards ie, rather than rely on the mistaken Marxist assumption that the state will smehow magically naturally wither, to actively wither the state’s centralised authority)
Hmm. Maybe you’re comment has given me the wee kick in the arse needed to get into gear and do the post 😉
Erm. Not sure where you’re coming from with that comments bad12. I know that Trotsky and Lenin both advocated for single management structures in the workplace… the vertical division of labour.(Hence the dissolution of worker’s councils and the appointment of party personel to over see or manage the workplace. And Trotsky’s lament that the USSR would have moved in that direction a lot quicker had circumstances allowed.)
It’s the second part of your comment that confuses me. If production is organised such that there is no vertical division of labour and therefore no exploitation of workers by those seeking to profit from their labour, then there is no capitalism… that is, if we agree that the power relationship of boss and worker and the profit that relationship yields is what lies at the core of capitalism.
Maybe an alternative phrasing of what you wrote would be to say that if the fruits of production were to be distributed across society via democratic mechanisms then inequality and poverty (inevitable products of profit driven market based mechanisms for distribution) would likely disappear.
Would be a great post Bill, if you could put it together at some stage. Although I’m familiar with some of the concepts I don’t know enough about the specifics of how a privately held small business could be legally transformed into a co-op, when the right “circumstances” arise.
As for workers being uncertain/anxous about the responsibilities of owning their own business, that is understandable, but given how many people have gone from being employees to contracting/consulting and have become GST registered etc themselves, I don’t think its too big a hurdle to get past.
Re: the operating hierarchy of a business, I think there will always be a role for some sort of hierarchy of decision makers in a larger business, in order to expedite day to day and week to week matters of business. But the managers/supervisors will be democratically elected from amongst their peers, and if they fail to perform can just as easily be replaced. And for the more important or bigger strategic decisions of the business, all the shareholders of the co-op (ie the body of workers) can meet say once a month, discuss and vote on the matters of consequence.
PS nice side benefit of workers gaining first hand experience of how democratic systems work…
I think there will always be a role for some sort of hierarchy of decision makers in a larger business, in order to expedite day to day and week to week matters of business.
Not necessarily a hierarchy but an administration that reports to the workers who are themselves part of the larger co-op.
If you can get your head around the idea that although certain administative or managerial functions need to be performed, it’s not necessary to have a single person or committee of people or whatever assigned to positions or assume roles per se in order for those things to be done – then you can make a clean break from static or fixed heirarchies.
And if you don’t abolish the positions while maintaining the functions of the positions through, for example, extensive systems for knowledge and skill sharing, then you will simply recreate the same deleterious vertical divisions of labour that we currently have.
And yeah. It’s always kind of ‘amused’ me that a worker will baulk in fear at the idea of a collective and then use redundancy compensation to make a go at establishing their own business…a far riskier undertaking in terms of vulnerability.
Ideally you’d want it to be cyclical. Moving from the workspace to administration and back again so that no one becomes divorced from either. If the co-op also has research (which it should do) then you’d want people cycling through that as well.
Ideally you’d want it to be cyclical. Moving from the workspace to administration and back again so that no one becomes divorced from either.
Or have both areas straddled similtaneously. There is no reason why people performing admin tasks can’t perform more immediate production tasks too. And although those not interested in admin tasks, or who just naturally lack the ability to perform them, would be in the workplace only, there is no reason why they can’t perfrom a range of tasks there instead of being tied to the one task/area all of the time.
So it’s perfectly feasible to envisage somebody undertaking ‘office related’ tasks one day and shop floor tasks the next…or in the afternoon or whatever. And it’s also perfectly feasible for the grotty or mundane things to be attended to by everyone via some equitable mechanism – y’know, things such as general cleaning or cleaning the loos or whatever.
In Mondragon manufacturing facilities, workers commonly do the same job only for 2 or 4 hours at a time, before going to another role on the factory floor. Gives both the body and the brain a change. So I agree completely.
And you have to take into account those people who excel/like a certain work role as well.
CV
Wouldn’t it be good if the trend to contractors, which I have thought is a sneaky way of employers getting out of responsibility for the wellbeing if workers, actually is a training step to getting into a true small business. (As contracting often is dependent or nearly on full-time work from one company, hence my feeling that they should be employees.)
And there’s a model for it: the Marcora law in Italy. It dates from the 1980s, and I advocate for that here. If you become unemployed in Italy, you are given a choice. Option A: you go on unemployment like in America, you get a weekly check for a couple years, that’s your unemployment benefit. But you can choose an alternative if you wish. The government of Italy will give you the entire two to three years of unemployment right now in a lump sum. But here’s the condition. You must get together with eight or 10 other unemployed people to make the same choice with you at the same time, and you must commit to using the lump sum as the startup capital for a collective enterprise, cooperatively owned and operated by all of you unemployed people.
Very interesting idea.
What are the objectives of running this? And are there any examples of this actually happening successfully in a competitive market environment?
Although I like the idea, I just cant see it working that well.
Where to begin. The restoration of one’s dignity through no longer beng a wage slave? Efficiency and productivity sky rocketing? Working far fewer hours for the same renumeration as at present? Being an integral part of a functional democratic environment? Individual and collective empowerment? Workplace satisfaction? Oh, and I could go on but that should be enough to be going on with; enough to ‘give you the picture’.
And are there any examples of this actually happening successfully in a competitive market environment?
Yes. And I could write at length from personal experience of my time as a part of a succesful worker’s collective. But I won’t. Because I’ve done it before here on ‘thestandard’.
Well nice idea, and nice theory. However the fact that these discussions here exist suggests that there are not many current examples. So either the model is not usually successful, or there is a lack of will to make it happen.
I suspect it is a combination of both.
…gee I’m glad that great minds and inventors of the past didn’t adhere to your logic: “there are not many current examples ergo the model is not successful ergo…do I detect a “not worth trying” in there???
Your criticism would be valid if it was a new idea, but it isn’t, in fact its one of the oldest society models there is.
So I stand by my earlier point
Your view is uninformed, and unimportant. Thanks for the derail though, its very interesting you would take the time to attack the idea of real life democracy.
Hi DTB,
What are the barriers?
I’m certain that if the model was successful and there was a will to make it work, there would be many businesses in NZ operating like this as we speak. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but I certainly haven’t knowingly come across one.
Just guessing a few here:
1.) Lack of the necessary social networking
2.) Lack of access to money
3.) Lack of the necessary knowledge needed to work through the system
4.) Unable to support themselves while they initiate a huge risk and no other support available (I think this is the biggest – people have the ideas and the will, they just don’t have enough resources to actually apply them)
That’s a few I could think of in a couple of minutes – there will be more but probably need research to really find them.
I’m not saying there aren’t any, but I certainly haven’t knowingly come across one.
So you’ve tried to make a cooperative? No? So that would mean that you’re talking out your arse then.
I don’t think any of those reasons are substantially different from anyone going into business for the first time.
Have I tried to make a cooperative – no. Have you? If not then I guess you can join me in talking sh1t
I don’t think any of those reasons are substantially different from anyone going into business for the first time.
Really? You do know that most business start-ups fail don’t you? But here’s the thing, it’s easier to try it with one person than finding several people to do it together, i.e, see 1.).
And, yes, a lot of the barriers will be the same. Have you ever considered that may be why not everyone is in business?
Have I tried to make a cooperative – no. Have you? If not then I guess you can join me in talking sh1t
You were the one that said you haven’t come across any barriers regarding setting up a co-op.
Bulldust.
Shouldn’t make any difference what people like me think.
Actually, I like the theory of it. I just question it’s capability to be successful.
Rather than looking for ways it could be made successful, you just sit and snipe questions.
Had a team member like you once. He ended up managing to obliterate team morale and capability to the point that everyone was reassigned. Then, apparently, he did the same to the next team. Got kicked out in the end, I heard.
Tories and farmers love the idea of co-ops. They can be very successful and very profitable. Just look at where Fonterra, Ravensdown, Silver Fern Farms, PGG, CRT and many others have come from.
Thanks Leopard (and Rosy). The links are interesting. I thought the Mondragon model was especially interesting and closer to what has been proposed above. Having senior manager salaries linked to the business minimum wage is something that a lot of businesses should work towards.
The NZ versions Viper lists above are quite removed to these ideals, and I would suggest don’t come close to achieving the main goals and objectives that have been outlined to me.
Yeah, I hadn’t realised how many cooperatives were around…and most aren’t the model of including the workers in the cooperative, as Viper’s example, yet, still, I had heard there were difficulties in keeping them going, so interesting to see that the form can work.
“Having senior manager salaries linked to the business minimum wage is something that a lot of businesses should work towards.”
“It is only a matter of time before someone is injured, or worse, as a consequence of court proceedings not being dealt with, or orders not being issued,” society family law section chairman Garry Collin said.
Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier has written to the ministry with his “continuing concern” about the system, and asked for a meeting with Justice Minister Judith Collins.
A nationwide rollout would be a disaster, Collin says. “The model is fundamentally flawed.”
Someone should have told them a fundamental review would result in delays and negative social impacts
the Law Society firmly believed that substantial charges to the Family Court were not appropriate. Instead, with some targeted legislative amendments to reduce fiscal costs, the Family Court should remain significantly unchanged.
11.1 – It is easier to be critical than to be correct and it is important in considering the undoubted challenges confronted by this review not to make changes merely to be seen to be “doing something”
.
11.2 – Family law is still law. It embraces legal rights and legal responsibilities. It sets boundaries. It is the product of statutes created by Parliament. Citizens are entitled to pursue available remedies and to be brought to account for perceived breaches and shortcomings. Care needs to be taken not to trivialise this by closing the door to the Family Court’s expertise and specialties.
11.3 – Access to justice and the associated issue of equality of arms should not be lightly put aside. Claims that if parties too readily resort to the Family Court, they are discouraged from finding their own solutions are both overblown and unsubstantiated, although they fit the model of confronting the fiscal emergency.
11.4 – Care needs to be taken to ensure that changes, however well-intentioned, do not have unintended consequences. Simplistic solutions are likely to create more difficulties than they resolve. In the Law Society’s view, the data provided in support of the review do not justify substantial changes to the Family Court. With some targeted legislative amendments to reduce fiscal costs, the Family Court should remain significantly unchanged at this point in time. The Law Society reiterates that the exercise of greater discipline, refinements to existing systems and procedures, and a properly resourced Registry, would enable the Family Court to serve the purpose for which it was established, in a fiscally sustainable manner
More short-term thinking about a fiscal emergency in the family courts rather that thinking about the long-term costs – both economically and to society from single-minded thinking looks like it’s producing an ugly, expensive outcome. Judith Collins must re-think these changes before adding to the appalling toll of family violence.
