‘The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 375 points as a selloff in Chinese equities spread around the world, fanned by concerns that economic growth is decelerating from Asia to North America.
The U.S. blue-chip index tumbled toward its worst start to a year since 1932, while banks and technology shares led the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lower.
A measure of global equities headed for its worst inaugural session in at least three decades. Emerging markets slid the most since August as slowing manufacturing triggered a selloff that halted Shanghai trading. Bonds jumped and the yen rallied on demand for haven assets.
“We’ve had a number of negatives out there in the U.S. throughout most of last year as investors battled to have a flat year and China is a reminder that there aren’t many things to be bullish about going into this year,” Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at Jones Trading Institutional Services LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, said by phone.
Investors returning to the market after the New Year holiday faced a worldwide selloff sparked by weak factory data in China, while a reading that showed the fastest contraction in U.S. manufacturing in six years added to anxiety that slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy is spreading.
A flareup in tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran increased geopolitical unease.’
MORE BAD NEWS ABOUT WATER QUALITY IN CANTERBURY
This from the Timaru Herald today.
“Potentially toxic algae continues to bring risks to the region’s river users in the warm, dry conditions. Warnings remain in place on the Opihi River at State Highway 1 and Waipopo Huts, the Waihao River below Bradshaws Bridge, the Waihi River at Winchester and Geraldine, the Temuka River at SH1, the Hakataramea River at the SH82 bridge, and the Pareora River at SH1 and Evans Crossing.
Regional authority Environment Canterbury warns “significant quantities” of cyanobacteria algae at the sites could make people and pets who touch the water or algae sick.
As well as the algae, recorded E coli levels nearing “trigger levels” at several sites mean the Opihi River at Saleyards Bridge near Pleasant Point and the Otaio River at Otaio Gorge are the only monitored South Canterbury river sites ECan rates as “good” for swimming. ”
Yesterday only the mid & North Canterbury rivers were named but this report shows that Ecan the National Govt. appointed group are failing the whole of their area.
The Opihi was my childhood river where I learnt to swim, caught cockies, made rafts , drank it. WoooH this is not the New Zealand I grew up in.
Minister Smith and other Nat Ministers responsible are a disgrace, their leader should take their portfolios off them. I wish….
It was interesting to note the other day that both David Cameron and John Key used the same “New Zealand/Britain on the cusp/verge of something special” in their respective election campaigns. The New Zealand election came first so I guess this particular PR spin was tried out here first and then repeated in Britain.
While consumption is happening it gives the impression that there is a real economy (with old-fashioned Form 3 economic systems operating – workers making and doing things, earning, factories and business activity selling things and so on, workers and others buyiing those things, with govt transfers and taxes streaming out from the side to feed the social machine, then the cycle repeating itself).
But style before substance is the order of the day now. Putting cosmetic layers over the bare shell of the economy has become accepted, like women applying make-up every day to cover their natural faces. Pity the natural economy isn’t so comely when revealed plain and simple with all its imperfections and distortions.
it would be nice to have a chart showing how the Christmas Sales went this year in NZ. Not eftpost transaction, but actually Christmas Shopping say from Mid November till 24/12.
Or just a chart with Eftpos Transaction over that period of time, say over a period of 10 – 15 years. Not sure where to find something like that.
i heard from a lot of people that the annual shopping frenzy needed by many retailers to cover the first three month of the new year was not that lucrative.
That survey is pretty broad and doesn’t really separate the really discretionary spend sectors that get hammered when people aren’t feeling flash. Does show when businesses have had a good run in past quarters with vehicle spending.
Xmas eftpos figures aren’t terribly reliable as spending patterns are influenced by which day 25/12 falls on, so reporting can change to keep the news good.
Comparing retail and eftpos stats to what we see across the counter in the gallery, if they are roughly in line with CPI there’s not much money around and it’s hard work for us from the domestic market. 2-3 points above CPI and we’re humming. Right now it’s all international and quite good because of the lower dollar, but only for USD.
What I found interesting was that the same exact line was parroted in two different countries. It showed the complete vapidity of John Key’s comment. It wasn’t even driven by some misguided vision of where New Zealand is headed. There was no unique vision whatsoever. It was completely contrived, with nothing to do with reality. Just a piece of advertising fluff thought up by a PR company. We could be on the verge of something special or on the verge of hell – it made no difference provided it was a line that would sell the government at the election. New Zealand and New Zealanders have basically been commodified into a product to be sold back to us. In a way this is the ultimate end result of Rogernomics/Monetarism. A financial value has been applied to absolutely everything from the clothes we wear to the values we hold as a country.
“The New Zealand election came first so I guess this particular PR spin was tried out here first” and “same exact line was parroted in two different countries. It showed the complete vapidity of John Key’s comment”
I’ll suggest an alternative viewpoint. Given the timing of the statements, and I’ll assume that you are quoting them accurately, we could say something like this.
“Here we have further evidence of the enormous influence that John Key has in the world. Just as Obama and Turnbull showed, Key is respected and admired by most other world statesmen. That everything he says is listened to carefully by other world leaders as is illustrated by Cameron showing the ultimate flattery of imitating him”.
There, I’m sure that with your great respect for our Prime Minister you’ll agree that that is a much more likely scenario?
““Here we have further evidence of the enormous influence that John Key has in the world. Just as Obama and Turnbull showed, Key is respected and admired by most other world statesmen. That everything he says is listened to carefully by other world leaders”
Especially the pony tail pulling bit, Turnbull say’s nice things about any one, and so does Obama, it’s called diplomacy
What a load of BS, the MSM would love to have you believe that, and obviously you do.
I was sure you would. I wrote it just for you.
I thought it was in the same vein of fantasy as was esoteric pineapples actually.
It is amazing what one can come up with when, like ES and I, you decide that for something like this any connection between reality and the comment made can be discarded. You are, of course, living in that world all the time aren’t you?
Brendan starts to make the case for it being the latter not the former, whereas other business leaders make the case for the contrary.
If anyone wants to understand why it continues to be so hard to push New Zealand’s rural rump up the value escalator when Denmark and Finland have made it look so easy, have a read. It’s a good piece.
Alan Duff, who owns chateaux in France and denies poverty exists yet claiming to help those in low decile schools by giving them a few books. Apparently we have a ‘poverty of spirit’ yet he describes kids in Mangere wanting to be orthodontist.
Millsy
Don’t get dirty on Alan Duff. He has done something with his books for kids. Far more than many other people. Even though he is a controversial figure, save your intense scorn for others.
“The Middle East is the most vulnerable to a geopolitical leadership vacuum and is heading toward conflagration. There are six failed states across the broader region (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Syria, and Yemen) and more refugees than ever recorded. ISIS has become the most powerful terrorist organization in history. Oil economies are under strain. All of this will get worse in 2016.
Europe will feel much of the pain—in economic costs, security vulnerability, and political blowback. The United States, at the twilight of Barack Obama’s administration, will mostly stick to its knitting, since the western hemisphere remains insulated from the lion’s share of geopolitical instability. In Asia, despite having many of the world’s strongest national leaders, helping manage these problems is not a priority.
