Open mike 04/12/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 4th, 2024 - 26 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

26 comments on “Open mike 04/12/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Ad 1
    4 December 2024 at 8:05 am

    Lest we forget how brittle actual democracy is, South Korea has only been a functioning democracy since 1987, and has one of the most concentrated strata of commercial and political power of advanced developed countries. We have to ask: which chaebol proxy leader wins here?

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    4 December 2024 at 8:08 am

    Tough going when a journalist must try to extract meaning from the meaningless:

    On Sunday morning, Christopher Luxon finally appeared on TVNZ’s Q+A for the first time since he was elected prime minister in 2023. The live television interview lasted 30 minutes… you would expect him to have a lot to say. And he did: Luxon said “what I say to you is this” (or variations of it) 26 times in 30 minutes. Tame was persistent in getting straightforward answers to his questions, but Luxon was just as determined to tell us that he had something to say. Eventually, if we waited long enough, it seemed like he might even say it. https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-12-2024/a-journey-through-the-26-times-luxon-said-what-i-say-to-you-is-on-qa

    Tame states that New Zealand is now ranked 179 out of 190 countries on the international monetary fund record of GDP growth data, and this year has had lower growth than countries like Guinea Bissau, Chad and Iraq. “Why is that?” he asks the PM. “Again, what I would just say to you,” Luxon begins with a grin, “is that we have forgotten the immutable laws of economics.” Grinners are winners, and Luxon loves numbers a lot.

    Luxon got that read of the public mind wrong. Folks haven't forgotten them; they've never been taught them. Have you seen evidence that economics is taught in school? I haven't.

    Then there's the interesting difference between the immutable laws of economics and the mutable laws of economics. As any good Darwinian knows, things mutate in nature, and people are biological creatures, thus they mutate too, producing varying laws of collective behaviour depending on context. Its why economies differ all over the world. Lux wants to live in the ideal world of globalised neolibs, but it ain't real.

    • Dennis Frank 2.1
      4 December 2024 at 8:35 am

      His minder must have prepped him like this: "keep on smiling & dodging his questions – that's how you get a teflon factor".

      When Tame points out evidence that shows the poorest New Zealanders have gotten poorer under a National government, Luxon drops not one, not two, but four “I’ll just say to you”s in a matter of minutes. “You’re saying a lot of things to me, but you’re not actually answering my questions,” Tame tells the PM.

      Somehow the mindless moron pose doesn't seen to work anywhere near as well for Luxon as it does for Hipkins. He could try switching to the Muldoon model. Stand in front of a mirror & glower at it for 10 minutes, trying to up the level of menace. His head is quite similar to Muldoon's, but the banal robo-grin makes him lightweight. He oughta hang out with gangsters to toughen up. That worked for Muldoon.

      When they complain about the gang insignia ban, tell 'em "Tough love, guys. We just need to get you onside, y'know? Worked a treat for the mafia!" He could hire Mike King to do gang liaison, point them towards Green economic enterprise: "Cannabis is sustainable, you can always grow it easily." "Yeah, we've done it already."

      • Tiger Mountain 2.1.1
        4 December 2024 at 9:49 am

        Some baldies carry it off, apply some bronzer, grow some designer stubble and look a little thuggish.

        Luxury Luxon’s pale, shiny, bonce is quite off putting under the studio lights. His body language is weak, a gut punch from a school boy might drop him. Then when he opens his trap all doubt is removed as to his lack of political skill.

        It is bad enough having such a vandalistic Govt. but this vacuous chap as PM is sad, he seems to have little sense of history or nationhood.

        • Vivie 2.1.1.1
          4 December 2024 at 8:55 pm

          TM – Over time you and other commenters have made negative references to Christopher Luxon's baldness – a physical characteristic shared by many men, some women and people affected by medical treatment. These references detract from otherwise insightful comments.

          I think making disparaging remarks about a person's physical characteristics casts a negative tone.

      • Tony Veitch 2.1.2
        4 December 2024 at 11:52 am

        Look at his face as he's not answering Jack's questions – there's a lot of barely repressed anger behind his eyes!

        He simply doesn't like, and is not used to being closely questioned! It just doesn't happen, you know, in his CEO world!

        • Dennis Frank 2.1.2.1
          4 December 2024 at 12:16 pm

          I admire your intestinal fortitude in actually watching the thing (I just bounced off the review). Good point re body language, but he will have to man up eventually.

