I wonder if it is possible to join the dots between the sudden appearance on social media of an apparently coordinated character assassination of Siouxsie Wiles by the right wing and Blackland PR being engaged to be the front of hard right business interests determined to undermine the governments COVID-19 response plan?
Dirty politics as a tactic for those business interests with sociopathatic leadership is for them just business as usual.
Hmmmm, our parrot has started barking like the dog. I assume that he has decided to profitably spend the lockdown learning another language but it is rather disconcerting to be barked at by a parrot.
Dog doesn't bark much at all, except when he manages to lock himself outside or he can see his water bowl through the glass door but his lack of opposable thumbs and height counts against him in terms of getting to it.
Where people see a parrot, or any kind of bird, I see shit, shit and more shit. Plus feathers everywhere, and birdseed flung as far as the eye can see.
– tap into the sudden increase of enquiries about how to move to NZ….
– increase royalties for all NZ natural resource exports (including metals, and especially water which shouldn't be going anywhere but if it must we need to profit and stop gifting it)
– legal cannabis sales, collect tax. End all cannabis related convictions and release anyone convicted from prison
– encourage self sufficiency and personal responsibility
– either optimize or remove costly government ad campaigns, especially on television. Only provide information that is not already found easily, ie mostly stuff related to the government
We have an enormous inequality problem, where most have very little compared to a handful who have almost everything. This is the main reason most are not prospering (there is already plenty of wealth in nz for everyone to do quite well already) .
Targeted higher taxes (among other things) can directly address this and move wealth from the very rich to everyone else. I can't see how any of your proposals will help with this? I suppose your proposed increased royalties (i.e. Tax) on resource exports might to some extent., depending on who is doing the exporting.
A doesn't say that his notions are for the country as a whole to benefit US, just; "some ideas on how to prosper". I am assuming that he means themselves to do well out of the crisis; as they evidently have no concern for anyone else.
The "encourage… personal responsibility" line in particular has a very; pull yourself up by your bootstraps vibe about it. Something that used to be regarded as a literal impossibility (how we might say; walk over to Australia). But is treated as a required prerequisite to being regarded as a real person by those who have already been lifted up by social advantages they feign ignorance of.
Right up there with "sell passports" -tap into the interest in moving to NZ.
Generally right wing troll tropics trying to divert discussion away from changes that won't benefit them.
And to divert attention from the horribly selfish behaviour of the few taking million dollar salaries & government subsidies and while chopping low range salaries.
And their favourite news media is going broke. There will be higher taxes for the 1%
I thought the prime minister was interesting yesterday at lunchtime- making some off the cuff remarks about some of the selfish decisions of the owner sector that they had seen.
Check out the doco Murder Mountain, when California legalised pot a bunch of illegal growers try go legit, and they have to pay for permits and get certified, show they don't use pesticides, package everything, get more certification, they basically all go back to selling illegally.
We certainly don't need a bunch of dodgy foreign capital coming our way.
I suggested the other day that any assets in NZ owned through tax haven registered entities ( shares, land & buildings etc) be taxed at 100% of the asset /income.
Grandfathering would also have to be checked through foreign registries to ensure no cutouts.
Wayne though that was really bad – so there may be some thing in it.But we are facilitating if we allow this.
– tap into the sudden increase of enquiries about how to move to NZ….
Yeah, nah, the last thing we need is a bunch of rich immigrants bringing their high GHG emission life to NZ.
– increase royalties for all NZ natural resource exports (including metals, and especially water which shouldn't be going anywhere but if it must we need to profit and stop gifting it)
Better to stop giving private companies the right to make profit off finite resources. Nationalise the lot, or just ban the stupid shit like exporting bottled water (apart from humanitarian/crisis aid). Best resist the temptation to respond to the pandemic by becoming more polluting.
– legal cannabis sales, collect tax. End all cannabis related convictions and release anyone convicted from prison
Yep. Make cannabis growing legal and free, and tax product appropriately. Lots of savings here.
– encourage self sufficiency and personal responsibility
Fund community and home gardens and orchards. Relocalise food supply. Build strong community.
– either optimize or remove costly government ad campaigns, especially on television. Only provide information that is not already found easily, ie mostly stuff related to the government
Use government owned media to teach civics.
– force DHBs to reduce G&A expenses
Reform the health system so that it is not based around business management. Fund community and homebased health care, especially preventative. Reduce poverty markedly to take the pressure off the health system.
I've long wondered if we should set some resource taxes e.g on water or waste but make them offset against income tax if that is paid. So if you just export water a resource tax is paid at the max personal rate. If you use it locally to make bottled drinks then the resouce tax payments go against your income tax assessment but there is no refund if they exceed the income tax.
& more anti lockdown protests, this time in Michigan, Trump fans berating one of the "women governors" (as Trump likes to call them). I have American friends, and they despair and can't figure out what's happening (yet still going out to get their cappuccinos & not understanding my own bewilderment at that!).
The University of Iceland has predicted that there will be no new cases of Covid-19 in Iceland by the end of this month. That would be quite a feat considering Iceland hasn't been in lockdown. However, it did begin testing its population at the end of January, before anyone in Iceland had tested positive for the virus and more than a month before it was declared a pandemic.
[I haven’t been following your pandemic line on TS, other than the occasional cursory glance, but if this comment is anything to go by I’m not impressed. Your comment here is misleading, and in the general thrust of politics that probably wouldn’t matter so much. In a global and national health crisis where people are dying, imo it’s grossly irresponsible. You’ve had other moderator attention, you’ve now got this one’s too. This is your chance to stop cherry picking data and information to support your line and be more honest and explanatory about what you are trying to say, rather than making implications via by gets left unsaid unsaid – weka]
"That would be quite a feat considering Iceland hasn't been in lockdown."
You make it sound so easy. In reality they did a range of things including banning gatherings, closing pubs, libraries etc, closing higher schools, putting physical distancing in place, closing businesses that couldn't function with a 2m rule, quarantining returning citizens.
The model provides two predictions: a median or ‘probable’ forecast and a pessimistic forecast. The number of new cases recorded daily will drop to an average of 0 by the end of April according to the ‘probable’ forecast. The pessimistic forecast estimates around three to four new cases per day.
…
The model also predicts the number of people that will need hospital treatment. The number of hospitalisations at any one time was previously expected to peak at between 60 and 90 patients last week, but there are currently only 39 hospitalised COVID-19 patients in Iceland. However, the Director for Health, Alma Möller has warned that the the number of patients in Iceland’s hospitals is likely to increase in the coming weeks, as the hospitalisation rate tends to peak a couple of weeks after the infection rate.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the forecasts are constantly changing to reflect the latest developments in Iceland’s COVID-19 outbreak, so predictions are highly likely to change in the future. But as time passes and more data is collected, the model will become more stable and accurate.
Meanwhile,
As of 15 April 2020, the total number of cases registered is 1,727, of which 1,077 have recovered and 8 have died.[1][4] With a total population of 364,260 (as of 31 December 2019), the infection rate is 1 case per 211 inhabitants, one of the highest in the world, though this is attributed to more tests have been carried out per capita in Iceland than any other country; these include a screening of the general population run by Icelandic company deCODE genetics to determine the true spread of the virus in the community.[5]
Relatively small population, and physical isolation will be playing a big part in their situation. Their death rate will be much higher than NZ too, per head of population.
Its the same type of "argument" Ross usually makes on climate change. Argument by insinuation from extremely selective source(s) often quoted misleadingly. Then often followed by denial of having made any argument…
Ross has just switched from minimising/denying climate change to minimising COVID-19.
I referenced a positive and factual story. I would have thought readers might might find it useful. I think most people, with perhaps the odd exception, would be delighted if there were no new cases by the end of this month.
Someone on here recently referenced 80,000 deaths in NZ, a worst case scenario that was fanciful and apparently had no basis in reality. Cherry picking indeed.
[ok, well given how many times you’ve been warned by moderators and chosen to ignore them, and here you are doing it again, I’m happy to put you on the black list and take it to be back end to be sorted out. For me personally, this is wasting moderator time, and atm I have way less patience for that than normal. Any comments you make from now on will be visible to the mods but not the front end. At some point someone will make a decision and post it under this comment – weka]
[Your continued inability and unwillingness to change your behaviour has caused a lot of trouble for Moderators here as well as wasted countless time of other commenters who tried to engage with you in good faith. You have received attention of Moderators in Moderation notes and comments yet you invariably fail to respond and take heed, argue, and simply continue. At the best of times, which these are not, you would receive a series of relatively short bans. However, with the pandemic and the Election looming, we cannot afford the extra stress and wasting more time on you, especially when it is blatantly obvious that you are not going to change your ways. For further explanation, you can search on all the Moderation notes and comments from Moderators this year alone.
Auckland University Professor Shaun Hendy is expected to submit to the government tomorrow his team's modelling on the risks of an outbreak from easing the lockdown.
The team had about three-quarters of the data they needed, after improvements in how it was coming through in the past week, he said, but some of the contact tracing data was "really weak".
You quoted yet another “positive and factual story”, which happened to be a modelling study too! Yet you think yours might be useful while the other one was “fanciful and apparently had no basis in reality”. I beg to differ. In any case, this is NZ and a modelling study specific to NZ is highly relevant and has a firm basis in reality. Your gaslighting is tedious to an extreme.
Here’s the thing, you cherry pick links & quotes, you make no argument of your own, you don’t respond to replies by either commenters or Moderators except to fob them off, you keep repeating this pattern (as you did with your comments on CC), you have drawn the attention of three Moderators and continue wasting Moderator time, you are wasting the time of others, et cetera.
I have warned you only recently that if you don’t start to comment here in good faith and lift your game you would be Blacklisted for the rest of the year, as far as I was concerned. Another Moderator has already parked you there but suffice to say, you won’t be reversing out any time soon.
Yesterday I argued for a covid tax income tax increase to 40% for income above $120,000.
I know that many on this site want to use the Covid crisis to permanently change the economy. I personally think that is wrong. It is going to be hard enough to recover without imposing an economic revolution on top, and without any democratic mandate.
But obviously a lot will change. Government is already bigger. It will drive infrastructure spending. It is rescuing businesses and people alike. At the minimum this is going to cost $20 billion at the very time when the tax base has collapsed. So probably $20 billion extra spending, and $20 billion lost revenue, a total of $40 billion. That will drive debt up to 35% of GDP. It could easily be more than that. So massive deficits for years to come, which have to be paid for.
So what does a tax increase to 40% do? It obviously gets more govt revenue, but it also takes that money out of the wider economy, right at the time when that demand is required. So this is a tricky dilemma for govt. And that dilemma exists whether a govt is left or right.
A 40% tax rate will probably produce around $5 billion per year. Total income tax for the year is about $50 billion, so it is around a 10% increase in the total tax. However, incomes across the board have dropped, so it probably will get more like $3 billion, rather than $5 billion.
Some here would argue that the 40% rate should be permanent, but like all taxes they are subject to the govt of the day. I know that many here will disagree with National's tax reduction packages of 2009 and 2010. One of the drivers of them was to increase demand in the economy. I would say that worked. New Zealand came out of the GFC much faster than countries that increased taxes.
So in principle (my principles) a Covid tax surcharge should be short-lived. Enough to get the govt books going back in the right direction. In my view, probably 2 or 3 years. The surcharge doesn’t have to pay back all the debt, a lot that will naturally occur as the economy gets back to normal size, probably 2 to 3 years from now.
As I noted above, there is a strong argument that increasing taxes right at the time the economy is retracting is the worst thing you can do. All that happens is that it steepens the dive.
I have no doubt Treasury will be doing some careful modelling on all this. It will be good for that to be made public. This is one of those occasions where the public should see these assessments as they are made. Before any tax increase is actually imposed.
I think we can agree on an increase in the top tax rate, though I would go a bit further, and have a higher rate over, say, 300k.
I doubt if it will decrease economic activity. People with higher incomes don't usually spend their marginal income directly. Spending it on reducing debt, or buying "investments".
What will increase economic activity, is dropping the "paperboy tax". Combining an increase in top tax rates with a no tax lower threshold. Australia was about 9000k., when I was there.
Everyone has now seen the problems with reducing the size of Government, and the services it provides, too much, from recent direct experience. The USA, now being a horrific warning, rather than an example to follow. Even the inaptly named "tax payers union, I doubt they will want to reduce it again, in a hurry.
I doubt if National’s tax switch, increasing GST, while decreasing tax on high earners really increased demand. Even a simplistic analysis suggests higher consumption taxes, combined with lower taxes on people that don’t spend all their income, has the opposite effect.
I think all of treasuries modelling should be public. It is paid for by the public, after all.
I really hope that NZ fairs better with cases of Covid-19. The cost to the health system is going to be high due to the systemic complications of Covid-19.
Do you think there needs to be a health levy like with a petrol levy?
Wayne good on you for proposing a tax increase as an ex-National government Minister.
I haven't seen any commentary that the government is short of funding capacity to get the stuff done it needs.
So I don't see why taxing the rich would help the most.
I do agree with it in principle however – to at least reverse the tax cuts back to 39% at the top, for simple reasons of gradually decreasing inequality.
I would prefer to see tax decreases, to get money circulating around our economy faster:
– Wiping tax on NZSuper
– Wiping tax on welfare payments
– Consider wiping tax on low paid incomes.
Give the cash back to the poorest, because they will be being hit hardest.
Welfare payments largely aren't taxed now, they are generally either exempt income (not taxable – accommodation supplement and working for families are two examples), or tax is calculated on the net figure, so a tax reduction has no impact on the benefit amounts paid.
edit, ah I think I know what you mean. The gross figure is just a made up one, and in the absence of tax, the amount paid to the beneficiary would be the same net rate as now?
Correct, MSD calculates the gross figure based on the net figure so that after tax is deducted, the net figure actually paid is the stated benefit rate.
Hi. There are some quite good economic theories that give the opposite results to what you suggest here.
In these views tax is seen as a means to discourage the accumulation of dead money in stagnating pools of wealth. If accumulated wealth is hit reasonably hard then the incentive is to keep the money moving to avoid the tax man. This increases the velocity of money rather than decreases it. Makes sense to me.
And this is precisely why the rich should be taxed reasonably heavily because they are the ones with stagnating pools of money. Everyone else keeps circulating theirs of necessity.
Assuming* this would increase the dole (single adult/no kids) by $30, which on top of the recent $25, it would be a really good start. But, it needs to happen alongside welfare reform, because people getting supplementary benefits won't get those full amounts (because of how the formulas work). If the idea is to give the money to those that need it most, then removing tax, or even raising core benefits, isn't sufficient on its own.
I don't think it would be politically sustainable (or fair) to give two increases in welfare payments, the first being $25 on 1 April, and the second by eliminating all tax on welfare payments. The first is enough.
Not when a huge number of people who are still in work have had significant reductions in income. Especially small to medium business, who are really taking a huge hit. And those in work including wages and salaries who have lost income are still paying tax, but probably can barely afford it.
So I am pretty certain that won't happen. Anyway the Treasury needs to release all its advice to government on these issues.
What is absolutely politically unsustainable is handing out wage subsidies so that workers can live on minimum dollars whilst the bosses swan through on multi million dollars salaries. A lot of yesterdays workers will be tomorrows beneficiaries
The problem here, as we saw after the Richardson budget, is that Government welfare payments into communities, is a big part of the money that small business relies on to survive.
I think we can both agree it would be better if they were working, but the miserly level of welfare, along with rising unemployment, is exactly what killed small business in places like Moerewa, at the time.
Anyway, the demand from now out of work, middle class people, when they end up on welfare will, most likely, cause a rethink. When they find out the hard way, how miserable and punitive, it is.
I also think the wage subsidy should be extended for another 3 months, which I aim certain will happen. But in addition I also think the $585 should continue to be paid to those who actually lose their jobs. At least for a six month period.
I know that is a different approach to normal, where a person loosing their job goes immediately to the basic unemployment benefit, plus additional amounts for children. However, if it is the Covid effect that has resulted in the job loss then I think this is justifiable.
Ah yes those in hardship are deserving if it is covid 19 related( obviously ) but for others in hardship well they can get stuffed (obviously they are undeserving)
" I also think the $585 should continue to be paid to those who actually lose their jobs."
How magnificently magnanimous of you. Workers do appreciate this largess and while accept the debt that will result know full well of course that it is they who will ultimately pay it.
Absolutely. Keep all those other beneficiaries in abject grinding poverty, for no good reason. Good for society, good for the nation, good for the economy.
This doesn't really make sense to me Wayne. Increasing benefits, by whatever means, isn't an argument to not support other people going through hard times.
Fairness is in the eye of the beholder I guess. I mean, how fair is it to economically coerce people into long term poverty? We've been socially sanctioning that for 30 years.
"The first is enough"
Only if you think it's fair to keep people in poverty.
btw, there will be lots of beneficiaries that didn't get a rise of $25/wk, because of the supplementary formulas. So maybe consider that in your fairness calculation too.
In solidarity with MPs taking a 20% hit, I'm now drinking and eating my barely affordable basics 20% slower than before.
btw – what happened to that institutional bind that prevented MPs from rejecting their pay awards? It would seem that was never really the bind we were told it was, aye?
Any perceived increased demand generated in the economy by National’s so-called tax cuts in 09/10 was more than offset by their increase to GST, ACC levies and the massive increase they levied on car regos, which they used to turn off and on like a tap depending how close we were to a general election
DON'T fall for this peeps. The right wing are trying to control the tax discussion to suit themselves. Note the troll army popping up to congratulate Wayne.
What the right wing doesn't want :
a wealth tax as it catches the genuine rich as opposed to a CGT which taxes the odd transaction. American billionaires hate it so it must be good. Set the level at $10m- $20m and up.
High income taxes at high thresholds – note the $120k of earnings proposed – which is a lot different to $500k -to wind up a bunch of people who are hardly genuinely rich.
We need a "selfish tax" above say $500k at 70%. We need look through taxes so trusts, individuals and closed companies are taxed at the max personal rate to prevent money being left in companies waiting for a more favourable tax climate.
Anything owned by a tax haven entity 100% of income & assets.
