Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, April 15th, 2022 - 121 comments
Categories: open mike -
Tags:
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Outgoing Labour MP Louisa Wall fired another broadside at the Labour Party in her valedictory speech to Parliament:
So the Labour Party constitution allows Party controllers outside the electorate to subvert the democratic process of their electorate committees. If we believe the Labour president is telling the truth, that is.
The intent of the Labour control system seems to be defeat of the locals when the locals choose someone the controllers don't like. Such closet stalinism seems a tad un-Aotearoan, but if the party rules do actually implement stalinist intent, we can't complain. I think Wall complains about it because she believes Labour ought to be democratic instead. I'd be surprised if she was alone in being that naive.
NZ Labour has long had many contradictions as per all the “cross class” Parliamentary parties. Labour rules allowed Jacinda Ardern to assume the leadership in 2017 without contest because of the proximity to a General Election.
The “Parliamentary Wing” has long dominated the ordinary members and LECs of the NZ Labour Party.
But Dennis, I question your barely disguised glee in sticking it to NZ Labour, I critique them out of years of history, and I still have a number of friends in NZ Labour, and a class left analysis rather than right opportunism.
Dunno if I really feel all that gleeful about it. I'd be quite happy to be proven wrong in my analysis. The way a Labour member could do that is to quote the relevant specific clauses from the Labour Constitution here. If they are able to prove the thing is actually democratic, I mean.
I predict that won't happen. The PM was adamant in refusing to confirm that Wall was correct in stating what the PM told her. Aversion to the truth is extremely deep-rooted in Labour political culture. That's why the commenters here who didn't like Wall telling the truth resorted to character-assassination. Evasion, the leftist way.
The NZLP Constitution is available freely on line. Google those words and you will find a 111 page document, clearly indexed.
Your answer is in there. 3.9.3 in the Schedules.
Tiger Mountain is right about 3 month proximity to an election.
I'm impressed you didn't provide the answer to readers here. Very shrewd! Totally finessed my intellectual challenge. You must be a lawyer.
Nah, just gave you the opportunity to look it up yourself so that you can be truly happy.
"I'd be quite happy to be proven wrong in my analysis." Happy Easter.
He will be shocked when he realises how few references to Stalin and Stalinist doctrine he’ll find in the document when he reads it. He might even be a tad disappointed. Hopefully, the NZH will soon do another (…) piece on NZLP and/or the PM and all will be well again.
IIRC, mac1 is/was a teacher, and by the looks of it, he was a good one too.
Yep, few teachers are any good at dodging an intellectual challenge.
Why don’t you just say that you’re not up to challenge of doing a simple search and checking? Does everything need to be spelled out to you in the NZH?
You can lead a horse to water
https://www.labour.org.nz/constitution
but you cannot make it think.
Why don't you think about what went wrong with the candidate selection process & why Labour defaults to a cover-up?? Honesty is the best policy.
I’m so grateful for the NZH doing all the digging (in) and uncovering the cover-ups of closet Stalinism in NZLP. We’ve always known that NZLP Caucus has mandatory Kozak dance costumes in their closets in the Beehive, which they wear every Friday for drinks and the comradery of backslapping and having a good laugh at the expense of Proletariat. There’s not enough dirt in Wellington for all those cover-ups, so the best tactic is to make it appear part of the legitimate Party process of spring-cleaning and hanging out of the dirty laundry in the sunshine. Got it?
BTW, have you read the document already?
What "went wrong" for Wall was that there was only one nomination for the candidacy, which required the NZ Council to make a decision.
Read 8.9, p46
I've not seen any report that Wall was the only candidate but if so, I don't see on what basis they rejected her. She was the sitting MP, for god's sake. Seems bizarre. Or are you suggesting that nobody in the committee nominated her & the sole nominee was the current electorate MP? If the latter, I'd be inclined to agree that she must have lost local support to not get nominated Occam's razor…
OK, fair call, it turns out the selection had three candidates, but was delayed to check the eligibility of some members. And Wall eventually withdrew her candidacy after NZ Council felt that Williams' nomination was in keeping with the LP constitution.
Between the two articles, it does seem Wall lacked electorate support and support from the party hierarchy. That does not bode well for political longevity.
