Dr Jackson said in fact, hazardous binge-drinking had been getting worse, and the government needed to raise the price of alcohol.
“Since 2011 we haven’t seen any positive change in 18 to 24 year old drinking so you know this is great, they’re protecting their brains while they’re very very vulnerable but we’ve got to make sure that when they hit that age they’re not just stepping into that culture,” she said.
People in more equal societies are far less likely to experience mental illness.
Blaming inanimate substances for the damage that right wing economists do just makes finding solutions more difficult. It’s a waste of resources and a sop to moralising curtain-twitchers.
Not according to the MoH – alcohol rates have been steadily dropping rather rising under neo-liberalism (not a defense of neo-liberalism, just the facts don’t align with your opinion)
To be fair, most social ills are at the very least exacerbated by it.
I’m having a bit of difficulty thinking of a social ill that doesn’t have a large proportion of its present prevalence attributable to neoliberalism, i.e. it would be much less of an issue if we’d kept our social democratic / democratic socialist ideals of Savage and Kirk and even Muldoon.
edit: I suppose the starting point would be some sort of congenital condition that’s not due to antenatal factors or genetic damage to a parent from environmental factors. But even then you have the affordability of ongoing life-course care for the baby.
Executive director of Alcohol Healthwatch Nicki Jackson is just trying to justify the grants her organization receives, it can never improve otherwise she puts herself out of a job.
An interesting article, Ed, but it would be helpful if you had included in your summary that this Australian study (considered by the NZ Alcohol Healthwatch to be in line with what is happening to NZ) also found that more teenagers are choosing to turn away from alcohol.
The remarks you quoted from Dr Jackson, Executive Director of Alcohol Healthwatch were in fact preceded by this statement in respect of New Zealand:
“”Yes, there’s been declines in young people choosing to take up drinking but we’ve seen no declines whatsoever in the style in which young people drink, they’re still drinking very heavily so that culture hasn’t changed.”
I agree with you ED alcohol is A DRUG that cause more damage to OUR worlds society as the law says its safe to consume this poison yes ITS a poison
1I know of at least 5 people whom have died from drinking to much alcohol one of them was a famous Rock Star .
2 Our youth think its safe until next minute they are locked up for something they did while pissed and can not remember what happened and if that person was not pissed they would be a good person and never commit a crime.
3 Other people whom are experienced drinkers can wait untill one is tiddly and then encourage them to drink up hotties usually and they have got you pissed and can get the you to do what they want
4 drinks can be spiked with other drugs never leave your drinks unattended make sure you go drinking with people you trust as If one is pissed I say you are mental as most don’t remember what they did when one is rolling blind drunk this is why they call it blind drunk and there are reports of people losing one sight temporary when one has consumed to much alcohol .
5 I think its a sin to let OUR Mokos think alcohol is a safe drug and then let them find out all the negative effects alcohol has on them while they are in a unsafe environment all the bad side effects of alcohol should be advertize so OUR mokos know to sip the stuff or it will fuck them up.
6 What about all the violence that happens when people are pissed check the hospital records
7 Car crashes other people being killed by drunks drivers what a waste of lives
8 All the disabled people who got there injuries while pissed
9 Every year we have two big events and everyone is encouraging everyone to get pissed I could not work that out logically I drink a little I learnt through trial and error If one is in a good mood when drinking alcohol its not to bad but if one is in a bad mood while drinking that’s when the violence starts I have never hit any of my loved ones while being drunk most of the time I would not bother to go and drink it was others that got me to go out with them I was happy watching videos at home.
10 The neoliberal used alcohol to break MAORI MANA my te puna Sir Apirana Ngata new this was happening and in 1920 got a ban on alcohol on the east coast for 10 years He was the one person who saved a lot of Maoris Mana need
I say more Ka kite ano
Quite a list of damage to our people in this country.
It makes me both angry and sad to see the devastation this repulsive drug does.
It would be so simple to apply a more sensible drug policy for alcohol.
Your comment is an example of the logical fallacy “non-sequitur.”
Your argument is:
Premise: some yoofs still drink a lot of alcohol.
Conclusion: therefore, alcohol is a blight on our society.
But the conclusion you’ve drawn doesn’t logically follow from the premise you’ve provided. I guess there’s an implied premise in there that alcohol is a Bad Thing, but that would merely change the logical fallacy to “begging the question.”
I can’t really blame you though, as non-sequitur is also Dr Jackson’s mode of operation – it’s fairly hard to endorse her views without falling into logical fallacies yourself.
The people who can’t handle their piss and cause problems are a blight on society.
The best option is to ban the people who abuse alcohol and leave the vast majority of people who like a beer, wine or whatever your drink of choice is, alone.
Here is some evidence of the damage alcohol does to society …..
In 2012, driver alcohol was a contributing factor in 73 fatal crashes, 331 serious injury crashes and 933 minor injury crashes. These crashes resulted in 93 deaths, 454 serious injuries and 1,331 minor injuries.
A third of violent offences, including family violence, and 44 per cent of homicides involve someone who has been drinking. As do 62,000 physical assaults and 10,000 sexual assaults, per year.
According to alcohol.org.nz, between 18 per cent and 35 per cent of injury-based emergency department presentations in New Zealand are estimated to be alcohol-related. This rises to between 60 per cent and 70 per cent during the weekend.
Approximately 45 per cent of fire fatalities are alcohol-related, as are approximately 11 per cent of drowning deaths
around 10 per cent of New Zealand’s population of 4.4 million was alcoholic.
New Zealanders spend about $85 million a week on alcohol, but it costs the country about $5 billion a year in damage.
Yeah, but it’s spent locally and probably mostly on NZ products (beer and wine), so there’d be a hefty multiplier on the strict sale value for the economic activity. Not to mention exports.
So the profit/loss ledger could well swing either way.
The NZ wine industry is not as local as you might realise.
Author Peter Howland writes in his book Social, Cultural and Economic Impacts of Wine in New Zealand that more than 80 per cent of New Zealand wine production is foreign-owned.
The maker of Tui beer, which is marketed as an iconic New Zealand brand, is owned by Asia Pacific Breweries, which is being shaken up by a multi-billion-dollar deal.
The Dutch beer maker Heineken is spending $S5.1 billion ($NZ5 billion) to buy 40 percent of Asia Pacific Breweries from Singapore-based Fraser and Neave, taking its stake to 82 percent. It will attempt to move to full control.
DB, which competes against Lion Breweries, has declined to comment on the ownership shakeup, which was first signalled in July. Lion Breweries is owned by Japan’s Kirin Holdings, which was seen as a rival for Asia Pacific Breweries.
Yes all those profits are going overseas, leaving behind a litany of social damage.
Did you watch Nigel Latta’s documentaty on alcohol in New Zealand?
I recommend you do so you are more aware of the level of foreign ownership of the liquor industry.
So it’s just the manufacturing and sale costs that get recirculated. Big whoop, it doesn’t alter the fact that economic activity is more than just the point of sale transaction.
Thank you for doing the Maths.
So we as a society subsidise the international liquor corporations to the tune of #11 million a week.
No wonder they lobby so hard to control our politicians.
The Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 was a pitiful response by the National Party-led government to the monumental review of alcohol in New Zealand by the Law Commission in 2009/2010. All of the most effective recommendations of the Commission’s final report Alcohol in our Lives: Curbing the Harm were ignored. Of particular note, there were no new substantial measures addressing the demand side of alcohol consumption—marketing and pricing.
It’s not that they can’t handle their piss but that they’ve been taught that getting drunk is the thing to do.
To change that we need to change our drinking culture away from weekend binge drinking. Many European nations drink more per capita than we do but don’t have the same problems as they don’t drink it all on Saturday night as we do.
To change that we need to change our drinking culture away from weekend binge drinking.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Also, we don’t “need” to do anything in response to people choosing to do things we personally would rather they didn’t.
Also, we don’t “need” to do anything in response to people choosing to do things we personally would rather they didn’t.
this is another one of those things where people are choosing to do things that harms others and they don’t actually have a right to do that. So, yes, we do actually need to do something about it.
But it is certainly a cultural change that we need to bring about and that will take years and even decades.
We do have rules about harming others, variously classed as offences, crimes etc. Which is, not coincidentally, also a way to teach/propagate acceptable behaviour.