The reorganization is the most inept that I have seen. The Waitakere Family Court used to be really good to deal with. Urgent applications would be turned around within 12 hours and the Judges knew the files well. Cases would be dealt with quickly and not left to fester.
There was quite a roadshow with the reforms and we were promised that things would not only remain the same but get better. Hearing times would be available more quickly. Judge time would be more available. I did not believe it from the start because there were also redundancies happening.
And the reality is that it has been a total shambles. A week’s wait for a decision in an urgent application is not uncommon.
To add to this the changes in legal aid are going to drive up the demand in court time, not reduce it. And the cutting in counseling and use of mandatory mediation are going to mean that things will only get worse.
The current Government has no idea what it is doing to justice. This is really scary.
The current Government has no idea what it is doing to justice. This is really scary.
Why do people keep believing the govt dont know what they are doing, its simply allows them to be lazy and wait until the next govt comes along….more of the same
Loop and repeat every electoral cycle!
Newsflash to all: The government knows exactly what it is doing, its being directed!
Agree with Muzza and I thought one of the reasons Power slunk off to the banking industry was he couldn’t climb back into his cosy lawyers world as he’d made enemies of them with the reforms he slammed through.
Power went to Wespac, because its the government bank, and having him “inside”, simply BAU for the revolving door policy. “Good business I think they call that, and it allows power to be groomed off radar without the media focus!
Look for Power to return to politics, at a politically “necessary” time, almost certainly as leader of the Nats.
The government’s doctrinaire, blundering, hamfisted “reform” of legal aid has turned the relative silk purse of that institution into an undoubted pig’s ear.
Parallel to soundbites cynically badmouthing criminal legal aid lawyers particularly, it was glibly vaunted that the natural consequence of changes would (a) reinforce experienced legal aid lawyers’ commitment to legal aid, and (b) attract to legal aid greater numbers of experienced lawyers.
It is uncontestable that the reverse has occurred as to (a) and you can forget the fantasy all over (b). Those devising and leading changes were on notice as to the outcomes now with us. It must therefore be that the public was knowingly misled. If it’s not that we can look only to extreme negligence/incompetence.
Uncontestable reports of resulting failure and dysfunction conveyed to the Ministry of Justice from the highest levels of the District Court bench have simply gone unanswered.
Legal aid as an anywhere near viable institution and criminal legal aid particularly is heading for collapse. What do we have in answer to this crisis in an indispensable wing of our justice system ? Seemingly not much more than the now commonplace Morning Report refrain – “The minister was not available for interview……..”.
Over 6 months delay in the Welllington area for submissions only hearings. Okay money is less important than safety but still means some are starving.
Trouble is this ADR is feeding the problems. Just gives one parent a chance to harry the other over an extended period. Two years later most “access” parents arn’t turning up and are paying only $12 per week.
It’s a ridiculously expensive system with rubbish outcomes.
mickysavage
A good summation of our present passing-for government.
The current Government has no idea what it is doing to justice. This is really scary.
I’d stop at – the current government (and one can’t say ‘ours’) has no idea. About what anything it is attempting to do will achieve for our nation’s good. And doesn’t care because doing something that pleases one’s present or soon-to-be friends is all that counts, including in the counting of course is the money that the system lavishes on these prime people.
I’d stop at – the current government (and one can’t say ‘ours’) has no idea. About what anything it is attempting to do will achieve for our nation’s good.
As opposed to any previous government going back decades, which have clearly been working for NZ, as opposed to against it! /sarc
Prism, when a government looks blatantly to be working against a country, and the vast majority of its people, the government is broken, and the people have let it become their enemy, so the people are getting exactly what their apathy has created. How much more obvious for people does it need to become! I guess the next few years will answer that question, and still there will be be many who ponder, “why does the government not have any idea”….Again I will just repeat, that when it looks like the government has no idea, its because they are executing someone else’s agenda!
Another newsflash: The “soon to be friends” you refer, are the same “friends” they have alsways been, regardless of government, and the sooner people wrap their skulls around that, the sooner we can get some energy working the right angles..
You can imagine what will happen. Collins will get up and praise the magnificence of the National Government whose rule has caused the crime rate to drop.
It’s true; even comedians that don’t do misogynist material are protective of those that do, because they are wary of censorship and contemptuous of hecklers. When Daniel Tosh was told by a female punter that “rape jokes are never funny” he asked the audience, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her …” Other comics defended him and the promoter said: “You start dishing out something to a comic and try to be funny, you better be able to take it.”
Tosh probably doesn’t realise how many of the women in his audience have been sexually assaulted (one in four is the usually accepted number). Although if he did know I’m sure he wouldn’t care.
The most rac*st people in the world are corporations/governments, and any “organisation” which we see promoting itself as being against racisim. Think IOC, FIFA and the rest of the alphabet agencies, which are generally speaking headed by people, who have rac*st ingrained deeply into their soul, among other truly awful traits.
Stupid people can’t see through the charade, and in case you’re one of them, the most rac*st peoople in this country are almost exclusively white, and belong to the same clubs.
One more thing on the same theme ….. on Q+A this morning there was interview with two gentlemen over water rights. The older gentleman clearly and concisely laid out the issues in a way that made unseratsnding easy. He reiterated the status of two laws in NZ. Customary law and common law and the way in which they influence Maori and the rest of NZ. It all made sense and was well worth listening to. What the interviewer didn’t cover, and I guess wasn’t in hs brief for this, was how those two systems fit together and how well they serve a community over time. This is the bigger issue in the long term and it is not acknowledged or discussed in any proper manner. Yet.
Of course this isn’t really about upholding high moral standards at all, and is simply being used by the hypocrite Cameron Slater to undertake another baseless attack on the excellent leftwing blog The Standard…
A quite insightful comment from one of the contributors to whaleoil, not sure I agree with all the points though…
Cunliffe will not make it – hope he has the job he went overseas to seek.
Reasons:-
He is male
He has a brain
He is not Queer
He is not a Unionist
He is not a Teacher
He is quite wealthy (along with his Lawyer wife)
He has never worn a cloth cap either
He is in wrong Party
chris73 thinks, when he thinks at all, in clichés. That’s fine in the National and ACT parties, but we expect more in an online discussion group, surely.
So you think Shearer won’t make it chris73, what with him not meeting any of those criteria either.
……………..
These right wing trolls remind me of the Borg. The great leader gets a boner about something & it’s spread throughout the collective for the drones to propagate. They’re all the bloody same.
The latest tit-tangle for these trolls is unions, you’d think it was the ’70s the way they’re carrying on.
Actually I think Shearer could make it but it depends on the actions of the labour caucus. Labour would/should have won the last election and Goff would be the PM but for whatever reason the Labour MPs seemed to develop a serious case of foot in mouth.
If all the Labour MPs just STFU in the lead up to the next election then Shearer should win.
But they won’t/can’t help themselves (attention seeking perhaps?)
“The latest tit-tangle for these trolls is unions, you’d think it was the ’70s the way they’re carrying on.”
-Funny I’d have thought the same thing about the unions
“-Funny I’d have thought the same thing about the unions”
Oh come now. The unions today have very little influence on politics, the workplace or NZ society in general. The right have gone all ‘reds under the bed’ because the unions made them look complete fools over the recent Talleys and Ports of Auck disputes. A quiet spoken & well mannered lady wiped the floor with all the sneering braggarts & posers and the right can’t handle it.
What’s actually happened with both the Talleys and Ports disputes? I haven’t heard anything for ages so assume things are pretty sorted, but I have never actually heard of any collective agreement being signed for either. Has that happened?
You are showing complete ignorance regarding your cloth
cap comment.Only once was it worn by the great Socialist/Pacifist ,Keir Hardie who worn it in the British Parliament to make a point. Perhaps you should read a bit of history before you make such comments which only highlights your lack of political knowledge,
Seems that charter schools are as unpopular as decreasing the number of teachers. Considering the news that some of them will be teaching Creationism I’d say that they’re about to become even less so.
Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Pussy Riot causing a public disturbance and everything to do with closing down criticism of the current regime…
False flag operation? I can assure you that the members of Pussy Riot are Russian citizens and I very much doubt their activism has been influenced by foreign interests wanting to destabilize Putins reign… He’s doing a pretty good job of that himself.
It’s interesting though that this issue has gained more media attention than the recent widespread public protests about election fraud. However I haven’t seen any similar cases of disinformation concerning the Pussy Riot issue. As far as I can tell there’s no link to a black flag operation.
Wasn’t meaning Pussy Riot’s actions. I was meaning the long sentence, which you appear to be assuming was influenced by Vladimir Putin, however simply from reading your article, one could also view the information, with belief that Vladimir Putin truly saw merit in not imposing a long sentence and the influence effecting the court’s sentencing was coming from another quarter.
I believe Russia isn’t falling into line with big money interests’ desires to ‘get on in there’ into the Middle East and this is the quarter that I would immediately query.
Also explains the wide coverage.
I am inconclusive about this, merely questioning, yet admit to being entirely suspicious of main media outlets’ ability to convey information that suits only one main interest: big money.
Putin had a very difficult balancing act to pull off with this. He had to satisfy a lot of local political and religious interests pissed off with P.R. A lot of whom are his core political base. Plus send a message that this kind of political expression is not particularly welcome. While not crossing the line of Russia becoming dictatorial or tyrannical, in international opinion.
So a 2 year sentence less time served probably passes muster. Don’t be surprised if there is an early release due to good behaviour or what not in 12 months. Probably at a time he needs to soften international opinion.
Well, I’m reasonably confident. (Although the Russian political psyche is pretty opaque to outsiders…) The main reason being the massive level of international media coverage the case has received and the fact that Putin found himself forced to respond to that coverage officially. P.R. are now a card to be saved up and used later, if the occasion calls for it/allows for it.
I believe Russia isn’t falling into line with big money interests’ desires to ‘get on in there’ into the Middle East and this is the quarter that I would immediately query.
Looks like this government is going against the populations will regarding land sales as well. And good on the Greens for calling out this governments habit of bullying.
One of the Taranaki three appears to have been found. The instructor who has lost his life along with two of his group, was remembered by his wife as someone who was always quick to get involved. It seems a pity that people don’t take up Slow Adventuring similar to the move to Slow Food in opposition to Fast Food. Even perhaps daring to decide that it is too chancy to go out after making a reasoned assessment of the conditions, which would take time. Incidents like this blacken the image of responsibility, integrity and carefulness of outdoor ‘experts or professionals’ or whatever they call themselves. All based on the idea that outdoor pursuits are good and make a man of you – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger eh!