Taxes on worldwide income – for citizens & residents – the likes of Peter Thiel can make a contribution
This seems a reasonable proposal Wayne. We should understand a few things which you have acknowledged in some form however,
"So what does a tax increase to 40% do? It obviously gets more govt revenue, but it also takes that money out of the wider economy, right at the time when that demand is required. So this is a tricky dilemma for govt. And that dilemma exists whether a govt is left or right."
A significant part of the treasury modelling will be to determine if the tax net improves or worsens the govt finances. On the one hand if the economy comes out strongly from lock-down than a surtax on incomes over $120,000 is unlikely to cut into GDP and so the country can implement this policy without shooting itself in the foot. On the other hand if the situation goes like recent well known examples from Japan and Greece then the tax increase response could cut into GDP so much that even the governments finances worsen from the extra tax (not that we should be worried about govt finances anyway). In the case of Greece for example the economy shrank 25% in response to economic reforms making the net govt finances come out worse from the post GFC economic than without the reforms.
We should also acknowledge that all govt taxing and spending happens inside the RBNZ accounts and the ability of the govt to make payments to citizens as it sees fit will never be threatened in any way because of this fact. With this in mind the main reason for a more progressive income tax being applied is to lessen the income inequality effects in the economy of course. I am sure this is exactly why your proposing it anyway, Wayne.
Finally just a little jab but, "I know that many here will disagree with National's tax reduction packages of 2009 and 2010. One of the drivers of them was to increase demand in the economy." -Wayne
Well Bill English said this policy was fiscally neutral. Are you accusing him of lying?
The 2009 tax package was a tax reduction. The 2010 package was tax neutral. I did run them together in my comment, but as you noted they were different.
The tax neutral changes…is that the 1 where the englishman who was it? Reynolds? running Xtra pocketed an extra $5000 per week – paid by poor people getting humped by GST.
The National Party they love poor people so much they always try to create more of them.
That's actually news to me Wayne. I was not in New Zealand at the time. But your correct the National government introduced a 1% stimulus (for high income earners) tax reduction in 2009 and in 2010 a purportedly fiscally neutral, but probably mildly contractionary (given its regressive nature) adjustment.
It seems to me you are implicitly agreeing that 2010 was not a great policy given the differences in your comment today don't include getting almost anybody to pay more tax, and your still being very careful to highlight it might never the less impact the recovery.
I think the rebalancing in 2010 was right. It was better to change the ratio between income tax and GST. I know a lot of commenters here think it was not fiscally neutral, but it was. We went to a lot of trouble in the design of the package to ensure all lower income people were not worse off, including those on benefits.
That meant is was not contractionary, and in fact it was intended to increase expenditure by the public. From what I saw, it did. New Zealand came out of the GFC faster than other countries.
The continent I worry about the most for wars breaking out in the next year is Africa.
Just in the oil price collapse alone, all those emerging petro-states just won't be getting the money in to pay for what their states need. Angola, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and other emerging economies who were supported by new production are going to be smashed. Even Congo and the really large producers like Nigeria will have had their oil demand cut massively because China just doesn't need as much oil for the next 6 months or so.
That's where people start to scramble to protect what is theirs or could be theirs, gather their arms and their militias, and governments get shaky.
There's plenty we need to worry about here, but oil production addiction and its fatal consequences isn't one of them.
Thanks Cinny. I note the woman who is currently speaking is saying all the things Trump should be saying but isn't because he thinks its all about himself.
Exactly. I've had to turn it off. He's on a diatribe about Congress supposedly preventing some of America's best people being appointed to god only knows what positions and you just know he's telling massive porkies. What has that got to do with the pandemic?
Why don't the press corp just get up and walk out of this presser en masse. That would make people sit up and take notice.
That was a short presser, I wonder where Fauci is?
Lolz Anne, this will make you laugh, I ended up tuning into a stream with live chat, so I could participate. Turned out to be a MAGA style stream and chat… whoopsie, they didn't like what I had to say.
A massive lack of international media coverage in the USA has given the people there a very false sense of reality.
Anyways, tune in tomorrow, trump says it's going to be a very big day….. will post a stream when it happens. He was almost an hour late today.
, I ended up tuning into a stream with live chat, so I could participate. Turned out to be a MAGA style stream and chat… whoopsie, they didn't like what I had to say.
I'd love to do something like that but it would be better if I didn't. I'm likely to say something that would cause a rumpus…. 😮
Good analysis Wayne, generally I agree. If you will excuse a few observations, debt at 35% of GDP is easily manageable, able to be wrestled down and was like that not that long ago and also, we survived the GFC because Michael Cullen was a careful manager who drove down debt and resisted constant haranguing to give a lot of it away, and I think we may be lucky again as Robertson seems to be cut from the same cloth. 120k is actually a shitload of money it is 3 times what most agricultural workers get for very hard work in conditions ranging from searing summer temps to freezing cold ones in winter and it is agri workers who will do the work that gets us out of this debt load.
Being paid astronomical amounts of money for pushing paper around a desk and "managing " phalanxes of managers I doubt has earned a dollar of overseas income.
How about we set it a few thousand above at top rate for a nurse, after all it is they who everytime they approach a car for a swab or comrfort a coughing patient they are doing the equivilant of going over the top of a trench on the Somme. I might be loading it up a bit but as the immediate death toll might not be as great or as sudden but the worry and anxiety are still there.
It is very heartening to here from someone on the "other " team pressing for tax increases, good work mate.
It's just the right trying to control and amplify the tax discussion on their terms. We have a country where a very large portion of people do not have the resilience and background resources to last for 4-6 weeks and still buy food. Right wing economics got us there so why would we not want to change it.
Great suggestion from the CTU today – change the benefit system to remove the distinction between single applicants and people in relationships. Most couples both need to have jobs these days anyway, so if one or the other is short of work, give them a benefit while their partner works. Or if both are out of work, give both a full benefit.
CTU economist Andrea Black said underlying the benefit rules for relationships was a "1950s expectation that one partner will support the other".
"But since about the '90s our households have kept off hardship … by both partners going out to work.
"Now that we are coming into a world with increased unemployment, this is going to become more exacerbated. You have one partner lose their job and if the other partner is even full-time minimum wage, the household has completely lost that second income."
I have seen all sorts of clashes between the tax system based on individual income annually in arrears concepts and benefits which are based on household weekly in advance income. Bear in mind though that there can be adverse consequences – single person households still get to pay the same rates and utilities as couple households.
And right across the income brackets and no matter where the income comes from I've seen women who are paying the necessary expenses while male income goes on discretionary choices.
Yes those comments are correct – households of the same size may have very different incomes based on their "status" towards each other. The absolute size of a household doesn't adjust the amount that they pay towards the basics too much. Personally I like universal basic services so we quit the profiteering around power braodband etc.
As to the family benefit I worry a little about creating a larger class of entitled males who attempt to live off the income of her and the kids.
If a same-sex couple has a civil union then; yes they would be expected to get by on less than if they were only fuckbuddies. Though in practice, probably less likely to get caught by violating the; not more than 3nights together a week or else you are assumed to be married rule, if it is a more casual thing.
There seems to be a total blind spot when it comes to Polyamory however. So essentially Work and Income is incentivising people on benefits to join sexgangs and never have a committed relationship with any single individual.
not more than 3nights together a week or else you are assumed to be married rule,
Pretty sure it's financial interdependency that's the bar for "a relationship in the manner/nature of marriage" and not how often (or even if) you sleep with someone or shag.
Well, there must have been a law change some time after the late 90s, when it was established off the back of a WINZ appeal (became a precedent or whatever that's called in law) that co-habitation was based on financial arrangements and not sleeping arrangements.
Either that or WINZ is just playing fast and loose on the internal policy front.
Yes, but the legal definition of “living in a relationship” was subject to court proceedings in (from memory) the late 90s. And the court decision was that a relationship in the nature of marriage was determined by financial arrangements.
WINZ had to review and reverse a lot of decisions as a result.
The problem with being a solo parent is that you simply can't choose right over your children's wellbeing. Everyone knows that Work & Income (completely different to the old WINZ after the rebranding, of course) defines the rules however they want.
Should a solo parent accused of benefit fraud stand up and fight back? Probably. Will they, if the result is increased hardship for their children? No.
And because W&I know that no one will dare ask them why, they get to define the "nature of a marriage" for all poor families in a way that allows them to pay out as little money as possible. Do they still get bonuses for "saving taxpayer money" or has labour at least got rid of that incentive for cruelty?
Don't even get me started on co-parenting arrangements! Where unless each parent has sole court ordered custody of at least one child, W&I refuse to acknowledge that each parent will incur costs for maintaining residences for those children (eg winter heating allowence, accommodation supplement). You are expected instead supposed to negotiate that money from your (possibly abusive) ex – good luck on that!
The malice inherent in this is exacerbated by the fact that IRD readily accepts co-parenting arrangements for the purpose of calculating Working for Families payments. It's not government policy, this is all W&I bullshit.
But what are you going to do? Let your children starve? So you suck it up and carry on and hope that the children don't hear you weeping through the walls at night.
Probably not such a good idea for me to be doing this, but this is a transcription of some guidelines a W&I officer left with my papers one time I was in begging for heating money:
No court ordered split care arrangement -Map
[LOGO] MINISTRY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
TE MANATU WHAKAHIATO ORA
Map. The Guide to Social Development Policy
Home| Income support | Main benefits | Sole Parent Support | Qualifications | Split Care | No court ordered split care arrangement
Printed **/**/2019[taking enough risks here as it is]
NO COURT ORDERED SPLIT CARE ARRANGEMENT
To help you decide which parent can get Sole Parent Support, in situations where there is no court ordered split care arrangement, use the following steps:
Step 1
If one parent receives Sole Parent Support you continue to pay it (the other parent cannot receive Sole Parent Support).
Step 2
If both parents apply for a benefit at the same time the parent who was mainly responsible for the day to day care of the children before the parents separated will get Sole Parent Support.
It may be necessary to interview both parents to ensure that they both agree on what is the case. If they do not agree you need to put the case of each to the other and come to a finding on what are the facts.
Step3
If it is not clear who was mainly responsible for the day to day care before the separation, the parent who is the principal day to day caregiver of the youngest child will get the Sole Parent Support.
Exception
If a client with children from a split care situation has a dependent child from another relationship you can pay them Sole Parent Support.
For more information see…
Legislation
Sole parent support: requirements section 29 Social Security Act 2018
What is sole parent requirement section 30 Social Security Act 2018
Sole parent support: situation of split care section 32 Social Security Act 2018
So if you can afford the lawyers and court fees, then you can get W&I assistance for childrearing costs. Otherwise it is first in first served between divorcing parents. Which advantages the parent who decides to break up the relationship for their own reasons over those trying to desperately keep a sinking ship afloat…
There were a bunch of other similar printouts referred to by W&I officers (seldom the same one between appointments – case managers seem to be a thing of the past). But this is the only sheet that; accidentally, made its way from the table into my own folder of paperwork.
Noticed the abbreviation "map" in your comment. It's been a while, but I seem to remember that WINZ works from their own interpretation of the law, which is contained in (I think) map documentation.
And being a mere interpretation….
Anyway. I know of people who have been seriously done over by WINZ – who signed 'confessions' for stuff they weren't guilty of, off the back of being told that if things went to court they'd risk losing their children.
If you don't want your head to hurt with a incoherent dribble of first class inchoate boomer logic then I suggest you avoid Barry Soper's nonsense in the Herald today.
One thing this pandemic has got me thinking about is how obsessed much of our aging right wing media like Soper still is with Muldoon. He haunts them and seems to still inform much of their world view. Muldoon and think big is constantly brought up in their shroud waving and they seem determined to endlessly re-fight the 1980s culture war that led to Rogernomics and the imprinting of neoliberalism as a social and class identifier for them and other boomers.
Rob Muldoon died over a quarter of a century ago and lost power thirty six years ago. You have to be over fifty to even be able to recall his tenure in office. The fact so much of our MSM still frame their world view around an era and a man now a generation in the past calls into question how in touch with the modern world they really are.
The majority of us "boomers" opposed the Neo-liberal disaster. That's why that Government only got one term, after the effects became obvious. And why we supported MMP, so the fuckers couldn't do it to us, again,
Of course FPP made an alternative impossible.
Many even voted for National, those that didn't try for the Alliance, who went into the election pretending they would reverse the "reforms". Of course they doubled down. Reducing welfare for those the "reforms" had rendered jobless, and other atrocities.
Soper is no more representative of “boomers” than you are of whatever generation you were born into.
They got re-elected in 1987 after Roger Douglas had announced all the changes that were going to happen and had introduced many of them.
It was only after Lange got his knickers in a twist in December 1988, which was a year after their second election win, that things went downhill. I would say that they lost support because Lange lost his nerve rather than because of anything that Douglas did. Certainly I voted Labour in 1984 and 1987 and then voted National in 1990 after Labour fell over and collapsed into a smelly mess on the floor.
Schools are not just learning facilities, but also community hubs that are often saddled with the care of children with emotional and mental difficulties. Even when they dislike it school remains as a core part of most young people's experiences.
This is from Hong Kong, but hard not to think that similar feelings must be brewing inside our own pupils (home-schooling started yesterday, but that's not the same as having your own peer group around). The 20% having maximum stress levels (though no baseline for comparison) is striking, but this quote hit me the hardest:
"I have a huge wave of fear that I might contract the virus and thus can not make it to the exams…"
I haven't been down to the beach for a while so missed this. Also wasn't someone swept away in similar high tides in Wellington yesterday? Are they alright?
Draw a line under it, by date, and then put systems in place to deal with subsequently displaced people over time. South Dunedin should have a moratorium on building any new buildings by now, and a clear message from council that sales past a certain point won't get bailed out later.
Yep managed retreat is going to be increasingly needed, not just Dunedin either (e.g. Haumoana Hawkes Bay).
Just dumping huge truckloads of money into the sea ain't going to cut it, particularly where the eroding coast is loose sediment (sand, gravel, etc). More options for engineered protection where there's decent bedrock, but $$$$$, so need to choose carefully what's protected (e.g. infrastructure where alternative routes are very expensive).
The long drawn out process at Matata (BoP) over the debris flow risk on the debris fan shows how hard managed retreat is politically. And that's with a recent flood event to point to …
Good to know that they survived. Were they on the street or beach when it happened? I don't think it was from their home, but can't recall now where I read that.
They interviewed the husband of the woman who was involved in this, It appeared from what I heard of the interview that she remained on the road and didn't actually get swept into the sea. She was battered around in the seawater that came across the road.
Edit. From the description on the radio it sounds as if the house was one of those between 68 and 74 Owhiro Bay Parade. That is only what I would say from knowing the area a bit. It may be a quite different address.
Similar to Gosman's decided use of the term – harmless – it highlights flawed understanding of the terms non-violence and peace. It demonstrates how those terms are often used to silence or reprimand those who engage in activism.
" Nonviolence is not simply the absence of violence, but about taking a proactive stand against violence and injustice, and working to repair the harm. "
"Oftentimes, we think of peace as calm and quiet. We conjure up images of watching the sunset on a tropical beach, meditating in the forest by a creek, incense and scented candles. That can be as problematic as thinking that nonviolence is about not being violent. I guarantee you that the moment after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, things were really quiet. So did we create peace? If someone is screaming in my face, and I stop them by knocking them unconscious, did I just create peace?
It is easier in the short term to sweep issues under the rug and settle for a cheap yet ultimately unsustainable negative peace.
As ridiculous as that sounds, this is how our society tries to create peace, because we have such a gross misunderstanding of it. This is what allows us to justify going to war to create peace. If we just kill all the terrorists, we’ll have peace. It justifies the militarization of the police. If we just lock up all the protesters, then our streets will be quiet and peaceful. It justifies mass incarceration. If we just lock up all the bad people, we’ll have peaceful neighborhoods.
Negative peace is prevalent in many of our relationships, homes, workplaces, faith communities and institutions. This is often the type of negative peace created and maintained by a ubiquitous, unspoken understanding that surfacing conflict is not welcome. My home country of Japan deals with this type of negative peace on a national level. As a culture, we tend to be conflict-averse. We are taught that the honorable thing is to hold it in, keep our heads down and endure. It is considered rude to bring up difficult topics that could create tension because we would be placing a burden on others. It’s impolite. So we endure.
Japan may be one of the safest nations on Earth in terms of violent crime, and from the outside looking in, it looks peaceful. But we also have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. To learn to endure life’s challenges with dignity can absolutely be a positive trait, but when it results in a nation of people trying to simply endure trauma, isolation and living a life without purpose — when people are taught not to speak out about injustice and oppression and to “stay in their place” — that’s repression. It is negative peace."
Molly, you are a serious and respectful commentator. Gosman is the very opposite. You should not waste your time on him. His record here is a disgrace.
[Here on TS we encourage robust debate, which means that we give people an opportunity to voice their opinions on issues that are of interest them and others. Gosman usually presents a rather unique view but one that is worth presenting here on TS. As long as he stays within the rather lenient rules of this site, he’s free to comment.
You, on the other hand, disagree with his opinions and you fob him off without addressing his comments. This is your prerogative but suggesting that others should too crosses the line of encouraging robust debate and strays into territory preserved for Moderators only.
People can read and think form themselves and they don’t need your ‘help’ to form an opinion on Gosman’s comments rather than on the commenter, whom they won’t know from a bar of soap.
IMO, you’re an arrogant twat who indulges in link-whoring to his own blog. You have no right to tell others what to think about another commenter unless you address their content and then only the content is up for debate. You can say what you think about the commenter, to a point, but you have to have good reason to stick personal labels on them and an even better reason to tell others to keep a wide berth.
Bernie went full arsehole, and joined in blaming the voters, before they even vote for not liking biden.
Establishment pukes and left liberals hate it when anyone questions there shitfuckery (global economic meltdown anyone) – and if your not towing the 'party' line your the enemy.
This is why the left won't win, the centre left is a bunch of drop kicks who never compromise.
When we get four more years of trump, are we going to get another 3 years of fubar conspiracy theories from these same pukes? I'd say yeah, they can't take responsibility for anything.
I'm not sure whether you're going through the stages of grief, or just angry lashing out at those most likely to achieve some actual movement towards your claimed political goals is your default setting.
Biden has rape allegations sitting against him atm. Trump "grabs pussy".
