Open Mike 15/02/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 15th, 2016 - 86 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

openmikeOpen mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

 

86 comments on “Open Mike 15/02/2016 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Paul 1
    15 February 2016 at 7:00 am

    Listening to RNZ yesterday afternoon after the Christchurch earthquake, it struck me that there were several callers who expressed more of a fear of insurance companies inaction than fear of the actual earthquake.
    5 years on, there were people ringing who were still in houses not dealt with by the EQC . Two callers in particular named AIG as an appalling insurer.
    Yet they have enough money to splash their corporate logo all over the All Blacks shirt.
    I really hope John Campbell reopened this can of worms.

    • dv 1.1
      15 February 2016 at 7:45 am

      Yes
      I heard that damage claims have to be in in 3 months
      Shame that there is not a 3 month pay out time..

      • vto 1.1.1
        15 February 2016 at 9:58 am

        All claim settlements need to include a ‘use-of-money’ component, back-dated to the date of the event.

        You know, like the government and IRD does with us.

        goose and gander and all that…..

        yes?
        no?

        • Lanthanide 1.1.1.1
          15 February 2016 at 2:28 pm

          Yeah, there’d definitely be a financial incentive not to drag the chain if that were to be in place.

          The whole thing is really a big clusterfuck though, with the whole “handover from EQC” seeming to be handled really poorly for everyone.

          After EQC is done with it, your insurance company has to start *from scratch*.

    • Chch_chiquita 1.2
      15 February 2016 at 9:58 am

      There is nothing one can do about the earthquake. It’s simply something you learn to live with when choosing to live here in Christchurch. As opposed to that, the insurance shamble is man-made and can be avoided. Insurance companies drag everything as much as possible so that more and more people will give up and take a cash settlement.

  2. Sabine 2
    15 February 2016 at 9:02 am

    One of my customer is building a commercial kitchen for one of our local church. He was surprised to find out that the reason he is building this kitchen is that the church is feeding a 100+ people a day. We had a bit of a chat about the situation here in AKL where it now is more and more the norm for low income people and people on benefits to be depended on charities to eat, they may earn enough money to pay the bills, but then have no money for food or they may get enough benefits to cover the rent but not electricity or food.
    I asked him how much his pay had increased over the last 5 – 7 years vs the increases in his living costs, and he agreed with me that yes, for people on a fixed income, benefit or the min wage life has not gotten better but in fact much worse.

    Slowly but surely the the mask of feel good, and pretend to be good and happy at all times is slipping, and the raising poverty and misery is coming more and more to the light for all to see.

    • Manuka AOR 2.1
      15 February 2016 at 9:51 am

      Yes. And there’s another cold winter on the horizon.
      Food? or warmth? Stark choices that have to be made by many.

  3. Manuka AOR 3
    15 February 2016 at 9:40 am

    Who will replace Scalia on the US Supreme Court..
    Possibly Kamala Harris:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris

    This would help ring in the changes that the world so desperately needs.

      • alwyn 3.1.1
        15 February 2016 at 1:45 pm

        Impressive, isn’t he? They might be able to get him through the Senate, which I think would be a problem with Harris.

    • Gabby 3.2
      15 February 2016 at 9:55 am

      You see the Senate going for an Obama nominee do you?

      • Andre 3.2.1
        15 February 2016 at 10:11 am

        McConnell (Senate Majority Leader) has already said any Obama appointment isn’t gonna happen. Since he controls what issues come before the Senate, he may be able to block the Senate from even voting on an Obama appointment.

        Looking at the current crop of Republican senators, McCain looks the only one with enough sense of duty to vote for a reasonable Obama choice, and four Republican votes are needed (there’s currently 54 Republicans, 2 independents, 44 Democrats).

        On the other hand, if Sanders wins in November and the Democrats regain a majority in the Senate, then there might be a sudden rush of final business before the new people are sworn in in January.

      • joe90 3.2.2
        15 February 2016 at 10:13 am

        He could nominate the risen Yeshua and they’d block because black man…..

        Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2005: ‘The President, and the President alone, nominates judges’

        […]

        “[T]he Republican conference intends to restore the principle that, regardless of party, any President’s judicial nominees, after full debate, deserve a simple up-or-down vote. I know that some of our colleagues wish that restoration of this principle were not required. But it is a measured step that my friends on the other side of the aisle have unfortunately made necessary. For the first time in 214 years, they have changed the Senate’s ‘advise and consent’ responsibilities to ‘advise and obstruct.'”

        http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1484831

        • Visubversa 3.2.2.1
          15 February 2016 at 10:33 am

          The GOP blocks because they block anything the Democrats try to achieve. Since they were taken over by the Tea Party it is total war. The “black man” bit helps energise their racist base but they will do the same with any Democrat in office.

    • Gosman 3.3
      15 February 2016 at 11:03 am

      What changes could the Supreme court ring in that the world desperately needs?

      • Andre 3.3.1
        15 February 2016 at 11:09 am

        Affirmation that the President has the right and obligation to control the emission of harmful greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

      • joe90 3.3.2
        15 February 2016 at 11:48 am

        What changes could the Supreme court ring in that the world desperately needs?

        An end to the claptrap Scalia and his ilk champion[ed].

        Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gives comfort to creationists while speaking at his granddaughter’s commencement ceremony.

        Giving the commencement address at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda where his granddaughter Megan graduated, Scalia opined:

        Class of 2015, you should not leave Stone Ridge High School thinking that you face challenges that are at all, in any important sense, unprecedented. Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were.

        The reference to “5,000 years” is an allusion to the claims made by Young Earth Creationists who take a “Biblical view” of science and reject biological evolution.

        […]

        The following is an excerpt of the dissent in Edwards vs. Aguillard written by Scalia:

        The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger…. The evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific “fact,” since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is merely a scientific theory or “guess.”… It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it could accurately be termed a “myth.”…

        Creation science is educationally valuable…

        http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/06/scalia-commencement-speech-supports-young-earth-creationism/

        • Gosman 3.3.2.1
          15 February 2016 at 12:04 pm

          Even though there hasn’t been any cases that I am aware of recently that involves creationism and the Supreme Court of the US why would this impact the entire world even if there was?

          • joe90 3.3.2.1.1
            15 February 2016 at 12:32 pm

            Anti-science loons impact the entire world.

            • Gosman 3.3.2.1.1.1
              15 February 2016 at 12:38 pm

              Yes indeed. People who are anti-vaccines and GMO’s are a major problem.

              • Tricledrown …
                15 February 2016 at 1:28 pm

                Gosman the clone who proves you can’t vaccinate for gullibility.
                The supreme court is anti democracy.

                • weka …
                  15 February 2016 at 4:21 pm

                  I’ve had the measles, as did all my siblings. I think it’s an indictment on society and the medical profession and the health systems and the Science is God people that that woman had to go to a closed internet group for advice about her baby when my mother’s generation all knew as a matter of course how to care for a sick child at home.

                  • chris73 …
                    15 February 2016 at 6:14 pm

                    I read that as she’d rather use her close-minded group on Facebook then go to a doctor

                    • weka …
                      15 February 2016 at 6:30 pm

                      Nevertheless, my point above stands.

                      Doctor and FB groups are going to give completely different sets of advice. And she says in the article that she is going to take her son to the doctors, which IMO is a good way to spread the measles esp to vulnerable kids. Better that people have the skills to manage at home and the knowledge to know when they need to get medical help.

              • One Two …
                15 February 2016 at 2:44 pm

                Pretending to understand enough to make another blanket statement

                Informed choice, freedom to choose and the precautionary principle

                • McFlock …
                  15 February 2016 at 2:52 pm

                  You need to work harder at pretending.

                  • One Two …
                    15 February 2016 at 3:09 pm

                    Reading through your contributions, I would say you’re projecting, wildly

                    There is a distinct sneering tone, which reeks of fear such as the asinine remark you made above

                    What, if any is your issue with the three tenets I listed ?

                    • McFlock …
                      15 February 2016 at 3:33 pm

                      I have little time for idiots who endanger others as well as their children.

                      1: “informed choice” does not equal “shit some moron told me in a youtube video must be more reliable than ‘big pharma'”

                      2: “freedom to choose” is not the same as “freedom to endanger the lives of others”

                      3: The precautionary principle:

                      states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action.

