Open mike 14/12/2019

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, December 14th, 2019 - 69 comments
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69 comments on “Open mike 14/12/2019 ”

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  1. BG 1
    14 December 2019 at 6:13 am

    Damn that democracy!

    [Damn those fake lefty trolls]

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    • Barfly 1.1
      14 December 2019 at 8:48 am

      Another person who doesn't understand plurality versus majority

    • Bearded Git 1.2
      14 December 2019 at 10:15 am

      Conservatives 43.6

      Labour 32.2

      LibDems 11.6

      Under MMP Labour and the LibDems (43.8 versus 43.6) would have had the same number of seats as the Conservatives and could have formed a government with the SNP, Greens and PCymri.

      • The Al1en 1.2.1
        14 December 2019 at 11:40 am

        Yeah, but they don't have mmp, and it sits as a humiliating defeat for Momentum's labour, made even worse by the simple fact they lost to Johnson and the fractured conservative party he was sleepwalking to the morgue of political ineptitude.

        • weka 1.2.1.1
          14 December 2019 at 11:52 am

          The good news is that Brexit may fuck the conservatives over the medium, and Momentum might start to take some constructive criticism and learn how to work more broadly. Yes, I am overly optimistic today.

          • The Al1en 1.2.1.1.1
            14 December 2019 at 12:00 pm

            I can't see how brexit is going to harm the new government. They kicked out all the euro sceptics before the election, so whose going to stop Boris pushing through a leave vote?

            • weka 1.2.1.1.1.1
              14 December 2019 at 12:26 pm

              I fully expect Brexit to happen. The theory is that as time goes by and post-Brexit causes increasing problems, the Cons will be blamed.

        • Bearded Git 1.2.1.2
          14 December 2019 at 3:32 pm

          Yes but they should have MMP-its called fairness.

          Even under the current system if you had 7 people in a room 4 of them would have voted for Boris and 3 of them would have voted for Corbyn under the GE19 result.

          A guy did a study of the social media advertising in the UK election that showed that the Tories lied 88% of the time where Labour never lied (google it-I think it was in The Independent).

          When 2 of the people who voted for Boris, on hearing this, cross the room to join the Corbyn voters making it 5-2 to Corbyn.

      • weka 1.2.2
        14 December 2019 at 11:50 am

        I ran the numbers through the NZ MMP calculator in a rudimentary way. Cons vs L/LD was an exact match, 60 seats each. Didn't do the more complicated maths of factoring in seats vs party vote, but I think it's clear that the left would get to form govt under MMP (assuming we think the LDs are left).

  2. Incognito 2
    14 December 2019 at 8:24 am

    Henry Cooke has attempted an analysis of the Left with one glaringly obvious omission: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/118180532/the-left-keeps-losing-winning-will-take-new-friends

    • Andre 2.1
      14 December 2019 at 8:35 am

      You're such a tease. Which glaring omission are you referring to?

    • pat 2.2
      14 December 2019 at 8:38 am

      whats the omission?

      • James 2.2.1
        14 December 2019 at 8:51 am

        The omission was omitted?

        • Incognito 2.2.1.1
          14 December 2019 at 9:08 am

          Deliberately or accidentally, in your opinion?

          • James 2.2.1.1.1
            14 December 2019 at 9:11 am

            Prob to get people to read it and see something that is clear to you but not (it seems) to them.

            personally I doubt they read it.

            • Incognito 2.2.1.1.1.1
              14 December 2019 at 9:23 am

              It’s not clear to me and I’d welcome feedback. Seems I started it off in a clumsy way and even if people read it they may now be trying to find Wally.

              • pat …
                14 December 2019 at 9:57 am

                As far as I can see theres not so much an omission as a misnomer…centrism.

                The problem is not so much along a spectrum but rather the multitude of enclaves….and ne'er the twain shall meet

              • Sacha …
                14 December 2019 at 10:28 am

                Not seeing your omission as such, but does anyone other than righties use the term 'hard left'? Much less apply it to Greens.