Biden has an F minus rating from various orgs on climate change. Trump isn't any better.
Biden is nonchalantly corrupt. Trump is nonchalantly corrupt.
Biden will lower Medicare to 60 (Clinton would have lowered the age to 50), and he'd veto medicare for all. Trump has rolled out free health care for Covid 19.
Biden still openly supports free trade. Trump doesn't.
Biden was VP when more people were deported than during any other term. Trump may have claimed that honour now (I don't know).
Biden still believes in foreign military intervention. Trump less so (but is a hypocrite).
Biden would be the natural extension of a party that has given Trump everything he has asked for (and more!) in terms of voting in his favour on important issues.(eg – military budgets, sanctions, war)
And at the end of the day (though he's probably dead meat) Biden would take the US back to the Obama years that proved to be the launchpad for Trump.
Progress isn't achieved by finding points of minor difference and inflating them into deal-breakers.
Progress is actually achieved by finding points of commonality and working them into agreements through a process of give and take.
Nice misdirection on the relative seriousness and credibility of the allegations against Biden vs the multitudes against the grab'em'fuhrer. The many independent allegations against Jabba the Drumpf have earned an entire wikipedia page, whereas the single serious allegation against Biden is a messy tangle of credible aspects and redflags.
The idea that Donny Rotten has rolled out free health care for COVID-19 is a classic bait'n'switch that doesn't appear to have actually happened, but has nevertheless served as useful sucker-bait for the gullible.
Only someone deeply ignorant or strongly motivated in painting a deeply dishonest false equivalence would write the sentence "Biden is nonchalantly corrupt. Trump is nonchalantly corrupt." The Coppertone Caligula is actively working the levers of power to line his own pockets, his families, and his friends. In that order. In many different grifts. Biden had a son go out freelancing to leverage his last name into a lucrative sinecure, apparently without Biden's knowledge. Many motivated investigators have dug deeply into what Biden's son did, and have yet to turn up evidence of actual misconduct.
As for the rest of it, if anyone is interested, do the research and dig in to the record to make a fair comparison. Don't rely on glib comments thrown out by randoms on da webz with an axe to grind.
Andre. Tara Reade's allegations are both serious and credible. I know there are people running around (including some former leading lights of the #metoo movement) contorting themselves into strange and wonderful shapes as they try to dismiss a woman's allegations because they are focused on a guy from "our side" (or whatever).
I'm not on any side when it comes to corporate stool attendees (or whatever title you might think better describes their position in the world).
And so I'm not going to cheer lead. And I'm not going to turn a blind eye.
You have a side (as is obvious from numerous comments), and that's fine. Bat away and field to your heart's content. It's a conscious choice you've made and a really hard place to be in if you believe in consistency.
And the Obama led sanctions on Venezuela are going to kill how many?
How is it the democratic party is not protesting trumps sanctions on Iran which have produced how many mass graves?
Anyone can be a partisan hack, but the democratic party does not respect working people – so working people don't have to vote for them. The democratic party have to win their vote, full f&*king stop.
waa waa US foreign policy sucks and the Dems haven't cried about it.
That has nothing to do with the incompetence of the current president's covid clusterfuck, and his lickspittles who have rigged the system so people literally have to risk their lives if they want to to vote.
Damned near any halfway competent leader would have saved more lives of their own citizens than that buffoon. And it's not just the yanks he's endangering, it's everyone else, too. The US has become the world's petrie dish.
Pretty solid for the next couple of years, but relatively low after that. Mostly because anyone leaving it will be under 14 day quarantine in whatever country they arrive until a vaccine is developed, and transit routes will adapt to avoid it. Paris via Buenos Aires, anyone?
Yup. Much of US foreign policy sucks. And a lot of the domestic policy sucks too. And that's the case no matter which party controls Congress, or who the figurehead occupying the role of President is. It's not a case of the Democrats "not crying about it" – they actively enable much of "it" and in many instances would pursue the same ends if they were in power.
(Both Dem and Rep “powers that be” were pushing people out to vote in person in the middle of this pandemic btw)
Blaming 'everything' on Trump is seriously myopic and fairly infantile – he and his admin are a natural enough extension of policies pursued or developed by previous Presidents and Admins.
That said, I reckon you're probably correct to say that another President and a different Admin could have rolled out a better response to Covid, and that the same might be said on a few other major fronts too. (AGW and nuclear proliferation come to mind)
And yes. A country, unlike Sweden say, that’s a major travel hub and source of travel being so woeful in the face of a pandemic is just really bad ongoing news for everywhere.
I believe S. Korea is already insisting that every American coming into the country is tested because most of their new cases were tracing back to the US.
Meanwhile, Trump and his Admin are on track for another term, and truth be told, the Democratic Party are happy enough with that prospect.
But Biden is nowhere near as bad as the current fool. I don't get this obsession with equivalence when one is clearly so much worse than the other, in very real ways to so many people.
Guatemala reckons half its people deported from the US have covid. That means the US camps are infecting people. Camps that were expanded and made more inhumane by the current regime. Camps run by people with so little regard for the humans in their care that kids were taken without any plan to identify their parents.
Regardless of whether this example is intent or incompetence, it's a pretty spectacular low amongst recent presidencies. Especially as a response to simple undocumented migration.
But Biden is nowhere near as bad as the current fool
I merely drew up comparisons of the two men in terms of policy and personal attributes where easy comparisons can be made.
I forgot about the pathological liar (Trump) and the habitual liar (Biden) – though I may be splitting hairs on that one.
ICE detention centres have to be bordering on a crime against humanity – just as the bi-partisan support for the blockade on Venezuela, the sanctions on Iran and the sanctions on Nicaragua are.
So what's the story here? Is criticism only to be leveled on issues where Donald Trump can be put squarely in the gun and the Democratic Party can come up with some kind of "an out"?
I don't think that approach (if that is the approach) is particularly legitimate or helpful to anyone. It willfully ignores a lot of very bad shit that people, regardless of their political badge, should be put on the hook for.
But back to my original list comparing Trump and Biden as people. If it transpires that Biden did in fact rape Tara Reade, what then as far as "best person for the job/lesser of two evils" goes? Or would the idea be to ignore that simply because Biden's not the "pussy grabber" from the other side of the isle?
Can't be ignored, but what the hell else is a yank voter to do? It's repug or dem. At least pick the one who could probably deal with a pandemic competently.
Bitching incessantly about Biden is lobbying incessantly for the oaf. It's that simple. No third party saviour, no write in, no magical epiphany where a third candidate appears from the clouds and puts forward an electable, socialist, anarcho-vegan platform (or whatever the fuck some puritan's utopia of choice might be). It’s a pipe-dream.
If it comes down to a complete personality equivalence on whatever planet you might be observing from, pick the dude who might save more lives.
By the time of the election, I'd guess the reaction and consequences to Covid will be locked in. In other words "the dude who will save more lives" won't be an option unless some other dude invents the Tardis sometime.
I agree it's a shite state of affairs – both for US voters and much of the rest of the world given the global influence, both accidental and by design, that the US has.
I don't have a vote in US elections and don't envy anyone there tasked with making a decision.
I fully understand where the likes of Kulinski (co-founder of Justice Democrats) is coming from. And I also understand why people would vote for Biden over Trump, but also why many former Obama supporters will opt for Trump again.
The reality is that corporate interests have already won. They maintained their grip on the US political system through taking out Sanders, and now people don't really have any worthwhile place left to go.
Last time around, many liberals banged on the "lesser of two evils" drum, and the Democratic Party encouraged the 'vote shaming' of people instead of offering policies that might have persuaded them to get on board.
As far as approaches go, it didn't turn out too well. I don't think things will be any different this time around, though there's arguably a further dynamic in play – the Democratic Party, in line with basic dynamics at play around UK Labour in 2017 and NZ Labour in 2014, don't actually care whether they win or lose the election; they've already won their battle and will happily hunker down for the next four years.
Anyone who failed to vote against the current fool deserves to be ashamed.
Corporate interests were at the heart of the founding of the republic. Sure, the level of control has ebbed and flowed, but they've always been in charge. No one candidate will change that, which means that anyone who wants to vote for change will have to compromise to some extent.
As for covid, "no" and "so"? Yes, come inauguration this wave will be locked in, but covid will still be able to be ameliorated next year. So specifically in relation to covid, who gets elected in November does matter.
And even if covid were done and dusted by November, it is just one of many examples where having a slightly less corrupt, venal, stupid, infantile, and petulant president will save lives.
I guess some people are blessed with wells of indignation far deeper than their wells of intelligent thought. There's probably a youtube channel on it, somewhere.
It's stupid to draw an equivalence between leaders who exercise foreign policy to advance their states over others, and leaders who exercise domestic policy to advance their personal business over the people they were elected to serve.
Both are bad, but they are fundamentally different. Apples and oranges. Hell, a case can be made that the foreign policy leadership was doing its job.
It's also stupid to draw an equivalence between a serial rapist and one guy who assumed consent was given. Both are bad, and there is no excuse for either. But are they equivalent?
BTW, that whiff of racism is from the dude who thinks the only difference between US foreign policy vs Venezuela and US domestic policy is ethnicity. For all your bleating about the working classes, you haven't paid much attention to who's been targeted for harrassment and who's worst hit by covid19. He who smelled it dealt it.
But at least they get to remain pure and to blame everyone else, rather than voting for the somewhat less shit option (which might actually make a difference)
In terms of the US election, the Democratic Party has only campaigned to preserve corporate dominance. They've no real interest in defeating Trump – it doesn't matter to them. That's why they and their propaganda arms (Washington Post, NYT, MSNBC, CNN…) pushed an empty vessel who can't complete sentences or hold a train of thought.
They've won. Why pretend there's anything still in play?
I was really just responding to your equally vague and grossly generalised comment,
"Establishment pukes and left liberals hate it when anyone questions there shitfuckery (global economic meltdown anyone) – and if your not towing the 'party' line your the enemy."
I'd clarify and answer your questions, but my experience in the past is that there is little tolerance from the don't vote crowd when they get challenged politically.
from what I can see (and as you know I mostly don't get involved now), each side gives as good as it gets. But whatever the liberal left are doing, my point about the don't vote people remains true.
And so round and round it goes, people who should be natural allies hating on each other, and now the fascists are winning.
On what planet? No allies there, when they quite happy to keep people oppressed for the sake of an ideology.
Then you get people saying were being dicks for being pure – it be sad, if it was not so damn disgusting and naive.
Natural allies are the social democrats, progressives and anarchists. The left liberals have played there hand and shown they'd rather let the corporations win, rather than have a left wing victory.
So make up your mind, are you going to let the left liberals kill the world or what.
People are oppressed by the legislature and it's courts.
Refusing to climb off the progressive purity pony to partner with those who would put an end to the rights dominance of the legislature and it's courts makes the rider guilty by association of oppressing people.
I think so too, although I'm not sure I would characterise it as purity. But I think we should be working with whatever advantages we have at this point.
If you take the liberals out of the picture for a minute, then the social democrats, progressives and anarchists are a small group (at least in the way you are defining liberals to exclude liberals who are progressive from the real lefties). They have neither the vote to shift the Overton Window, nor the numbers or power to create a movement that will change society in time to get ahead of climate change or rising fascism.
By this I don't mean they are unimportant. I think they are absolutely crucial. Necessary but not sufficient on their own.
Evidence I guess would be the length of time they've been active relative to the lack of progress on the world's problems.
Please understand that what I just wrote isn't saying that liberals are best. They're not. Patently they can't do it on their own either.
I'm quite specific on what a left liberal is – have been for a while.
But to clear it up, Liberalism is a set of economic ideas which dictate outcomes politically.
In your world are the greens now supporting those economic positions of liberalism?
Left liberals are in bed with the economy, not reality, nor do they do much to fight tyranny these days. Obama is a good case in point, he extended the Drone War, Rammed up sanctions, increased the power of the executive, do nothing to end the wars, increased US involvement in Africa, did bugger all for the infrastructure and empower the banks and wall street.
Like I said weka the left liberals have played their hand, and if you think working with them will stop Authoritarianism – I think you are just not paying, nor want to pay attention to the harm they are doing. We have a trump presidency because they enabled it.
trump has more powers than king george the third, and the right did not give him those powers on their own.
But, what the hell – no point punching up when people are being fuck tards, you just a splitter and purist if you do.
We have a trump presidency because they enabled it.
Of course the repeated convergence is entirely coincidental.
/
Perhaps not entirely, but many conservatives want to be sure we understand that the more extreme and embarrassing rightists wouldn't be what they have become were it not for the relentless contempt heaped on everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders by snooty liberal elitists. And if Trump gets re-elected, well, that'll be liberals' fault too.
[…]
That's the rancid stew the right has been simmering in for the last decade. And now we're supposed to believe that the increased prominence of neo-Nazis and white supremacists is the fault of liberals being insufficiently polite, that whites gravitated to Trump because liberals were rude to them, and that if Trump gets re-elected the people who voted for him won't be responsible for their own choice but instead the blame will rest at the feet of the left? Please.
"I'm quite specific on what a left liberal is – have been for a while"
I disagree. Even here you conflate a political system and ideology that doesn't apply nearly as well to NZ as it does to the US, with general handwaving in the direction of more than half the commentariat at TS.
"Like I said weka the left liberals have played their hand, and if you think working with them will stop Authoritarianism – I think you are just not paying, nor want to pay attention to the harm they are doing. We have a trump presidency because they enabled it."
We don't have a trump presidency, the Americans do. What we have is a centre left government that is giving us the breathing space to make actual and radical change. As I said, I don't see how the SDs, anarchists and progressives can do that on their own, because we just don't have the numbers or the conventional power. To lessen our power at this critical time by writing off whole swathes of the community strikes me as massively hubristic.
"But, what the hell – no point punching up when people are being fuck tards, you just a splitter and purist if you do."
Personally it's the incessant negativity that I can't stand, but also the political position of not supporting people moving in the right direction seems like a tactical mistake. I suspect this is part of why people accuse you of purity.
Not sure why you would object to being called a splitter when you overtly split up groups of people into good and bad lefties.
The proposed measures for level 3 when it comes to ECE centres and school opening for under year 10 the government are encouraging children to stay at home. I think the government need to rethink opening ECE centres due to the high level of contact. I assume that ECE includes daycare for under age 3. When it comes to children under age 5 and toddlers/babies, being unwell in this age group can be missed and put down to being tired or how unwell they are, being under estimated.
I do realise that parents/caregivers need care for their child/children and that making alternative arrangements are difficult. More work needs to be done in this area.
About 300 people at a Queenstown supermarket are being swabbed for sentinel testing to examine whether there has been community transmission in the resort or not.
Testing 300 randoms seems a futile gesture when one infection in 10,000 people is already a huge public health problem. The total known extent of our outbreak is only 1 infection in 3500 people, and most of those were identified through connections to previously known infections.
This is to point out the massive scale-up needed for any efforts like this to produce useful results, not to disparage the whole idea of a programme like this.
"The total known extent of our outbreak is only 1 infection in 3500 people"
Presumably that's a national figure. Afaik, they're not releasing numbers by town, so we don't know how many cases there are in Queenstown and thus don't know the infection rate.
I can totally see why they'd want to test randomly in Queenstown, to see if they've missed any of the Hereford cluster, or if there are non-Hereford cases.
a disagreement between academics makes none of them more or less of an ‘expert’.
Many an academic is a charlatan or a propagandist or a shill. Does that make them less of an "expert"? It certainly makes them not trustworthy.
And I do wish media would take the time to dig a little and uncover any bias a given "expert" might have. Though…that might mean they look in the mirror and acknowledge their own 😉
And then again, many are not. Does that make them more trustworthy? How can we tell?
Being controversial and finding oneself at the ‘wrong’ side of public or professional opinion does not make one a lesser expert. Even being found factually wrong (!) doesn’t make one a lesser expert.
It would be naive to think that experts have no agenda or are not biased. But like all (well, most) people, they also have something called personal and professional integrity; it is a spectrum.
The media are too busy with not drowning and looking for juicy scandals, crispy conspiracies, and cheap & lazy infotainment. They wouldn’t recognise bias if it bit them in the bum 😉
Being controversial or in the minority is not in any way the same thing as being a propagandist, a shill, or a charlatan.
Being a propagandist, shill, or charlatan can lead you to be in the camp of the (supposedly) uncontroversial and popular.
Being bias is also normal and not the same thing as having an agenda. Put it this way. Bias can be acknowledged. Agendas are usually quite deliberately hidden.
Take two experts who disagree and then use your own intelligence, knowledge or common sense to discover which one you lean towards.
Take two charlatans who disagree… to the public stocks. Every time 🙂
Righteo. Getting back to the start of this thread, the six so-called “contrarian academics” are experts in their fields and in their own right. No “promotion” required. No need to put their expertise into scare quotes either. Similar to appealing to authority, questioning or doubting their expertise because of their controversial message is fallacious. At present, it could be that they have been smoking their own dope but it also looks like they may have been suckered into it …
I suspect that there’s something else that triggered the reaction of those 60 academic colleagues, a more personal reason and/or one borne out of frustration of not having an adequate voice …
At the end of the day, has this public spat resolved any of the scientific or other questions that we’re facing in order to get out of Level 4?
questioning or doubting their expertise because of their controversial message is fallacious.
Agree. But if their message is subjected to scrutiny and found wanting, then their claim to expertise comes under question, no?
And btw. I have no idea who these people are or what they've said. I was merely responding to your idea that disagreement means nought in terms of a persons (quote marked) expert status.
It can. It depends what the basis of their opinion is and whether it stacks up or holds water. Like I say – there are plenty of recognised experts who are frauds in one way or another.
Well, “expert status” as such hadn’t come up in this thread until now. Since you brought it up, status is more like peer esteem, IMO.
This is what I understand/mean by “expert”:
Someone who has and demonstrates special or exceptional skill or knowledge in a particular area that is acquired by training, study, and/or practice.
I don’t agree that their message nullifies in any way them being experts in their respective fields. As I said, you can be found wrong and still be/remain an expert; it is what you do with this newfound insight that sets experts apart. I don’t follow where the “claim” comes in or from; who’s claiming what and where?
