Open mike 11/03/2010

38 comments on “Open mike 11/03/2010 ”

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1. Jenny 1

   11 March 2010 at 7:23 am

   Howard Broad continues the policy of politicising the police force, that he has followed since taking office.

   Police have been ordered to conduct invasive searches of witnesses, defendants and even lawyers of the ploughshares peace protesters facing charges of damaging the Waihopai spy base.

   Using search procedures, not used, even in murder cases or violent gang proceedings, the police orders are also that lawyers and witnesses for the defence are not to be subjected to these searches.

   The extraordinary special search treatment for protesters and their supporters yesterday, gives the message that police officers are to consider protesters, as on par with terrorists.

   Like so much of the police strategy enacted against protesters since 9/11 these sorts of policies seem to be used as an excuse for intimidating the public, rather than to deter terrorism.

   In my opinion this latest “Security Procedure” is a blatant act of discrimination and intimidation against protesters, particularly in light of the fact that police lawyers and prosecution witnesses are exempt from these searches.
   • freedom 1.1

     11 March 2010 at 8:38 am

     i would love for one of those police officers to sit in a room with the 911 victims’ families, listen to the truth of 911, then go try and follow these orders

     captcha: trust

     ha! there isnt any left
   • Brett Dale 1.2

     11 March 2010 at 10:39 am

     Do you really think, if this place was a real spy base, that was spying on inocent people, that seucrity might ofm been a bit tighter?
     • felix 1.2.1

       11 March 2010 at 11:24 am

       Of course it’s not a spy base. Spy bases are usually found in caves, hidden behind luxurious mansions designed by Frank Loyd Wright, perched on the faces of sinister mountains.

       Waihopai is just a communications monitoring facility run by the GCSB as part of our commitment to share intelligence with our international allies.
       • lukas 1.2.1.1

         11 March 2010 at 11:49 am

         have the CIA/FBI come knocking re contracting you to find Osama?
       • fraser 1.2.1.2

         11 March 2010 at 12:04 pm

         “Spy bases are usually found in caves”

         you forgot that they are always viewed at a dramatic angle as well.

         and that they are staffed by guys in wacky costumes – or marionettes
         • felix 1.2.1.2.1

           11 March 2010 at 12:13 pm

           And efficient girls in silver jumpsuits.
     • Armchair Critic 1.2.2

       11 March 2010 at 11:28 am

       Not really, it is in an out of the way place, in an out of the way country and it has a fence around it. Most of the obvious security is passive. Making the security more active, or visible, would just draw more attention to it. The way it is, most people either don’t notice it, or pretend it isn’t there, or at least not doing what it is rumoured to be doing, and that seems to be the main method for keeping it secure.
       The only evidence I can think of to suggest that it doesn’t serve a useful purpose is that National don’t seem to have a “For Sale” sign on it.
     • freedom 1.2.3

       11 March 2010 at 12:38 pm

       the fact it is a spy base is acknowledged moron
2. mickysavage 2

   11 March 2010 at 7:49 am

   God

   I have just heard Tolley on National Radio. She was also on last night. I can say that the interviews present conclusive proof that she is a blithering idiot.

   She has directed a $25m cut to MinEd’s budget over the next three years. She cannot say where these cuts will be made or what effect they will have. She keeps on blithering on about transferring resources to the front line but when asked repeatedly denies that the savings will actually be used to boost resources at the front line. The action is a cut, not a transfer.

   She is a blithering idiot. We should be very afraid that something as important as our education system is in her hands.
   • lukas 2.1

     11 March 2010 at 8:25 am

     Agree that Tolley is struggling beyond belief and should be replaced. However, when Labour make simple math errors like King did on Sunrise this morning King did on Sunrise this morning, it makes it easy for National to point to them as key examples of why National Standards are needed.
     • Bright Red 2.1.1

       11 March 2010 at 11:58 am

       Didn’t hear what she said but labour’s line is that it’s a 20% tax increase: you’re paying 12.5% now, that’s going up 20% to 15%.
       • lukas 2.1.1.1

         11 March 2010 at 12:54 pm

         correct, that is the Labour line, but that is not what was said by King, she said that bread, butter and power prices would go up by 20%… clearly false.