              • pat …
                14 December 2019 at 2:57 pm

                @ Paddington

                Yes saw those stats….the disengagement I believe is unrelated to the system employed and those numbers would tend to support that….the type of system probably impacts WHEN the compromise occurs however, in FPP the compromise occurs within the parties (ideally) whereas with MMP the compromise occurs at coalition agreements (or bill by bill), but compromise there will be or governance becomes unstable (revolving door PMs ring any bells?)

    • Andre 2.3
      14 December 2019 at 10:48 am

      OK, if you're looking for glaring omissions in Cooke's piece:

      They tried that with Obama and got very little lasting policy wins for it – maybe you need to have lived in the US to appreciate it, but Obamacare really was a BFD. Not only did it deliver actual healthcare to millions in desperate need of it, it's also kept healthcare inequities right to the front of the national conversation since it passed.

      The point being that those out at the fringes don't recognise when they actually get a big win, nor do they appreciate what it takes to put together the coalition needed to achieve a big win.

      • Sacha 2.3.1
        14 December 2019 at 10:51 am

        And sometimes we do not recognise who the 'win' most benefits – for example Working For Families being an ongoing subsidy for employers, delaying any transition to a higher wage economy that would require lifting their game.

        • Andre 2.3.1.1
          14 December 2019 at 10:59 am

          Yeah, that sort of dog's breakfast of an idea so loaded with hidden inequities and unintended consequences really doesn't help with achieving real lasting progress.

    • Dennis Frank 2.4
      14 December 2019 at 11:18 am

      I liked that he posed the where to from here question & answered it by suggesting a bit less ironic Stalinist trolling and infighting. I hadn't realised UK Labour actually does spice up its stalinism with irony. It puts them a rung above NZ Labour on the intellectual ladder, eh?

      • greywarshark 2.4.1
        14 December 2019 at 12:18 pm

        Good to see you again Dennis Frank. Keep coming?

        • Dennis Frank 2.4.1.1
          14 December 2019 at 12:39 pm

          Maybe – depends on interesting political events really. Have had domestic projects to work thro in recent months. I took the plunge & renewed my membership in the GP this morning after mulling it over for most of last year. The old question of whether it's best to be inside the tent pissing out or outside pissing in…

  3. James 3
    14 December 2019 at 9:17 am

    This election prediction didn’t age well:

    [deleted]

    How long till Assange heads to the US now Boris is in charge.

    [If you’re going to quote you have to cite.- weka]

    • Avocado 3.1
      14 December 2019 at 9:24 am

      This one too… from Bills post

      Tomorrow Corbyn. Next year Sanders. And if that transpires and you think pop media has been complete arse during these days of Trump, then trust me, you haven’t seen anything yet.

    • weka 3.2
      14 December 2019 at 10:09 am

      mod note for you James.

    • Andre 3.3
      14 December 2019 at 11:13 am

      Somehow I doubt that Boorish cares enough about Assange to lean on the judicial process one way or the other. And I'll guess the UK judiciary cares enough about maintaining an image of independence that they wouldn't react well to being leaned on.

      Furthermore, the whole point of charging Assange and ensuring he remains locked up is to intimidate anyone else thinking of leaking and publicising embarrassing information. That purpose is served just as well by Assange being in a UK slammer as it is him being in a US slammer. So I doubt BloJo will be getting any kind of hurryup from the Tinyfingers Twittertwat.

  4. burt 4
    14 December 2019 at 9:35 am

    We won, you lost – eat that.

    [Another dim troll who cannot read or simply ignores things, which are two hallmarks of stupid trolls. If you have anything to say here, which is extremely doubtful, there is OM for you]

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    • mpledger 4.1
      14 December 2019 at 2:35 pm

      If winning means the UK dissolves with Brixit and the Scots form a new country within the EU and NI is on the road back to Ireland (thanks to the boarder issues) and also within the EU – then yes "the English" won – but won what exactly?

      It looks like they will lose a shitload of territory, resources and income.

  5. greywarshark 5
    14 December 2019 at 11:11 am

    I am looking at financiers and snake-oil merchants selling the product 'insurance swaps'*/ derivatives to Hopeful Farmers.

