Yep you and me think alike. I have three dogs, love all animals can’t even squat flies. MY opinion is we share this planet and every animal feels that is alive, feels pain has emotions and personality who the fuck are we to kill another living creature.
The old “god gave us the animals to do as we please” lines, wearing rather fucking thin.
Humans wrecking the planet in the name of god. We really are a virus on this planet.
Please paul I clicked that and clicked off at the disclaimer. I cannot watch bad things happen to animals it makes me seriously suicidal mate. Stick a warning in their next time, I thought it was about aliens or a study on humans not animal farming and it’s horrific practices.
If we accept that people are formed by their environment, then we probably have to accept that people have been changed by the relentless individualism, narcissism and consumerism which has been the (hem) predominant discourse in western societies for the last 30 years.
This is why I’m against the ‘turn left’ crowd hereabouts. The people voting National are not going to suddenly vote Labour when they are offered a more left wing alternative. They’re going to be even more repelled. The most we can do, in the short term, is pry off the centre vote, and then when people realise the Sky Has Not Fallen, persuade them it will still not fall if we move a little bit further, then a little bit further …
The neo-liberals had the advantage of circumstance when they moved the country the other way in the 80s … But I think a crisis generally favours the right (and they deceived as to how far they were going to go) as witnessed by the right wing retrenchment after 2008. Unless there is some system busting crisis (which we’ve been waiting for for over 150 years now!) Fabianism is probably the only way for the left to return to power. Bolsheviks might dream of seizing control and imposing (their version of) the dictatorship of the proletariat, and then persuading people they were right all along, but most historical examples warn against that route.
It’s an argument born of practicality. The Greens, you’ll note, get about 10% of the vote. They need another 40% before they can do anything.
The planet, unfortunately, is a big place and it is hard to take in the impact of human activity. And people – tutored in consumerism and selfishness for three decades – are more receptive to iphones than environmentalism. Hence the needs for small steps.
The missing million have sat out three elections now. It is unlikely they will be tempted back in significant numbers. They are the flip side of the neo-liberal-narcissistic-consumerists; the permanently disenfranchised and alienated. If they couldn’t be bothered voting AGAINST John Key, what sort of inducements can we offer them that will get them to vote FOR the left? It’s a pleasant fantasy that they will roll up to the polling station in 2017, if only we offer a sufficiently leftwing program … And even if we entertain that fantasy for a few moments, what do you think will happen to centrist voters if Labour lurches left? They’ll leave, probably in greater numbers than the ‘missing million’ are being won back.
(The great thing about the ‘missing milliong’ delusion is that it can be recycled, of course. It’ll work just as well prior to the 2020, 2023, 2027 and 2030 elections as it does now.)
As for my reference to Bolsheviks, I meant (nearly) literally that – a small group of extremists seizing power by non-democratic means. This happened in the 80s, when the neo-liberal Bolsheviks won power through deception. Do you want to go down that road? Democracy requires winning the argument before taking power.
They won’t vote because they don’t care. It’s alienation. Like I said, the flip side of the neo-liberal-narcissistic-consumerists. You can dream about them all you like. You can devise a fabulous platform of policies. They won’t listen in significant numbers. And for every one you win, you’ll lose two at the other end. You might not care, too much, but you won’t win. Savour your ideological purity because it is all you’ll have to enjoy until 2026. And in the mean time, another generation will have had their lives blighted by the right.
reasons why young people dont vote is because they dont like the middle and they see all parties as the same ie Labour have sold out to the middle !
… and some of the non-voters, lets face it, are very sophisticated and well educated ….eg the cynical well educated 20 somethings that follow the anarchist Russell Brand who makes a very good case that voting is ineffective in advanced capitalism…and all parties tend to be the same
It has to become COOL to vote…and VOTE LEFT !…once more
….A Left run radio and tv are the only ways to do this imo…because they can mine music culture and the arts…and counter the predominantly right wing main stream media and right wing black ops PR merchants
When Labour were on 35-37% it was because Cunliffe was shiny and new, and the party had received a lot of positive media coverage. Once the shine wore off him, the numbers fell again.
The guy who turned me onto it was Terry Eagleton. He most likely sets it out in a talk you can find online called “Marxism as a theodicy.” It’s on iTunes and probably youtube.
I’m probably butchering him, but he has a line roughly amounting to “If we had a sufficiently rich language of materiality, we wouldn’t need a separate language of mind.”
There’s a lot of surprising stuff in Christianity that has been obscured from the Enlightenment, in the way of ontology, politics and socialism. But it all starts with ontology.
Eagleton also unpacks this stuff in a brilliant talk at Yale called “Christianity fair or foul.”
Elsewhere he’s truly handy on Marx, though his book “Why Marx was Right” should probably be called “What Marx Didn’t Say”.
I was think more about philosophical Material, rather than specifically Marxist Materialism, though I’d argue it makes no odds. I don’t think y can really have a divine entity (in the traditional Christian sense at least) in a materialist conception of the universe. Once you allow a God to be behind it all, you’re basically arguing bastard-Hegelianism.
You can only argue taht it makes no difference from a non-neutral, deicidal position. And, I’m sure you’re aware that Aquinas predates Hegel… as does Aristotle
On your second only Jesus knows, a long time ago that happened. Personally I think Jesus was a Labourite of the times, who got a John Armstrong of the day on his case and the prevailing Nats(Romans) did what Armstrong wanted and crucified him.
The concept of historicised myth has been around for at least a century. Popularized in the 20th century by guys like Bultmann and Tillich if memory serves. It gets interesting play in a weird, almost satisfying movie called Jesus of Montreal.
When dealing with terms like myth and history you have to be careful that you’re not practicing anachronism.
I’d encourage you to read the first paragraphs of each of the gospels. They set out their agendas right at the start in a way that speaks to how they’re going to incorporate different genres of material.
The veracity of Scripture and interpretations of what veracity means in that context are a predictably ugly rabbit hole to dive down online. There’s a good scholar on this stuff whose name I’ll dredge up and post on here later.
When a five year old gets swept away by a wave it’s gods will.
Tui billboard.
If their is really a God he couldn’t give a fly F, and probably created the universe for beings on another planet who actually care about life in all it’s forms.
We are just flotsam floating on a rock slowly killing it off to please ourselves at the expense of everything else. If their is a god he’s probably really fucking pissed off with us all right now.
Nature and the world does not accept a vacuum. What would be put in place of Christianity, a belief system that has formed and shaped 2000 years of western civilization? Are we going to see the rise of other religious beliefs that brings a new dimension to the words inequality? There is no such thing as a pragmatic society.
He was a uniting figure in the sense that he deliberately set out to attract followers from diverse, including violently opposed, parts of society. ‘Zealots’ were originally insurgents who practiced political assassination and acts of terror. Jesus drew from their group and put them together with erstwhile establishment figures, most famously a tax collector. People who disgusted each other, ritually pure religious leaders and hookers, 等等.
Which religious figure would not severely criticize Armstrong? Duplicity is deeply wrong everywhere.
Sturdaaaaaaay, finally a rest from work. Crikey what a week our two majorly big lathes went down Friday one a gear shaft unscrewed what a noise. the other just started switching off, thermal overload. 3 API, weld necks from order completed. I was pissed off been doing them for 3 weeks bloody hard graft, bloody heavy. I’m bloody tired. all for 16.75 PH in this day and age I’m just happy to be working. I should be greatful after ten years + on invalids, I’m so happy he took a chance and hired me on.
Petrol went up this week, funny when things go well they never lower the petrol price but any shift in the dollar and it comes up immediately. We’re being fucked over by big oil here what happened to our reserves purchased at a lower price? Fucking rip offs.
oh and Armstrong comes out with another stunning insight into labours woes and why Cunliffe should go.
I think Armstrong should be sued. Preferably very publically by the labour party, greens and IM parties for bias and making shit up about stuff he know fuck all about.
I read it Phil I used to post as ifixit but they fucking banned me for losing it on Armstrong and O’Sullivan one day. I have grown to want to harm them and had to stop reading their shit.
Was a brilliant post and had a lot of what I wanted to say. I think a concerted effort to demand HIS resignation should be on the cards. If we all start posting resign Armstrong and enough say, it maybe it will happen or perhaps we should hold a non binding, referendum .
Or start a protest outside the herald if we can get enough people not working who read the papers to give a flying fuck.
But anyways mate keep saying what I cannot anymore. You are my Herald voice from now on.
No Phillips is the first comment in Armstinks piece of hatred today.
His last four opinion pieces were crap about labour as usual. Seriously wish him a bad ending. That freaking annoys me that I actually wish another human harm on this planet. He’s pressing my buttons with his power of hatred and platform of political meddling.
And we should not forget National’s helping Kelvin Davies to unseat Mana – a party that is unfitted for their so-called “centre.” The endgame is effectively a one-party state, where party brands have replaced actual political positions. To oppose this we need engaged people and leaders who are willing to challenge their narrative.
The endgame is effectively a one-party state, where party brands have replaced actual political positions.
Yep, we’re given the illusion of choice in the supermarkets while self-governance and and having a say in our democracy is being removed from us. Unfortunately, a majority of people seem willing to accept this.
+100 OLywn…interesting comments and interesting links!…and imo if the Greens move centre they are killing off their own support base…in fact this is what they did in the last week before the Election
…potential Green voters who perceived them rightly or wrongly heading for coalition or accommodation with John Key and Nactional took their vote elsewhere (eg to Labour or NZF or Int/MANA )
eg. “Mclauchlan elaborates with anedoctoral evidence: ‘I was dropping my daughter off at creche and a very upset teacher ran up to me and demanded to know why the Greens were supporting National. Multiply her out thousands of times across the country and you’re looking at serious damage’.”
Hooton has long made overtures and wanted to bag the Greens as a trophy for the right wing and Nactional …because the Greens are trendy and give them creds and some of the more intelligent are increasingly voting Green
….unfortunately for this proposed detente between Greens and Nacts it is inherently contradictory
…..it is the values and ethos of the capitalist corporate right wing “progress at the expense of the environment” that is destroying the planet ( fracking, pollution and exploitation of waterways, overpopulation, markets, profits above all else and before the environment)
I don’t think the people pushing for a “centrist” Green Party understand that these values go deep with some people. Hence they think that the brand can be maintained alongside corporate capitalism – “blue for the share portfolio and Green for the dolphins.”
It is utterly important that there is push-back against this kind of takeover. I do not think we have yet reached the stage where pushing back is futile, though that is what we are inviting if we remain complacent. For now, people forget when they go on about Labour’s 24.7% and the Greens’ drop in the election vote, that the vote for change, if you include NZ1st and IMP, was around 44%. I include NZ1st, since a vote for them was essentially a vote against the National bloc, whether that opposition took the form of opposing from without or constraining from within.
Edit: I just added it up after the special votes had been counted – and the anti-vote is 45.91%. We are far from dead on our side of the divide, and we should not accept the story that we have been routed.
Power going up also.
I am putting together a spreadsheet of usage the past five years (five because of the data that I have access) to see what has been happening – whether seasonal, weather, usage and also comparing against annual inflation.
Interested am I. noticing high electricity costs myself and I’m a freak who switches everything off at the wall. Usually my bill comes in at around 80 been 130 lately.
The millions of ‘profits’ should be kept in the public sector and ploughed back into public services. But the millions are now being funnelled into the hands of private individual and corporate shareholders!
Better future for them. Bitter future for many Kiwi households.
Yep read that lately what was it electricity had risen 48% when inflation was about 3%. What I notice is they make all these promises that privatising will see us all better off , yet when it doesn’t nothing happens.
Laws need making so promises have consequences for governments and political parties seeking power or making massively wrong outcomes to justify their actions..
The person who privatised power companies should be bought before the courts as far as I’m concerned.
I care because dumb arses hang onto and believe every bullshit bias he spouts and cause me to have a miserable life , struggle and barely pay the bills, all because this shit hole rag is the most read paper in NZ.
