Daily Review 16/10/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, October 16th, 2015 - 38 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

John Key Mike Hosking

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

38 comments on “Daily Review 16/10/2015 ”

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  1. ianmac 1
    16 October 2015 at 6:35 pm

    Clever photo. Took a minute. 🙂

  2. Draco T Bastard 2
    16 October 2015 at 6:58 pm

    Banking, Finance and Income Inequality

    * The entire money supply is effectively ‘on loan’ from the banks. This means that interest must be paid on most of the money in the economy. We’ve crunched the numbers on government surveys (covering over 3,000 households which interviewed more than 5,000 people aged 16 and over), and found that this interest transfers income and wealth from the bottom 90% of the population to the very top 10%. By allowing our money to be created by banks as debt, we’ve created a system that guarantees that inequality will get worse.

    * Money created by banks pushes up house prices. But it’s the wealthiest who benefit most from these rising prices. For those on lower incomes, or younger people who haven’t bought their first house, rising house prices push up the cost of living, leaving them with less disposable income and a lower standard of living. So rising house prices, fuelled by money created by banks, makes the gap between the richest and the rest of us even bigger.

    * A similar thing happens in the stock market. Money created by banks can fuel stock market bubbles, but because the wealthiest 5% of households own 40% of the assets in the financial markets, this benefits the very richest, and has limited benefit for everybody else. The gap gets even bigger.

    Why is the economy fucked? Because we’ve made it that way. We can change it if we vote in a government willing to make the necessary changes.

    • vto 2.1
      17 October 2015 at 9:15 am

      This is the largest issue facing our world

      Even the TPPA pales to insignificance against the structure of the money system

      Wake up people – it is the biggest thing of the lot

    • AmaKiwi 2.2
      17 October 2015 at 9:19 am

      Draco

      I never ceased to be amazed that so many tout “overseas investment in NZ” as a benefit. What’s beneficial about selling your house and paying rent for the rest of your life?

      • Smilin 2.2.1
        17 October 2015 at 4:48 pm

        “Money is the root of all evil ” whoever said that originally wasn’t wrong and you can go from there
        Our present cowboy system was created in the US before it was the US a revolt against the European system of serfdom .
        The isolated communities in America built their own banks to hold their gold etc before there was a dollar which when it came had an exact redeemable value in precious metal to the reserves in those metals, it had to be or you’d get shot for theft if it wasnt
        Its not the same now except for the bullets they are in the law, bankruptcy, interest,fees you name it and the banks have instituted the control not the people or the governments
        The banks and the finance institutions control the values not the commodities that produce those values hence the producers carry the can when things go wrong and the banks are the first to get the payoff when things right themselves and everyone else is still chasing the carrot
        About time for another revolution, a really big one

        • nadis 2.2.1.1
          17 October 2015 at 6:13 pm

          Yeah except that like most people who trot that quote out you have got it wrong. It should be “the love of money is the root of all evil” – a very different meaning.

  3. Tautoko Mangō Mata 3
    16 October 2015 at 7:49 pm

    Gordon Campbell writes an interesting article “Gordon Campbell on Labour-bashing over the TPP, and Canada”

    “To sum up: the majority of the Labour caucus is not – and never has been – seriously opposed to the TPP. Certainly, those voters who feel insecure if New Zealand does anything other than prostrate itself before the altar of free trade should follow NBR’s advice, and vote for National in perpetuity. Good luck with that. On the other hand, those voters who continue to oppose the TPP as a poor deal for New Zealand (and a deal that contains many damaging and anti-competitive elements) will have to look elsewhere than Labour, in 2017. For similar reasons, Labour will not pose any threat to the government’s intentions when it comes to the Cullen /Reddy review of the powers of our security services, either. It is a party driven by the fear of its own traditions.”
    http://itsourfuture.org.nz/gordon-campbell-on-labour-bashing-over-the-tpp-and-canada/

    • AmaKiwi 3.1
      17 October 2015 at 9:23 am

      Less than a month ago a Labour MP told a group of supporters, “Our plan is to present ourselves as a credible alternative government in waiting.”

      Little and Robertson’s TPPA comments trashed that. Their ill conceived comments were ridiculed by the Left, Right, and Center.

      What’s Plan B?

