Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, August 12th, 2017 - 52 comments
Categories: open mike -
Tags:
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Where is the United Nations in this Korean crisis ?
Shouldn’t the secretary-general call in Trump and Kim for a face-to-face meeting
and bang a few heads together ?
Since when has the USA taken any notice of the UN? They only tolerate them in the guise of pretending they care.
+1
The U.N. did its job last week with the unanimous resolution applying tonnes more sections.
It’s pantomime. They’re reading from a script
At the appropriate time, there will be de-escalation of ‘tensions’, and the focus will shift to the next, or previously highlighted ‘hot-spot’
Nothing new, it’s the same strategy played out by the puppeteers, for an age
‘The USA’ ‘created’ North Korea
‘The USA ‘created’ The UN
If anyone wants to really join in to this election and they are in Auckland, Phil Twyford is holding a public meeting this Monday the 14th at 6pm to talk about our plans for light rail in the west.
It was not until Phil and Jacinda announced this policy last weekend that it was ever in the realms of possibility. Now for the first time, we have a chance to really transform Auckland for good.
The meeting is being held at Henderson Intermediate School, 70 Lincoln Rd, Henderson. Come along to support Phil, and find out more about the plans, so that you are well informed when you are talking to voters.
All we have to do is get them in to power. Just like that 🙂
Is there a chance he will explain why new light rail networks are a better option than adding to existing rail?
Are you thinking of an Onehunga heavy rail extension?
There’s better commentary on http://www.greaterauckland.org.nz if you want to see the precise benefits to each of the neighbourhoods from downtown Auckland to the airport.
A simple answer would be- in certain circumstances- a heavy rail line physically divides a community while a light rail line uses existing rights of way that arent divisive.
And it’s too fucking hard in a city.
Some routes don’t need heavy rail.
It’s a joke punish the poor in Korea so
Two big egos dance on the world stage we all no China view on this and American ain’t going to fuck with China the rich in America will lose to much money
Graham denied candidacy
Good decision.
Good, the green slimeball can’t grease his way back in now.
The Greens have rejected Kennedy Graham’s request to be put back on the party list.
While hes still an MP , he would make a good catch for TOP ?
how would that work? He’d have to resign as a GP MP first.
That would be fantastic – keep it in the news for a few more weeks.
Poor guy kicked out by the greens for standing up for what he believed in – Showing that the party is still sympathetic to their recently resigned leader as opposed to members who reflect the publics view (according to poll results)
This can only hurt the greens more – Winston will be loving this.
Who knew that helping your party’s opponents smear it during an election campaign might have consequences? Not Kennedy Graham, apparently. I don’t think politics is the right field for him to work in.
Now, if Gareth Morgan offered Kennedy Graham the No.1 list spot for TOP, that might be interesting….
It would reinforce the growing perception that TOP is something of an alternative to the Greens for those who want to ensure the environment is front and centre irrespective of who leads the government.
It would give TOP voters confidence that in the currently unlikely, but certainly possible, prospect that they get over 5% that the first person in has parliamentary experience.
It would save GM from having to go into parliament, which, let’s face it, would be bad for everyone.
It would also get attention for the TOP party like nothing else.
That offer is pretty much already on the table CP:
http://www.top.org.nz/environmental_tribute_to_kennedy_graham_and_david_clendon
I was in two minds about the timing; but now the Greens have explicitly rejected them returning, anything may well happen in the next few weeks.
yep, the best party money can buy.
Newsroom has some good items. Such as surgical mesh saga and the ineffectual response from Minister of Health Jonathon Coleman. by Teuila Fuatai
First, the pair was told Coleman would only have 15 minutes to meet.
During that time, only two concerns about surgical mesh were discussed – and even that was rushed.
“He wanted to leave after the first concern was raised,” Sullivan said.
“His responses to our questions about the lack of progress in implementing Select Committee recommendations was completely unsatisfactory….
“Looking back, it seemed like a PR exercise to show he was meeting with an advocacy group. His attitude towards us and ongoing problems with surgical mesh has been extremely tough to understand and endure – especially since he is a GP,” Sullivan said.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/08/06/41379/surgical-mesh-a-decade-of-debilitation
A good friend has been through a decade of surgeries, and fighting against ACC and surgeons to have the damage from the mesh implant recognised – and if possible – remedied.