Influence like that needs control, morals, and integrity but it ain’t, and don’t.
I care very much what the people read as informative news..
..because when it goes wrong the likes of dictators appear.
Well I am out of idea’s I even tried a complaint to press council and they didn’t even bother replying at all. Even once, to acknowledge receiving the complaint. this was pre Dirty politics.
Barring running around rich Auckland suburbs with a large stick bashing sense into people I have no further avenues of protest.
Yes and Labour needs to have proper media policies especially relating to radio and TV. Our policy in this area for latest election was ill thought out.
What is actually required are left wing media channels and media infrastructure.
Um I don’t have any really, long story, was sick and shut off for many years self imposed exile for a blood disease I did not want to infect anyone else with.
Starting to meet people again, but only at work. Since I got better. Finding company hard to deal with still. I will improve in time.
Richard @ 5.1.1. This is what I fear from our election result/National Govt.
People in despair, for good reason.
I hope you have some support Richard. I would encourage you to stay on the STandard. And it is people like me (I consider myself lucky) who have to keep up the fight.
Thanks Anker, another stay in mental health for depression is not what I need. I took a job, the professionals said it would help me out. Now I’m just a slightly better off poor person. Things in society have not changed so how was it supposed to help?.
IDNK
I was relying on National getting kicked out to bring a little sanity back to NZ but alas the election didn’t go my way now I’m distraught.
boldsirbrian-
NZ Herald survey , ‘for what it’s worth’. We know it’s worth absolutely nothing and we should make sure those susceptible to this kind of media rubbish are told in no uncertain terms what nonsense it is.
These kinds of surveys are fraudulent, and in any profession other than media/journalism would be seen as unethical and deliberate attempts at deception.
The trouble is as usual with the ethics of the media.
The infotainment media just focuses on a reality TV-like battle of personalities, likeability and presentability on camera.
They should be encouraging discussion about which of those people are capable of managing a caucus debating critically with the government, leading policies, and the policies they favour, etc.
But just as important is a person who will carry the country with their vision. Able to reach out to the public, and unify the country with those policies. Make everybody proud. Think Lange “I can smell the uranium on your breath”
It’s not “infotainment” but it is something more than an intelligent policy boffin.
X-factor.
Instead of totally ignoring the top two on the Herald list (Ardern and Shearer), consideration should be given to what qualities these two people have that enable them to be there (assuming the survey has any credibility at all, which is a very serious issue)
State housing
“Despite an economic upturn, priority A applicants on the social housing waiting list, described as “at risk and including households with a severe and persistent housing need that must be addressed immediately”, have ballooned nationally from 425 in mid-2012 to 3188 this June. More than half (1707) are in Auckland.”
The working poor
“Mr Tuuu works fulltime at the Zeagold chicken farm in Takanini, but is classed as a casual labourer so his net pay fluctuates between $800 and just $500 a fortnight.
Even with $512 a week in family tax credits and accommodation supplement, that is not enough to pay for a private rental. Average rents in Manurewa have risen in the past year from $382 to $408 a week for a three-bedroom house, and from $436 to $457 for four bedrooms.”
My take is the callousness is bred by the poverty gap. So if you adopt policies that bring the richest and the poorest closer together economically, they’ll be closer together socially (e.g., kids going to the same schools as poor people) and that naturally engenders greater empathy.
Yep, and that’s why the policy of pepper-potting state houses in all suburbs was a good one. It means, for instance, poor kids get to go to school with middle-class kids who have aspirations of university. I know this because I lived it. My parents only had a couple of years at secondary school before having to find a job so they could help support their siblings, but my friends had professional parents with completely different expectations. So it goes both ways as far as seeing how other people live.
Of course for this to work you need a lot more state houses than we have at present.
@ phillip ure
I don’t think it happens at birth. It comes on a bit later than that. I think nurture not nature starts the mean-spirited stuff when they are too small to know they should be encouraged to think something different. I blame it all on poor potty training and not sharing toys actually.
“Mr Tuuu works fulltime at the Zeagold chicken farm in Takanini, but is classed as a casual labourer so his net pay fluctuates between $800 and just $500 a fortnight.
Even with $512 a week in family tax credits and accommodation supplement, that is not enough to pay for a private rental. Average rents in Manurewa have risen in the past year from $382 to $408 a week for a three-bedroom house, and from $436 to $457 for four bedrooms.”
and types ‘no common sense’.
He does not question the atrocious wages
He does not question the exorbitant rentals.
He does not question how people can work hard and not be able to make ends meet.
@ les
You mean your own? Censorship isn’t usual for people who have thoughts that add to the discussion. If you are thinking of Richard and his excessive use of fuck – well he will get taken to task if he has nothing else to say. But some benign posters are just so boring and repetitive that they end up getting banned. And sometimes they are basically advertising their own blogs, in which they should stay, and talk to themselves which is often what they seem to want.
I saw others using the F word, thought it wasn’t a banable offence, usually I don’t use coarse language unless it’s suitable to the feedback i write or appropriate for the comment I reply to. I used it when appropriate, I had thought, but since you raised my use of it as to often, consider my future language to be without them.
However please excuse my last post to CV who it seemed to me rounded on me for no good apparent reason. Or totally misread what I had written and decided to get ugly with me.
As for BM..yeah well I read a few of his stirring posts i think that was very appropriate, very bias and prejudiced and judgemental.
@ Richard 2.58
The f word is fine with me like hot chili pepper though, I think sprinkled finely. And CV is worth listening to – he has done a lot of thinking and learning. His ideas are sound and most of them I agree with, not because I think I’m so smart, but because all the thinking and learning I have done fits to what he says usually.
So don’t get mad, get equal with him and you won’t go far wrong. If you can get him to give you a summary of what he is thinking. He works as well as so many of the informed people that write here do. So you get the good stuff here usually and even the bad is good really. If it isn’t good enough bad, it gets banned. Understand that? Sounds a bit mixed up to me but I know what I mean!
And just a thought. If you are getting very riled up go outside for a walk or have a glass of water. Otherwise the poisons build up in your body!! Otherwise you might put up a hate piece and that doesn’t sound well thought through or look good on the blog. I look up something on youtube when I feel brassed off. Try the flashmobs, they’re good for a start. And Pharrell Williams what do you think of his own video of Happy? It’s got so much work in it – all that camera work and editing it must have taken for ever.
I totally agree. I read quite a few of CV’s posts even commented supporting his point of view a couple of times from memory yesterday or the day before.
He’s quite onto it. That’s probably why I was so shocked at his reply to one of my posts. I actually thought to myself, does he think I’m a slater, or some nat party stooge. I was shocked at his abruptness I felt it was definitely rude so I gave him a little jandle back. 🙂 One must stick up for ones self.
I don’t expect people to agree with me but telling me to fuck off was a rude to far rude even for me to ignore mate.
@ Richard
I pointed out that Colonial Viper is working. He may have his own business. He is regularly on the blog discussing the economy, what’s happening here in politics, and a lot of what is written has been discussed before. People have been explaining the same stuff again and again and sometimes they get tired of hearing the same old tired statements. And sometimes they say FFS can you get a better idea to commenters.
Possibly all of us have been given a flea in our ear sometime. I have. Annoying too. Because I was right I am sure but I had to leave it. I can’t win that argument. But it was not something as important as thinking how we can get the country out of penury and disgrace. And some of us feel we are disgraced, disgusted and destroyed by how things are. And get anxious as to how deep NZ can go, what we will lose while we wait for the country as a whole to wake up from its big snooze. And we say things like FFS can’t you see ….. or some such words. But we don’t go round threatening to do in people, as a rule. And better not to have exceptions to the rule.
I have those thoughts every day GW. Every day. why are the people sucked in, what’s going to happen to those in hard times when Bennets committed to reducing welfare 25%, why did the people vote for this Key conman.
anyways I don’t hold grudges. It’s forgotten. Todays a new day move forward. It was just a misunderstanding and I have absolutely no ill feeling to CV after all frankly we are all on the same wavelength pretty much politically.
I am sick of those who call themselves journalists exhibiting the fact that they believe that values and principles of a political party are readily tradable. John Armstrong’s column today is an absolute disgrace. He needs to read Dita de Boni’s column and do some serious thinking about the real situation. The real issue is a party direction issue. Does Labour chase more of the 30% of eligible votes (which was all that elected National in this election) or does it chase the remaining 70% of eligible votes by having policies that provided a better and fairer life for all NZers? The secondary issue is the fact that many Labour MPs are aligned with the first option while the membership (those who do the work in the community and are fully aware of the real problems facing those who are suffering from the current Government’s policies) largely favour the second. Removing policies that deal with social justice and compassion to leave a National-lite skeleton is the quickest way to commit Labour to the political graveyard.
John Armstrong, Claire Trevett, and the rest of the Parliamentary press gallery, plus Duncan Garner, Paul Henry, Sean Plunkett and Mike Hoskings need to be taken on a bus tour around some of our struggling communities and given accommodation in a garage for several nights, sharing with several other people including young children. I hope that one day these “journalists” will reflect on their lack of insight with acute embarrassment.
They aren’t journalists they are paid shills with ‘personalities’ providing infotainment whilst they stroke each others egos.
Henry was a Nat party candidate and Hoskings openly admitted his bias towards key, all you will ever get from them is Nat= good, left=evil and neolib slogans like ‘poor choices’ etc.
Sure they’d sleep in the garage, but only as long as it took to cobble a show or piece about it together, wrap some themes around it then move on as beyond that they couldn’t give a F about poverty as they see themselves superior to ‘those people’.
NZ Trucking Association chief executive David Boyce said it would be hard adhering to the rules on Christchurch’s “narrow carriageways” and around post-earthquake road works, creating further hazards.
“Carriageways are not designed on freight and arterial routes for this – they are not wide enough.”
If the roads aren’t wide enough then why are the trucks on them?
And why are truckies making excuses to endanger cyclists lives anyway?
The vast majority of truckies are actually pretty good when it comes to cyclists, at least in Christchurch on city and rural roads. I’ve had more issues with non-truck drivers coming too damn close, even when there’s a bike lane.
Main issue with road works here in Christchurch I’ve found is the contractors sticking signage right in the fucking bike lane, even when there’s a grass verge or plenty of footpath space, along with not leaving enough space with cones or footpath access. Forcing cyclists into the traffic stream, or into the roadworks to try and avoid the traffic.
“If the roads aren’t wide enough then why are the trucks on them?”
Where do you propose they go?
Sorry, but there is daftness on all sides of this equation and nothing is simple. Roads designed 50 or 80 years ago aren’t designed for contemporary traffic (trucks or cars or bikes or pedestrians). Town planners have failed to adequately take these things into account – by now cycle ways should be a consideration in all new and upgrade roading (and if we were in any way intelligent, cycling over cars would aready be high on the agenda with AGW/PO). Governance has retarded rail and pushed too much freight onto the roads. Not the fault of truck drivers.
“And why are truckies making excuses to endanger cyclists lives anyway?”
Probably because there are few remedies available to them personally. This is a state and local body issue to be solved.
IMO there are large gulfs between truck drivers, car crivers and cyclists in terms of understanding how each operates. All are relatively ignorant to the realities of the others except for those that do all three.
Changing demographics will mean that it must happen. And while people over 40 might get annoyed with the idea, those who are younger can see into the future, and understand the unfairness of it not happening now.
But it cannot be a political football. It needs consensus from both major parties. Labour could say, that they favour raising the age, but only if and when National and the Greens support the idea as well.
And the other crucial thing that Labour missed out, was spelling out that that there could be (and should be) liberal exceptions, or support, especially for those with health issues.
Nobody wants extra taxes, or reduced benefits. But they may want Government spending prioritised differently. For example if increased spending on health care for the elderly corresponded to the reduced expenditure on superannuation for the elderly, then it may be more accepted, or even desired.
