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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, January 17th, 2023 - 73 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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One of the stated reasons for the invasion of Ukraine was so Ukraine could be "denazified". That is despite the far right only winning 2.15% of the vote in the 2019 election.
However, Russia itself had its own neo-nazi groups. And, as the article points out, Putin was using some of these groups for his own ends. Also, Putin has strong parallels with Hitler. For instance, the Z symbol being parallel to the swastika. The mass meetings that Putin has held trying to galvanise support. The war crimes, and apparent attempts at genocide etc.
So, those who still bleat about Nazis in Ukraine need to think about where the problem truly is.
So, those who still bleat about Nazis in Ukraine need to think about where the problem truly is.
The problem lies with the US. Even if Russia wins in Ukraine the US, like Robert the Bruce, will keep on trying until Russia is crushed. Who will be their next lot of "cannon fodder" after the Ukraine? The Finns. perhaps?
Putting aside the fact that you are not answering my comment about Nazism in Russia, what you are asserting is complete nonsense.
It doesn't take much history research to realise that there is no way that Ukraine, Finland, Poland et al will willingly submit to Russia regardless of whether they are getting help from the west. Sure, Ukraine would likely be occupied by Russia now if it wasn't for the west. But the Ukrainians would still be fighting via an insurgency. There is no way they would be giving up. It would end up being another Afghanistan for Russia.
All that the west is doing is enabling the Ukrainians to fight more effectively. And it isn’t like the west is forcing these weapons down the Ukrainian’s throats. Ukraine is not getting anything like what they are asking for. If anything, the west has been dragging its heels in supplying weaponary.
And, your myopic focus on the US is a bit ridiculous considering that a lot of heavy weaponary is now coming from NATO countries, including heavy tanks.
What does Russia vs USA/USA vs Russia have to do with nations defending themselves from foreign invasion (England of Scotland or Russia of Ukraine)?
Sounds logical.
The USA is trying to destroy Russia, by forcing Russia to plan and conduct unprovoked invasions of her neighbours.
How many times has Ukraine invaded Russia lately?
"Even if Russia wins in Ukraine….." Mikesh
Mikesh, there's no chance of that ever happening.
Russia can never win in Ukraine.
Russia is the aggressor, the war will and can not end until Russia stops attacking.
Ukraine is the defender, the war will and can not end while Ukraine keeps defending.
As long as Russia keeps attacking, Ukraine will never stop resisting.
Even if the West withdraw their support for Ukraine. Ukrainians will fight an insurgent gorilla war against the Russia Federation occupation for as long as it takes. And Russia eventually withdraws.
France could not win in Vietnam.
America could not win in Vietnam
The USSR could not win in Afghanistan
America could not win in Afghanistan
The US war in Afghanistan is America's longest war and the US still could not win against an insurgent population.
No matter how long the Russian Federation continues the war they cannot win in Ukraine. History is against them.
The Post WW2 Ukrainian Insurgency wasn't snuffed out until 1956 in far Western Ukraine with help from Kim Philby & Anthony Blunt who passed information onto the KGB when Para Drops were due etc and successful penetration of the UPA.
When Khrushchev & his deputy for West Ukrainian affairs A.A. Stoiantsev started to run show following a massive restructuring within NKVD & the Ukrainian Communist Party Apparatus in Western Ukraine.
There was another Ukrainian Insurgency during the Inter-War Period but there is next to no information on it & it's probably a fair assumption that Holodomor probably has alot to do with destroying all of the oral & written History?
Russia won't "win" in Ukraine. That chance went up in smoke when they failed to capture Kiev in the first 72 hours of the invasion. The rest of the war is essentially a face saving exercise for Putin to allow him to shift the blame for any defeat somewhere else.
The only way Tsar Poot's can take Kivi now? If he changes his axis advance on 2 separate broad Armoured fronts attacking either side of Kivi from Belarus and encircle the city unlike the previous attempt on a very narrow front which favour the Ukranian Defenders.
But Poot's Logistics is so shit house, its ability to gain any form of Air Parity over the Battle Space is a complete joke & its unlikely the Army would achieve its objective without massive losses manpower & equipment.