I remember Outward Bound having to change from its gung-ho approach to its wilderness experience with people who didn’t know the territory and the dangers. This was after Susan Consedine slid over the edge of a bluff to her death, and also one other died.. I think it was misty, the ground was damp, there was a gravel-covered slope to the edge of the bluff and not anything that could be grabbed to stop what must have been a frightful slide to disaster.
Notable is the mention of a previous military course.in the item. “Outward Bound was founded in 1941 by the German educator Kurt Hahn. It was originally devised for The Blue Funnel Shipping Line as a training course for their young sailors during World War II.”
Also on this line – from wikipedia on Prince Charles’ education which is relevant to Kurt Hahn who has had a lot of influence on educational ideas. The Prince attended Gordonstoun and his thoughts were “Reportedly the Prince despised his time at the latter school – “Colditz in kilts”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles,_Prince_of_Wales#Education
Gordonstoun in the north-east of Scotland was founded in 1934 by German educator Kurt Hahn, Three previous generations of British royalty were educated at Gordonstoun since its establishment including the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales.[5] Due to Dr. Hahn’s influence the school has a strong connection with Germany and forms part of the Round Square Conference of Schools, a group of over 60 schools across the globe also founded by Hahn.
It could be that many of these attitudes of conquering and fighting fears and so on could be traced to military training attitudes that tend to be ‘resigned’ about deaths occurring to souls in their care.
In today’s Herald Bernard Hickey makes some strange comments, i am not sure just how tongue in cheek hickey is being when He calls for the former money trading Prime Minister to again enter the fray so to speak on behalf of lowering the historically high value of the New Zealand dollar,
Essentially what Hickey says is that the likes of the Brits,US, and Japan are in the process of ‘printing’ loads of paper money, which dilutes the value of their currency’s and to avoid any suggestion of creating internal inflationary pushes in their own economy’s ‘exporting’ the stuff by buying up Government bonds in the likes of Australia and New Zealand, thus making us and our children responsible for adding the ‘labour’ to such fictional ‘money’ to in essence make the stuff more real than the stuff produced by the ”pixies at the bottom of the garden”, (to quote Slippery our Prime Minister),
The Heralds Hickey goes into a ‘us too’ over this,(no discussion about the morality at all),and it’s here the suggestion is that the master money trader himself, Slippery the Prime Minister, step into the breach and return the favor, perhaps tenfold, to those economy’s which in essence are now treating the New Zealand economy as a ‘slave economy’ to wash it’s excessive printings of money through,
I frimly believe the whole thrust of the Herald article is either a pisstake by Hickey, or, there’s something in the water up that way, and,we all have to assume that Bernard had to suspend quite some part of His belief system in writing it,
First, we all have to actually believe the back story of the Slippery little Shyuster currently installed as the Prime Minister, which i for one call bullshit upon, sure money trader He was but don’t for a minute believe that Slippery was head-honcho of any of it,
After a career in the (fraudulent?)banking industry he walked away with 50 mill a huge fortune as far as any of us have the fingers to count it, but, in the great scheme of things in the fraudulent world of international banking our Prime Minister was simply a minor functionary, the under-boss running a small team of serfs among many under-bosses running small teams of serfs,
The real big fish operating the complex and complicated frauds which are at the heart of and account for the profits and losses of the international banking system over the past decade earn sums like 50 million a year, 100 million a year, not the piddling 50 mill our Prime Minister managed to eke from the rort over a decade,
That’s what makes me call bullshit on that particular fairy tale, our Prime Minister the big time money trader???, nah, a small functionary well rewarded for doing exactly as He was told, money trader extraordinaire???, frigging doubt that big time, i doubt whether our Prime Minister ever made any trade anywhere at any time that He wasn’t told to by someone higher up in the sharks tank of (fraudulent?) international banking to make,
So,the Heralds Hickey might want to consider a wiser option in the grand scheme of attempting to export New Zealand’s competitive disadvantage, a high priced dollar, back from whence it came from,
(a),Sure print the stuff, but, spend it into the New Zealand economy helping to solve another problem that economy is suffering from,
(b), Spending the stuff, printed money, into our own economy need not lead to undue inflation, we simply need know how many millions injected into the economy equals 1% of inflation and thus spend such money at a pace that keeps within the Reserve Bank’s monetary targets,
(c), Build with such money high density housing for low income people, which i would suggest in the future is going to be the majority of us thus taking the heat out of the New Zeland housing market,
(d), I suspect that the Herald’s Hickey has bundles of the stuff, money that is,tied up in the housing market thus advocates keeping the internal market over-revving…
re (d): – I’ve met Hickey before and I figure that he would be honestly insulted at your suggestion. He’s frequently indicated that NZ must deleverage its very high private debt levels and move on from allocating capital into unproductive real estate assets. Which is the opposite to “over-revving the internal market”.
(b), Spending the stuff, printed money, into our own economy need not lead to undue inflation, we simply need know how many millions injected into the economy equals 1% of inflation and thus spend such money at a pace that keeps within the Reserve Bank’s monetary targets,
It doesn’t quite work like that. If you spend the printed dollars into increasing the productive and competitive aspects of the economy, market pricing (and therefore inflation) will remain under controlled.
If it turns out at any stage that money supply needs to be reduced, you can tighten up on the availability of private interest bearing debt, increase taxes or increase savings rates.
It doesn’t quite work like that???, well if it works like what you have pointed at we would need hire an idiot savant to do whatever it is you suggest…
Prof Steve Keen is developing quantitative computational models of endogenous money systems. Ones which use starting points far different from typical neoliberal assumptions. And he is visiting NZ soon.
CV
Can you tell Treasury that. I think this idea must have been filed away on one of the hard drives they have had and got wiped when they updated their technology.
John Carter, Lehman
James Kemp, Citigroup
John Key, Merrill Lynch
Adam Kreysar, UBS Warburg
I would say that having been a member of the FXC would indicate, that it is quite feaseable Key was not at the level of underlings you suggest.
Have a look at some of the names in the list, some of the worlds biggest criminals are there…They are all underlings, sure, but to underestimate what Key does/does not know, or has/has not done, would be naiive.
I would also suggest that the figure of 50m, was lowered considerably to make it palpable for kiwis.
As far as being on the Fed goes, it depends what the masters were grooming Him for is how i see that little appointment,
Any indication of the where this missing pot oif gold might be stashed or how big it might be,
On the reported fortune,50 million and falling our Slippery Prime Minister was after a decade or so definitely in terms of cash one of the minnows of the fraudulent international banking industry,
The big boys from the upper echelons easily make that in a year…
Hickey is s very well informed, hard working and very straight-up guy. He desereves respect, not the baseless ramblings that you shoved through your keyboard.
I’ve no idea how anyones actually knows what someone like Key is worth. But he certainly had a very senior role. There are only about 30 members on the NY FXC at any one-time and he was one. Yes he was there as an Exec employee of ML but he was certaily right in the middle of it. He had full responsibility and accountability. Don’t let him off the hook with your fanciful view of the world.
My point exactly, Key was certainly there in the thick of it, and there in the thick of it as a mid level employee of Merrill Lynch,
Glad to see we can establish that as some basis upon which we agree, actually we agree on everything about Slippery,
He was a mid level employee put forward by the hierarchy of Merrill Lynch to do their bidding as far as the rate fixing that went on (and still goes on?),within that organization, which, in my opinion just proves more my point that He was just another underling doing the business of those higher up in the shark tank,
In all of it, thew higher echelons of Merrill Lynch would have been instructing the Slippery little Shyster on what rates they wanted set and when He was on the trading floor He would have been plugged into those higher up within Merrill Lynch who themselves would have been co-operating with their fellow executives in other banking organizations and i doubt for not one minute that He would not have issued a buy or sell order without first being instructed to by someone higher up in the shark tank,
Oh you bet that Slippery and all the under-bosses on His level knew exactly what they were doing and knew exactly when they were and were not undertaking illegal activity BUT He was the fire-wall between His level of responsibility and that of His Bosses, should the excrement have become entangled within the ventilation system it would have been the Slippery’s who become coated in the stuff as far as responsibility for criminal wrong-doing was concerned,
Where you think i give the Slippery’s of the world any form of out as far as responsibility goes is as far as i can see all part of your imagination, and,as far as His nett worth goes it’s been well reported and a stash that size tends to suggest that Slippery was as i say a mid-level gang-boss in the great scheme of things as far as Merrill Lynch is concerned,
And, to your wee whine about Bernard Hickey, diddums, He wrote the piece in the Herald some of which i disagree with and wish to comment upon, which is what i understand ‘Open Mike’ is for,
If Bernard want’s to take issue with what i have written then i assume He is free to also attend and take me to task if He so wishes,and whether ‘insulted’ or deserving of ‘respect’ that buckwheat is a matter of personal opinion and you waste your time attempting to tell me what i can and cannot write as i just don’t give a s**t about your infantile little fan-club support of Him…
and whether ‘insulted’ or deserving of ‘respect’ that buckwheat is a matter of personal opinion and you waste your time attempting to tell me what i can and cannot write as i just don’t give a s**t about your infantile little fan-club support of Him…
Seriously, what is your emotional age. The irony of you using the term “infantile”.
You’re in for a hard old life aren’t you, if you can’t tell the difference between friends and enemies, and between people who know the game and people who don’t.
Yawn, thats just a pile of gobbledy-gook, i am not about to sit here and defend what i commented to another poster to the likes of you,
Address the facts of what i started out discussing or don’t bother as your personal little vindictive snippets of vitriol directed at me are at worst Yawn material or at best something to point finger and laugh at…
Mallard was spotted at a recent NZ Royal Ballet production of Cinderella in Wellington, tête à tête with well-known political journalist, columnist for the NZ Listener and former partner of Foreign Affairs Minister, Murray McCully.
The meeting at Crescendo Preparatory South was progressing as usual when the acting principal dropped a bombshell: She had been given copies of the upcoming standardized tests. The teachers were to study them, take notes — and make sure the kids got it.
This shows an approach by the belief that to excel one needs to pass tests at all costs. This one became public but guess how often cheating was done out of site. Roll on National Standards as incentive to prove “excellence.”
Oops. This to DTB.
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Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
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“He’s merely been telling the truth…. He should be congratulated for that, not threatened.”
Some who trust the anonymous editorial writers, the humorists and virtual government mouthpieces at the Grauniad, the Murdoch media and the BBC might have been led to think otherwise, but Daniel Ellsberg, the Julian Assange of the 1960s and 70s, is a man of formidable expertise, immense knowledge and unimpeachable integrity. He’s someone worth listening to….