We don’t need to go into what they have said about the NZ pandemic response; I’d imagine it’s way too technical for laypeople. Other experts will deal with it, I hope 😉
Being a fraud is deliberate, isn’t it? Being an expert and found wrong (about something) doesn’t make you a fraud either; it is what you do next that determines this, IMO.
Yes. Being a fraud is deliberate. Think of the number of experts/academics who banged on about fat in our diets. Many were simply wrong (not frauds). But the expert/academic (Weka will probably have his name if you ask) who started the ball rolling was a fraud in the pocket of corporate interests. And many who came after him were too.
Or think "big tobacco" and their experts/academics. Or AGW and the smattering of supposed experts/academics who were given traction by media even though they had obvious ties to Koch or whoever/whatever else.
And then go back to 20.2.1 and see if you can discern the point of departure I signaled, or the caveat I suggested be applied to your original statement about how a disagreement between academics makes none of them more or less of an ‘expert’.
For more perspective on what we've gained from going early and hard, consider the US where the credible experts are mentioning September or 2021 as potential dates for things like going back to school or Uni. Here we're getting hung up over just a few weeks.
I assume NZR Chief Executive Mark Robinson will be taking the same 50% cut he's 'looking after' his players with. Anything else would be totally unlike a ceo type.
Former finance minister Steven Joyce in an interview with Leighton Smith says it's a "pie in the sky" fantasy to suggest New Zealand can eliminate Covid-19 and remaining in lockdown would cause "massive" economic damage.
First of all, congratulations to Steven Joyce for surviving in a country being so far down a multi-billion hole since the end of 2017.
Secondly, since schools are out and it's internet learning, let's have an English lesson.
Collective nouns:
1 A collection of sheep including some ewes, a ram and a few lambs is called a …………. of sheep.
2 A whole lot of fish is called a ……….. of fish.
3 A group of wolves is called a ………. of wolves.
4 The couple of Leighton Smith and Steven Joyce is called a …….. of arseholes.
4 A bunch of arseholes – as they are not interesting enough to rate their own collective noun. They'll just have to share that with all the other Nats.
bill, as I am just a simple minded mathematician/logician who happens also to be a retired naval officer, could you please explain to me how ploughing a ship into an iceberg would not make it sink?
Grazed the iceberg very long cut in hull breaching multiple watertight compartments all along one side …fatal damage. Head on crash…maybe the frontal damage would have been survivable as less watertight compartments breached..a lot dependent on speed i guess
Actually that was the major design flaw in the Titanic – although she had 16 supposedly water tight compartments they were not actually tall or strong enough and there was a major companionway running the whole length of the ship. She flooded bow first.
Unfortunately, the same theory doesn't seem to apply to international diplomacy or pandemic control.
Although The "head on collision won't have sunk the Titanic" is controversial, with some suggestions that she would have sunk more quickly. The idea being that seams throughout the ship would have been popped due to the shock of the collision, rather than cuts along one side. The old problem that adding more information can change conclusions.
It was an insurance fraud job involving a switch with the Olympic in order to eliminate rival bankers and enable the creation of the Federal Reserve system to result in global domination by the financial elites.
Actually Titanic was designed, like most well designed steamships of that time, to hit an iceberg head on, and survive. Even at full speed. Hitting icebergs before the days of ice patrols and radar was sort of, expected.
A combination of an unfortunate angle and low temperature brittle fracture, of the rivets, peeling the plates back, did her in.
She stayed afloat, and upright, a lot better than a much more modern passenger ship, Costa Concordia, which hit a rock at almost the same angle.
Yes that is one theory, but the sad fact is that the bulkheads and water tight compartments supposed to be unbreachable were overwhelmed fairly quickly.
Also – for passenger comfort there was a huge companionway running the whole length of the ship. The design was intended that up to 4 compartments could be flooded. But they were too insubstantial. The supposed unsinkable sunk. And so it is proving to be in the US as well. Trump has run the country head first into an pandemic, with next to nothing to stop the damage, and he is blaming everyone and everything but himself. https://www.simscale.com/blog/2018/01/why-did-titanic-sink-engineer/
That's an interesting piece, but it's focus is on why the ship sank given the precise impact that occurred.
Six compartments ripped and filling from a 'broadside' with an iceberg (and all the attendant lifting, tilting and fracturing) says nothing about the scenario for a head on collision.
How many compartments would have been compromised in that scenario? Two? Three? Four? Theoretically, what 'lifting' and tilting would have occurred with two, three or four crumpled front compartments?
Anyway. With Trump as captain, the ship would probably have been way down in the South Atlantic circling towards Africa with Trump confidently announcing that New York was just over the horizon. 🙂
To be absolutely blunt and perfectly truthful, this whole idea is absurd. Not only would the Titanic have sunk had she hit the iceberg head-on, she would have sunk much more rapidly than she actually did–we’re talking in a matter of minutes, not hours. Imagine for a minute the kinetic energy that is generated by a 55,000 ton ship doing 22 knots when it hits a million ton iceberg being instantaneously transferred to the hull and structure of the ship!
From the actual Naval architect who designed the ship. Which is a complex structure, not bits of steel. Analogous to a car with crumple zones.
"Sometimes it helps to exchange opinions for information contained within the historical record. Edward Wilding was a naval architect employed by Harland & Wolff. In his own words, Wilding was, “one of the people connected with the making of the design.” On Day 19 of the British Inquiry he was questioned at length about the outcome of a head-on impact against the iceberg. Here is his opinion as recorded in the official transcript of the inquiry:
—————
20266. Perhaps I ought to put this general question to you. The contact with this iceberg was the contact of a body weighing 50,000 tons moving at the rate of 22 knots an hour? –
Mr. WILDING: Yes.
20267. I gather to resist such a contact as that you could not build any plates strong enough, as plates?
Mr. WILDING: It depends, of course, on the severity of the contact. This contact seems to have been a particularly light one.
20268. Light?
Mr. WILDING: Yes, light, because we have heard the evidence that lots of people scarcely felt it.
20269. You mean it did not strike a fair blow?
Mr. WILDING: If she struck it a fair blow I think we should have heard a great deal more about the severity of it, and probably the ship would have come into harbour if she had struck it a fair blow, instead of going to the bottom.
20270. You think that?
MR. WILDING: I am quite sure of it.
20271. (The Commissioner.) I am rather interested about that. Do you mean to say that if this ship had driven on to the iceberg stem on she would have been saved?
Mr. WILDING: I am quite sure she would, my Lord. I am afraid she would have killed every firemen down in the firemen’s quarters, but I feel sure the ship would have come in".
20283. (Mr. Rowlatt.) What you mean is that the ship would have telescoped herself?
Mr. WILDING: Yes, up against the iceberg.
20284. And stopped when she telescoped enough?
Mr. WILDING: Yes, that is what happened in the “Arizona.”
I.m sure even back then, Naval architects knew how to scale.
But no one knows for sure how it would have played out, and, at the time, they were trying to blame Murdoch.
There were other complicating factors, such as high sulphur content steel, more susceptible to brittle fracture.
We will have to wait until someone with a lot of time on their hands builds a virtual Titanic and computer analyses the collision to be fairly certain.
However there is enough information to support the idea that Titanic would have survived a head on, afloat.
In Joe 90's link there is a false initial assumption. The person doing the calculation, didn't allow for, time.
"Had the Titanic had struck the berg bow-on, the ship would have stopped almost instantly".
No, it wouldn't have. Ships hitting an immoveable object, such as a concrete and rock wharf, I've seen it happen with one, twice the displacement of Titanic going at a good pace, do not, "stop instantly". They decelerate over several minutes as each section of structure reaches it's elastic limit and crushes.
There wasn't much understanding of how cold temperatures significantly decreased toughness and increased fracture susceptibility of some materials at the time the Titanic was designed and built.
So according to the best available information and engineering practices at the time, there is indeed a good argument that she should have survived a head-on collision with an iceberg.
But I'm not aware of anyone that's tried to model it with up-to-date modelling tools and up-to-date understanding of material behaviour. Maybe someone can put the idea in James Cameron's ear and he might fund an analysis.
We can get an idea from ships that have hit head on, at combined speeds similar to the Titanic, collision.
Surprisingly little bow damage to the Arizona. A modern ship would have lost a lot more of the bow.
Took a while for the lesson about crack propagation and cold brittleness to sink in. The cause of the demise of some Victory and Liberty ships. Then, in the 70’s the lesson had to be learnt all over again, with high tensile steel, bulk carriers.
Though, admittedly with the ship at the bottom of the ocean, it wasn’t until they dived to the ship that we had an idea of the real damage.
Even though soldiers and sailors knew about “tin sickness” way back in the Napoleonic wars.
In the Canadian Arctic mining project I worked on, the primary crusher was outside in temps between -50 to -30 degC.
It was remarkable how massively oversized steel members in the impact zone of the grizzly (essentially the hopper where the raw rock is dumped) would routinely shatter like carrots.
I wouldn't be keen on coming out too early if we have businesses working that are relying on social distancing.
How much can we trust the same lot that didn't think they had to pay any attention to the employment rules to pay attention to the distancing rules. Maybe if there has been any breach of employment law then they can't come out until say level 2.
This is less AstroTurf than it is a spreading poisonous kudzu fed by the toxic sludge that has flowed under the conservative movement for decades.
“When it’s my time to go, God’s going to call me home,” [Ashley] Smith said. “I think that to live is inherently to take risks. I’m not concerned about this virus any more than I am about the flu.” Smith supports Trump’s recent insinuation that he may forcibly reopen states whose governors continue to support stay-at-home orders, though it’s not clear that Trump actually has the power to do any such thing. “We are not promised a pathogen-free existence,” Smith said. “We do not have a constitutional right to not get a virus.”
The president* does not have that power. Except in the fevered brain of people like Ms. Smith, who has listened to all the right radio programs, visits all the right websites, and read all the right books. Therefore, she knows that we do not have a constitutional right not to get a virus but, apparently, she has a constitutional right to spread one. This nonsense is coming, and it’s going to be encouraged by the national government, and I don’t know how we avoid it.
Don't know much about usian law, but it would be interesting if there were some law that allowed these folk to be convicted of something that barred them from voting as a consequence.
Wonder how long it would be before those states that exclude or make it nigh on impossible for ex jailbirds to cast a vote had a quick change of heart?
Thousands of demonstrators descended on the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on Wednesday to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's restrictive stay-at-home order, clogging the streets with their cars while scores ignored organizers' pleas to stay inside their vehicles.
The protest — dubbed "Operation Gridlock" — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, a DeVos family-linked conservative group. Protesters were encouraged to show up and cause traffic jams, honk and bring signs to display from their cars. Organizers wrote on Facebook: "Do not park and walk — stay in your vehicles!"
Just a venting rant of no consequence: Did anyone else have a huge issue with the prime minister normalizing Danish social democrat PM Mette Fredrickson?
Anyone? All I saw was applause and "sisters doing it for themselves"
Mette is a disgusting politician who wanted to confiscate refugees belongings at the border, openly wanting to treat them similarly vile racist beliefs Mette has (many of them ripped straight from the ideas of hard right nationalists) I can't believe a prime minister who was praised for her compassion towards immigrants and refugees shared that photo. What's next a cuddle with Trump?
Grrrr. Scandinavian left wing parties are actually quite gross these days and they should look to us rather than kiwi Lefty's looking to them for inspiration.
Seriously just take a gander at the history of Mette Fredrickson and tell me if she was right wing, would us Lefty's like her? Or would we consider her vile.
"Travel restrictions have been eased … swimming and surfing are now allowed …"
and in a separate report
"The Government has finally revealed what lies ahead post-COVID-19 lockdown under alert level 3.
With the guidelines unveiled, Kiwis told Newshub what they miss the most, including one woman who said she's excited to visit her mum, while another said she's just looking forward to "having a coffee in a café" with friends."
FFS, the guidelines were explained as if to a class of infants. But that was still too much for Newshub to comprehend.
How much of it is looking for a trip-up to sensationalise, and how much of it is just doing it so the clip can be them asking the question and getting an answer, I wonder?
Yes swimming & surfing are now allowed but you can't slash in the water. They haven't mentioned anything about Number 2's but I suspect possibly considered not best practice with or without a virus pandemic.
I expect nothing from mainstream media. I guess as business interests that rely on other businesses functioning and spending advertising dollars…..
Anyway.
The preferred mindset – the one a government might want to encourage – is for people to think of a particular activity and default to a "probably not" in the case of doubt.
Media asking whether a 30 min drive to the beach is acceptable or not, and if not, what about a 10 min drive, is just arsehole reporters asking to be slammed in the public stocks as far as I'm concerned.
"After that a lot depends on how attitudes have changed and how businesses have reorganised, The world we saw as normal three months ago is not going to come back ever. We are going to go through a transition period here and then we're going to have something different. It's not yet clear what that will be, but I certainly think it will be unlike what we have seen before."
But the borders of that diagram are not nearly fuzzy enough to have much relevance to me. However much I may try to inhabit the growth zone, I still compulsively consume media that hurts me. As my presence here attests.
Anyway, how can you know what information is going to hurt you before you try it? By which time it has already happened. I long ago gave up expecting to get through any day without being hurt – so on the rare occasion that out occurs, it's a pleasant surprise.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
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Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
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TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
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Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
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Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
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I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
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As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
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NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
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Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
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As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
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I wonder if it is possible to join the dots between the sudden appearance on social media of an apparently coordinated character assassination of Siouxsie Wiles by the right wing and Blackland PR being engaged to be the front of hard right business interests determined to undermine the governments COVID-19 response plan?
Dirty politics as a tactic for those business interests with sociopathatic leadership is for them just business as usual.
DP never went away it just evolves with the times.
NZ's media dominated by it sadly not having any form of decent public broadcasting to act as a sanity break. Hooton on RNZ shows how low the bar is.
While reading the comments on Hootons number tweet I saw people making fun of Wiles, I didn't quite understand why. But typical DP play, bullying.
Hmmmm, our parrot has started barking like the dog. I assume that he has decided to profitably spend the lockdown learning another language but it is rather disconcerting to be barked at by a parrot.
#StuckAtHomeBored.
#Annyoing Parrot
May I suggest not exposing the parrot to any of simon bridges soundbites 🙂
Sounds like the parrot had the same idea you do! Does the dog bark/talk back to it?
Dog doesn't bark much at all, except when he manages to lock himself outside or he can see his water bowl through the glass door but his lack of opposable thumbs and height counts against him in terms of getting to it.
Took me a few moments to understand you are talking about an actual parrot in your home, not a right winger on TS or in the wider commentariat.
ditto.
Actual parrot. With feathers. Quite fond of cucumber.
and now barks like a dog. How very pandemic ethos of it.
We have a dog that barks like a dog and is very fond of cucumber.
ROFL !!!
We've a cat that has taken to stealing the toilet paper carefully out of the packet, it's hilarious to watch.
Viral toilet paper hoarding jumps species…
So an entirely unremarkable dog, apart perhaps from a certain partiality to cucumber?
Where people see a parrot, or any kind of bird, I see shit, shit and more shit. Plus feathers everywhere, and birdseed flung as far as the eye can see.
Some ideas on how to prosper without higher taxes
– tap into the sudden increase of enquiries about how to move to NZ….
– increase royalties for all NZ natural resource exports (including metals, and especially water which shouldn't be going anywhere but if it must we need to profit and stop gifting it)
– legal cannabis sales, collect tax. End all cannabis related convictions and release anyone convicted from prison
– encourage self sufficiency and personal responsibility
– either optimize or remove costly government ad campaigns, especially on television. Only provide information that is not already found easily, ie mostly stuff related to the government
– force DHBs to reduce G&A expenses
We have an enormous inequality problem, where most have very little compared to a handful who have almost everything. This is the main reason most are not prospering (there is already plenty of wealth in nz for everyone to do quite well already) .
Targeted higher taxes (among other things) can directly address this and move wealth from the very rich to everyone else. I can't see how any of your proposals will help with this? I suppose your proposed increased royalties (i.e. Tax) on resource exports might to some extent., depending on who is doing the exporting.
A doesn't say that his notions are for the country as a whole to benefit US, just; "some ideas on how to prosper". I am assuming that he means themselves to do well out of the crisis; as they evidently have no concern for anyone else.
The "encourage… personal responsibility" line in particular has a very; pull yourself up by your bootstraps vibe about it. Something that used to be regarded as a literal impossibility (how we might say; walk over to Australia). But is treated as a required prerequisite to being regarded as a real person by those who have already been lifted up by social advantages they feign ignorance of.
Right up there with "sell passports" -tap into the interest in moving to NZ.
Generally right wing troll tropics trying to divert discussion away from changes that won't benefit them.
And to divert attention from the horribly selfish behaviour of the few taking million dollar salaries & government subsidies and while chopping low range salaries.
And their favourite news media is going broke. There will be higher taxes for the 1%
I thought the prime minister was interesting yesterday at lunchtime- making some off the cuff remarks about some of the selfish decisions of the owner sector that they had seen.
Check out the doco Murder Mountain, when California legalised pot a bunch of illegal growers try go legit, and they have to pay for permits and get certified, show they don't use pesticides, package everything, get more certification, they basically all go back to selling illegally.
there will be higher 'taxes'…the question is who is going to pay them?
The answer must be …those who can
Just starting to collect whats due would be a good start.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/crumbling-economies-must-tackle-tax-evasion-to-tackle-coronavirus-crisis-experts-warn/?utm_source=ICIJ&utm_campaign=764435941d-0407_WeeklyEmail_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_992ecfdbb2-764435941d-81989753&fbclid=IwAR1Kol_2Mk7XUQwnMI7l-g-Qxul-t8yACTVM20WXIL1BWkvG4rNIge68jcE
wouldnt it just
We certainly don't need a bunch of dodgy foreign capital coming our way.
I suggested the other day that any assets in NZ owned through tax haven registered entities ( shares, land & buildings etc) be taxed at 100% of the asset /income.
Grandfathering would also have to be checked through foreign registries to ensure no cutouts.
Wayne though that was really bad – so there may be some thing in it.But we are facilitating if we allow this.
– tap into the sudden increase of enquiries about how to move to NZ….
Yeah, nah, the last thing we need is a bunch of rich immigrants bringing their high GHG emission life to NZ.