The Greens approached the issue of funding their election promises extremely well. They concentrated on the benefits of what they were trying to achieve, rather than what they were taking away. But were honest, and unafraid to say that some inequality is obscene. Much more political capital could have been made of the comments of Dotcom, if Labour hadn’t joined National in condemning him, when Dotcom said that the rich, including himself, should be paying more tax.
If the left parties are sincere in wanting to achieve a living wage for those working; provide required benefits that maintain people out of poverty, increased health coverage for an older population; Expanding ACC to include health issues; Providing better education etc, then there are only a few ways of achieving this.
Firstly doing all that can be done to encourage social and economic growth.
Secondly to make structural changes to purge our country of obscene inequality, leaving incentives for innovation
Thirdly to prioritise government spending so that everyone has the opportunity for a “fair go”
AFAIK (and thank the finance gods for this small mercy) most NZ govt debt is denominated in NZD, not in some foreign currency that we cannot control. The risk of a weaker valued NZD falls on to the holders of the debt.
Tania Turia this morning on Radionz was saying that Maori should be self-motivated. There is too much of a handout mentality still. People talk of te rangatira but then want free food, education.
Is the idea of Maori turning away from free education a good idea? Maori are entitled to have a public free quality education and they should be as vocal about it as any other citizen. If Maori had not been included in NZ public education system all NZ would not have as much knowledge and acceptance and understanding of Maori and pakeha principles and language as we have.
For sure Maori can develop extra education systems but dividing the country by teaching different things to different groups without consideration of the whole would diminish our understanding of our country and the two important cultures. Further there are the other cultures we need to exchange mutual information and education with. Charter schools could be divisive in their methods, and it is inevitable that some will be narrow in their teaching and shape thinking that will lead to a silo mentality and disharmony.
An interview on Kim Hill’s show this morning with an author writing about her Polish background left me with lots to think about. The author when talking about her mother who had also travelled from Europe was drawn to her Polish husbandpartly by his determination and ambition, which wasn’t as pronounced in the Kiwi men she met. Her mother was part Jewish and the daughter felt that there was a Jewish desire and respect for education which affected their lives and underpinned their achievements.
And I remembered how anti-intellectual we are said to have been in the mid 20th century, and still are I think. Whether we are impregnated with a she’ll be right, make do approach to so many things think a lack of important safety regulations, getting something done quickly rather than efficiently plus correctly. Perhaps we lack that strong determination and self-control to achieve, and also to get a wide, advanced education enabling us to conceive and follow through on big ideas and plans. And perhaps we do not have an admiration of such people who strive to achieve – who do they think they are? And we find sitting back dissing people and their ideas – wacky, it will never work, why bother – perhaps we are lazy thinkers and set low targets. So easy to be overturned like a row of dominoes, by sharp-edged neo libs with Rogermonics?
And we lack ambition. Give a businessman a nice home, a holiday house, a boat, a BMW and a gas barbie with an electric rotating spit and his ambition is filled. His dreams are satisfied, his vision limited. Do something clever, find out a new thing or approach, and sell it to someone, don’t expect NZ to come forward and fund that innovation and develop it in this country with NZs.
The larrikin man from colonial times has found his prime outlet in rugby, treating himself and others as if they were male animals competing in the fields. The women who were mostly obedient servants in colonial times, wrestling with their fertility, and getting just as much education as they needed to enable them to work and hopefully, get married and be supported by their husband, has that broadly changed?
Just remember that it is those who are the most ambitious and the hungriest for big success and wealth who are destroying our global ecosystem and the civilisation which relies upon it.
Ambition shouldn’t be measured in how much money you have but how much you’ve achieved that makes society and the world better. The reason for this is because when you measure it through money people look for the easiest way to become rich – winning lotto, using exploitative employment practices and ripping people off. John Key is a multi-millionaire and yet he hasn’t done anything that has made society and the world better off. In fact, he’s been working very hard to make most of the world worse off so that a few, including himself, are richer.
When we seek to measure achievement through what people have done then people seek to do things. To make the better mouse trap and unsure that everyone, including the natural environment, is well looked after.
Yep – a society which takes pride in and extolls destructive values and priorities is a society which is counting down the days to its own fragmentation.
Your statement (14.1)is nothing but the reverse of all welfare recipients are wasters and losers. Have a little respect. Not all people who amass large wealth are like that. Lets take Bill Gates as one example, Richard Branson, The Sultan of Brunei as a very good example.
colonial viper
Being ambitious does not necessarily mean for wealth. I just make that point. The Greens are ambitious for a well run country for all that can provide a good living for people and businesses and manage that within parameters that restrict stripping the soil, the land the rivers of their natural, biological health.
Ambition means to go beyond the simple and the accepted I think, and implies to something better. Though a devilly-inspired person could have an ambition to foment trouble and then step in as a leader to lead the people through. We don’t want that approach.
Success means something achieved after some effort. Wealth in a materialistic society means money, advantage, the things that society prizes, but if people screw their heads on again, it can just mean having a lot of good people doing good things with a good living, one could feel wealthy and lucky then. (if one had their values and head sorted as to what was important.)
edited
@ Foreign Waka
I have been thinking on your feeling about the last para I wrote about whether we have changed. And I was also thinking that we obviously expected something better and that somehow we, or others, hadn’t been able to improve things, even feel guilty that we of our generation hadn’t been able to do so. So I thought a dose of Zizek would act as an antidote. He manages to scramble any idea if you wade for long through his quotes! This of his speeches was about the environment, but could be applied elsewhere.
― Slavoj Žižek
[T]his readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives.
What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities.
We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game’s outcome.” https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2340358.Slavoj_i_ek
@Phillip ure I’ve worked hard manual jobs for 25 years and if my plan to get into management doesn’t work I’ve got another 23 years of it to go so going to 67 or 70 will be tuff on people like me
Please excuse my language here. And with all due respect.
But this is FUKCING BS. It is based on a total misconception of how money, the Reserve Bank and government budgets work.
The NZ govt never ever need run out of NZ dollars to pay NZ Super, because it issues NZ dollars. These NZ dollars are keyboard entries in a spreadsheet. How can you “run out” of keyboard entries on a spreadsheet? The government can ALWAYS afford to spend on NZ super, but it is a POLITICAL decision whether it wishes to or not.
And even if you don’t believe in the above, around 3/4 billion dollars worth of Auckland houses get sold every month. And that’s just residential property. In one city. Does it seem to you like the system is running out of money?
If they devalue or print money, inflation rises and the dollar dips etc etc. You can’t do one thing without effecting the other. One thing Key is right about,(trust me when I say I loathe to admit it) if printing money was that easy, just print off a few trillion give a share to everyone and hey presto society is cured.
But then again Obama printed a shit load to keep his country happy. Perhaps it is possible.
48 years of listening to pollies tell me how their economic ideas are the saviour of NZ , none of which has eventuated.
Seriously though it’s time for new thinking and idea’s. But don’t ask me I can barely comprehend our budgets.
Perhaps your right and lets just print a truckload and drop it off in poor area’s. maybe they will stimulate our economy, people will spend business will hire and everything in kiwiland will be green and growing again.
The elephant in the room in conversations like these is resources. Everyone talks about money but no one talks about the resources we have available, the resources that money is supposed to move to maintain our society.
Money isn’t a problem because we have the resources. In NZ we can feed, house and cloth everyone to a high standard. We can even get everyone FttH, a decent computer and a holiday every year.
We can do this because we have the resources available so why aren’t we?
If they devalue or print money, inflation rises and the dollar dips etc etc. You can’t do one thing without effecting the other.
That is NOT how it works. AT ALL. For starters – inflation due to money creation will only occur IF an economy is already running close to capacity and markets are not competitive.
Is NZ anywhere close to such a state? When there are perhaps 1/4M people who are unemployed or under employed? When manufacturers are only running 1 shift a day? When retailers and retail service providers are more often than not relatively quiet?
And even if some mild financial markets consequences occur, so fucking what? It’s still a purely political decision to make older people worse off rather than to accept other consequences.
Perhaps your right and lets just print a truckload and drop it off in poor area’s. maybe they will stimulate our economy, people will spend business will hire and everything in kiwiland will be green and growing again.
If you don’t want to take the topic seriously, fuck off.
Fuck CV I was being serious! If we print money then why not give it to the poor so they will spend. Do you take trickle down seriously? National seem to?
Fucking read between the lines dude.
As for your first part too. Bull fucking shit printing money willy nilly causes inflation and devalues the dollar, thus costing more to buy shit. Inflation rises things cost more. on and on. Fucking hell if it was that fucking simple don’t you think another country would do it.
Get a grip. Don’t shoot the messenger show me the error of my way with facts and intellect or fuck off yourself.
Ok i’ll revisit this since I have calmed down. You are very clever and I’m not being sarcastic nor do I think I am so arrogantly right.
However as I understand it, and I look forward to learning the truth if I have it wrong.
If you devalue the dollar, imports cost more, which effects inflation. as we import oil at present this flows onto transport costs and inflation again.
This is how I simply understand it.
Printing money, is the one I really don’t know the effects of. Obama used it to stimulate his economy through the GFC to stop wholesale unemployment from businesses closing,. The US dollar fell due to this but I am lost as to cause and effect on that.
that’s why I wrote what I wrote CV.
my last paragraph where you told me to fuck off was not unserious it was based on how Obama distributed money in the USA. he didn’t literally throw a truck load it was a figure of speech and as I figured you for a bright spark I thought you could read into that what I meant.
therefore I thought your harshness was out of order or that you had misread what I was saying Sir/Madam.
That presupposes that the government creating money will devalue the dollar but there’s no evidence that it will. Well, nothing more than what the the private banks do through their creation of a huge amount of money. Some 98% of the money in our system has been created by the private banks and they create billions more every year.
The US dollar fell due to this but I am lost as to cause and effect on that.
The US$ didn’t fall due to the printing – it fell due to the near 0 interest rates. No one was willing to hold it as they didn’t get a return. There was no observed inflationary effect from the Quantitative Easing carried out by the US but that probably has more to do with it going to the banks rather than the populace. And they still jumped to around 10% unemployment but, again, that probably had something to do with the money going to the banks.
I notice in your posts you like to round on people to almost bullying them if you disagree.
Your statement 15.1.1 is the biggest load of complete and utter bollocks I have ever read here. Please round on me, however be aware you may get back in triple what you dish out if you take me for some dumb fuck you can bully with nothing but stupid to back up your argument.
The left has three years to get our act together (no pun intended). To take control of the narrative and put together a coherent and convincing case for our policies. To convince people that it is possible to have a liveable income for everyone, free healthcare and education, and a decent home. That implementing any or all of these will not bankrupt the economy and we will all end up better off, not jobless and broke.
Of course it’s possible to have all those things for everyone. The only reason why we don’t is because of a few greedy people sitting at the top taking it all from us so that they can have more.
Fark me, draco, My two dads (one dies one stepdad) and granddad grew up thinking that statement was normal society.
Have the right changed perceptions so much over time kiwi’s don’t believe in this utopia anymore.
I saw emerging democracy in Albania first hand, you know it was beautiful to see. After Enver Hoxha the country was embracing democracy and it had not been tainted by years of swings left, right. Stupid laws and nanny state. Seriously one could learn a lot from that place. It ain’t perfect by any means but enjoyable to see THEIR politicians learning what it means to earn the people votes.
I have a couple of family members in parliament over there, had lunch with Sali Barisha the then PM. He was so honest and cared an down to earth. The right there are our Centre/left, the left are our communist sympathisers.
It was so fresh and unspoilt a democracy it was like being able to breathe again, I tell you.
If there are 3 or more candidates standing for Leadership will it be winner takes all or will there be a second round dropping off the one with the lowest number?
In the Herald:
“Newly elected Labour MP Stuart Nash says he has been taking advice from “dirty politics” operative Simon Lusk and has always been happy talking to people across the political spectrum.”……………
Well so you would if it gives you an advantage one would think.
