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7:00 am, August 3rd, 2019 - 64 comments
Categories: open mike -
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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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The site will be off line for some hours.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/08/01/americas-collapse-2-in-a-series/
[Added quote marks. When quoting text verbatim you must include quote marks and a link and preferably an acknowledgment too. Similarly, when posting video clips you must include a reason and/or explanation what it is about and why they should watch it. You have warned before, e.g. https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-28-06-2019/#comment-1632321, and this is your final warning before you go the same way as another commenter here who used to do similar things and who continued to do so after repeated warnings. To spell it out for you: you are inching closer to a permanent ban – Incognito]
American success had little to do with capitalism. Then you contradict yourself: "World War II finished off Europe and put economic and financial supremacy in Washington’s hands. The US dollar seized the world reserve currency role from the British pound, enabling the US to pay its bills by printing money. The world currency role of the dollar, more than nuclear weapons, has been the source of American power."
Arguable that the nuclear threat empowers the superpower less than their capitalist system. I think the success of the USA post-WWII is due to both equally. Why did the rest of the world choose the US dollar as world currency? Tacit psychology. Trust that it works better as a medium of exchange than any other contender…
Why no quote marks? The text is a straight rip from the link.
See my Moderation note @ 7:10 AM.
This interesting book review from yesterday; standing further back from history can widen the field of vision. Of course the guy in the white house wants to go to Mars:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/31/the-end-of-the-myth-by-greg-grandin-review
'For the men who would later be mythologised as the “Founding Fathers”, conquest – the right of white settlers to seize whatever land they wanted – was from the start inseparable from liberty. Freedom, in the American sense of the word, was unimaginable without the frontier, limitless land for the taking just beyond the boundaries of the known.'
Climate Scientist Jason Box: “Our Economic System Is Crashing With Reality”
The Greens annual conference and AGM is being held this weekend. A Stuff reporter gets the gist from our co-leaders:
"The sinking of the Government's flagship KiwiBuild policy may also hold a silver lining for the Greens and its housing goal. The agreement lists a rent to own scheme or similar progressive ownership model to be developed and now KiwiBuild is being "reset" this could be a good opportunity. It is understood the Greens and Housing Minister Megan Woods are currently talking about this." https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/114721355/green-party-coleaders-set-to-tell-members-we-want-to-do-more-with-housing-inequality-and-climate-change
Intriguing and good to see they are taking the initiative with the coalition. I'm hoping we'll get more than navel-gazing out of the conference. They failed to give me any reason to attend, so I figured I've got plenty of better things to do. Wish them well tho..
I'm fairly sure the failure is on your part.
Could be. Expecting more from them than I'm getting. If you're going, how about giving us a report of your impressions, when you get back.
The whole ownership thing is dumb. Focus on decent rentals priced to undercut private landlords.
Four Horsemen – Feature Documentary – Official Version
That’s 1:38:53 long; what is it about and why is it worth watching?
That is a meaningless non-self-explanatory caption.
The third horseman was from HR.
https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=nasb:Revelation.6:5%E2%80%936:6
HR? Some people might not know.
In corporate-speak, Human Resources. Struck me as a clever joke (unless it means something else). I was obliged to interact with one or two of the TVNZ HR drones in the '90s due to my somewhat-stroppy attitude. One needs to be able to finesse their attempts to file people into typical categories…
He's an Ed. But at least Ed did serve up some reason to post his links – this guy has so much contempt for readers of TS that he is incapable of conceiving such courtesy. I see it as a combination of Jungian projection with a variant of virtue-signalling. He assumes readers share his desire to promote whatever virtue he perceives in the links. Classic narcissism: the subject's interior world totally displaces the world we share…
You might be interested to see my Moderation note I just left under the comment @ 1.
I am pleased to see that you didn’t bring up the sockpoppet allegation because my antibody titres against that are sky-high 😉
Great documentary movie.
Puts the banks, fractional reserve banking and politics under the microscope.
I thoroughly recommend it.