Don’t you think alcohol is a blight on our society?
No. Complaining about people taking recreational drugs is pointless – people like recreational drugs and are going to take them. Also: my experience of alcohol is of skilled craftspeople making excellent drinks that I enjoy drinking, so if anyone wants to declare those fine artists “a blight on society,” I’m going to disagree.
Not just that PM, but therefore, alcohol is a blight on our society, caused by neo liberalism, so without actually addressing the binge drinking culture, let’s just put the price up and make more profits for the liquor companies.
It’s not a blight on people like me who drink responsibly.
There are, of course, those who fail to show common sense, drink to excess, and cause a multitude of costly issues. But a broad broom sweep approach won’t fix a surgical strike issue.
Hoons and a lot of kiwis in cars drive like shit, causing a multitude of accidents and death each year, a very real societal problem.
Environmental arguments to one side, you’ll be up for banning under 25s and most drivers from our roads then?
I commented it was a blight on society.
Not you individually.
I think this thread proves New Zealanders are in denial about the severity of the problem.
On this site, there are people in denial or disinterested about quite a few things…..
Alcohol and its impacts on society.
The welfare of animals in industrial farming.
A meat diet’s impact on climate change.
The media’s bias over news from Syria, Ukraine, Yemen.
Those of us who address these subjects are subject to vile abuse.
Alcohol is a vital part of my life, is a massive part of our economy and a whole bunch less damaging to our land as a productive export than dairy, is a free choice, is regular by local government through democratic hearings about their location, and of course strongly regulated through central government with tax that is fairly up there.
That’s before you get to enforcement.
One of the biggest new enforcements is the random drug testing within the Worksafe framework. It really does regulate your life on Friday and Sunday as well as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Not a bad thing overall.
The only way you are going to make a successful argument for more regulation of alcohol is if you set out the benefits with the costs and do an evaluation, rather than just bleating on about the costs.
It is hardly a controversial opinion to say that alcohol is a blight on our society.
It is hardly a controversial opinion to say that animals are treated cruelly in the industrial farming model.
And even if you disagree with those opinions, there is no need for abuse.
I wrote “It is hardly a controversial opinion to say that animals are treated cruelly in the industrial farming model.”
However, the number of animals living a ‘Life of Riley’ until they are slaughtered is a minuscule fraction.
Food is undoubtedly a very contentious issue that divides the American public, with no shortage of opinions on what’s right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy and eco-friendly or unsustainable. However, even when it comes to such a polarizing topic, there is common ground to be found by everyone ranging from vegans to die-hard meat eaters. No one can deny the destructive nature of the force that dominates our food system (i.e. industrial animal agriculture or factory farming). When you take into account the fact that factory farms raise 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle currently sold in the United States, it’s shocking how much time we waste debating each other, rather than trying to actually change the system.
“I commented it was a blight on society.
Not you individually.”
And I answered accordingly, to me personally it’s not a blight, but for some, who have no self control or a modicum of common sense, it’s a big problem. There are solutions, I’m sure, but prohibition won’t work, especially when it’s cheap as chips to home brew or distil.
As for the rest of your reply, well, as noted above, it’s not vile abuse but disagreement, and yeah, we get it, you want to be the summer bbq killer. 🙄
PM
To make the argument/discussion clearer when you refer to a commenter can you say their name. Your comment was put up today at 9.21 am and finishes after ecomaori’s at 8.35 pm. I guess it is in relation to veutoviper’s but why not make it easier to connect the dots?
I will try to remember to do that. In my defence, when I posted comment 1.4 at 9:21am in response to comment 1 from Ed at 8:09am, it was fairly obvious who I was referring to – I didn’t anticipate the lengthy subthreads that would push my comment well down the page. Not an excuse though, I should have quoted him.
Yes PM
That is what I have noticed happening to me and have had to resort occasionally to shifting my comment by deleting the original and copying it to where I knew it would sit better.
Pot, meet kettle. Your ad nauseam moralising isn’t a “debate”. When people point out your logical fallacies (which are numerous) you pack a sad, play the victim card and start smearing them.
Your behaviour is more reminiscent of Peter George than CV and PU.
Urophagia, by the way, is a trait attributed* to such as Ghandi. What’s the matter Ed, don’t you like being compared to the Mahatma?
I eat a plant based diet and Ed is insulting me. His attempt to cast himself as an extra in The Crucible is another insult, given the behaviour and temperament of the Salem persecutors.
So perhaps it’s you who doesn't get it: when Ed either stops abusing people, or stops whinging when he can’t handle the response, I'll stop pointing it out.
I’m considerably, CONSIDERABLY C O N S I D E R A B L Y more pompous, utterly more wise and wearied, and most extensively more full of myself than ya lot of ya.
Why I’m so gorgeous I can’t look in a mirror for fear of having an orgasm.
Yet another sign of fake jobs and fake businesses and dodgy work permits. Sarabjit Singh managed by Payal Kumar and employed on a work visa for a low level cafe job by Ben Singh Holdings, in a area of high unemployment.
The worker was only paid $150 a week in cash. There were no records of the cash payments because the ledger that recorded the payments was “allegedly” stolen during a break-in.
No wonder NZ is going down the toilet in productivity and employment practises when this is the ‘new’ culture that has been fostered under the National government.
Not enough crack down by the new government – they should be urgently reviewing all the work permits given out to check they are not being abused and actually if they are real jobs with real businesses and not this type of carry on.
Not only that but wrecking our tourist industry when there are so many tourist businesses now operating without knowledge of NZ rules and regulations.
Stayed at an upmarket hotel in the holidays, same type of thing that is turning NZ into a poorly regulated tourist market seemingly operated entirely by migrant workers. In this instance stayed at a so called upmarket hotel that turned out to have poor cleaning, and poor maintenance of a formerly beautiful hotel on a lake. It appeared to have been bought by an offshore chain and staffed with beaten down migrants who don’t seem to understand purpose or method of hospitality.
Seems to be the new way to run down NZ image, as part of globalism. A race to the bottom and to exploit local resources and remove local culture and charm to save an offshore $.
Another article referring to the oncoming financial crash.
“Many believe 2018 could be the year that country finally does something about its own huge debt problems.
When just one asset is going up, you explain it by the characteristics of that asset. But if you have an everything bubble, you need to look at the trend behind the trend.
Cast your mind back a few years and you may recall the expression “quantitative easing”. This is where central banks pumped money into the economy to try to help us recover from the global financial crisis. It happened in the US, Japan and Europe.
It worked, more or less. But the effect was similar to what you see in a game of Monopoly. The amount of money in circulation kept going up, but the number of assets to buy remained stubbornly still. As anyone who has forked out $600 in Monopoly money for Old Kent Road knows, asset prices go up as the ratio of money to assets goes up.
Quantitative easing is really just an extreme version of cutting interest rates. In both cases, the idea is to make people borrow more and spend more. So even though Australia didn’t have quantitative easing, low interest rates and the record amounts of household debt Aussies are shouldering represent its part of the everything bubble.
The problem with loose monetary policy is that while it is supposed to make people do productive things like start a new company, it has a side effect of making them buy assets at crazy prices. If the everything bubble pops, it may turn out that the cure for the global financial crisis is what caused the next crisis.”
Ed, that whole article is cast in terms of “if” and what “many (unidentified people) believe”. It’s conjecture for the slow news season.
Also note this, from the final paragraph: “The exciting thing about this question is we don’t know. Immediate panic is not necessary — it is unlikely each asset class will fall together like synchronised divers. More likely, a decline in one will overlap with a decline in another, creating a long period of uncertainty.”
You could be right that 2018 will bring a crash, but you seem determined to only see the negative possibilities and seem to simply discount anything that isn’t a disaster scenario.
Yes, well I’m in Ed’s camp on this. Plenty would not believe that 2008 would happen!! But it did. We are at similar pressure points in the system again.
Of course vested interest bodies call us “chicken little” LOL.
Predicting 200 of the last two crashes is easy. Of course they happen, and of course that means there’ll be another. So far, so ‘peak oil theory’.
Actually predicting them requires a lot more hard work than reading articles in the media. If The Big Short can be believed, Michael Burry hired people to literally pore through all the individual sub-prime mortgage records. Yes, all of them.
and even then it was just a more educated bet than the other bets. If the timing had been off, the shorted packages would have increased in price and needed repayment.
it’s all reducing confidence intervals, but never eliminating them. And most people never get enough information to close them all that much in the first place.