          Whoever is masterminding his media liaison currently (didn't Janet Wilson abandon the attempt some months back?) was probably rolling their eyes and pondering plan B. Such front-line encounters are meant to be character-building but I suppose there has to be some character already present to build upon, and we haven't seen much evidence of that yet.

    • AB 2.2
      4 December 2024 at 9:45 am

      Luxon simply wants his preferred ideas about economics to be accepted as immutable, inevitable and above political debate. Economics, unfortunately for Luxon, is a highly contested ideological space and his preferred version of it (small state to avoid crowding out the truly innovative private sector, low taxes, the perfect, self-equilibrating, joyful, liberating harmony of free markets) has been under attack ever since its 1980's/90's heyday.

      More importantly though, it points to how Luxon (consciously or not) tries to evaporate the actual politics out of politics altogether. If his economic 'laws' are inevitable truths, then no debate is needed about what should be done, no moral principles, political theory or social goals have to be discussed. All that matters is the efficiency with which the inevitable and necessary thing is done. Hence his endless content-free blathering about delivery and outcomes.

    • Mike the Lefty 2.3
      4 December 2024 at 10:45 am

      Luxon is a glorious example of the Atlas Institute's handbook on how to avoid answering questions in which the answer doesn't make you look like the new Messiah.

      But I sense the media and the public are starting to get tired of his constant evasion techniques.

      • Dennis Frank 2.3.1
        4 December 2024 at 11:48 am

        media and the public are starting to get tired of his constant evasion techniques

        Yeah Mike, you got the key point right there. An economic recovery would have glossed the effect – but now the more he evades, the worse it gets for him.

      • Binders full of women 2.3.2
        4 December 2024 at 1:43 pm

        Yup- dead right he's fed lines by Atlas & WEF & Rothschilds.

      • Obtrectator 2.3.3
        5 December 2024 at 12:03 am

        Three just screened an interesting and insightful doco about BoJo, and his various distraction and avoidance techniques while UKPM. Some of the tricks he employed have a very familiar look, and the subtle body-language giveaways when he was being "economical with the truth" were so obvious once explained for what they were.

  3. Patricia Bremner 3
    4 December 2024 at 8:44 am

    Mountain Tui has the facts and trends in our side column. Left up Right down.

    To quote past National Leaders, ‘It’s the economy’.

  4. Ad 4
    4 December 2024 at 9:59 am

    Take a good look at GreaterAuckland's report on the decline of Auckland Transport. This is the kind of re-alignment between Auckland and central government that we have been needing for about a century. Very interesting democratic and structural re-alignment from Minister Brown.

    • SPC 4.1
      4 December 2024 at 11:07 am

      Was not AT carved out with the formation of the unitary council 2009-2010?

      Is not the change back to that of other councils? Council decision-making?

      And the opposite of the deal on water

      AI

      In May 2024, Auckland Council and the New Zealand government announced a deal to allow Watercare, Auckland's water company, to borrow more money to invest in water infrastructure:

      • Separation

        The deal separates Watercare from Auckland Council, allowing Watercare to borrow money independently. This takes water-related debt off the council's books, freeing up space for other borrowing

      A similar deal would enable Wellington to develop a better budget plan but a desire to impose a cancellation of past government GM funding etc

      • Ad 4.1.1
        4 December 2024 at 2:17 pm

        The re-delegation of power over transport back to AC and the specific delegations to local boards in legislation is much more akin to the Royal Commission recommendations on Auckland governance, rather than the Rodney Hide stripped-down and corporatised version.

        Local Boards are going to wonder what's hit them with that amount of spatial influence.

    • Tiger Mountain 4.2
      4 December 2024 at 11:46 am

      The CCOs were always undemocratic, but am not convinced that Pee Wee Brown and “Browny” Brown are that interested in democracy. I predict privatisation, attack on cycleways, promotion of cars, and will the bus drivers great wage increase and change of tender process assisted by then Minister Michael Wood survive?

      But yes, central Govt. cannot keep hanging Councils out to dry.

      • Ad 4.2.1
        4 December 2024 at 2:19 pm

        The Farebox Recovery changes impacting on patronage are the big National funding change to watch.