Ah, thought it rang a bell in the back of my mind. I did watch that years ago & agree it was worth the time spent (even though I had long been familiar with the back story).
NIWA wrong on 5G impact.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/08/niwa-apologises-for-5g-weather-confusion.html
Moving to Vodafone in anticipation.
Google finds 22.3 million web pages if you search health effects of 5g. Bit of a groundswell, but ignore the rabble. You'll be ok.
“The radio wave band – used for mobile phone networks – is non-ionising, “which means it lacks sufficient energy to break apart DNA and cause cellular damage,” says David Robert Grimes, physicist and cancer researcher. Higher up the electromagnetic spectrum, well beyond those frequencies used by mobile phones, there are clear health risks from extended exposure.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48616174
The report does suggest a serious risk to male rats, so some of the more rabid kiwibloggers may get eliminated…
"Google finds 22.3 million web pages if you search health effects of 5g"
Is that all? I tried "Trump is an alien" and got 328 million. Nearly 15 times as many. Surely that must be interpreted as meaning there aren't any health effects from 5g if hardly anyone seems to care?
""Trump is an alien"
So little you know about Google searches Alwrong.
You can see from the first page of those 328 mill things like :
Alien hunters at Area 51
Vanity Fair 'Please let it be Aliens and not Trumps Space Force'
learn how to use google, when you search for exact phrase "trump is an Alien" you only get 112,000 results.
But I was using the exact method that Dennis Frank used. Why do you not tell him that he should have enclosed his phrase in quotation marks?
After all, if I search for "health effects of 5g" I only get 34,300 hits. That is of course much less than the 20+ million that he quoted.
I was using exactly the same method that he was. What is wrong with that?
How to use Google 101: if you include the quotation marks you’ll get about 113,000 results. This is because you search for this exact word or phrase. Have you ever used the Advanced Search settings? Very handy!
Note my reply to Dukeofurl just above.
Sure. I read comments in the back-end and they are in reverse order without the context of the discussion thread. In fact, I read the all comments of all posts lumped together in reverse chronological order. In between, I write the odd comment myself, occasionally, but mostly I keep an eye on things as moderator – the two are almost mutually exclusive, to me at least.
Jesus! I am amazed that you can make any sense of anything. I certainly don't think I would be able to do it.
I now see, on the other hand, how you can respond to comments so quickly. I found it a real pain when I couldn't find, easily, my own recent comments so that I could see if a response should be given. Getting that back is wonderful. I only have to find my own comments though.
You put the finger on the pain point, which is that I cannot make much sense of anything unless I concentrate really hard and pay much attention – very tiring if not exhausting to combine with a demanding life outside or alongside TS. The back-end works well for moderation but not for commenting (the editor is different too). I find myself spending a lot of time and energy here and not nearly enjoying it as much as I used to when I was merely commenting and joining in the conversations. The technical aspect is only one factor; the other issue that it is almost impossible to disentangle oneself from being a ‘player’ in a ‘game’ to become the ‘referee/umpire’ and make fair and neutral decisions to protect the ‘game’. Maybe I’m taking it all too seriously; it wouldn’t be the first time. One thing that helps though is that I am anonymous and that lowers the personal involvement; I can turn off the device and walk away from it without a lingering emotional connection, which is much harder to do in real life, for me at least.
You have to thank Lynn, of course, for the search function and the smooth running of the site. You know that you can click on Replies on the RH side to see whether anybody has replied to one of your comments, don’t you? It does not work when threads get too long because the nesting of comments only goes so deep before the reply button disappears.
A lot of starnge stuff around about 5G . Because the spectrum they will use in US is high frequency it wont provide much performance away from cell sites.
this part of the Niwa incorrect claim as the bands will be FR2. Im surprised they failed to check even wikipedia over this
I understand other countries will be using lower frequencies including this 2.5Ghz band in NZ. ( known in the jargon as FR1)
Im not sure of this but one of the reasons for 5G faster downloads is the 'broader bands' used for reception
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands
.Perhaps it's time for the left to start investing in this strategy, too. Or we kill facebook.