Thank you. Good to hear there are those who agree with this point of view.
There are reputable independent economists who are telling us about an oncoming crash.
Steve Keen
“The bubble will burst in the next one to two years – there’s been a real acceleration in house prices since 2012, they’ve increased by about 60 percent. But what I’m seeing now is the motivating force for rising house prices is rising mortgage credit. The wind in that bubble is starting to run out.”
You claim to want a discussion, Ed. But when I engaged with your comment at 1, you pretended to agree with me, then went right back to reciting your litany as though our exchange hadn’t happened.
You then went on to describe the counter arguments as abuse, itself an insult to those who had indulged your alleged desire for discussion.
While you continue to misrepresent the counter arguments to your narrative, I guarantee you that people will continue to notice and comment on that misrepresentation.
I’m not surprised you’re feeling beleaguered though. Perhaps if you engaged in better faith you might find people a little less persistent.
What do you think of my argument that sloppily-presented narratives provide comfort to “the enemy”?*
*One Two, please try and discover what inverted commas are for before your knee starts jerking at “the enemy”.
“I’m not surprised you’re feeling beleaguered though.”
Astute, AOB. If I’d received these responses on ‘Open Mike’ today, I’d feel the same:
“a sop to moralising curtain-twitchers”
“All because you don’t get the nodding dogs you’re looking for. Sob sob.”
“So why do you smear and abuse people then?”
“Pot, meet kettle. Your ad nauseam moralising isn’t a “debate”. When people point out your logical fallacies (which are numerous) you pack a sad, play the victim card and start smearing them.”
“What’s the matter Ed, don’t you like being compared to the Mahatma?”
The antipathy of AOB (aided by BM) towards Ed’s comments on today’s Open Mike is painfully obvious. Thankfully, they refrain from personal abuse.
Another day in paradise Kia ora Graham Norton I watch your show guite regularly
Now you know I’m backing Joseph Parker camp to win. Well everyone knows this fact we’re Kiwis after all I like my pies to we can’t all have the time to think about our physique if I did one knows that my Maori genetic would easily rip up. I like to watch Jimmy Barns son David Campbell on sky news. I know Iv got a big following in Australia to many thanks to all the people around OUR WORLD For your support. I know that the house that Mama raised me in Gisborne and the one buy the Waiapu river will be oneday a place that a lot of people will visit to honour me. PS to the red headed sandfly you smoke you like stake to go pinch off rich people you dick ECO doesn’t miss anything and do not kid yourself that you can pull a trick with out me noticeing. Ka kite ano
On the topic of suspicious work visas (savenz @2 ), could someone please enlighten me?
I just had 3 days of dealing with a couple of tradies, I’ll spare the details, a major complaint has already be made to the Property Manager and is being dealt with. But I’m somewhat curious about how one of them is allowed to be working here, ie what visa?
Main contractor originally from a South-East Asian country. His younger off-sider, same nationality but literally doesn’t speak a word of English, and isn’t exactly even close to being ‘skilled” in his trade (it’s painting btw)
So…are painters a skill shortage category?
Could he be sponsored here by family if they can say there’s a job for him and that’s a way in for residency?
Family reunification scheme of some sort? (It’s not a country involving refugees)
Genuinely ignorant on the matters, and curious if anyone knows about these things.
I could hazard a guess…and it would be that the younger guy is being paid a pittance and not technically entitled to be working here.
He’s probably also been bullshitted to, and found that on arrival, things are not what was promised.
Now that he’s here though, the choices are either to beg, or to do whatever work is available.
Btw…I hope you’ve not succumbed to the latest exploitative sector involving immigrant slave labour (home renovation). They’re now even trying to sell franchises
@OWT, that’s what I was a bit worried about. I’m not even totally convinced the guy was being given adequate breaks for 10hr day work.
I’m not sure what- if anything I can do about this. I’m just the renter, these guys are contractors used by the property managers so I don’t get to pick and choose. I get the idea the latter has known the former for some time.
it’s a hard decision but it were me, I’d try and get a phone #, then get in touch with somebody such as the Immigrant Workers Association.
Until such time as MoBIE/INZ start caring more about the victims of exploitation rsther than those doing the exploiting, I wouldn’t go near them
Whereupon the contractor may, or may not be prosecuted-depending on resources available, and the victim will likely be deported, whilst the ripoff artist will not lose his recently acquired PR, and will simply move on to the next.
Meanwhile, the consultants, many of whom have vested and financial interest in the racket will continue to get their percentage.
It’s a nice idea @Craig H, but unless something has radically changed since last September, it doesn’t quite work like that or as you intend
Kay, in Aus tradies need a blue card to work, and have to produce it. This can be checked, so you don’t get your situation happening. Huge fines ensue for cheats and employers. NZ needs that to protect the public.
@Kay – welcome to a world where exploitation seems to be rife. Firstly exploitation of work permits, then getting more people in who are either working illegally or have a fake permit or even legitimate one, but speak no English so therefore hard to know what is going on.
Then the property manager is employing them probably through another firm that organises the work who charge a percentage fee, the property agency is probably charging around 10% on top of that for their labour to the owner of the rental. Being two people there there will be two labour charges even if one can’t do the job and is being trained, or the supervisor one leaves the other one in charge and left to their own devices.
So simple work turns into hundreds or thousands of dollars pretty quickly more than it should, and often a very bad job which takes longer than it should and generates complaints from all concerned. People forced to work long hours for a pittance don’t tend to do a very good job or if they do, it catches up on them and they start having accidents and needing ACC.
The terrible shortages of rentals are also related to the burgeoning costs of being able to get legitimate labour who can do a good job without it being some sort of scam rather than doing a decent days work for a decent wage.
I like the German system where tradespeople have to guarantee their work for 10 years and faulty work can actually lead to jail.
The NZ way, seems to be to do as little as possible, for as much money as possible with as many people as possible taking a cut along the way, even for very small amounts of un or semi-skilled work and the end worker is on minimum wages or less and often incompetent.
On the building front even when you insure work through master builders or whatever, you still do not get a real guarantee that the work will be fixed. So you essentially pay before hand, an extra fee, in the knowledge the builder will make mistakes and have to fix them and it can be a lot of work even getting the work fixed even with the insurance that you pay for.
We have a system in NZ that exploits everyday in the construction industry. That is why I don’t think that we can simply build these affordable houses to stem the shortage of houses.
Even the houses being built under the NZ system are faulty or have faulty materials even before you put forward the constant stream of contractors and sub contractors and the amount of cheap labour being utilised at expensive rates.
Standard work visas include working holiday visas, partner visas ( both of NZers and of work visa holders), work visas for students who have passed their courses, or even student visas.
Oh dear!!!! Sir John Key has been caught up in that false missile attack alert in Hawaii!
How ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIC.
THANKFULLY Granny has been in contact apparently, and we can all rest assured that he didn’t panic.
Wow! That’s a big load off my mind.
shonky key is a neolibreal in reality he would have shit his pants and been trying to get the first flight out of there with tears running down his face he Hawii can have the bigot we don’t want his type in New Zealand .Some people say NZ is not paradise well caste your eyes around our world and find better and I will prove you wrong.
Ana to kai
“So, we all know in our hearts that rodeo is wrong. But with Michael Laws speaking up for it, we now know it’s got to be even wronger-er than we originally thought.”
shonky key is a neolibreal in reality he would have shit his pants and been trying to get the first flight out of there with tears running down his face he Hawii can have the bigot we don’t want his type in New Zealand .Some people say NZ is not paradise well caste your eyes around our world and find better and I will prove you wrong.
Ana to kai
We are in a lot of trouble.
Unless significant action is taken by governments and people in the next 10 years, extinction beckons.
Take action today to save the planet and life on it.
I quote from the Guardian.
We are on a Planet that is heating up quickly.
“The years 2017, 2016 and 2015 will make up the three hottest years on record for the planet. But there’s no convincing some people.
When the global temperature readings are in for 2017, it’s going to be a very hard sell for climate-science deniers: 2017 will likely be ranked either side of 2015 as the second or third hottest year on record, with 2016 still in top spot.