    Swaps are derivatives, which are contracts between you and Westpac that may require you or Westpac to make New Zealand dollar payments to one another. The amounts that must be paid or received (or both) will depend on the level of the underlying fixed and floating interest rates.

    https://www.westpac.co.nz/assets/Who-we-are/About-Westpac-NZ/Disclosure-statements/Derivatives-Product-Disclosure-Statements/Westpac-Interest-Rate-Swaps-Product-Disclosure-Statement.pdf
    .

    There is a lot of understandable sense to be gained from reading – https://www.interest.co.nz/charts/interest-rates/swap-rates

    eg NZ$ interest rate swap rates are determined by the rates on NZ government bonds and the demand for paying or receiving the fixed rate. A gauge of the level of demand is the difference between the NZ government bond rate and the swap rate, known as the "swap spread".

    The major influences on the level of demand are …
    – corporate borrowers, who have floating rate borrowings;
    – banks, who also want to match fixed rate mortgages against their floating rate borrowing; and
    – issuers of fixed rate NZ$ bonds, who typically want to pay the fixed rate.

    However, because the New Zealand economy is really just "a housing market with a few other bits tacked on", the biggest influence on New Zealand swap rates usually comes from banks working to manage their mortgage rate risk.

  6. Jimmy 6
    14 December 2019 at 11:30 am

    Cant say I really understand the British system but is it true this is one of the worst results for Labour since god knows when? Seems to me like Corbyn really needed to step down like Andrew Little did but do they have a Jacinda type person to takeover?

  7. greywarshark 7
    14 December 2019 at 11:51 am

    Chester Borrows – I didn't know there was so much depth in his thinking. He sounds like a good guy who is on a path that leads out of our present immoral, judgmental morality – a path that many of us could wish to follow.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018726450/bookmarks-chester-borrows 11 Dec 2019

    Borrows says he really enjoyed his police career which ended up lasting 24 years and encompassed some major events in New Zealand history.

    His first choice for Bookmarks was the Bible. He comes from a religious family and is himself a self-identified Christian, but says he doesn’t like religious people.

    “I like the bits of the Bible that I agree with and fit in with my thinking, like most Christians. I know that over the years I’ve changed my view on things as they relate to my faith and I think I recognise more and more that the Bible was written in a certain context.”

    He says Jesus Christ sets a good example about overturning commonly held and entrenched views and political structures which conservative Christians could take a page from when it comes to things like gay marriage and the place of women in society.

    “I think the other thing I like about the Bible is that it’s very clear Jesus was a politician and was very good at politics. He knew how to play the game.”

  8. Bazza64 8
    14 December 2019 at 12:19 pm

    Maybe left wing parties should avoid getting celebrities to back them, seems like the death knell in US & UK elections.

    Next time Lilly Allen, Hugh Grant, Beyoncé etc should ask the punters to vote Republican or Conservative & then might get the result they want ?

    • Dennis Frank 9.1
      14 December 2019 at 1:00 pm

      Indeed remarkable! Only the oldest group would have a political consciousness formed back when Britain was independent of Europe, right? So the boomers are confident of returning to a status that worked historically, whereas for the younger generations it probably feels like a leap into the unknown.

      If I was a Tory grandee, seeing less than a quarter of voters aged 18-34 voting Tory would make me despondent, fearing for the future of the party. I wonder how few of them, glorying in the decisive mandate just achieved, have noticed the ominous trend.

      • weka 9.1.1
        14 December 2019 at 1:05 pm

        Do we know if people vote more conservatively as they age? I'm guessing they do.

        • Dennis Frank 9.1.1.1
          14 December 2019 at 2:01 pm

          That's a truism. ‘If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.’ Falsely attributed to the prior Winnie (https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/quotes-falsely-attributed/) "Paul Addison of Edinburgh University made this comment: ‘Surely Churchill can’t have used the words attributed to him. He’d been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35!"

          But I suspect social science research has indeed established the effect as a general trend. I'd rather frame it as broad-mindedness. I concede that dilutes the point. I'm no longer the resolute foe of the political right, due to understanding them better with age (but still tend to view them with just as much contempt).

          • weka 9.1.1.1.1
            14 December 2019 at 2:06 pm

            same with me, although it hasn't made my voting more conservative.