This all means a dramatically more fragmented world in 2016 with more intra-, inter-, and extra-state conflict than at any point since World War II. And yet drawing the major powers into military battle against one another—World War III—is virtually unthinkable (recent comments from Pope Francis notwithstanding). The world’s four largest economies—the United States, China, Japan, and Germany—are all deeply reluctant to accept responsibility for crisis management. Only the Germans are affected directly by this turmoil, and they still have plenty of reasons to duck the fight.
And so, in 2016, conflict intensifies. Last year, investors recognized growing uncertainty but remained more focused on the economic improvements: a US economy in recovery and Europe coming out of recession. That’s unlikely to last, as geopolitical risk shakes the global order.”
The broader report also dishes on:
– The hollow and weakening trans-Atlantic partnership
– Conflict between Open Europe and Closed Europe
– China being the only remaining country with a global strategy, and its increasing global footprint
– Rise of ISIS within many more Islamic-dominated countries
– Destabilising discord inside Saudi Arabia
– Technology leaders rising as political agents
– Political and economic crisis worsening in Brazil
And dismisses a few things as red herrings:
“US voters aren’t going to elect a president who will close the country to Muslims. China’s economy isn’t headed for a hard landing, and its politics will remain stable. Continued strong leadership from Japan’s Shinzo Abe, India’s Narendra Modi, and especially China’s Xi Jinping will keep Asia’s three most important players focused on economic reform and longer-term strategy, reducing the risk of conflict in Asia’s geopolitics.”
It’s a fun stab at a bunch of things.
[lprent: This wound up in spam. Did a mod have their finger slip? Cos I checked it and it looks like Ad to me. Comment doesn’t appear to have issues for the site and I see that YourNZ linked to it. Extracted back out of spam.
Mods/Ad: If it was intended, then send it to trash, I don’t evaluate those. ]
[Hi it was me sorry. Wanted to convert it into a post. I was going to replace the text with this. Then when I went back it was no longer in spam … MS]
and then there is Dick Smith Electronics, or maybe it was. But surely all the soon to be unemployed will find a job pronto in our Rock Star Economy. And surely now that we are in 2016 and the run for 2017 has effectively started we can start talking tax cuts to stimulate the economy
Woolies probably bit anchorage capitals hand off unloading it in 2011 to them and they have behaved like the bankstas they are since with financial tricks and sale after sale in a sector under huge pressure with lotsa real estate, etailing etc.
The geeks who knew stuff cant be found much anymore and everything they sell can be picked up from places with same or better advice with sharper prices like a PB tech, harvey norman, jb etc
My biggest complaint about DSE over the last few years is that it’s no longer a electronics store for hobbyists but is now a whiteware store. Used to be able to go in there and get the knowledge and parts to make the electronics that you wanted to.
Seems really hard to find good hobbyist stores any more – even online – and I think we’ll find that it’s having a detrimental effect upon innovation.
yeah – jaycar has some interesting stuff, probably filling the vacuum left by DSE’s reorientation. Lots of kits, components, that sort of thing. Dedicated computer stores like pb or cellotech handle the other side.
DSE is just another place where you go for a computer and they sell you a standard box with the sales staff on a quota to upsell you the extended warranty. I went in on boxing day and they had espresso machines, ffs.
That is what got DSE in the end, really. They moved away from selling gadgets and hobby electronics to just selling what you could get from Harvey Norman or The Warehouse. They didnt even have HDMI – VGA adapters in there when I was looking for them.
They bought it for about 100 mil, pumped a bit of money in and made it look pretty, conned 500 mil for the float ($2.20 / share) two years ago, it’s 0.34 / share now and Anchorage are long gone, sold the last of their stock 6 months ago. And the thing is carrying huge debt.
The electronics side got sold to Jaycar Electronics who lots of nerds go to now.
Dick Smith just became another retailer with hardly any technical knowledge with buyers who didn’t buy things like limited editions of games even on pre-order cause they are asshats who didn’t realise that those of us who bought both the electronics and limited editions spent a lot of money in their shops on other stuff.
They also populated their store locally with PS4 fanboys who just pissed off us regular Xbox players. You don’t sell stuff to us by telling us that what we (consciously) prefer is crap, particularly when we know a darn sight more about the merits and issues with the different systems than you do.
Even with PC’s I had one dick tell me I couldn’t put the RAM I wanted in myself and needed to pay someone who knew what they were doing to do it. When I said I know how easy it was and explained it he was totally gobsmacked. He’d never actually ever looked inside a PC.
The older (experience not age) staff knew us and tried to hold on to our business but their hands were tied.
That is like walking into Mitre 10 and discovering the staff dont know how to install gib board, or going to Repco, and finding the people who work there dont know how to connect/remove a car battery.
Graeme, I agree with you, I don’t think they lost it, it was simply ripped off them, the share holders, that is.
I saw the in depth report this evening, disturbing really, and blatant.
After closing 100 stores, Woolworths decided to exit the struggling business in 2012, selling it to private equity firm Anchorage Capital Partners. At the time, Vulture South noted the AU$20 million “initial cash proceeds” from the sale was probably less than the value of in-store inventory.
Anchorage then re-floated the business in 2013 for $520 million. Funds manager Forage Funds Management last October called the Anchorage deal “the greatest private equity heist of all time“
“Whilst confident on the long-term viability of the company, the directors have been unsuccessful in obtaining the necessary support of its banking syndicate to see it through this period.”
ACCORDING to the United States government, nearly 7 out of 10 American adults weigh too much. (In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorized 74 percent of men and 65 percent of women as either overweight or obese.)
But a new meta-analysis of the relationship between weight and mortality risk, involving nearly three million subjects from more than a dozen countries, illustrates just how exaggerated and unscientific that claim is.
The meta-analysis, published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, reviewed data from nearly a hundred large epidemiological studies to determine the correlation between body mass and mortality risk. The results ought to stun anyone who assumes the definition of “normal” or “healthy” weight used by our public health authorities is actually supported by the medical literature.
The study, by Katherine M. Flegal and her associates at the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health, found that all adults categorized as overweight and most of those categorized as obese have a lower mortality risk than so-called normal-weight individuals. If the government were to redefine normal weight as one that doesn’t increase the risk of death, then about 130 million of the 165 million American adults currently categorized as overweight and obese would be re-categorized as normal weight instead.
Family members who were nurses used to oft say to carry a bit of extra weight after 40 in case you had to have an operation.
Twas those that didn’t that most commonly died post-op as their bodies had insufficient surplus fat to use to recover.
Dunno if there any truth to that or whether it’s just an old wives tale but it’s an interesting notion.
I’ve always understood that the BMI index was established by insurance companies to determine risk from their perspective rather than a medical discovery – bit like legally blind doesn’t actually mean blind but sets out a point at which insurance companies would pay out or employers would be liable for costs.
Anyway it’s always been problematic in that the measure varies from country to country and changes in settings can change the number of people that are in any category.