The hottest five-year period recorded in the modern era will be the one we’ve just had.
Communities around the world, and the flora and fauna we share it with, feel the effects of that steady rise through extreme weather, droughts, heatwaves, shifting rains, melting ice and rising sea levels.
Levels of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and land clearing keep climbing.”
Trump’s America.
Let’s not hear any more hypocritical lectures or abuse to Iran, Syria, Russia, Haiti or the continent of Africa.
The US is a failed state.
“BALTIMORE — Overnight, Imamu Baraka was walking past a Baltimore hospital when he noticed something he says he’ll never forget.
The hospital’s security guards had just wheeled a patient to a bus stop, and in the freezing temperatures they left her there. The only thing she had on was a hospital gown.
“It’s about 30 degrees out here right now,” Baraka says in a recording of the encounter. “Are you OK, ma’am? Do you need me to call the police?” he asks.
It’s called “patient dumping” and it doesn’t just happen in Baltimore. In 2007, “60 Minutes” investigated the practice of removing homeless patients from Los Angeles hospitals and leaving them downtown.”
Trump is playing a game with all US people of the world that alam warning that scared the shit out of Hawaii was known accident. You know why I say that because that is what neoliberalism does they play games with other people lives like what the sandflys are doing to me and my whano. But when things are Fucked up like the world at the moment I can see a thew thing in play from trump around our world. He is a racist bigot it will turn to shit fast with the way he is running the white house. Mother nature and mother earth does not like whats happening in the world that’s why Americans are getting hammer by them. You can’t restart the game donald it you fuck the world. It amazed me to see that a man like that could get the controls to one of the most powerful countries in the world . You know what it amazed donald and his family that he won look at the night they won they were all gobsmacked mouths open they couldn’t believe that donald won an never could the world. This cannot be allowed to happen again WTF. KIA KAHA
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Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
At an antagonistic hearing yesterday, the internet giant laid out the ‘worst case scenario’. And Facebook is also considering an ‘amputation’. Hal Crawford was watching.Google is poised to hit self-destruct in Australia according to a fractious Senate hearing into an unprecedented law that will force digital giants to pay money ...
It’s great to hear Phil Twyford celebrating a success. Not a personal ministerial success, it’s fair to say, but a success nevertheless related to arms control. The arms on which Twyford is focused, it should be noted, will make quite a mess if they are triggered. They tend to be ...
Duncan Greive and Leonie Hayden were young hip hop heads and music journalists during the era captured in a new documentary about the rise and fall of South Auckland hip hop label Dawn Raid. Here they discuss the film and their memories (what’s left of them) of that time. Warning: contains ...
Houses might be the most popular and inflated purchases in New Zealand, but there are plenty of other products that are seeing soaring demand and prices over the past few months. Here’s a list of what New Zealanders are spending their money on with international travel out of the picture.Used ...
"The young boy leaps, the muscles in his thighs tensing and twisting as he lifts from the handrail": the noble art of bombing, by Pātea writer Airana Ngarewa A beautifully muscled boy is posted on the side of a pool, his feet fixed to the top of a pair of ...
How Waiwera Hot Pools went from New Zealand’s most visited water park to dereliction and decay. Many who grew up in Auckland likely have fond memories of Waiwera Hot Pools. Like me, they remember summer days spent racing down the slides and playing in the naturally hot pools. But how did ...
A government contract for a P rehab programme was canned after half a million dollars of taxpayer money was given out. Aaron Smale investigates. The Ministry of Health spent over half a million dollars on a P Rehab contract before pulling the pin because there were no results or progress reports. ...
Kia Koropp and her husband John Daubeny have been cruising the Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean over the past decade with their two children onboard their 50ft yacht, Atea. Starting in 2011 from Auckland, New Zealand, they have sailed more than 64,000 kilometres and just completed their longest ...
We are drowning out the natural world with synthetic sounds, and it’s getting worse, writes Michelle Langstone.It used to be quiet once. Remember that? Remember the hush that settled over the cities like the silence that comes down in a snowstorm? It’s less than a year since Aotearoa first locked ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden in the latest episode of On the Rag as they examine the topic of boobs from every possible angle. First published November 16, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Seventy-five years after the US detonated the first nuclear tests in the Pacific, New Zealand pledges its support to Joe Biden's first tentative step towards disarmament. Today, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons comes into effect, making it illegal for New Zealand and the 50 other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Terry, Professor of Psychology, University of Southern Queensland The challenge of bringing the world’s best tennis players and support staff, about 1,200 people in all, from COVID-ravaged parts of the world to our almost pandemic-free shores was always going to be ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Browne, Research Fellow in International Urban Development, University of Melbourne The Victorian government has committed to removing 75 road/rail level crossings across Melbourne by 2025. That’s the fastest rate of removal in the city’s history. The scale of the investment — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it is also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Stevens, Lecturer in History, University of Waikato In a year of surprises, one of the more pleasant was the recent runaway viral popularity of 19th century sea shanties on TikTok. A collaborative global response to pandemic isolation, it saw singers and ...
The sudden departure of Graine Moss from her Chief Executive role at Oranga Tamariki is a vital first step in a sequence of changes that must take place at the Ministry according to a group of wahine Māori leaders. Dame Naida Glavish, Dame Tariana Turia, ...
A new poem from Dunedin poet Jenny Powell.Her uncle’s eyeShe introduced us to her uncle’s eye floating in a jar.Lost in an accident, he hadn’t wanted to lose it again. He left it to her in his will.We must have looked shocked. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I turn him to ...
The chief executive of Oranga Tamariki is quitting, leaving behind an agency she’s admitted suffers from structural racism. Justin Giovannetti looks at the future of Oranga Tamariki.Grainne Moss’s tenure as head of Oranga Tamariki has been untenable since November when the government’s senior Māori minister wouldn’t express any confidence in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Sainsbury, Senior Lecturer Composition, Australian National University Despite having different cultural backgrounds and experiences — Indigenous composers with an Indigenous mentor, and a pianist descended from Anglo-colonial history — it is nevertheless possible to create a project that can serve as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Plank, Professor in Applied Mathematics, University of Canterbury With new, more infectious variants of COVID-19 detected around the world, and at New Zealand’s border, the risk of further level 3 or 4 lockdowns is increased if those viruses get into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Hogg, Lecturer in Psychology, Charles Sturt University Horse racing is an ethical hotbed in Australia. The Melbourne Cup alone has seen seven horses die after racing since 2013, and animal cruelty protesters have become a common feature at carnivals. The latest ...
Right now, our most fiery national debate is over whether New Zealanders were nice to the singer Amanda Palmer in a café. Desperate to restore peace in our nation, Hayden Donnell went in search of the truth.Joe Biden had barely finished calling for unity when Amanda Palmer posted a tweet ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (Pushkin Press, $37)Maths, cyanide, suicide, gardening; ye ...
Wellington artist Estère isn’t just breaking boundaries, she’s dissecting them. Maddi Rowe spoke to her about her new album, Archetypes.“That’s the story of pelicans, they’ll stab themselves in the heart to feed their young.”Despite the somewhat dark subject matter, Estère Dalton’s eyes sparkle with fascination. We’ve met to discuss Archetypes, ...
Cycling advocates are welcoming new advice from the Transport Agency on safe cycling. "Cyclists hate it when drivers pass too close. That's scary and dangerous," said Patrick Morgan from Cycling Action Network. "So it's encouraging to see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tilman Ruff, Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne Today, many around the world will celebrate the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to enter into force in 50 years. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear ...
The Public Service Association welcomes the creation of a Chief Executive role to lead the public service’s pay equity work, and the appointment of Grainne Moss to this position. "Unions and public service employers are currently working ...
The Council of Trade Unions is warning that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures out today illustrate that the cost of living is increasing disproportionately for those on lower incomes; resulting in the poor getting poorer. CTU Economist Craig ...
Why are there so many offensive comments on the New Zealand Police Facebook page and are they breaking the law? Janaye Henry investigates. New Zealand Police Facebook pages – there are a number of them, for different regional police districts around the country – are an interesting place to spend ...
Our guide to stopping procrastinating and actually (finally) getting on top of investing. Because there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you don’t know a single thing about it.In part one, we covered some of the basic things you need to know about investing – why do it? ...
Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft acknowledges the huge effort and commitment of departing Oranga Tamariki Chief Executive Grainne Moss and says her decision to resign today was principled. “The issues facing Oranga Tamariki are beyond individual ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Two Large Waves versus One Tsunami. Chart by Keith Rankin. Two Large Waves versus One Tsunami. Chart by Keith Rankin. With Covid19, Italy shows the classic European pattern, with its early outbreak, substantial recovery thanks to lockdowns and other public health measures, and resurgence thanks to complacency ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Appleby, Professor, UNSW Law School, UNSW This year has already seen significant progress in the government’s commitment to establish a body – a “Voice” – that would allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have a say when the government ...
Northland farmer Derek Robinson was sentenced earlier today by the District Court in Whangarei for two offences of ill-treating animals at rodeo events. Mr Robinson was found guilty in November last year, following a defended hearing. The charges ...
Under fire Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss has announced she will resign, effective February 28, Marc Daalder reports After four and a half years at the helm of child protection agency Oranga Tamariki, chief executive Grainne Moss has announced she will be leaving the position at the end of ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and New Zealand Police acknowledge the sentencing of 36-year-old Aaron Joseph Hutton on charges relating to the possession of child sexual exploitation material, and entering into a dealing involving the sexual exploitation ...
Ngā Tāngata Microfinance (NTM) is calling for tougher penalties for those caught promoting pyramid schemes. Such business models are illegal under the Fair Trading Act 1986. This call comes after the Commerce Commission issued a ‘stop now’ notice ...
British High Commissioner to New Zealand Laura Clarke is calling on young women aged 17 to 25 to apply for the annual ‘Be British High Commissioner for the Day’ competition. The winner will have the opportunity to become an ‘honorary High Commissioner’, ...
The Māori Party is welcoming the resignation of Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss after sustained pressure from leading figures within the Māori Party. This resignation is the result of the continued strong pressure of the Māori Party ...
In a historic corner of Dunedin, startup culture is thriving. Catherine McGregor visited the city’s Warehouse Precinct to meet the people driving the movement. When Jason and Kate Lindsey bought the four storey building now known as Petridish, it was an absolute wreck. Once home to a thriving hat and textiles ...
Summer reissue: The Fold’s very first guest is back to tell Duncan Greive how she pulled off the media deal of the year.The chaotic couple of weeks which finally saw the end of the Stuff-NZME saga were riveting and strange, replete with stock exchange announcements, legal challenges and finally the ...
Chris Liddell has dropped his candidacy to become director-general of the Paris-based OECD. Without support from the Ardern government and vilified in the media as somehow being involved in the encouragement by Donald Trump of the Washington riots, he plainly saw he had little chance of crowning his stellar career ...
Tara Ward hands out her first impression roses as she dives deep into the sea of single men vying to win The Bachelorette NZ’s heart. While the world burns in a searing fireball of unpredictability, we can take comfort in the fact that some things never change. The heart still yearns, ...
People from all around New Zealand will be converging on the super-secret Waihopai satellite interception spybase, in Marlborough, on Saturday January 30th. ...
In its Thursday editorial the NZ Herald speaks an important truth: “Investment important to stay on track”. This won’t have startled its more literate readers but in its text it notes the strong result in the latest Global Dairy Trade auction, which prompted Westpac to raise its forecast for dairy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Mark, Professor, Faculty of International Studies, Kyoritsu Women’s University With the spread of COVID-19 steadily worsening in Japan since the onset of winter — daily records for infections and deaths continue to be broken — the fate of the Tokyo Summer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Taylor, Early Career Research Leader, Emerging Viruses, Inflammation and Therapeutics Group, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University All eyes are on COVID-19 vaccines, with Australia’s first expected to be approved for use shortly. But their development in record time, without compromising ...
Yesterday’s government announcement on new state housing is a pathetic response to the biggest housing crisis in New Zealand since the 1940s. At a time when the country needs an industrial-scale state house building programme, the government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Obadiah Mulder, PhD Candidate in Computational Biology, University of Southern California Australia is in the midst of tropical cyclone season. As we write, a cyclone is forming off Western Australia’s Pilbara coast, and earlier in the week Queenslanders were bracing for a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynette Vernon, School of Education – VC Research Fellow, Edith Cowan University When the holidays end, barring a fresh outbreak of COVID-19, teenagers across Australia will head back to school. Some will bounce out of bed well before the alarm goes off, ...
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Alcohol
A blight on our society
#3
Young drinkers consuming more alcohol than ever.
However, what is it that causes people to abuse booze and other drugs?
Economics.
Blaming inanimate substances for the damage that right wing economists do just makes finding solutions more difficult. It’s a waste of resources and a sop to moralising curtain-twitchers.
Straight out of the NRA handbook!
Do you have any substantive objection to the observation that alcohol abuse is connected to the GINI?
Where alcohol is priced out of people’s reach – or prohibited altogether – they make it themselves, at home.
No.
I think that sounds right.
I agree.
The extent of alcohol abuse in New Zealand is caused by neo-liberalism.
What was the cause of the extensive alcoholism in the USSR?
The Edbots CPU has just exploded.
I would imagine poverty and deprivation.
Not according to the MoH – alcohol rates have been steadily dropping rather rising under neo-liberalism (not a defense of neo-liberalism, just the facts don’t align with your opinion)
http://www.moh.govt.nz/notebook/nbbooks.nsf/0/66f2e1f58796381e4c2566de0005fcf3/$FILE/phot_145_153.pdf
Edit – report only covers 1980 – 2000 but nonetheless clearly shows neo-liberalism and alcohol use doesn’t. It seem to be correlated
Is there any societal Ill you believe is not caused by neo liberalism?
To be fair, most social ills are at the very least exacerbated by it.
I’m having a bit of difficulty thinking of a social ill that doesn’t have a large proportion of its present prevalence attributable to neoliberalism, i.e. it would be much less of an issue if we’d kept our social democratic / democratic socialist ideals of Savage and Kirk and even Muldoon.
edit: I suppose the starting point would be some sort of congenital condition that’s not due to antenatal factors or genetic damage to a parent from environmental factors. But even then you have the affordability of ongoing life-course care for the baby.
This interview with ‘The Spirit Level’ author Richard Wilkinson explains how inequality creates societal ills.
What a load of bullshit that article was.
Executive director of Alcohol Healthwatch Nicki Jackson is just trying to justify the grants her organization receives, it can never improve otherwise she puts herself out of a job.
An interesting article, Ed, but it would be helpful if you had included in your summary that this Australian study (considered by the NZ Alcohol Healthwatch to be in line with what is happening to NZ) also found that more teenagers are choosing to turn away from alcohol.
The remarks you quoted from Dr Jackson, Executive Director of Alcohol Healthwatch were in fact preceded by this statement in respect of New Zealand:
“”Yes, there’s been declines in young people choosing to take up drinking but we’ve seen no declines whatsoever in the style in which young people drink, they’re still drinking very heavily so that culture hasn’t changed.”
Good point.
I agree with you ED alcohol is A DRUG that cause more damage to OUR worlds society as the law says its safe to consume this poison yes ITS a poison
1I know of at least 5 people whom have died from drinking to much alcohol one of them was a famous Rock Star .
2 Our youth think its safe until next minute they are locked up for something they did while pissed and can not remember what happened and if that person was not pissed they would be a good person and never commit a crime.
3 Other people whom are experienced drinkers can wait untill one is tiddly and then encourage them to drink up hotties usually and they have got you pissed and can get the you to do what they want
4 drinks can be spiked with other drugs never leave your drinks unattended make sure you go drinking with people you trust as If one is pissed I say you are mental as most don’t remember what they did when one is rolling blind drunk this is why they call it blind drunk and there are reports of people losing one sight temporary when one has consumed to much alcohol .
5 I think its a sin to let OUR Mokos think alcohol is a safe drug and then let them find out all the negative effects alcohol has on them while they are in a unsafe environment all the bad side effects of alcohol should be advertize so OUR mokos know to sip the stuff or it will fuck them up.
6 What about all the violence that happens when people are pissed check the hospital records
7 Car crashes other people being killed by drunks drivers what a waste of lives
8 All the disabled people who got there injuries while pissed
9 Every year we have two big events and everyone is encouraging everyone to get pissed I could not work that out logically I drink a little I learnt through trial and error If one is in a good mood when drinking alcohol its not to bad but if one is in a bad mood while drinking that’s when the violence starts I have never hit any of my loved ones while being drunk most of the time I would not bother to go and drink it was others that got me to go out with them I was happy watching videos at home.