Hard to get something remedied when the surgeon won’t acknowledge that there is a problem.
Along with other NZ casualties from this implant, she had to raise her own funding to get to the US, where surgeons are fully employed with removing this mesh from where it has embedded.
I posted a few years ago about how one of our advisors for the surgical community, was also a paid advocate for the mesh companies.
National Women’s quietly removed the mesh implant surgery from their recommendations a couple of years ago, but this is not yet true nationally. The Independent has a good article a couple of weeks ago referring to the mesh scandal being the new thalidomide in the UK.
Here it is the bland arrogance of Coleman that defeats proper remedy. He did the same re the Southern DHB under funding under resourcing in spite of the evidence presented by John Campbell.
(The surgeon recently used mesh in my hernia operation but it has been very successful.)
Glad that you have had no complications. Reality is, one out of the four acknowledged fatalities in NZ, relates to mesh used in a hernia operation. I suspect that there may have been other deaths, but they may not have been identified as originating from mesh.
Along with the physical damage caused by mesh travelling, and embessed in tissue, bones and organs, there is a high incidence of infection that is unable to be managed with the current stock of antibiotics.
As an implant, I would prefer the use of sutures, rather than mesh. But I have witnessed what happens when it goes wrong. The son of the woman had also had mesh implant for his hernia, and has had no issues.
It has been an uphill battle, trying to get surgeons to acknowledge the harm that some women reported post surgery. And unfortunately, while that reporting was being ignored, more mesh has been used in operations.
My wife’s got a t-shirt with big text:
“Liberable and miserable”
I prefer Left Melancholy. Stops me getting excited.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Yeah that why I bag liberalism, because it’s depressing in spades.
Socialism, not only does it cure the worlds ills, it has all the best dancers as well.
Edit: And the heaviest rockers.
http://cloggie.org/wissewords2/2011/01/20/rammstein/
Rammstein’s political leanings aren’t necessarily settled left or right.
The left would get more votes if they avoided persuasion less through Rammsein, and started more welcoming them to their world ……….
……via Jim Reeves
Still clinging to liberalism and your depression with Jim Reeves I see Ad 🙂
Edit: A link predating the song I linked, which answered the question.
Chlorinated chicken? Yes, we really can have too much trade
George Monbiot
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/25/chlorinated-chicken-trade-britain-us-food-standards-globalisation
“To trade fundamentalists, rainforests and ancient woodlands, coral reefs and wild rivers, local markets and lively communities, civic life and public space are nothing but unrealised opportunities for development. Where we see the presence of beauty, tranquillity and wonder, they see the absence of palm oil plantations and soybean deserts, container ports and mega-dams, shopping malls and 12-lane highways. For them, there is no point of arrival, just an endless escalation of transit.
Brussels attacks Liam Fox’s ‘ignorant’ remarks on chlorinated chicken
Read more
Nowhere is a place in its own right; everywhere is a resource waiting to be exploited. No one is a person in their own right; everyone is a worker, consumer or debtor whose potential for profit generation has yet to be realised. Satiety, wellbeing, peace: these are antithetical to globalised growth, which demands constant erasure and replacement. If you are happy, you are an impediment to trade. Your self-possession must be extinguished.”
The vicious circle of Want-Lack-Need-Have.
Some good questions and I’m pretty sure that your average, run of the mill economist and politician couldn’t answer any of them.
Trade cannot lead to prosperity. It’s economic development that does that but trade, in it’s present capitalist format, actually prevents that. If it was cooperative rather than competitive then trade may help with that economic development.
Rob Stock: The nightmare of negative equity
Translation: The Housing Bubble burst
No, it means that he’s too shit scared to tell everyone that the fun’s over and the economy is now on its way to hell now that it’s artificial life support has been removed.
National’s ‘Rock Star’ economy is doing what many real rock stars have done – crash and burn.
Ah, so the home-owners only hope is that excess immigration continues which none of us can afford.