“In 1998, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brought U.S. definitions in line with World Health Organization guidelines, lowering the normal/overweight cut-off from BMI 27.8 to BMI 25. This had the effect of redefining approximately 29 million Americans, previously healthy to overweight.[21]
This can partially explain the increase in the overweight diagnosis in the past 20 years, and the increase in sales of the weight loss products during the same time. WHO also recommends lowering the normal/overweight threshold for South East Asian body types to around BMI 23, and expects further revisions to emerge from clinical studies of different body types.”
Seems to me that the key take-home message is to not rely on self-reported data when establishing guidelines.
As to the rest of it, it’s not granular enough to draw any conclusions: all causes mortality could be confounded by injuries, degree of medical care (are moderately fact people kept alive by pills?), or even if the issue is with the lower end of the “normal” category (i.e. increased mortality in underweight people throws off the base measurement).
Interesting, though. It’ll keep people in work for the next 20 years trying to narrow down where the ines should be roughly drawn. I’ll get the [unbuttered] popcorn.
This is a pretty good explanation about how deforestation, clearing land and techniques like dredging waterways increase flooding, and how traditional techniques of slowing water flow hold it in the land and decrease flooding. The article actually discusses climate change in the context of a local weather event too.
Droughts and floods have significant manmade causes in addition to climate change.
They got together with top academics from Oxford, Newcastle and Durham Universities to examine all options. Much the best plan turned out indeed to be to try to recreate past conditions by slowing the flow of water from the hills. Impressed by the intellectual endorsement, official bodies like the local councils, the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission and even the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, joined in.
They built 167 leaky dams of logs and branches – which let normal flows through but restrict and slow down high ones – in the becks above the town; added 187 lesser obstructions, made of bales of heather and fulfilling the same purpose, in smaller drains and gullies; and planted 29 hectares of woodland. And, after much bureaucratic tangling, they built a bund, to store up to 120,000 cubic metres of floodwater, releasing it slowly through a culvert.
After 24 hours of rain, just three months after it was inaugurated, Mr Potter climbed up to the scheme and found it working well. Then he went home, “switched on the TV, and saw the all the floodwaters elsewhere”. He adds: “While there was devastation all over northern England, our newly completed defences worked a treat and our community got on with life as normal.” The total cost, he says, was around £2m, a 10th that of the original wall which, he believes, would not have coped with the Boxing Day conditions anyway.
The Greatest Strategic Impact of 3-D Printing: Local Production Replaces Globalization
Yet the greatest strategic impact of additive manufacturing may not occur on the battlefield, but rather in the mundane manufacturing of clothing, shoes, appliances, phones, medical devices, and much more. In short, localized distributed manufacturing will become the norm. Not only will products be cheaper, but they will also be extremely customizable, rendering traditional manufacturing able to compete in only a few areas. And since 3-D printing technology is so cheap, it will also be incredibly widespread — Cambodia, for instance, already has a 3-D print shop.
They’ll change space exploration as well IMO , imagine a rocket landing and unfolding a series of 3d printers to build habitats for the following ship of humans.!!
These types remind me of the anti-abortionist lobby of the 1970s and 80s – full of venom and hatred for anyone who didn’t support their view point. They are like a NZ version of the American fundamentalist movements.
Yeah well the religious know about the thin end of the wedge stuff. Works well for them.
We’ll set up our own schools in opposition to state funded secular education and pay for those schools ourselves for our religious children – give or take 10%
We’ll take state funding cause there’s less religious people
We’ll take white flight children from state schools and get them to lie about their religious status in order to pretend we only have 10% non-religious people at our school
We’ll infiltrate state schools through boards of trustees and start teaching religion at lunch times
We’ll start teaching religion during class times and make it difficult for pupils to not go
We’ll get our own special religious charter schools fully funded by the tax payer – with even better funding than the state schools
Totally agree. I found the combination of Family First NZ, Hospice New Zealand and the Salvation Army somewhat strange.
Okay the Hospice organisation believes in end of life, quality palliative care and that this should be well funded. It obeys the current law and doesn’t want a law change for euthenasia. Even if there was such a law change the Hospice association could still say that euthenasia was unacceptable to their charity and I for one would accept that.
Ditto the Salavtion army who provide some elder care services.
Both these organisations are fully entitled to their views and to incorporate them in their daily work.
Family First doesn’t appear to do anything hands on for elder care just issue a press release.
but why do any of these organisations feel that it is acceptable to attack an individual for attending a meeting where something they may not agree with is discussed?
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One of the best understood tropes of screen drama is the scene where the beloved family dog is barking incessantly and cannot be calmed. Finally, somebody asks: What is it, girl? Has someone fallen down a well? Is there trouble at the old John Key place?One is reminded of this ...
The ’ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, plays a significant role in the global cocaine trade and is deeply entrenched in Australia, influencing the cocaine trade and engaging in a variety of illicit activities. A range of ...
In the US, the Trump regime is busy imposing tariffs on its neighbours and allies, then revoking them, then reimposing them, permanently poisoning relations with Canada and Mexico. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on agricultural goods, which will affect Aotearoa's exports. National's response? To grovel for an exemption, ...
Troy Bowker’s Caniwi Capital’s Desmond Gittings, former TradeMe and Warehouse executive Simon West, former anonymous right wing blogger / Labour attacker & now NZ On Air Board member / Waitangi Tribunal member Philip Crump, Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon who used to run vaccine critical, Treaty of Waitangi critical, and trans-rights ...
The free school lunch program was one of Labour's few actual achievements in government. Decent food, made locally, providing local employment. So naturally, National had to get rid of it. Their replacement - run by Compass, a multinational which had already been thrown out of our hospitals for producing inedible ...
New draft government procurement guidelines will remove living wage protections for thousands of low-paid workers in Aotearoa New Zealand, said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff. “The Minister of Finance Nicola Willis has proposed a new rule saying that the Living Wage no longer needs to be paid in ...
The Trump administration’s effort to divide Russia from China is doomed to fail. This means that the United States is destroying security relationships based on a delusion. To succeed, Russia would need to overcome more ...
Māori workers now hold more high-skilled jobs than low-skilled jobs with 46 percent in high-skilled jobs, 14 percent in skilled jobs, and 40 percent in low-skilled jobs. Resource teachers of literacy and Te Reo Māori are “devastated” by a proposal from the Education Minister to stop funding 174 roles from ...
Knowing what is going on in orbit is getting harder—yet hardly less necessary. But new technologies are emerging to cope with the challenge, including some that have come from Australian civilian research. One example is ...
This is a guest post by Malcolm McCracken. It previously appeared on his blog Better Things Are Possible and is shared by kind permission. New Zealand’s largest infrastructure project, the City Rail Link (CRL), is expected to open in 2026. This will be an exciting step forward for Auckland, delivering better ...
“The reality is I'm just saying to you I'm proud of the work we're doing. We're doing a great job”, said Luxon, pushing back at Auckland Council’s reports of rising homelessness and pleas for help. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest:Christopher Luxon denies his Government caused a ...
Should I stay, or should I go now?Should I stay, or should I go now?If I go, there will be troubleAnd if I stay, it will be doubleSo come on and let me knowSongwriters: Topper Headon, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Joe Strummer.Christopher,Tomorrow marks seventeen months since the last election. We’re ...
