Open mike 06/10/2010

44 comments on “Open mike 06/10/2010 ”

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1. Pascal's bookie 1

   6 October 2010 at 6:24 am

   Rmember when ACT took a very principled stand eventually on the Foreshore and Seabed throwing the rednecks under the bus and boldly standing up for the property rights of iwi after some lawyer reckoned iwi probably wouldn’t win in the the courts and some uncharitble bastards said their positioning was just more cynical bullshit?

   Good times, good times.
   • BLiP 1.1

     6 October 2010 at 8:01 am

     Speaking of the Ferengi, have you seen this ?

     Rory MacKinnon from the Media Darlings blog has caught Lindsay Perigo out with a whopper when the latter stated, in response to a Matt McCarten column, “I’ve known many Actors over the years, including the leads, and I can’t think of one, alas, who ‘worships at the altar of Ayn Rand.’ ” Rory has photographic evidence that the opposite is true and, what’s more, the Grand Nagus has not one but two copies of Atlas Shrugged in his “temple”.
     • Pascal's bookie 1.1.1

       6 October 2010 at 8:27 am

       Heh. Hoowoodagest?

       Speaking of Amphetamine Aynnie, have you read this review?

       http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/10/01/what-i-think-about-atlas-shrugged/
       • Olwyn 1.1.1.1

         6 October 2010 at 9:35 am

         A brilliant review! And the picture of Rodney with his library behind him, accompanying the Media Darlings piece, could almost serve as an illustration. The philosophical grounding of the yellow sports jacket and the fake tan.
     • The Voice of Reason 1.1.2

       6 October 2010 at 8:43 am

       Crikey! I feel slightly queasy seeing the book he’s closest to.
       • Kevin Welsh 1.1.2.1

         6 October 2010 at 3:18 pm

         Maybe one is his own personal copy and the other is a ‘loaner’?

         You never know when someone is going to pop-in to your office and say, “Rodders, you don’t happen to have a spare copy of Atlas Shrugged lying around do you?”
2. BLiP 2

   6 October 2010 at 8:29 am

   John Key said recently: “do I think New Zealand can catch up with Australia? Well, I think the answer is yes, but, to do that, you need to have good public policy”.

   With that in mind, contrast and compare .

   On the one hand, we have the John Key National Ltd™ government sheltering private companies from having to pay staff the minimum wage and, on the other, we have the Australian government over here on behalf or workers pursuing unpaid entitlements.

   When Key says “good public policy”, what, actually, does he mean?
   • Croc 2.1

     6 October 2010 at 9:53 am

     Pro-business policy that just happens to be made public?
   • Draco T Bastard 2.2

     6 October 2010 at 11:04 am

     He means that the capitalists are assisted by the government and everyone else is shafted by the government.
3. comedy 3

   6 October 2010 at 9:03 am

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4201898/Sikhs-outraged-at-alleged-voter-fraud-link

   “It will be an understatement that the community has been increasingly fearful of this group under investigation as they have not only been entrenching themselves in government departments but also criminalising members of our community through duping them into making false declarations in immigration applications.”

   Mr Singh said they had complained to Members of Parliament, cabinet ministers and government departments over the group.

   “Each time the community’s complaints were given superficial treatment.”
   • grumpy 3.1

     6 October 2010 at 3:53 pm

     A bit naieve given the latest revelations and their political links. It would be interesting to know who they complained to and when.
4. just saying 4

   6 October 2010 at 9:07 am

   Treasury’s plan to reform the welfare system.

   I’m not sure if the above link will work. It’s pasted from ‘Imperator Fish’ which has an interesting blog on the matter.

   Basically treasury is recommending further economic deprivation, and psychological terrorism for the most vulnerable members of our communities AND advocating the privatisation of most social services.
   • ianmac 4.1

     6 October 2010 at 9:44 am

     Wonder what selection criteria was used to bolster the Treasury consultants? Act, Brash, Business Round Table?
     • KJT 4.1.1

       6 October 2010 at 9:57 am

       Time treasury was sacked en-mass. Their advice for the last 40 ears has been totally predictable. If it is not working just do more of the same.
       • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1

         6 October 2010 at 11:06 am

         Yep, that’s what I’ve been thinking for some time. They just can’t see what’s actually happening in the economy due to their delusional belief in the neo-liberal paradigm.
         • KJT 4.1.1.1.1

           6 October 2010 at 11:31 am

           I think partly that the Chicago School of economics was received dogma when most got their education. They have learnt so little economic history that they are unaware of any alternatives.
           • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1.1.1

             6 October 2010 at 1:06 pm

             According to the universities – it’s still received dogma. They don’t teach anything else and even when they are teaching history they avoid the lessons to be learnt from it.