– increase royalties for all NZ natural resource exports (including metals, and especially water which shouldn't be going anywhere but if it must we need to profit and stop gifting it)
Better to stop giving private companies the right to make profit off finite resources. Nationalise the lot, or just ban the stupid shit like exporting bottled water (apart from humanitarian/crisis aid). Best resist the temptation to respond to the pandemic by becoming more polluting.
– legal cannabis sales, collect tax. End all cannabis related convictions and release anyone convicted from prison
Yep. Make cannabis growing legal and free, and tax product appropriately. Lots of savings here.
– encourage self sufficiency and personal responsibility
Fund community and home gardens and orchards. Relocalise food supply. Build strong community.
– either optimize or remove costly government ad campaigns, especially on television. Only provide information that is not already found easily, ie mostly stuff related to the government
Use government owned media to teach civics.
– force DHBs to reduce G&A expenses
Reform the health system so that it is not based around business management. Fund community and homebased health care, especially preventative. Reduce poverty markedly to take the pressure off the health system.
I've long wondered if we should set some resource taxes e.g on water or waste but make them offset against income tax if that is paid. So if you just export water a resource tax is paid at the max personal rate. If you use it locally to make bottled drinks then the resouce tax payments go against your income tax assessment but there is no refund if they exceed the income tax.
Pregnant nurses fear for their safety (among all UK health workers of course), this is what we have been saved from (so far). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/pregnant-healthcare-workers-pressured-into-covid-19-frontline
& more anti lockdown protests, this time in Michigan, Trump fans berating one of the "women governors" (as Trump likes to call them). I have American friends, and they despair and can't figure out what's happening (yet still going out to get their cappuccinos & not understanding my own bewilderment at that!).
We are lucky here.
The University of Iceland has predicted that there will be no new cases of Covid-19 in Iceland by the end of this month. That would be quite a feat considering Iceland hasn't been in lockdown. However, it did begin testing its population at the end of January, before anyone in Iceland had tested positive for the virus and more than a month before it was declared a pandemic.
https://grapevine.is/news/2020/04/14/latest-forecast-suggests-no-new-covid-19-cases-in-iceland-by-end-of-april/
[I haven’t been following your pandemic line on TS, other than the occasional cursory glance, but if this comment is anything to go by I’m not impressed. Your comment here is misleading, and in the general thrust of politics that probably wouldn’t matter so much. In a global and national health crisis where people are dying, imo it’s grossly irresponsible. You’ve had other moderator attention, you’ve now got this one’s too. This is your chance to stop cherry picking data and information to support your line and be more honest and explanatory about what you are trying to say, rather than making implications via by gets left unsaid unsaid – weka]
Lean times ahead for Icelandic funeral directors then, unless the predictions are wrong.
"That would be quite a feat considering Iceland hasn't been in lockdown."
You make it sound so easy. In reality they did a range of things including banning gatherings, closing pubs, libraries etc, closing higher schools, putting physical distancing in place, closing businesses that couldn't function with a 2m rule, quarantining returning citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Iceland
From your link,
Meanwhile,
My emphasis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Iceland
Relatively small population, and physical isolation will be playing a big part in their situation. Their death rate will be much higher than NZ too, per head of population.
mod note for you Ross.
Weka,
Its the same type of "argument" Ross usually makes on climate change. Argument by insinuation from extremely selective source(s) often quoted misleadingly. Then often followed by denial of having made any argument…
Ross has just switched from minimising/denying climate change to minimising COVID-19.
The nutters have moved on from Iceland, it's now Papua New Guinea as the wunderkid of not locking down and minimal cases …
Weka
I referenced a positive and factual story. I would have thought readers might might find it useful. I think most people, with perhaps the odd exception, would be delighted if there were no new cases by the end of this month.
Someone on here recently referenced 80,000 deaths in NZ, a worst case scenario that was fanciful and apparently had no basis in reality. Cherry picking indeed.
[ok, well given how many times you’ve been warned by moderators and chosen to ignore them, and here you are doing it again, I’m happy to put you on the black list and take it to be back end to be sorted out. For me personally, this is wasting moderator time, and atm I have way less patience for that than normal. Any comments you make from now on will be visible to the mods but not the front end. At some point someone will make a decision and post it under this comment – weka]
[Your continued inability and unwillingness to change your behaviour has caused a lot of trouble for Moderators here as well as wasted countless time of other commenters who tried to engage with you in good faith. You have received attention of Moderators in Moderation notes and comments yet you invariably fail to respond and take heed, argue, and simply continue. At the best of times, which these are not, you would receive a series of relatively short bans. However, with the pandemic and the Election looming, we cannot afford the extra stress and wasting more time on you, especially when it is blatantly obvious that you are not going to change your ways. For further explanation, you can search on all the Moderation notes and comments from Moderators this year alone.
Banned for 10 months – Incognito]
The NZ study was based on modelling, which was based on best available evidence at the time.
Turns out, the model predictions were pretty good: https://tehiku.nz/te-hiku-radio/taumatahanga/12302/prof-shaun-hendy-on-whether-level-4-lockdown-should-continue
The same team is preparing another study for Government as we speak: https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-national/gaps-data-needed-decide-lockdown-lift
You quoted yet another “positive and factual story”, which happened to be a modelling study too! Yet you think yours might be useful while the other one was “fanciful and apparently had no basis in reality”. I beg to differ. In any case, this is NZ and a modelling study specific to NZ is highly relevant and has a firm basis in reality. Your gaslighting is tedious to an extreme.
Here’s the thing, you cherry pick links & quotes, you make no argument of your own, you don’t respond to replies by either commenters or Moderators except to fob them off, you keep repeating this pattern (as you did with your comments on CC), you have drawn the attention of three Moderators and continue wasting Moderator time, you are wasting the time of others, et cetera.
I have warned you only recently that if you don’t start to comment here in good faith and lift your game you would be Blacklisted for the rest of the year, as far as I was concerned. Another Moderator has already parked you there but suffice to say, you won’t be reversing out any time soon.
See my Moderation note @ 11:55 AM.
Yesterday I argued for a covid tax income tax increase to 40% for income above $120,000.
I know that many on this site want to use the Covid crisis to permanently change the economy. I personally think that is wrong. It is going to be hard enough to recover without imposing an economic revolution on top, and without any democratic mandate.
But obviously a lot will change. Government is already bigger. It will drive infrastructure spending. It is rescuing businesses and people alike. At the minimum this is going to cost $20 billion at the very time when the tax base has collapsed. So probably $20 billion extra spending, and $20 billion lost revenue, a total of $40 billion. That will drive debt up to 35% of GDP. It could easily be more than that. So massive deficits for years to come, which have to be paid for.
So what does a tax increase to 40% do? It obviously gets more govt revenue, but it also takes that money out of the wider economy, right at the time when that demand is required. So this is a tricky dilemma for govt. And that dilemma exists whether a govt is left or right.
A 40% tax rate will probably produce around $5 billion per year. Total income tax for the year is about $50 billion, so it is around a 10% increase in the total tax. However, incomes across the board have dropped, so it probably will get more like $3 billion, rather than $5 billion.
Some here would argue that the 40% rate should be permanent, but like all taxes they are subject to the govt of the day. I know that many here will disagree with National's tax reduction packages of 2009 and 2010. One of the drivers of them was to increase demand in the economy. I would say that worked. New Zealand came out of the GFC much faster than countries that increased taxes.
So in principle (my principles) a Covid tax surcharge should be short-lived. Enough to get the govt books going back in the right direction. In my view, probably 2 or 3 years. The surcharge doesn’t have to pay back all the debt, a lot that will naturally occur as the economy gets back to normal size, probably 2 to 3 years from now.
As I noted above, there is a strong argument that increasing taxes right at the time the economy is retracting is the worst thing you can do. All that happens is that it steepens the dive.
I have no doubt Treasury will be doing some careful modelling on all this. It will be good for that to be made public. This is one of those occasions where the public should see these assessments as they are made. Before any tax increase is actually imposed.
Tax at 39% (as it used to be) would be more politically palatable.
A land tax in addition would be easy to administer and bring in plenty. Farms above 20 hectares to be taxed at half the general rate.
I think we can agree on an increase in the top tax rate, though I would go a bit further, and have a higher rate over, say, 300k.
I doubt if it will decrease economic activity. People with higher incomes don't usually spend their marginal income directly. Spending it on reducing debt, or buying "investments".
What will increase economic activity, is dropping the "paperboy tax". Combining an increase in top tax rates with a no tax lower threshold. Australia was about 9000k., when I was there.
Everyone has now seen the problems with reducing the size of Government, and the services it provides, too much, from recent direct experience. The USA, now being a horrific warning, rather than an example to follow. Even the inaptly named "tax payers union, I doubt they will want to reduce it again, in a hurry.
I doubt if National’s tax switch, increasing GST, while decreasing tax on high earners really increased demand. Even a simplistic analysis suggests higher consumption taxes, combined with lower taxes on people that don’t spend all their income, has the opposite effect.
I think all of treasuries modelling should be public. It is paid for by the public, after all.
I really hope that NZ fairs better with cases of Covid-19. The cost to the health system is going to be high due to the systemic complications of Covid-19.
Do you think there needs to be a health levy like with a petrol levy?
Wayne good on you for proposing a tax increase as an ex-National government Minister.
I haven't seen any commentary that the government is short of funding capacity to get the stuff done it needs.
So I don't see why taxing the rich would help the most.
I do agree with it in principle however – to at least reverse the tax cuts back to 39% at the top, for simple reasons of gradually decreasing inequality.
I would prefer to see tax decreases, to get money circulating around our economy faster:
– Wiping tax on NZSuper
– Wiping tax on welfare payments
– Consider wiping tax on low paid incomes.
Give the cash back to the poorest, because they will be being hit hardest.
Welfare payments largely aren't taxed now, they are generally either exempt income (not taxable – accommodation supplement and working for families are two examples), or tax is calculated on the net figure, so a tax reduction has no impact on the benefit amounts paid.
How do you figure that?
Single dole, no kids: $250.74 net, $281.08 gross. If the tax was removed wouldn't that mean an increase of $31 on the base benefit?
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/benefit-rates/benefit-rates-april-2020.html#null
edit, ah I think I know what you mean. The gross figure is just a made up one, and in the absence of tax, the amount paid to the beneficiary would be the same net rate as now?
Correct, MSD calculates the gross figure based on the net figure so that after tax is deducted, the net figure actually paid is the stated benefit rate.
Hi. There are some quite good economic theories that give the opposite results to what you suggest here.
In these views tax is seen as a means to discourage the accumulation of dead money in stagnating pools of wealth. If accumulated wealth is hit reasonably hard then the incentive is to keep the money moving to avoid the tax man. This increases the velocity of money rather than decreases it. Makes sense to me.
And this is precisely why the rich should be taxed reasonably heavily because they are the ones with stagnating pools of money. Everyone else keeps circulating theirs of necessity.
– Wiping tax on welfare payments
Assuming* this would increase the dole (single adult/no kids) by $30, which on top of the recent $25, it would be a really good start. But, it needs to happen alongside welfare reform, because people getting supplementary benefits won't get those full amounts (because of how the formulas work). If the idea is to give the money to those that need it most, then removing tax, or even raising core benefits, isn't sufficient on its own.
*See Craig's point above.
I don't think it would be politically sustainable (or fair) to give two increases in welfare payments, the first being $25 on 1 April, and the second by eliminating all tax on welfare payments. The first is enough.
Not when a huge number of people who are still in work have had significant reductions in income. Especially small to medium business, who are really taking a huge hit. And those in work including wages and salaries who have lost income are still paying tax, but probably can barely afford it.
So I am pretty certain that won't happen. Anyway the Treasury needs to release all its advice to government on these issues.
What is absolutely politically unsustainable is handing out wage subsidies so that workers can live on minimum dollars whilst the bosses swan through on multi million dollars salaries. A lot of yesterdays workers will be tomorrows beneficiaries
The problem here, as we saw after the Richardson budget, is that Government welfare payments into communities, is a big part of the money that small business relies on to survive.
I think we can both agree it would be better if they were working, but the miserly level of welfare, along with rising unemployment, is exactly what killed small business in places like Moerewa, at the time.
Anyway, the demand from now out of work, middle class people, when they end up on welfare will, most likely, cause a rethink. When they find out the hard way, how miserable and punitive, it is.
I also think the wage subsidy should be extended for another 3 months, which I aim certain will happen. But in addition I also think the $585 should continue to be paid to those who actually lose their jobs. At least for a six month period.
I know that is a different approach to normal, where a person loosing their job goes immediately to the basic unemployment benefit, plus additional amounts for children. However, if it is the Covid effect that has resulted in the job loss then I think this is justifiable.
Ah yes those in hardship are deserving if it is covid 19 related( obviously ) but for others in hardship well they can get stuffed (obviously they are undeserving)
How very very National Party of you Wayne
" I also think the $585 should continue to be paid to those who actually lose their jobs."
How magnificently magnanimous of you. Workers do appreciate this largess and while accept the debt that will result know full well of course that it is they who will ultimately pay it.
Absolutely. Keep all those other beneficiaries in abject grinding poverty, for no good reason. Good for society, good for the nation, good for the economy.
This doesn't really make sense to me Wayne. Increasing benefits, by whatever means, isn't an argument to not support other people going through hard times.
Fairness is in the eye of the beholder I guess. I mean, how fair is it to economically coerce people into long term poverty? We've been socially sanctioning that for 30 years.
"The first is enough"
Only if you think it's fair to keep people in poverty.
btw, there will be lots of beneficiaries that didn't get a rise of $25/wk, because of the supplementary formulas. So maybe consider that in your fairness calculation too.
there will be lots of beneficiaries that didn't get a rise of $25/wk…
I'm one who didn't.
In solidarity with MPs taking a 20% hit, I'm now drinking and eating my barely affordable basics 20% slower than before.
btw – what happened to that institutional bind that prevented MPs from rejecting their pay awards? It would seem that was never really the bind we were told it was, aye?
Why not take KiwiSaver contributions out gross salary and tax the net salary? Increase the Capital base as a counter to foreign investors.
Which was what we did before Bill English handed out high end tax cuts and recouped them to be fiscally neutral by increasing taxes at the lower end
Any perceived increased demand generated in the economy by National’s so-called tax cuts in 09/10 was more than offset by their increase to GST, ACC levies and the massive increase they levied on car regos, which they used to turn off and on like a tap depending how close we were to a general election
I'm pretty sure that your lot will want to impose austerity and cut regulations to protect New Zealanders.
DON'T fall for this peeps. The right wing are trying to control the tax discussion to suit themselves. Note the troll army popping up to congratulate Wayne.
What the right wing doesn't want :
a wealth tax as it catches the genuine rich as opposed to a CGT which taxes the odd transaction. American billionaires hate it so it must be good. Set the level at $10m- $20m and up.
High income taxes at high thresholds – note the $120k of earnings proposed – which is a lot different to $500k -to wind up a bunch of people who are hardly genuinely rich.
We need a "selfish tax" above say $500k at 70%. We need look through taxes so trusts, individuals and closed companies are taxed at the max personal rate to prevent money being left in companies waiting for a more favourable tax climate.
Anything owned by a tax haven entity 100% of income & assets.
Taxes on worldwide income – for citizens & residents – the likes of Peter Thiel can make a contribution
This seems a reasonable proposal Wayne. We should understand a few things which you have acknowledged in some form however,
"So what does a tax increase to 40% do? It obviously gets more govt revenue, but it also takes that money out of the wider economy, right at the time when that demand is required. So this is a tricky dilemma for govt. And that dilemma exists whether a govt is left or right."
A significant part of the treasury modelling will be to determine if the tax net improves or worsens the govt finances. On the one hand if the economy comes out strongly from lock-down than a surtax on incomes over $120,000 is unlikely to cut into GDP and so the country can implement this policy without shooting itself in the foot. On the other hand if the situation goes like recent well known examples from Japan and Greece then the tax increase response could cut into GDP so much that even the governments finances worsen from the extra tax (not that we should be worried about govt finances anyway). In the case of Greece for example the economy shrank 25% in response to economic reforms making the net govt finances come out worse from the post GFC economic than without the reforms.
We should also acknowledge that all govt taxing and spending happens inside the RBNZ accounts and the ability of the govt to make payments to citizens as it sees fit will never be threatened in any way because of this fact. With this in mind the main reason for a more progressive income tax being applied is to lessen the income inequality effects in the economy of course. I am sure this is exactly why your proposing it anyway, Wayne.
Finally just a little jab but, "I know that many here will disagree with National's tax reduction packages of 2009 and 2010. One of the drivers of them was to increase demand in the economy." -Wayne
Well Bill English said this policy was fiscally neutral. Are you accusing him of lying?
Nic,
The 2009 tax package was a tax reduction. The 2010 package was tax neutral. I did run them together in my comment, but as you noted they were different.
The tax neutral changes…is that the 1 where the englishman who was it? Reynolds? running Xtra pocketed an extra $5000 per week – paid by poor people getting humped by GST.
The National Party they love poor people so much they always try to create more of them.
And they want to tax being poor, to motivate people not to be poor.
That's actually news to me Wayne. I was not in New Zealand at the time. But your correct the National government introduced a 1% stimulus (for high income earners) tax reduction in 2009 and in 2010 a purportedly fiscally neutral, but probably mildly contractionary (given its regressive nature) adjustment.
It seems to me you are implicitly agreeing that 2010 was not a great policy given the differences in your comment today don't include getting almost anybody to pay more tax, and your still being very careful to highlight it might never the less impact the recovery.
Come on man, if poor people were too lazy and useless to earn enough to get a tax break, that was hardly Bingles' fault was it.
I think the rebalancing in 2010 was right. It was better to change the ratio between income tax and GST. I know a lot of commenters here think it was not fiscally neutral, but it was. We went to a lot of trouble in the design of the package to ensure all lower income people were not worse off, including those on benefits.
That meant is was not contractionary, and in fact it was intended to increase expenditure by the public. From what I saw, it did. New Zealand came out of the GFC faster than other countries.
The continent I worry about the most for wars breaking out in the next year is Africa.
Just in the oil price collapse alone, all those emerging petro-states just won't be getting the money in to pay for what their states need. Angola, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and other emerging economies who were supported by new production are going to be smashed. Even Congo and the really large producers like Nigeria will have had their oil demand cut massively because China just doesn't need as much oil for the next 6 months or so.