Homelessness in Auckland has risen by 53% in 4 months - that’s 653 peopleliving in cars, on streets and in parks.The city’s emergency housing numbers have fallen by about 650 under National too - now at record lows.Housing First Auckland is on the frontlines: There is “more and more ...
A growing consensus holds that the future of airpower, and of defense technology in general, involves the interplay of crewed and uncrewed vehicles. Such teaming means that more-numerous, less-costly, even expendable uncrewed vehicles can bring ...
Only two more sleeps to the Government’s Jamboree Investor Extravaganza! As a proud New Zealander I’m very much hoping for the best: Off-shore wind farms! Solar power! Sustainable industry powered by the abundant energy we could be producing!I wonder, will they have a deal already lined up, something to announce ...
After decades of gradual decline, Australia’s manufacturing capability is no longer mission-fit to meet national security needs. Any whole-of-nation effort to arrest this trend needs to start by making the industrial operating environment more conducive ...
Back in October 2022, Restore Passenger Rail hung banners across roads in Wellington to protest against the then-Labour government's weak climate change policy. The police responded by charging them not with the usual public order offences, but with "endangering transport", a crime with a maximum sentence of 14 years in ...
Luxon’s popularity continues to fall, and a new survey shows voters rank fixing the health system as the top priority. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesLong stories shortest in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning: National’s pollster finds Christopher Luxon has fallen behind Chris Hipkins as preferred PM for the first ...
The CTU is calling for an apology from Nicola Willis after her office made a false characterisation of CTU statements, which ultimately saw him blocked from future Treasury briefings. New data shows that Māori make up 83% of those charged under new gang laws. Financial incentives are being offered to ...
Australia’s cyber capabilities have evolved rapidly, but they are still largely reactive, not preventative. Rather than responding to cyber incidents, Australian law enforcement agencies should focus on dismantling underlying criminal networks. On 11 December, Europol ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters Finally, there’s some good news to report from NOAA, the parent organization of the National Hurricane Center, or NHC: During the highly active 2o24 Atlantic hurricane season, the NHC made record-accurate track forecasts at every time interval (12-, ...
The Australian government has prioritised enhancing Australia’s national resilience for many years now, whether against natural disasters, economic coercion or hostile armed forces. However, the public and media response to the presence of Chinese naval ...
It appears that Auckland Transport is finally set to improve Auckland’s busiest non-frequent bus route, the 120. As highlighted in my post a month ago on Auckland’s busiest bus routes, the 120 is the busiest route that doesn’t already run frequently all day/week and carries more passengers than many other ...
Economists have earned their reputation for jargon and tunnel vision, but sometimes, it takes an someone as perceptive as Simplicity economist Shamubeel Eaqub to identify something simple and devastating. As he pointed out recently, the coalition government is trying to attract foreign investment here to generate economic growth, while – ...
Opinion & AnalysisSimeon Brown, left, and Deloitte partner David LovattIn September 2024, Deloitte Partner David Lovatt, was contracted by the National Government to help National ostensibly understand “the drivers behind HNZ’s worsening financial performance”.1 i.e. deficit.The report shows the last version was dated December 2024.It was formally released this week ...
This cobbled-together government was altogether more the beneficiary of Labour getting turfed out than anything it managed to do itself. Even the worthless cheques they were writing didn't buy all that much favour.How’s it all looking now?Shall we take a look at a Horizon poll?The Government’s performance is making only ...
There's horrible news from the US today, with the Trump regime disappearing Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student, for protesting against genocide in Gaza. Its another significant decline in US human rights, and puts them in the same class as the authoritarian dictatorships they used to sponsor in South ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
With Labour and Te Pāti Māori’s official support, Opposition parties are officially aligned to progress Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in Palestine. ...
Te Pāti Māori extends our deepest aroha to the 500 plus Whānau Ora workers who have been advised today that the govt will be dismantling their contracts. For twenty years , Whānau Ora has been helping families, delivering life-changing support through a kaupapa Māori approach. It has built trust where ...
Labour welcomes Simeon Brown’s move to reinstate a board at Health New Zealand, bringing the destructive and secretive tenure of commissioner Lester Levy to an end. ...
This morning’s announcement by the Health Minister regarding a major overhaul of the public health sector levels yet another blow to the country’s essential services. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that will ensure employment decisions in the public service are based on merit and not on forced woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ targets. “This Bill would put an end to the woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. ...
Police have referred 20 offenders to Destiny Church-affiliated programmes Man Up and Legacy as ‘wellness providers’ in the last year, raising concerns that those seeking help are being recruited into a harmful organisation. ...
Te Pāti Māori welcomes the resignation of Richard Prebble from the Waitangi Tribunal. His appointment in October 2024 was a disgrace- another example of this government undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi by appointing a former ACT leader who has spent his career attacking Māori rights. “Regardless of the reason for ...
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is avoiding accountability by refusing to answer key questions in the House as his Government faces criticism over their dangerous citizen’s arrest policy, firearm reform, and broken promises to recruit more police. ...
The number of building consents issued under this Government continues to spiral, taking a toll on the infrastructure sector, tradies, and future generations of Kiwi homeowners. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to rule out joining the AUKUS military pact in any capacity following the scenes in the White House over the weekend. ...
The Green Party is appalled by the Government’s plan to disestablish Resource Teachers of Māori (RTM) roles, a move that takes another swing at kaupapa Māori education. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
After months of mana whenua protecting their wāhi tapu, the Green Party welcomes the pause of works at Lake Rotokākahi and calls for the Rotorua Lakes Council to work constructively with Tūhourangi and Ngāti Tumatawera on the pathway forward. ...
New Zealand First continues to bring balance, experience, and commonsense to Government. This week we've made progress on many of our promises to New Zealand.Winston representing New ZealandWinston Peters is overseas this week, with stops across the Middle East and North Asia. Winston's stops include Saudi Arabia, the ...
Green Party Co-Leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
At this year's State of the Planet address, Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
The Government has spent $3.6 million dollars on a retail crime advisory group, including paying its chair $920 a day, to come up with ideas already dismissed as dangerous by police. ...
The Green Party supports the peaceful occupation at Lake Rotokākahi and are calling for the controversial sewerage project on the lake to be stopped until the Environment Court has made a decision. ...
ActionStation’s Oral Healthcare report, released today, paints a dire picture of unmet need and inequality across the country, highlighting the urgency of free dental care for all New Zealanders. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Cyclone Alfred will cost the March 25 budget at least A$1.2 billion, hit growth and put pressure on inflation, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says. In a Tuesday speech previewing the budget, Chalmers will also say that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his travelling delegation has touched down in New Delhi, greeted by the heat and a colourful cultural display. ...
Asia Pacific Report A former US diplomat, Nabeel Khoury, says President Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks against the Houthis is misguided, and this will not subdue them. “For our president who came in wanting to avoid war and wanting to be a man of peace, he’s going about it ...
Pacific Media Watch Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has recalled that 20 journalists were killed during the six-year Philippines presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, a regime marked by fierce repression of the press. Former president Duterte was arrested earlier this week as part of an International Criminal ...