             All of our economists have been blinded by what they were taught at university.
             • Bored …

               6 October 2010 at 1:56 pm

               I have felt the “Invisible hand”, it thwopped me round the back of the neck in the form of price increases. I think it might better be taught as a cautionary fairy tale to keep the kids in line.
               • KJT …

                 6 October 2010 at 2:02 pm

                 Trouble is the invisible hand, without democratic regulation, only works for those who cheat.
             • grumpy …

               6 October 2010 at 3:57 pm

               Sadly true Draco, “in my day” at Canterbury we had a much wider range of exposure with guys like Wolfgang Rosenberg, Alf Brownlee, Tan, Hampton, Rayner etc. I swear some of these guys changed their politics from time to time just for the sake of arguing.
               It was always said that for stage III, the questions were the same each year but the answers changed depending on who was doing the marking.
   • BLiP 4.2

     6 October 2010 at 10:10 am

     And now we know why National Ltd™ are hiring so many “consultants” at Treasury – so they can hide behind the bureaucrats while foisting their own agenda upon the nation. Classic, Crosby/Textor template politics for blurring accountability and TINA – “well, look, the experts said so, and they should know”.
5. prism 5

   6 October 2010 at 10:48 am

   Lindsay Mitchell this morning announced the answer to putting these pesky ‘unemployed’ women, who keep behaving biologically (having babies) without permission or sanction or a stable man as father, to work as carers for old people. Neat, two expensive social difficulties ruling each other out.

   Could instead have hostels catering particularly for younger women who would live there with their babies who would have a good creche provided. And their mothers would be able to study, learn baby care, learn life skills, be nurtured as young people with the important future of growing happy, strong-minded and capable children, plan a future and might then decide they would like to be carers, out of the choices available to them.

   As for the payments for IHC sleeping over. In yesterday’s Open Mike comments giving actual experience of the work were really eye opening. See 10 Hateatea, Bored and Vicky32
   I looked at google for more info on the two companies – On TVNZ site “Idea Services and Timata Hou are wholly-owned subsidiaries of IHC New Zealand and registered charities funded by the health and social development ministries.”

   ODT report Otago Daily Times report
   Idea cares for almost 5000 people, of whom 3000 are in residential care. Timata Hou, a residential rehabilitation service, cares for 67 people.
   Last July, a benchmark Employment Court ruling found against IHC, which had opposed paying for sleep-over hours. Instead of a shift allowance of about $30 staff would get at least the minimum hourly wage.
   The Health Ministry said that last year it funded $378m of community residential disability contracts. Sleepovers were estimated to cost between $400m and $500m in five years of back pay for all providers — there are about 100 caring for 7000 people.

   Interested in the job? – This is an advert which shows they are looking for people with integrity, intelligence, commitment, energy, etc. They ask “If you are interested in this challenging but rewarding role”…(just not financially). And employees will receive insurance cover after two years (yet one worker I read about talked about getting a black eye from some deranged patient, who didn’t ask whether she was covered by insurance before popping her one in the face).

   MYJOBSPACE.CO.NZ
   Community Support Worker
   IDEA Services provides support services for people with intellectual disabilities, so they can live, work and enjoy life as part of the community. We are an organisation of integrity and held in high regard by our communities.

   We are looking for permanent Residential Community Support Workers in the Nelson area and casual/releif staff for the Marlborough area. You need to have a full driver’s licence and be willing to work flexible hours, as well as a commitment to supporting people with an intellectual disability.
   We are looking for people who:
   • Have excellent verbal and written communication skills.
   • Can work weekends, evenings and sleepovers.
   • Can demonstrate an understanding of community involvement.
   • Can work as part of a team.
   • Are legally entitled to work in New Zealand.

   We offer:
   • Flexible working hours.
   • Comprehensive training aimed at developing skills, knowledge and experience.
   • Employee insurance policy for all staff after two years service.
   • Part-time and casual positions.
   • Bored 5.1

     6 October 2010 at 1:35 pm

     The real working conditions of lower paid NZers is of real concern to me, as pressure comes onto profitability employers ask for more time for less dollars and trim conditions, including as you note things that cause danger to employees (as you say black eyes from deranged patients). Its a recipe for disaster. IMHO bodies such as IHC who care for some of the least able and most vulnerable members of our society should be treated as the jewels in the crown of a caring community. How we treat these people is a measure of us as a society. And their workforce should be looked after as such. As we know IHC struggles for funds, they need help from above, not just from their workers. Ryall in his drive to cut out costs across all of health has totally missed the point, delivery comes first. Its what we do as a society for “us”.
     • Lats 5.1.1

