Open mike 16/03/2025
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No feed items found.
- Cyclone Alfred to cost budget $1.2 billion, hit growth and push up inflation: Chalmers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_New_Zealand_general_election
Luxon = Canute? If our CoC govt wants to turn the tide, they'd better get a wriggle on, but a certain sorted Sir needn't worry – his knighthood will be in the post, eventually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Nash#Honours_and_awards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Rowling#Honours_and_awards
Is this the sound of one hand clapping? At least there was one to witness it but did it make a sound?
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/03/16/when-the-pm-claps-is-it-applause-or-agreement/
I’d love to see the Coalition change its spots on this (e.g., the Firearms Law Reform) but I have a hard time imagining it.
He'll never stand upto seymours gunloveing nra aligned act party
They're going there.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=senate&f=SF2589&ssn=0&y=2025
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry
I read that and started to really worry about the state of Minnesota. The people I knew who came from there had always seemed to be quite reasonable.
Then I read, and was cheered up by, the results of the last election. For the 13th time in a row Minnesota had voted for the Democrats. The last time a Republican won was, apparently, Gerald Ford in 1976. These Senators really do appear to be whistling in the wind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Minnesota
Alas, alwyn, that’s another fail in your “wish to bring some enlightenment to the ignorant.” The last time a majority of Minnesotans voted for a Republican presidential candidate was in 1972 – Nixon.
And I wouldn't worry about the state of Minnesota – sounds like a relatively sound place. Its 2019 GDP, US $383 billion, compares favourably with NZ – US S213 b.
Why thank you, you are quite correct. It was Nixon. I read the comment about the 13 time and miscalculated when it was last Republican. I should have looked it up as you did.
I only visited the state once. Minneapolis in February and it was about -15 degrees!
Even the locals thought it was a bit chilly.
Sounds like a plan, given your apparent motivation for commenting here
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-weather-march-14-2025/
Not quite so chilly in March, but still a bit chilly – at least you didn’t visit in January.
I recall reading here recently, that the transport costs for Gordon Brittas lunches from Australian aren't included in the price.
Can someone pop a link up that verifies this plz?
The incompetence of this scheme is beyond belief.
Totally smashes the efficiency myth that ACT likes to litter the airwaves with.
this one? https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-03-2025/#comment-2028689.
Thank you.
Good grief.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/03/14/barbarians-at-the-death-house-gate-the-return-of-the-firing-squad/
How the rule of law works in tRump's America.
/
.
Elizabeth Oyer claims justice department senior ‘bullied’ her due to Trump’s relationship with actor sentenced for domestic violence in 2011.
[…]
According to the Times, Oyer was also sent a January letter from Gibson’s lawyer addressed to two senior justice department officials, James McHenry and Emil Bove, “arguing for [Gibson’s] gun rights to be restored, saying that he had been tapped for a special appointment by the president and that he had made a number of big, successful movies”.
On 16 January, four days before starting his second presidency, Trump said the 69-year-old star of Mad Max, Braveheart and other blockbusters had been named, alongside two other veteran actors, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, “special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California”.
Oyer told the Times: “Giving guns back to domestic abusers is a serious matter that, in my view, is not something that I could recommend lightly, because there are real consequences that flow from people who have a history of domestic violence being in possession of firearms.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/doj-official-fired-mel-gibson-gun
Apartheid Clyde's boer is showing.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bpc7nm4rtcchhdq5sfxyrujl/post/3lkgkyeemg22i?
As the world’s richest men slash American aid for the world’s poorest children, they insist that all is well. “No one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding,” Elon Musk said. “No one.”
That is not true. In South Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, the efforts by Musk and President Trump are already leading children to die.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html
And now the good news.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/13/2309934/-The-Tesla-Takedown
The current backlash against Tesla across the U.S. and Europe likely has no comparison in the history of the automobile industry, the bank warned, slashing its first-quarter delivery forecast to 355,000 vehicles and reducing its price target to $120 per share.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-fall-grace-may-no-180054813.html
Unfortunately a fall to $114, although possible, doesn't look to be imminent. Tesla shares closed on Friday up 3.9% to $250. They have got a very long way to go before they get low enough to hit Musk with margin calls.
Which is where it was on election day – still a major reduction from $430US.
The target value still remains at $120 though because there are not the sales to support the value of the stock. So at the moment those folk buying are buying a share essentially worth half of what they are paying. But then they probably also voted for Trump.
The prices for all the Tech stocks as well as Tesla all seem to me to be ridiculously high. They seem to be based on the premise that they are as safe, and stable, as Government bond prices.
It is as if people are sure that they are all going to rise at a steady 20% per annum sales increase for ever without any fluctuation at all.
Just a bit.