That's where people start to scramble to protect what is theirs or could be theirs, gather their arms and their militias, and governments get shaky.
There's plenty we need to worry about here, but oil production addiction and its fatal consequences isn't one of them.
Trump is currently spreading his own brand of propaganda…. here's the link to watch the live stream
Thanks Cinny. I note the woman who is currently speaking is saying all the things Trump should be saying but isn't because he thinks its all about himself.
Like a cult leader trying to brainwash?
Exactly. I've had to turn it off. He's on a diatribe about Congress supposedly preventing some of America's best people being appointed to god only knows what positions and you just know he's telling massive porkies. What has that got to do with the pandemic?
Why don't the press corp just get up and walk out of this presser en masse. That would make people sit up and take notice.
That was a short presser, I wonder where Fauci is?
Lolz Anne, this will make you laugh, I ended up tuning into a stream with live chat, so I could participate. Turned out to be a MAGA style stream and chat… whoopsie, they didn't like what I had to say.
A massive lack of international media coverage in the USA has given the people there a very false sense of reality.
Anyways, tune in tomorrow, trump says it's going to be a very big day….. will post a stream when it happens. He was almost an hour late today.
I'd love to do something like that but it would be better if I didn't. I'm likely to say something that would cause a rumpus…. 😮
Good analysis Wayne, generally I agree. If you will excuse a few observations, debt at 35% of GDP is easily manageable, able to be wrestled down and was like that not that long ago and also, we survived the GFC because Michael Cullen was a careful manager who drove down debt and resisted constant haranguing to give a lot of it away, and I think we may be lucky again as Robertson seems to be cut from the same cloth. 120k is actually a shitload of money it is 3 times what most agricultural workers get for very hard work in conditions ranging from searing summer temps to freezing cold ones in winter and it is agri workers who will do the work that gets us out of this debt load.
Being paid astronomical amounts of money for pushing paper around a desk and "managing " phalanxes of managers I doubt has earned a dollar of overseas income.
How about we set it a few thousand above at top rate for a nurse, after all it is they who everytime they approach a car for a swab or comrfort a coughing patient they are doing the equivilant of going over the top of a trench on the Somme. I might be loading it up a bit but as the immediate death toll might not be as great or as sudden but the worry and anxiety are still there.
It is very heartening to here from someone on the "other " team pressing for tax increases, good work mate.
It's just the right trying to control and amplify the tax discussion on their terms. We have a country where a very large portion of people do not have the resilience and background resources to last for 4-6 weeks and still buy food. Right wing economics got us there so why would we not want to change it.
Absolutely. The truly rich don't have much declared income as a rule – and income tax is a trifle for them.
Wealth tax!!
Great suggestion from the CTU today – change the benefit system to remove the distinction between single applicants and people in relationships. Most couples both need to have jobs these days anyway, so if one or the other is short of work, give them a benefit while their partner works. Or if both are out of work, give both a full benefit.
It has always been an anomaly.
We generally pay taxes as an individual, so welfare should also be, individual.
Time the Government "got out of our bedrooms" and using who you are sleeping with to target welfare.
The male "breadwinner" earning enough to support a family on his own, hasn't been the case, for decades.
I have seen all sorts of clashes between the tax system based on individual income annually in arrears concepts and benefits which are based on household weekly in advance income. Bear in mind though that there can be adverse consequences – single person households still get to pay the same rates and utilities as couple households.
And right across the income brackets and no matter where the income comes from I've seen women who are paying the necessary expenses while male income goes on discretionary choices.
A couple who are, "flatmates" gets the benefit as singles, when a couple who are "in the nature of a relationship" get a lesser amount.
Basically the Government expects someone to be able to live on less, if they are, " sleeping" with the person they share a dwelling with.
Does that also apply to Gay couples?![devil devil](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/devil_smile.png)
And your last comment was the reason behind paying Family benefit, to mothers.
Yes those comments are correct – households of the same size may have very different incomes based on their "status" towards each other. The absolute size of a household doesn't adjust the amount that they pay towards the basics too much. Personally I like universal basic services so we quit the profiteering around power braodband etc.
As to the family benefit I worry a little about creating a larger class of entitled males who attempt to live off the income of her and the kids.
If a same-sex couple has a civil union then; yes they would be expected to get by on less than if they were only fuckbuddies. Though in practice, probably less likely to get caught by violating the; not more than 3nights together a week or else you are assumed to be married rule, if it is a more casual thing.
There seems to be a total blind spot when it comes to Polyamory however. So essentially Work and Income is incentivising people on benefits to join sexgangs and never have a committed relationship with any single individual.
not more than 3nights together a week or else you are assumed to be married rule,
Pretty sure it's financial interdependency that's the bar for "a relationship in the manner/nature of marriage" and not how often (or even if) you sleep with someone or shag.
Not according to WINZ.
Well, there must have been a law change some time after the late 90s, when it was established off the back of a WINZ appeal (became a precedent or whatever that's called in law) that co-habitation was based on financial arrangements and not sleeping arrangements.
Either that or WINZ is just playing fast and loose on the internal policy front.
It's always been illegal to claim single status while living with someone in what winz deem a relationship.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/on-a-benefit/tell-us/are-you-in-a-relationship.html
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/11/auckland-woman-owes-government-188-000-after-lying-about-relationship.html
Yes, but the legal definition of “living in a relationship” was subject to court proceedings in (from memory) the late 90s. And the court decision was that a relationship in the nature of marriage was determined by financial arrangements.
WINZ had to review and reverse a lot of decisions as a result.
Yet just last year a CPAG presser called for another look at determining benefits and relationship status.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1908/S00085/define-the-relationship-dtr-work-and-income-style.htm
The problem with being a solo parent is that you simply can't choose right over your children's wellbeing. Everyone knows that Work & Income (completely different to the old WINZ after the rebranding, of course) defines the rules however they want.
Should a solo parent accused of benefit fraud stand up and fight back? Probably. Will they, if the result is increased hardship for their children? No.
And because W&I know that no one will dare ask them why, they get to define the "nature of a marriage" for all poor families in a way that allows them to pay out as little money as possible. Do they still get bonuses for "saving taxpayer money" or has labour at least got rid of that incentive for cruelty?
Don't even get me started on co-parenting arrangements! Where unless each parent has sole court ordered custody of at least one child, W&I refuse to acknowledge that each parent will incur costs for maintaining residences for those children (eg winter heating allowence, accommodation supplement). You are expected instead supposed to negotiate that money from your (possibly abusive) ex – good luck on that!
The malice inherent in this is exacerbated by the fact that IRD readily accepts co-parenting arrangements for the purpose of calculating Working for Families payments. It's not government policy, this is all W&I bullshit.
But what are you going to do? Let your children starve? So you suck it up and carry on and hope that the children don't hear you weeping through the walls at night.
Probably not such a good idea for me to be doing this, but this is a transcription of some guidelines a W&I officer left with my papers one time I was in begging for heating money:
No court ordered split care arrangement -Map
[LOGO] MINISTRY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
TE MANATU WHAKAHIATO ORA
Map. The Guide to Social Development Policy
Home| Income support | Main benefits | Sole Parent Support | Qualifications | Split Care | No court ordered split care arrangement
http://doogle.ssi.govt.nz/map/income-support/main-benefits/sole-parent-support/no-court-ordered-split-care-arrangement.html
Printed **/**/2019[taking enough risks here as it is]
NO COURT ORDERED SPLIT CARE ARRANGEMENT
To help you decide which parent can get Sole Parent Support, in situations where there is no court ordered split care arrangement, use the following steps:
Step 1
If one parent receives Sole Parent Support you continue to pay it (the other parent cannot receive Sole Parent Support).
Step 2
If both parents apply for a benefit at the same time the parent who was mainly responsible for the day to day care of the children before the parents separated will get Sole Parent Support.
It may be necessary to interview both parents to ensure that they both agree on what is the case. If they do not agree you need to put the case of each to the other and come to a finding on what are the facts.
Step3
If it is not clear who was mainly responsible for the day to day care before the separation, the parent who is the principal day to day caregiver of the youngest child will get the Sole Parent Support.
Exception
If a client with children from a split care situation has a dependent child from another relationship you can pay them Sole Parent Support.
For more information see…
Legislation
So if you can afford the lawyers and court fees, then you can get W&I assistance for childrearing costs. Otherwise it is first in first served between divorcing parents. Which advantages the parent who decides to break up the relationship for their own reasons over those trying to desperately keep a sinking ship afloat…
There were a bunch of other similar printouts referred to by W&I officers (seldom the same one between appointments – case managers seem to be a thing of the past). But this is the only sheet that; accidentally, made its way from the table into my own folder of paperwork.
@ Forget now
Noticed the abbreviation "map" in your comment. It's been a while, but I seem to remember that WINZ works from their own interpretation of the law, which is contained in (I think) map documentation.
And being a mere interpretation….
Anyway. I know of people who have been seriously done over by WINZ – who signed 'confessions' for stuff they weren't guilty of, off the back of being told that if things went to court they'd risk losing their children.
I get the impression case managers make it up as they go.
WINZ has been pulled up by courts before, but it doesn't seem to have changed the culture.
If you don't want your head to hurt with a incoherent dribble of first class inchoate boomer logic then I suggest you avoid Barry Soper's nonsense in the Herald today.
One thing this pandemic has got me thinking about is how obsessed much of our aging right wing media like Soper still is with Muldoon. He haunts them and seems to still inform much of their world view. Muldoon and think big is constantly brought up in their shroud waving and they seem determined to endlessly re-fight the 1980s culture war that led to Rogernomics and the imprinting of neoliberalism as a social and class identifier for them and other boomers.
Rob Muldoon died over a quarter of a century ago and lost power thirty six years ago. You have to be over fifty to even be able to recall his tenure in office. The fact so much of our MSM still frame their world view around an era and a man now a generation in the past calls into question how in touch with the modern world they really are.
The majority of us "boomers" opposed the Neo-liberal disaster. That's why that Government only got one term, after the effects became obvious. And why we supported MMP, so the fuckers couldn't do it to us, again,
Of course FPP made an alternative impossible.
Many even voted for National, those that didn't try for the Alliance, who went into the election pretending they would reverse the "reforms". Of course they doubled down. Reducing welfare for those the "reforms" had rendered jobless, and other atrocities.
Soper is no more representative of “boomers” than you are of whatever generation you were born into.
"That's why that Government only got one term"
What are you talking about? The last one term Government we had was the Kirk/Rowling one from 1972 to 1975.
Describing them as being Neo-liberal seems a bit far fetched unless you have your own unique interpretation of the phrase.
One term, after we saw what they were doing. Which is what I said. Two terms, total.
They got re-elected in 1987 after Roger Douglas had announced all the changes that were going to happen and had introduced many of them.
It was only after Lange got his knickers in a twist in December 1988, which was a year after their second election win, that things went downhill. I would say that they lost support because Lange lost his nerve rather than because of anything that Douglas did. Certainly I voted Labour in 1984 and 1987 and then voted National in 1990 after Labour fell over and collapsed into a smelly mess on the floor.
You would have.
By the middle of the second term the effects became apparent. What a fuckup it was.
Even to Lange.
Feed Barry a cucumber and see if he tries to bark?
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-16-04-2020/#comment-1702691
An insult to dogs and parrots alike everywhere.
Muldoon – "the last social democrat" and the last time i voted national -( i don't think i voted in 87)
Still the Greenest PM ever IMO.
It's the right's equivalent of leftists demanding to know every politician's view on the Springbok Tour.
Schools are not just learning facilities, but also community hubs that are often saddled with the care of children with emotional and mental difficulties. Even when they dislike it school remains as a core part of most young people's experiences.
This is from Hong Kong, but hard not to think that similar feelings must be brewing inside our own pupils (home-schooling started yesterday, but that's not the same as having your own peer group around). The 20% having maximum stress levels (though no baseline for comparison) is striking, but this quote hit me the hardest:
"I have a huge wave of fear that I might contract the virus and thus can not make it to the exams…"
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30109-7/fulltext
I haven't been down to the beach for a while so missed this. Also wasn't someone swept away in similar high tides in Wellington yesterday? Are they alright?
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/community-pitches-flooding-defences
[seeing as I can't edit]
Found this while looking for link about Wellington waves emperiling people:
" Flooding will become an increasing reality for lowlying coastal properties…" Really?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/121001235/climate-change-encroaching-seas-to-affect-coastal-homes-by-2040s
Draw a line under it, by date, and then put systems in place to deal with subsequently displaced people over time. South Dunedin should have a moratorium on building any new buildings by now, and a clear message from council that sales past a certain point won't get bailed out later.
Yep managed retreat is going to be increasingly needed, not just Dunedin either (e.g. Haumoana Hawkes Bay).
Just dumping huge truckloads of money into the sea ain't going to cut it, particularly where the eroding coast is loose sediment (sand, gravel, etc). More options for engineered protection where there's decent bedrock, but $$$$$, so need to choose carefully what's protected (e.g. infrastructure where alternative routes are very expensive).
The long drawn out process at Matata (BoP) over the debris flow risk on the debris fan shows how hard managed retreat is politically. And that's with a recent flood event to point to …
Must be a posh part of town.
On the tele news, the council reckoned 3 sea walls are in the pipeline.
Most recent info I could find was this from yesterday arvo:
Good to know that they survived. Were they on the street or beach when it happened? I don't think it was from their home, but can't recall now where I read that.
I think I read it was on the road outside, but I can't find source.
This piece in The Herald suggests that they were knocked over by a wave but not swept out to sea.
They interviewed the husband of the woman who was involved in this, It appeared from what I heard of the interview that she remained on the road and didn't actually get swept into the sea. She was battered around in the seawater that came across the road.
The relevant bit is at about 3m 50s in this link
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018742841/owhiro-bay-residents-battered-by-freakish-swells-during-lockdown
They were at the front of their home which is just across the road from the beach. I walk there frequently. Not in that sort of weather of course.
Edit. From the description on the radio it sounds as if the house was one of those between 68 and 74 Owhiro Bay Parade. That is only what I would say from knowing the area a bit. It may be a quite different address.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Breaker+Bay,+Wellington+6022/@-41.3443829,174.7576464,53m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38a58fd4416537:0x500ef6143a33020!8m2!3d-41.3359106!4d174.823917
Ignore the bit about Breaker Bay in the link. That is right around near the harbour entrance, miles away.
Following a train of thought after taking time to converse with Gosman, I was reminded of an article I read fairly recently: Why We Need to Move Closer to King's Understanding of Nonviolence on Films For Action, written by Kazu Haga.
Similar to Gosman's decided use of the term – harmless – it highlights flawed understanding of the terms non-violence and peace. It demonstrates how those terms are often used to silence or reprimand those who engage in activism.
Molly, you are a serious and respectful commentator. Gosman is the very opposite. You should not waste your time on him. His record here is a disgrace.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/01/namsog-ran-wild-on-standard-yesterday.html
[Here on TS we encourage robust debate, which means that we give people an opportunity to voice their opinions on issues that are of interest them and others. Gosman usually presents a rather unique view but one that is worth presenting here on TS. As long as he stays within the rather lenient rules of this site, he’s free to comment.
You, on the other hand, disagree with his opinions and you fob him off without addressing his comments. This is your prerogative but suggesting that others should too crosses the line of encouraging robust debate and strays into territory preserved for Moderators only.
People can read and think form themselves and they don’t need your ‘help’ to form an opinion on Gosman’s comments rather than on the commenter, whom they won’t know from a bar of soap.
IMO, you’re an arrogant twat who indulges in link-whoring to his own blog. You have no right to tell others what to think about another commenter unless you address their content and then only the content is up for debate. You can say what you think about the commenter, to a point, but you have to have good reason to stick personal labels on them and an even better reason to tell others to keep a wide berth.
You can spend a week in the sin-bin – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 1:16 PM.
Funny then the commentator below deals with nothing of the content I put up, instead attacks my mental state, and you do nothing.
Just an observation incognito.
[ counting to 10 ]
Next time I need to do something other than keeping an eye on the playground called TS I will ask you(r) permission first.
I have no idea what you are whingeing about; provide a link and/or a comment # and then I can have a look at it because you asked so nicely.
Never mind.
Buenas Noches to the raving mosquito for a while, time to put away the can of Raid & roll up the mozzy net for a week.
You seem to be missing him already. Do you want to join him in his bubble?
Rather not risk the malaria thanks… but appreciate your concern.
Bernie went full arsehole, and joined in blaming the voters, before they even vote for not liking biden.
Establishment pukes and left liberals hate it when anyone questions there shitfuckery (global economic meltdown anyone) – and if your not towing the 'party' line your the enemy.
This is why the left won't win, the centre left is a bunch of drop kicks who never compromise.
When we get four more years of trump, are we going to get another 3 years of fubar conspiracy theories from these same pukes? I'd say yeah, they can't take responsibility for anything.
I'm not sure whether you're going through the stages of grief, or just angry lashing out at those most likely to achieve some actual movement towards your claimed political goals is your default setting.
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm
Biden has rape allegations sitting against him atm. Trump "grabs pussy".
Biden has an F minus rating from various orgs on climate change. Trump isn't any better.
Biden is nonchalantly corrupt. Trump is nonchalantly corrupt.
Biden will lower Medicare to 60 (Clinton would have lowered the age to 50), and he'd veto medicare for all. Trump has rolled out free health care for Covid 19.
Biden still openly supports free trade. Trump doesn't.
Biden was VP when more people were deported than during any other term. Trump may have claimed that honour now (I don't know).
Biden still believes in foreign military intervention. Trump less so (but is a hypocrite).
Biden would be the natural extension of a party that has given Trump everything he has asked for (and more!) in terms of voting in his favour on important issues.(eg – military budgets, sanctions, war)
And at the end of the day (though he's probably dead meat) Biden would take the US back to the Obama years that proved to be the launchpad for Trump.
Progress isn't achieved by finding points of minor difference and inflating them into deal-breakers.
Progress is actually achieved by finding points of commonality and working them into agreements through a process of give and take.