       6 October 2010 at 3:54 pm

       I agree wholeheartedly Bored. The way recent governments have systematically eroded mental health services in this country borders on criminal negligence. Many of these people are fragile and need support, dumping them in flats in the community is not the best way to manage their needs. Properly resourced and funded mental health support would reap considerable benefits not only to the individuals concerned, but also to society as a whole.
   • hateatea 5.2

     6 October 2010 at 7:46 pm

     Headlines and articles like this would lead you to believe that it is the greedy workers who are at fault
     http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch/4200679/Ruling-sends-IHC-bodies-broke

     The reality is that some workers would only receive 2 or 3 hours at $12.50 plus the $34 as anything after 10pm and before 7am is ‘sleepover’. That some clients would not be asleep for all of that time (or even any of that time) seems not to occur to the bean counters who thought up this particular condition of employment.

     I was also concerned about this suggestion:
     “However, there are other ways that we would certainly have to look at how we provide that community care and that may mean revisiting the number of people in homes, where the homes are located and having awake staff at night travelling between homes.”

     What happens of there is an incident while the awake staff are on their ‘travels’? The reality of life for some of Idea’s clients seem unknown to people who make suggestions like this.

     In my personal experience, not only are many of Idea’s employees underpaid, they also are poorly prepared for what may be experienced by them when working with clients. Training seemed to be more of a myth than a reality although, to be fair, this seems to be a widespread problem with carers including some rest home workers.

     Generally , I believe that the very young, the elderly, those who need the greatest care in our society through no fault of their own, are often offered the cheapest available care not the best possible care.

     May those who cut service, drive down wages and conditions for carers and generally devalue the work of those who do the caring, mostly women, often desperate for flexible working hours to fit around children, other dependents or just plain desperate, need the help of carers for themselves or those they love. Of course, they probably earn six figure salaries, have lots of insurance and assets and therefore can ‘buy the best’. Spare a thought for those elderly parents who are worried about the long term care of their severely intellectually / physically disabled off spring after they die or unable to advocate for them.

     A society should be judged by how they treat the least of their citizens not by how many millionaires or billionaires there are

     Gosh, I have become quite angry all over again just remembering

     captcha: economys
6. SHG 6

   6 October 2010 at 11:31 am

   So in the past day or so I count six articles on the Standard expressing outrage regarding something controversial said by a controversial media performer who gets paid to be controversial, and yet nothing regarding a concerted attempt to pervert our electoral process in South Auckland.

   Priorities.
   • lprent 6.1

     6 October 2010 at 12:26 pm

     …and yet nothing regarding a concerted attempt to pervert our electoral process in South Auckland.

     We write about structural electoral fraud all of the time. The ‘blind’ donation trusts, transparency of politicians assets, enrollment periods, advertising limits, etc etc are structural issues.

     But this isn’t structural – it is just some individuals acting like idiots. It is simply a matter for electoral officials, the police, and the courts to deal with under existing legal structures.

     Face it SHG, your real issue is that you are more tuned to the gossip columns than you are to anything real. I suspect your main interest in Paul Henry would be gossip about his sex life than the way he insulted 100’s or thousands of kiwis. We don’t write posts on that either. You’re just shallow….
     • SHG 6.1.1

       6 October 2010 at 4:17 pm

       Hey, I’m not the one who’s turned this blog into “ALL HENRY ALL THE TIME” in the past few days.
7. randal 7

   6 October 2010 at 12:07 pm

   well after all the hoohah where are the posts about the rise in gst.
   the bus to town has just gone up by 50c.
   by the time I go to town and come home there isnt even enough left over for a pie let alone a bottle of coke out of ten bucks!
8. randal 8

   6 October 2010 at 12:25 pm

   my apologies for the diversity of my opinion this morning but I have to say that after studying taoism in the sixties my desire for goods went out the window but what I really care about now is noise.
   time for the nats to do something about the rugged individuals who are free to go from A to A in the weekends and also feel free to make as much noise as they like as they liberate themselves round the towns in their un muffled hardly davidsons.
   there used to be laws about noise and keeping the peace but they seem to have all disappeared in the maelstrom of personal choice.
   time for a change.
   • prism 8.1

     6 October 2010 at 3:31 pm

     Yet one can be spoken too severely by police for tooting a couple of times at a friend. I guess it is all personal choice nowadays even in the case of police. Once we stopped making public drunkenness a misdemeanour we opened the way for the yobbos who live in the NOW and don’t give a F.K to let it all hang out.

     antispam vacation – time for one perhaps.
   • Vicky32 8.2

     6 October 2010 at 7:14 pm

     I certainly agree with you about the noise, randal! 🙂
     Deb
9. nzfp 9

   6 October 2010 at 2:25 pm

   Hey KJT, Draco and Bored,
   KJT’s comment “the Chicago School of economics was received dogma”

   There is soo much irony in that comment!