That’s the way that the system is set up. A few people get rich while everyone else gets poor.
its winter. Sales are always slower in winter and prices are always down in winter.
IF the same is still true come spring/summer you might have a point. Until then, i would say it is a seasonal dip. But i can see how the undertaker of Barfoot and Thompson don’t like the fact that they loose a wee bit of money.
Did you read it? Especially the bit that said that they were looking from July last year to July this year?
I’m pretty sure that that accounts for winter.
i did.
but generally winter sales are lower and slower.
so i would really just wait.
no when prices go back to what they used to wear, and suddenly property prices are back to 300.000 and less in south Akl you have reason to dance in the streets.
This has nothing to do with our trading banks placing stricter requirements on developers (same happened during thebGFC) when much of the reduction of development was due to banks restricting credit in many cases “forcing” builders and developers to pay back debt and leaving them with no working capital to continue producing land and houses.
Yes, they are which is why comparing prices from last winter to prices this winter generally works.
The drop is sales volumes is possibly even more telling than the drop in average sales prices. July this year is down 29% cf. last year. With small(er) volumes the average price will start to become more ‘jumpy’.
My partner’s company has been informed that freight charges for rail transport will be going up by 63% over the next two years. Making the option of transitioning to rail for transport companies that much harder.
The knock-on effect of having utilities that have private shareholders to compensate.
I guess this is threaten war week at the Whitehouse.
An object lesson in the need for strong Labour laws which are rigourously inspected and enforced:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/11/uk-family-found-guilty-of-enslaving-homeless-and-disabled-people
There may have been no publicized cases with such sensational details as this in New Zealand. But make no mistake that unmonitored employment conditions of contracters in this country have led to similar episodes of vile abuse. Greed is never satiated.
When some people people are abandoned to be treated as slaves, others will act as whipcrackers.
Bill English came to Motueka yesterday, it was what I’d call a private visit, as the public weren’t notified.
Bill English went to Talleys HQ where he was mobbed for selfies by the immigrant workers there, the kiwis just sat around, not interested or impressed at all by the PM.
Bill was heard saying to the immigrant workers ‘i wish you guys could vote’.
His next stop was an orchard, this too would have been filled with workers unable to vote.
Funny as
Newspaper didn’t tell the whole story, lucky the locals filled me in. Crack up
See for yourselves… those lovely Indonesians made him feel very special
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/95686477/pm-mobbed-in-motueka-as-local-economys-success-stories-revealed
PM Bill English kissing up to the large corporations that hire and exploit foreign workers.
Ticking off a few commitments to nationals funding partners. Talleys don’t like the media on their premises also.
Like 2002 methinks Blinglish is in for, in his own words, ‘a test of character’, with similar outcomes.
Tnks Cinny. wonder if He’ll make an appearance on the Coast… now that Talley’s are part of Bathurst/Talleys, (Coal) mining group there, and (in southland it seems)…
Perhaps he’ll call at Pike on the way down South…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/85911498/bathurst-resources-and-talleys-buys-three-solid-energy-mines
P.S On reading the Stuff link further….
a further link, http://bathurstresources.com/project/domestic-operations/
And another reason to not purchase Talleys frozen Peas, and/or Hoki et al …
Cheer for the link JC. The Bill English visit to Talleys is the big joke around town this weekend with the locals.
Interestingly enough Peter Talley was in the audience for Winstons meeting at our local RSA last month.
Motueka = relatively evenly-divided town in 2014 – though tending slightly Left & fairly strongly Oppo (Left+NZF)
Left 45%
Right 42%
NZF 11%
That makes Motters even more Left & Oppo-leaning than most large & provincial Cities – let alone most comparable small towns
*West Coast-Tasman + Te Tai Tonga Motueka Booths
Thanks for the stats Swordy, much appreciated.
Many Nats around here are party voting NZ1st this year, so I’ve been hearing. But that was before Jacinda.
When the announcement was made about the Red Princess last week, people were literally cheering and dancing in the main street.
Any one no what happened to that law student law suite against National .
It was about climate change
Judges decision has been reserved. Which means that they will release it when they have finished polishing it,