Daniel Ellsberg: I Congratulate Ecuador for Standing Up to British Empire to Protect Julian Assange
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, I congratulate Ecuador, of course, for standing up to the British Empire here, for insisting that they are not a British colony, and acting as a sovereign state ought to act. And I think they’ve done the right thing. I appreciate what they’ve done.
AMY GOODMAN: And the British government first threatening to raid the Ecuadorean embassy in London, also saying they would arrest Julian Assange if he attempted to leave to go to Ecuador, but also saying they’d actually raid the embassy?
DANIEL ELLSBERG: It’s an outrageous proposal, which actually undermines the security of every diplomat in the world, in this country right now. I would say it has a chilling effect right now, the very fact that that possibility has been raised. I’m old enough to remember the occasion that gave rise to that, actually. I remember when a Libyan official shot from the Libyan embassy in London and killed a British female officer. … They didn’t raid the embassy on that occasion, but that led three years later to a law that permitted them, under extraordinary circumstances, to do that again. They obviously don’t have anyone here who’s been shooting from the Ecuadorean embassy at anyone. He’s merely been telling the truth, there as in London earlier. He should be congratulated for that, not threatened.
Watch Daniel Ellsberg and read the entire transcript here…
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/17/daniel_ellsberg_i_congratulate_ecuador_for
I have an interest in the Assange situation, although don’t follow it as much as other issues/stories. It is important. But….
…how long is this little feud between a handful of Standartistas going to dominate open mike with long strings of bitter exchanges from entrenched positions?
I have an interest in the Assange situation, although don’t follow it as much as other issues/stories.
Why not? There is no story more crucial to our futures than this one.
I suggest you take a few minutes and listen to what Ellsberg says.
It is ONE crucial issue. I’m waiting to see how it plays out. But the feud here goes beyond that.
I would’ve thought the threats from the general economic situation and climate change are a lot more crucial.
I completely agree with Carol – as I said yesterday noone is going to move on this topic. My guess is anyone who could potentially be swayed no longer reads any of these posts. I know I don’t – it is getting to be far worse than anything Pete George ever did.
Chris seems a tad frustrated at having his or her peace of mind disturbed….
I would’ve thought the threats from the general economic situation and climate change are a lot more crucial.
You “would have thought” that, would you? How much reading have you done on this terrifying case? And please don’t think I am not concerned about our economic situation or global warming.
My guess is anyone who could potentially be swayed no longer reads any of these posts.
My intention is to bring to notice the work of people who are deliberately shut out of British state television, or distorted in newspapers like the Grauniad. People like Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein—all of whom have commented trenchantly on the state persecution of Assange. My intention is not to “sway” intransigent people. The likes of “weka”, “Pascal’s bookie” and the Banksy Award-winning “Te Reo Putake” are clearly not willing to treat this issue seriously, but they clog up this forum with their absurd quibbles and distractions. Your beef is with them, not with me.
I know I don’t – it is getting to be far worse than anything Pete George ever did.
That’s clever. Now I’m Pete George. That’s ethical and perspicacious of you.
Morrissey
I would suggest that Climate Change is of far more importance and gains far less attention. I totally agree with Carol… Let’s give it a rest.
Let the games begin!
Deep Water
Climate change disease danger
Climate change driving Australian fish south
I would suggest that Climate Change is of far more importance and gains far less attention.
Of course Climate Change is of paramount importance. And you don’t think governments harassing and trying to silence Assange will not have a chilling effect on other protesters and dissenters—like ecology activists?
I totally agree with Carol… Let’s give it a rest.
That’s the kind of thing global warming deniers say. Have you thought of working for ACT?
Ah no! As I said yesterday, the debate is at an impasse. I therefore won’t be making further comment until there’s a substantive development.
Carol I think you are being a bit unfair in calling this a “feud” implying equal culpability of all parties. I take my hat off particularly to Weka and Mcflock in intelligently challenging the rape-culture aspects of the discussion itself, which inevitably arise in a case of this kind independently of whether Assange is guilty of the charges.
I had decided to start putting rolleyes as a response to Morrisey’s seeming never-ending campaign salvos.
I get that, js.
I also understand how the evil US empire to stifle dissent. 2 sides to a complex situation. I don’t think anything’s to be gained from each side constantly repeating their position.
Now, have to start working.
Hi Carol,
I personally don’t consider myself to be on a ‘side’ in this. I don’t generally get involved in the debate about the Assange case itself, apart from as js mentions challening rape culture issues as they arise here on TS.
One of my points in the rape culture conversation is that we don’t have to ‘take sides’. This intersects nicely with the small discussion yesterday about the Order of Relations vs the Order of Things that Anne Salmond wrote about.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10827658
However I agree with your and Chris’ points, and have been biting my tongue for a while now about naming Morrissey the new Pete George, esp for the hogging of the first post of Open Mike so often. We can now anticipate protestations of free speech or such.
Like Chris I will now employ 🙄 accordingly.
http://thestandard.org.nz/cv-replies-to-whaleoil/#comment-509905
Morrissey the new Pete George, esp for the hogging of the first post of Open Mike so often.
Early bird catches the worm. You should know that better than anyone else around here…”weka”.
…I also understand how the evil US empire to stifle dissent…
I get that too Carol, in my view, challenging rape culture in this kind of discussion isn’t synonymous with arguing that Assange is guilty.
I agree: I don’t quite grok the idea that “challenging rape culture” and “opposing US imperialism” are somehow equivalent/complementary “sides” of an argument.
Now, have to start working.
And one of these days, it might be an idea to start reading.
How very juvenile!
Here’s one for you…
🙄
And I will put some rolleyes under Weka and McNutmeg each time they accuse people like – oh me, for instance, of “supporting rape culture” because we refuse to judge and sentence Assange for ‘raping’ a couple of cat-fighting groupies!
🙄
Yes.
Because calling complainants “cat-fighting groupies” is in no way supporting rape culture.
🙄
Eiher consent was given or it was not.
If the young women were asleep consent cannot be given.
Seems quite simple to me.
I would never behave like that to my wife, let alone a stranger I’d just met.
I’m pretty respectful of a woman’s right to decide when and if I’m allowed to touch. Consent for one instance does not give me blanket permission, marriage does not give me any non-consenting access either.
It’s not that difficult to ensure you’re both agreeable each and every time.
I would never behave like that to my wife, let alone a stranger I’d just met.
Well my partner quite enjoys it. The map of human sexual behaviour is neither narrow nor wholly domesticated. And this is true for both genders.
Consent for one instance does not give me blanket permission, marriage does not give me any non-consenting access either.
Do you have a mutually signed legal document that is a record of every time you and your wife have made love? Can you prove your claim to have gained this consent on each and every occasion in Court?
Or would it just come down to your word against hers?
“Do you have a mutually signed legal document that is a record of every time you and your wife have made love? Can you prove your claim to have gained this consent on each and every occasion in Court?
Or would it just come down to your word against hers?”
Now you’re just being an idiot.
Anyway her word would support mine not be in opposition to it.
The point I was making, which seems a little obtuse for you, was that the Swedish law does represent a not unreasonable social more.
It may not be one you share but it is their law and likely in reasonable close context to many of their social mores. I’m actually very liberal in my view of what others are able to do sexually but I’ve always had that attitude in the context of clear consent.
Anyway her word would support mine not be in opposition to it.
But what if it were not? What if your relationship had broken down and suddenly your loving partner of many years was no longer a person you recognised?
Still happy for it to be just your word against hers? Or maybe in hindsight maybe a stack of those ‘legal consent’ forms would come in handy just now.
“But what if it were not? What if your relationship had broken down and suddenly your loving partner of many years was no longer a person you recognised?
Still happy for it to be just your word against hers? Or maybe in hindsight maybe a stack of those ‘legal consent’ forms would come in handy just now.”
Well I guess I’d be in a slightly better position than you would be in the same situation cause I’ve never had sex with her while she’s asleep and I’ve never posted on the internet that I have.
You’re still being an idiot.
On the other hand I’ve never posted on the internet that my head is up my arse.
My point is simple. You are pointing to ‘social mores’. Fine, but just exactly how do you propose that detailed compliance with them be established in a Court?
Because that is precisely what is being asked for here.
My point is simple. You are pointing to ‘social mores’.
I’m pointing out that the Swedish law is not unreasonable or out of kilter.
“Fine, but just exactly how do you propose that detailed compliance with them be established in a Court?
Because that is precisely what is being asked for here.”
The same way they decide other cases of complaint using the laws they have passed. Gather evidence, interview witnesses, lay charges, examine case law – whatever it is that they do.
I would never behave like that to my wife, let alone a stranger I’d just met.
I’m pretty respectful of a woman’s right to decide when and if I’m allowed to touch.
And your wife is …. okay with these adventures in gallantry with other women?
You say the women can’t claim to have been raped. You base this on…?
OK in the hours since you last accused me of having no sense of right or wrong I’ve been in the local mountains with a fine group of friends. One of whom recently came out of hospital because her ex-husband put her there. Or how about the woman I was with last year on a five day trip who has only one working eye for the same reason. Or the woman who did my hair last month in a neck-brace and her boyfriend in Rimutaka prison.
That’s rape culture for you. Right here at home and it’s an innate consequence of the property-owning patriarchal death-cult we currently call society. All the snobbery, bullying, abuse, violence, addictions and dysfunction of our so called ‘society’ has it’s direct roots in this deep unequal distribution of power that has been a feature of most human life for the last 10,000 or so years.
Now if you want to change all this with laws which define in minute details exactly what consenting adults can or can’t do in bed together … then good luck to you. If you want adults to sign up to a 32 page legal document detailing in precise detail what sex acts they are going to consent to … and you think that will help then again best of luck.
Personally I’ve read the complainants accounts several times. They invited Assange into their beds. Now that of course does not give anyone a free pass to commit what ever act they like, but in this case I don’t see violence or coercion on Assange’s part. What I do see is miscommunication, misunderstanding and bad timing. Still if Swedish law makes a criminal offence of these events then I’ve consistently argued for a routine legal process to take it’s course.
But the wider context of events makes it clear that the Swedish authorities are making a very special case of Assange for reasons that probably have very little to do with the welfare of the women involved.
Thanks for the bitter, real life, close to home examples RL. Better than continuations of international internet indignation.
I’m late to this as I’ve been busy all weekend as well but in response to what you just said:
“They invited Assange into their beds. Now that of course does not give anyone a free pass to commit what ever act they like, but in this case I don’t see violence or coercion on Assange’s part. What I do see is miscommunication, misunderstanding and bad timing. ”
Can’t be communication if you are asleep. Sure he mayt have felt he had consent based on previous activity but that didn’t mean that he did.
“Still if Swedish law makes a criminal offence of these events then I’ve consistently argued for a routine legal process to take it’s course.”
Agree.