10 The neoliberal used alcohol to break MAORI MANA my te puna Sir Apirana Ngata new this was happening and in 1920 got a ban on alcohol on the east coast for 10 years He was the one person who saved a lot of Maoris Mana need
I say more Ka kite ano
Quite a list of damage to our people in this country.
It makes me both angry and sad to see the devastation this repulsive drug does.
It would be so simple to apply a more sensible drug policy for alcohol.
Your comment is an example of the logical fallacy “non-sequitur.”
Your argument is:
Premise: some yoofs still drink a lot of alcohol.
Conclusion: therefore, alcohol is a blight on our society.
But the conclusion you’ve drawn doesn’t logically follow from the premise you’ve provided. I guess there’s an implied premise in there that alcohol is a Bad Thing, but that would merely change the logical fallacy to “begging the question.”
I can’t really blame you though, as non-sequitur is also Dr Jackson’s mode of operation – it’s fairly hard to endorse her views without falling into logical fallacies yourself.
Don’t you think alcohol is a blight on our society?
No.
The people who can’t handle their piss and cause problems are a blight on society.
The best option is to ban the people who abuse alcohol and leave the vast majority of people who like a beer, wine or whatever your drink of choice is, alone.
Here is some evidence of the damage alcohol does to society …..
New Zealand is no paradise, we’re all drunk
Latta goes easy on alcohol. Yeah, right
I really do hate people who change the measurement when talking about something. It’s poor language skills that can produce misunderstanding.
That five billion per year equates to about 96 million per week. Which means that we’re seriously subsiding the alcohol industry.
Yeah, but it’s spent locally and probably mostly on NZ products (beer and wine), so there’d be a hefty multiplier on the strict sale value for the economic activity. Not to mention exports.
So the profit/loss ledger could well swing either way.
The NZ wine industry is not as local as you might realise.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/65932216/how-the-land-lies-in-foreign-hands
Nor is our ‘local’ beer.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/business/db-set-to-come-under-full-heineken-control-2012080414
Yes all those profits are going overseas, leaving behind a litany of social damage.
Did you watch Nigel Latta’s documentaty on alcohol in New Zealand?
I recommend you do so you are more aware of the level of foreign ownership of the liquor industry.
Nigel Latta: The Trouble With Booze
So it’s just the manufacturing and sale costs that get recirculated. Big whoop, it doesn’t alter the fact that economic activity is more than just the point of sale transaction.
No Knighthood for this man.
Karl du frense in super stupid mode ….. called for Sgt Lawn to shut up or get out of our police force.
How dare Sgt Lawn speak about the single biggest generator of police ‘work’ …..
Cheap piss was a sign sir john key loved us ……
Thank you for doing the Maths.
So we as a society subsidise the international liquor corporations to the tune of #11 million a week.
No wonder they lobby so hard to control our politicians.
I don’t think you can call calculations involving a made-up number “doing the maths.” It’s more like “making shit up.”
As for solutions, the Law Commission disagreed with you.
Alcohol in our lives: Curbing the harm
Sadly, the National Party did not care.
https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-issues/2010-2019/2014/vol-127-no-1401/6270
It’s not that they can’t handle their piss but that they’ve been taught that getting drunk is the thing to do.
To change that we need to change our drinking culture away from weekend binge drinking. Many European nations drink more per capita than we do but don’t have the same problems as they don’t drink it all on Saturday night as we do.
To change that we need to change our drinking culture away from weekend binge drinking.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Also, we don’t “need” to do anything in response to people choosing to do things we personally would rather they didn’t.
this is another one of those things where people are choosing to do things that harms others and they don’t actually have a right to do that. So, yes, we do actually need to do something about it.
But it is certainly a cultural change that we need to bring about and that will take years and even decades.
People doing things that harm others can be taken up directly with the perpetrators.
How if we don’t have rules about it?
How if the culture that we have says it’s all right?
How are we going to take it up with the perpetrators if we don’t have a way to teach/propagate acceptable behaviour?
The perpetrators of NZ’s mental health crisis will never be held to account. All we can do is repair their vandalism.
We do have rules about harming others, variously classed as offences, crimes etc. Which is, not coincidentally, also a way to teach/propagate acceptable behaviour.
So, why are you so against refining them?
The various proposals for “doing something” aren’t aimed at people who harm others, or about refining the existing rules against harming others.
See ecomaori’s list of damage.
Not a blight.
What a joke.
Don’t you think alcohol is a blight on our society?
No. Complaining about people taking recreational drugs is pointless – people like recreational drugs and are going to take them. Also: my experience of alcohol is of skilled craftspeople making excellent drinks that I enjoy drinking, so if anyone wants to declare those fine artists “a blight on society,” I’m going to disagree.
Not just that PM, but therefore, alcohol is a blight on our society, caused by neo liberalism, so without actually addressing the binge drinking culture, let’s just put the price up and make more profits for the liquor companies.
The Law Commission made several recommendations.
Pricing was but one of the solutions proposed.
Don’t you think alcohol is a blight on our society?
It’s not a blight on people like me who drink responsibly.
There are, of course, those who fail to show common sense, drink to excess, and cause a multitude of costly issues. But a broad broom sweep approach won’t fix a surgical strike issue.
Hoons and a lot of kiwis in cars drive like shit, causing a multitude of accidents and death each year, a very real societal problem.
Environmental arguments to one side, you’ll be up for banning under 25s and most drivers from our roads then?
I commented it was a blight on society.
Not you individually.
I think this thread proves New Zealanders are in denial about the severity of the problem.
On this site, there are people in denial or disinterested about quite a few things…..
Alcohol and its impacts on society.
The welfare of animals in industrial farming.
A meat diet’s impact on climate change.
The media’s bias over news from Syria, Ukraine, Yemen.
Those of us who address these subjects are subject to vile abuse.
Back to throwing insulting smears around again I see.
All because you don’t get the nodding dogs you’re looking for. Sob sob.
Alcohol is a vital part of my life, is a massive part of our economy and a whole bunch less damaging to our land as a productive export than dairy, is a free choice, is regular by local government through democratic hearings about their location, and of course strongly regulated through central government with tax that is fairly up there.
That’s before you get to enforcement.
One of the biggest new enforcements is the random drug testing within the Worksafe framework. It really does regulate your life on Friday and Sunday as well as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Not a bad thing overall.
The only way you are going to make a successful argument for more regulation of alcohol is if you set out the benefits with the costs and do an evaluation, rather than just bleating on about the costs.
You put forward controversial opinions and are subject to disagreement, not vile abuse.
Oh how unfair, Ed played the victim card and you just ruined it for him 😈
It is hardly a controversial opinion to say that alcohol is a blight on our society.
It is hardly a controversial opinion to say that animals are treated cruelly in the industrial farming model.
And even if you disagree with those opinions, there is no need for abuse.
Isn’t this called Open Mike?
Some animals aren’t treated cruelly. For example, James’ free range beasts weren’t. Life of Riley until the butchers knife.
I wrote “It is hardly a controversial opinion to say that animals are treated cruelly in the industrial farming model.”
However, the number of animals living a ‘Life of Riley’ until they are slaughtered is a minuscule fraction.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nil-zacharias/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1018840.html
But you’re a reformed smoker type of vegenaut. You’re too emotional to be be relevant.
Your road to Damascus experience taints your objectivity.
I quoted facts.
Whatever gets you through the night, man
So why do you smear and abuse people then?
It is hardly a controversial opinion to say that alcohol is a blight on our society.
Surely the responses you’ve had to that claim on this thread have revealed to you that actually yes it is a controversial opinion.
“I commented it was a blight on society.
Not you individually.”
And I answered accordingly, to me personally it’s not a blight, but for some, who have no self control or a modicum of common sense, it’s a big problem. There are solutions, I’m sure, but prohibition won’t work, especially when it’s cheap as chips to home brew or distil.