  4. Tory 4
    16 October 2015 at 9:27 pm

    Sounds like you are pinning your hopes on KDC avoiding extradition and once again funding the largest political funding that NZ has seen, you should be good for another 1.2% of the vote

  5. Tory 5
    16 October 2015 at 9:55 pm

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/10/labour-mps-defy-jeremy-corbyn-on-syria
    So if the oracle of the left, The Guardian, is saying Corbyn has lost control of his caucus then it’s apparent he and “Stuart” Little have something in common.

    • Ad 5.1
      16 October 2015 at 10:56 pm

      Oh please like the left weren’t warned often and hard enough.

      The rising tide of political unreality of Corbyn and Sanders is as predictable as watching Auckland housing prices rise, peak, and fall.

      • Bill 5.1.1
        17 October 2015 at 12:32 am

        Is that “like the left weren’t warned often enough” a reference to Corbyn as an individual or a reference to a solid left leaning social democratic platform?

        If the former then…hmm, reasonable call.

        If the latter, then you might want to take stock of the fact that UK Labour’s failure to articulate a convincing left platform has them trailing 30% behind a party with an ostensibly solid left leaning social democratic platform in that country on the northern reaches of Britain.

        • Ad 5.1.1.1
          17 October 2015 at 6:39 am

          Former.

          Happy to see how he goes.
          He’s got five years to start a great reform movement.
          Whatevs.

        • dukeofurl 5.1.1.2
          17 October 2015 at 10:55 am

          Some would say the SNP was only a 5% party for all the while it really supported a ‘solid left leaning’ policy.

          Its history shows this.
          Douglas Young, who was imprisoned for opposing conscription was leader from 1942-45. people like Margo Macdonald who won Govan Westminster seat in 1974 was a staunch socialist. later in her career she was disciplined by the new moderate leadership- her crime was being a ‘SNP Fundamentalist’ and she was later expelled.
          Its forgotten now but in 1979 the SNP voted against the Callaghan labour government in a no confidence motion, ( lost by ONE vote) which directly led to the election of Thatcher.( Echoes of the 1924 no confidence vote lost by the Ramsay Macdonald labour government).

          For their troubles SNP got Thatcher who was opposed to devolution while labour was for ( A devolution referendum had recently passed in Scotland but not with the minimum 40% of electorate vote). NO need to mention what else Scotland got from Thatcher!
          The scots public punished the SNP in that election going from 11 Mps to 2.

          Once the SNP was not that far separated from the likes of SInn Fein in policy, but moving to the centre and ‘steady as it goes’ Tory maxims has done well for them.

  6. TootingPopularFront 6
    16 October 2015 at 10:45 pm

    The Manchester Guardian was anti-Corbyn during the leadership election campaign and has continued that stance now that he leads the Labour Party. There is more than a suspicion amongst the readership (and I have been a regular grauniad reader for over 30 years) judging from the comments sections of Corbyn-related articles, that Tony Bliar is much missed by the editorial staff.

  7. Atiawa 7
    16 October 2015 at 11:37 pm

    Great to see unions merging – E tu the union for all workers -. I hope other private sector unions throw their weight behind the new union and join the struggle.

  8. Ad 8
    16 October 2015 at 11:57 pm

    And in breaking news from Dunedin, at Forsyth Barr Stadium this afternoon, over 82% of farmer shareholders favored selling out to Chinese-owned Shangai Maling.

    Presumably the 18% who did not were the group of shareholders including the members of the Meat Industry Excellence Group and state-owned farmer Landcorp who wanted so hard to find another way.

    An astounding thing about this deal is that the Chinese company is only seeking 50% of the revived entity. Astounding because the volume of cash they are putting up is damn huge.

    The great and still largely untapped story of locals defending New Zealand’s own economic interests against rapacious foreigners owning land and houses has gone on throughout 2015, and been confused by left and right alike as xenophobia.

    Just this month the law requiring that those who seek to sell homes and then sell them again under two years has come to pass. Those investors with hot money now have to have tax numbers both here and in their country of origin. So of course they melt back into the shadows. Result: the Auckland real estate market has come off the boil and is plateauing.

    Labour should regroup over the weekend, and start to conflate foreign farming land ownership and foreign existing house ownership.

    Despite the Silver Fern Farms vote, the fear of the loss of our own country will only grow. Forget the lost TPPA debate, and focus on what is really happening to our country now. There is major regional political upside to doing so.

      • Rosemary McDonald 8.1.1
        17 October 2015 at 8:02 am

        That was an outstanding interview…

        Now, watch SM demand production costs are lowered and turn to the Talley’s model of meatworks administration.

