Open mike 12/05/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 12th, 2024 - 8 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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

Step up to the mike …

8 comments on “Open mike 12/05/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

    • Sanctuary 1.1
      12 May 2024 at 7:20 am

      Reading his piece I am struck how often Thatcher is mentioned, she is talismantic to the neolib far right far circus that Grant lives in. Thatchers main claims to fame appear to be her mass sale of council housing which was/is wildly popular with the boomer recipients of the windfall – especially as one of the signature failures of neoliberalism is the housing crisis it always creates when the state abandons housing it's population. That has turned every boomer who brought their home into a rentier "capitalist" as they rode a one way housing ponzi all the way to retirement in Spain. Secondly, she got lucky and courtesy of Galtieri the UK won the Falklands war – an exercise in imperial chest beating the popularity of which should have warned the remain campaign of the power of nostalgia in a country in steep post imperial decline. Finally, she broke the unions and deindustrialised Britain all in service of the financialisation of the UK economy and the concentration of wealth in the south east of the UK. In short, she left a nation that is idealized by the likes of Damien Grant – an increasingly authoritarian country with massive inequality, wallowing in reactionary nostalgia, and with its "wealth" built on financial services, rent seeking and speculation.

      • bwaghorn 1.1.1
        12 May 2024 at 7:54 am

        Yeah but I think he might be onto something, willis will prove to be a weak inept finance minister !

      • tc 1.1.2
        12 May 2024 at 3:57 pm

        Thatcher gets hammered as he sings for his supper. Damien do Gen z know who she even is ?

    • SPC 1.2
      12 May 2024 at 8:27 pm

      The successful co-operation of POTUS Clinton and Congress was because there was 8 years of growth. He blocked their tax cut plans and they blocked his spending plans – so the proceeds of growth resulted in a lower debt to GDP after the 8 years.

      He however asked the next POTUS to make sure the rewards of that growth were shared across the USA and to all Americans (some had done well off the stock market and yet others suffered the term limit welfare reform and lack of access to health care). But instead of Gore, they got Bush – war in Iraq and the GFC. All that money wasted and nothing to show for it in health care or in green transformation of the American and global economy.

  2. mikesh 2
    12 May 2024 at 9:35 am

    Yeah but I think he might be onto something, willis will prove to be a weak inept finance minister !

    She will if the only reason for tax cuts is because she wants to "keep her promise". A strong minister should be capable of breaking a promise if is deemed necessary. I do wonder however whether she under pressure from one of the other coalition parties, probably ACT.

  4. SPC 4
    12 May 2024 at 8:12 pm

    Robert Patman avoids the orange elephant in the room.

    He does not mention the risk of POTUS Trump as enough of a reason to delay consideration of Pillar 2, all on its own. The man bullies all of the America’s allies and friends, bar Israel. All to identify American connection to others as one of supremacy over a subordinate, to validate an exception to his promotion of a native isolationism – the price they have to pay. It's his own personal sociopathy, that he wants to make the American leadership brand. He more openly embraces a partnership of equals with tyrants, from North Korea to Russia.

    That point made, like the QUAD, AUKUS is something separate from the concept of democratic nation state technology co-operation. This is about democratic co-existence in both the realm of collective security and in the global economy. It has no direct relevance to containment of China – except for its territorial ambition, extension of its military presence and preponderance to vertical integration around its own economy of the one belt and road project.

    Nations outside the orbit of the global economy and respect for nation state collective security are Russia, Iran and North Korea – all under sanctions and providing tech and military support to each other (including war crimes – arming Russia's war in Ukraine).

    Thus our purpose should be to build on NATO+ etc, all while seeking a peaceful outcome in Korea and on Taiwan.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/05/11/analysis-three-possible-reasons-nz-is-yet-to-make-a-call-on-aukus/