Unilateral moves by the UN will not solve this conflict; only sincere negotiations between the affected parties will. We must call for dialogue and negotiation, not sanction. ...
By Mar-Vic Cagurangan in Hagatna, Guam Debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified with its legislature due to vote on a non-binding resolution to become a US state amid mounting Pacific geostrategic tensions and expansionist declarations by the Trump administration. Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam ...
Analysis: Not many saw it.But when applause built at a Unity Week hui on the anniversary of the Christchurch terror attack, and Prime Minister Chistopher Luxon joined in, it seemed photo-worthy.Abdur Razzaq, of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ), introduced Luxon to the hui by noting the ...
Do BetterKing Luxon saddled his mighty war steed TitanicAnd rode out to inspect his realm.The King passed by the Mayoress of King’s LandingSitting on a burst water pipe.“Lame-O”, scoffed the King.The King passed by a pile of burning offalSurrounded by weeping school urchins.“Get a Marmite sandwich,” snorted the King.The King ...
Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – In Bislama, they say, “Wan nambanga i foldaon“. A great tree has fallen. The nambanga, or banyan tree, is the centrepiece of many a Vanuatu village. Its massive network of boughs provides shade, shelter and strength. I’ve only ever seen ...
COMMENTARY:By Greg Barns When it comes to antisemitism, politicians in Australia are often quick to jump on the claim without waiting for evidence. With notable and laudable exceptions like the Greens and independents such as Tasmanian federal MP Andrew Wilkie, it seems any allegation will do when it comes ...
By Emma Andrews, RNZ Henare te Ua Māori journalism intern Māori contributions to the Aotearoa New Zealand economy have far surpassed the projected goal of “$100 billion by 2030”, a new report has revealed. The report conducted by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) and Te Puni Kōkiri, ...
A global renewable energy developer backing one of New Zealand’s last standing offshore wind farm proposals says it would be “difficult” to cohabit with seabed mining.Danish developer Michael Hannibal, a partner in Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is visiting New Zealand for the Government’s infrastructure investment summit. His firm and the NZ ...
A wide-ranging conversation with the opposition spokesperson on foreign affairs. Even before the second Trump term began, the world was a volatile place. But since January 20, across eight whiplash weeks, the pace of change has been astonishing. Donald Trump’s America First geopolitics, melding expansionist and isolationist instincts, has created ...
Surviving terror can be isolating, trauma expert Jo Dover says.Dover – a Brit who is in New Zealand to hold resilience workshops with the Muslim community, speak publicly, and meet government officials – has supported people affected by terrorism, conflict and war for almost three decades. She arrived in Christchurch ...
Two trade experts based in Delhi expressed some mild optimism about Luxon's chances, but with a major caveat: NZ would have to abandon hope of including dairy in any deal.. ...
MONDAYAt precisely 0300 hours I gave last-minute instructions to a team of crack troops who had sworn their allegiance in the war against woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. They assembled in the basement bunker at the Beehive. It was built to withstand nuclear radiation. ...
It’s been six years since a lone gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, killing 51 people, shattering the country’s innocence and changing lives forever.Now a young Afghan-Kiwi couple, who were praying in another mosque in the Garden City that fateful day, is releasing a film in remembrance of ...
Gabi Lardies for now, Mad Chapman next week. Despite allegations they’re filled with shit books, I cannot pass by a little library without having a peek inside. Two weeks ago, stretching my legs from a hard morning sitting on my non-ergonomic wheely chair, I spied two curious spines in the ...
Poet Kate Camp learned to swim late in life. Now it’s a defining component of her identity. But why won’t she write about it? I learned to swim in a 15 metre pool in the backyard of Mandi’s place in Paraparaumu. That’s not true. I learned to swim in a ...
The highs, lows and silver linings of single-parenting a toddler. He lay there prone, unmoving, his dark eyes glassy and fixed on the ceiling above. My daughter looked at him, then at me. “Is that… Daddy?” I sighed. “No, darling, that’s not Daddy.” I grabbed the man to whom her ...
The star of Secrets at Red Rocks takes us through his life in television, including being duped by the Goodnight Kiwi and botching a song on Shortland Street. Whether he’s musing over a murder mystery as a cop in One Lane Bridge or in the midst of a surprise tandem ...
With the passenger seat withdrawn like this, for extra leg room, it occurs to Llew that someone has been having sex in this car. He and Nancy haven’t had sex since Waiheke. Barely even a kiss. Nancy shields her nipples with a forearm now out of the shower and Llew’s ...
With five regular season games remaining, the Wellington Phoenix women are still in with a great chance of finishing in the top six of the A-League and making the business end of this season’s competition.This Saturday night, they travel across the Tasman to face bottom of the table Sydney FC, ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and RNZ Pacific correspondent in Majuro The late Member of Parliament Jeton Anjain and the people of the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll changed the course of the history of the Marshall Islands by using Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship to ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown rejected advice from officials to lower the bowel screening age to 58 for the general population and 56 for Māori and Pacific people, just-released documents show. ...
Much was made in the build-up about the bipartisan spirit of the summit, with both government and opposition aware of the need to see through projects beyond election cycles. ...
COMMENTARY:By Gavin Ellis New Zealand-based Canadian billionaire James Grenon owes the people of this country an immediate explanation of his intentions regarding media conglomerate NZME. This cannot wait until a shareholders’ meeting at the end of April. Is his investment in the owner of The New Zealand Herald and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolina Quintero Rodriguez, Senior Lecturer and Program Manager, Bachelor of Fashion (Enterprise) program, RMIT University Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock When you come home from a run or a sweaty gym session, do you immediately fling your clothes into the washing machine for a hot ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexis Vassiley, Lecturer, School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University Aussie Family Living/Shutterstock A battle is underway on the mine sites in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region. Unions are keen to get back into the iron ore industry after decades ...
"It will be a chance, really, for an update as to the different lines of diplomatic efforts that are going in across securing peace in Ukraine," Luxon said. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pat McConville, Lecturer in Ethics, Law, and Professionalism, School of Medicine, Deakin University Master1305/Shutterstock This week, doctors announced that an Australian man with severe heart failure had left hospital with an artificial heart that had kept him alive until he could ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya Latty, Associate Professor, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney Mircea Costina/Shutterstock About 90% of flowering plants rely on animals to transfer their pollen and optimise reproduction, making pollination one of nature’s most important processes. Bees are usually ...
A first step of good faith would be the reinstatement of a Social Sector Budget lockup for Budget 2025, inviting a cross-section of organisations representing the diversity of our population to hear key Budget messages firsthand. ...
Global stocks sink after China index dives seven percent, causing US drop
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/75615516/global-stocks-sink-after-china-index-dives-seven-percent-causing-us-drop
‘The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 375 points as a selloff in Chinese equities spread around the world, fanned by concerns that economic growth is decelerating from Asia to North America.
The U.S. blue-chip index tumbled toward its worst start to a year since 1932, while banks and technology shares led the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lower.
A measure of global equities headed for its worst inaugural session in at least three decades. Emerging markets slid the most since August as slowing manufacturing triggered a selloff that halted Shanghai trading. Bonds jumped and the yen rallied on demand for haven assets.