As for the rest of your reply, well, as noted above, it’s not vile abuse but disagreement, and yeah, we get it, you want to be the summer bbq killer. 🙄
PM
To make the argument/discussion clearer when you refer to a commenter can you say their name. Your comment was put up today at 9.21 am and finishes after ecomaori’s at 8.35 pm. I guess it is in relation to veutoviper’s but why not make it easier to connect the dots?
I will try to remember to do that. In my defence, when I posted comment 1.4 at 9:21am in response to comment 1 from Ed at 8:09am, it was fairly obvious who I was referring to – I didn’t anticipate the lengthy subthreads that would push my comment well down the page. Not an excuse though, I should have quoted him.
Yes PM
That is what I have noticed happening to me and have had to resort occasionally to shifting my comment by deleting the original and copying it to where I knew it would sit better.
Do you drink at all ?? Ever ?
Ed drinks the urine donated by Phillip Ure 😈
Further unpleasant insults made against peolple on plant based diets.
Debate the issue.
There seems to be a group of people on this site who would happily participate in the witchhunt at Salem.
I recall the unpleasant treatment of Phil and cv on this site.
Pot, meet kettle. Your ad nauseam moralising isn’t a “debate”. When people point out your logical fallacies (which are numerous) you pack a sad, play the victim card and start smearing them.
Your behaviour is more reminiscent of Peter George than CV and PU.
Urophagia, by the way, is a trait attributed* to such as Ghandi. What’s the matter Ed, don’t you like being compared to the Mahatma?
*probably inaccurately.
Testify, bro dude.
I think the responses have proved your point but they don’t get it.
I eat a plant based diet and Ed is insulting me. His attempt to cast himself as an extra in The Crucible is another insult, given the behaviour and temperament of the Salem persecutors.
So perhaps it’s you who doesn't get it: when Ed either stops abusing people, or stops whinging when he can’t handle the response, I'll stop pointing it out.
I’m considerably, CONSIDERABLY C O N S I D E R A B L Y more pompous, utterly more wise and wearied, and most extensively more full of myself than ya lot of ya.
Why I’m so gorgeous I can’t look in a mirror for fear of having an orgasm.
Lordy, that’s funny, Tim!
Yet another sign of fake jobs and fake businesses and dodgy work permits. Sarabjit Singh managed by Payal Kumar and employed on a work visa for a low level cafe job by Ben Singh Holdings, in a area of high unemployment.
The worker was only paid $150 a week in cash. There were no records of the cash payments because the ledger that recorded the payments was “allegedly” stolen during a break-in.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/100532075/dargaville-cafe-worker-awarded-20k-after-exboss-paid-him-just-150-a-week
No wonder NZ is going down the toilet in productivity and employment practises when this is the ‘new’ culture that has been fostered under the National government.
Not enough crack down by the new government – they should be urgently reviewing all the work permits given out to check they are not being abused and actually if they are real jobs with real businesses and not this type of carry on.
Not only that but wrecking our tourist industry when there are so many tourist businesses now operating without knowledge of NZ rules and regulations.
Stayed at an upmarket hotel in the holidays, same type of thing that is turning NZ into a poorly regulated tourist market seemingly operated entirely by migrant workers. In this instance stayed at a so called upmarket hotel that turned out to have poor cleaning, and poor maintenance of a formerly beautiful hotel on a lake. It appeared to have been bought by an offshore chain and staffed with beaten down migrants who don’t seem to understand purpose or method of hospitality.
Seems to be the new way to run down NZ image, as part of globalism. A race to the bottom and to exploit local resources and remove local culture and charm to save an offshore $.
Our aging population 🙂
https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/100509084/celebrating-our-southlanders-robert-guyton
Valuable oldies!!
We are, Patricia! At least, our grandchildren believe so, for now…
That beard should make chimney sweeping a breeze Robert 😀
Ha!
Hours of rinsing afterwards though!
Another article referring to the oncoming financial crash.
“Many believe 2018 could be the year that country finally does something about its own huge debt problems.
When just one asset is going up, you explain it by the characteristics of that asset. But if you have an everything bubble, you need to look at the trend behind the trend.
Cast your mind back a few years and you may recall the expression “quantitative easing”. This is where central banks pumped money into the economy to try to help us recover from the global financial crisis. It happened in the US, Japan and Europe.
It worked, more or less. But the effect was similar to what you see in a game of Monopoly. The amount of money in circulation kept going up, but the number of assets to buy remained stubbornly still. As anyone who has forked out $600 in Monopoly money for Old Kent Road knows, asset prices go up as the ratio of money to assets goes up.
Quantitative easing is really just an extreme version of cutting interest rates. In both cases, the idea is to make people borrow more and spend more. So even though Australia didn’t have quantitative easing, low interest rates and the record amounts of household debt Aussies are shouldering represent its part of the everything bubble.
The problem with loose monetary policy is that while it is supposed to make people do productive things like start a new company, it has a side effect of making them buy assets at crazy prices. If the everything bubble pops, it may turn out that the cure for the global financial crisis is what caused the next crisis.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11974827
Ed, that whole article is cast in terms of “if” and what “many (unidentified people) believe”. It’s conjecture for the slow news season.
Also note this, from the final paragraph: “The exciting thing about this question is we don’t know. Immediate panic is not necessary — it is unlikely each asset class will fall together like synchronised divers. More likely, a decline in one will overlap with a decline in another, creating a long period of uncertainty.”
You could be right that 2018 will bring a crash, but you seem determined to only see the negative possibilities and seem to simply discount anything that isn’t a disaster scenario.
Yes, well I’m in Ed’s camp on this. Plenty would not believe that 2008 would happen!! But it did. We are at similar pressure points in the system again.
Of course vested interest bodies call us “chicken little” LOL.
Predicting 200 of the last two crashes is easy. Of course they happen, and of course that means there’ll be another. So far, so ‘peak oil theory’.
Actually predicting them requires a lot more hard work than reading articles in the media. If The Big Short can be believed, Michael Burry hired people to literally pore through all the individual sub-prime mortgage records. Yes, all of them.
and even then it was just a more educated bet than the other bets. If the timing had been off, the shorted packages would have increased in price and needed repayment.
I turn my back for an instant and I’m endorsing notions of meritocracy! Shame on me.
lol
it’s all reducing confidence intervals, but never eliminating them. And most people never get enough information to close them all that much in the first place.
Then there’s survivorship bias …
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
Thank you. Good to hear there are those who agree with this point of view.
There are reputable independent economists who are telling us about an oncoming crash.
Steve Keen
Listen here
Steve Keen: The coming crash
or read this article
Steve Keen: The coming crash
Feeling a bit beleaguered by the way oab and others are now stalking my every post, be it the economy, climate change, animal cruelty….
You claim to want a discussion, Ed. But when I engaged with your comment at 1, you pretended to agree with me, then went right back to reciting your litany as though our exchange hadn’t happened.
You then went on to describe the counter arguments as abuse, itself an insult to those who had indulged your alleged desire for discussion.
While you continue to misrepresent the counter arguments to your narrative, I guarantee you that people will continue to notice and comment on that misrepresentation.
I’m not surprised you’re feeling beleaguered though. Perhaps if you engaged in better faith you might find people a little less persistent.
What do you think of my argument that sloppily-presented narratives provide comfort to “the enemy”?*
*One Two, please try and discover what inverted commas are for before your knee starts jerking at “the enemy”.
“I’m not surprised you’re feeling beleaguered though.”
Astute, AOB. If I’d received these responses on ‘Open Mike’ today, I’d feel the same:
The antipathy of AOB (aided by BM) towards Ed’s comments on today’s Open Mike is painfully obvious. Thankfully, they refrain from personal abuse.
Another day in paradise Kia ora Graham Norton I watch your show guite regularly
Now you know I’m backing Joseph Parker camp to win. Well everyone knows this fact we’re Kiwis after all I like my pies to we can’t all have the time to think about our physique if I did one knows that my Maori genetic would easily rip up. I like to watch Jimmy Barns son David Campbell on sky news. I know Iv got a big following in Australia to many thanks to all the people around OUR WORLD For your support. I know that the house that Mama raised me in Gisborne and the one buy the Waiapu river will be oneday a place that a lot of people will visit to honour me. PS to the red headed sandfly you smoke you like stake to go pinch off rich people you dick ECO doesn’t miss anything and do not kid yourself that you can pull a trick with out me noticeing. Ka kite ano
On the topic of suspicious work visas (savenz @2 ), could someone please enlighten me?