“But the wider context of events makes it clear that the Swedish authorities are making a very special case of Assange for reasons that probably have very little to do with the welfare of the women involved.”
Both agree and disagree. Sweden has passed these laws and it’s their call. Here there is a hue and cry when celebrities get special treatment and I’m sure it’s no different there either. In fact they may be more determined to have him back in Sweden the longer this goes on.
You cannot however also deny the international political ramifications of his leaking the information and the desire in particular of governments wanting their hands on him.
It’s an extremely difficult position that he’s in and I’m not sure that there is an easy solution.
Will be interesting what he has to say tomorrow.
I reckon I agree with all of that (incl last but 2 paragraph) – and it seems better written than my efforts.
Can’t be communication if you are asleep. Sure he mayt have felt he had consent based on previous activity but that didn’t mean that he did.
Asleep or half-asleep? Can you always tell the difference? And when they were awake did they demand he stop? Or was it a few days later that they decided differently? And what if Assange’s version of event’s is different? Who to believe?
All questions that would be best answered if we installed recording video cameras in every bedroom … no?
Or perhaps more realistically maybe Assange should have gotten her to sign a form before each and every sex act. Which prompts me to ask exactly how you would define a ‘sex act’ for the purposes of gaining consent of each occasion. Clearly signing a form before each pelvic thrust is a tad over the top, but what about a 10 min pause before switching between say fellatio and a spot of g-spot massage. How about multiple orgasms? Should be sign the form between each one? Or does a 30 minute refractory period mandate a new sex act?
Just curious to see how you see these things working.
(Actually I do know of a way around all of this. It’s very ancient and effective … but no-one here would listen.)
Maybe, and I’m just throwing this out for the hell of it, maybe those are questions for a court to decide?
And to end up in court, charges first need to be laid. And to progress to that stage, investigators could talk to Assange TODAY.
Not that there’s any point, if they’re not in a position to arrest and charge a known flight risk.
Assange stayed in Sweden and cooperated with the first investigation for five weeks. As a result of that no charges were laid and he was given permission to leave the country.
Only after the whole affair became so overtly political did he become a ‘flight risk’. Whose fault is that?
How can there be no point to progressing the investigation.
And, uh, presumption of innocence remember. They might decide to drop further action against Assange if there are no grounds to proceed.
RL: the prosecutors and his lawyer seem to differ in their accounts on that. But it’s not the same lawyer who came up with “sex by surprise”, so I’ll just say it seems undetermined. As opposed to jumping bail in the UK.
CV: Paragraph 149. Knock yourself out. There’s no point in the second interview without the possibility of a charge. That’s the bit where the present the evidence to him and ask if he has anything to say. Which is probably why he skipped it the second first time.
Why is there no possibility of a charge? They can charge him after they interview him. Which can happen TODAY. Nothing stopping them.
They could also decide to drop further action against him. You know, presumption of innocence and all that.
Or, they’ve avoided asking him because what evidence they do have is flimsy at best.
Yeah, right. 🙄
And maybe tomorrow he’ll announce he’s going to Sweden. Problem solved.
It’s interesting, Vicky, to see that some of these people are now giving YOU this juvenile treatment. I was disturbed to see the rolling eyes campaign against Pete George a few weeks ago; I thought then that it could be utilized against anyone.
Still, when you have no credible argument to offer, using the rolling eyes graphic is an eloquent way to say: “I got nuthin’.”
You’re exactly right, Morrissey… I was upset about the rolleyes campaign against PG for the same reason! Aside from anything else, it’s very juvenile – I can imagine year 9s in a classroom sniggering at someone they can’t answer…
CV, there’s no reply button on yours, so I am answering you here – it seems to me, we didn’t get the memo – the one saying that Assange is uniquely * not entitled to the presumption of innocence!
* When I think about it, not so uniquely, sadly…
Richard Wolff: bringing Democracy to the Workplace
This is how its done. This is what the unions should have been doing 40 years ago. Except they always just held on to the limited vision of fighting The Man.
http://rdwolff.com/content/richard-d-wolff-can-we-remake-our-workplaces-be-more-democratic
Add to that a compulsory labour think-tank that produces opinion on the effects on the workforce of proposed legislative changes, that the government has a legislative duty to take into account.
Fascinating, thanks for the link.
Excellent links and ideas. And the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour is easily financed:
Organisations with cashflow like that can add small businesses (purchasing them or starting them up) to their asset base rather quickly. In a co-op model, the Chamber of Labour would then become an employer of considerable scale to be reckoned with. Employees could then make an active choice between working for a typical capitalist firm, taking a wage and taking orders from the top. Or work for a co-op where they would have an ownership stake and participate in decision making at all levels.
Easy choice eh.
You’d have to deal with the two different objectives – legislative power and business. But I do agree there is dire need to find a funding mechanism for the ownership of business through workers co-ops.
Question: Does incorporating worker interests into the capitalist model evens out some of the highs and lows in the business cycle? That would be economic incentive for workers over and above the traditional capitalist model. Workers require stable incomes over time – compared with capitalists who are often willing to accumulate as soon as they can, and carry the risk of this not continuing in the future.
Yes it does. Reading the article, Richard Wolff describes how Mondragon has had to cope with the majocr Europe-wide recession. In a capitalist corporation, directors will often cut loose money losing units and lay staff off, in order to protect shareholder returns. In Modragon, the workers ARE the shareholders. So they have gone to extraordinary lengths to redeploy, retrain, reassign those workers.
BTW the usual business cycle of being up 4-5 years then being down 1-2 years has been destroyed by the debt deflation/energy trap the world economy is now caught in. IMO co-ops will become even more important economic structures as this drags on for another 10-20 years.
Indeed. It is a different mode of operating, but there are existing examples. Eg the many large corporations who also do political lobbying do these days. What would be nice would be large organisations who do exactly the same for workers and the underclass.
Yeah, i have a suspicion that worker focus evens out the highs and lows, but am not sure the research has been done to support it. co-ops John Lewis and Waitrose in the UK seem to have weathered the downturn better than most (and they’re high-end retailers). Also Co-op and Mondragon and at a national level Austria.
For me, this would be the biggest buy-in reason for a focus on workers interests… Stable profit and income over time. The exact opposite to the precarity model being implemented across the western world right now.
And consumers get a choice of supporting businesses owned by local workers.
IMO research can often give retrospective insights, but rarely prospective guidance, as organisations and market niches tend to be quite individual.
The main question I think needs to be answered is: can co-op enterprises help solve any/many of the problems our communities face today. I think its YES.
A private enterprise needs to focus on serving shareholders. So much the better if those shareholders are local workers, and not a bunch of faraway investors based in Sydney, New York or London, and who have zero care and interest in your local community.
We know that people work the best, the most creatively, and the hardest, when they feel they have a real stake in the enterprise. I have no doubt that a co-op enterprise can outperform any standard enterprise on a routine basis.
A co-op enterprise can also choose to be not for profit. On that basis it will be able to undercut or outlast corporate enterprise almost always. Eg. let’s say a foreign owned factory in your town employs 100 people. The factory is busy, sales are decent, and the workers are busy, but the factory can’t make any real profit against low priced products out of Thailand. Corporate based out of USA shut the factory down because even though its not losing money its not making money for shareholders, and shift production to Thailand, where it will make money for shareholders. The shift doesn’t cost the Corporate anything, but costs your local community 100 jobs. You can see how a locally owned co-op might make different decisions in the same situation.
I’ve heard good things about this UK Co-op
http://www.co-operative.coop/
With you there completely, cv.
Unions in NZ being productive? Yeah right, far easier to dictate to the bosses how things should be done then actually get of your (workers) collective chuffs and take the responsibility yourselves.
What the unions want is all the rights and privileges without any of the responsibilities.
Having said why the unions won’t (general laziness and irresponsibility) I’ll say its a damn good idea in theory.
Would you ban unions then Chris?
Do you accept that union members enjoy better wages and conditions than those who arent union members?
Do you want to bring back slavery?
Would you ban unions then Chris?
– No, unions are dying out so they don’t need my help
Do you accept that union members enjoy better wages and conditions than those who arent union members?
– Yes, undeservedly
Do you want to bring back slavery?
-I’m not entirely sure how you made the jump from me thinking union employees are lazy and irresponsible to me thinking slavery should be brought back but I’m guessing you probably had one too many red bulls and didn’t get enough sleep
Do you dont like unions and think that wages and conditions should be slashed?
So not liking unions is the same as endorsing slavery? Go back to bed for a couple of hours and then try posting.
So not liking unions is the same as endorsing slavery?
There’s not a lot of difference.
Employers and corporations and farmers LOVE unions (for themselves). They know the power and leverage that organisation and co-ordination brings to the table.
The EMA
The Business Roundtable
The Feds
……
Chriss 73
One thing I well remember ,in the days when I was an acive unionist was that bluggers like you refused to pay the union fee but were first in line to get the gains the union had fought for. You are typical of the anti-worker ,anti -union low life it has been my misfortune to sometimes have worked with. Working Class Tories ! nothing is lower .As my Spanish Civil war father classed them “They are that low they could crawl under a snake with top hat and stilts on” That that type are still with us today is sad !sad! sad!
you know the year is 2012 right? not 1952…
I thought the Spanish civil war pre dates WWII.If my history is correct and I should know !!!!! haha 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War
you know the year is 2012 right? not 1952…
Where did you get that response from? One of those discredited Ports of Auckland mis-managers?
You could try not talking SHIT, show us where there is a workplace where the unionized workforce is not productive,
There is NO difference in the poductivity of a unionized workplace versus a non-unionized workplace,
Oh except of course if you consider productivity to be an employers ability to exploit workers in a non-unionized workplace by paying workers lower rates of pay than what they would receive in a unionized workplace,
But then, that aint got anything much to do with worker output or productivity…
Except unions don’t do that, they discuss things. The bosses try to dictate how things should be done and get upset when they’re called on it.
From time to time I’ve mentioned that very possibility in the company of union officials, organisers, members and in general company too.
In short, negotiate with an aim to assuming control of the company if and when the correct circumstances arise. (In NZ there is a perfectly legal route to pursue in such an instance) The two basic hurdles are that unions (or those aho comprise the heirarchy of unions) simply aren’t familiar with the basic structures that would need to be developed to facilitate worker’s control. (If they were, an outline of necessary structures and procedures could become part and parcel of any union’s membership literature as a way of introducing workers to the concept and the possibilities it contains.) And ordinary workers are in the same boat and in addition have a lot of resistance vis a vis their idea of what a work place is and their fears with regards being in control and responsible.