The lobbying firm run by Boris Johnson’s close ally Sir Lynton Crosby has secretly built a network of unbranded “news” pages on Facebook for dozens of clients ranging from the Saudi government to major polluters, a Guardian investigation has found.
In the most complete account yet of CTF Partners’ outlook and strategy, current and former employees of the campaign consultancy have painted a picture of a business that appears to have professionalised online disinformation, taken on a series of controversial clients and faced incidents of misogynistic bullying in its headquarters.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/01/revealed-johnson-allys-firm-secretly-ran-facebook-propaganda-network
Facebook said it shut down 265 fake accounts run by an Israeli social media company on Thursday for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” as it sought to affect politics in African, Latin American and Southeast Asian nations.
The move, while underscoring the increasingly global nature of social media disinformation campaigns, was unusual for singling out a company that appeared to profit from its publicized work to spread falsehoods online. Archimedes Group, the Israeli company, claims the ability to “use every tool and take every advantage available in order to change reality according to our client’s wishes.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/16/facebook-shuts-down-israel-based-disinformation-campaigns-election-manipulation-increasingly-goes-global/
A pair of Toronto city councillors hired a scrappy political strategist to wage a multi-front PR campaign after CBC News ran stories examining their ties to local developers, with one of the councillors privately making threatening comments about a CBC reporter and compiling a "research" dossier on him and political foes, according to allegations in a lawsuit.
[…]
The PR campaign was to include complaints to CBC about its reporting, slipping "pertinent information" to competing media, arranging for letters to the editor to be signed by the councillors' friends and relatives, and the creation of "myriad" websites and social media accounts promoting the politicians and their message and attacking a past electoral rival.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/di-ciano-grimes-kinsella-lawsuit-allegations-1.5183813
Or drag linty crobby and his ilk by their tails and drag them up onto the surface where people can watch them squirm.
I'd rather it by their heels on a gibbet, Gabs.
A healthy contrast to the pussyfooting so common in contemporary politics:
'Is working with National after the election next year off the table?'
James Shaw: "Yes, absolutely. I would never empower someone with as little personal integrity as Simon Bridges to become Prime Minister."
Delivered without the slightest hesitation, too. I guess it does not rule out working with a party head who has more integrity than Bridges.
Collins? Bennett? Mitchell? Luxton? Is the intersection of 'Bridges and his potential replacements' with 'people having a high level of personal integrity' an empty set?
Certainly can't include Collins. 🙂
This morning on Radionz (great piece on new discovery about treatment of one type of cancer) that the Malaghan Institute was founded by the owner of Tip Top (died 1967 of Hodgkin's disease).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018707063/breakthrough-cancer-treatment-coming-to-new-zealand
Malaghan Institute: https://www.malaghan.org.nz/our-history/
The concept of a Wellington-based, independent medical research institute was first proposed in the early 1960s. At that time, relatively little medical research was carried out in New Zealand due to a lack of facilities and support by hospital boards.
Using funds from a trust established by the Wellington Medical Research Foundation and the Wellington Division of the Cancer Society, the Wellington Cancer and Medical Research Institute was opened on 26 July 1979, in rented premises in the Wellington School of Medicine.
In 1986, the name of the Institute was changed to the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in recognition of the generous support by Len and Ann Malaghan. Two decades later, the Institute relocated to a purpose-built facility at Victoria University of Wellington.
The philanthropy of the Malaghan family has continued to benefit others over the years. https://www.malaghan.org.nz/news/celebrating-three-generations-of-philanthropy/
And the connection with cancer and the Malaghan Institute is Tip-Top Icecream. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_Top_(ice_cream)
History. In 1936 Albert Hayman and Len Malaghan opened their first ice cream parlour in Manners Street, Wellington, New Zealand followed in the same year by a second milk bar in Wellington, and one in Dunedin. Tip Top Ice Cream Company was registered as a manufacturing company in 1936…
In November 1962, Hayman and Malaghan opened the biggest and most technically advanced ice cream factory in the Southern Hemisphere, built at Mount Wellington, Auckland, New Zealand. The Tip Top factory included staff houses and 20 acres (81,000 m2) of farm land overlooking the Southern Motorway and cost NZ$700,000. Prime Minister Keith Holyoake attended the opening ceremony.