            Someone just pointed out to me on twitter that lefties die younger than conservatives, so that will alter the 65+ demogaphic.

            • In Vino 9.1.1.1.1.1
              14 December 2019 at 9:06 pm

              Dennis – to my mind that fake truism was made by a shallow social-climber trying to justify his/her own changes of view. Youngsters are prone to rebellion and questioning, so at that age the manipulative social-climbers will chime in with the majority, and often appear to lead the charge, because they seek prominence.

              Later on, these social-climbers are the first to switch sides, continuing to feather their own nests by new-found 'understanding' of right-wing greed, because they sense that they will remain popular by joining the solid status quo. They are shallow, hollow men, who have actually betrayed the 'brains' they claim to have.

              People with true Socialist principles stick with them through adversity, and remain principled, showing far more depth of thought than the shallow social-climbers.

    • weka 9.2
      14 December 2019 at 1:04 pm

      what % of each age group voted?

    • mikesh 9.3
      14 December 2019 at 1:41 pm

      Unfortunately the graph does not show the percentages that belong to each cohort.

  10. Bazza64 10
    14 December 2019 at 2:16 pm

    The guardian shows protesters who are unhappy with the election result clashing with police. Why does the left wing do this & shoot themselves in the foot ? Can they not accept democracy or is it noise & protests they think should determine how the UK should be run ? You don’t see this from the right after an election loss, but if anyone has evidence that the right does the same thing I would appreciate it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/dec/13/not-my-prime-minister-protesters-clash-with-police-after-boris-johnson-elected-video

    • greywarshark 10.1
      14 December 2019 at 2:42 pm

      Questions Bazza64. I guess the left aren't as good losers as the right. The left have got less to start with, and when they lose an election, they feel it right through their bodies from head to toe.

    • Stuart Munro. 10.2
      14 December 2019 at 6:59 pm

      There is a substantial history of violent right-wing protests in, dare I say it, Venezuela.

      You can find good examples and explanations of the phenomenon in Pilger's War on Democracy.

  11. greywarshark 11
    14 December 2019 at 2:39 pm

    Hopefully good news.

    New Zealand West Coast 12:26 pm today

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/405498/boy-goes-for-help-after-mum-swept-downriver-on-west-coast

    A six-year-old boy walked nearly 2km early this morning to get help for his mother, after their vehicle crashed into a river on the West Coast….

    Sergeant Mark Kirkwood said a full scale search and rescue operation was launched involving volunteers, Fire and Emergency, Surf Life Saving, the Coastguard and jet boaters.

    The woman was found about five hours later, about 7.30am, on a beach north of the rivermouth.

    She was being treated for hypothermia in Greymouth Hospital, police said.

    • adam 13.1
      14 December 2019 at 9:06 pm

      Your woke misrepresentation of this guy is really quite despicable joe90.

      People change and grow up. To reach back and pick pick stupid things they have done – is really quite pathetic.

      Yeap cenk was a misogynist prat when he was younger – guess what, he did actually grow up and see the error of his ways.

      Shame people like you can't accept that.

      • joe90 13.1.1
        15 December 2019 at 5:41 am

        His 2016 riff about how it's all A okay for men to rate young women on their doableness was something he did when he a young misogynist prat?

  14. joe90 14
    14 December 2019 at 6:28 pm

    Principled tory prick gets caught with his fingers in the till.

    Bye..

    Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer is resigning.

    But he says he will stay on as leader until his replacement is chosen and continue to serve as MP for Regina—Qu’Appelle.

    His resignation comes as a direct result of new revelations that he was using Conservative Party money to pay for his children’s private schooling, according to Conservative sources who spoke with Global News.

    Senior Conservatives say the expenditures were made without the knowledge or approval of the Conservative fund board, including the chair of the board.

    https://globalnews.ca/news/6288286/andrew-scheer-resignation/

  15. lilamn 15
    14 December 2019 at 7:47 pm

    Funny as anything, Jacinda does not realise that the more she hugs actual voting Kiwis are turned off.

    [You may not have been hugged enough, which is why you are a troll and a huge turnoff]

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]