“We’ve had a number of negatives out there in the U.S. throughout most of last year as investors battled to have a flat year and China is a reminder that there aren’t many things to be bullish about going into this year,” Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at Jones Trading Institutional Services LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, said by phone.
Investors returning to the market after the New Year holiday faced a worldwide selloff sparked by weak factory data in China, while a reading that showed the fastest contraction in U.S. manufacturing in six years added to anxiety that slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy is spreading.
A flareup in tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran increased geopolitical unease.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11569321
MORE BAD NEWS ABOUT WATER QUALITY IN CANTERBURY
This from the Timaru Herald today.
“Potentially toxic algae continues to bring risks to the region’s river users in the warm, dry conditions. Warnings remain in place on the Opihi River at State Highway 1 and Waipopo Huts, the Waihao River below Bradshaws Bridge, the Waihi River at Winchester and Geraldine, the Temuka River at SH1, the Hakataramea River at the SH82 bridge, and the Pareora River at SH1 and Evans Crossing.
Regional authority Environment Canterbury warns “significant quantities” of cyanobacteria algae at the sites could make people and pets who touch the water or algae sick.
As well as the algae, recorded E coli levels nearing “trigger levels” at several sites mean the Opihi River at Saleyards Bridge near Pleasant Point and the Otaio River at Otaio Gorge are the only monitored South Canterbury river sites ECan rates as “good” for swimming. ”
Yesterday only the mid & North Canterbury rivers were named but this report shows that Ecan the National Govt. appointed group are failing the whole of their area.
The Opihi was my childhood river where I learnt to swim, caught cockies, made rafts , drank it. WoooH this is not the New Zealand I grew up in.
Minister Smith and other Nat Ministers responsible are a disgrace, their leader should take their portfolios off them. I wish….
Canterbury from Blenheim to the Waitaki now resemble a large-scale industrial park. The only border is at the National Parks themselves, and the sea.
And this government reckons ‘wadeable’ is good enough water quality for us plebs, so that corporate dairy farmers can do as they please.
It was interesting to note the other day that both David Cameron and John Key used the same “New Zealand/Britain on the cusp/verge of something special” in their respective election campaigns. The New Zealand election came first so I guess this particular PR spin was tried out here first and then repeated in Britain.
http://news.sky.com/story/1480233/cameron-promises-britain-something-special
https://www.facebook.com/NZNATS/posts/951029848245944
Yeah – on the cusp of a depression!
UK wages set for worst wage growth since 1920’s
and feeling the pinch UK shoppers stay at home
The western economies are now more about consumption than the actual provision of needs – hence the worry in the financial sector as posted by Paul above. The markets are anxious because consumption is falling. Oh dear! What a catastrophe.
Yeah, can’t builds an economy on speculation and, as, that’s all that Western economies are based upon the speculators are stating to panic.
While consumption is happening it gives the impression that there is a real economy (with old-fashioned Form 3 economic systems operating – workers making and doing things, earning, factories and business activity selling things and so on, workers and others buyiing those things, with govt transfers and taxes streaming out from the side to feed the social machine, then the cycle repeating itself).
But style before substance is the order of the day now. Putting cosmetic layers over the bare shell of the economy has become accepted, like women applying make-up every day to cover their natural faces. Pity the natural economy isn’t so comely when revealed plain and simple with all its imperfections and distortions.
it would be nice to have a chart showing how the Christmas Sales went this year in NZ. Not eftpost transaction, but actually Christmas Shopping say from Mid November till 24/12.
Or just a chart with Eftpos Transaction over that period of time, say over a period of 10 – 15 years. Not sure where to find something like that.
i heard from a lot of people that the annual shopping frenzy needed by many retailers to cover the first three month of the new year was not that lucrative.
There’s this from Statistics
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/RetailTrade/RetailTradeSurvey_HOTPSep15qtr/Commentary.aspx
That survey is pretty broad and doesn’t really separate the really discretionary spend sectors that get hammered when people aren’t feeling flash. Does show when businesses have had a good run in past quarters with vehicle spending.
Xmas eftpos figures aren’t terribly reliable as spending patterns are influenced by which day 25/12 falls on, so reporting can change to keep the news good.
Comparing retail and eftpos stats to what we see across the counter in the gallery, if they are roughly in line with CPI there’s not much money around and it’s hard work for us from the domestic market. 2-3 points above CPI and we’re humming. Right now it’s all international and quite good because of the lower dollar, but only for USD.
What I found interesting was that the same exact line was parroted in two different countries. It showed the complete vapidity of John Key’s comment. It wasn’t even driven by some misguided vision of where New Zealand is headed. There was no unique vision whatsoever. It was completely contrived, with nothing to do with reality. Just a piece of advertising fluff thought up by a PR company. We could be on the verge of something special or on the verge of hell – it made no difference provided it was a line that would sell the government at the election. New Zealand and New Zealanders have basically been commodified into a product to be sold back to us. In a way this is the ultimate end result of Rogernomics/Monetarism. A financial value has been applied to absolutely everything from the clothes we wear to the values we hold as a country.
“The New Zealand election came first so I guess this particular PR spin was tried out here first” and “same exact line was parroted in two different countries. It showed the complete vapidity of John Key’s comment”
I’ll suggest an alternative viewpoint. Given the timing of the statements, and I’ll assume that you are quoting them accurately, we could say something like this.
“Here we have further evidence of the enormous influence that John Key has in the world. Just as Obama and Turnbull showed, Key is respected and admired by most other world statesmen. That everything he says is listened to carefully by other world leaders as is illustrated by Cameron showing the ultimate flattery of imitating him”.
There, I’m sure that with your great respect for our Prime Minister you’ll agree that that is a much more likely scenario?
Or could just be that both governments are being advised/told what to say by the Crosby’s.
““Here we have further evidence of the enormous influence that John Key has in the world. Just as Obama and Turnbull showed, Key is respected and admired by most other world statesmen. That everything he says is listened to carefully by other world leaders”
Especially the pony tail pulling bit, Turnbull say’s nice things about any one, and so does Obama, it’s called diplomacy
What a load of BS, the MSM would love to have you believe that, and obviously you do.
Love your mix of Monty Python and Ebsolutely Febulous there Alwyn !
I was sure you would. I wrote it just for you.
I thought it was in the same vein of fantasy as was esoteric pineapples actually.
It is amazing what one can come up with when, like ES and I, you decide that for something like this any connection between reality and the comment made can be discarded. You are, of course, living in that world all the time aren’t you?
Something for the FJK folk on here .. thought I would give you at least one post you will like for 2016….
https://scontent.fakl1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/1459053_1047777491911759_5296968342212053825_n.jpg?oh=1d3e2f04308fc57ba617f0f84b9ec77a&oe=5704F7D3
Excellent article by Branda Harre on TransportBlog today: “Is Christchurch a provincial market town or a diversified commercial city?”
http://transportblog.co.nz/2016/01/05/guest-post-is-christchurch-a-provincial-market-town-or-a-diversified-commercial-city/
Brendan starts to make the case for it being the latter not the former, whereas other business leaders make the case for the contrary.