By 1964 the Company had expanded to such an extent that a parent company was formed, General Foods Corporation (NZ) Limited. It was rated as one of the soundest investments on the stock exchange and other companies were quick to note its potential.
https://www.nzicecream.org.nz/history-nz-trans-tasman.htm
In this link it shows how Tip Top changed hands six times from 1968 when Watties acquired control to the 2001 'mega-merger'.
June 2001 – The 'mega-merger' of Kiwi, NZ Co-op Dairy Co. and the NZ Dairy Board formed a huge new dairy company, Fonterra. Fonterra inherited the ice cream businesses and brands; Tip Top, New American and Peters (WA and NZ).
2019 Fonterra sold Tip Top to Froneri (the pureplay ice cream company.. I just love these terms that business invent.)
FRONERI is a global pureplay ice cream company. Froneri is widely diversified across the world, operating in 20 countries. Froneri offers the full suite of ice cream products, from dairy ice cream to water ice, sorbet and organic ice cream, and from tubs to sticks to cones to name a few.
We need to develop a co-operative system as they have in Spain – the Mondragon group. We are concentrating on making things for export and we have to pay world prices for things made or grown here. To strengthn the country we have to have a domestic market that prices for the domestic market and it seems to me the only way we will get that is starting a NZ co-operative belonging to NZs who look to buy product from the organisation, and possibly work in it. If we don't divorce ourselves from the wealthy and self-interested, we will continue to see our living standards decline – we will be forced to live simply because of a desire by the wealthy to refuse equality to the population inparticipating in the country's economy, and its jobs and wages, and distribution of the proceeds of trading and taxation in a fair manner.
Business has no long-term commitment to this country and growing our own strengths at all. The present system has enabled this white-anting of our enterprise and resources. Yet look at who are in the top wealth bracket in the world, the people who have worked as family, and kept hold of their stuff.
This morning Luxon of AirNZ commented on how costly it has been to get a presence in Argentina, an awareness of the country and the company. He mentioned being confused with shoe polish and some other product.
This is the result of a lack of prowess by NZ business leaders and politicians. When we lost our Kiwi name to the Kiwi polish we should have then bought it back and patented it, but no too timid and short-sighted. Perhaps we could wait for the crash and then leap out and buy our name for peanuts. Those who play the share market know you can get great leverage then.
From local Tip Top Ice Cream we have a valuable research institute looking into cancer, the Malaghan Institute. What of lasting benefit to the country's social infrastructure do we get from the baby boomers?
"What of lasting benefit to the country's social infrastructure do we get from the baby boomers?"
– Air New Zealand
– Kiwisaver
– Kiwibank
– Massive motorway system
– ACC, Pharmac
– Most electricity generators
– Fibre optic cable to most houses
– Modern health system
– Corruption-free government
– MMP
– Some earthquake rebuilds over 60 years
– Most national parks
– Well regulated and functioning society
Ask the same question about millenials, and you're getting to Robertson and Ardern and Shaw: different answer.
Corruption free government? Try that line with the householders ripped off by EQC and its subsidiaries. Look closely at any privatization of public assets and you'll find corruption, not service improvement is the driver. Prior to Rogergnomics we had low corruption, now the Panama Papers is the operating norm.
Us and Denmark: most corruption-free countries in the world, and have been for a while.
Boomers formed all the structures, and they broke some of them. We're still a well regulated and functioning society anyway.