                      [my italics]
                      We know the level of harm of vaccines: fuck all compared to the level of harm of the diseases they represent (see my opening sentence).

                      so yeah, I have very little time for people whose idiocy results in outbreaks of Dickensian illnesses in first-world nations. Frankly, I view anti-vaxxers as public health menaces.

                    • alwyn …
                      15 February 2016 at 3:40 pm

                      @McFlock.
                      Jeez, sometimes you do say something sensible.
                      This is one of those times.

                  • One Two …
                    15 February 2016 at 4:08 pm

                    Such a complete lack of understanding , ignorance and arrogance

                    That you don’t can’t or won’t describe simple concepts without using derogatory language, let alone comprehend them adequately , is your problem to work through

                    Good luck with the journey

                • UncookedSelachimorpha …
                  16 February 2016 at 12:18 am

                  Not that I like siding with right wingers.

                  But I’m afraid being anti-vax fails on all three counts:

                  Informed choice: There is plenty of information on vaccination vs disease – it is a no-brainer that vaccination saves millions of lives / severe illnesses, with the negative effects of vaccination real but minuscule in comparison to the disease

                  freedom to choose: Unfortunately you are not only choosing for yourself / your children. Unvaccinated people pass disease to others and can destroy herd immunity. Oddly, this same “freedom” argument is advanced by RWNJ for their economic and social views (‘I should be free to choose whether I contribute to the education / healthcare of others etc). We should do some things collectively for the good of society.

                  Precautionary principle: The balance of risk is overwhelmingly in favour of vaccination. Not vaccinating fails the precautionary test.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    16 February 2016 at 12:33 am

                    You have to be fucking kidding me.

                    You state “informed choice” as one of your major arguments.

                    Then make it clear you don’t believe in a patient’s informed choice at all, you believe in your choice and your conclusions, to be applied to everyone else, and then applying a thin veneer of your version of “informed choice” over the top of it.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    16 February 2016 at 12:40 am

                    Let’s run with your bullshit one step further:

                    1) Informed choice: there is plenty of evidence that Labour gets consistently better results for both adults and children than National does. Yes Labour Governments sometimes cause bad things, but those bad things are miniscule in comparison to the benefits that they deliver, especially compared to National.

                    2) Freedom to choose: National voters are not just choosing a government for themselves/their own children. Unfortunately, their choice is also damaging other people and can destroy the common good.

                    3) Precautionary principle: the balance of risk is greatly in favour of a Labour led government. Voting National and not voting Labour fails the test of the precautionary principle.

                    Conclusion – people who vote National are both socially and personally irresponsible, and the ability to democratically choose to vote for National shall be banned, in the name of the public good.

                    • McFlock …
                      16 February 2016 at 10:24 am

                      did you include lab4 in that equation? Because that seriously skews your math

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      16 February 2016 at 10:27 am

                      Of course I included Lab4 into the equation.

                      Has Lab4 somehow been exorcised from Labour’s history and performance?

                      MPs from that time who voted for Rogernomics are still in the caucus.

                      Or should I do the drug company statistics thing and simply exclude entire datasets and time periods which prove inconvenient?

                    • McFlock …
                      16 February 2016 at 10:40 am

                      So basically the idea that Labour “consistently” does better is correct only 4/5 of the time. I reckon you might be lacking “scientific consensus” that your statement is correct.

                      A better example would be the policy of denazification of post-WWII Germany. Participants in a clearly bad government were banned from office, but the actual impact was minimal. So even if the thing is bad, the intervention needs to be better than the status quo. Voting interventions aren’t. Vaccinations clearly are.

  4. vto 4
    15 February 2016 at 11:24 am

    This tourism driving is getting seriously out of hand on the main tourist roads of the south island – west coast, otago especially.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/76883987/frustrated-truck-driver-throws-tourists-car-keys-over-fence-near-queenstown

    Drove some long distance recently and saw incidents all the time – swerving badly across the road, driving onto one lane bridge with us already on it, random stopping in the middle of the road…. probably couple of incidents per morning on average…..

    it is a very real threat, with locals driving like nanas now

    chaos and carnage

    • Molly 4.1
      15 February 2016 at 1:49 pm

      My sister was catching a commuter flight from Wellington, and saw a driver (passenger in back seat) having difficulty at the car park entrance. When she enquired if they needed a handed, the driver said she was looking for the car rental place to drop off the car, and needed to do so quickly as they were late to check in for a flight.