……….””I have mates right across the political spectrum and I make no apology for that. But having said that, I don’t consider Cameron Slater or Simon Lusk friends. Matthew Hooton certainly is a very good friend of mine, and I bang into him socially every now and then, and he’s quite enjoyable company, but that doesn’t change my politics or how I view things, believe me,” he said.”
“Believe me.”
I don’t believe Nash.
He is the rights creature.
He was allowed to win Napier because they need useful ambitious fools to break apart the opposition to neoliberalism.
People like Lusk can see his naked ambition and use his hubris and egotism to create an appropriate leader of the Labour Party for the neoliberals.
It’s called insurance in case the Nats gets voted out.
Dunno if you’re already aware of this Lynn, but ‘ts’ has ‘image missing’ graphic plastered over every post and comment if viewed when not signed in. Problem disappears when signed in.
Yeah, a weird problem with the minify. It worked fine on the test system ??? 🙁
Should be fixed now.
Incidentally could people try the SSL version of the site https://thestandard.org.nz . I think I have fixed the issues that it was having with CDN images. Just need to stress it a bit.
Be warned that
1. It causes issues with logins as you jump back and forth to https and http
2. That it still has the triangle because some of the links are still not https (I’ll be working on that over this week.
yep and it’s useful for us to remember that most feminist gains were allowed not built in. Until the domination system is gone, all gains can be taken away again. In the meantime, women in NZ will be allowed space up to a certain point but no further. Ditto other ‘identities’.
In Aunty Helen’s time, we had women as PM, chief justice, governor general, and heaps of other high state positions (can’t be bothered looking up the details right now). I think the knuckle draggers in both NAct and the Rogerparty objected strongly to this “taking over by the front bums” and now what we’re seeing is those guys taking it back. The heights of the state apparatus had been conquered, but essentially by fiat rather than a movement from below. Thus it was easily overturned.
Economics undergraduates at the University of Manchester have formed the Post-Crash Economics Society, which they hope will be copied by universities across the country…..
A growing number of top economists, such as Ha-Joon Chang, who teaches economics at Cambridge University, are backing the students.
On the same theme. This book looked at how students should challenge doctrinaire teaching of economics at Universities.
‘Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics’
In the youtube economic lecture by Ha-Joon Chang he has quoted the ‘false consciousness’ (I think it was called) when people are hostile to things that are to their advantage.
Such as the elderly protesting against Obamacare with placards saying Government keep their hands off our Medicare. The Medicare program is actually a government program@
How can we get riod of this poison of our present economic system? NZ has been known for the way it follows bad processes and then clings on to them years after the change in the initiating country?
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
The December labour market statistics have been released, showing yet another increase in unemployment. There are now 156,000 unemployed - 34,000 more than when National took office. And having thrown all these people out of work, National is doubling down on cruelty. Because being vicious will somehow magically create the ...
Boarded up homes in Kilbirnie, where work on a planned development was halted. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 5 are;Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announcedKāinga Ora would be stripped of ...
This week Kiwirail and Auckland Transport were celebrating the completion of the summer rail works that had the network shut or for over a month and the start of electric trains to Pukekohe. First up, here’s parts of the press release about the shutdown works. Passengers boarding trains in Auckland ...
Through its austerity measures, the coalition government has engineered a rise in unemployment in order to reduce inflation while – simultaneously – cracking down harder and harder on the people thrown out of work by its own policies. To that end, Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week added two ...
This year, we've seen a radical, white supremacist government ignoring its Tiriti obligations, refusing to consult with Māori, and even trying to legislatively abrogate te Tiriti o Waitangi. When it was criticised by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government sabotaged that body, replacing its legal and historical experts with corporate shills, ...
Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
Pacific Media Watch Papua New Guinea’s civic space has been rated as “obstructed” by the Civicus Monitor and the country has been criticised for pushing forward with a controversial media law in spite of strong opposition. Among concerns previously documented by the civil rights watchdog are harassment and threats against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Younger, Lecturer in Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania Australia’s Antarctic territory represents the largest sliver of the ice continent. For decades, Australian scientists have headed to one of our three bases – Mawson, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Dwyer, Research Director, Energy Futures, University of Technology Sydney 24K-Productions Our cars sit unused most of the time. If you have an electric vehicle, you might leave it charging at home or work after driving it. But there’s another step ...
Everything you missed from day four of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard two hours of submissions.Read our recaps of the previous hearings here.Parliament’s Room 3 was the same old, same old on Thursday morning for the fourth Treaty principles bill hearing – brown ...
By Melina Etches of the Cook Islands News A motion of no confidence has been filed against the Prime Minister and his Cabinet following the recent fiasco involving the now-abandoned Cook Islands passport proposal and the comprehensive strategic partnership the country will sign with China this week. Cook Islands United ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Dwyer, Research Director, Energy Futures, University of Technology Sydney 24K-Productions Our cars sit unused most of the time. If you have an electric vehicle, you might leave it charging at home or work after driving it. But there’s another step ...
The December results are reported against forecasts based on the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2024 (HYEFU 2024), published on 17 December 2024, and the results for the same period for the previous year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ajay Narendra, Associate Professor of Insect Neuroethology, Macquarie University Pranav Joshi Jumping spiders – one of the largest spider families – get their name from the extraordinary jumps they make to hunt prey, to navigate and also to evade predators. Male ...
Both ministers have confirm they shared a phone call on Thursday morning, with the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement due to expire next month. ...
The final designs for the long-awaited Courtenay Place revamp have been released. Joel MacManus takes a closer look at the details. At an embargoed media briefing on Wednesday, Wellington mayor Tory Whanau and a team of council staff showed journalists a 3D-printed model of Courtenay Place. For about an hour, ...
The Economic Growth Minister is targeting increasing competition in the banking, grocery, and electricity sectors for the government to address this year. ...
Ecomatters Bike Hub has helped 30,000 Aucklanders start cycling. Shanti Mathias rides over to understand the impact of these community bike workshops.When An Na moved with her husband and two kids to Auckland in 2022, it took a while to start learning their way around. “We started taking our ...
Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus. Labour leader Chris Hipkins is on the war path – the path being the overthrowing of Act leader David Seymour, and hopefully ...
Callaghan Innovation told 63 workers their roles were being made redundant, including 16 commercialisation roles, 14 scientists and engineers, 6 Māori Innovation roles, and others working in data, digital, product design, risk and audit, marketing, government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Sheedy, Professor – Risk governance, culture, remuneration, Macquarie University This week the corporate regulator is taking on executives and directors of Star Entertainment in the Federal Court, in a landmark case for Australian corporate governance. ASIC will allege that despite multiple ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Allen, Senior Research Fellow, Monash University Shutterstock It’s hard to remember a time the United States seemed as tense and divided as it does today. That should serve as a stark reminder of just how important it is to monitor ...
I’m a proud atheist who outgrew my religious upbringing. So why am I getting antsy about the rapture all of a sudden? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz Dear Hera,I’m a proud atheist and since I managed to move past the childhood trauma of my religious upbringing ...
Analysis: A couple of hours ago, Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown posted a Facebook picture from a visit to China’s National Deep Sea Centre in Qingdao, 700km north of Shanghai. The centre’s crewed submarine ‘Jiaolong’ has just been given a major upgrade and is set for sea trials in March. This is no ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaitlin Barham, Wildlife ecology researcher, The University of Queensland Australia Zoo Crocodiles are hardy creatures, capable of adjusting their behaviour to cope with the heat of the tropics. But there’s a limit to their endurance. Our new research shows the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damien O’Meara, Lecturer, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University Stan Stan’s new series Invisible Boys follows four young gay men as they understand and explore their identities while living in Geraldton, a regional town in Western Australia. Charlie Roth ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pandanus Petter, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University The upcoming federal election will see the incumbent Labor prime minister, Anthony Albanese, face off against Liberal opposition leader, Peter Dutton. We’ll likely see a strong focus on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Barnes, Lecturer in Physics, Western Sydney University An artist’s impression of a high-energy particle travelling through the KM3NeT neutrino telescope.KM3NeT Three and a half kilometres beneath the Mediterranean Sea, around 80km off the coast of Sicily, lies half of a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Jensen, Associate professor, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra, University of Canberra Kemarrravv13/Shutterstock Hate speech on X was consistently 50% higher for at least eight months after tech billionaire Elon Musk bought the social media platform, new ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Ufuk Zivana/Shutterstock Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wants New Zealand to “go for growth”. But his plan, focused on reforming foreign investment, planning and competition laws, as well as boosting the ...
‘An economic own-goal’ or a triumph of democracy? Stewart Sowman-Lund explains in today’s edition of The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. No McDonald’s for Wānaka Wānaka ...
The PSA filed proceedings with the Employment Relations Authority on Wednesday, seeking an urgent hearing to try to immediately stop any dismissals. ...
The lead witness in Ngāi Tahu’s freshwater claim says the case raises an “existentialist question” for his people.“My greatest fear is that we will have our connection with our land and waterways extinguished,” Te Maire Tau (Ngāi Tahu/Ngāi Tūāhuriri) said in the Christchurch High Court, before Justice Melanie Harland. The university history ...
New Zealand employers are well-used to the constant evolution of employment and workplace health and safety law – but we think the scope of changes in this area may still surprise in 2025. In our view, the number of changes under active consideration and the potential practical impact of those ...
“..Has Neoliberalism Turned Us All Into Psychopaths?..
..Our me-first economic system –
– has changed our ethics and our personalities..”
(cont..)
http://www.alternet.org/economy/has-neoliberalism-turned-us-all-psychopaths
No.
Narcissism is a more likely candidate (Jean Twenge argues for this). The worst narcissists, however, are those awful vegan people. 😉
you reckon..?
..i reckon it’d be those who get ‘something’..(?)
..from strutting around clad/wrapped in the skins of dead-animals..
..quite bizarre/prehistoric….
..and who insist on killing animals..
..and on stuffing their flesh/fat into their mouths..
..once again..bizarre/prehistoric..
..and of course..narcissistic..
..in their belief these animals are for them to do whatever they like to them…
Yep you and me think alike. I have three dogs, love all animals can’t even squat flies. MY opinion is we share this planet and every animal feels that is alive, feels pain has emotions and personality who the fuck are we to kill another living creature.
The old “god gave us the animals to do as we please” lines, wearing rather fucking thin.
Humans wrecking the planet in the name of god. We really are a virus on this planet.
Earthlings
Please paul I clicked that and clicked off at the disclaimer. I cannot watch bad things happen to animals it makes me seriously suicidal mate. Stick a warning in their next time, I thought it was about aliens or a study on humans not animal farming and it’s horrific practices.
If we accept that people are formed by their environment, then we probably have to accept that people have been changed by the relentless individualism, narcissism and consumerism which has been the (hem) predominant discourse in western societies for the last 30 years.
This is why I’m against the ‘turn left’ crowd hereabouts. The people voting National are not going to suddenly vote Labour when they are offered a more left wing alternative. They’re going to be even more repelled. The most we can do, in the short term, is pry off the centre vote, and then when people realise the Sky Has Not Fallen, persuade them it will still not fall if we move a little bit further, then a little bit further …
The neo-liberals had the advantage of circumstance when they moved the country the other way in the 80s … But I think a crisis generally favours the right (and they deceived as to how far they were going to go) as witnessed by the right wing retrenchment after 2008. Unless there is some system busting crisis (which we’ve been waiting for for over 150 years now!) Fabianism is probably the only way for the left to return to power. Bolsheviks might dream of seizing control and imposing (their version of) the dictatorship of the proletariat, and then persuading people they were right all along, but most historical examples warn against that route.
enyways, themz iz mi branes thiz mornung.
To prevent catastrophic climate change, radical reforms are required within the decade.
for a purported Greenie that is a weird argument….the Right are f..king the planet
It’s an argument born of practicality. The Greens, you’ll note, get about 10% of the vote. They need another 40% before they can do anything.
The planet, unfortunately, is a big place and it is hard to take in the impact of human activity. And people – tutored in consumerism and selfishness for three decades – are more receptive to iphones than environmentalism. Hence the needs for small steps.