        It's never an even balance between democratising and transport infrastructure planning and implementation. They sure went the wrong way when they set the local boards up.

  5. Dennis Frank 5
    4 December 2024 at 12:07 pm

    Another sign of the death of neoliberalism; free trade has been tossed into the dustbin of history… https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/02/tech/china-us-chips-new-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html

    On Monday, the US Commerce Department announced curbs on the sale of two dozen types of semiconductor-making equipment and restrictions on numerous Chinese companies from accessing American technology.

    The goal of the new controls, US Commerce Department officials said, was to slow China’s development of advanced AI tools that can be used in war and to undercut the country’s homegrown semiconductor industry, which threatens the national security of the US and its allies.

    China’s Commerce Ministry condemned the move… “The US preaches one thing while practicing another" in a Monday statement.

    Hypocrisy is the word their translator thought too hard to use. Biden must keep pretending free trade works because Democrats are extremely slow learners.

    A day later, it banned outright the sale of a number of materials crucial for the production of semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries to the US. The export of gallium, germanium, antimony and other “super hard” materials will not be permitted because they may be used for military purposes, according to the ministry.

    The yanks will buy them elsewhere, no problem.

    Monday’s announcement is the third round of export restrictions imposed on Beijing by the Biden administration in as many years.

    His controllers are hewing to the CFR line, no doubt, as will Trump. So we have cross-party consensus on geopolitics, loud & clear, on China even if not Ukraine…

  6. joe90 6
    4 December 2024 at 12:13 pm

    Judd Legum writes about an $18 million bribe to Trump from a Chinese national under investigation by the SEC for fraud.

    Tl;dr: the fix is in and Trump is going to turn the US government into a money making scheme where corruption is a feature, not a bug.

    .

    So before Sun's purchase, Trump was entitled to nothing because the reserve had not been met. But Sun's purchase covered the entire reserve, so now Trump is entitled to 75% of the revenues from all other tokens purchased. As of December 1, there have been $24 million WLF tokens sold, netting Trump $18 million.

    Sun is also joining World Liberty Financial as an advisor, making Sun and the incoming president business partners.

    […]

    Through World Liberty Financial, Trump can reap massive personal profits from creating a more permissive regulatory environment for crypto ventures.

    In addition to his 75% share of revenues over $30 million, Trump's company was also awarded 22.5 billion WLF tokens. At the current sale price, these tokens are worth more than $300 million. That is more than 20 billion tokens being offered for sale publicly. (This makes the "governance" value of WLF tokens, which was already questionable, effectively worthless. No matter how many tokens you own, Trump will always be able to outvote other token holders.)

    Right now, Trump's tokens — like those purchased by Sun — are worthless because they cannot be transferred. But Trump could appoint a new SEC chairman who is friendly to the crypto industry and who would create new rules allowing the WLF tokens and similar crypto assets to be legally traded. If the price of the tokens increases when they hit the open market, which is a possibility for a crypto token backed by the President of the United States, the value of Trump's tokens could be in the billions.

    That appears to be exactly the path Trump is taking.

    https://popular.info/p/a-chinese-national-charged-with-fraud

  7. Dennis Frank 7
    4 December 2024 at 1:06 pm

    Huh. Trump's DEA nominee had to withdraw because he did the right thing.

    Chad Chronister said Tuesday he's withdrawing his name from consideration for the role. Some conservatives criticized the nomination three days ago because of the Tampa-area sheriff's decision to enforce COVID lockdowns during the pandemic. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) called for Chronister's disqualification on X, citing the arrest of a pastor "who defied COVID lockdowns." https://www.axios.com/2024/12/03/trump-dea-nominee-chad-chronister-withdraw

  8. joe90 8
    4 December 2024 at 1:49 pm

    Wolves as pollinators is my good news of the day.

    Canids as pollinators? Nectar foraging by Ethiopian wolves may contribute to the pollination of Kniphofia foliosa

    […]

    Considering Ethiopian wolves' size (12–16 kg; Sillero-Zubiri & Gottelli, 1994) and specialized rodent diet (Marino et al., 2010), it is unlikely that nectar contributes significantly to their energy budget, tentatively fitting with the dessert hypothesis. Their attraction to the flowers can nevertheless be remarkable, as shown by individuals that sequentially visited 20–30 flowers and dedicated a considerable amount of time to nectar foraging.

    https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.4470