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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 pm, May 24th, 2016 - 32 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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An interesting Post by No Right Turn pointing out an abuse of the Speakers chair in Parliament today. David Carter who was the Minister responsible at the time turning down debate on the under- reporting of Fish caught.
Is there a process of the Speaker excusing themselves if there is a conflict of interest?
I think that is one of the roles of the Deputy – but I can’t be sure.
wow.
what goes around comes around
the evidence mounts….
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/brazil-dilma-rousseff-plot-secret-phone-transcript-impeachment
this could be fun 🙂
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/80342243/government-ordered-to-reveal-details-of-crown-limo-use-after-threeyear-battle
Quote: “While ministers use the cars for hundreds of trips around New Zealand – some as long as 700 kilometres – there is nothing to stop them being used to run general errands. DIA has so far refused to release details of 1km or less.
The fact that ministers use the cars for personal reasons was one of the arguments DIA put forward for keeping the information secret, attempting to convince Boshier that this meant it might not qualify as official information.
However, Boshier said the information was “plainly” official, was readily available, and should be released.
“It cannot be a principled approach to withhold details of publicly funded travel merely because such travel was outside the scope of strict ministerial duties,” he wrote in his official decision.
“On the contrary, I consider that the public interest in disclosure is enhanced where transport funded by the public purse is utilised for non-official matters.”
He also rejected the claim that DIA should withhold the information because ministers believed it was confidential, saying not only was the information not privileged but, even if it had been, the public interest in releasing it was strong.” Quote end.
Ha ha, indeed.
$200,000 each. There’s another 5 homeless families housed per car.
for three of these cars one could purchase the mystical ‘affordable home’ at 600 grand.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/304649/govt-won't-wipe-winz-motel-debts
debt bondage
to the government of New Zealand
aren’t we awesome?
So much in one article.
‘Cancelling debt is unfair to other beneficiaries’. I have a debt to WINZ, and I have zero problem with debt related to emercency housing being cancelled. I can afford my repayments, those people living in motels obviously can’t. WINZ are supposed to take individual circumstance into account, not treat all circumstances as being the same.
“She said the Ministry of Social Development may consider leasing entire motels to help those in need.”
So they’ve known there’s been a crisis for a year and they’re only just getting round to this?
A rare speaking out for beneficiaries from Labour, including Little. I hope that continues.
“Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett said a cap would not be put on how much people could borrow, because she was worried people would go to fringe lenders and get themselves into a worse financial situation.”
Why is Bennett commenting on WINZ policy?
She also said she was concerned about the debt people were building up, and the situation would change from September, although the debt currently being racked up would still stand.
“We’re making a change that no longer for emergency housing purposes, people who borrow would have to pay back.
“I’ve now got to go through the process of changing our whole IT system to allow that to happen and retraining staff into how that happens and what happens there.
“So I certainly don’t agree with it, which is why I am changing the policy.
Again, why is Bennett doing this? And if their system can’t be changed in less then 3 months, the cancel the debt.
They can’t look after their people so they turn on them and extort them. Words can’t express..
As it stands WINZ is looking a lot like one of the ‘fringe’ lenders. All those loans that can’t be paid back go onto the government books as an asset.
Well BE needs to get his “surplus” from somewhere.
If they wanted to come across as fair they would charge the people in emergency housing no more than they would pay for renting a house and waive the difference.
+1
you would assume that they would have negotiated a price of occupancy. but it seems that the Ministers are not even able to do that. Nah, we just pay full rate.
Cause you see, the 190 per night seems awfully expensive, i doubt I even pay that while on travel.
I am sure that there would be cheaper and smarter acoomodation available for 1330$ a week. Heck you could rent an awesome house of that. And not only the Garage, you could actually rent the house and then rent the garage to someone else.
National shit at negotiating since ever, but good at wasting our money.
If I was a reporter I’d be looking for links between the motels being used and the national party, just in case.
maybe someone with better writing skills then i should do an Information Request as to how these costs come about.
