Open mike 02/12/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 2nd, 2010 - 67 comments
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67 comments on “Open mike 02/12/2010 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    2 December 2010 at 6:25 am

    The level of ideological driven ugliness that will be visited on working people and beneficiaries by a second term of National led government is becoming clearer.

    CTU Economic Bulletin No. 119 (November 2010)

    Government spending, lemmings and ideology
    The Treasury, Reserve Bank, ACT and two of the government’s taskforces are all calling for reductions in government spending. The government has even considered the idea of a cap on government spending, but instead put a cap of $1.1 billion on “new” spending – its “operating allowance”. A spending cap has all the attraction of an organised rush of lemmings over a cliff, and the government has already broken its operating allowance limit for 2010/11. Obviously we do want efficient and effective government services. But the evidence that smaller government as such is better for growth or innovation or quality of life is simply not there. There are plenty of examples of successful countries with much larger government expenditure in proportion to the size of their economies. It is not only total expenditure we should be looking at in any case. Around half of government expenditure is “transfer payments” – such as New Zealand Superannuation, unemployment and other benefits – which help to make society fairer but are largely money-in, money-out, reducing the size of the private sector economy very little. In the end it is quality of spending that matters.

    The world is in the midst of the deepest financial crisis since the catastrophic depression of the 1930s. It has so far escaped the depth of that depression because governments heeded its lessons. They increased government spending to maintain activity in the economy. We are now seeing governments in Europe making draconian spending cuts. There is a high risk that will lead to a return to recession or worse.

    The battle lines are being drawn.

    As government policy informed by neo-liberal orthodoxy unloads the costs of the recession onto the most vulnerable and least responsible for it. The guilty get a free run with excessive government handouts.

    At Tumeke Bomber Bradley spells it out.

    http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2010/11/speech-i-would-have-given-for-new-left_28.html

    “I find it the most disgusting of ethical molestations that the weakest and most vulnerable in society are being asked to do with less because the global economy was crashed by the greedy and corrupt, yet that is exactly what the ideologically stacked Welfare Razor Gang are proposing with their despicable bennie bashing attack on the welfare state.”

    The anger at how those on the bottom are being asked to do with less while the Sam Morgans of NZ arrange their finances to minimize their tax obligations is ripe for expression from those who must bear the brunt of public service cut backs. Forcing solo mothers, the sick, the mentally unwell and disabled back to work in a 6.4% unemployment environment while those on the minimum wage are disempowered with every passing week should anger every NZer who has a passion for social justice.

    If you’re not angry, you haven’t been paying attention.

    It is time to turn that anger into political expression.

    Bomber Bradley

    • Bored 1.1
      2 December 2010 at 7:55 am

      Go Bomber (except for the Sam Morgan comment: he was the person who pointed out the bias of the system). Time for Rebstock to take a one way trip back to Canada.

      • Tigger 1.1.1
        2 December 2010 at 8:37 am

        But he did rearrange his finances to minimise tax, yes?

        • KJT 1.1.1.1
          2 December 2010 at 11:09 am

          Of course. But he also said he should not have been allowed to. Like Buffet who said. “Why should I be taxed less than my secretary” At least they are honest thieves.
          Unlike those who are trying to destroy our education, welfare and ACC system, while pretending concern for children.

      • prism 1.1.2
        2 December 2010 at 9:37 am

        Paula Rebstock has a strange way of speaking as if she is tired. Then when I hear what she is saying I feel tired. The use of part truths as if they were absolutes is so common in these government gunslingers. Families of bennies will improve their income if the mother is working is a statement they make.

        But .. there is plain uncontrovertible evidence that caring for growing children is an important and main activity – while not doing it you must still be on call. And minimum wages don’t improve finances even better rates get chewed up in extra costs from child care etc. Managing your life is more difficult because there is less time to find bargains, arrange for help with repairs etc from affordable skilled people. Not everyone has useful and willing family close at hand.

        DPBs need more government help, not less, help with education on raising children which carries certification, education in gardening skills, cooking and nutrition, problem solving and managing personal relationships, computer use – all useful skills when seeking part-time jobs to supplement the benefit and keep current in the workplace. But the important thing is to raise children who have positive attitudes and can take their place in society. The productive ideas would be first to concentrate on helping families in many ways with opportunities and options so they can grow to be mentally and physically healthy, keen, pleasant, honest and reliable in their participation in society. Secondly. to help parents to get a paying job with hours they can manage so they can participate in both society, beyond the child-centred and the home, and the economy, where they are self-supporting either wholly or partly.

  2. john 2
    2 December 2010 at 8:24 am

    The Japanese Illegal Whale killing operation has not yet left port.Is this a triumph for the brave principled courageous people of SeaShepherd? Led by a man who will be famous long after his departure Captain Paul Watson!