      My sister offered to direct them there and jumped in the passenger seat. During the short drive, the driver drove extremely badly, before ending up at the car rental. During somewhat strained conversation it appears that the driver had never driven a car before and driving on the NZ roads was the first time. She had driven from Rotorua to Wellington, on our somewhat unforgiving of driver error roads.

      • Chooky 4.1.1
        15 February 2016 at 2:47 pm

        @ vto and Molly ….in the meantime young New Zealanders can’t get licenses….!!!! ( too expensive….too hard!…too much testing….too many failed because of simple tiny errors)

        ….this is jonkey’s banana republic…persecute and make it very hard for New Zealand youth to get ahead …and make it a free for all for the overseas hoons and irresponsible and wealthy

        • vto 4.1.1.1
          15 February 2016 at 10:16 pm

          Here is some backup to my call above – exactly what is going through EVERYBODY’s minds who lives in these parts and has to drive.

          http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/76839291/fiordland-residents-fearful-of-driving-alongside-visitors.html

          It is ridiculous.

          I suggest heavy, near extreme, measures are required.

          URGENTLY.

          There simply has to be a hard core practical test before any rental car can be taken out by a non-NZ driver.

          If it costs – tough. It will save NZ lives.
          If they fail and can’t drive – tough. It will save NZ lives.
          If tourists leave – tough. It will save NZ lives.

          This is now an everyday occurrence. Starting to make me very cross.

          THE TOURISTS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN DRINK DRIVING…..

          AAAAAARRGGGHHHHHH…!!!!!!

    • weka 4.2
      16 February 2016 at 7:26 am

      What’s a few deaths and maimings when we’re making all those tourism dollars?

  5. travellerev 5
    15 February 2016 at 12:02 pm

    Most people don’t understand about derivatives or other financial products. In Holland, Pension funds are going down to their exposure to these toxic instruments, in the US pensions funds are collapsing and the funds are being looted by banks and governmental institutions to cover debts and in New Zealand we hear nothing about the Cullen fund which supposedly has about $19 billion in investments so I thought I’d link to some articles I have been writing in as early as 2012 about the fund that was supposed to be able to support our pension system for a long time to come:

    https://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/the-serious-fraud-squad-should-investigate-john-key-and-merrill-lynchs-involvement-with-the-cullen-fund/

    https://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/breaking-did-merrill-lynch-set-up-the-cullen-fund-meet-ira-bing/

  7. fender 7
    15 February 2016 at 12:23 pm

    Can’t access the mobile version for some reason lprent. Been that way since at least saturday.

  8. Draco T Bastard 8
    15 February 2016 at 2:47 pm

    Garbage in, garbage out

    A review of the modelling of the benefits of the TPPA

    In a document that was recently released under the OIA, Treasury put the present value of the benefits at $13.3 billion. This assessment was based on the NZMOD benefit numbers. If we scale this back by our assessment of the annual benefits then the net present value of the benefits is $665 million. Treasury’s assessment of the net present value of the costs is $800 million (not including biologic costs)

    And that doesn’t even take into account our loss of sovereignty. So, for us, the TPPA is a lose-lose.

  9. Sabine 9
    15 February 2016 at 5:35 pm

    but all is well, a real estate agent told me that the asian buyers (yep a realtor said the word asian) finally all received their IRD Numbers and House Sales will go up into the stratosphere in AKL again.
    so who needs exports, n stuff ….not us not us

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/76821748/Rod-Oram-Economic-reality-is-hitting-home

    Quote: “Yet despite all this stimulus, growth is anaemic and deflation becoming entrenched in many countries. Increasingly, central banks are turning to negative interest rates as a last resort. Japan recently joined the ECB, Denmark Sweden and Switzerland.

    What happens next could be startling. For example, the UK should start to consider ending all cash transactions to enable banks to levy negative interest rates on their customers, Andrew Haldane, chief economist of the Bank of England, argued in a speech last September, available here.

    This is only one of the range of radical new tools central banks must devise to cope with the next recession, Martin Wolf, chief economics columnist of the Financial Times, wrote recently, available here.