Most of the intellectual challenges I had were in my classes. Some, alas, were irrecoverable. I had to retire to dodge them. Then I discovered The Standard….
At times, you must feel at home here. At other times, you must feel like you’re back in class.
Happy Easter.
Dennis-Maybe in your posts you should compare Labour's candidate selection process with the complete and utter shambles that is National's candidate selection process (scandal after scandal) just to give some context?
I haven't actually heard of National's hierarchy intervening in local candidate selections. That could be due to successful cover-ups – or they don't. Either way, nobody can comment on political happenings that don't get reported unless they have inside knowledge or a tip-off. If some such gets into the media I'll be happy to have a go at it…
National claim to have a more democratic system than Labour but imo that is not true.
Their membership by and large is more docile than Labour's. They meekly tow the party line whatever it may be. When selecting candidates, word from above seeps quietly down the line and ordinary members soon get the message who they are to vote for. Hence less electorate battles. Its not cut and dried of course, but Labour members are more bolshie by nature 😉 so disagreements tend to be thrashed out in the public eye.
The same goes where policy decisions are concerned. Labour conducts most of its policy battles in the public eye for all to see. National does it behind closed doors and their members accept them with little to no in-put into them.
I know which I consider to be the more democratic in practice and that is Labour, where the debates are out there for everyone to see – warts and all.
Anne, apart from the PM, what is the input of caucus when selecting ministers? How much say do they have on who should be ministers?
Louis, LP rules are that caucus selects ministers and the PM allocates portfolios.
A National PM both selects and allocates.
I know of one National woman MP who was told by her leader she'd never make cabinet so she quit after six years. Her male replacement lasted nine years before losing his candidacy whilst still an MP to a challenger who has been there for nearly nine years. And achieved nothing.
Local word is that his supporters now regret supporting his challenge to the previous incumbent, known as the 'roi faléant", who was by my reckoning a decent man- did nothing and was just shut out of the loop.
Thank you for that interesting information mac1.
You reckon? I despair at the naïve nonsense you put out here. I’ll be happy if you don’t make a go of it because your closet Stalinism sensor seems off.
+100 incog
🙄
"your closet Stalinism sensor". Mine must be off, too. It hasn't gone off during fifty years as a member of the Labour Party.
Maybe it is just a little dusty?
Nothing dusty in my closet.
Interesting though what you find in there….. in earlier years in the Labour closet there were relics of ACTs best not spoken about, United party of one, Future now in the past, New Labour no longer so, Māori party which has not yet hung up its hat, NZFirst which didn't last, the Alliance that split, the Progressives that halted, the Pacific party that caused no waves.
They were all in the closet- but nary a Stalinist, a Leninist, a Trotskyist.
But what would you find across the hall in National's closet? Maoists, more quick ACTers, Il-Liberals, Conservatives that couldn’t bottle it, decidedly un-Christian Democrats, more dis-United now in parts, and Independent Advance NZ gone to the rear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waka-jumping
Labour's hierarchy didn't intervene in the local candidate selections.
"As for Wall being moved on from her Manurewa seat at the election, Ardern said it was a decision for the local Labour team – not her. "Ultimately, these are decisions that are actually made by local membership, not by me as party leader. At a local level, our members determine who will locally represent them."
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-s-rationale-for-excluding-experienced-labour-mp-louisa-wall-from-cabinet.html
We won't know the truth unless details of the vote are reported by someone who was at the selection meeting to the news media. All the evidenceless assertions coming from Mike Williams, others, and you, are never gonna change that…
I don't think you want to see the truth, as it doesn't fit your narrative.
I don't have a narrative. I'm not telling a story. I'm doing political commentary on political events. Analysis. It's why TS exists.
Analysis? You are telling a story though.
Exactly, and spreading one or two too, with some pseudo-analysis and quasi-commentary soaked in strong personal beliefs, which is almost completely devoid of self-awareness and self-reflection. In other words, not too dissimilar to the likes of Mike Hosking.
What is not going to change is your attitude and agenda. You have your typical "won't know the truth unless details are reported" as the back-up defence for insinuations and implications. It's a guilt by suggestion position, a claim, as wild as is wanted, and a "prove I'm not wrong."