By the time your small steps have happened it’ll be too late.
Naomi Klein explains why.
there are lots of righties in the greens..
..and of course lurgee ignores those who labour needs to represent..
..the disenfranchised one million who don’t vote…
..lutgee just wants to continue to squabble over that ‘centre’..
..and it is not a matter of ‘bolsheviks’ seizing power..
..’turning left’ in this local context is more labour turning away from the neo-liberalism that has so blighted our country..
..and towards the progressive policies successfully used by countries less riven with the inequality we are..
..but lurgee wouldn’t care about that..
..rightie greens care even less about the poor than nattys do…
..and dream of coalitions with the right parties..
..eh lurgee..?
..you’d be up for that…eh..?
The missing million have sat out three elections now. It is unlikely they will be tempted back in significant numbers. They are the flip side of the neo-liberal-narcissistic-consumerists; the permanently disenfranchised and alienated. If they couldn’t be bothered voting AGAINST John Key, what sort of inducements can we offer them that will get them to vote FOR the left? It’s a pleasant fantasy that they will roll up to the polling station in 2017, if only we offer a sufficiently leftwing program … And even if we entertain that fantasy for a few moments, what do you think will happen to centrist voters if Labour lurches left? They’ll leave, probably in greater numbers than the ‘missing million’ are being won back.
(The great thing about the ‘missing milliong’ delusion is that it can be recycled, of course. It’ll work just as well prior to the 2020, 2023, 2027 and 2030 elections as it does now.)
As for my reference to Bolsheviks, I meant (nearly) literally that – a small group of extremists seizing power by non-democratic means. This happened in the 80s, when the neo-liberal Bolsheviks won power through deception. Do you want to go down that road? Democracy requires winning the argument before taking power.
lurgee..
..due to its’ clinging to the dead/rotten carcass that is neo-liberalism..
..labour..for the last thirty years has just screwed over those people..
..and because the neo-libs/abc’ers in labour controlled policy-formulation..
..they ensured that cunliffe..once again..had nothing to offer them..
..voting against national isn’t enough..
..you have to give those million something to vote for..
..and when cunliffe was promising them to ‘end poverty’ and the like..
..that is when labour support surged to 35%-37%..
..so if those rightwing bastards in labour had not sent cunliffe out with that empty policy-satchel..
..with nothing for those missing-million..
..if they had not succeeded in nobbling him that way..
..cunliffe wd now be prime minister..
..and they wd be ministers in that govt..
..aren’t they fucken stupid in their short-sightedness..eh..?
..when you boil it all down..
They won’t vote because they don’t care. It’s alienation. Like I said, the flip side of the neo-liberal-narcissistic-consumerists. You can dream about them all you like. You can devise a fabulous platform of policies. They won’t listen in significant numbers. And for every one you win, you’ll lose two at the other end. You might not care, too much, but you won’t win. Savour your ideological purity because it is all you’ll have to enjoy until 2026. And in the mean time, another generation will have had their lives blighted by the right.
@ lurgee
reasons why young people dont vote is because they dont like the middle and they see all parties as the same ie Labour have sold out to the middle !
… and some of the non-voters, lets face it, are very sophisticated and well educated ….eg the cynical well educated 20 somethings that follow the anarchist Russell Brand who makes a very good case that voting is ineffective in advanced capitalism…and all parties tend to be the same
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/feb/20/is-russell-brand-right-are-we-disenchanted-by-politics
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/russell-brand-democratic-system-newsnight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk
It has to become COOL to vote…and VOTE LEFT !…once more
….A Left run radio and tv are the only ways to do this imo…because they can mine music culture and the arts…and counter the predominantly right wing main stream media and right wing black ops PR merchants
And for every one of these missing voters you win, you’ll lose two at the other end.
bullshit..!
..when cunliffe was talking poverty-busting labour were at 35%-37%..
..when the policy didn’t deliver..
..that support shrugged their shoulders and walked away again..
..yr centrist/right arguments just don’t add up..
..had cunliffe/labour delivered on those 35% promises..
..cunliffe wd now be prime minister..
..i know the right/robertson-boosters don’t like to mention that policy fail..
…they wd rather just go ‘ew..!..cunliffe..!’..
..putting the simple i simplistic-thinking..that one..
..with that dishrag armstrong today being the latest example of that ‘don’t mention the policy!’ evaluation of what happened..
..it doesn’t fit with the story they are trying to construct..
When Labour were on 35-37% it was because Cunliffe was shiny and new, and the party had received a lot of positive media coverage. Once the shine wore off him, the numbers fell again.
no..it was when he was wrapping himself in the workers’ flag that is deepest red..
..talking about the evils of poverty..
..and how ‘we can fix that’..
..and walking thru the streets of new lynn..
..whistling the internationale..
(and i understand..that at home.he had taken to carving images of karl mark into pumpkins..)
..unfortunately the policy-package he was handed by the right in labour…
..said/did none of those things..
..we had slumped back to ‘increases in benefit rates at that of inflation..
..a financial surplus is more important to labour’…said cunliffe in the last wk of the campaign..
.and by then..those karl marx pumpkins had been long in the compost..
..and he had taken to whistling ‘i’m a yankee doodle dandy!’..
+100 phillip ure
…and what do you think of Nanaia Mahuta as Deputy to Cunliffe?…do you think she would keep him a flaxroots Labour man?
i actually like the idea of a cunliffe/louisa wall combo..
..same outcome..fresh face…
ok could go with that…. dont know them except by report…needs to be a female imo….and Jacinda does NOT cut the mustard imo
“..Jesus Was a Marxist..
..Jesus was clearly a Marxist –
– not by name – but by ideology.
He sought tirelessly to end poverty –
– to feed and house the needy –
– and to heal those in need..”
(cont..)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-arel/sorry-republicans-but-jes_b_5916564.html
He might have kinda believed in God, which rather undermines the whole Materialism thing.
Christianity has a tradition of materialism.
The guy who turned me onto it was Terry Eagleton. He most likely sets it out in a talk you can find online called “Marxism as a theodicy.” It’s on iTunes and probably youtube.
I’m probably butchering him, but he has a line roughly amounting to “If we had a sufficiently rich language of materiality, we wouldn’t need a separate language of mind.”
There’s a lot of surprising stuff in Christianity that has been obscured from the Enlightenment, in the way of ontology, politics and socialism. But it all starts with ontology.
Eagleton also unpacks this stuff in a brilliant talk at Yale called “Christianity fair or foul.”
Elsewhere he’s truly handy on Marx, though his book “Why Marx was Right” should probably be called “What Marx Didn’t Say”.
But though I believe Marx was an atheist, his “materialism” had nothing to do with any arguments for or against the existence of God.
I was think more about philosophical Material, rather than specifically Marxist Materialism, though I’d argue it makes no odds. I don’t think y can really have a divine entity (in the traditional Christian sense at least) in a materialist conception of the universe. Once you allow a God to be behind it all, you’re basically arguing bastard-Hegelianism.
You can only argue taht it makes no difference from a non-neutral, deicidal position. And, I’m sure you’re aware that Aquinas predates Hegel… as does Aristotle
and i’d suggest you look at it before equating it with hegelianism.
On your first post P. U yes.
On your second only Jesus knows, a long time ago that happened. Personally I think Jesus was a Labourite of the times, who got a John Armstrong of the day on his case and the prevailing Nats(Romans) did what Armstrong wanted and crucified him.
then there is this interesting p.o.v…
“..5 Reasons to Suspect Jesus Never Existed..
.A growing number of scholars are openly questioning or actively arguing against whether Jesus lived.
Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are ‘mythologized history’.
In other words they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following –
– and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity.
At the same time these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth – miracles – resurrection – and women at the tomb –
– borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East-
– much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements.
In this view a ‘historical Jesus’ became mythologized..”
(cont..)
http://www.alternet.org/belief/5-reasons-suspect-jesus-never-existed
The concept of historicised myth has been around for at least a century. Popularized in the 20th century by guys like Bultmann and Tillich if memory serves. It gets interesting play in a weird, almost satisfying movie called Jesus of Montreal.
When dealing with terms like myth and history you have to be careful that you’re not practicing anachronism.
I’d encourage you to read the first paragraphs of each of the gospels. They set out their agendas right at the start in a way that speaks to how they’re going to incorporate different genres of material.
The veracity of Scripture and interpretations of what veracity means in that context are a predictably ugly rabbit hole to dive down online. There’s a good scholar on this stuff whose name I’ll dredge up and post on here later.
Their is no God. It’s just total BS.
When a five year old gets swept away by a wave it’s gods will.
Tui billboard.
If their is really a God he couldn’t give a fly F, and probably created the universe for beings on another planet who actually care about life in all it’s forms.
We are just flotsam floating on a rock slowly killing it off to please ourselves at the expense of everything else. If their is a god he’s probably really fucking pissed off with us all right now.
Nature and the world does not accept a vacuum. What would be put in place of Christianity, a belief system that has formed and shaped 2000 years of western civilization? Are we going to see the rise of other religious beliefs that brings a new dimension to the words inequality? There is no such thing as a pragmatic society.
He was a uniting figure in the sense that he deliberately set out to attract followers from diverse, including violently opposed, parts of society. ‘Zealots’ were originally insurgents who practiced political assassination and acts of terror. Jesus drew from their group and put them together with erstwhile establishment figures, most famously a tax collector. People who disgusted each other, ritually pure religious leaders and hookers, 等等.
Which religious figure would not severely criticize Armstrong? Duplicity is deeply wrong everywhere.
No a simple belief system, treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.
A very good saying that needs reiterating more often to those that need to hear it.
Sturdaaaaaaay, finally a rest from work. Crikey what a week our two majorly big lathes went down Friday one a gear shaft unscrewed what a noise. the other just started switching off, thermal overload. 3 API, weld necks from order completed. I was pissed off been doing them for 3 weeks bloody hard graft, bloody heavy. I’m bloody tired. all for 16.75 PH in this day and age I’m just happy to be working. I should be greatful after ten years + on invalids, I’m so happy he took a chance and hired me on.
Petrol went up this week, funny when things go well they never lower the petrol price but any shift in the dollar and it comes up immediately. We’re being fucked over by big oil here what happened to our reserves purchased at a lower price? Fucking rip offs.
oh and Armstrong comes out with another stunning insight into labours woes and why Cunliffe should go.
I think Armstrong should be sued. Preferably very publically by the labour party, greens and IM parties for bias and making shit up about stuff he know fuck all about.
Right damn it back to the house work.
that armstrong piece is a shocker..
..i left a comment asking how he cd possibly pretend to present a picture of what is going on..
..without even mentioning the neo-lib vs. progressive struggle at the heart of it..
..(he’s a fucken joke..!..)
..the comment has not been published..
..maybe because i also noted that one thing this election has taught us..
..is how any credibility he may have had has been flushed down the loo..
I read it Phil I used to post as ifixit but they fucking banned me for losing it on Armstrong and O’Sullivan one day. I have grown to want to harm them and had to stop reading their shit.
Was a brilliant post and had a lot of what I wanted to say. I think a concerted effort to demand HIS resignation should be on the cards. If we all start posting resign Armstrong and enough say, it maybe it will happen or perhaps we should hold a non binding, referendum .
Or start a protest outside the herald if we can get enough people not working who read the papers to give a flying fuck.
But anyways mate keep saying what I cannot anymore. You are my Herald voice from now on.
@ phillip u
I think your opinions re Armweakly might be emerging to the sea from a pipeline now.
i see that others have also not held back in their contempt of/at the mewlings of armstrong..
No Phillips is the first comment in Armstinks piece of hatred today.
His last four opinion pieces were crap about labour as usual. Seriously wish him a bad ending. That freaking annoys me that I actually wish another human harm on this planet. He’s pressing my buttons with his power of hatred and platform of political meddling.