I had thought of doing a post on it a while back to compliment one I’d done on what policies a genuine left parliamentary party would pursue. (Use their position in government to distribute the power of the state outwards and downwards ie, rather than rely on the mistaken Marxist assumption that the state will smehow magically naturally wither, to actively wither the state’s centralised authority)
Hmm. Maybe you’re comment has given me the wee kick in the arse needed to get into gear and do the post 😉
Aha, the other arm of the Marxist debate, Trotsky believed Capitalist enterprise was in fact a better means of distribution and ordering production,
The profits of Capitalism re-distributed from the bottom up into society immediately destroys inequality and poverty…
Erm. Not sure where you’re coming from with that comments bad12. I know that Trotsky and Lenin both advocated for single management structures in the workplace… the vertical division of labour.(Hence the dissolution of worker’s councils and the appointment of party personel to over see or manage the workplace. And Trotsky’s lament that the USSR would have moved in that direction a lot quicker had circumstances allowed.)
It’s the second part of your comment that confuses me. If production is organised such that there is no vertical division of labour and therefore no exploitation of workers by those seeking to profit from their labour, then there is no capitalism… that is, if we agree that the power relationship of boss and worker and the profit that relationship yields is what lies at the core of capitalism.
Maybe an alternative phrasing of what you wrote would be to say that if the fruits of production were to be distributed across society via democratic mechanisms then inequality and poverty (inevitable products of profit driven market based mechanisms for distribution) would likely disappear.
Would be a great post Bill, if you could put it together at some stage. Although I’m familiar with some of the concepts I don’t know enough about the specifics of how a privately held small business could be legally transformed into a co-op, when the right “circumstances” arise.
As for workers being uncertain/anxous about the responsibilities of owning their own business, that is understandable, but given how many people have gone from being employees to contracting/consulting and have become GST registered etc themselves, I don’t think its too big a hurdle to get past.
Re: the operating hierarchy of a business, I think there will always be a role for some sort of hierarchy of decision makers in a larger business, in order to expedite day to day and week to week matters of business. But the managers/supervisors will be democratically elected from amongst their peers, and if they fail to perform can just as easily be replaced. And for the more important or bigger strategic decisions of the business, all the shareholders of the co-op (ie the body of workers) can meet say once a month, discuss and vote on the matters of consequence.
PS nice side benefit of workers gaining first hand experience of how democratic systems work…
Not necessarily a hierarchy but an administration that reports to the workers who are themselves part of the larger co-op.
Yep that works. Reports to the workers and is elected by the workers.
If you can get your head around the idea that although certain administative or managerial functions need to be performed, it’s not necessary to have a single person or committee of people or whatever assigned to positions or assume roles per se in order for those things to be done – then you can make a clean break from static or fixed heirarchies.
And if you don’t abolish the positions while maintaining the functions of the positions through, for example, extensive systems for knowledge and skill sharing, then you will simply recreate the same deleterious vertical divisions of labour that we currently have.
And yeah. It’s always kind of ‘amused’ me that a worker will baulk in fear at the idea of a collective and then use redundancy compensation to make a go at establishing their own business…a far riskier undertaking in terms of vulnerability.
Ideally you’d want it to be cyclical. Moving from the workspace to administration and back again so that no one becomes divorced from either. If the co-op also has research (which it should do) then you’d want people cycling through that as well.
Or have both areas straddled similtaneously. There is no reason why people performing admin tasks can’t perform more immediate production tasks too. And although those not interested in admin tasks, or who just naturally lack the ability to perform them, would be in the workplace only, there is no reason why they can’t perfrom a range of tasks there instead of being tied to the one task/area all of the time.
So it’s perfectly feasible to envisage somebody undertaking ‘office related’ tasks one day and shop floor tasks the next…or in the afternoon or whatever. And it’s also perfectly feasible for the grotty or mundane things to be attended to by everyone via some equitable mechanism – y’know, things such as general cleaning or cleaning the loos or whatever.
In Mondragon manufacturing facilities, workers commonly do the same job only for 2 or 4 hours at a time, before going to another role on the factory floor. Gives both the body and the brain a change. So I agree completely.
And you have to take into account those people who excel/like a certain work role as well.
CV
Wouldn’t it be good if the trend to contractors, which I have thought is a sneaky way of employers getting out of responsibility for the wellbeing if workers, actually is a training step to getting into a true small business. (As contracting often is dependent or nearly on full-time work from one company, hence my feeling that they should be employees.)
+1
http://www.alternet.org/richard-d-wolff-can-we-remake-our-workplaces-be-more-democratic?paging=off
Very interesting idea.
What are the objectives of running this? And are there any examples of this actually happening successfully in a competitive market environment?
Although I like the idea, I just cant see it working that well.
Where to begin. The restoration of one’s dignity through no longer beng a wage slave? Efficiency and productivity sky rocketing? Working far fewer hours for the same renumeration as at present? Being an integral part of a functional democratic environment? Individual and collective empowerment? Workplace satisfaction? Oh, and I could go on but that should be enough to be going on with; enough to ‘give you the picture’.
Yes. And I could write at length from personal experience of my time as a part of a succesful worker’s collective. But I won’t. Because I’ve done it before here on ‘thestandard’.
Well nice idea, and nice theory. However the fact that these discussions here exist suggests that there are not many current examples. So either the model is not usually successful, or there is a lack of will to make it happen.
I suspect it is a combination of both.
@ Balanced [?] View
…gee I’m glad that great minds and inventors of the past didn’t adhere to your logic: “there are not many current examples ergo the model is not successful ergo…do I detect a “not worth trying” in there???
Your criticism would be valid if it was a new idea, but it isn’t, in fact its one of the oldest society models there is.
So I stand by my earlier point
Your view is uninformed, and unimportant. Thanks for the derail though, its very interesting you would take the time to attack the idea of real life democracy.
Or their are systemic barriers preventing it from happening, or…
Life isn’t as simple as you seem to believe.
Hi DTB,
What are the barriers?
I’m certain that if the model was successful and there was a will to make it work, there would be many businesses in NZ operating like this as we speak. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but I certainly haven’t knowingly come across one.
Just guessing a few here:
1.) Lack of the necessary social networking
2.) Lack of access to money
3.) Lack of the necessary knowledge needed to work through the system
4.) Unable to support themselves while they initiate a huge risk and no other support available (I think this is the biggest – people have the ideas and the will, they just don’t have enough resources to actually apply them)
That’s a few I could think of in a couple of minutes – there will be more but probably need research to really find them.
So you’ve tried to make a cooperative? No? So that would mean that you’re talking out your arse then.
I don’t think any of those reasons are substantially different from anyone going into business for the first time.
Have I tried to make a cooperative – no. Have you? If not then I guess you can join me in talking sh1t
Really? You do know that most business start-ups fail don’t you? But here’s the thing, it’s easier to try it with one person than finding several people to do it together, i.e, see 1.).
And, yes, a lot of the barriers will be the same. Have you ever considered that may be why not everyone is in business?
You were the one that said you haven’t come across any barriers regarding setting up a co-op.
Well, one of the barriers is people like you who seek to undermine the idea from the very beginning.
Bulldust.
Shouldn’t make any difference what people like me think.
Actually, I like the theory of it. I just question it’s capability to be successful.
Yeah, that’s the stuff.
Rather than looking for ways it could be made successful, you just sit and snipe questions.
Had a team member like you once. He ended up managing to obliterate team morale and capability to the point that everyone was reassigned. Then, apparently, he did the same to the next team. Got kicked out in the end, I heard.
Tories and farmers love the idea of co-ops. They can be very successful and very profitable. Just look at where Fonterra, Ravensdown, Silver Fern Farms, PGG, CRT and many others have come from.
Funny how Balanced View is completely ignorant.
@ Balanced View
Here are a few links, from some very quick google searches; most of them are about cooperatives (not democratic ones).
A review on a book which has studied strengths and weaknesses in cooperatives:
http://www.workerscontrol.net/authors/essential-components-workplace-democracy
Info about Nz cooperatives:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1203/S00957/cooperatives-showcase-their-mutual-benefits.htm
http://www.nz.coop/membership/
With stats on cooperatives around the world:
http://www.geo.coop/story/power-cooperation
I had no idea it was The Year of the Cooperative!
Thanks Leopard (and Rosy). The links are interesting. I thought the Mondragon model was especially interesting and closer to what has been proposed above. Having senior manager salaries linked to the business minimum wage is something that a lot of businesses should work towards.
The NZ versions Viper lists above are quite removed to these ideals, and I would suggest don’t come close to achieving the main goals and objectives that have been outlined to me.
@ Balanced View
Yeah, I hadn’t realised how many cooperatives were around…and most aren’t the model of including the workers in the cooperative, as Viper’s example, yet, still, I had heard there were difficulties in keeping them going, so interesting to see that the form can work.
“Having senior manager salaries linked to the business minimum wage is something that a lot of businesses should work towards.”
Yes, would make a big difference.
balanced view… Check out John Lewis in the UK http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/
and Mondragon in Spain http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/ENG.aspx
You might be surprised.
@ CV (2)
Fantastic article (and website) cheers
😀
You’re welcome 🙂
Seemed to work so well in Argentina that the government recognised the concept. 🙂
Family court chaos
Someone should have told them a fundamental review would result in delays and negative social impacts
The the 81-page Law Society submission on the Family Court submission concludes:
More short-term thinking about a fiscal emergency in the family courts rather that thinking about the long-term costs – both economically and to society from single-minded thinking looks like it’s producing an ugly, expensive outcome. Judith Collins must re-think these changes before adding to the appalling toll of family violence.
Hi Rosy
The reorganization is the most inept that I have seen. The Waitakere Family Court used to be really good to deal with. Urgent applications would be turned around within 12 hours and the Judges knew the files well. Cases would be dealt with quickly and not left to fester.
There was quite a roadshow with the reforms and we were promised that things would not only remain the same but get better. Hearing times would be available more quickly. Judge time would be more available. I did not believe it from the start because there were also redundancies happening.
And the reality is that it has been a total shambles. A week’s wait for a decision in an urgent application is not uncommon.
To add to this the changes in legal aid are going to drive up the demand in court time, not reduce it. And the cutting in counseling and use of mandatory mediation are going to mean that things will only get worse.
The current Government has no idea what it is doing to justice. This is really scary.
Why do people keep believing the govt dont know what they are doing, its simply allows them to be lazy and wait until the next govt comes along….more of the same
Loop and repeat every electoral cycle!
Newsflash to all: The government knows exactly what it is doing, its being directed!
Agree with Muzza and I thought one of the reasons Power slunk off to the banking industry was he couldn’t climb back into his cosy lawyers world as he’d made enemies of them with the reforms he slammed through.