It's a spurious statistic with no objective backing, hence the title CPI. https://www.transparency.org.nz/corruption-perceptions-index/
Yet you'd go to prison for many of the commonplaces of NZ corruption in some administrations – the insider trading Key performed with NZRail shares, the misappropriation of Hubbard's wealth, the theft of public assets like the electricity infrastructure and private ones like the fisheries quota management system. The revolving doors between former ministers and well paid sinecures, gross instances of graft like the appointment of unqualified directors like Jenny Shipley to the NZ funded Asian Infrastructure Bank, and the systematic and deliberate non-enforcement of immigration rules on unskilled labour and so forth.
NZ really has no cause to boast of its corruption status anymore, in fact it's due for a clean out.
Every one of your list is cracked Ad. They have been attempts to meet the standards of a modern first world society, yes. But there are huge numbers of people who are in poverty, no decent housing, no reliable jobs to look forward to with two days off in the weekend if they want them to be with family, join in community; this means that the benefits above arise from having reduced the benefits to those who have been designated unworthy. That is what the baby boomers have passed on to the young ones today, the degraded society that the early colonials sailed here to rise above, and the treatment that was meted out in the early 30's in Germany to those designated as unsuitable citizens.
Oh sure. Bad things as well. But that wasn't the question that was asked.
Corruption-free government? You have to be joking. Ok, not as bad as many other countries but to say we are corruption free is ludicrous. I witnessed a few things during my many years in the Public Service and others will have too. For obvious reasons I cannot elaborate.
Well regulated and functioning society? It might have started off that way but in the past 30 years it has gone downhill.
Robertson and Ardern and company have yet to make their mark. Eighteen months in power is not long enough to produce anything concrete and permanent.
For pity’s sake give them time!
Corruption free compared to any other country on earth. Us and Denmark.
Boomers formed a well regulated society.
There's no pity in politics. Ardern and Robertson have got 8 more months before it all goes on the line again, and everyone can see they're dodging most of the hard stuff.
I vividly recall the Winebox years. By dint of a former association with a person who was close to the main culprits, I picked up on the nature of the dirty practices before it became generally known. I think I read every book and article written about the era and the level of corruption was mind boggling – at least for a country which had previously been free from such practices.
That the culprits (all filthy rich and powerful) were never prosecuted is an indictment on the establishment (including the police) of this country. Given the perpetrators stole millions of NZ taxpayers’ money that response in itself was worthy of an investigation.
And the huge irony… some of those involved were instrumental in setting up the "Association of Consumers and Tax Payers" – the ACT Party.
I consider that period set the scene for the introduction of the often corrupt practices that exist today (look at some of the antics of the previous Key government) and which are now accepted by many as normal.
As far as Ardern and Robertson are concerned… I agree they must have something solid to present to the public by the end of next year, but I'm optimistic it will happen even if their efforts are still in the process of being fully realised.
yeah the National Parks just fell out of the air fully formed with no one in them yay thanks baby boomers lol
Ain't no new national parks generated by millennials. You can check thee years they were legislated.
I suspect marty is referring to people who predate the Boomers by quite a long time.
ad is just being his annoyingly ignorant self – part of his poke with a stick game – I'm sure he isn't as thick as he portrays but you never know
Some of those things were built by the previous generation, not the boomers who inherited them.
Which ones?
Rainy day, but a well spent hour watching The Great Hack on Netflix. Highly recommended.
It's quite clear from this outstanding doco that the deluge of anti-Hillary and pro-Brexit content sent out to groups of voters, based on the data mining (conducted primarily from Facebook) by Cambridge Analytica was the prime reason for the Trump and Brexit result. Not to mention the practise runs in a large number of other minor countries in the lead up.
Noam Chomksy et al would be correct in saying that any Russian 'meddling' would be inconsequential compared to that.
I've only watched the first 20 or so minutes. Did the Trump team hire in Google and FB staff to help them with that? There was a bit about where the Google/FB people sat in the room, but it wasn't explained in depth in that part.
The "Black lives matter" stuff was amazing, a way to divide the country. It made me think of the ChCh terror attack and how his intention was to divide and stir shit, it made me think Adern really did an amazing job of shutting that down compared to what went on in the U.S.