Not content with owning just the media and the public service, Key and his friends now want influence over all the other political parties as well. While we have Hooton, Armstrong, etc, pitching in to “help” sort the Labour leadership out, we have two recent articles inviting the Greens to move more to the centre:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11336457
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11335852
And we should not forget National’s helping Kelvin Davies to unseat Mana – a party that is unfitted for their so-called “centre.” The endgame is effectively a one-party state, where party brands have replaced actual political positions. To oppose this we need engaged people and leaders who are willing to challenge their narrative.
Yep, we’re given the illusion of choice in the supermarkets while self-governance and and having a say in our democracy is being removed from us. Unfortunately, a majority of people seem willing to accept this.
+100 OLywn…interesting comments and interesting links!…and imo if the Greens move centre they are killing off their own support base…in fact this is what they did in the last week before the Election
…potential Green voters who perceived them rightly or wrongly heading for coalition or accommodation with John Key and Nactional took their vote elsewhere (eg to Labour or NZF or Int/MANA )
eg. “Mclauchlan elaborates with anedoctoral evidence: ‘I was dropping my daughter off at creche and a very upset teacher ran up to me and demanded to know why the Greens were supporting National. Multiply her out thousands of times across the country and you’re looking at serious damage’.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11336457
Hooton has long made overtures and wanted to bag the Greens as a trophy for the right wing and Nactional …because the Greens are trendy and give them creds and some of the more intelligent are increasingly voting Green
….unfortunately for this proposed detente between Greens and Nacts it is inherently contradictory
…..it is the values and ethos of the capitalist corporate right wing “progress at the expense of the environment” that is destroying the planet ( fracking, pollution and exploitation of waterways, overpopulation, markets, profits above all else and before the environment)
I don’t think the people pushing for a “centrist” Green Party understand that these values go deep with some people. Hence they think that the brand can be maintained alongside corporate capitalism – “blue for the share portfolio and Green for the dolphins.”
It is utterly important that there is push-back against this kind of takeover. I do not think we have yet reached the stage where pushing back is futile, though that is what we are inviting if we remain complacent. For now, people forget when they go on about Labour’s 24.7% and the Greens’ drop in the election vote, that the vote for change, if you include NZ1st and IMP, was around 44%. I include NZ1st, since a vote for them was essentially a vote against the National bloc, whether that opposition took the form of opposing from without or constraining from within.
Edit: I just added it up after the special votes had been counted – and the anti-vote is 45.91%. We are far from dead on our side of the divide, and we should not accept the story that we have been routed.
Petrol went up this week
Power going up also.
I am putting together a spreadsheet of usage the past five years (five because of the data that I have access) to see what has been happening – whether seasonal, weather, usage and also comparing against annual inflation.
Interested am I. noticing high electricity costs myself and I’m a freak who switches everything off at the wall. Usually my bill comes in at around 80 been 130 lately.
Found this reported three days ago:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/317668/electricity-prices-outstrip-inflation
The millions of ‘profits’ should be kept in the public sector and ploughed back into public services. But the millions are now being funnelled into the hands of private individual and corporate shareholders!
Better future for them. Bitter future for many Kiwi households.
Yep read that lately what was it electricity had risen 48% when inflation was about 3%. What I notice is they make all these promises that privatising will see us all better off , yet when it doesn’t nothing happens.
Laws need making so promises have consequences for governments and political parties seeking power or making massively wrong outcomes to justify their actions..
The person who privatised power companies should be bought before the courts as far as I’m concerned.
From the NZ Herald
A “survey”, for what that is worth.
A lot of votes, but unscientific; possibility of vote stacking etc, I suggest
Who should be Labour Leader?
7050-7100 “votes”
31% Jacinda Ardern
24% David Shearer
13% David Cunliffe
13% Grant Robertson
08% Stuart Nash
11% Other
Who cares?
Anything the Herald prints isn’t worth the paper it’s been put on.
I care because dumb arses hang onto and believe every bullshit bias he spouts and cause me to have a miserable life , struggle and barely pay the bills, all because this shit hole rag is the most read paper in NZ.
Influence like that needs control, morals, and integrity but it ain’t, and don’t.
I care very much what the people read as informative news..
..because when it goes wrong the likes of dictators appear.
So we need people to see the media lies and misrepresents the truth.
Well I am out of idea’s I even tried a complaint to press council and they didn’t even bother replying at all. Even once, to acknowledge receiving the complaint. this was pre Dirty politics.
Barring running around rich Auckland suburbs with a large stick bashing sense into people I have no further avenues of protest.
Talk to your friends.
Persuade them.
What is actually required are left wing media channels and media infrastructure.
Yes and Labour needs to have proper media policies especially relating to radio and TV. Our policy in this area for latest election was ill thought out.
What is actually required are left wing media channels and media infrastructure.
Bugger policy – we need action, not words on paper or a screen!
Um I don’t have any really, long story, was sick and shut off for many years self imposed exile for a blood disease I did not want to infect anyone else with.
Starting to meet people again, but only at work. Since I got better. Finding company hard to deal with still. I will improve in time.
Richard @ 5.1.1. This is what I fear from our election result/National Govt.
People in despair, for good reason.
I hope you have some support Richard. I would encourage you to stay on the STandard. And it is people like me (I consider myself lucky) who have to keep up the fight.
Kia Kaha Richard.
Thanks Anker, another stay in mental health for depression is not what I need. I took a job, the professionals said it would help me out. Now I’m just a slightly better off poor person. Things in society have not changed so how was it supposed to help?.
IDNK
I was relying on National getting kicked out to bring a little sanity back to NZ but alas the election didn’t go my way now I’m distraught.
Thanks for the kind words.
Kia Kaha Anker.
the top 2 are non starters which means cunliffe
cunliffe as leader..and louisa wall as deputy wd be my first choice..
A very interesting concept…
wall is extremely talented/able..
..and wd present part of that rejuvenation the party needs to be seen to be doing..
boldsirbrian-
NZ Herald survey , ‘for what it’s worth’. We know it’s worth absolutely nothing and we should make sure those susceptible to this kind of media rubbish are told in no uncertain terms what nonsense it is.
These kinds of surveys are fraudulent, and in any profession other than media/journalism would be seen as unethical and deliberate attempts at deception.
The trouble is as usual with the ethics of the media.
The infotainment media just focuses on a reality TV-like battle of personalities, likeability and presentability on camera.
They should be encouraging discussion about which of those people are capable of managing a caucus debating critically with the government, leading policies, and the policies they favour, etc.
@ karol (5.3.1)
Yes all of the things you say. Absolutely.
But just as important is a person who will carry the country with their vision. Able to reach out to the public, and unify the country with those policies. Make everybody proud. Think Lange “I can smell the uranium on your breath”
It’s not “infotainment” but it is something more than an intelligent policy boffin.
X-factor.
Instead of totally ignoring the top two on the Herald list (Ardern and Shearer), consideration should be given to what qualities these two people have that enable them to be there (assuming the survey has any credibility at all, which is a very serious issue)
An earlier poll not long after the election had Jacinda first, Cunliffe second. It was of tv1 viewers. For what it is worth.
“We’re on the cusp of something special”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11336725
is this it?
The brighter future.
What a joke.
State housing
“Despite an economic upturn, priority A applicants on the social housing waiting list, described as “at risk and including households with a severe and persistent housing need that must be addressed immediately”, have ballooned nationally from 425 in mid-2012 to 3188 this June. More than half (1707) are in Auckland.”
The working poor
“Mr Tuuu works fulltime at the Zeagold chicken farm in Takanini, but is classed as a casual labourer so his net pay fluctuates between $800 and just $500 a fortnight.
Even with $512 a week in family tax credits and accommodation supplement, that is not enough to pay for a private rental. Average rents in Manurewa have risen in the past year from $382 to $408 a week for a three-bedroom house, and from $436 to $457 for four bedrooms.”
“Despite an economic upturn”. ! . It’s BECAUSE of the economic upturn.
As David Harvey said, “I defy you to deal with the problem of global poverty without dealing with the problem of global wealth.”
Too many kids, 6 kids on casual wages is the height of stupidity.
What’s wrong with these people, do they not have any common sense?
“Too many kids”.
Culture of death right there…
What’s wrong with BM?
Does he not have any compassion?
He’s a genial tory. Likes to stir.
he’s a rightwinger..
..along with their sense of humour byepass at birth..
rightwingers also have a c.b…a compassion-byepass..
..they just don’t fucken care.
..it’s as simple as that..
How do you make people care?
Society can’t afford these egotists.
My take is the callousness is bred by the poverty gap. So if you adopt policies that bring the richest and the poorest closer together economically, they’ll be closer together socially (e.g., kids going to the same schools as poor people) and that naturally engenders greater empathy.
Yep, and that’s why the policy of pepper-potting state houses in all suburbs was a good one. It means, for instance, poor kids get to go to school with middle-class kids who have aspirations of university. I know this because I lived it. My parents only had a couple of years at secondary school before having to find a job so they could help support their siblings, but my friends had professional parents with completely different expectations. So it goes both ways as far as seeing how other people live.
Of course for this to work you need a lot more state houses than we have at present.
Did you know that Singaporean housing stock is 90% state owned? Just saying.
@ phillip ure
I don’t think it happens at birth. It comes on a bit later than that. I think nurture not nature starts the mean-spirited stuff when they are too small to know they should be encouraged to think something different. I blame it all on poor potty training and not sharing toys actually.
It is a well known fact that the minimum wage is not enough to live on i.e. wage earners are subsidising business owners.
This is what is not only the height of stupidity but also the height of human ugly.
Own it BM. Own the ugly.
Yes BM looks at this….
“Mr Tuuu works fulltime at the Zeagold chicken farm in Takanini, but is classed as a casual labourer so his net pay fluctuates between $800 and just $500 a fortnight.
Even with $512 a week in family tax credits and accommodation supplement, that is not enough to pay for a private rental. Average rents in Manurewa have risen in the past year from $382 to $408 a week for a three-bedroom house, and from $436 to $457 for four bedrooms.”
and types ‘no common sense’.
He does not question the atrocious wages
He does not question the exorbitant rentals.
He does not question how people can work hard and not be able to make ends meet.
Heartless.
Mean spirited.
Ugly.
Whats wrong with YOU. Perhaps he once had a good job, paid well, thought he could afford them.
Fuck off BM. Your a knob. Who the fuck are you to judge others ? Typical fucking dickhead statement that.
There you go judgement returned arsehole.
Look at this man’s income. He is living in a car. It seems he can’t even afford a small house for his kids…
what is the censorship criteria here at The Standard?.A number of most benign posts are never published.
@ les
You mean your own? Censorship isn’t usual for people who have thoughts that add to the discussion. If you are thinking of Richard and his excessive use of fuck – well he will get taken to task if he has nothing else to say. But some benign posters are just so boring and repetitive that they end up getting banned. And sometimes they are basically advertising their own blogs, in which they should stay, and talk to themselves which is often what they seem to want.
I saw others using the F word, thought it wasn’t a banable offence, usually I don’t use coarse language unless it’s suitable to the feedback i write or appropriate for the comment I reply to. I used it when appropriate, I had thought, but since you raised my use of it as to often, consider my future language to be without them.
However please excuse my last post to CV who it seemed to me rounded on me for no good apparent reason. Or totally misread what I had written and decided to get ugly with me.
As for BM..yeah well I read a few of his stirring posts i think that was very appropriate, very bias and prejudiced and judgemental.
@ Richard 2.58
The f word is fine with me like hot chili pepper though, I think sprinkled finely. And CV is worth listening to – he has done a lot of thinking and learning. His ideas are sound and most of them I agree with, not because I think I’m so smart, but because all the thinking and learning I have done fits to what he says usually.
So don’t get mad, get equal with him and you won’t go far wrong. If you can get him to give you a summary of what he is thinking. He works as well as so many of the informed people that write here do. So you get the good stuff here usually and even the bad is good really. If it isn’t good enough bad, it gets banned. Understand that? Sounds a bit mixed up to me but I know what I mean!
