Open mike 12/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 12th, 2010 - 28 comments
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28 comments on “Open mike 12/08/2010 ”

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  1. luva 1
    12 August 2010 at 6:52 am

    The passing of Trotter….thoughts?

    • Bored 1.1
      12 August 2010 at 9:14 am

      They say you should not speak ill of the dead. At the most generous you could say that Trotter was misguided and you could hope that he did not wish the ills he and his cohort (Douglas, Deane et al) visitied upon his fellow citizens. From the attacks the Business Round Table and Treasury made upon the security, working conditions and wage rates of workers, and the prominence of Trotter as an advocate I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to whether he was malign on beneficent.

      • prism 1.1.1
        12 August 2010 at 10:19 am

        Trotter dying at 81 of cancer. There was a comment from some right winger who probably was Roger Kerr as to how egalitarian Sir Ronald was. Cancer is very egalitarian for sure. But right-wingers say this sort of thing – they live in a parallel world. I suppose that during his life he called his underlings by their first names and that is the test.

        Does anyone know if he was a director of AirNZ in 1979 at time of Erebus crash? It is hard to find such information through a quick google search. At that time he was a director in the Fletcher company founded about 1909 and successfully brought into the 21st century! Unfortunately it was not able to withstand the challenges it faced!

        A few news items after the NZ suicide figures came up over 500, while road deaths are 390. I think we are keeping well up in the OECD stats. I wonder if our suicides match Australias or better them? Great conditions Sir Ron helped to create!

  2. vto 2
    12 August 2010 at 8:36 am

    So the sharemarkets and others took fright last 24 hours… Is this it? Is this the beginning of the end? Is this the start of the rush to the exit?

    In my book the double-dip was always highly probably. It is also likely to happen this year (if it does not then we may well slip through unmolested).

    This could be it. Watch with interest (and dread)

    • Carol 2.1
      12 August 2010 at 8:50 am

      Listening to one of the reports on this (Nat Rad I think) this morning, it struct me that there seemed to be a disconnect between the ways the financial and/or economic are assessed/analysed by economists. ie they need better ways to monitor and assess what is actually happening.

      As I recall, the current disconnect is between what’s happening on the ground in terms of employment/unemployment in the US, and with small businesses, and assessments of financial recovery with a focus on broader, probably a little more abstract aspects of the financial sector. So for wealthier people with investments at the top of the finance sector, it looked like there was an economic recovery in the US. But for ordinary working folks there has been continued struggle, and little signs of recovery.

    • comedy 2.2
      12 August 2010 at 9:15 am

      My money’s on October being the beginning of global financial meltdown number 2 – and when I say my money Imean everyone else’s mine will be converted to gold and be under the bed.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.3
      12 August 2010 at 5:22 pm

      While you were sleeping: Heading for the exit

      August 12 (BusinessDesk) Stocks dropped as investors deployed the emergency chute and slid out of equity markets worldwide following the Federal Reserve’s downgrade of the U.S. economic recovery.

      IMO, A double dip recession (with the second dip being depression) was always the most likely scenario especially with the governments of the world giving the banksters money (through huge cash payouts (EU, USA) and tax cuts (NZ)) and not actually supporting the economy (i.e. not making trains in NZ). Just looks like it took awhile before the big players started to realise that the small players were the ones that support them and it’s the small players that are feeling the pinch.

  3. just saying 3
    12 August 2010 at 9:15 am

    http://werewolf.co.nz/2010/07/john-key-gets-in-touch-with-his-feminine-side/

    The above is a well-researched feature on women voters by Gordon Campbell which is well worth a look. It concludes:

    “Right now, the Key voice track and the actual picture are almost entirely out of sync. As a consequence, women voters who have some life experience of men who say one thing and do another seem likely to decide the next election, once again”

    Which is good news for the left. Bad news for Labour is that Goff is unpopular with women (no – not because he’s a man), and may prevent Labour’s ability to fully capitalise on the trend.

    • comedy 3.1
      12 August 2010 at 9:16 am

      Is that you Chris ?

      • just saying 3.1.1
        12 August 2010 at 9:40 am

        Come on, Chris wouldn’t be interested in an article about women voters – well, not unless it was written by a leftist-feminist (or a member of any other ‘identity’ faction) – that could get his blood boiling and his mouth foaming:)

  4. Bored 4
    12 August 2010 at 9:23 am

    VTO, in reply to above……Reading the New York Times business column this morning the following stood out..the Fed said the recovery had slowed and that it had decided to recycle the proceeds of its mortgage-bond portfolio into Treasuriy bonds and also gloomy trade figures that caused the outlook for second-quarter growth to be revised lower.

    In short, the transfer of debt from the housing bubble fiasco is still being transfered to Treasury, it has not a show of ever being cleared. And the US trade deficit is 18 % which means that there is no show of doing anything other than borrowing more (from where who knows). If the USA was a household the firesale would be on and the tenants out on the street.

    • comedy 4.1
      12 August 2010 at 10:01 am

      The band keeps playing as the crew busies themselves rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and the passengers chat happily about what they’ll have for their cocktails…….. what we’ve hit an iceberg ? pooh to that the ship’s unsinkable !

    • prism 4.2
      12 August 2010 at 10:35 am

      The wealthy (a few of) in USA are donating to solve dire causes for the good of humanity, the Gates, Warren Buffet etc. How about them supporting small enterprises at the grass roots in the USA and helping ordinary people overcome their earning difficulties and build small local economies that provide them employment and assist commerce and enterprise in their community.
      Now that would be as good a use for some millions as fighting AIDS, which needs to be researched and fought but some money should be set aside for real helpful priming at home.

