Open mike 02/01/2011

35 comments on “Open mike 02/01/2011 ”

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1. Deadly_NZ 1

   2 January 2011 at 8:27 am

   DO NOT READ BEFORE EATING

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4507522/PM-John-Key-passes-test-of-judgement

   I near threw up at this load of crap
   • Tigger 1.1

     2 January 2011 at 10:24 am

     Hahahahaha, the harder they make it seem Key is clothed in finery the more obvious it is that he is naked. This stinks of desperation to make Key look like a leader. He’s got great PR and clearly good advisors. He is cunning. But he ain’t no leader.
   • ZeeBop 1.2

     2 January 2011 at 10:30 am

     You know what happens to invincible leaders, like Key, they get forgotten in the rush for infinite defeat.
   • happynz 1.3

     3 January 2011 at 7:23 am

     Indeed. That was a nauseating bit of puffery.
2. Carol 2

   2 January 2011 at 8:52 am

   Indeed, Deadly_NZ….. on the Stuff article on Key today. My first mental response was something that may not be postable…. along the lines of, what will it take to get some of our mainstream & headline producing journos to take their heads out of…. and to take a good look around at what’s been happening in all sections of NZ society (including for those disaster survivors still trying to get adequate support), and to write a more balanced, critical analysis of the performance of Key and his government?
   • Logie97 2.1

     2 January 2011 at 9:05 am

     O’Sullivan doesn’t see John Boy with the same rose tinted glasses. In fact it may be, given her position on the right of politics, that this is the beginning of the destabilization of “Labour Light”

     …But less so is the absurd game played by our current Prime Minister who, the Wikileaks cables reveal, deliberately clouded the crucial fact that the bilateral intelligence relationship between the US and New Zealand was fully restored in August 2009.

     John Key was not a political player during the 1980s – he was too focused on foreign exchange dealing back then to be obviously concerned over the big issues of our time.

     But now he is Prime Minister there is no reason to perpetuate the inanities of the past 25 years.

     http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10697325
   • Deadly_NZ 2.2

     2 January 2011 at 9:51 am

     Carol the only problem with writing a Balanced critical analysis is this. How many different ways are there to say FAILURE?????

     it would be real short and therefore not news worthy thats why they have fantasists working for the newspapers political department now.. Only they could put a positive spin on what has been an abject failure, the last 2 years
   • Marjorie Dawe 2.3

     2 January 2011 at 1:07 pm

     Thanks Carol. We all know who owns the media and we put up with lazy and manipulative journalists. Don’t the ones who try to make balanced comments get made redundant so maybe the rest are fearful for their jobs. We need to get out there and have the conversations with the people who matter because our biased media are somehow not capable of doing this. I am still waiting for the full 3 sections of the weekend papers to tell us “Who is Phil Goff” because I think he actually deserves the same treatment as John Key got before the last election and is still getting. Trouble is I think I will be psg in the wind on that one.
3. RedLogix 3

   2 January 2011 at 9:00 am

   While Noelle McCarthy writes something quite readable.

   She’d be the first to say it wasn’t a profound or heavyweight piece, but like Bernard Hickey she seems to be seeing things with fresh eyes.

   And this raised a wry smile:

   Perhaps I am turning into a socialist. That would be a disaster. Socialists roll their own cigarettes, and make you want to kill yourself when they’re trying to chat you up.
   • Colonial Viper 3.1

     2 January 2011 at 11:21 am

     Its certainly not fashionable or stylish to be socialist-leaning. Discussion around New Year drinks is always a reality of doom and gloom. (Hence her “want to kill yourself” comment). Unless the Left also gets some fashionable upbeat themes its not going to shake this rep.

     Being a Right Winger you can fool yourself into thinking that you are living in a better place and that the people around you are all equally “aspirational”. And those who lose in society, well they’re losers, its not your problem.

     So what are people going to choose in 2011: the Red Pill or the Blue Pill.

     And we know from the polls that most people think its easier to not question the world too hard right now, and will choose the Blue Pill.
4. Draco T Bastard 4

   2 January 2011 at 10:33 am

   Wall Street’s Ten Biggest Lies for 2010

   5. “25 hedge fund managers are worth 658,000 teachers.”
   Nearly everyone on Wall Street sincerely believes that they are “worth” the enormous sums they “earn.” You see, their pay is determined by the market, and markets don’t lie.

   Amazingly enough, they even believe this after they trashed the economy causing several trillion dollars worth of damage and massive amounts of suffering for millions of people around the globe.
   • RedLogix 4.1

     2 January 2011 at 11:25 am

     DtB,

     We’ve known this truth for years. We know that 1% of the world’s population has abused it’s position and privilege to siphon off almost all the new wealth created in the world over the last 30 years. We know that their mentality is scarcely distinguishable from that of the slave-owner aristocracy of the Roman Empire. We know they are deliberately trashing the planet, simply because they can.

