Daily Review 13/12/2017

Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, December 13th, 2017 - 47 comments
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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 …

47 comments on “Daily Review 13/12/2017 ”

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  1. Philg 1
    13 December 2017 at 5:59 pm

    RNZ The Panel 13th December. Mai Chen -” The job of the private sector, frankly, is pretty simple, bottom line, we’re there to make a profit and not kill any body, and remain compliant with regulations.” Comments welcome.

    • BM 1.1
      13 December 2017 at 6:56 pm

      And the problem is?

      • weka 1.1.1
        13 December 2017 at 6:58 pm

        paying people shitty wages with shitty conditions because you can get away with it thanks to neoliberal governments.

        • BM 1.1.1.1
          13 December 2017 at 7:12 pm

          Businesses aren’t charities.

          • In Vino 1.1.1.1.1
            13 December 2017 at 7:28 pm

            So you admit that businesses are profit-gougers who ignore the social harm done by their forcing wages to below living-wage levels? That they grab short-term profit with scant concern for long-term social good?
            I think we don’t need businesses like that.
            Do you take your initials from Jon Stewart’s Bullshit Mountain?

            • James 1.1.1.1.1.1
              13 December 2017 at 8:22 pm

              I think if read a bit harder he just said that they weren’t charities. The rest is you projecting

              • McFlock …
                13 December 2017 at 10:08 pm

                No, the comment about charities was in response to a comment about businesses paying shitty wages.

                Paying a fair wage is a duty, not a charity.

          • weka 1.1.1.1.2
            13 December 2017 at 9:36 pm

            I wasn’t suggesting they should be. I was suggesting they stop being arseholes and put fairness and treating people well as a priority.

        • Alan 1.1.1.2
          13 December 2017 at 8:27 pm

          It is not compulsory to work for shitty companies, people are free to take their skills elsewhere.
          Many employers are crying out for staff and will offer good wages and conditions to attract and retain them.
          You do employees a disservice by implying that they are not smart enough to recognize this situation and get the best return for their valuable skills and talents.

          • weka 1.1.1.2.1
            13 December 2017 at 9:43 pm

            “people are free to take their skills elsewhere.”

            Only if there are better jobs available and patently there often aren’t any.

            “Many employers are crying out for staff and will offer good wages and conditions to attract and retain them.”

            And many don’t. If you think that employers are willing to do good, no reason to not have better legislation in place to protect workers from the shitty ones.

            “You do employees a disservice by implying that they are not smart enough to recognize this situation and get the best return for their valuable skills and talents.”

            You appear to be very ignorant about the RL situation of many people who work low waged, insecure jobs. You could try listening to them instead of patronising me and trying to shoehorn workers into your ideology.

          • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.2.2
            13 December 2017 at 11:04 pm

            It’s you doing employees the disservice in thinking that they don’t recognise the situation.

            Oh, and you seem to be the one who doesn’t reality as weka pointed out.

        • Alan 1.1.1.3
          13 December 2017 at 8:42 pm

          It is not compulsory to work for shitty companies.
          People are free to take their skills and talents to wherever they choose.
          Many employers in NZ are crying out for staff and offer good wages and conditions to attract and retain them.
          You are doing people a disservice by implying that they have no choice in the matter – they have every choice and are smart enough to maximize the return they can gain for their valuable skills and talent

          • In Vino 1.1.1.3.1
            13 December 2017 at 11:03 pm

            Liar. In many areas there are only shitty offers, and the people trapped there have no ‘elsewhere’. Your imaginary fairyland, where people can magically turn into shape-shifters and all become moguls. Ha bloody ha.

      • Philg 1.1.2
        13 December 2017 at 7:30 pm

        Is this a genuine question?

      • AB 1.1.3
        14 December 2017 at 1:59 pm

        There is not necessarily any problem. But it’s good to start from a common agreement that business is amoral and has very specific objectives around financial self-interest. By ‘amoral’ I do not mean that it is ‘bad’, rather that it is not primarily driven by ethics – legality is sufficient.
        The more interesting question is what space society should allow an activity with these motivations. Is it a useful activity – does it produce things we need, how should we constrain it, what would happen if we let these values (or non-values actually) take over our whole society?
        OK – so I am pretty much channelling John Ralston Saul here – but the questions are timeless and important.

    • Draco T Bastard 1.2
      13 December 2017 at 7:24 pm

      Well, they seem to kill quite often and break regulations regularly.

      And that has got to be the most boring reason for existence ever.

    • TootingPopularFront 1.3
      13 December 2017 at 8:49 pm

      Robbing the commons, ignoring externalities and keeping wages as low as the law allows (and sometimes lower) – that’s where most of the profits come from

    • Bill 1.4
      13 December 2017 at 9:45 pm

      Accurate enough.

      It never fails to amaze me that some people think it either is, could or should be otherwise.

  2. Ad 2
    13 December 2017 at 6:06 pm

    Odd to hear Hipkins complain about public sector Chief Executive salaries.

    It’s not like he’s proposing to alter the Public Sector Finance Act, or the State Owned Enterprises Act, or anything as revolutionary as dismantle a good number of these bogus public corporations that Lange-Labour and Bolger-National invented.

    Or, God forbid, actually dissolve some of them and make the directly accountable to Ministers again and have an actual clue about how to reverse the new public management that’s plagued our state for 30 years.

    Nope, on the same day he’s whining about public sector CEO pay, he’s forming four new public entities out of the MPI.

    Each of which will require Chief Executives, tier twos in finance, HR, strategy, etc etc etc, for as far as I can tell zero effectiveness reason.

    I’m sure it will all be forgotten tomorrow when they really start divvying out the lollies, but what incoherent bollocks.