Do you go round claiming your neighbours are fraudsters, paedophiles or Nazi sympathisers and they can't say they're not until they prove they're not by furnishing details?
(If you're so concerned about the details in Labour Electorate Committees and their operation and decision-making and want to have some impact on how they do things, maybe you could sign up.)
Nope, my attitude would change if Labour did democratic candidate selection & proved it. Or proved that Wall is lying.
Doubt that. You wouldn't believe it anyway.
Labour can do their selection as they want – it's their organisation. The same as our local hockey club and bowling club run their internal affairs including selections. If I want a say in how they do their I should join. Otherwise I should f… off, it is their business.
There is another explanation, Dennis Frank. Dare I say that you are being a little… 'binary'?
The 'happening' just might not have happened which would explain why, ah, you never heard of it.
Did you ever meet a man on the stair, btw?
“Actually” depends on your source(s) of information, choosing to listen, and whether you have a ‘decent’ memory – there's something about Mervyn.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/nz-election-2020-senior-national-party-figure-merv-from-manurewa-aka-roger-bridge-still-in-leadership.html
Yep, that's an authentic example. My comment would be the dude got caught out trying it on, but doesn't necessarily mean it's endemic. Could be though. Makes sense they'd do it as part of the culture (rather than via rules). The fact that they kept him on as a regional head after forcing him off their board seems indicative. 🙄
It's like Slater, Ede, Lusk and Collins never ever happened.
Must be great living in a parallel universe.
And then there is the payoff for candidates to finish up when it has been decided they are past their use by date.
Dennis, there you are dissing again. The PM is not responsible for Louisa's take on things. The PM does not have to "prove" anything.
Louisa has always said she is a maverick. (If I may speculate as well?) One time too many?
The use of emotive language is telling. "forced out, corrupt, devastation".
Then you accuse us of "character-assassination" "Evasion, the leftist way"
I'm sure someone more erudite than I am will prove the case to you….. but, will you accept it?
( Thanks Mac1)
The PM does not have to "prove" anything.
I didn't say she does. I was merely pointing out the own-goal syndrome operating within Labour that will further corrode poll support for it.
The thing hinges on whether the candidate selection process was fair or not. Democracy, and our trust in the system, depends on fair play, right? So Labour ought not to do stuff that works contrary to that. The PM ought not to exhibit flawed leadership on the issue.
In other words, you want to know when the PM stopped fucking pigs.
"In other words, you want to know ….."
NO. NO.NO.
There are some things we really don't want to know. We will leave the date and time of that particular event to you. Please don't bring the subject up again.
We really don't need to know all the things you appear to be cognizant of.
That paragraph from the Herald article does not align with what I heard at the time. Granted it was only a broad brush out-line, but I was told Loiusa was a bully and she had alienated many of her local members. It must have become a serious matter for those members to take the step of requesting a new candidate.
I'm not saying that Louisa Wall does not have a genuine axe to grind over the way the matter was handled (I don't know those details) but my impression is she is over-egging what happened. We have not heard the other side of the story and I doubt we will because it is likely to turn into a she said/he said or she said/she said stoush as the case may be, which Labour would want to avoid at all cost.
a she said/he said or she said/she said stoush
I think that's a reasonable framing if the discord hinged on competing interpretations of the party rules & how they got applied to the situation.
However it does send this message to the electorate: Labour doesn't do local democracy. Can't see how this signalling works to Labour's benefit…
She supported Cunliffe not Robertson….that probably explains why she had to go in a nutshell. The rest is just theatrics
Don't agree. Cunliffe supporters – including parliamentarians and high level members – have not been undermined or sent on their way. Some chose to go but that was their decision. I supported Cunliffe. It didn't affect my relationship with Labour.
I may need to be corrected here, but didn't Nanaia Mahuta support Cunliffe?
+1 Anne.
I also supported Cunliffe. And Nania Mahuta and Andrew Little lol Go figure.
Yes, I did too Patricia. Having met both Nanaia and Andrew and listened to them speak, I was very impressed. I also liked David Shearer. Its just I didn't think he was politically strong enough for the leadership. I think he came to the same conclusion himself.
"I supported Cunliffe"
And you kept your Labour selection for your Parliamentary seat did you? Or may we take it you weren't really in Wall's position?