     Yet the reason they can do this is because we allow them to. There are far more of us ordinary people than there are masters, and this it is the single thing they fear the most….that one day we will wake up, see them for the voracious parasites they are and destroy them in a single moment.

     Here’s a line from Chaos Marxism that keeps making little noises in my head:

     The way you can tell a revolutionary from a political lifestyler is – are they trying to figure out how to engage the masses? Or are they just interested in recruiting to their cult?

     Because that is the nub, engaging the masses, breaking through the slave-mindset we have all been indoctrinated with. The chains that bind slaves are not physical, there are no slave masters with whips (unless you come to the attention of our taser-weilding police)… rather the chains have been monetised into mortgages (death contracts), employment contracts, shareholdings, patents, banking systems and courts whose default position is to defend privilege.

     But the single most potent binding is this; that the slaves fear what would happen if they really were given their freedom. They’ve been told to imagine chaos, disorder and the loss of the little they given so much sweat and blood to attain already.

     Yet here is the paradox few understand… true freedom lies in abiding in principle and living with ethical principle.
     • Colonial Viper 4.1.1

       2 January 2011 at 11:41 am

       We know that 1% of the world’s population has abused it’s position and privilege to siphon off almost all the new wealth created in the world

       If you’re counting the whole world, the appropriate percentage is even worse, probably just the top 0.01% (the wealthiest and most influential ~650,000 people) has executed the majority of the social and economic damage resulting from pure capitalism.

       Essentially these are the people who run the top 1000 corporates/investment funds in the world
       – Those on the board of directors.
       – Executive management.
       – Major owners/shareholders.

       Its a very small group of people. Every one else in the system beneath them (e.g. senior currency traders) who makes it very rich just does so under the direction of these peeps.
       • RedLogix 4.1.1.1

         2 January 2011 at 11:50 am

         This is true CV… but even if hypothetically in some mad fantasy they were all taken out with 50cal bullets tommorrow… nothing would change. It would be exactly like what happens when the cops take out Mr Big drug-lord, the next day there are three clones of him vying with each other to take his place. Why? Because the market for the drugs has remained untouched.

         It is the same with these capitalist bloodsuckers; the problem is us… it is us who allow them to be.
         • Colonial Viper 4.1.1.1.1

           2 January 2011 at 11:54 am

           Yeah you can’t just change the talking heads at the top, you have to change the system in order for anything to really change. And I’m including the values sytem within that.

           A much more difficult proposition.
           • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1.1.1

             2 January 2011 at 12:41 pm

             Actually, I’d say that it’s the values system that needs to change most. Once capitalism is recognised as the theft that it is then the system will be changed.
       • jcuknz 4.1.1.2

         2 January 2011 at 10:49 pm

         It is simply human nature … to be there if we can … but many know they cannot and are happy with where they are.
5. joe90 5

   2 January 2011 at 10:50 am

   More wikileaks, WL Central, an unofficial WikiLeaks information resource and Cable search to browse already published documents from Wikileak.
6. just saying 6

   2 January 2011 at 11:08 am

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10697428

   McCarten seems to think Labour might have a shot at the winning the election as long as they don’t bump Goff.

   I disagree. And would such a hollow victory be worth it in the long-run anyway?
   • Zorr 6.1

     2 January 2011 at 11:25 am

     There is a choice to be made. Keep Goff and have a chance at the general election or bump him and lose for sure. That much should be easily obvious.

     On the second point, a hollow victory just because Goff is leader? I fail to see the connection. At the end of the day all that matters in politics is the result and it would mean being free of the John Key show.
     • Tigger 6.1.1

       2 January 2011 at 11:32 am

       A victory with Goff hollow? Explain. Surely sticking by your man then winning victory despite years of being told he’s a loser is the definition of sweet?
7. just saying 7

   2 January 2011 at 12:01 pm

   As I wrote in a different thread today:

   IMO the next government will be further to the right than the current government whether Labour or National leads it. Both will take us further down the road we’re on. Labour’s swing to the left, when its finally announced, will be nothing more than fringe tinkering. Labour would not change any of the police state legislation passed under this government. Beneficiaries and the poor in general would be hit even harder than they are now, Labour would superficially at best, redress the cuts National is currently visiting on them. Goff has already promised not to increase taxes except possibly for those most adept at avoiding them. It will not increase social/community spending, Keys cuts will remain and attrition will do the rest.