      • Ad 8.1.2
        17 October 2015 at 12:05 pm

        I don’t believe the level of debt is worth comparing to Fonterra.
        In their own fashion, they are in a far stronger position than the New Zealand meat industry.

        They are extremely slow to learn their lessons, but they do learn them.

        Fonterra now understand the value of supply chain purity and security.
        After two massive and scary global-scale events. I shake my head.

        Fonterra now understand their vulnerability to bulk and cheap commodities.
        They will increasingly go for the value-added product lines. After a decade, spare me.

        Fonterra also understand the limits of their ability to raise capital.
        After their incredible failed big for National Foods, and the collapse of their first Chinese joint venture, they know the scale in which they have got to operate.

        All of this, including a cooperative form that binds the interests of farmers, shareholders, and government together, was simply ripe for central government to bang heads together in the meat industry, just as they had a generation ago in milk.

        Which brings me back to why I hate this government in particular: they are simply lazy.

    • dukeofurl 8.2
      17 October 2015 at 11:06 am

      its 50% + casting vote , which some financial people see as effective control.

      For control of a business like this, thats very cheap indeed. Effectively the banks have pulled the plug and forced this situation, which they will do to Fonterra in the not too distant future ( SFF was also a farmers cooperative) .

      Paying off the banks would only give them a 25-30% share, so supposedly the extra money is to be debt free and expand markets. Strange reasoning as the Shanghai Maling deal was to be all about bringing that part to the table.

      Whats interesting if the SFF actually sees the extra money once the banks are paid out, most likely they will ‘buy’ some Shanghai Maling assets in China with it ( thats where the casting vote is essential).

      Will likely SFF will end up just as a producer of carcasses for export, just like in the days of Vesteys and the UK trade, when the main processing was done offshore in butcher shops.

      • RedBaronCV 8.2.1
        17 October 2015 at 11:48 am

        And do we find that any number of supplier farms start being bought up by overseas interests in a farm to fork vertical strategy to stuff NZ?

      • Ad 8.2.2
        17 October 2015 at 11:57 am

        Well, I’m not prepared to write their future off just yet.

        And if the best New Zealand local agribusiness can come up with is the Talley’s family, maybe this situation could be a whole bunch worse.

        • dukeofurl 8.2.2.1
          17 October 2015 at 12:17 pm

          Im surprised the banks havent pulled back on the Talleys leash, as well as getting them to reduce labour costs. As a private company they can keep quiet.

          Or do they have much more political pulling power than some beef and sheep meat farmers back in nationals heartland.
          Would be the place for Winston to spend some of his time in the deep south in the lead up to the next election

  9. AmaKiwi 9
    17 October 2015 at 10:14 am

    I do not think Corbyn and Sanders are a flash in the pan.

    Every generation or two there is a massive reversal in public opinion which results in stunning changes. (Mickey Savage, FDR’s New Deal, Hitler, Lenin, and earlier the US, French, and Russian revolutions, to name a few.)

    Here are 20 countries where the governments have totally lost control over large portions of their own territories.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-ungoverned-world/

    There are secessionist movements in previously stable countries: Catalonia, Scotland, Wales, Netherlands, Venice, etc., and in more than 20 US states and Canadian provinces.

    Revolutions succeed when incumbent politicians are deaf to the need to overhaul the economic and social system. If the Labour caucus is pro-TPPA, it tells me the caucus is so out of touch that Labour will join National in the dustbin of history.

    “For the times they are a changing” and sticking with Labour is “walking with the dinosaurs.”

    • Ad 9.1
      17 October 2015 at 11:58 am

      I’ll believe you when they win something. Anything.

      • Colonial Viper 9.1.1
        17 October 2015 at 1:36 pm

        FFS Ad both Sanders and Corbyn have won their respective constituencies for the last several decades in a row.

        What more do you want?

        A cursory look at Western history over the last 500 years should tell you that the much vaunted status quo always seems solid and enduring – until the moment the whole ediface collapses.

  10. Smilin 10
    17 October 2015 at 3:47 pm

    Is it John Hoskey or Mike Jonkey ?

  11. Smilin 11
    17 October 2015 at 5:09 pm

    To be perfectly Francis as Fred Dagg would say
    These financiers lawyers accountants and whoever else deals in money have had a field day since Decimal COINAGE came in and they have manage to decimate just about every decent piece of security that people upheld before , since
    They have made their fortunes at the expense of the masses