Tesla PE Ratio: 122.54 for March 14, 2025
Spark New Zealand PE Ratio: 16.46 for March 6, 2025 ·
a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding
Is this a new thing on the far right – the idea that you cannot know beforehand what the actual constraints on your actions really are? You have to just do stuff anyway, and then see what happens in order to discover those constraints, if there are any. And in the final step: now that the thing you always wanted to do has been done, you can just ignore or belittle most of the bad things that result. To me, it seems like a playbook for social and economic blitzkrieg.
s the world’s richest men slash American aid for the world’s poorest children, they insist that all is well. “No one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding,” Elon Musk said. “No one.”
perhaps he meant to say no "white person"
It's the twitter take over strategy, only this time he's a sociopath who thinks compassion is a liability and who is dealing in people's lives.
My bet is Luxon comes back from India with no trade deal.
But his boosterism will be undiminished by the experience.
What time period are you allowing him to get the desired result?
After all the FTA with China took many years even after the negotiations started. The negotiations started in November 2004 and it was finally signed in April 2008.
We haven't even got close to negotiations with India but I imagine, since you say that "My bet is Luxon comes back from India with no trade deal." you will be claiming that if the agreement isn't signed by the middle of next week that he will have "failed"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand%E2%80%93China_Free_Trade_Agreement#:~:text=The%20New%20Zealand%2DChina%20FTA,by%20the%20New%20Zealand%20Parliament.
Before his first term is up.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/544879/deal-or-no-deal-christopher-luxon-s-india-trip-puts-trade-promise-to-the-test
He was a bloody idiot to be sucked into a promise like that in a TV debate wasn't he? The penalties of being promoted so fast meant he hadn't learnt to fudge his promises in the way experience teaches the veteran ones.
I don't think he has a chance. Mind you, after the 2020 election result, I didn't think Labour would have been tossed out in the 2023 election so the unexpected can happen. A firm date for the start to the negotiations that is announced before the next election will be a major feat in my opinion.
Still, even the Orange headed one came back from the dead so it might not be totally impossible.
Do you think that Ad will give him that long before he claims failure? He claimed failure of the Investment Conference before it even ended didn’t he?
You clearly didn’t read the article I linked to.
I have no idea what Ad will do and you’ll have to ask Ad yourself.
The Infrastructure Investment Summit was a failure by most standards, wasn’t it?
lol
New Zealand and India formally announced today an end to their talks on a Free Trade Agreement, concentrating instead on ‘business relationship’
Sources:
[…]
Relevant Dates
2010-04-07
2007-05-0
2022-0-0
https://aric.adb.org/fta/new-zealand-india-free-trade-agreement
I'm sorry but I don't see the relevance of this. Labour didn't get there but National claimed, after the data on the stuff that you posted that they could get an agreement. Well they have to show that they can.
Free trade agreements take on average a little over two years to negotiate and yet here we are like a rejected teenager, absolutely convinced that one day India will sign on the dotted line.
Tim Groser recommended he try for a minimalist one.
The richest man in the world is saving money.
/
“DOGE Has 10 Staffers at Social Security in Hunt for Dead People,” the headlines read this past week.
I found a dead person on Social Security. Right here in Seattle, on Capitol Hill.
Of course the circumstances of Ned Johnson’s death were completely the opposite of what Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had claimed was rampant.
“You wake up one day and discover you’re dead,” Johnson told me. “It’s been truly surreal.”
[…]
Johnson’s strange trip through the netherworld began in February, when a letter from his bank arrived addressed to his wife, Pam.
“We recently received notification of LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s passing,” it began. “We offer our sincerest condolences …”
At first she figured it was a scam — her husband, after all, was sitting right there. But then the bank got to the point.
“We know this is a difficult time, and we’re here to help,” the bank wrote. “We received a request from Social Security Administration to return benefits paid to LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s account after their passing.”
“There’s nothing you need to do — we’ve deducted the funds from LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s account.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/heres-a-dead-person-on-social-security-in-seattle-with-plenty-to-say/
They've always been cooked.
(thread)
Seth Cotlar 8h
In 1798 the Federalists rallied behind the Alien and Sedition Acts–laws designed to punish journalists they deemed unfairly critical and deport immigrants they saw as a threat to the nation. The conservative media of its day built support for these laws by circulating batshit conspiracy theories.
https://bsky.app/profile/sethcotlar.bsky.social/post/3lkh7ncogi22j
unrolled (for those without a bluesky account)
FACT CHECK.
1.6% Dec 2017 – 1.5% Mar 2021 and 2.2% now.
It was higher 2021-2023, but so it was, in all 5Eyes nations.
And since Brash earlier periods
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-inflation-at-2-2-percent/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360614756/damien-grant-adrian-orr-did-something-i-can-get-behind-he-resigned
Slight change, Orr was appointed Dec 17, but began March 2018 when inflation was 1.1%.
The idea that high inflation 2021-2023 was peculiar to NZ and caused by NZ govt policies is one you'd thing would be so daft no-one would try to peddle it, given all the countries suffering the same problem at the same time. And yet people do, and there's an audience so daft it believes it.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360614756/damien-grant-adrian-orr-did-something-i-can-get-behind-he-resigned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Orr
Dec 2017
https://nzsuperfund.nz/news-and-media/nz-super-fund-ceo-take-governorship-reserve-bank-new-zealand/