Power went to Wespac, because its the government bank, and having him “inside”, simply BAU for the revolving door policy. “Good business I think they call that, and it allows power to be groomed off radar without the media focus!
Look for Power to return to politics, at a politically “necessary” time, almost certainly as leader of the Nats.
The government’s doctrinaire, blundering, hamfisted “reform” of legal aid has turned the relative silk purse of that institution into an undoubted pig’s ear.
Parallel to soundbites cynically badmouthing criminal legal aid lawyers particularly, it was glibly vaunted that the natural consequence of changes would (a) reinforce experienced legal aid lawyers’ commitment to legal aid, and (b) attract to legal aid greater numbers of experienced lawyers.
It is uncontestable that the reverse has occurred as to (a) and you can forget the fantasy all over (b). Those devising and leading changes were on notice as to the outcomes now with us. It must therefore be that the public was knowingly misled. If it’s not that we can look only to extreme negligence/incompetence.
Uncontestable reports of resulting failure and dysfunction conveyed to the Ministry of Justice from the highest levels of the District Court bench have simply gone unanswered.
Legal aid as an anywhere near viable institution and criminal legal aid particularly is heading for collapse. What do we have in answer to this crisis in an indispensable wing of our justice system ? Seemingly not much more than the now commonplace Morning Report refrain – “The minister was not available for interview……..”.
Over 6 months delay in the Welllington area for submissions only hearings. Okay money is less important than safety but still means some are starving.
Trouble is this ADR is feeding the problems. Just gives one parent a chance to harry the other over an extended period. Two years later most “access” parents arn’t turning up and are paying only $12 per week.
It’s a ridiculously expensive system with rubbish outcomes.
mickysavage
A good summation of our present passing-for government.
I’d stop at – the current government (and one can’t say ‘ours’) has no idea. About what anything it is attempting to do will achieve for our nation’s good. And doesn’t care because doing something that pleases one’s present or soon-to-be friends is all that counts, including in the counting of course is the money that the system lavishes on these prime people.
As opposed to any previous government going back decades, which have clearly been working for NZ, as opposed to against it! /sarc
Prism, when a government looks blatantly to be working against a country, and the vast majority of its people, the government is broken, and the people have let it become their enemy, so the people are getting exactly what their apathy has created. How much more obvious for people does it need to become! I guess the next few years will answer that question, and still there will be be many who ponder, “why does the government not have any idea”….Again I will just repeat, that when it looks like the government has no idea, its because they are executing someone else’s agenda!
Another newsflash: The “soon to be friends” you refer, are the same “friends” they have alsways been, regardless of government, and the sooner people wrap their skulls around that, the sooner we can get some energy working the right angles..
muzzza
Yes too true.
A police decision to drop family violence as a category in crime statistics will obscure a nationwide rise in domestic abuse, Women’s Refuge says.
I would suggest a rethink is optimistic!
You can imagine what will happen. Collins will get up and praise the magnificence of the National Government whose rule has caused the crime rate to drop.
And more women will get beaten and killed.
MS – I think that is a certainty, which is why I keep links to such articles filed!
Would YOU trust this politician to lie straight in bed?
“It’s important to understand that this is not about Mr. Assange’s activities at WikiLeaks or the attitude of the United States of America.”
William Hague, British Foreign Secretary, Thursday 16 August 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/17/lawyer_raid_on_embassy_to_arrest
Apropos of nothing, here’s Tanya Gold on rape jokes. Caution, misogynists may find the content challenging.
That’s pretty shocking but not surprising.
Tosh probably doesn’t realise how many of the women in his audience have been sexually assaulted (one in four is the usually accepted number). Although if he did know I’m sure he wouldn’t care.
And it happens here in NZ too. (Apologies for the self-promotion!)
Starter for ten … (you need a copy of the Sunday Star Times)
Across page 4 and 5 of the SST – John Ansell, Todd McLay and Hone Harawira ….
which ones are the racists and why?
Well Hones racist but I don’t know about the other two
Well Hones racist but I don’t know about the other two
You know bugger all, judging by what you’ve posted recently.
Are you as limited as your words indicate?
The most rac*st people in the world are corporations/governments, and any “organisation” which we see promoting itself as being against racisim. Think IOC, FIFA and the rest of the alphabet agencies, which are generally speaking headed by people, who have rac*st ingrained deeply into their soul, among other truly awful traits.
Stupid people can’t see through the charade, and in case you’re one of them, the most rac*st peoople in this country are almost exclusively white, and belong to the same clubs.
One more thing on the same theme ….. on Q+A this morning there was interview with two gentlemen over water rights. The older gentleman clearly and concisely laid out the issues in a way that made unseratsnding easy. He reiterated the status of two laws in NZ. Customary law and common law and the way in which they influence Maori and the rest of NZ. It all made sense and was well worth listening to. What the interviewer didn’t cover, and I guess wasn’t in hs brief for this, was how those two systems fit together and how well they serve a community over time. This is the bigger issue in the long term and it is not acknowledged or discussed in any proper manner. Yet.
Cameron Slater vs Colonial Viper
Of course this isn’t really about upholding high moral standards at all, and is simply being used by the hypocrite Cameron Slater to undertake another baseless attack on the excellent leftwing blog The Standard…
Much appreciated…nice find, the youtube recap 😎
No problemo CV. ChurchHatesTucker edits heaps of cool stuff. I particularly like this one about the Worst Toys Ever. I know I shouldn’t laugh.
A quite insightful comment from one of the contributors to whaleoil, not sure I agree with all the points though…
Cunliffe will not make it – hope he has the job he went overseas to seek.
Reasons:-
He is male
He has a brain
He is not Queer
He is not a Unionist
He is not a Teacher
He is quite wealthy (along with his Lawyer wife)
He has never worn a cloth cap either
He is in wrong Party
🙄
You know you’re dealing with serious comments when they use scare-caps on words like “queer”.
chris73 thinks, when he thinks at all, in clichés. That’s fine in the National and ACT parties, but we expect more in an online discussion group, surely.
So you think Shearer won’t make it chris73, what with him not meeting any of those criteria either.
……………..
These right wing trolls remind me of the Borg. The great leader gets a boner about something & it’s spread throughout the collective for the drones to propagate. They’re all the bloody same.
The latest tit-tangle for these trolls is unions, you’d think it was the ’70s the way they’re carrying on.
Actually I think Shearer could make it but it depends on the actions of the labour caucus. Labour would/should have won the last election and Goff would be the PM but for whatever reason the Labour MPs seemed to develop a serious case of foot in mouth.
If all the Labour MPs just STFU in the lead up to the next election then Shearer should win.
But they won’t/can’t help themselves (attention seeking perhaps?)
“The latest tit-tangle for these trolls is unions, you’d think it was the ’70s the way they’re carrying on.”
-Funny I’d have thought the same thing about the unions
“-Funny I’d have thought the same thing about the unions”
Oh come now. The unions today have very little influence on politics, the workplace or NZ society in general. The right have gone all ‘reds under the bed’ because the unions made them look complete fools over the recent Talleys and Ports of Auck disputes. A quiet spoken & well mannered lady wiped the floor with all the sneering braggarts & posers and the right can’t handle it.
What’s actually happened with both the Talleys and Ports disputes? I haven’t heard anything for ages so assume things are pretty sorted, but I have never actually heard of any collective agreement being signed for either. Has that happened?
To chris 73,
You are showing complete ignorance regarding your cloth
cap comment.Only once was it worn by the great Socialist/Pacifist ,Keir Hardie who worn it in the British Parliament to make a point. Perhaps you should read a bit of history before you make such comments which only highlights your lack of political knowledge,
Seems that charter schools are as unpopular as decreasing the number of teachers. Considering the news that some of them will be teaching Creationism I’d say that they’re about to become even less so.
Vladimir Putin – Asshole of the Week
Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Pussy Riot causing a public disturbance and everything to do with closing down criticism of the current regime…
@ Jackal
What makes you think that the political interference involved in this court-case outcome is Russian?
Could be of a false flag nature?
False flag operation? I can assure you that the members of Pussy Riot are Russian citizens and I very much doubt their activism has been influenced by foreign interests wanting to destabilize Putins reign… He’s doing a pretty good job of that himself.
It’s interesting though that this issue has gained more media attention than the recent widespread public protests about election fraud. However I haven’t seen any similar cases of disinformation concerning the Pussy Riot issue. As far as I can tell there’s no link to a black flag operation.
But its a PUNK band which means it’s imported Western capitalist decadent culture stuff!
Very destabilising for dictators.
Of course they get more attention because of our shallow fame/celebrity obsessed MTV entertainment media culture.
@ Jackal,
Wasn’t meaning Pussy Riot’s actions. I was meaning the long sentence, which you appear to be assuming was influenced by Vladimir Putin, however simply from reading your article, one could also view the information, with belief that Vladimir Putin truly saw merit in not imposing a long sentence and the influence effecting the court’s sentencing was coming from another quarter.
I believe Russia isn’t falling into line with big money interests’ desires to ‘get on in there’ into the Middle East and this is the quarter that I would immediately query.
Also explains the wide coverage.
I am inconclusive about this, merely questioning, yet admit to being entirely suspicious of main media outlets’ ability to convey information that suits only one main interest: big money.
(…of course there may be no “influence” at all….)
Putin had a very difficult balancing act to pull off with this. He had to satisfy a lot of local political and religious interests pissed off with P.R. A lot of whom are his core political base. Plus send a message that this kind of political expression is not particularly welcome. While not crossing the line of Russia becoming dictatorial or tyrannical, in international opinion.
So a 2 year sentence less time served probably passes muster. Don’t be surprised if there is an early release due to good behaviour or what not in 12 months. Probably at a time he needs to soften international opinion.
@CV
So you have no doubts that such an occurrence could have anything to do with interests other than internal Russian ones?
Well, I’m reasonably confident. (Although the Russian political psyche is pretty opaque to outsiders…) The main reason being the massive level of international media coverage the case has received and the fact that Putin found himself forced to respond to that coverage officially. P.R. are now a card to be saved up and used later, if the occasion calls for it/allows for it.
Me also!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32225.htm
The good old NED – Supporting freedom around the world
I reckon you should look a little deeper into those taking pot shots at Russia!
Looks like this government is going against the populations will regarding land sales as well. And good on the Greens for calling out this governments habit of bullying.
One of the Taranaki three appears to have been found. The instructor who has lost his life along with two of his group, was remembered by his wife as someone who was always quick to get involved. It seems a pity that people don’t take up Slow Adventuring similar to the move to Slow Food in opposition to Fast Food. Even perhaps daring to decide that it is too chancy to go out after making a reasoned assessment of the conditions, which would take time. Incidents like this blacken the image of responsibility, integrity and carefulness of outdoor ‘experts or professionals’ or whatever they call themselves. All based on the idea that outdoor pursuits are good and make a man of you – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger eh!