If anyone wants to understand why it continues to be so hard to push New Zealand’s rural rump up the value escalator when Denmark and Finland have made it look so easy, have a read. It’s a good piece.
+1
good article ….so agriculture and tourism is ChCh lot , two of the lowest value activities and ChCh historic low wage economy is well explained.
Look what the cat dragged into the Herald
Alan Duff, who owns chateaux in France and denies poverty exists yet claiming to help those in low decile schools by giving them a few books. Apparently we have a ‘poverty of spirit’ yet he describes kids in Mangere wanting to be orthodontist.
He never owned that chateau he declared bankruptcy from in 2011.
It’s a bed and breakfast, listed in the Loire guides.
I could give you its website (Chateau de la Doree), but can’t link to it as it’s an insecure connection.
Millsy
Don’t get dirty on Alan Duff. He has done something with his books for kids. Far more than many other people. Even though he is a controversial figure, save your intense scorn for others.
For those who need one extra helping of anxiety-inducing risk discussion for 2016, here’s a summary of what the Eurasia Group have to say:
http://www.eurasiagroup.net/pages/top-risks-2016?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Democracy%20Lab%20Weekly%20Brief%2C%20January%204%2C%202016&utm_term=%2ADemocracy%20Lab
“The Middle East is the most vulnerable to a geopolitical leadership vacuum and is heading toward conflagration. There are six failed states across the broader region (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Syria, and Yemen) and more refugees than ever recorded. ISIS has become the most powerful terrorist organization in history. Oil economies are under strain. All of this will get worse in 2016.
Europe will feel much of the pain—in economic costs, security vulnerability, and political blowback. The United States, at the twilight of Barack Obama’s administration, will mostly stick to its knitting, since the western hemisphere remains insulated from the lion’s share of geopolitical instability. In Asia, despite having many of the world’s strongest national leaders, helping manage these problems is not a priority.
This all means a dramatically more fragmented world in 2016 with more intra-, inter-, and extra-state conflict than at any point since World War II. And yet drawing the major powers into military battle against one another—World War III—is virtually unthinkable (recent comments from Pope Francis notwithstanding). The world’s four largest economies—the United States, China, Japan, and Germany—are all deeply reluctant to accept responsibility for crisis management. Only the Germans are affected directly by this turmoil, and they still have plenty of reasons to duck the fight.
And so, in 2016, conflict intensifies. Last year, investors recognized growing uncertainty but remained more focused on the economic improvements: a US economy in recovery and Europe coming out of recession. That’s unlikely to last, as geopolitical risk shakes the global order.”
The broader report also dishes on:
– The hollow and weakening trans-Atlantic partnership
– Conflict between Open Europe and Closed Europe
– China being the only remaining country with a global strategy, and its increasing global footprint
– Rise of ISIS within many more Islamic-dominated countries
– Destabilising discord inside Saudi Arabia
– Technology leaders rising as political agents
– Political and economic crisis worsening in Brazil
And dismisses a few things as red herrings:
“US voters aren’t going to elect a president who will close the country to Muslims. China’s economy isn’t headed for a hard landing, and its politics will remain stable. Continued strong leadership from Japan’s Shinzo Abe, India’s Narendra Modi, and especially China’s Xi Jinping will keep Asia’s three most important players focused on economic reform and longer-term strategy, reducing the risk of conflict in Asia’s geopolitics.”
It’s a fun stab at a bunch of things.
[lprent: This wound up in spam. Did a mod have their finger slip? Cos I checked it and it looks like Ad to me. Comment doesn’t appear to have issues for the site and I see that YourNZ linked to it. Extracted back out of spam.
Mods/Ad: If it was intended, then send it to trash, I don’t evaluate those. ]
[Hi it was me sorry. Wanted to convert it into a post. I was going to replace the text with this. Then when I went back it was no longer in spam … MS]
brother, can you spare some water?
http://www.knysnakeep.org/south-africa-needs-water-angel-drivers/
Fuck that’s depressing. Climate change and industrial agriculture and poverty and how they interrelate.
and the earth just shook, luckily they estimate it to be a light earthquake, it was enough to shake the house of my parents in law.
http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt
yei. good fun.
Yep – I was shook
Thump, as modem tilted
and then there is Dick Smith Electronics, or maybe it was. But surely all the soon to be unemployed will find a job pronto in our Rock Star Economy. And surely now that we are in 2016 and the run for 2017 has effectively started we can start talking tax cuts to stimulate the economy
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/75618531/dick-smith-receiver-and-voluntary-administrator-appointed
That article says they don’t know why it’s had to go into receivership. Might not close though.
Been into one lately ?
Woolies probably bit anchorage capitals hand off unloading it in 2011 to them and they have behaved like the bankstas they are since with financial tricks and sale after sale in a sector under huge pressure with lotsa real estate, etailing etc.
The geeks who knew stuff cant be found much anymore and everything they sell can be picked up from places with same or better advice with sharper prices like a PB tech, harvey norman, jb etc
thanks Tc. Haven’t been in one for a long time and hadn’t realised they’d changed so much.
My biggest complaint about DSE over the last few years is that it’s no longer a electronics store for hobbyists but is now a whiteware store. Used to be able to go in there and get the knowledge and parts to make the electronics that you wanted to.
Seems really hard to find good hobbyist stores any more – even online – and I think we’ll find that it’s having a detrimental effect upon innovation.
yeah – jaycar has some interesting stuff, probably filling the vacuum left by DSE’s reorientation. Lots of kits, components, that sort of thing. Dedicated computer stores like pb or cellotech handle the other side.
DSE is just another place where you go for a computer and they sell you a standard box with the sales staff on a quota to upsell you the extended warranty. I went in on boxing day and they had espresso machines, ffs.
That is what got DSE in the end, really. They moved away from selling gadgets and hobby electronics to just selling what you could get from Harvey Norman or The Warehouse. They didnt even have HDMI – VGA adapters in there when I was looking for them.
Yeah, private equity strikes again.
They bought it for about 100 mil, pumped a bit of money in and made it look pretty, conned 500 mil for the float ($2.20 / share) two years ago, it’s 0.34 / share now and Anchorage are long gone, sold the last of their stock 6 months ago. And the thing is carrying huge debt.
Where has the money, like 400 mil, gone?
“Where has the money, like 400 mil, gone?”
Into Anchorage’s back pocket.
can’t understand how the punters keep getting sucked in by these venture capitalist floats
for more on how Anchorage trashed the company read this.
The electronics side got sold to Jaycar Electronics who lots of nerds go to now.
Dick Smith just became another retailer with hardly any technical knowledge with buyers who didn’t buy things like limited editions of games even on pre-order cause they are asshats who didn’t realise that those of us who bought both the electronics and limited editions spent a lot of money in their shops on other stuff.
They also populated their store locally with PS4 fanboys who just pissed off us regular Xbox players. You don’t sell stuff to us by telling us that what we (consciously) prefer is crap, particularly when we know a darn sight more about the merits and issues with the different systems than you do.