    Refer link: http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-101130-1.html

    • john 2.1
      2 December 2010 at 6:53 pm

      If this is a triumph for SeaShepherd no thanks to the NZ Sheep who are gutless sheep creeping to Japanese wealth.We know who the real men are here. Not Kiwis for sure Cowards.Other than Peter Bethune who was denied by his own.Jap cock suckers all.

    • john 2.2
      2 December 2010 at 7:07 pm

      Watson is a real Captain: a man of real manly courage God bless a real man of Guts

      • john 2.2.1
        2 December 2010 at 7:20 pm

        Kiwis anti whaling?! You gutless Cowards you suck Jap Dick you shit when you could send your pathetic navy down there to stop the slaughter.You are Jap pussies without pride,miserable bastards ,Saved only by Seashepherd who you hasten to deny.Real men doing what you can’t.

        • Colonial Viper 2.2.1.1
          2 December 2010 at 7:25 pm

          Does this mean that we shouldn’t keep borrowing money from the Japanese Government?

        • hateatea 2.2.1.2
          2 December 2010 at 8:11 pm

          Dear John
          If I wanted to read language like you are using, I would go check out a toilet wall. Your potty mouth makes me zone out your message.

          captcha: clue

      • KJT 2.2.2
        2 December 2010 at 9:39 pm

        I would have agreed if they had the guts to just say, we made the Whaler hit us.

    • Robert Atack 2.3
      2 December 2010 at 9:53 pm

      The whales are screwed, they are extinct, they just haven’t disappeared yet, their home is stuffed, their food supply is going (down something like 40%), they have fist sized ulcers in their stomachs, they are starving and becoming more disorientated due to the toxic crap they have to live in http://www.youtube.com/user/oilcrash1#p/u/14/k0mLTl01SQ0 and WE are ALL responsible.
      Paul Watson has done his best but alas it was to late when he started, and adding more crap to their environment IE bunker fuel, and Bethune’s boat 😉 didn’t help
      But we agree on one thing earth worms are more important than humans

      “Simple,” I answered. “Earthworms can live on the planet without people. We cannot live on the planet without earthworms thus from an ecological point of view, earthworms are more important than people.” PW

      Earth Day Report by Captain Paul Watson http://oilcrash.com/articles/earthday.htm
      Another essay by Paul THE PLASTIC SEA http://oilcrash.com/articles/plastic.htm

  3. Jim Nald 3
    2 December 2010 at 8:53 am

    From Granny Herald:
    “Key itching for quick action on financial hub”

    Who cares about investor protection standards or quality?

    Make the money and run
    Or make the money and get bailed out

    Hohum
    Legislate in haste, repeal at leisure

    • jcuknz 3.1
      2 December 2010 at 9:06 am

      Surely that should be “loose the money and get bailed out” ?

      • Jim Nald 3.1.1
        2 December 2010 at 9:13 am

        Both. In varying proportions, AND get bailed out
        They steal the money, then dump shit on others
        Taxpayers and nation-states can underwrite all the risks
        The New Century: Corporate Welfare is the Vogue

        • ianmac 3.1.1.1
          2 December 2010 at 9:20 am

          Isn’t the “money hub” that helped Ireland get into its disaster?

          • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1
            2 December 2010 at 9:35 am

            Yes. Money hub = money merry go round.

            Key can’t even save the pitiful NZ Stock Exchange, or stabilise the NZ dollar, let alone turn NZ into a global financial hub.

            Perhaps he thinks with a new 0% interest rate NZ has a future as the world’s newest corporate tax shelter? Just as the EU starts investigating Google’s tax avoidance behaviour?

            And note how Key has just told the Ministry of Economic Development that they are losers for suggesting this needs to be a bipartisan initiative and basically, the Govt will do it by itself now thank you but no thank you for your advice.

            Mr Brownlee your new dictatorial powers are wanted by your PM.

            NB Key needs a new bullet to go into next years’ election campaigning with and making NZ a global financial hub this is one of them. He has no doubt already primed up his new Hollywood mates and his old investment banking mates to make big (albeit totally insincere) pre-election announcements about setting up head offices here.

            He will be crowing about his financial world contacts and savvy all through the next campaign. (Cleverly forgetting that those boys and their big money speculation have cost the country billions now).

            BTW my friends working in Singapore and London think Key’s idea is hilarious. Any incentives, tax rates, that NZ offers now Australia could copy in 2s, and Sydney is already a global financial centre with offices for virtually every major bank in the world.

            • Lanthanide 3.1.1.1.1.1
              2 December 2010 at 10:06 am

              Part of Key’s hokey idea is that NZ has got a timezone advantage. I don’t know how he thinks that’s some kind of advantage, but as you say, Sydney is already a financial hub and only 2 hours behind us, which really completely negates any advantage (if there ever were one).

