Archive for August, 2011

For the Children

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, August 17th, 2011 - 19 comments

Our children’s life outcomes are amongst the worst in the OECD according to a new report. Our under-6s desperately need care and investment. Labour (and the Greens) are focussing on the kids this election. But why are National so anti?

Nats refuse to face their record on youth

Written By: - Date published: 6:46 am, August 17th, 2011 - 46 comments

Having decided to beat up on a few thousand of the most hard done by young people in the country, National is now refusing to acknowledge the problem of disconnected youth that has ballooned under their watch. There are enough young people who aren’t in education, training, or work to fill Eden Park, and Key is literally running from the issue.

Open mike 17/08/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 17th, 2011 - 66 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

The Pernicious Food Card

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 pm, August 16th, 2011 - 72 comments

Or how the food card will inevitably push beneficiaries  into all types of deeper strife.

The cartoon (since it doesn’t show up clearly and you might be wondering) is a lifebelt being thrown in the “Welfare” cell and a book titled “Learn to swim” being thrown in the second “Welfare Reform” cell.

Buffett calls for rich to stop class war

Written By: - Date published: 2:04 pm, August 16th, 2011 - 53 comments

Today Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man in the world, has come out demanding his mega-rich friends play a part in the American economic recovery. He is recognised as one of the smartest and most successful investors alive, his words should not be dismissed lightly, especially as we approach our own election and grapple with the issue of tax reform.

Chart o’ the day: when doing something is doing nothing

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, August 16th, 2011 - 34 comments

Just desserts

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, August 16th, 2011 - 68 comments

The private operators of the new Mt Eden remand prison are using desserts as a reward for good behaviour. It seems to work. But the Right doesn’t know quite how to react: on one hand, it’s mollycoddling prisoners, on the other hand it’s a private operator being innovative. Imagine how they would have reacted if the public prisons started doing this.

Epic fail

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, August 16th, 2011 - 64 comments

Like most of us, Fran O’Sullivan was expecting so much more from the Nats at their conference…

Open mike 16/08/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 16th, 2011 - 76 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Envy or greed? – follow the money.

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 pm, August 15th, 2011 - 23 comments

At National’s conference John Key  accused Labour of the “politics of envy”. Peter Goodfellow told delegates they had more money for this campaign than ever before. National’s coffers will be bulging because of their assets sales policy. Labour wanting to keep assets publicly owned for everyone’s benefit is not at all about envy.

Daddy State vs Youth

Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, August 15th, 2011 - 72 comments

National aim to score political points by attacking a small number of 16 and 17 year-olds, and taking away their autonomy. But they’re missing the real-world point – of the tens of thousands of young unemployed who need the jobs that National aren’t providing. That’s the real crisis.

Blood money

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, August 15th, 2011 - 14 comments

The kids aren’t alright

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, August 15th, 2011 - 64 comments

What are the baby-boomer elite doing to our kids? Our rulers, drawn from the selfish generation, have taken more and more of the world’s wealth for themselves, wrecked its environment, and failed to invest. Now, with National in power, they’re asking the young to pay off their debt. And when the kids get pissed, the elite doles out repression.

Q+A interview – Key still lying

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 15th, 2011 - 61 comments

A better than usual interview of John Key by Guyon Espiner on Sundays Q+A.  On the plus side Espiner was raising some serious issues. On the minus he let Key get away with his usual lies and evasions.

Open mike 15/08/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 15th, 2011 - 131 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Key fiddles while our youth burns

Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, August 14th, 2011 - 329 comments

Like the UK, we have a crisis in youth poverty. We don’t have riots, yet, because we lack the population density. There’s no jobs. Increasingly, no hope. Key’s solution? Tinkering. A bureaucratic, easily beatable system where young people on benefits get food stamps and basic costs paid directly. Where are the jobs, Key? Or have you given up?

Hickey on the fall of capitalism

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, August 14th, 2011 - 33 comments

Bernard Hickey writes compellingly on the coming fall of capitalism.

Open mike 14/08/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 14th, 2011 - 50 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Nats rebel on privatisation

Written By: - Date published: 5:17 pm, August 13th, 2011 - 27 comments

English is under attack at the Nat conference over asset sales. The neolibs vultures treat the state as a carcass to pick clean. But old school conservatives believe in investing the nation. And business types know you don’t get rich by selling profitable assets. English has no good excuses. All he can offer is expensive measures that make selling even more unprofitable.

Getting to know Goff

Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, August 13th, 2011 - 115 comments

A few weeks back, I wrote that Labour’s policies are popular but it hasn’t secured the trust it needs to sway swing voters, partly people don’t feel they really know Phil Goff. Today’s Herald piece, reminiscent of one on Key in 2008 (except we get a lot more of the substance of Goff, not just carefully targeted anecdotes), should go a long way to fixing that.

Compassionate conservatism

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 13th, 2011 - 12 comments

Fran O’Sullivan reveals her softer side today. No, she’s not against National’s benefit cuts for the unemployed, the sick, and invalids. Nor against cutting the wages of the 103,000 working 15-19 year olds on the half-baked premise that will create more jobs. But leave single mums alone, she says, because she had one. It reminds me of something I saw on the Daily Show.

3370 comments

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, August 13th, 2011 - 35 comments

This editorial by Peter Oborne in the Telegraph on the riots and moral decay in Britain is up to 3370 comments. It’s worth a read.

No news is no news

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, August 13th, 2011 - 6 comments

Very little change over the last three Roy Morgan polls.  Which suggests to me that voters still aren’t really paying attention.

Open mike 13/08/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 13th, 2011 - 32 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Is anyone else thinking…

Written By: - Date published: 5:48 pm, August 12th, 2011 - 53 comments

It seems that the US has lost an experimental hypersonic space plane.  Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?

Sky buy coming up?

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, August 12th, 2011 - 8 comments

42% Murdoch-owned Sky could be in the market to buy debt-laden TV3 according to John Drinnan in today’s Business Herald. Drinnan says that “Sky owning Mediaworks opens up a myriad of issues, not least the degree that the Government would continue to back the growth of Sky TV’s monopoly and its extension into radio.” Amen to that. SkyTV’s chief John Fellett says he has no interest in another television channel. That may not be Rupert’s view. Monopoly TV revenue streams are his bread and butter. News for him is “entertainment”.

Weekend social 12/08/2011

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, August 12th, 2011 - 24 comments

Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can’t we all just get along?

Don’t penny pinch on Chch rebuild

Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, August 12th, 2011 - 23 comments

Anyone else feel their heart freeze a little more when Brownlee labeled Christchurch’s rebuild plan “a pretty big wish list”? Here’s a once in generations chance to rebuild a city from the ground up. Going to cost tens of billions anyway. Why cheapskate by a few hundred million? Better to build a truly world-leading city designed for the future.

Nats to deport slave-fishing witnesses

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, August 12th, 2011 - 35 comments

An Auckland University study, “Not in our waters, surely?” was released last night. It details a gruesome list of human rights abuses, crimes, and breaches of labour law being carried out abroad the slave ships contracted by our quota-holders to harvest our fish. Now, the government is moving to deport the prime witnesses before they can testify.

The new Christchurch

Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, August 12th, 2011 - 36 comments

The first hints of the plans for the new Christchurch are out.  What do you reckon?

In search of a justification

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, August 12th, 2011 - 122 comments

Farrar and others of the Right push for ever lower taxes, but their arguments are laughably flimsy.  Tax cuts don’t raise revenue.  Tax cuts don’t cause growth.  In search of their  “superior moral justification for selfishness” the Right are going to have to do a lot better than that…

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