    • BM 2.1
      13 December 2017 at 7:06 pm

      Richie Cunningham is a class A fuckwit, it’s a sad indictment of our political system that such an incompetent clown can end up in such a position.

      The whole political system needs to be done away with and replaced with a competent board of elected directors who then hire people with the necessary skills.

      With our current system, all that happens is that we end up with idiots operating so far above their pay grades and running stuff they haven’t got a clue about, it’s not funny.

      It’s complete shit, time to do away with politicians and time to actuallly hire qualified people to run the country.

      • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1
        13 December 2017 at 7:27 pm

        The whole political system needs to be done away with and replaced with a competent board of elected directors who then hire people with the necessary skills.

        Hell no. That would make things even worse as the Old Boys Club made sure that only their mates got high paying jobs.

        • BM 2.1.1.1
          13 December 2017 at 7:44 pm

          The board of directors would be like politicians who represent areas of NZ similar to what we have currently but probably around 1/4 the amount.

          Big difference is that they only have three main tasks

          One:

          Elect a PM from the group to represent NZ on the world stage and for the ministry CEO’s to report to.
          Two:

          Hire the CEO’s to run the different ministries

          Three:

          Get together every three months to access performance and make sure everything is running smoothly.

          No more political parties, no more incompetents fucking up NZ.

      • TootingPopularFront 2.1.2
        13 December 2017 at 9:04 pm

        BM, are you suggesting, at 2.1 above, that Bill English, Jerry Brownlee, Nick Smith, Judith Collins, Paula Bennett etc. are “idiots operating so far above their pay grades and running stuff they haven’t got a clue about”, after all, over the last 9 years and 2 months, National have been in charge of the “current system” that you refer to for 98.18% of the time?

        • BM 2.1.2.1
          13 December 2017 at 9:44 pm

          Apart from Key, English, Joyce and Collins I thought everyone else was rather average,

          I actually want to have the best people working for NZ, unfortunately, the current political system we have doesn’t make that possible.

          • weka 2.1.2.1.1
            13 December 2017 at 9:47 pm

            btw BM, weren’t you saying how NZ voters are going to turn against Labour when they realise they’re not getting their $1,000/yr tax cut?

            https://twitter.com/nealejones/status/940862433215827969

          • marty mars 2.1.2.1.2
            13 December 2017 at 9:48 pm

            yep, Key, English, Joyce and Collins were well below average indeed – onya. Luckily the people have spoken and the country is on the right track now – phew that was a close one – another term from the gnats with dildojoyce in there and billshitter would have completely stuffed the country up – we dodged a bullet there alright.

    • Ad 2.2
      14 December 2017 at 9:42 am

      I stand slightly corrected on this:

      MPI will serve as an overarching body for four portfolio-baded entities focused on fisheries, forestry, biosecurity, and food safety.

      Damien O’Connor has good sense.

  4. Anne 4
    13 December 2017 at 8:30 pm

    For heaven’s sake, does the chief of the GCSB not have a sense of humour. It is Xmas after all and it was Kelvin Davis who ‘brought the matter to public attention’.

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/11/gcsb-refuses-to-provide-proof-bill-english-is-not-a-rock.html

    Director’s reply is half way down article.

  5. marty mars 5
    13 December 2017 at 9:40 pm

    Good article from Rachel Stewart

    Previously professor of agribusiness at Waikato University, and a dairy farm co-owner, Dr Jacqueline Rowarth was appointed to the role of EPA chief scientist in October 2016, amid howls of indignation from environmentalists and freshwater scientists. Her appointment was viewed as a sop to the dairy industry, and given her history of outspoken views on cows having little impact on water quality, it was unsurprising.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/13-12-2017/what-gives-with-the-chief-scientist-of-the-environmental-protection-agency/

    Yes if we don’t agree with the views of the EPA we are anti-science some say. But sadly there is a bit more to it than that a sthis article shows.

    • Incognito 5.1
      13 December 2017 at 10:08 pm

      EPA is being transformed into the Environmental Profit Agency – cui bono?

    • Macro 5.2
      13 December 2017 at 10:13 pm

      Dr Jacqueline Rowarth’s appointment by National to Head the EPA was Trumpian in the extreme – equivalent to the appointment of Kelly as Sec of Energy, and Pruitt to the equivalent Agency in the US. In doing so National showed themselves to be environmental vandals and science deniers of the worst kind.

  6. marty mars 6
    13 December 2017 at 10:08 pm

    There is something about this Oumuamua – “It was first detected on October 19 by a long-running research programme called Pan-STARRS, which uses powerful telescopes to photograph and monitor the night sky at the University of Hawaii. Its amazing speed has led some experts to conclude it is the first such object to have come towards us from outside our solar system. Analysts also say its faintly red colour indicates it has been subjected to interstellar cosmic radiation which is harsher than we experience in our solar system.”

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=11959103

    I’d hesitate to think it was a spacecraft – seems more like a spine off a alien megafauna but who knows?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua

    • McFlock 6.1
      13 December 2017 at 10:39 pm

      Either way, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen this year.

      Can you imagine Trump meeting aliens?

    • Draco T Bastard 6.2
      13 December 2017 at 11:02 pm

      And each time one shoots past, the odds against a collision can only get smaller.

      No, the odds remain the same no matter how many zip past. Same as with lotto.

      And the first question I’d asking is: Is it tumbling?

      • McFlock 6.2.1
        13 December 2017 at 11:07 pm

        Yep, and not on a major axis.

        Too small for a sub-lightspeed interstellar craft, anyway. But the possibility of seeing one of these in time to actually put a lander on an interstellar piece of dirt? Very exciting.

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