BTW I supported Cunliffe too Anne.
Support for Cunliffe had nothing to do with it. Walls had lost the support of the LEC.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/departing-mp-louisa-walls-claims-countered-by-ex-labour-party-president/VVNV3ODSHS3REZGSNDTQ3RBJQQ/
Stalinist? What planet are you on?
https://twitter.com/paultudor/status/1513008840916504580
Covert subversion of the democratic process got described as closet stalinism in the old days. Only by those capable of detecting it, of course! Genuine kiwi males call a spade a spade. Doncha know?
Ahah! You were dog-whistling. And here I was thinking that you were after the truth.
+1
No, the idea that Labour party members are dogs never crossed my mind. I've always seen them as inherently capable of adhering to the truth. A shame their party culture seems to get in between the two but that's not my problem. I wish them all the best in whatever rule-improvement process they embark on to prevent a recurrence of the shambles…
" A shame their party culture seems to get in between the two" you wrote.
Two what? Minds? Ideas? Truths?
If you are going to be binary, what are the two that party culture seems to get between?
I hope it's not the dogs you've been whistling at……. that's far too binary for me.
The members & the truth. I was referring to the warping effect of culture on truth (the primary structural component of culture doing the warp is the group belief system).
You can see the same thing happening in the Green caucus nowadays, sadly. Doesn't really matter if you frame it as group narcissism or collective tunnel vision, the effect is the best thing to focus on: disconnect from the body politic (voters).
Cue Oscar Wilde, (on the National Party?)
" I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.”
A UK think-tank hired by the Department of Internal Affairs studied New Zealand's online extremist ecosystem.
Disinformation:
How it spreads, how to fight it, how it bleeds into real world harm.
In my opinion an important thinker (and mover) in this sphere of study is Daniel J. Rogers,
When we see autocratic states like Russia attacking free speech under the guise of regulating against "Fake News", and at a time when our government is formulating laws against hate speech, what Rogers has to say about getting the balance right is important.
regulating the toxic business models underpinning our information environment
Sounds good in principle. In practice, there are three requirements: a design for implementing that, a method of implementation, and the political muscle to do it.
Kia ora Dennis,
The first two elements 'design' and 'method' for implementing it, are simply technical matters, for expert advisors.
Just as any other piece of legislation, the government have to call on technical advisors on its design and method of implementation. In my opinion the government couldn't go far past some one like Daniel Rogers for expert advice on these matters.
As regards "political muscle to do it" I would have thought the current government, the first to rule the country with a simple single majority since the introduction of MMP would have more than enough 'political muscle to do it'.
But I could be wrong.
What do you think is the road block?
What do you think is the road block?
Perception of power imbalance, global corporates in relation to states. Govts in thrall to neoliberalism. Tacit acceptance of market forces in hegemony status.
Comes down to political will to regulate that mix. States would need to coordinate globally to be effective in culture-change of corporate thinking.
Currently govts file social media regulation in the too-hard basket although pressure they have put on did achieve some algorithm-tweaking by Facebook & Twitter in recent years.
Basically the design challenge is almost as big a hurdle as political will. Lack of prosecutions using hate-speech laws has proved that!
A cog in the machine.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/truman-doctrine
https://www.disinformationindex.org/about
In September "an event of planetary importance" is scheduled: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/dream-walking-towards-the-planetoid-bomb
Nuclear winter, climate change, asteroid mis-direction, our methods of destroying the planet are getting more grandiose every day.
What could possibly top slamming an asteroid into the Earth?
Inducing a supernova in the Sun perhaps?
Macho thinking still trendy eh? No, physics rules out such an effect on the sun but impact here would produce a nuclear winter (without radiation) due to magma droplets in the upper atmosphere shading sunlight, producing global crop failure.
I think the old warfare scenario of the 1960s is secondary. Current planning would be partly to upskill around impact-diversion technique plus orbit-shifting into proximity suitable for asteroid mining. Big money!!
High kinetic weapons like this was the core plot element of Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Humans are going to have to be a lot better at self-governance before we are allowed seriously into space.
Allowed by whom? The ETs?? Elon is inclined to boldly go where others are too timid to. Heavy metal prices could drive him forward…
It might be nice to have an option if a collision looked likely.