      The trouble with tiered money, is that it floats off from the bottom tier up into the stratosphere (literally with spaceships and pie in the sky ideas for resettling on planets – lots of scenarios from scifi scripts). It’s out of reach then for the bottom tier when it floats away and pools like clouds and then rains on someone else’s parade just when you need it yourself.

      Pray for some for Russia by the way. The pooled electrical responses from lots of brains might have some effect! I wish.

      • just saying 4.2.1
        12 August 2010 at 7:07 pm

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBy_ppG4hY&feature=fvw

        Whitey on the Moon
        Gil Scott Heron

        A rat done bit my sister Nell.
        (with Whitey on the moon)
        Her face and arms began to swell.
        (and Whitey’s on the moon)
        I can’t pay no doctor bill.
        (but Whitey’s on the moon)
        Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still.
        (while Whitey’s on the moon)
        The man jus’ upped my rent las’ night.
        (’cause Whitey’s on the moon)
        No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
        (but Whitey’s on the moon)
        I wonder why he’s uppi’ me?
        (’cause Whitey’s on the moon?)
        I wuz already payin’ ‘im fifty a week.
        (with Whitey on the moon)
        Taxes takin’ my whole damn check,
        Junkies makin’ me a nervous wreck,
        The price of food is goin’ up,
        An’ as if all that shit wuzn’t enough:
        A rat done bit my sister Nell.
        (with Whitey on the moon)
        Her face an’ arm began to swell.
        (but Whitey’s on the moon)
        Was all that money I made las’ year
        (for Whitey on the moon?)
        How come there ain’t no money here?
        (Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon)
        Y’know I jus’ ’bout had my fill
        (of Whitey on the moon)
        I think I’ll sen’ these doctor bills,
        Airmail special
        (to Whitey on the moon)

  5. ZB 5
    12 August 2010 at 11:48 am

    Many Aucklanders are in debt, they can’t afford a flight to the gold coast hotel! So what does the Hamilton National MP do? Once again stymies a rail link. Cheap bulk passanger transport to a rugby match, Horse racing, Cricket, or Conference center, or field day, etc. This is the problem with National, they get paid so they don’t have to understand the opportunities of providing their constituents with a cheap low energy public rail connection to Hamilton. The tracks are there, the frieght travels on the tracks, all they need is a couple of temporary concrete platforms near the race way (Forest Lake), or near the Cricket ground (Central Station), or near the conference Center (just over the river). Hell, why not offer a student connection right to the boundaries of the Waikato University! But no, we have a financial elite who couldn’t seize a opportunity, a change in the very market demand matrix that will be locked in from here on in as oil becomes more expensive! It will be like the Hamilton by-pass has to wait for peak oil! Who runs this damn country and for whom? A bunch of Australian Finaciers or the People of Aotearoa?

  6. joe90 6
    12 August 2010 at 12:26 pm

    An excerpt of a Hardtalk interview with Barbara Harris of Project Prevention, a US group which pays drug addicts to be voluntarily sterilised. But it appears to be more of the the same old eugnics fantasies of the xtian right.

    I watched the full interview yesterday so there should be repeats over the next week or so.

  7. Pete 7
    12 August 2010 at 12:34 pm

    Quite the d-bag that Mr Smith:
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4016126/ACC-sex-abuse-claims-badly-handled

    Must be nice feeling like you can pass the buck in an area of your responsibility…

    How short does he think our memories are? We can look up and attribute stuff to him using teh internets these days!

    OTOH at least he’s finally fronted after dropping ACC reps in it to deal with the media (following government-mandated cuts!).

  8. tc 8
    12 August 2010 at 1:36 pm

    Can anyone inform me as to the current position on Wodneys SuperShity structure having pieces of it bypass the OIA I recall reading some months back.

    Speculation/fact/still there/never there in the first place ?

  9. comedy 9
    12 August 2010 at 5:35 pm

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10665364

    Erk I agree with an entire Garth George article !!

    The rapture is upon us !

  10. KJT 10
    12 August 2010 at 6:12 pm

    Don’t worry. If 30 million monkeys can write the encyclopedia Brittanica in 30 million years even Garth George can come up with some sense if he blathered on for long enough.

    • Rosy 10.1
      12 August 2010 at 10:23 pm

      … Except for the bit about changing social norms can take generations. I remember a policy boffin talking about how, in the neo-liberal changes, they wanted to change the way people think (from egalitarianism to personal acheivement). It only took a couple of years for a lot of the public to buy into it. Also, someone I know lived in the UK for years, when he moved here the thing that struck him most was how a fad, a political movement, anything, could sweep through the country really quickly – he considers that just as much a characteristic of NZ, when compared with the UK, as clean, green or the number 8 wire mentality and I think I agree with him on that.

  11. Pascal's bookie 11
    12 August 2010 at 9:19 pm

    RE: Tony Ryall and his sneaking around being all “creepy and weird” and ‘eldritch’ and shit.

    Certain characteristics of Ryall have already been noted by those who observe, and indeed, disturbing and unnatural images have been captured and analysed by those with knowledge.

    I guess there is nothing for it but to pray that we are eaten first.

  12. Bill 12
    12 August 2010 at 9:49 pm

    Eldritch you say? Now there’s a word.

    But all too ‘wholesome’ and pregnant of meaning for a Ryall character, I fear.

    And then I looked at the links. I withdraw and retract.

    .