   TINA neoliberalism will prevail. Those hurting already are the most invisible members of our communities. Labour will continue to use this veil even as the numbers of the seriously poor increase, and ‘Corrections’ would increasingly replace compassion.

   And on another thread a couple of days ago:

   Goff is a national joke, not to mention the very embodiment of unapologetic neoliberalism and “meritocratic” privilege and entitlement. An establishment man who can’t oppose government policies because he pretty much agrees with them, and a man so pathologically out of touch that he thinks talking of “having a few beers with Sir Bob Jones” helps connect him to his ‘base’.
   God help us, an authoritarian to boot.

   The right will endlessly leap upon discussions about bumping Goff off because of the opportunties such discussions provide send Labour up as ridiculous and gutless, as well as irrelevant. It’s not a right-wing conspiracy to set Labour up to make a mistake at the eleventh hour. They really don’t care if he’s deposed or not, but talk about it? – the more the better as far as the right is concerned.
   • Colonial Viper 7.1

     2 January 2011 at 12:19 pm

     They really don’t care if he’s deposed or not, but talk about it? – the more the better as far as the right is concerned.

     Et tu, Brute?
     • just saying 7.1.1

       2 January 2011 at 12:59 pm

       Really doesn’t matter what I say amongst a bunch of mainly left leaners on the standard. I could never say another word on the subject, the Standard could be shut down, and it would still be debated endlessly in the mainstream media. And it will continue to be until he finally is bumped. Apparently after the election.
8. hateatea 8

   2 January 2011 at 12:13 pm

   I just want to say out loud: ‘Michael Laws is an insensitive idiot’. Thank you for the microphone
9. Colonial Viper 9

   2 January 2011 at 12:57 pm

   NZ faces population/aging perfect storm

   Not only are the baby boomers all starting to retire now, a mass of our 20-35 year old workforce has left the country for good for greener career pastures.

   I suppose this is what you get after years of wage surpression and a lack of diversification of our productive economy.

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4507890/Perfect-population-storm-on-horizon
   • Eddie 9.1

     2 January 2011 at 1:22 pm

     a friend of mine wants to buy an investment property because it’s more ‘exciting’ than putting the money in the bank and will earn higher returns (thanks to tax loopholes). She’s only mid-20s and doesn’t have her own place.

     I said ‘christ, think about the demographics of this country, all those babyboomers with houses they’ll need to sell in their retirement in the next couple of decades, the debt-laden students, the people leaving and not coming back – all that on top of peak oil and the housing bubble still needing to unwind – you’re just going to bleed capital value that’ll destroy your return. the extra risk you’re taking on for a few percent return doesn’t make sense’.

     I’m not sure she really listened.
10. the pink postman 10

    2 January 2011 at 2:44 pm

    Did anyone pick up the news item that the “Pro Life organization” has a couple of speakers from the USA (of course) who are going to tour the two Islands shortly. Well its election year and they will tell people to vote National . Its another way for National to get help that they do not have to declare.Watch Bob McCosky and the nutters from Family First get on the anti Labour band wagon
11. the pink postman 11

    2 January 2011 at 4:28 pm

    With today”s election of Marxist Dima Rousseff the march of the political left in Latin America gallops along. Soon the whole of the South American
    countries will have Left-Wing governments. So how is the USA going to react to this ? Will the Right _Wing lobby see this as a threat, I think so ! So what can we expect,
    • Carol 11.1

      2 January 2011 at 5:40 pm

      Among other interesting details, Rousseff leads a coalition of 10 parties:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11961817

      Plus apparently:

      Her choice of of Antonio Patriota, a talented diplomat and former ambassador to the US, as the next foreign minister was well received in Washington.
12. Name 12

    2 January 2011 at 5:53 pm

    Read and weep.

    http://agonist.org/numerian/20101230/party_on_all_is_well
    • Draco T Bastard 12.1

      2 January 2011 at 10:24 pm

      So, that would be the same economists that utterly failed to predict the onset of the GFC and actually said that such would never happen again?
13. Draco T Bastard 13

    3 January 2011 at 12:11 am

    Wealth in the Shadows

    Many of the ultra-rich live in a world where they simply do not pay income taxes. Today, it is estimated that a third of all the wealth in the world is held in offshore banks, located in places such as Monaco, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Isle of Man. It isn’t because those are fun places to visit. It is to avoid taxes.

    Instead of giving the rich even more tax breaks we need to be taking a close look at our tax system to ensure that they’re paying any taxes at all.
14. Deadly_NZ 14

    3 January 2011 at 2:45 pm

    Something else for the Smiley one to ignore as the Maori Party is not involved..

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/4509605/Message-to-protect-New-Chums-Beach

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1. The Standard: posted on 1 January 2011 at 5:10 pm

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