         She probably meant to say that the GST would go up 20%, but that is not what she said.
         • mickysavage 2.1.1.1.1

           11 March 2010 at 1:02 pm

           Good attempted diversion lukas. King has a slip of the tongue. Tolley has multiple brain freezes and a shown inability to understand her portfolio. And the link is?
           • lukas 2.1.1.1.1.1

             11 March 2010 at 1:09 pm

             The link… King would fail NCEA level One if she can not work out basic percentages, Mallard would too given that he can’t count past five, yet they are hammering Tolley on National Standards (I disagree with National Standards btw).
             • Draco T Bastard …

               11 March 2010 at 1:30 pm

               lukas, you’re showing your inability to think again. One mistake doesn’t prove anything. Multiple mistakes (Tolley et al) does. You see, you need to look for the trend and the trend is that NACT are stupid.
             • lukas …

               11 March 2010 at 3:42 pm

               Draco, you are showing your one eyed bias again. Yes, this is the first time Anette has been caught out being misleading but this Trev gets caught out time and time again with simple mistakes, normally spelling or numerical. When you are attacking the education minister, surely you must get your own spelling and basic math right?
             • mickysavage …

               11 March 2010 at 3:55 pm

               Must … divert … thread … away … from …Tolley.
             • lukas …

               11 March 2010 at 4:42 pm

               Micky, I’ve made a number of comments on how inept I think she is and how Trevor Mallard was right to go after her in the house. As IrishBill pointed out yesterday, Labour need to get their own house in order, making stupid mistakes like Trevor is doing on a fairly regular basis is not helping their cause.
             • Herodotus …

               11 March 2010 at 5:55 pm

               Another example of Trev and an oversight that I have commented on in Red Alert. How can we have senior contributors who don’t even have a basic understanding of the subject. This is for me another example of petty point scoring with no answers. I would like constructive politics not this crap.
               http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2010/03/11/a-big-group-that-will-be-worse-off-following-the-tax-cuts/
             • Herodotus …

               11 March 2010 at 6:42 pm

               I also see that this calc by Trev was in the news. Nice to see that TV1 also will include crap from both sides without checking up on its validity. And I only read of the msm favouring Nats not so now. I maybe a bit skeptical but perhaps all Trevanted was his mesage out there irrespect of how crrect the nos were. That what annoys me the political game being played without any advancement of the country.
3. Pascal's bookie 3

   11 March 2010 at 10:23 am

   Quote of the day, whoops-a-doodle edition…

   “We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada’
   -Some goddamned freedom hating c0mmie.
4. The Chairman 4

   11 March 2010 at 11:08 am

   Why returning SOEs back to the public service model is imperative

   The creation of SOEs is undermining the country’s overall economic performance.

   The corporate model that SOEs operate under is inflationary, undermining Government’s effectiveness as a service provider.

   It has taken away the Governments advantage of providing services at cost, which has led to things like the price of electricity to soar.

   The advantage of putting profit aside locally reduces internal inflationary pressures, improving our international competitiveness (tourism, exports) and economy overall.

   The flexibility to put profit aside is an advantage the corporate model cannot deliver and it is an advantage that we’re failing to utilise.

   The country has a local capital shortfall (we borrow more than we earn) and maximising profits internally (driving up local inflation) not only fails to generate new wealth but also sees consumers fall further into debt in an attempt to keep up.

   Therefore, it’s imperative the country maximises offshore returns while doing what we can to keep local inflation down. Returning our SOEs to the public service model would be a ‘left’ move in the right direction.
   • cocamc 4.1

     11 March 2010 at 11:14 am

     ok The Chairman – what do you want to do with the private companies providing competing SOE services, Contact Energy, Trust Power, Taranaki savings bank

     The government reduces the prices to “At Cost” which is anti competitive, driving the other non SOE’s probably out of business (loss of jobs) – then a huge flight of capital out of the country causing more structural capital issues. No one will want to invest here
     • felix 4.1.1

       11 March 2010 at 11:26 am

       See? That’s why we shouldn’t sell the stuff off in the first place.

       I’ll be linking back here next time you suggest doing so.
     • Draco T Bastard 4.1.2

       11 March 2010 at 1:40 pm

       The government reduces the prices to “At Cost’ which is anti competitive,

       No it’s not. It’s “perfectly” competitive. In a perfectly competitive market profits are driven to the infinitesimal, ie, about zero. Profits are non-existent in a perfectly competitive market which proves that profits are a dead weight loss.

       BTW, We didn’t need the capital in the first place. We have enough resources in NZ to do what we want as long it’s within renewable limits.
   • prism 4.2

     11 March 2010 at 2:01 pm

     Really good points. I had realised that outsourcing elder care to small business cost more because the business has to make a margin of profit over the amount it pays to its workers who are paid the minimum. If the control was direct from an in house department it could be priced near cost with the profit motive removed. But of course government is a milk cow, a source of opportunity to be tapped by private enterprise which of course is more efficient, isn’t it (and nobody could do it better dah dah, how does the song go). The corporate anthem.