Nice misdirection on the relative seriousness and credibility of the allegations against Biden vs the multitudes against the grab'em'fuhrer. The many independent allegations against Jabba the Drumpf have earned an entire wikipedia page, whereas the single serious allegation against Biden is a messy tangle of credible aspects and redflags.
The idea that Donny Rotten has rolled out free health care for COVID-19 is a classic bait'n'switch that doesn't appear to have actually happened, but has nevertheless served as useful sucker-bait for the gullible.
Only someone deeply ignorant or strongly motivated in painting a deeply dishonest false equivalence would write the sentence "Biden is nonchalantly corrupt. Trump is nonchalantly corrupt." The Coppertone Caligula is actively working the levers of power to line his own pockets, his families, and his friends. In that order. In many different grifts. Biden had a son go out freelancing to leverage his last name into a lucrative sinecure, apparently without Biden's knowledge. Many motivated investigators have dug deeply into what Biden's son did, and have yet to turn up evidence of actual misconduct.
As for the rest of it, if anyone is interested, do the research and dig in to the record to make a fair comparison. Don't rely on glib comments thrown out by randoms on da webz with an axe to grind.
Andre. Tara Reade's allegations are both serious and credible. I know there are people running around (including some former leading lights of the #metoo movement) contorting themselves into strange and wonderful shapes as they try to dismiss a woman's allegations because they are focused on a guy from "our side" (or whatever).
I'm not on any side when it comes to corporate stool attendees (or whatever title you might think better describes their position in the world).
And so I'm not going to cheer lead. And I'm not going to turn a blind eye.
You have a side (as is obvious from numerous comments), and that's fine. Bat away and field to your heart's content. It's a conscious choice you've made and a really hard place to be in if you believe in consistency.
Meanwhile, the US is digging mass graves and protective equipment is being openly dispensed as political favours.
And the Obama led sanctions on Venezuela are going to kill how many?
How is it the democratic party is not protesting trumps sanctions on Iran which have produced how many mass graves?
Anyone can be a partisan hack, but the democratic party does not respect working people – so working people don't have to vote for them. The democratic party have to win their vote, full f&*king stop.
Yup. The world walks, chews gum and throws occasional somersaults . Bugger, innit?
New, covid era sanctions applied to Nicragua, IMF loans to Iran blocked, voters told to get out there and vote (poll station workers have since died)…
waa waa US foreign policy sucks and the Dems haven't cried about it.
That has nothing to do with the incompetence of the current president's covid clusterfuck, and his lickspittles who have rigged the system so people literally have to risk their lives if they want to to vote.
Damned near any halfway competent leader would have saved more lives of their own citizens than that buffoon. And it's not just the yanks he's endangering, it's everyone else, too. The US has become the world's petrie dish.
What do you think is the potential for the USA, to become a reservoir, re-infecting the world, for years?
Pretty solid for the next couple of years, but relatively low after that. Mostly because anyone leaving it will be under 14 day quarantine in whatever country they arrive until a vaccine is developed, and transit routes will adapt to avoid it. Paris via Buenos Aires, anyone?
Yup. Much of US foreign policy sucks. And a lot of the domestic policy sucks too. And that's the case no matter which party controls Congress, or who the figurehead occupying the role of President is. It's not a case of the Democrats "not crying about it" – they actively enable much of "it" and in many instances would pursue the same ends if they were in power.
(Both Dem and Rep “powers that be” were pushing people out to vote in person in the middle of this pandemic btw)
Blaming 'everything' on Trump is seriously myopic and fairly infantile – he and his admin are a natural enough extension of policies pursued or developed by previous Presidents and Admins.
That said, I reckon you're probably correct to say that another President and a different Admin could have rolled out a better response to Covid, and that the same might be said on a few other major fronts too. (AGW and nuclear proliferation come to mind)
And yes. A country, unlike Sweden say, that’s a major travel hub and source of travel being so woeful in the face of a pandemic is just really bad ongoing news for everywhere.
I believe S. Korea is already insisting that every American coming into the country is tested because most of their new cases were tracing back to the US.
Meanwhile, Trump and his Admin are on track for another term, and truth be told, the Democratic Party are happy enough with that prospect.
Well said bill.
Not blaming everything of the oaf.
But Biden is nowhere near as bad as the current fool. I don't get this obsession with equivalence when one is clearly so much worse than the other, in very real ways to so many people.
Guatemala reckons half its people deported from the US have covid. That means the US camps are infecting people. Camps that were expanded and made more inhumane by the current regime. Camps run by people with so little regard for the humans in their care that kids were taken without any plan to identify their parents.
Regardless of whether this example is intent or incompetence, it's a pretty spectacular low amongst recent presidencies. Especially as a response to simple undocumented migration.
But Biden is nowhere near as bad as the current fool
I merely drew up comparisons of the two men in terms of policy and personal attributes where easy comparisons can be made.
I forgot about the pathological liar (Trump) and the habitual liar (Biden) – though I may be splitting hairs on that one.
ICE detention centres have to be bordering on a crime against humanity – just as the bi-partisan support for the blockade on Venezuela, the sanctions on Iran and the sanctions on Nicaragua are.
So what's the story here? Is criticism only to be leveled on issues where Donald Trump can be put squarely in the gun and the Democratic Party can come up with some kind of "an out"?
I don't think that approach (if that is the approach) is particularly legitimate or helpful to anyone. It willfully ignores a lot of very bad shit that people, regardless of their political badge, should be put on the hook for.
But back to my original list comparing Trump and Biden as people. If it transpires that Biden did in fact rape Tara Reade, what then as far as "best person for the job/lesser of two evils" goes? Or would the idea be to ignore that simply because Biden's not the "pussy grabber" from the other side of the isle?
Can't be ignored, but what the hell else is a yank voter to do? It's repug or dem. At least pick the one who could probably deal with a pandemic competently.
Bitching incessantly about Biden is lobbying incessantly for the oaf. It's that simple. No third party saviour, no write in, no magical epiphany where a third candidate appears from the clouds and puts forward an electable, socialist, anarcho-vegan platform (or whatever the fuck some puritan's utopia of choice might be). It’s a pipe-dream.
If it comes down to a complete personality equivalence on whatever planet you might be observing from, pick the dude who might save more lives.
By the time of the election, I'd guess the reaction and consequences to Covid will be locked in. In other words "the dude who will save more lives" won't be an option unless some other dude invents the Tardis sometime.
I agree it's a shite state of affairs – both for US voters and much of the rest of the world given the global influence, both accidental and by design, that the US has.
I don't have a vote in US elections and don't envy anyone there tasked with making a decision.
I fully understand where the likes of Kulinski (co-founder of Justice Democrats) is coming from. And I also understand why people would vote for Biden over Trump, but also why many former Obama supporters will opt for Trump again.
The reality is that corporate interests have already won. They maintained their grip on the US political system through taking out Sanders, and now people don't really have any worthwhile place left to go.
Last time around, many liberals banged on the "lesser of two evils" drum, and the Democratic Party encouraged the 'vote shaming' of people instead of offering policies that might have persuaded them to get on board.
As far as approaches go, it didn't turn out too well. I don't think things will be any different this time around, though there's arguably a further dynamic in play – the Democratic Party, in line with basic dynamics at play around UK Labour in 2017 and NZ Labour in 2014, don't actually care whether they win or lose the election; they've already won their battle and will happily hunker down for the next four years.
Anyone who failed to vote against the current fool deserves to be ashamed.
Corporate interests were at the heart of the founding of the republic. Sure, the level of control has ebbed and flowed, but they've always been in charge. No one candidate will change that, which means that anyone who wants to vote for change will have to compromise to some extent.
As for covid, "no" and "so"? Yes, come inauguration this wave will be locked in, but covid will still be able to be ameliorated next year. So specifically in relation to covid, who gets elected in November does matter.
And even if covid were done and dusted by November, it is just one of many examples where having a slightly less corrupt, venal, stupid, infantile, and petulant president will save lives.
waa waa US foreign policy sucks.
You know Mcflock, sometimes you're a real callus bastard.
Odd you then go on to moan that now a petri dish.
I guess some people are blessed with wells of indignation far deeper than their wells of intelligent thought. There's probably a youtube channel on it, somewhere.
So it's intelligent to worry about people dying in the US.
But stupid to point out the US is killing people unnecessarily, in the same crisis affecting the US.
Your logic does have a waft of racism to it McFlock, I have to say.
No.
It's stupid to draw an equivalence between leaders who exercise foreign policy to advance their states over others, and leaders who exercise domestic policy to advance their personal business over the people they were elected to serve.
Both are bad, but they are fundamentally different. Apples and oranges. Hell, a case can be made that the foreign policy leadership was doing its job.
It's also stupid to draw an equivalence between a serial rapist and one guy who assumed consent was given. Both are bad, and there is no excuse for either. But are they equivalent?
BTW, that whiff of racism is from the dude who thinks the only difference between US foreign policy vs Venezuela and US domestic policy is ethnicity. For all your bleating about the working classes, you haven't paid much attention to who's been targeted for harrassment and who's worst hit by covid19. He who smelled it dealt it.
How about you take responsibility for you callus comment.
Too soon…
🙄
planks and motes, and all that.
How droll.
But not unexpected.
See? You call me callous, yet then I bring some levity to your day.
That all passes for progressive in yankistan.
funnily enough the don't vote crowd often likewise hate it when their own politics are called out.
I can't find the bit about Sanders in the vid, a time stamp would help.
But at least they get to remain pure and to blame everyone else, rather than voting for the somewhat less shit option (which might actually make a difference)
The Pure argument – ffs it's was the argument that left is social democrat at the very least. Not some corporate shill think tank.
But do the lazy, blame the voter and then offer sweet bugger all. If anything at all.
In terms of the US election, the Democratic Party has only campaigned to preserve corporate dominance. They've no real interest in defeating Trump – it doesn't matter to them. That's why they and their propaganda arms (Washington Post, NYT, MSNBC, CNN…) pushed an empty vessel who can't complete sentences or hold a train of thought.
They've won. Why pretend there's anything still in play?
edit – 4:22 is probably the time stamp you want.
More likely they're stuck with a jerk who is owed too many favours to be sidelined.
What politics – that they don't like corruption?
What politics – that the liberal left is look more and more like apologist shills for corporate greed?
What politics don't you like of the don't vote democrat crowd weka – as you really unclear.
I was really just responding to your equally vague and grossly generalised comment,
"Establishment pukes and left liberals hate it when anyone questions there shitfuckery (global economic meltdown anyone) – and if your not towing the 'party' line your the enemy."
I'd clarify and answer your questions, but my experience in the past is that there is little tolerance from the don't vote crowd when they get challenged politically.
"my experience in the past is that there is little tolerance from the don't vote crowd when they get challenged politically."
Odd I'd say the same from the liberal left. Most of it being personal attacks, gaslighting and droning on and on about some minutiae.
from what I can see (and as you know I mostly don't get involved now), each side gives as good as it gets. But whatever the liberal left are doing, my point about the don't vote people remains true.
And so round and round it goes, people who should be natural allies hating on each other, and now the fascists are winning.
On what planet? No allies there, when they quite happy to keep people oppressed for the sake of an ideology.
Then you get people saying were being dicks for being pure – it be sad, if it was not so damn disgusting and naive.
Natural allies are the social democrats, progressives and anarchists. The left liberals have played there hand and shown they'd rather let the corporations win, rather than have a left wing victory.
So make up your mind, are you going to let the left liberals kill the world or what.
People are oppressed by the legislature and it's courts.
Refusing to climb off the progressive purity pony to partner with those who would put an end to the rights dominance of the legislature and it's courts makes the rider guilty by association of oppressing people.
https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse/status/1250170698645090312
I think so too, although I'm not sure I would characterise it as purity. But I think we should be working with whatever advantages we have at this point.
Bullshit, the USA has the most people in prison and the courts put them there.
How about you get that trump is not the problem – the system that put him there is.
4 years of you and conspiracy theories and now the fubar gaslighting bs of being a purist.
All you ever do is "Shoot the Messenger" joe90 – it's because you got NOTHING!
"Natural allies are the social democrats, progressives and anarchists"
I do not believe that these groups can solve the problems of the world on their own and evidence suggests I am right.
"Then you get people saying were being dicks for being pure – it be sad, if it was not so damn disgusting and naive."
You all call each other names, and go round and round in circles. /shrug. Looks like a cul de sac to me.
"So make up your mind, are you going to let the left liberals kill the world or what."
I'm ok with you stopping them. Go ahead.
And what evidence would that be – may I ask?
If you take the liberals out of the picture for a minute, then the social democrats, progressives and anarchists are a small group (at least in the way you are defining liberals to exclude liberals who are progressive from the real lefties). They have neither the vote to shift the Overton Window, nor the numbers or power to create a movement that will change society in time to get ahead of climate change or rising fascism.
By this I don't mean they are unimportant. I think they are absolutely crucial. Necessary but not sufficient on their own.
Evidence I guess would be the length of time they've been active relative to the lack of progress on the world's problems.
Please understand that what I just wrote isn't saying that liberals are best. They're not. Patently they can't do it on their own either.
I'm quite specific on what a left liberal is – have been for a while.
But to clear it up, Liberalism is a set of economic ideas which dictate outcomes politically.
In your world are the greens now supporting those economic positions of liberalism?
Left liberals are in bed with the economy, not reality, nor do they do much to fight tyranny these days. Obama is a good case in point, he extended the Drone War, Rammed up sanctions, increased the power of the executive, do nothing to end the wars, increased US involvement in Africa, did bugger all for the infrastructure and empower the banks and wall street.
Like I said weka the left liberals have played their hand, and if you think working with them will stop Authoritarianism – I think you are just not paying, nor want to pay attention to the harm they are doing. We have a trump presidency because they enabled it.
trump has more powers than king george the third, and the right did not give him those powers on their own.
But, what the hell – no point punching up when people are being fuck tards, you just a splitter and purist if you do.
Of course the repeated convergence is entirely coincidental.
/
Perhaps not entirely, but many conservatives want to be sure we understand that the more extreme and embarrassing rightists wouldn't be what they have become were it not for the relentless contempt heaped on everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders by snooty liberal elitists. And if Trump gets re-elected, well, that'll be liberals' fault too.
[…]
That's the rancid stew the right has been simmering in for the last decade. And now we're supposed to believe that the increased prominence of neo-Nazis and white supremacists is the fault of liberals being insufficiently polite, that whites gravitated to Trump because liberals were rude to them, and that if Trump gets re-elected the people who voted for him won't be responsible for their own choice but instead the blame will rest at the feet of the left? Please.
https://prospect.org/power/look-made/
"I'm quite specific on what a left liberal is – have been for a while"
I disagree. Even here you conflate a political system and ideology that doesn't apply nearly as well to NZ as it does to the US, with general handwaving in the direction of more than half the commentariat at TS.
"Like I said weka the left liberals have played their hand, and if you think working with them will stop Authoritarianism – I think you are just not paying, nor want to pay attention to the harm they are doing. We have a trump presidency because they enabled it."
We don't have a trump presidency, the Americans do. What we have is a centre left government that is giving us the breathing space to make actual and radical change. As I said, I don't see how the SDs, anarchists and progressives can do that on their own, because we just don't have the numbers or the conventional power. To lessen our power at this critical time by writing off whole swathes of the community strikes me as massively hubristic.
"But, what the hell – no point punching up when people are being fuck tards, you just a splitter and purist if you do."
Personally it's the incessant negativity that I can't stand, but also the political position of not supporting people moving in the right direction seems like a tactical mistake. I suspect this is part of why people accuse you of purity.
Not sure why you would object to being called a splitter when you overtly split up groups of people into good and bad lefties.
Wonderful weka
No pressure there then.
(cool photo).
The proposed measures for level 3 when it comes to ECE centres and school opening for under year 10 the government are encouraging children to stay at home. I think the government need to rethink opening ECE centres due to the high level of contact. I assume that ECE includes daycare for under age 3. When it comes to children under age 5 and toddlers/babies, being unwell in this age group can be missed and put down to being tired or how unwell they are, being under estimated.
I do realise that parents/caregivers need care for their child/children and that making alternative arrangements are difficult. More work needs to be done in this area.
Wonder if/when this will be rolled out elsewhere
Testing 300 randoms seems a futile gesture when one infection in 10,000 people is already a huge public health problem. The total known extent of our outbreak is only 1 infection in 3500 people, and most of those were identified through connections to previously known infections.
This is to point out the massive scale-up needed for any efforts like this to produce useful results, not to disparage the whole idea of a programme like this.
"The total known extent of our outbreak is only 1 infection in 3500 people"
Presumably that's a national figure. Afaik, they're not releasing numbers by town, so we don't know how many cases there are in Queenstown and thus don't know the infection rate.
I can totally see why they'd want to test randomly in Queenstown, to see if they've missed any of the Hereford cluster, or if there are non-Hereford cases.
You know the couple of contrarian academics who are being promoted as "experts" because they don't think we needed a lockdown?
This puts it into perspective
Hey, man, if the Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy are risking their lives to work through this lockdown, then damn it, I will too.
Are you also a mythical creature immune to the infirmities that flesh is heir to? If so, have at it.
I could swear I spotted Tat Loo somewhere along the tweets. Lockdown is playing havoc with my mind.
BTW, a disagreement between academics makes none of them more or less of an ‘expert’.
a disagreement between academics makes none of them more or less of an ‘expert’.
Many an academic is a charlatan or a propagandist or a shill. Does that make them less of an "expert"? It certainly makes them not trustworthy.
And I do wish media would take the time to dig a little and uncover any bias a given "expert" might have. Though…that might mean they look in the mirror and acknowledge their own 😉
And then again, many are not. Does that make them more trustworthy? How can we tell?
Being controversial and finding oneself at the ‘wrong’ side of public or professional opinion does not make one a lesser expert. Even being found factually wrong (!) doesn’t make one a lesser expert.
It would be naive to think that experts have no agenda or are not biased. But like all (well, most) people, they also have something called personal and professional integrity; it is a spectrum.
The media are too busy with not drowning and looking for juicy scandals, crispy conspiracies, and cheap & lazy infotainment. They wouldn’t recognise bias if it bit them in the bum 😉
Being controversial or in the minority is not in any way the same thing as being a propagandist, a shill, or a charlatan.
Being a propagandist, shill, or charlatan can lead you to be in the camp of the (supposedly) uncontroversial and popular.