              I think you’re right about the bullet point for the election, though. They’re also pinning their hopes on the budget apparently, so expect some tax sweeteners for these foreign finance companies being announced?

            • prism 3.1.1.1.1.2
              2 December 2010 at 10:45 am

              Jonkey is setting us up to be a Bahamas or Cayman Islands where the wealthy park their assets and avoid or evade tax. This will help NZ businesses to set up tax avoidance schemes similar to the Cook Island one that featured in the Winebox enquiry. Oh heady days… Where are those swashbuckling leaders of business now -?
              For latest on that see –
              11/7/09 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/claire-trevett/news/article.cfm?a_id=74&objectid=10583824
              and 2/12/10 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10522529

              In November 1997 Douglas Myers then Chairman of Lion Nathan Brewery in a luncheon address stressed the point that neither the IRD or Serious Fraud Office was found to be corrupt!

              Then he looks at the NZ taxation system in the 1980s.
              The winebox transactions took place nearly a decade ago – in the latter part of the 1980s. New Zealand was emerging from decades of self-imposed insularity. Businesses were faced with the challenges and opportunities of operating in an open economy with open financial markets. With the removal of exchange controls, the development of tax policy struggled to keep pace with the internationalisation of the economy. Until October 1986 the top income tax rate was 66 percent and until April 1988 it was 48 percent. Before dividend imputation was introduced there was an extra layer of company tax.
              http://www.nzbr.org.nz/site/nzbr/files/speeches/speeches-97/reflections-on-the-winebox.doc.htm

              Tax is such a tricky and contentious matter. Get some of these big businesses with their handy schemes we’ll be filleted in a trice as I understand one is from piranha attacks. The bones will remain with enough flesh and organs to keep living but not in good health.
              captcha – concerned!

              • KJT …
                2 December 2010 at 11:44 am

                Probably wants to emulate the UK where their economy is so gutted that 70% of their income is now from juggling money instead of producing anything.

                • Lanthanide …
                  2 December 2010 at 12:20 pm

                  Nice work if you can get it, I think. Sure, it’s dangerous for their country in the long-term, but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a financial services industry. If some sucker is going to pay you for that, why not take the money?

                  • prism …
                    2 December 2010 at 12:34 pm

                    But maybe those other suckers are better at suckering you than you are at them. Then who looks silly!

                  • KJT …
                    2 December 2010 at 12:39 pm

                    Unfortunately. Because that industry has monopoly control of the money supply we are forced to pay them whether we want to or not. And they are taking an ever increasing share without adding to real production.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      2 December 2010 at 12:53 pm

                      To channel DTB here…the Government should take back from the private banks its sovereign right to issue currency into the economy, and to do so using a dollar not backed by debt, and which creates no interest compounding such debt.

    • mickysavage 3.2
      2 December 2010 at 10:47 am

      In the interests of the country someone please buy Key a salve.

  4. Pascal's bookie 4
    2 December 2010 at 9:36 am

    NASA might be set to announce discovery of terrestial non-carbon based life form…

    http://skymania.com/wp/2010/11/alien-life-form-is-here-on-earth.html/

    I say we nuke the little fuckers pronto. Arsenic based. I rest my case.

  5. felix 5
    2 December 2010 at 10:58 am

    How come in Key’s online smile and wave session the other day he said he was going to spend Christmas in Christchurch with his sister, but on Radio Live last week he said was going to spend it in Hawaii?

    • freedom 5.1
      2 December 2010 at 11:07 am

      because one was this week and one was last week,
      what politician ever remembers last week?

      or he was flustered from having to decide if he preferred kumera or potato fries?

      • Jum 5.1.1
        2 December 2010 at 11:15 am

        He’s probably taking his sister to Hawaii to get her out of the quake zone where those ungrateful householders who have to wait until 2013 for their houses to be fixed are whingeing. Relax he told ’em. The pigs have to wait ’til 2015 for THEIR decent housing.

    • Lanthanide 5.2
      2 December 2010 at 12:22 pm

      If you read all of the Q&A, you’ll see that he says he’s going to the UK, and then to Hawaii.

    • The Voice of Reason 5.3
      2 December 2010 at 12:47 pm

      Time zones? Chch Xmas first then fly to Honolulu in time for their Xmas the next day.

  6. Jum 6
    2 December 2010 at 11:11 am

    http://scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1012/S00015.htm

    Why don’t Housing NZ Staff have set hours of work?

    “All our members simply want is a fair exchange for the work they do. Staff at Housing New Zealand don’t even have set hours of work. That’s unacceptable.

    “The Corporation needs to listen to staff not suspend them. If it did that our members wouldn’t need to take this action in the first place.

    “Suspending staff is a bullying tactic designed to wear our members down and force them to give up their action for fair pay and conditions. Some of those suspended were taken out of a meeting one by one and simply didn’t come back to the meeting.