     But government run public service does have to be watched also it can get very lax and sloppy I think it is a process called cost plus where efficiency isn’t important and costs just get added all the time without assessment.
   • Kenny 4.3

     12 March 2010 at 8:59 am

     More left wing rubbish pushed by the person that once claimed the way to solve NZ woes is to raise wages by 10% and freeze prices.

     In what country have your previously published ideas worked before? North Korea?

     Muppets . . . too funny . . .
5. The Chairman 5

   11 March 2010 at 11:33 am

   Cocamc

   You’re right on one count; SOEs were designed to undermine the public advantage, allowing the private sector to compete.

   But that private sector competition has failed to bring prices down.

   No jobs would be lost, demand would remain intact – hence jobs would merely transfer into the public sector. And the perceived lost of capital (private sector profit) will remain onshore.
   • Draco T Bastard 5.1

     11 March 2010 at 1:43 pm

     Competition is inherently more expensive. As a simple example we’ll look at telecommunications: Which is cheaper, One national network or two?
   • Kenny 5.2

     12 March 2010 at 12:05 pm

     More wafflespeak – how can SOE’s ‘undermine the public advantage’? In fact what is the ‘public advantage’ in this context? Nothing changes with you. Different forum same garbage.
6. prism 6

   11 March 2010 at 2:48 pm

   There were some interesting and informative comments on Sovereign debt.
   Could someone with a good grasp of GDP, GNP, trade balances etc. please direct me to where there is something authoritative on how we can separate the exchange rate on our currency from the hourly whims of the wealthy in other countries?

   The harder we work it seems, the less control we have over our export returns. It seems as if we are sharecroppers who will never build wealth because they have to buy everything at the company store where the prices rise along with the crop receipts.
   • Draco T Bastard 6.1

     11 March 2010 at 6:07 pm

     Basically, to stop that we need capital controls – the kind of regulations the 4th Labour and National governments threw out. That the 5th Labour government didn’t do anything about and that the 5th National government is making even easier for capital to come and go so that we get screwed even more.
     • Herodotus 6.1.1

       11 March 2010 at 6:22 pm

       DTB – things have been slighlty tighten up in the last few years. The banks are required to source more of their funds from within NZ I think it has been increased from 15% to 20 or 25% and that the debt profile be of a longer term, thus reducing the issue we had at the beginning of the recession when it was imposs to get any funds from a bank (I note that it is not much easier to do this now). This is why banks are chasing homegrown deposits and that you can obtain 4-6% for term loans. Unfortunately also the banks pass on this and more e.g potential Global Liquidity fee increasing in April by 0.5%.
   • prism 6.2

     12 March 2010 at 9:36 am

     I’ve done some checking myself and note what I have done in case anyone else is interested. I did a search on this site with “nz currency exchange rate” and came up with some useful stuff, first from Marty G from abt Oct 09. Plenty of good reading, info and thought there plus others further down.
7. Herodotus 7

   11 March 2010 at 3:39 pm

   the OCR remains at 2.5% with indication that there will be some movement mid 10. Yet the banks are already giving notice that Global Liquidy “fees” are to be increase by about 0.5% to business. We are being repeatedly RAPED in NZ as the money trains destination is Sydney or Melbourne.
8. prism 8

   11 March 2010 at 6:40 pm

   Just watching tv1 news – A father in Sheffield has had 9 children to his two daughters who had been raped at least 18 times. The authorities suspected it but the chap kept moving and besides the social workers were scared of him.
   The son told the police in 1997. Similar happened here in Blenheim – a chap raped his daughter and a foreign backpacker he had kindly offered hospitality. But workers were threatened and the department wasn’t rock strong behind them so they weren’t prepared to put themselves and their families in jeopardy.
   Then news from USA – some woman threw a hissy fit about her wedding dress and somebody else committed some interesting crime.
   Is this the sort of news that we want to be informed about. Tabloid news gathered from across the world for the prurient and the brain-dead and permanently uninformed. How can people know about the local political things and the positive and negative happenings of all sorts if we get newstime filled up with this garbage. And both govts grovel for the money-scramble instead of having one private and one public channel, an idea which has been turned down because it wouldn’t meet some perfect agenda that somebody thought up.
9. The Chairman 9

   12 March 2010 at 4:46 pm

   Kenny

   The public advantage is providing the service at cost, which is lost when profit becomes the primary focus.

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