I don't think there was direct collusion between political candidates/parties but there was between parties and Cambridge Analytica (and it's parent company SCL*). It's well worth watching the full doco.
The ‘black lives’ comments were interesting, but not really election related. The targeting of derogatory Clinton adverts to certain Facebook groups as a consequence of the data mining would rate as very directly affecting the election.
Kia Ora Newshub.
Condolences to Sir Brian Lachore whanau he was a awesome ambassador for Rugby and Aotearoa he was A True Kiwi humble but hard .
Its good for Wahine who want a abortion to get one without breaking the law that is stupid that being a criminal offense. Its Its their BODY Thanks to our Coalition Governments for putting up the new law to be voted on by our MPs .
A big heavy Snow Storm in the South Island of Aotearoa Te wai pounamu the tamariki and skiers will be happy the farmers not so happy .
12 new Radiation machines to help detect cancer earlier its good to detect cancer quickly to cure it and keep cancer at bay.
Jamie Shaw is a awesome Green Party Co leader like Marama .Ka kite ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
There is a reason Im not commenting on Ihumatao WHY because the police will try and blame some of the issues with the larger numbers of Tangata whenua being there on Eco Maori. What are they touting guns there for its a peaceful protest are they trying to stir up tangata whenua emotion.
More Ports on Waihike Island we need to protect our sea shore and sea environments.
Ka pai to our tangata whenua contemporary Artist the theme is the effects of colonialism I agree about it being oppressive and bad for the native people. I our tamariki mana will get the changes needed for JUSTICE.
I ,,, Eco Maori will go to Anglican Church for prayer I love it that the Church includes tangata whenua cultural as part of its Cultural ka pai.
Herds Eco Maori tau toko Herbs Im just to distract to have time to scan good Aotearoa Music and Musicians it will be a awesome Movie I will definitely watch it
Ka kite ano
P.S they thought I was bluffing yesterday Yea right
Kia ora The Am Show
Wellington has the fittest people in Aotearoa that's cool.
What did national do to improve the treatment of cancer not very much actually .Not a problem for them they would all get private treatment if they had signs of cancer of cancer or any other ailment.
I agree with Doctor Jackson strong central leadership like you say the DHB act as individuals and not a collective they worry about their budgets so they put off buying expensive equipment.
Duncan David doesn't have a magical tool to make changes to OUR Health system happen over night Papatuanuku was not built in a day.
Snow on the beach in down South Island it is cooler in Hawksbay to .This extreme shifting in the weather dosen't go against Global Warming these events confirme Our Scientists predictions of the effects of Human Caused Climate Change.
Lydia rise in the Golfing Papatuanuku helped lift the profile of Wahine golf Papatuanuku wide she lifted a lot of young Wahine golfers as well Kia kaha lydia.
The Greens should not team up with national became they would just stuff them up like they did to the Maori Party
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/7wPLW7G1J_w
The Movie is being released soon for Herbs the Band in Aotearoa
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/h4DFXUndvbw
Kia Ora Newshub.
Its quite cold here in Eskmount we had a light dusting of Snow this morning.
Its good making that statement about abortion but it will be better when the law is changed.
People are using the Christchurch disaster as a excuses for people in power playing the racist CARD to bolster their public RATINGS with out no though about the people WHO are affected by their BULLSHIT words
Its was not good behavior of a middle aged man who rammed the young guys cars .
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Everyone knows my opinion on Ihumatao.
I agree with Tama Iti kia kaha .
Don't worry Jacinda will find a solution to Ihumatao Whanau.
Abortion should be treated as a health issue it would be a very hard situation to deal with for Wahine when they could have other issues around their pregnancy its their BODYs.
Tama Iti is correct heaps of there whenua was taken by the crown the art work will become very valuable ma te wa.
The largest tukutuku panel in Papatuanuku is being conducted they are Tangata whenua O Aotearoa Tai taiwhiti ka pai
Ka kite ano