    • jcuknz 6.1
      2 December 2010 at 4:29 pm

      You sound to have a reasonable case Jum until one appreciates that a department or business working more than an eight hour day needs to roster staff. The other alternative is to reduce service to the public like some departments do and close their doors to the public at 3pm. Though I wasn’t often required to work through the night it was part of my employment that I was available to be rostered 24/7 .. though there were things such as the 40hr week and overtime and penal rates to compensate me for un-natural hours of work.
      So while “Housing NZ staff don’t have set hours of work” is a great rabble rousing cry I’d want to know more about the working conditions before I got stirred up.

      • Jum 6.1.1
        2 December 2010 at 7:22 pm

        Jcuknz,
        The quote under the question wasn’t mine.

        It just seemed odd to me and reminded me of the time Murray McCully, in the 90s pogrom, was advocating the unemployed turn up at the ‘post office’ every day and they just might get some casual work for the day…

        Reminded me of The Bicycle Thief one of the best films of all time. The workers had to turn up every day for casual work. One guy did and was told he had to have a bicycle for the job. He did but it was in hock, during the war, in Italy. His wife hocked their wedding presents to get the bike out. He went off to work and a thief stole his bike. The film is spent trying to recover it; the bike was the difference between surviving and living or in wartime possibly starving.

        Power over people, eh. It’s a killer, or in the end it can drive an honest man to steal; that’s what this government of devilspawn is hellbent on doing. This is becoming a war between the workers and the moneymen like Key who had a great upbringing with help from the state and a strong mother who had help from the state then set out to never be poor again, during which he made a speculative run on the NZ$ while overseas. I don’t have a problem with him not wanting to be poor. I do have a problem with the way he did it and the way New Zealanders are hailing him as some sort of financial guru when in actual fact he just exploited conditions to make his millions. And, he should never dare to attack the rights of the worker to have a great upbringing. But that’s exactly what he’s doing.

        I’ve been reading a book about Hitler; first pay homage to the worker, but the next day attack the unions, their only real ally. (Interesting in that he made a cringing speech about the brotherhood miners while in Parliament he was turning every worker’s life into the life of The Bicycle Thief.
        Fascinating book; ‘Hitler’s first action when he became pm in 1933, was to hold a secret meeting with some of Germany’s richest businessmen. (NZ businessrotundtable, Lord Ashcroft, IMF). He interested them when he outlined his plans to spend large sums of money on public works and armaments (that’ll come). This would mean greater sales and profits for them. Hitler won even more support when he explained his plan to crush the trade unions…(John ‘we would love to see wages drop’ Key). The bankers and industrialists then gave very large sums of money to the Nazi Party so that HItler’s regime would be strong enough to stay in power…Because the trade unions had been banned, the Government had complete control over wages and prices…

  7. prism 7
    2 December 2010 at 12:30 pm

    Roger Partridge, chair Business Roundtable, a litigation partner at Bell Gully, was appointed as the firm’s Chairman in 2007 after three years leading the firm’s litigation department ..
    Roger Kerr, (born 1945) is the executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, a free-market think-tank based in Wellington, New Zealand. …
    Roger Douglas….
    There is something about that name I don’t like. I must try to see that my future grandsons don’t get stuck with with it.

    • Lanthanide 7.1
      2 December 2010 at 2:30 pm

      They seem like high-fliers though, and could probably support you financially if your old age.

    • jcuknz 7.2
      2 December 2010 at 4:39 pm

      You could change it to Sir Roger Douglas and remember he was once Labour’s Minister of Broadcasting [ at least he nodded to me when I was introduced as a union delegate at parliament once 🙂 ] and later Minister of Finance … it is more polite too.
      {Funny how the security word here so often is appropriate to the material .. this one is distinguish]

    • Jum 7.3
      2 December 2010 at 7:30 pm

      The ‘Roger Award’ by CAFCA for the particularly nasty attacks of business upon NZers.

      Roger, a particularly nasty character I once had the misfortune of knowing…

      But then there was Roger, son of female parents, who was a charming lad…

  8. Pascal's bookie 8
    2 December 2010 at 3:09 pm

    Esquire goes Mencken on Falin.

    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/sarah-palin-clubbing-the-halibut

    And, somewhere in the Void, William Brennan blew chunks. (If you love Sarah Palin and don’t know who William Brennan was, rest assured: He was an elite.)

  9. Gosman 9
    3 December 2010 at 3:01 pm

    I’m waiting for some rabid comment about the outcome of the Pansy Wong investigation.

    Anyone still calling for a formal Police investigation and her to be sacked from Parliament?

    • Vicky32 9.1
      3 December 2010 at 5:47 pm

      Yes! I mean when I heard about the result of the “investigation” this morning, my first thought was “what a pathetic whitewash!” Sadly predictable…
      Yes, I want an objective investigation…
      Deb

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