And just a thought. If you are getting very riled up go outside for a walk or have a glass of water. Otherwise the poisons build up in your body!! Otherwise you might put up a hate piece and that doesn’t sound well thought through or look good on the blog. I look up something on youtube when I feel brassed off. Try the flashmobs, they’re good for a start. And Pharrell Williams what do you think of his own video of Happy? It’s got so much work in it – all that camera work and editing it must have taken for ever.
I totally agree. I read quite a few of CV’s posts even commented supporting his point of view a couple of times from memory yesterday or the day before.
He’s quite onto it. That’s probably why I was so shocked at his reply to one of my posts. I actually thought to myself, does he think I’m a slater, or some nat party stooge. I was shocked at his abruptness I felt it was definitely rude so I gave him a little jandle back. 🙂 One must stick up for ones self.
I don’t expect people to agree with me but telling me to fuck off was a rude to far rude even for me to ignore mate.
@ Richard
I pointed out that Colonial Viper is working. He may have his own business. He is regularly on the blog discussing the economy, what’s happening here in politics, and a lot of what is written has been discussed before. People have been explaining the same stuff again and again and sometimes they get tired of hearing the same old tired statements. And sometimes they say FFS can you get a better idea to commenters.
Possibly all of us have been given a flea in our ear sometime. I have. Annoying too. Because I was right I am sure but I had to leave it. I can’t win that argument. But it was not something as important as thinking how we can get the country out of penury and disgrace. And some of us feel we are disgraced, disgusted and destroyed by how things are. And get anxious as to how deep NZ can go, what we will lose while we wait for the country as a whole to wake up from its big snooze. And we say things like FFS can’t you see ….. or some such words. But we don’t go round threatening to do in people, as a rule. And better not to have exceptions to the rule.
I have those thoughts every day GW. Every day. why are the people sucked in, what’s going to happen to those in hard times when Bennets committed to reducing welfare 25%, why did the people vote for this Key conman.
anyways I don’t hold grudges. It’s forgotten. Todays a new day move forward. It was just a misunderstanding and I have absolutely no ill feeling to CV after all frankly we are all on the same wavelength pretty much politically.
Just Healthy Robust debates
I am sick of those who call themselves journalists exhibiting the fact that they believe that values and principles of a political party are readily tradable. John Armstrong’s column today is an absolute disgrace. He needs to read Dita de Boni’s column and do some serious thinking about the real situation. The real issue is a party direction issue. Does Labour chase more of the 30% of eligible votes (which was all that elected National in this election) or does it chase the remaining 70% of eligible votes by having policies that provided a better and fairer life for all NZers? The secondary issue is the fact that many Labour MPs are aligned with the first option while the membership (those who do the work in the community and are fully aware of the real problems facing those who are suffering from the current Government’s policies) largely favour the second. Removing policies that deal with social justice and compassion to leave a National-lite skeleton is the quickest way to commit Labour to the political graveyard.
John Armstrong, Claire Trevett, and the rest of the Parliamentary press gallery, plus Duncan Garner, Paul Henry, Sean Plunkett and Mike Hoskings need to be taken on a bus tour around some of our struggling communities and given accommodation in a garage for several nights, sharing with several other people including young children. I hope that one day these “journalists” will reflect on their lack of insight with acute embarrassment.
They aren’t journalists they are paid shills with ‘personalities’ providing infotainment whilst they stroke each others egos.
Henry was a Nat party candidate and Hoskings openly admitted his bias towards key, all you will ever get from them is Nat= good, left=evil and neolib slogans like ‘poor choices’ etc.
Sure they’d sleep in the garage, but only as long as it took to cobble a show or piece about it together, wrap some themes around it then move on as beyond that they couldn’t give a F about poverty as they see themselves superior to ‘those people’.
Stephanie’s post on an interview with Brent Edwards is a must read on MSM issues – highlights the problem of using leaks from political insiders, that are referred to as anonymous.
The full interview is also a must read.
@ karol (7.2)
Thank you for the references. I agree. A must read
Cycling overtaking law panned
If the roads aren’t wide enough then why are the trucks on them?
And why are truckies making excuses to endanger cyclists lives anyway?
They clearly need to use smaller trucks then.
I thought truckies liked to think of themselves as common sense types…
The vast majority of truckies are actually pretty good when it comes to cyclists, at least in Christchurch on city and rural roads. I’ve had more issues with non-truck drivers coming too damn close, even when there’s a bike lane.
Main issue with road works here in Christchurch I’ve found is the contractors sticking signage right in the fucking bike lane, even when there’s a grass verge or plenty of footpath space, along with not leaving enough space with cones or footpath access. Forcing cyclists into the traffic stream, or into the roadworks to try and avoid the traffic.
“If the roads aren’t wide enough then why are the trucks on them?”
Where do you propose they go?
Sorry, but there is daftness on all sides of this equation and nothing is simple. Roads designed 50 or 80 years ago aren’t designed for contemporary traffic (trucks or cars or bikes or pedestrians). Town planners have failed to adequately take these things into account – by now cycle ways should be a consideration in all new and upgrade roading (and if we were in any way intelligent, cycling over cars would aready be high on the agenda with AGW/PO). Governance has retarded rail and pushed too much freight onto the roads. Not the fault of truck drivers.
“And why are truckies making excuses to endanger cyclists lives anyway?”
Probably because there are few remedies available to them personally. This is a state and local body issue to be solved.
IMO there are large gulfs between truck drivers, car crivers and cyclists in terms of understanding how each operates. All are relatively ignorant to the realities of the others except for those that do all three.
Rail- it must be fortified and used properly again.
I had a comment not appear earlier this morning. Any chance one of the mods could look and see if it’s being held in moderation?
Thanks Lynn!
andrew little confirmed the raising the pension age policy helped screw labour..
..he said he was asked about it all the time during the campaign..
@ phillip ure (9)
Changing demographics will mean that it must happen. And while people over 40 might get annoyed with the idea, those who are younger can see into the future, and understand the unfairness of it not happening now.
But it cannot be a political football. It needs consensus from both major parties. Labour could say, that they favour raising the age, but only if and when National and the Greens support the idea as well.
And the other crucial thing that Labour missed out, was spelling out that that there could be (and should be) liberal exceptions, or support, especially for those with health issues.
Nobody wants extra taxes, or reduced benefits. But they may want Government spending prioritised differently. For example if increased spending on health care for the elderly corresponded to the reduced expenditure on superannuation for the elderly, then it may be more accepted, or even desired.
The Greens approached the issue of funding their election promises extremely well. They concentrated on the benefits of what they were trying to achieve, rather than what they were taking away. But were honest, and unafraid to say that some inequality is obscene. Much more political capital could have been made of the comments of Dotcom, if Labour hadn’t joined National in condemning him, when Dotcom said that the rich, including himself, should be paying more tax.
If the left parties are sincere in wanting to achieve a living wage for those working; provide required benefits that maintain people out of poverty, increased health coverage for an older population; Expanding ACC to include health issues; Providing better education etc, then there are only a few ways of achieving this.
Firstly doing all that can be done to encourage social and economic growth.
Secondly to make structural changes to purge our country of obscene inequality, leaving incentives for innovation
Thirdly to prioritise government spending so that everyone has the opportunity for a “fair go”
of course what made this policy so braindead..
..was that all of those votes were burnt off for naught..
..’cos even if labour had got over the line..
..the greens and nz first wouldn’t have worn that policy..
..brain-fucken-dead..on every level..
..and make no mistake..
..this was parkers’ baby..
..he needs to carry the can for that one..
Most truck drivers I’ve meet are good hard workers its not there fault that roads are not big enough for bikes.
Actually, it’s that the road isn’t big enough for the trucks which means that the trucks shouldn’t be on them.
Current debt
NZ$ 91,880,181,023
Does this mean if the currency drops to 65c (Keys goldilocks rate) the debt will be?
113,083,299,720
Nope.
AFAIK (and thank the finance gods for this small mercy) most NZ govt debt is denominated in NZD, not in some foreign currency that we cannot control. The risk of a weaker valued NZD falls on to the holders of the debt.
Thanks CV
‘The risk of a weaker valued NZD falls on to the holders of the debt.
That will please the holders!!!
The institutions who buy sovereign debt are serious professionals – they will be well hedged against forex risk…
Thank god for the finance markets then!!!!
Yeah, when it all falls over again the governments will bail them out – as they did just a few years ago when the GFC hit.
Tania Turia this morning on Radionz was saying that Maori should be self-motivated. There is too much of a handout mentality still. People talk of te rangatira but then want free food, education.
Is the idea of Maori turning away from free education a good idea? Maori are entitled to have a public free quality education and they should be as vocal about it as any other citizen. If Maori had not been included in NZ public education system all NZ would not have as much knowledge and acceptance and understanding of Maori and pakeha principles and language as we have.
For sure Maori can develop extra education systems but dividing the country by teaching different things to different groups without consideration of the whole would diminish our understanding of our country and the two important cultures. Further there are the other cultures we need to exchange mutual information and education with. Charter schools could be divisive in their methods, and it is inevitable that some will be narrow in their teaching and shape thinking that will lead to a silo mentality and disharmony.
Tania Turia- I’m up. I have a parliamentary pension.Pull up the ladder Jack.
An interview on Kim Hill’s show this morning with an author writing about her Polish background left me with lots to think about. The author when talking about her mother who had also travelled from Europe was drawn to her Polish husbandpartly by his determination and ambition, which wasn’t as pronounced in the Kiwi men she met. Her mother was part Jewish and the daughter felt that there was a Jewish desire and respect for education which affected their lives and underpinned their achievements.
And I remembered how anti-intellectual we are said to have been in the mid 20th century, and still are I think. Whether we are impregnated with a she’ll be right, make do approach to so many things think a lack of important safety regulations, getting something done quickly rather than efficiently plus correctly. Perhaps we lack that strong determination and self-control to achieve, and also to get a wide, advanced education enabling us to conceive and follow through on big ideas and plans. And perhaps we do not have an admiration of such people who strive to achieve – who do they think they are? And we find sitting back dissing people and their ideas – wacky, it will never work, why bother – perhaps we are lazy thinkers and set low targets. So easy to be overturned like a row of dominoes, by sharp-edged neo libs with Rogermonics?
And we lack ambition. Give a businessman a nice home, a holiday house, a boat, a BMW and a gas barbie with an electric rotating spit and his ambition is filled. His dreams are satisfied, his vision limited. Do something clever, find out a new thing or approach, and sell it to someone, don’t expect NZ to come forward and fund that innovation and develop it in this country with NZs.
The larrikin man from colonial times has found his prime outlet in rugby, treating himself and others as if they were male animals competing in the fields. The women who were mostly obedient servants in colonial times, wrestling with their fertility, and getting just as much education as they needed to enable them to work and hopefully, get married and be supported by their husband, has that broadly changed?
Quite true.
Just remember that it is those who are the most ambitious and the hungriest for big success and wealth who are destroying our global ecosystem and the civilisation which relies upon it.
Ambition shouldn’t be measured in how much money you have but how much you’ve achieved that makes society and the world better. The reason for this is because when you measure it through money people look for the easiest way to become rich – winning lotto, using exploitative employment practices and ripping people off. John Key is a multi-millionaire and yet he hasn’t done anything that has made society and the world better off. In fact, he’s been working very hard to make most of the world worse off so that a few, including himself, are richer.
When we seek to measure achievement through what people have done then people seek to do things. To make the better mouse trap and unsure that everyone, including the natural environment, is well looked after.
Yep – a society which takes pride in and extolls destructive values and priorities is a society which is counting down the days to its own fragmentation.
Your statement (14.1)is nothing but the reverse of all welfare recipients are wasters and losers. Have a little respect. Not all people who amass large wealth are like that. Lets take Bill Gates as one example, Richard Branson, The Sultan of Brunei as a very good example.
Your just as bad as those you belittle.
Grow some empathy don’t do what you loathe.