I just had 3 days of dealing with a couple of tradies, I’ll spare the details, a major complaint has already be made to the Property Manager and is being dealt with. But I’m somewhat curious about how one of them is allowed to be working here, ie what visa?
Main contractor originally from a South-East Asian country. His younger off-sider, same nationality but literally doesn’t speak a word of English, and isn’t exactly even close to being ‘skilled” in his trade (it’s painting btw)
So…are painters a skill shortage category?
Could he be sponsored here by family if they can say there’s a job for him and that’s a way in for residency?
Family reunification scheme of some sort? (It’s not a country involving refugees)
Genuinely ignorant on the matters, and curious if anyone knows about these things.
Could be here on a tourist visa and is working illegally?
I could hazard a guess…and it would be that the younger guy is being paid a pittance and not technically entitled to be working here.
He’s probably also been bullshitted to, and found that on arrival, things are not what was promised.
Now that he’s here though, the choices are either to beg, or to do whatever work is available.
Btw…I hope you’ve not succumbed to the latest exploitative sector involving immigrant slave labour (home renovation). They’re now even trying to sell franchises
@OWT, that’s what I was a bit worried about. I’m not even totally convinced the guy was being given adequate breaks for 10hr day work.
I’m not sure what- if anything I can do about this. I’m just the renter, these guys are contractors used by the property managers so I don’t get to pick and choose. I get the idea the latter has known the former for some time.
it’s a hard decision but it were me, I’d try and get a phone #, then get in touch with somebody such as the Immigrant Workers Association.
Until such time as MoBIE/INZ start caring more about the victims of exploitation rsther than those doing the exploiting, I wouldn’t go near them
Get the name of the contractor business and report them to MBIE or to Crime Stoppers.
Whereupon the contractor may, or may not be prosecuted-depending on resources available, and the victim will likely be deported, whilst the ripoff artist will not lose his recently acquired PR, and will simply move on to the next.
Meanwhile, the consultants, many of whom have vested and financial interest in the racket will continue to get their percentage.
It’s a nice idea @Craig H, but unless something has radically changed since last September, it doesn’t quite work like that or as you intend
Still better than doing nothing at all.
Kay, in Aus tradies need a blue card to work, and have to produce it. This can be checked, so you don’t get your situation happening. Huge fines ensue for cheats and employers. NZ needs that to protect the public.
Sounds like a good idea patricia bremner – of course photo id should be used so people aren’t using the same ID number.
Yes sorry I didn’t mention it has photo ID.
@Kay – welcome to a world where exploitation seems to be rife. Firstly exploitation of work permits, then getting more people in who are either working illegally or have a fake permit or even legitimate one, but speak no English so therefore hard to know what is going on.
Then the property manager is employing them probably through another firm that organises the work who charge a percentage fee, the property agency is probably charging around 10% on top of that for their labour to the owner of the rental. Being two people there there will be two labour charges even if one can’t do the job and is being trained, or the supervisor one leaves the other one in charge and left to their own devices.
So simple work turns into hundreds or thousands of dollars pretty quickly more than it should, and often a very bad job which takes longer than it should and generates complaints from all concerned. People forced to work long hours for a pittance don’t tend to do a very good job or if they do, it catches up on them and they start having accidents and needing ACC.
The terrible shortages of rentals are also related to the burgeoning costs of being able to get legitimate labour who can do a good job without it being some sort of scam rather than doing a decent days work for a decent wage.
I like the German system where tradespeople have to guarantee their work for 10 years and faulty work can actually lead to jail.
The NZ way, seems to be to do as little as possible, for as much money as possible with as many people as possible taking a cut along the way, even for very small amounts of un or semi-skilled work and the end worker is on minimum wages or less and often incompetent.
On the building front even when you insure work through master builders or whatever, you still do not get a real guarantee that the work will be fixed. So you essentially pay before hand, an extra fee, in the knowledge the builder will make mistakes and have to fix them and it can be a lot of work even getting the work fixed even with the insurance that you pay for.
We have a system in NZ that exploits everyday in the construction industry. That is why I don’t think that we can simply build these affordable houses to stem the shortage of houses.
Even the houses being built under the NZ system are faulty or have faulty materials even before you put forward the constant stream of contractors and sub contractors and the amount of cheap labour being utilised at expensive rates.
Standard work visas include working holiday visas, partner visas ( both of NZers and of work visa holders), work visas for students who have passed their courses, or even student visas.
I get that you are well in tune with the theory.
Oh dear!!!! Sir John Key has been caught up in that false missile attack alert in Hawaii!
How ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIC.
THANKFULLY Granny has been in contact apparently, and we can all rest assured that he didn’t panic.
Wow! That’s a big load off my mind.
Then we’re told ‘A man shoots dead parents…..’ after a video game, only to find out they were actually alive and he killed them
Ah yes, video games me do it. But never seen anyone dressed up like mario twatting mushrooms and turtles with a hammer.
shonky key is a neolibreal in reality he would have shit his pants and been trying to get the first flight out of there with tears running down his face he Hawii can have the bigot we don’t want his type in New Zealand .Some people say NZ is not paradise well caste your eyes around our world and find better and I will prove you wrong.
Ana to kai
Rachel Stewart on twitter.
“So, we all know in our hearts that rodeo is wrong. But with Michael Laws speaking up for it, we now know it’s got to be even wronger-er than we originally thought.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/RFStew
thread
As the Herald would say ‘weird weather.’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/348068/invercargill-has-hottest-day-on-record-at-32-point-3-degreesc
Not sure if anyone shared this before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8r2cz9xrkY
shonky key is a neolibreal in reality he would have shit his pants and been trying to get the first flight out of there with tears running down his face he Hawii can have the bigot we don’t want his type in New Zealand .Some people say NZ is not paradise well caste your eyes around our world and find better and I will prove you wrong.
Ana to kai
We are in a lot of trouble.
Unless significant action is taken by governments and people in the next 10 years, extinction beckons.
Take action today to save the planet and life on it.
I quote from the Guardian.
We are on a Planet that is heating up quickly.
“The years 2017, 2016 and 2015 will make up the three hottest years on record for the planet. But there’s no convincing some people.
When the global temperature readings are in for 2017, it’s going to be a very hard sell for climate-science deniers: 2017 will likely be ranked either side of 2015 as the second or third hottest year on record, with 2016 still in top spot.
The hottest five-year period recorded in the modern era will be the one we’ve just had.
Communities around the world, and the flora and fauna we share it with, feel the effects of that steady rise through extreme weather, droughts, heatwaves, shifting rains, melting ice and rising sea levels.
Levels of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and land clearing keep climbing.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/dec/19/checkmate-how-do-climate-science-deniers-predictions-stack-up
Trump’s America.
Let’s not hear any more hypocritical lectures or abuse to Iran, Syria, Russia, Haiti or the continent of Africa.
The US is a failed state.
“BALTIMORE — Overnight, Imamu Baraka was walking past a Baltimore hospital when he noticed something he says he’ll never forget.
The hospital’s security guards had just wheeled a patient to a bus stop, and in the freezing temperatures they left her there. The only thing she had on was a hospital gown.
“It’s about 30 degrees out here right now,” Baraka says in a recording of the encounter. “Are you OK, ma’am? Do you need me to call the police?” he asks.
It’s called “patient dumping” and it doesn’t just happen in Baltimore. In 2007, “60 Minutes” investigated the practice of removing homeless patients from Los Angeles hospitals and leaving them downtown.”
http://cbsn.ws/2qWzdvt
Trump is playing a game with all US people of the world that alam warning that scared the shit out of Hawaii was known accident. You know why I say that because that is what neoliberalism does they play games with other people lives like what the sandflys are doing to me and my whano. But when things are Fucked up like the world at the moment I can see a thew thing in play from trump around our world. He is a racist bigot it will turn to shit fast with the way he is running the white house. Mother nature and mother earth does not like whats happening in the world that’s why Americans are getting hammer by them. You can’t restart the game donald it you fuck the world. It amazed me to see that a man like that could get the controls to one of the most powerful countries in the world . You know what it amazed donald and his family that he won look at the night they won they were all gobsmacked mouths open they couldn’t believe that donald won an never could the world. This cannot be allowed to happen again WTF. KIA KAHA