It is generally accepted that it was a collision of this sort with an asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. Along with about 75% of all the life on earth. I doubt if global warming or a nuclear winter is going to be as bad as that.
A few interesting developments in the war in Ukraine.
Firstly, the weather over there is terrible at the moment. That is important because the ground is turning to an absolute bog. I have seen reports of Russian tanks sinking up to their turrets in the stuff.
One of the reasons that the Russians have decided to focus their forces on the Donbas area is because the topography of the area is more suited to their tank style of warfare. However, spring in Ukraine is probably the worst time to conduct open warfare. It is recommended to attack in the winter when the ground is frozen, or in summer when the ground is dry and hard.
So, Russian forces are still confined largely to roads which makes them vulnerable to Ukranian attacks. Because the Ukranians are a lot more nimble, and know the territory, the lack of mobility of Russian forces is giving the Ukranians the opportunity to counter attack and disrupt while the Russian forces are confined to roads. For instance, they have just blown a bridge to Izium while a Russian convoy was crossing.
Izium was captured by the Russian a couple of weeks ago, and was considered a point of attack for the Russians. So, disrupting supplies to this area is a really good strategy.
Also, the Ukranians have been carrying out attacks on logistics within Russia. The latest endeavour was to take out a rail bridge that was an important supply line for the Russians to bring supplies and equipment to Ukraine. The Russians have not been happy about this, so are threatening to attack Ukrainian command centres. Apparently it is OK for the Russians to invade Ukraine, destroy Ukranian cities and kill civilians. But it is not OK for Ukraine to inflict a few pin pricks inside Russia. Go figure.
So interesting times ahead. The Russian flagship, Moskva, is badly damaged but still afloat. However, it is definitely out of the game, which is a big blow for the Russians. The rest of the Russian fleet has moved much further to the South, obviously fearing further attacks from Ukraine. So, the attack on the Moskva not only took out one of the important Russian naval assets, but also has restricted the capability of the remaining ships.
A big problem for the Russians with their naval assets is that Turkey is not allowing any more military ships to enter the conflict zone. So what the Russians have there now is all they can get.
Interesting times. I think the weather definitely favours the Ukranians. Not only does it allow them to pick away at Russian assets through special ops missions and the like. It also gives more time for Western heavy military assets to arrive. For instance, the US is supplying a package including artillery and helicopters at the moment.
It is going to be very difficult for Putin to meet his objective of a victory by 9th May. It will be interesting to see what their military parade will be like this year given all the assets they have lost, or have stationed in Ukraine.
An update on my comments above. According to the Russians the Moskva has sunk while being towed back to port.
It took two days for HMS Sheffield to sink but she was a burnt out wreck within hours of her Exocet hit. Moskva was a total loss before she sank, it is almost irrelevant if she sank or not. I only hope the loss of life isn't as horrendous as some early reports indicate.
Air raid alert across the whole of Ukraine at once.
Putin obviously wasn't happy about losing his ship. I don't know why he is taking it out on Ukraine though. According to Russia it was just due to a fire on board.
Moscow sinking… Incompetence or enemy action, either way it’s indicative of their general course in this war.
New PZ:
Thank you for that. Interesting.
For a laugh in a very grim situation: the last picture of the Moskva:
https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1514716451856343051
It's but a scratch.
Pretty good summary.
I love the idea that the Russians have been mounting a full-scale invasion without targetting enemy command centres.
Yeah I thought that was peculiar too. Amazing that they would expect anyone to be taken in by such an obvious bullshit threat. Still, if a rocket takes out Zelensky in the next few days we ought to believe their restraint hitherto.
Powerful Stuff.
"Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/?
Yeah. Haidt wields a triad (Neptune wielded a trident):
All good, but does pose a profound question: why do morality issues online get adults acting like 4-year-olds? Somehow, belief-systems kick in and we get tribalism being reinvented. Social Darwinism 2.0 I guess…
Trust is the glue that produces societal cohesion:
Trust is the glue – absolutely.
The issue is not so much a humanity problem as an unregulated tech-bro problem. The internet was the wild west (but wasn't it nice, back in the forum days) and cowboys have taken over. They've eroded trust for cash. These owners of all the data know exactly what's happening to the populace. The trending to the right is convenient for capitalists such as these.