On your last question: No. Like what you have written, it fits exactly with my experience, 100%. Is this not sad?
colonial viper
Being ambitious does not necessarily mean for wealth. I just make that point. The Greens are ambitious for a well run country for all that can provide a good living for people and businesses and manage that within parameters that restrict stripping the soil, the land the rivers of their natural, biological health.
Ambition means to go beyond the simple and the accepted I think, and implies to something better. Though a devilly-inspired person could have an ambition to foment trouble and then step in as a leader to lead the people through. We don’t want that approach.
Success means something achieved after some effort. Wealth in a materialistic society means money, advantage, the things that society prizes, but if people screw their heads on again, it can just mean having a lot of good people doing good things with a good living, one could feel wealthy and lucky then. (if one had their values and head sorted as to what was important.)
edited
Yes fair enough, there are noble aims and ignoble ones.
@ Foreign Waka
I have been thinking on your feeling about the last para I wrote about whether we have changed. And I was also thinking that we obviously expected something better and that somehow we, or others, hadn’t been able to improve things, even feel guilty that we of our generation hadn’t been able to do so. So I thought a dose of Zizek would act as an antidote. He manages to scramble any idea if you wade for long through his quotes! This of his speeches was about the environment, but could be applied elsewhere.
― Slavoj Žižek
[T]his readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives.
What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities.
We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game’s outcome.”
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2340358.Slavoj_i_ek
@Phillip ure I’ve worked hard manual jobs for 25 years and if my plan to get into management doesn’t work I’ve got another 23 years of it to go so going to 67 or 70 will be tuff on people like me
BUT there needs to be enough lead time to phase (what ever the change) in slowly to give some certainty.
Head in the sand will not really work.
You don’t want to get to 64 and have a future govt say ‘sorry can’t afford super costs, we will cut by 50%’
Please excuse my language here. And with all due respect.
But this is FUKCING BS. It is based on a total misconception of how money, the Reserve Bank and government budgets work.
The NZ govt never ever need run out of NZ dollars to pay NZ Super, because it issues NZ dollars. These NZ dollars are keyboard entries in a spreadsheet. How can you “run out” of keyboard entries on a spreadsheet? The government can ALWAYS afford to spend on NZ super, but it is a POLITICAL decision whether it wishes to or not.
And even if you don’t believe in the above, around 3/4 billion dollars worth of Auckland houses get sold every month. And that’s just residential property. In one city. Does it seem to you like the system is running out of money?
If they devalue or print money, inflation rises and the dollar dips etc etc. You can’t do one thing without effecting the other. One thing Key is right about,(trust me when I say I loathe to admit it) if printing money was that easy, just print off a few trillion give a share to everyone and hey presto society is cured.
But then again Obama printed a shit load to keep his country happy. Perhaps it is possible.
48 years of listening to pollies tell me how their economic ideas are the saviour of NZ , none of which has eventuated.
Seriously though it’s time for new thinking and idea’s. But don’t ask me I can barely comprehend our budgets.
Perhaps your right and lets just print a truckload and drop it off in poor area’s. maybe they will stimulate our economy, people will spend business will hire and everything in kiwiland will be green and growing again.
The elephant in the room in conversations like these is resources. Everyone talks about money but no one talks about the resources we have available, the resources that money is supposed to move to maintain our society.
Money isn’t a problem because we have the resources. In NZ we can feed, house and cloth everyone to a high standard. We can even get everyone FttH, a decent computer and a holiday every year.
We can do this because we have the resources available so why aren’t we?
In addition, money can be “created” without having to devalue or “print” 😉
That is NOT how it works. AT ALL. For starters – inflation due to money creation will only occur IF an economy is already running close to capacity and markets are not competitive.
Is NZ anywhere close to such a state? When there are perhaps 1/4M people who are unemployed or under employed? When manufacturers are only running 1 shift a day? When retailers and retail service providers are more often than not relatively quiet?
And even if some mild financial markets consequences occur, so fucking what? It’s still a purely political decision to make older people worse off rather than to accept other consequences.
If you don’t want to take the topic seriously, fuck off.
Fuck CV I was being serious! If we print money then why not give it to the poor so they will spend. Do you take trickle down seriously? National seem to?
Fucking read between the lines dude.
As for your first part too. Bull fucking shit printing money willy nilly causes inflation and devalues the dollar, thus costing more to buy shit. Inflation rises things cost more. on and on. Fucking hell if it was that fucking simple don’t you think another country would do it.
Get a grip. Don’t shoot the messenger show me the error of my way with facts and intellect or fuck off yourself.
Ok i’ll revisit this since I have calmed down. You are very clever and I’m not being sarcastic nor do I think I am so arrogantly right.
However as I understand it, and I look forward to learning the truth if I have it wrong.
If you devalue the dollar, imports cost more, which effects inflation. as we import oil at present this flows onto transport costs and inflation again.
This is how I simply understand it.
Printing money, is the one I really don’t know the effects of. Obama used it to stimulate his economy through the GFC to stop wholesale unemployment from businesses closing,. The US dollar fell due to this but I am lost as to cause and effect on that.
that’s why I wrote what I wrote CV.
my last paragraph where you told me to fuck off was not unserious it was based on how Obama distributed money in the USA. he didn’t literally throw a truck load it was a figure of speech and as I figured you for a bright spark I thought you could read into that what I meant.
therefore I thought your harshness was out of order or that you had misread what I was saying Sir/Madam.
That presupposes that the government creating money will devalue the dollar but there’s no evidence that it will. Well, nothing more than what the the private banks do through their creation of a huge amount of money. Some 98% of the money in our system has been created by the private banks and they create billions more every year.
The US$ didn’t fall due to the printing – it fell due to the near 0 interest rates. No one was willing to hold it as they didn’t get a return. There was no observed inflationary effect from the Quantitative Easing carried out by the US but that probably has more to do with it going to the banks rather than the populace. And they still jumped to around 10% unemployment but, again, that probably had something to do with the money going to the banks.
Cheers Draco, much appreciated. I learned something today. A positive for me.
I notice in your posts you like to round on people to almost bullying them if you disagree.
Your statement 15.1.1 is the biggest load of complete and utter bollocks I have ever read here. Please round on me, however be aware you may get back in triple what you dish out if you take me for some dumb fuck you can bully with nothing but stupid to back up your argument.
test
test safari
Try again now.
Puzzled…
Put the Kettle On
Of course it’s possible to have all those things for everyone. The only reason why we don’t is because of a few greedy people sitting at the top taking it all from us so that they can have more.
Fark me, draco, My two dads (one dies one stepdad) and granddad grew up thinking that statement was normal society.
Have the right changed perceptions so much over time kiwi’s don’t believe in this utopia anymore.
I saw emerging democracy in Albania first hand, you know it was beautiful to see. After Enver Hoxha the country was embracing democracy and it had not been tainted by years of swings left, right. Stupid laws and nanny state. Seriously one could learn a lot from that place. It ain’t perfect by any means but enjoyable to see THEIR politicians learning what it means to earn the people votes.
I have a couple of family members in parliament over there, had lunch with Sali Barisha the then PM. He was so honest and cared an down to earth. The right there are our Centre/left, the left are our communist sympathisers.
It was so fresh and unspoilt a democracy it was like being able to breathe again, I tell you.
Just fixed a problem with the spam filter. !7 messages went in there by error.
If there are 3 or more candidates standing for Leadership will it be winner takes all or will there be a second round dropping off the one with the lowest number?
The bottom candidate drops off as I understand it
That seems logical but then the voting could go on for a long time if there were say 4 standing. Needs a transferable vote system?
It is a transferable vote system, just like last time.
In the Herald:
“Newly elected Labour MP Stuart Nash says he has been taking advice from “dirty politics” operative Simon Lusk and has always been happy talking to people across the political spectrum.”……………
Well so you would if it gives you an advantage one would think.
……….””I have mates right across the political spectrum and I make no apology for that. But having said that, I don’t consider Cameron Slater or Simon Lusk friends. Matthew Hooton certainly is a very good friend of mine, and I bang into him socially every now and then, and he’s quite enjoyable company, but that doesn’t change my politics or how I view things, believe me,” he said.”
When waters merge eh?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11337024
“Believe me.”
I don’t believe Nash.
He is the rights creature.
He was allowed to win Napier because they need useful ambitious fools to break apart the opposition to neoliberalism.
even his bloody fire-engine was bought/paid for by a rightie..
..he did his election fundraiser at the northern club in auckland..(a bastion of the right/establishment..)
..now why would the northern club allow a wannabe labour mp from napier do a funraiser in their establishment..?
..and who lined up to give him money..and why..?
..i dunno about you..but i wouldn’t mind an answer to all that..
..an ideological equivalent wd be key holding a fundraiser in unite hq..
..w.t.f. is up with that..?
People like Lusk can see his naked ambition and use his hubris and egotism to create an appropriate leader of the Labour Party for the neoliberals.
It’s called insurance in case the Nats gets voted out.
Dunno if you’re already aware of this Lynn, but ‘ts’ has ‘image missing’ graphic plastered over every post and comment if viewed when not signed in. Problem disappears when signed in.
Yeah, a weird problem with the minify. It worked fine on the test system ??? 🙁
Should be fixed now.
Incidentally could people try the SSL version of the site https://thestandard.org.nz . I think I have fixed the issues that it was having with CDN images. Just need to stress it a bit.
Be warned that
1. It causes issues with logins as you jump back and forth to https and http
2. That it still has the triangle because some of the links are still not https (I’ll be working on that over this week.
fonts are a bit different too I think (thicker?) Not as easy on the eye.
edit, in the SSL version I mean.
I have no idea why the fonts would change.
Okay off to dinner. Lyn’s aunts 65th
Seems fine now. On Firefox.
arrrg, a plague of sausages!!
Seems to have disappeared now (am not signed in).
I had that problem when signed in.
One reason why so called identity politics are important,
The whole public culture seems to have become more masculine, especially in broadcast media… Paul Henry, Hoskings, Garner, etc, etc.
yep and it’s useful for us to remember that most feminist gains were allowed not built in. Until the domination system is gone, all gains can be taken away again. In the meantime, women in NZ will be allowed space up to a certain point but no further. Ditto other ‘identities’.
I seem to recall there’s fewer women among top earning CEOs, too.
I think the big wealth/income inequality gap probably hits a lot of women and manyy from other fairly marginalised groups hardest.
The culture of ruthless competition has a long masculine dominated legacy.
In Aunty Helen’s time, we had women as PM, chief justice, governor general, and heaps of other high state positions (can’t be bothered looking up the details right now). I think the knuckle draggers in both NAct and the Rogerparty objected strongly to this “taking over by the front bums” and now what we’re seeing is those guys taking it back. The heights of the state apparatus had been conquered, but essentially by fiat rather than a movement from below. Thus it was easily overturned.
Let’s have a Chang/e in economics.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/24/students-post-crash-economics
Economics undergraduates at the University of Manchester have formed the Post-Crash Economics Society, which they hope will be copied by universities across the country…..
A growing number of top economists, such as Ha-Joon Chang, who teaches economics at Cambridge University, are backing the students.
Ha-Joon Chang
On the same theme. This book looked at how students should challenge doctrinaire teaching of economics at Universities.
‘Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics’
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13228250-meme-wars
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JAmfKS7DQ1MBtsmeytSgQviXOxIH1iVnqFfi9s2vKYg/edit
looks very similar to post autistic economics
In the youtube economic lecture by Ha-Joon Chang he has quoted the ‘false consciousness’ (I think it was called) when people are hostile to things that are to their advantage.
Such as the elderly protesting against Obamacare with placards saying Government keep their hands off our Medicare. The Medicare program is actually a government program@
How can we get riod of this poison of our present economic system? NZ has been known for the way it follows bad processes and then clings on to them years after the change in the initiating country?
Grassroots…
Banksy nails it,
https://twitter.com/thereaIbanksy/status/517806178777432064