Being bias is also normal and not the same thing as having an agenda. Put it this way. Bias can be acknowledged. Agendas are usually quite deliberately hidden.
Take two experts who disagree and then use your own intelligence, knowledge or common sense to discover which one you lean towards.
Take two charlatans who disagree… to the public stocks. Every time 🙂
Righteo. Getting back to the start of this thread, the six so-called “contrarian academics” are experts in their fields and in their own right. No “promotion” required. No need to put their expertise into scare quotes either. Similar to appealing to authority, questioning or doubting their expertise because of their controversial message is fallacious. At present, it could be that they have been smoking their own dope but it also looks like they may have been suckered into it …
I suspect that there’s something else that triggered the reaction of those 60 academic colleagues, a more personal reason and/or one borne out of frustration of not having an adequate voice …
At the end of the day, has this public spat resolved any of the scientific or other questions that we’re facing in order to get out of Level 4?
questioning or doubting their expertise because of their controversial message is fallacious.
Agree. But if their message is subjected to scrutiny and found wanting, then their claim to expertise comes under question, no?
And btw. I have no idea who these people are or what they've said. I was merely responding to your idea that disagreement means nought in terms of a persons (quote marked) expert status.
It can. It depends what the basis of their opinion is and whether it stacks up or holds water. Like I say – there are plenty of recognised experts who are frauds in one way or another.
Well, “expert status” as such hadn’t come up in this thread until now. Since you brought it up, status is more like peer esteem, IMO.
This is what I understand/mean by “expert”:
Someone who has and demonstrates special or exceptional skill or knowledge in a particular area that is acquired by training, study, and/or practice.
I don’t agree that their message nullifies in any way them being experts in their respective fields. As I said, you can be found wrong and still be/remain an expert; it is what you do with this newfound insight that sets experts apart. I don’t follow where the “claim” comes in or from; who’s claiming what and where?
We don’t need to go into what they have said about the NZ pandemic response; I’d imagine it’s way too technical for laypeople. Other experts will deal with it, I hope 😉
Being a fraud is deliberate, isn’t it? Being an expert and found wrong (about something) doesn’t make you a fraud either; it is what you do next that determines this, IMO.
Yes. Being a fraud is deliberate. Think of the number of experts/academics who banged on about fat in our diets. Many were simply wrong (not frauds). But the expert/academic (Weka will probably have his name if you ask) who started the ball rolling was a fraud in the pocket of corporate interests. And many who came after him were too.
Or think "big tobacco" and their experts/academics. Or AGW and the smattering of supposed experts/academics who were given traction by media even though they had obvious ties to Koch or whoever/whatever else.
And then go back to 20.2.1 and see if you can discern the point of departure I signaled, or the caveat I suggested be applied to your original statement about how a disagreement between academics makes none of them more or less of an ‘expert’.
For more perspective on what we've gained from going early and hard, consider the US where the credible experts are mentioning September or 2021 as potential dates for things like going back to school or Uni. Here we're getting hung up over just a few weeks.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/15/politics/what-matters-april-15/index.html
I assume NZR Chief Executive Mark Robinson will be taking the same 50% cut he's 'looking after' his players with. Anything else would be totally unlike a ceo type.
Former finance minister Steven Joyce in an interview with Leighton Smith says it's a "pie in the sky" fantasy to suggest New Zealand can eliminate Covid-19 and remaining in lockdown would cause "massive" economic damage.
First of all, congratulations to Steven Joyce for surviving in a country being so far down a multi-billion hole since the end of 2017.
Secondly, since schools are out and it's internet learning, let's have an English lesson.
Collective nouns:
1 A collection of sheep including some ewes, a ram and a few lambs is called a …………. of sheep.
2 A whole lot of fish is called a ……….. of fish.
3 A group of wolves is called a ………. of wolves.
4 The couple of Leighton Smith and Steven Joyce is called a …….. of arseholes.
4. A quartet of arseholes.
a McCarthy of arseholes.
4 A bunch of arseholes – as they are not interesting enough to rate their own collective noun. They'll just have to share that with all the other Nats.
You know that kinda implies Donald would have plowed the ship straight into the berg – meaning the ship would not have sunk. (jist sayin)
bill, as I am just a simple minded mathematician/logician who happens also to be a retired naval officer, could you please explain to me how ploughing a ship into an iceberg would not make it sink?
Grazed the iceberg very long cut in hull breaching multiple watertight compartments all along one side …fatal damage. Head on crash…maybe the frontal damage would have been survivable as less watertight compartments breached..a lot dependent on speed i guess
Actually that was the major design flaw in the Titanic – although she had 16 supposedly water tight compartments they were not actually tall or strong enough and there was a major companionway running the whole length of the ship. She flooded bow first.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/sinking-of-the-titanic/
Unfortunately, the same theory doesn't seem to apply to international diplomacy or pandemic control.
Although The "head on collision won't have sunk the Titanic" is controversial, with some suggestions that she would have sunk more quickly. The idea being that seams throughout the ship would have been popped due to the shock of the collision, rather than cuts along one side. The old problem that adding more information can change conclusions.
All you sheeple have been brainwashed.
It was an insurance fraud job involving a switch with the Olympic in order to eliminate rival bankers and enable the creation of the Federal Reserve system to result in global domination by the financial elites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic_conspiracy_theories
Actually Titanic was designed, like most well designed steamships of that time, to hit an iceberg head on, and survive. Even at full speed. Hitting icebergs before the days of ice patrols and radar was sort of, expected.
A combination of an unfortunate angle and low temperature brittle fracture, of the rivets, peeling the plates back, did her in.
She stayed afloat, and upright, a lot better than a much more modern passenger ship, Costa Concordia, which hit a rock at almost the same angle.
Yes that is one theory, but the sad fact is that the bulkheads and water tight compartments supposed to be unbreachable were overwhelmed fairly quickly.
Also – for passenger comfort there was a huge companionway running the whole length of the ship. The design was intended that up to 4 compartments could be flooded. But they were too insubstantial. The supposed unsinkable sunk. And so it is proving to be in the US as well. Trump has run the country head first into an pandemic, with next to nothing to stop the damage, and he is blaming everyone and everything but himself.
https://www.simscale.com/blog/2018/01/why-did-titanic-sink-engineer/
That's an interesting piece, but it's focus is on why the ship sank given the precise impact that occurred.
Six compartments ripped and filling from a 'broadside' with an iceberg (and all the attendant lifting, tilting and fracturing) says nothing about the scenario for a head on collision.
How many compartments would have been compromised in that scenario? Two? Three? Four? Theoretically, what 'lifting' and tilting would have occurred with two, three or four crumpled front compartments?
Anyway. With Trump as captain, the ship would probably have been way down in the South Atlantic circling towards Africa with Trump confidently announcing that New York was just over the horizon. 🙂
2 hours and 40 minutes to sink. Pretty good for that level of damage.
There are many much more modern ships that would sink a lot quicker, if they didn't roll over first, with that level of damage.
Mass and velocity had the last say.
To be absolutely blunt and perfectly truthful, this whole idea is absurd. Not only would the Titanic have sunk had she hit the iceberg head-on, she would have sunk much more rapidly than she actually did–we’re talking in a matter of minutes, not hours. Imagine for a minute the kinetic energy that is generated by a 55,000 ton ship doing 22 knots when it hits a million ton iceberg being instantaneously transferred to the hull and structure of the ship!
https://web.archive.org/web/20140307174136/http://www.rmstitanicremembered.com/?page_id=282
Rather a simplistic calculation, there.
From the actual Naval architect who designed the ship. Which is a complex structure, not bits of steel. Analogous to a car with crumple zones.
"Sometimes it helps to exchange opinions for information contained within the historical record. Edward Wilding was a naval architect employed by Harland & Wolff. In his own words, Wilding was, “one of the people connected with the making of the design.” On Day 19 of the British Inquiry he was questioned at length about the outcome of a head-on impact against the iceberg. Here is his opinion as recorded in the official transcript of the inquiry:
—————
20266. Perhaps I ought to put this general question to you. The contact with this iceberg was the contact of a body weighing 50,000 tons moving at the rate of 22 knots an hour? –
Mr. WILDING: Yes.
20267. I gather to resist such a contact as that you could not build any plates strong enough, as plates?
Mr. WILDING: It depends, of course, on the severity of the contact. This contact seems to have been a particularly light one.
20268. Light?
Mr. WILDING: Yes, light, because we have heard the evidence that lots of people scarcely felt it.
20269. You mean it did not strike a fair blow?
Mr. WILDING: If she struck it a fair blow I think we should have heard a great deal more about the severity of it, and probably the ship would have come into harbour if she had struck it a fair blow, instead of going to the bottom.
20270. You think that?
MR. WILDING: I am quite sure of it.
20271. (The Commissioner.) I am rather interested about that. Do you mean to say that if this ship had driven on to the iceberg stem on she would have been saved?
Mr. WILDING: I am quite sure she would, my Lord. I am afraid she would have killed every firemen down in the firemen’s quarters, but I feel sure the ship would have come in".
20283. (Mr. Rowlatt.) What you mean is that the ship would have telescoped herself?
Mr. WILDING: Yes, up against the iceberg.
20284. And stopped when she telescoped enough?
Mr. WILDING: Yes, that is what happened in the “Arizona.”
Not sure that a 5,000-ton liner at 15kn would fail in the same way as one ten times as big and 1.5 times as fast.
I.m sure even back then, Naval architects knew how to scale.
But no one knows for sure how it would have played out, and, at the time, they were trying to blame Murdoch.
There were other complicating factors, such as high sulphur content steel, more susceptible to brittle fracture.
We will have to wait until someone with a lot of time on their hands builds a virtual Titanic and computer analyses the collision to be fairly certain.
However there is enough information to support the idea that Titanic would have survived a head on, afloat.
In Joe 90's link there is a false initial assumption. The person doing the calculation, didn't allow for, time.
"Had the Titanic had struck the berg bow-on, the ship would have stopped almost instantly".
No, it wouldn't have. Ships hitting an immoveable object, such as a concrete and rock wharf, I've seen it happen with one, twice the displacement of Titanic going at a good pace, do not, "stop instantly". They decelerate over several minutes as each section of structure reaches it's elastic limit and crushes.
There wasn't much understanding of how cold temperatures significantly decreased toughness and increased fracture susceptibility of some materials at the time the Titanic was designed and built.
So according to the best available information and engineering practices at the time, there is indeed a good argument that she should have survived a head-on collision with an iceberg.
But I'm not aware of anyone that's tried to model it with up-to-date modelling tools and up-to-date understanding of material behaviour. Maybe someone can put the idea in James Cameron's ear and he might fund an analysis.
We can get an idea from ships that have hit head on, at combined speeds similar to the Titanic, collision.
Surprisingly little bow damage to the Arizona. A modern ship would have lost a lot more of the bow.
Took a while for the lesson about crack propagation and cold brittleness to sink in. The cause of the demise of some Victory and Liberty ships. Then, in the 70’s the lesson had to be learnt all over again, with high tensile steel, bulk carriers.
Though, admittedly with the ship at the bottom of the ocean, it wasn’t until they dived to the ship that we had an idea of the real damage.
Even though soldiers and sailors knew about “tin sickness” way back in the Napoleonic wars.
In the Canadian Arctic mining project I worked on, the primary crusher was outside in temps between -50 to -30 degC.
It was remarkable how massively oversized steel members in the impact zone of the grizzly (essentially the hopper where the raw rock is dumped) would routinely shatter like carrots.
One class of high tensile steel bulk carriers, the ones operating in Europe, broke.
The one operating in the Pacific, survived to go to the ship breakers.
Arizona. The ship which actually hit an iceberg, and survived.
It is wrong that I love it when TS comments go off on a tangent?
Agree. It is when some of the most interesting stuff appears.
So, long as we try and keep it for open mike, etc, of course😊
I wouldn't be keen on coming out too early if we have businesses working that are relying on social distancing.
How much can we trust the same lot that didn't think they had to pay any attention to the employment rules to pay attention to the distancing rules. Maybe if there has been any breach of employment law then they can't come out until say level 2.
Covidiocy.
https://twitter.com/Grady_Trimble/status/1250436843998310400
https://twitter.com/ash_says_what/status/1250615269912981505
Yeah – Unbelievable 😖
Meanwhile ambulance and other critical service vehicles are grid locked for 8+ hours.
https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1250483271361638400
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1250491829155500032
Jesus weep.![angry angry](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/angry_smile.png)
Tea party 2.0
This is less AstroTurf than it is a spreading poisonous kudzu fed by the toxic sludge that has flowed under the conservative movement for decades.
The president* does not have that power. Except in the fevered brain of people like Ms. Smith, who has listened to all the right radio programs, visits all the right websites, and read all the right books. Therefore, she knows that we do not have a constitutional right not to get a virus but, apparently, she has a constitutional right to spread one. This nonsense is coming, and it’s going to be encouraged by the national government, and I don’t know how we avoid it.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a32160723/michigan-protests-coronavirus-lockdown-conservatives/
Don't know much about usian law, but it would be interesting if there were some law that allowed these folk to be convicted of something that barred them from voting as a consequence.
Wonder how long it would be before those states that exclude or make it nigh on impossible for ex jailbirds to cast a vote had a quick change of heart?
"Liquor stores are open … but I can't buy a gun!"
Of course the DeVos mob are behind this shit.
Thousands of demonstrators descended on the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on Wednesday to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's restrictive stay-at-home order, clogging the streets with their cars while scores ignored organizers' pleas to stay inside their vehicles.
The protest — dubbed "Operation Gridlock" — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, a DeVos family-linked conservative group. Protesters were encouraged to show up and cause traffic jams, honk and bring signs to display from their cars. Organizers wrote on Facebook: "Do not park and walk — stay in your vehicles!"
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/lock-her-anti-whitmer-coronavirus-lockdown-protestors-swarm-michigan-capitol-n1184426
Just a venting rant of no consequence: Did anyone else have a huge issue with the prime minister normalizing Danish social democrat PM Mette Fredrickson?
Anyone? All I saw was applause and "sisters doing it for themselves"
Mette is a disgusting politician who wanted to confiscate refugees belongings at the border, openly wanting to treat them similarly vile racist beliefs Mette has (many of them ripped straight from the ideas of hard right nationalists) I can't believe a prime minister who was praised for her compassion towards immigrants and refugees shared that photo. What's next a cuddle with Trump?
Grrrr. Scandinavian left wing parties are actually quite gross these days and they should look to us rather than kiwi Lefty's looking to them for inspiration.
Seriously just take a gander at the history of Mette Fredrickson and tell me if she was right wing, would us Lefty's like her? Or would we consider her vile.
A difficult epidemiological situation.
https://twitter.com/olgaNYC1211/status/1248816911082762240
https://twitter.com/SiIavpravde/status/1248674657672335360
( Veterans Hospital N 3 on Startovaya Street, video from a different angle, the picture is terrifying. This is no longer possible to hide. )
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/04/15/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-april-15-a69117
Very irresponsible reporting from Newshub (TV3) in their 6 pm bulletin. Saying "you can now … " do various things under Level 3. (link not yet up)
No, we can't.
RNZ made the same mistake at times as well
"Travel restrictions have been eased … swimming and surfing are now allowed …"
and in a separate report
"The Government has finally revealed what lies ahead post-COVID-19 lockdown under alert level 3.
With the guidelines unveiled, Kiwis told Newshub what they miss the most, including one woman who said she's excited to visit her mum, while another said she's just looking forward to "having a coffee in a café" with friends."
FFS, the guidelines were explained as if to a class of infants. But that was still too much for Newshub to comprehend.
And the, "reporters" who kept repeating the same question/s even after the answers were patiently explained to them several times.
Where do they find these people?
How much of it is looking for a trip-up to sensationalise, and how much of it is just doing it so the clip can be them asking the question and getting an answer, I wonder?
Yes swimming & surfing are now allowed but you can't slash in the water. They haven't mentioned anything about Number 2's but I suspect possibly considered not best practice with or without a virus pandemic.
Wetsuits will keep it all mostly contained.
I expect nothing from mainstream media. I guess as business interests that rely on other businesses functioning and spending advertising dollars…..
Anyway.
The preferred mindset – the one a government might want to encourage – is for people to think of a particular activity and default to a "probably not" in the case of doubt.
Media asking whether a 30 min drive to the beach is acceptable or not, and if not, what about a 10 min drive, is just arsehole reporters asking to be slammed in the public stocks as far as I'm concerned.
If only sense was common….
Friend sent me this.
That's not too bad.
"After that a lot depends on how attitudes have changed and how businesses have reorganised, The world we saw as normal three months ago is not going to come back ever. We are going to go through a transition period here and then we're going to have something different. It's not yet clear what that will be, but I certainly think it will be unlike what we have seen before."
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/104566/mauldin-economics-patrick-watson-sees-new-world-emerging-post-covid-19-changes
Cute.
But the borders of that diagram are not nearly fuzzy enough to have much relevance to me. However much I may try to inhabit the growth zone, I still compulsively consume media that hurts me. As my presence here attests.
Anyway, how can you know what information is going to hurt you before you try it? By which time it has already happened. I long ago gave up expecting to get through any day without being hurt – so on the rare occasion that out occurs, it's a pleasant surprise.
31 was a reply to ("… He fought for justice and other things") Joe90@29
Out of curiosity, has my bitchiness put my comments into automoderation? Or are my fingers just really clumsy with the codeine for the split tooth?
FYI, I have not seen you once in Auto-Moderation.
Hi Forget now, "Anyway, how can you know what information is going to hurt you before you try it?"
One of the ways to tell whether the media is good for you or not is the amount of advertising around it.
Most media is (was) there to sell ads. To keep the consumer scared or outraged.
Many moons ago I stopped with newspapers, commercial radio, and most television.
I had a lot more time for other things and the Bulldust factor in my life diminished significantly.
Hoskings, talk-hate radio, the Briscoes lady, one sided police pursuit reports, can huff and puff all they like. No skin off my nose.
Apropos the Michigan news:
Michigan population 10 million. Coronavirus deaths 1,930
NZ population 5 million. Coronavirus deaths 9
Let them have no lockdown or distancing. They obviously know what works best for themselves.