The truth can't be restored without controlling social media. This passage from the same article explains:
"I think we can date the fall of the tower to the years between 2011 (Gurri’s focal year of “nihilistic” protests) and 2015, a year marked by the “great awokening” on the left and the ascendancy of Donald Trump on the right. Trump did not destroy the tower; he merely exploited its fall. He was the first politician to master the new dynamics of the post-Babel era, in which outrage is the key to virality, stage performance crushes competence, Twitter can overpower all the newspapers in the country, and stories cannot be shared (or at least trusted) across more than a few adjacent fragments—so truth cannot achieve widespread adherence."
“A mean tweet doesn’t kill anyone; it is an attempt to shame or punish someone publicly while broadcasting one’s own virtue, brilliance, or tribal loyalties. It’s more a dart than a bullet, causing pain but no fatalities. Even so, from 2009 to 2012, Facebook and Twitter passed out roughly 1 billion dart guns globally. We’ve been shooting one another ever since.”
Nail after nail ( or is it dart) on the head.
"When everyone was issued a dart gun in the early 2010s, many left-leaning institutions began shooting themselves in the brain. And unfortunately, those were the brains that inform, instruct, and entertain most of the country."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/
And look at the power of the Tech-bro toddler. Those whom are Deified.
Musk just offered to buy Twitter outright, so he can make it private. "I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe" he reckons.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/04/14/elon-musk-offers-to-buy-twitter-for-us43-billion/
Looks like Twitter will be going even more abysmal pretty soon, then.
The article points out a few obvious (thus fixable) features:
Facebook's 'like' and 'share' buttons.
Twitters 'retweet' button.
Sociopathic attention seekers crawling over others to gain followings.
We should burn the fucking influencers to the ground.
My brief foray on twitter saw me decide it's not for me. I love it for getting early signals of news, but as a community, it's stacked against being social. (for early signals enter the right search terms and use the recent and refresh buttons).
The biography/signature features on twitter and FB are also a problem. Especially twitter, that fancy they're intellectually superior to facebook. No really, NZ twitter has a cult following of itself to itself. I saw a trend of rubbishing FB so I rubbished it and people followed me. Daft!
Everyone wears their political heart on their sleeve. The majority have lost sight of presenting themselves as Joe Bloggs from Podunkville. Not today:
Joe (Go Blow) Bloggs. Podunkville, best town in the west. Libtard masher, All Lives Matter. Flag, another flag, laughy face.
But the left are just as bad.
Joe (You Should Know) Bloggs. Podunkville, full of podunks. BLM, LBGT. Rainbow, unicorn, rainbow.
Both versions are tribal before they open their mouths. They're just red rags to each other, pointless horseshit.
A capitalist isn't going to "fix" the problems that capitalism has spawned and profited off.
Haidt is one of my intellectual lodestones; more than anyone else he cemented my sense that while differing values and ideas are essential to a healthy society, that there are boundaries. That extremism of any kind is corrosive and dangerous.
More than a few people have pointed the finger at the rise of social media.
Good find thank you.
An interesting article about the government apparently considering splitting the supermarket duopoly:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/talks-to-fast-track-supermarket-regulation-and-break-apart-stores
Promising stuff, I'd be very pleased to see some action in this area. I've always seen supermarkets as unnecessary middlemen. It would be fantastic to imagine supermarket buildings being repurposed, housing multiple individual businesses and stalls, the car parks too for special occasions. Maybe becoming buyer co-operatives, connecting consumers directly with the local producers… I'm sure there are many more ways to improve our relations with food, each other and our environment. We may well see this happen!
Here's hoping!
" I've always seen supermarkets as unnecessary middlemen".
Why don't you say the same things about all shops? After all what is special about the little ones? They tend to be more expensive than supermarkets and have smaller ranges of goods so we should get rid of them too.
Then we can do all our shopping by going out to buy our food from the original producer. You want a couple of carrots? Go to a grower and dig them up yourself. You want 4 lamb chops? Collect up some friends who want other parts of the lamb, buy one and slaughter it and then split the butchered beast up between you.
Way to go baby.