    Our Reserve Banks has been remarkably reticent on all these issues, even though it has missed every inflation forecast it has made in the past four years. With deflation looking ever more likely than inflation, it should take the opportunity of its March 10 Monetary Policy Statement to begin to engage business and the wider public on this fundamental challenge.

    Reality is hitting home in may other ways, such as the forecast by DairyNZ that 85 per cent of dairy farmers will run at a loss this season.

    Yet in Parliament on Tuesday, Key’s passing gesture to the real world was this:

    “…weaker dairy prices, along with other factors, are contributing to slower growth in the nominal economy, which is expected to be around $17 billion lower over the next five years than was expected in last year’s Budget. This flows through to slightly less tax revenue, slightly lower operating balances and slightly higher debt, compared to Budget forecasts.” Quote End.

    • vto 9.1
      15 February 2016 at 5:51 pm

      I wonder if people realise what the Bank of England nut bar is saying here? ……….

      “For example, the UK should start to consider ending all cash transactions to enable banks to levy negative interest rates on their customers, Andrew Haldane, chief economist of the Bank of England, argued in a speech last September”

      It is fucked completely.

      He is saying – lets charge people to conduct transactions in order to save the banks.

      It may take a while for this to seep in – especially to right wing brains…

      • sabine 9.1.1
        15 February 2016 at 6:08 pm

        its already happening in sweden, and in the US people on a benefit can only take $ 25 out a day, and they are charged for each transaction.

        and not much discussed in our own sweet aotearoa

        http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/79845/bernard-hickey-suggests-removing-cash-and-adopting-blockchain-type-system-transactions

        Quote: A cashless society could help us combat crime and tax avoidance by making it much harder to trade illegally and in an untraced way. It would also avoid the problem of cash hoarding if interest rates were ever cut to 0%, or even negative rates. It would make it much easier to have negative interest rates that gave the Reserve Bank the power to stimulate the economy by charging savers to look after their money. A move to a digital currency could also allow us to do without banks for transactions and save an awful lot of money in processing and conversion fees.

        So why don’t we do it? Now that most people have smart phones and almost all retailers are connected to a payments network, it would seem a simple step to remove cash from the system. After all, many of us use EFTPOS and contactless Visa and Master cards to pay for things. Why not switch completely and remove all the cost and danger of storing, transporting and handling cash?

        Yet it’s proving much harder than many thought, and it’s not just a New Zealand problem. Despite all the gadgets and terminals, there is actually much more cash in circulation than there’s ever been. The Reserve Bank reports there was NZ$4.96 billion worth of notes ands coin sitting in wallets and vaults and under mattresses as at March of last year. That’s up 61.6% from the NZ$3.07 billion in circulation just 10 years earlier. Quote end.

        i do like how its always to combat crime, are we not just a bunch o suckers in their eyes.

        • pat 9.1.1.1
          15 February 2016 at 8:17 pm

          yes we could do it….and it would aid in tax evasion…..unfortunately it will also aid in bail ins for the banks and right at the moment that is a very real risk…I .dont think anyone would be very happy about losing a significant portion of their savings,….except perhaps the bankers who have skimmed off obscene bonuses for providing the “service”….quarter (or whatever figure they determine) of an obscene unwarranted amount is still not a bad scam.

        • One Two 9.1.1.2
          15 February 2016 at 11:59 pm

          Watch , listen and follow very closely the chorus of cashless society shills. They are lining up, they are many , and they have local chapters in every corner of the globe

          There are a small number of issues which will grab the attention of a huge percentage of the western world. This is one of the few

          The more those few issues are openly pushed, greater numbers of people will begin to look more deeply into the lies behind them, rebel, or look for alternatives

    • miravox 9.2
      15 February 2016 at 8:27 pm

      weaker dairy prices, along with other factors, are contributing to slower growth in the nominal economy

      What is this “nominal economy” and how is he getting away avoiding the impact of weaker dairy prices and other factors the real economy that real people operate in?

      • sabine 9.2.1
        15 February 2016 at 8:43 pm

        he does not live in the same economy than you and me. That is how he avoids the consequence of the selling of our country. When he is done he’ll bugger off.

    • Jones 9.3
      16 February 2016 at 9:57 pm

      Everything’s ok… TPPA will deliver us the missing growth. That light at the end of the tunnel is the Brighter Future. You read it here first.