Secondly i would appreciate if someone where to ask the Government how it expected these people to repay these amounts borrowed? And i also would like for someone to ask the Ministers for Housing and Social Welfare when they got into the Payday lender business and if it was lucrative enough to continue.
Something in these numbers for me does not stack up.
190$ per night? is that everyone? is that for families? Does it include breakfast? Are these rooms or Motel units etc etc etc. Cause i am sure this type of accom should be come by cheaper.
remember, its accomodation for 10. 2 parents, 8 children!
The 190$ per night were not taken from this particular lady.
the number is from here
Quote: For the past two weeks, she had been living in a motel with her three children – aged six, two, and eight-weeks-old.
Her stay cost $2200 – money loaned to her by Winz. But today, Nicole’s booking ran out.”Quote End.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/304122/homeless-borrow-thousands-for-motels
and even then, for up to 1100 $ pw you can rent this
https://www.barfoot.co.nz/search.aspx?searchmode=rental&AvailableWithin=0&maxbr=3&minbr=3&minbtr=1®ion=Manukau+City&maxPrice=1000&minPrice=100&Furnished=furnished
would it not be better for Winz to just contact Barfoot n Thompson, get these families in a property . For 80 Grand she could have been housed at least 4 years. Enough time to sort her life, get a job and start making repayments to Winz at $ 5 a week.
But in this scenario that is playing out for so many, they are not finding accomodation, they are not finding jobs, and they are onlygetting in debt. Seriously, this is just fucking wrong.
And i also expect the government to actually negotiate a preferential rate from these Motel Owners.
http://www.silverdoctors.com/gold/gold-news/jim-willie-if-deutsche-bank-goes-under-it-will-be-lehman-times-five/
and today…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c6be44ac-217b-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c.html#axzz49YlJGtLR
The us federal court of appeal is significant
“Requiring the banks to pay treble damages to every plaintiff who ended up on the wrong side of an independent Libor‐denominated derivative swap would, if appellants’ allegations were proved at trial, not only bankrupt 16 of the world’s most important financial institutions, but also vastly extend the potential scope of antitrust liability in myriad markets where derivative instruments have proliferated,” the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York said in the ruling.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-23/banks-are-ordered-by-court-to-defend-libor-antitrust-lawsuit
is significant….but can’t imagine any court imposing a ruling/sentence that would bring down world financial system…if it comes to it there will be a fudge.
Assuming of course it doesn’t fall over of its own accord prior
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/23/world-could-warm-by-massive-10c-if-all-fossil-fuels-are-burned
for those disinterested there’s a large pile of sand at National Party headquarters you can use….
If robots are the future of work, where do humans fit in?
Zoe Williams (The Guardian)
http://flip.it/8GX0b
I like the thread of thinking in the article that consumption has effectively kept us busy…..but what then?
Rachel Stewart reflects on her Canon award for best opinion writer and asks whether journalism has become a hollow shell of its past self…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/80314513/rachel-stewart-navel-gazing-in-the-mainstream-media
No nation on Earth needs foreign money to look after its people. If it’s got the resources available, and most nations do, then it’s quite capable of looking after it’s own people with it’s own money created by its own government.
How do we get from what NZ does now to there in the shortest possible time?
The biggest problem is overcoming the decades of lies by the capitalists that government creating money causes hyper-inflation which it doesn’t as all the Quantitative Easing just proved. Part of over-coming that would be to educate the populace on how the private banks create almost unlimited amounts of money that mostly just gets spent on existing housing. That info would be better if we had NZ data on it.
Then we’d have to have a plan to replace private bank created money with government created money that can be used to support and benefit our society rather than just the private banks. Such a plan could be tied in to a UBI and insurance.
It’s the first part that the hard part though. A lot of people just don’t want to believe that the private banks create money.
Cheers for the explanation. I’ll have a look at the links later on.
Draco .. trouble, a trouble, with stopping banks creating money is all the money that super funds have in them that folk rely on for their retirement … both existing and future retirees.
What’s that got to do with stopping private banks from creating money?