Supermarkets have aggregated what were once numerous separate businesses, butchers, greengrocers and now liquor stores and tobacconists. The issue we have now is that there are only two dominant supermarket companies who have been determined to be unnecessarily expensive by the Commerce Commission. Many little businesses have to compete for customers, this leads to lower prices, isn't that basic economics to you?
As to your scenario; Sounds good, there exist models of similar schemes:
So yes, this could well be the way to go, baby.
"Many little businesses have to compete for customers, this leads to lower prices, isn't that basic economics to you?".
No, and I can't think of any Economist I know who would agree with it. There is nothing at all in the theory that says that small is always more efficient than large which is what you are suggesting. There is plenty of evidence for economies of scale though.
What is competition alwyn?
It's hilarious to see you now arguing for monopoly due to efficiencies of scale. I'd expect you to now advocate for the nationalisation of our natural monopolies like power generation and supply.
But in all seriousness this just further demonstrates the bad faith in which you argue.
You did notice the source of your link I suppose?
It was people in the White House spruiking the actions of their boss. Hardly a neutral, expert opinion was it?
However please tell me which of these two cases you think would be best for the general New Zealand member of the public.
200 firms produce a product, They vigorously compete for sales, sell their product at a price where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue and sell their product at $10/unit.
Alternatively there are three firms. They also compete and sell similar quantities of their product at $8/unit. They are much bigger businesses of course and have lower cost more efficient plants so they make more profit, and pay more taxes than the 200 minnows. Their price is more than the marginal cost of what they produce but so what.
Which one is better for the consumer, and for the country?
You really are reaching now, and I’m not into your irrelevant hypotheticals other than to bring it back to the original post and ask: What products do supermarkets produce exactly?
Enjoy the mental gymnastics. Helps to warm up first to avoid injurious and inconsistent contradictions.
The provide you with the ability to go to a single shop and to get all the food and vegetables and basic household goods you want in the quantities you want and when you want them.
That is the service they provide, and one most of us use and want.
Where do you get your food from?
Why do you think most people go there?
Ouch, could have warmed up more I see.
Yes, you really should limit your comments to things you know something about.
When, as you have done here, you try and comment on something you clearly know nothing about you are only going to make yourself look foolish.
Try and get to grips with the topic you are talking about and warm up on the topic a bit better in the future and you may do better.
Yet another torturous contortion, cf. alwyn @ 6.2.1.1
Oof. You do have the long weekend to recover though.
https://twitter.com/Tom_Fowdy/status/1514787062955732998
Yet to be confirmed but if true, Poots' treatment of high ranking officers perceived to have failed seems a little purge-ish.
Admiral Igor Osipov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, is arrested by people in civilian clothes. Witnesses report that the detention was rather harsh – the admiral's adjutant was beaten very badly.
https://twitter.com/IsraelThreads/status/1514694443345092611
"Yet to be confirmed but if true"…..that statement encapsulates much of your Ukrainian commenting quite nicely Joe90.
Well the buzz is on low-level news sites according to the Google front page of my search – but it's a lively rumour in Ukraine. And it fits the pattern:
The numbers given by this source suggest he's had the inside word from someone in the know in the Russian military or political hierarchy…
Found this further down that page:
Moskva…what Moskva?
I don't believe it. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov is still alive, at the age of about 130. Surely he is the middle one of the 3 in the photograph?
I found one low level site that was saying that the dated radar system on the Moskva was capable of only tracking targets in one sector only at at time. Apparently while the radars were tracking the drone it was blind to the Neptunes coming in from another direction.
I have no idea if this is true or not, but however unlikely it seems we have to stand this up against the general incompetence of the Russian forces to date.
Ukraine has shown just how vulnerable armoured vehicles are to hand held anti-tank weapons and UAVs. Now the Moskva, supposedly well protected by anti-missile systems, has been distracted by a UAV and sunk by a domestically produced Ukrainian anti-ship missile system.
Imagine the consternation of PRC naval planners about how any attempt to attack Taiwan by sea, or indeed attempts by the US and allies to send warships anywhere near the Chinese coast, might pan out.
Taiwan to mass produce extended range anti-ship missiles
New Hsiung Feng III missile able to travel 400 km, will be outfitted on mobile launchers
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4290059
Incidentally that photo above is very droll.