I remember Outward Bound having to change from its gung-ho approach to its wilderness experience with people who didn’t know the territory and the dangers. This was after Susan Consedine slid over the edge of a bluff to her death, and also one other died.. I think it was misty, the ground was damp, there was a gravel-covered slope to the edge of the bluff and not anything that could be grabbed to stop what must have been a frightful slide to disaster.
(from google)
The last death was in 1993, when 22- year-old journalist Susan Consedine fell down a 61-metre bluff …
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/latest-edition/6402583/Bound-to-succeed
Notable is the mention of a previous military course.in the item. “Outward Bound was founded in 1941 by the German educator Kurt Hahn. It was originally devised for The Blue Funnel Shipping Line as a training course for their young sailors during World War II.”
Also on this line – from wikipedia on Prince Charles’ education which is relevant to Kurt Hahn who has had a lot of influence on educational ideas. The Prince attended Gordonstoun and his thoughts were “Reportedly the Prince despised his time at the latter school – “Colditz in kilts”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles,_Prince_of_Wales#Education
Gordonstoun in the north-east of Scotland was founded in 1934 by German educator Kurt Hahn, Three previous generations of British royalty were educated at Gordonstoun since its establishment including the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales.[5] Due to Dr. Hahn’s influence the school has a strong connection with Germany and forms part of the Round Square Conference of Schools, a group of over 60 schools across the globe also founded by Hahn.
It could be that many of these attitudes of conquering and fighting fears and so on could be traced to military training attitudes that tend to be ‘resigned’ about deaths occurring to souls in their care.
Excellent photo of JK on Facebook
Should be in Jail with Tama Iti you reckon?
In today’s Herald Bernard Hickey makes some strange comments, i am not sure just how tongue in cheek hickey is being when He calls for the former money trading Prime Minister to again enter the fray so to speak on behalf of lowering the historically high value of the New Zealand dollar,
Essentially what Hickey says is that the likes of the Brits,US, and Japan are in the process of ‘printing’ loads of paper money, which dilutes the value of their currency’s and to avoid any suggestion of creating internal inflationary pushes in their own economy’s ‘exporting’ the stuff by buying up Government bonds in the likes of Australia and New Zealand, thus making us and our children responsible for adding the ‘labour’ to such fictional ‘money’ to in essence make the stuff more real than the stuff produced by the ”pixies at the bottom of the garden”, (to quote Slippery our Prime Minister),
The Heralds Hickey goes into a ‘us too’ over this,(no discussion about the morality at all),and it’s here the suggestion is that the master money trader himself, Slippery the Prime Minister, step into the breach and return the favor, perhaps tenfold, to those economy’s which in essence are now treating the New Zealand economy as a ‘slave economy’ to wash it’s excessive printings of money through,
I frimly believe the whole thrust of the Herald article is either a pisstake by Hickey, or, there’s something in the water up that way, and,we all have to assume that Bernard had to suspend quite some part of His belief system in writing it,
First, we all have to actually believe the back story of the Slippery little Shyuster currently installed as the Prime Minister, which i for one call bullshit upon, sure money trader He was but don’t for a minute believe that Slippery was head-honcho of any of it,
After a career in the (fraudulent?)banking industry he walked away with 50 mill a huge fortune as far as any of us have the fingers to count it, but, in the great scheme of things in the fraudulent world of international banking our Prime Minister was simply a minor functionary, the under-boss running a small team of serfs among many under-bosses running small teams of serfs,
The real big fish operating the complex and complicated frauds which are at the heart of and account for the profits and losses of the international banking system over the past decade earn sums like 50 million a year, 100 million a year, not the piddling 50 mill our Prime Minister managed to eke from the rort over a decade,
That’s what makes me call bullshit on that particular fairy tale, our Prime Minister the big time money trader???, nah, a small functionary well rewarded for doing exactly as He was told, money trader extraordinaire???, frigging doubt that big time, i doubt whether our Prime Minister ever made any trade anywhere at any time that He wasn’t told to by someone higher up in the sharks tank of (fraudulent?) international banking to make,
So,the Heralds Hickey might want to consider a wiser option in the grand scheme of attempting to export New Zealand’s competitive disadvantage, a high priced dollar, back from whence it came from,
(a),Sure print the stuff, but, spend it into the New Zealand economy helping to solve another problem that economy is suffering from,
(b), Spending the stuff, printed money, into our own economy need not lead to undue inflation, we simply need know how many millions injected into the economy equals 1% of inflation and thus spend such money at a pace that keeps within the Reserve Bank’s monetary targets,
(c), Build with such money high density housing for low income people, which i would suggest in the future is going to be the majority of us thus taking the heat out of the New Zeland housing market,
(d), I suspect that the Herald’s Hickey has bundles of the stuff, money that is,tied up in the housing market thus advocates keeping the internal market over-revving…
re (d): – I’ve met Hickey before and I figure that he would be honestly insulted at your suggestion. He’s frequently indicated that NZ must deleverage its very high private debt levels and move on from allocating capital into unproductive real estate assets. Which is the opposite to “over-revving the internal market”.
It doesn’t quite work like that. If you spend the printed dollars into increasing the productive and competitive aspects of the economy, market pricing (and therefore inflation) will remain under controlled.
If it turns out at any stage that money supply needs to be reduced, you can tighten up on the availability of private interest bearing debt, increase taxes or increase savings rates.
It doesn’t quite work like that???, well if it works like what you have pointed at we would need hire an idiot savant to do whatever it is you suggest…
Prof Steve Keen is developing quantitative computational models of endogenous money systems. Ones which use starting points far different from typical neoliberal assumptions. And he is visiting NZ soon.
CV
Can you tell Treasury that. I think this idea must have been filed away on one of the hard drives they have had and got wiped when they updated their technology.
FXC – Class of 2000
John Carter, Lehman
James Kemp, Citigroup
John Key, Merrill Lynch
Adam Kreysar, UBS Warburg
I would say that having been a member of the FXC would indicate, that it is quite feaseable Key was not at the level of underlings you suggest.
Have a look at some of the names in the list, some of the worlds biggest criminals are there…They are all underlings, sure, but to underestimate what Key does/does not know, or has/has not done, would be naiive.
I would also suggest that the figure of 50m, was lowered considerably to make it palpable for kiwis.
As far as being on the Fed goes, it depends what the masters were grooming Him for is how i see that little appointment,
Any indication of the where this missing pot oif gold might be stashed or how big it might be,
On the reported fortune,50 million and falling our Slippery Prime Minister was after a decade or so definitely in terms of cash one of the minnows of the fraudulent international banking industry,
The big boys from the upper echelons easily make that in a year…
BAD to the power of 12.
BAD by name and by nature too?
Hickey is s very well informed, hard working and very straight-up guy. He desereves respect, not the baseless ramblings that you shoved through your keyboard.
I’ve no idea how anyones actually knows what someone like Key is worth. But he certainly had a very senior role. There are only about 30 members on the NY FXC at any one-time and he was one. Yes he was there as an Exec employee of ML but he was certaily right in the middle of it. He had full responsibility and accountability. Don’t let him off the hook with your fanciful view of the world.
My point exactly, Key was certainly there in the thick of it, and there in the thick of it as a mid level employee of Merrill Lynch,
Glad to see we can establish that as some basis upon which we agree, actually we agree on everything about Slippery,
He was a mid level employee put forward by the hierarchy of Merrill Lynch to do their bidding as far as the rate fixing that went on (and still goes on?),within that organization, which, in my opinion just proves more my point that He was just another underling doing the business of those higher up in the shark tank,
In all of it, thew higher echelons of Merrill Lynch would have been instructing the Slippery little Shyster on what rates they wanted set and when He was on the trading floor He would have been plugged into those higher up within Merrill Lynch who themselves would have been co-operating with their fellow executives in other banking organizations and i doubt for not one minute that He would not have issued a buy or sell order without first being instructed to by someone higher up in the shark tank,
Oh you bet that Slippery and all the under-bosses on His level knew exactly what they were doing and knew exactly when they were and were not undertaking illegal activity BUT He was the fire-wall between His level of responsibility and that of His Bosses, should the excrement have become entangled within the ventilation system it would have been the Slippery’s who become coated in the stuff as far as responsibility for criminal wrong-doing was concerned,
Where you think i give the Slippery’s of the world any form of out as far as responsibility goes is as far as i can see all part of your imagination, and,as far as His nett worth goes it’s been well reported and a stash that size tends to suggest that Slippery was as i say a mid-level gang-boss in the great scheme of things as far as Merrill Lynch is concerned,
And, to your wee whine about Bernard Hickey, diddums, He wrote the piece in the Herald some of which i disagree with and wish to comment upon, which is what i understand ‘Open Mike’ is for,
If Bernard want’s to take issue with what i have written then i assume He is free to also attend and take me to task if He so wishes,and whether ‘insulted’ or deserving of ‘respect’ that buckwheat is a matter of personal opinion and you waste your time attempting to tell me what i can and cannot write as i just don’t give a s**t about your infantile little fan-club support of Him…
Seriously, what is your emotional age. The irony of you using the term “infantile”.
You’re in for a hard old life aren’t you, if you can’t tell the difference between friends and enemies, and between people who know the game and people who don’t.
Yawn, thats just a pile of gobbledy-gook, i am not about to sit here and defend what i commented to another poster to the likes of you,
Address the facts of what i started out discussing or don’t bother as your personal little vindictive snippets of vitriol directed at me are at worst Yawn material or at best something to point finger and laugh at…
Like I said, purely infantile.
Look in the mirror see the inner self fulfiller…
This may explain something…
Mallard was spotted at a recent NZ Royal Ballet production of Cinderella in Wellington, tête à tête with well-known political journalist, columnist for the NZ Listener and former partner of Foreign Affairs Minister, Murray McCully.
Just saying.
Selling Cockles or Muscles Molly?
Charter schools are just sooo good:
Yeah, sure they are.
This shows an approach by the belief that to excel one needs to pass tests at all costs. This one became public but guess how often cheating was done out of site. Roll on National Standards as incentive to prove “excellence.”
Oops. This to DTB.
“Do things that have never been done before” – The guy who invented the computer
Very cool story and wise words.
Wise words indeed. Nice read.
Three more NZ soldiers die in Afghanistan. What will Labour say?
Last time Shearer said he backed Key: we should stay.
His foreign affairs spokesperson, Phil Goff, said we should get out.
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-20120806-0812-phil_goff_says_afghanistan_still_gripped_by_corruption-048.mp3
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824900