   Before 1860 except for 21 state colleges and a few other exceptions – colleges in America were primarily religious institutions:
   49x Presbyterian (Calvinist)
   34x Methodist
   29x Baptist
   21x Congregationalist (Calvinist)
   14x Catholic
   05x Lutheran

   What is notable is that most of the religious colleges advocated against public credit in the form of Greenbacks and instead supported Gold bugs and private banking interests.

   Another irony is that throughout antiquity (from the Sumerian empire through the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans) the Temples maintained monetary power and performed similar functions to modern banks.

   Have you ever wondered why soo many classical Bank buildings look like temples?
   • prism 9.1

     6 October 2010 at 3:37 pm

     Hah nzfp I see it all now. Remember that time when Blackadder was made Archbishop of Canterbury and he, for the church and someone on the private make, surrounded a dying man of estate enticing him to slide his piece of the pie their way. I think Blackadder won on the promise of heavenly delights rather than hellish dolour, a piquant extra inducement for a real estate speculator.
   • Draco T Bastard 9.2

     6 October 2010 at 4:12 pm

     The churches have been directed/owned by the rich since time immemorial or, if the rich had temporarily failed, took their place. After the fall of the Roman Empire the Xian church forged a document saying that the emperor gave all of Europe to the church. I assume that the “gentry” went along with it because it benefited them.

     No, I’m not surprised to hear that the churches are corrupt.
     • joe90 9.2.1

       6 October 2010 at 4:40 pm

       Prosperity gospel is alive and well with the majority of American christians infected.

       For most professing believers if God is love He must promise to minimize my struggles and maximize my pleasure,” he lamented. Many believe it’s their spiritual birthright to experience comfort and prosperity and that it’s God divine obligation to provide it.
10. joe90 10

    6 October 2010 at 2:37 pm

    Glenn Beck’s guide to butchering a document and smearing a president.
    • Tigger 10.1

      6 October 2010 at 4:49 pm

      SKY helpfully broadcast this crap into our homes here…gee thanks SKY TV.
11. Draco T Bastard 11

    6 October 2010 at 4:15 pm

    Google Invokes History of Java, Responds to Oracle Lawsuit

    The Rise of Mobile, The Rise of Mobile Lawsuits

    Of course, Oracle v Google is far from being the only lawsuit in the mobile industry right now. As the graphic from the Guardian below demonstrates, the battle for control of the growing mobile market isn’t just a matter of building the best product. In some cases, the strategy seems to include building a strong team of patent attorneys.

    We do not have a “free-market”.
    • joe90 11.1

      6 October 2010 at 4:25 pm

      The rise of mobile Apps For Calling In Air Strikes.
      • KJT 11.1.1

        6 October 2010 at 5:58 pm

        Where can I get one. I have some good targets in mind.
12. Colonial Viper 12

    6 October 2010 at 11:00 pm

    I see that Bernard Hickey is still on a burn. Good on him. Seems he has been thinking through the flaws of NZ’s reverence for the Chicago School free market temple for a while.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10678518

    The version of the free market we had wasn’t really free or perfect. All it delivered was instability and debt.

    Here’s what I mean.

    New Zealand’s per-capita GDP is still at 2004 levels despite the addition of NZ$97.5 billion in extra foreign debt since then. We actually shed jobs in exporting over the last decade.

    Our current (lack of) rules on capital flows, foreign debt and investment policies created a situation where we sent a cumulative NZ$96.3 billion out of New Zealand over the last 5 years in the form of interest payments on foreign debt and dividend payments to foreign investors.

    We were essentially borrowing money and selling assets to pay the interest on the money we already owed.
13. john 13

    7 October 2010 at 12:51 am

    Great rant by Gerald Celente about the money and power junkies who have brought ruin to the NeoLiberal disaster zone of America. We have them here giving tax cuts to the rich ( Definition of rich: I don’t need more money I have enough!Give some to the poorer needier people instead for Pete’s sake!) on borrowed interest bearing money while the economy is stalled.

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1. The Standard: posted on 5 October 2010 at 5:07 pm

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