Even with PC’s I had one dick tell me I couldn’t put the RAM I wanted in myself and needed to pay someone who knew what they were doing to do it. When I said I know how easy it was and explained it he was totally gobsmacked. He’d never actually ever looked inside a PC.
The older (experience not age) staff knew us and tried to hold on to our business but their hands were tied.
They sadly watched our business go elsewhere.
That is like walking into Mitre 10 and discovering the staff dont know how to install gib board, or going to Repco, and finding the people who work there dont know how to connect/remove a car battery.
Graeme, it’s actually (DSE share) 20c, the point at which trading is suspended.
Yeah, I was looking at an article that was a few days old. May as well say it’s 0.00 now.
It’s still a serious amount of money to “loose” by any measure in two years. But I suppose they will be well practiced at disguising any malfeasance.
Graeme, I agree with you, I don’t think they lost it, it was simply ripped off them, the share holders, that is.
I saw the in depth report this evening, disturbing really, and blatant.
Bought for AU$20 mill, pumped up to $520 mill according to this: http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/04/dick_limps_towards_an_inglorious_end/
“Whilst confident on the long-term viability of the company, the directors have been unsuccessful in obtaining the necessary support of its banking syndicate to see it through this period.”
According to one article I read.
These guys have a good turn of phrase, found this about their fire sale before Christmas
managing director Nick Abboud said Dick Smith would maintain “flexibility on gross margin to reduce inventory and improve our debt position,”
I hope they have another fire sale — I could use a DSE turntable to play my elevator music records on
They’ll sound horrible – particularly if you have a good amp and speakers.
The quality of the amp in particular will magnify the poor quality of the turntable.
Go good quality turntable, then good quality amp, then good speakers.
Good input still sounds good on poor speakers.
Poor input is magnified on good output.
It’s an oddity that many people buy the really cool speakers first and wonder why their records sound like crap.
GIGO principle applies here as well.
If you want to move your vinyl to PC then there’s a few good phono pre-amps that’ll allow you to plug in a USB cable.
I find “vinyl studio” to be pretty good software for this, including tidying up pops etc.
Thats right, “shit in, shit out’.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/opinion/our-imaginary-weight-problem.html
Family members who were nurses used to oft say to carry a bit of extra weight after 40 in case you had to have an operation.
Twas those that didn’t that most commonly died post-op as their bodies had insufficient surplus fat to use to recover.
Dunno if there any truth to that or whether it’s just an old wives tale but it’s an interesting notion.
I’ve always understood that the BMI index was established by insurance companies to determine risk from their perspective rather than a medical discovery – bit like legally blind doesn’t actually mean blind but sets out a point at which insurance companies would pay out or employers would be liable for costs.
Anyway it’s always been problematic in that the measure varies from country to country and changes in settings can change the number of people that are in any category.
“In 1998, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brought U.S. definitions in line with World Health Organization guidelines, lowering the normal/overweight cut-off from BMI 27.8 to BMI 25. This had the effect of redefining approximately 29 million Americans, previously healthy to overweight.[21]
This can partially explain the increase in the overweight diagnosis in the past 20 years, and the increase in sales of the weight loss products during the same time. WHO also recommends lowering the normal/overweight threshold for South East Asian body types to around BMI 23, and expects further revisions to emerge from clinical studies of different body types.”
Seems to me that the key take-home message is to not rely on self-reported data when establishing guidelines.
As to the rest of it, it’s not granular enough to draw any conclusions: all causes mortality could be confounded by injuries, degree of medical care (are moderately fact people kept alive by pills?), or even if the issue is with the lower end of the “normal” category (i.e. increased mortality in underweight people throws off the base measurement).
Interesting, though. It’ll keep people in work for the next 20 years trying to narrow down where the ines should be roughly drawn. I’ll get the [unbuttered] popcorn.
It is important to keep in mind that this study was on mortality and not on general health.
This is a pretty good explanation about how deforestation, clearing land and techniques like dredging waterways increase flooding, and how traditional techniques of slowing water flow hold it in the land and decrease flooding. The article actually discusses climate change in the context of a local weather event too.
Droughts and floods have significant manmade causes in addition to climate change.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-flooding-how-a-yorkshire-flood-blackspot-worked-with-nature-to-stay-dry-a6794286.html
Exposure
Slowly but surely.
The Greatest Strategic Impact of 3-D Printing: Local Production Replaces Globalization
Yet the greatest strategic impact of additive manufacturing may not occur on the battlefield, but rather in the mundane manufacturing of clothing, shoes, appliances, phones, medical devices, and much more. In short, localized distributed manufacturing will become the norm. Not only will products be cheaper, but they will also be extremely customizable, rendering traditional manufacturing able to compete in only a few areas. And since 3-D printing technology is so cheap, it will also be incredibly widespread — Cambodia, for instance, already has a 3-D print shop.
http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/3-d-printing-will-disrupt-the-world-in-ways-we-can-barely-imagine/
previously on TS
They’ll change space exploration as well IMO , imagine a rocket landing and unfolding a series of 3d printers to build habitats for the following ship of humans.!!
SuperDraco!
In late 2013, SpaceX successfully fired a SuperDraco engine at full thrust using a 3D-printed engine chamber developed entirely in-house.
http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/07/31/spacex-launches-3d-printed-part-space-creates-printed-engine-chamber-crewed
What a load of bloody tossers the Care Alliance are – shame on them http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11569572
These types remind me of the anti-abortionist lobby of the 1970s and 80s – full of venom and hatred for anyone who didn’t support their view point. They are like a NZ version of the American fundamentalist movements.
Yeah well the religious know about the thin end of the wedge stuff. Works well for them.
We’ll set up our own schools in opposition to state funded secular education and pay for those schools ourselves for our religious children – give or take 10%
We’ll take state funding cause there’s less religious people
We’ll take white flight children from state schools and get them to lie about their religious status in order to pretend we only have 10% non-religious people at our school
We’ll infiltrate state schools through boards of trustees and start teaching religion at lunch times
We’ll start teaching religion during class times and make it difficult for pupils to not go
We’ll get our own special religious charter schools fully funded by the tax payer – with even better funding than the state schools
+1
Ditto!
Totally agree. I found the combination of Family First NZ, Hospice New Zealand and the Salvation Army somewhat strange.
Okay the Hospice organisation believes in end of life, quality palliative care and that this should be well funded. It obeys the current law and doesn’t want a law change for euthenasia. Even if there was such a law change the Hospice association could still say that euthenasia was unacceptable to their charity and I for one would accept that.
Ditto the Salavtion army who provide some elder care services.
Both these organisations are fully entitled to their views and to incorporate them in their daily work.
Family First doesn’t appear to do anything hands on for elder care just issue a press release.
but why do any of these organisations feel that it is acceptable to attack an individual for attending a meeting where something they may not agree with is discussed?
A diversion perhaps but four times the amount of fish caught with a little more than double the population is rather alarming.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141016-your-life-on-earth
Just watching Nigel Latta spelling it out so plainly, even the die hard National’s will have to feel real bad, “The Haves and Have-nots”
Yes, he did well, didn’t he