The Russians still have to locate the Ukranian Theater Reserve Troops & its Armoured Corp Reserve Commanded by an ex Russian Officer who is Ukranian born. Who with the Chief of General Staff help plan & led the auturm offensive has disappear off the radar again with his merry band of Armoured Knights & Panzer Grenadiers (Mech Infantry).
Most if not all of Poot's FSU & SF Units have been captured, so he is running out of eyes & ears on ground in the rear. Thats an interesting story there from what I've heard.
Unless Poot's finds the Ukranian Reserves and it Armoured Corp, this phase of the War is going to be an old fashion meat grinder of Infantry Frontal Attacks with Artillery Support with Long Range/ Deep Fires using UAV's, Missiles on Civilian Tgts by the Russians. The Ukrainian's hitting Russian Military Tgt's & Log Hubs until Summer rolls in, with one eye on Belarus again.
What happens in Summer is anyone's guess atm?
The UK government is going to use a “section 35” order to block Scottish legislation for the first time. It is daring the SNP to make the legislation a cause in their fight for another referendum (the self ID gender legislation is not popular in Scotland).
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64288757
Pity nobody blocked self ID here.
Agree!
Wholeheartedly!
Yes, they all signed on to it. L, N, G and A. Every single one happy to throw women and children under the gravy train that is gender ideology, 'gender' affirmation and medical care in the form of extreme body modification. So much gravy!!!!
disclaimer:
women – adult human females (large gametes havers)
boy – human male child (small gamete havers)
girl – human female child (large gamete havers)
Meanwhile, (Watson is a detrans woman)
https://twitter.com/wekatweets/status/1615115810594512896
hard to tell what's happened there but I would guess either the removed tweet used the word man but the tweets saying male survived (which is interesting). Or it's the tweet saying male that got her suspended.
Well that is a science we are to deny. Men are what ever men say they are, and women (the ones born without penises) better shut up, put up and swallow.
Here’s a thought experiment for Francecsa, and the other Putin apologists.
Back before Te Tirit was signed, New Zealand was governed by Australia.
What could happen is that some idiot Aussie PM, (Morrison?) needing a poll boost claims that NZ is Australia’s by right, and launches an invasion.
Does Aotearoa defend itself, and call upon its allies the USA and GB to help? Or does it roll over?
According to our resident Russophiles, it rolls over.
The McCarthy led majority in the House of Representatives is threatening the world economy, refusing to enable funding for US debt repayment unless there are cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
They're going to do it.
https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1615080979042893825
Had a report of caching issues between desktop and mobile for people not logged in, so I have chopped the max cache time to minutes.
I'm going to adjust it a bit for just the HTML. But there may a bit of fiddling over today and some mysterious slowdowns.
I guess that explains why a reply upthread got eaten when I went to copy a quote from another tab. I may leave it until later in the week to comment on the site. Cheers for all the work you put in to keep it going anyway; lprent.
Any nation with a CGT, an assets/land tax, wealth tax or estate tax will gather some revenue from the huge increase in wealth at some point in time. Only a nation with no taxes in any of these areas will fail to do so … such as … well here in New Zealand.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2023/01/top-1-percent-captured-nearly-twice-as-much-new-wealth-as-rest-of-world-over-last-two-years.html
Greens a 1% tax on net wealth over $1M is one party with a policy fit for the modern world. TOP has an across the board land tax.
The ideal time to have introduced a CGT would have been two years ago.
If it is started during a decline in asset values, then there will be a lot of tax credits floating around that need to be soaked up before a CGT starts generating income for the government.
Not that I am a fan of CGTs. If it were levied across all assets (including the family home) then it would probably be OK. But if there are lots of exclusions it starts becoming less and less workable IMO.
The issue becomes complex when you look at kinds of capital gain resulting from activities other than real estate speculation and inflation.
An engineering or manufacturing business, and some forms of horticulture or agriculture, may grow their business through improvements, R&D, growing their customer base and so forth. They ought not to be treated identically to rent-seeking entities inflicting a deadweight cost upon the economy.
I agree. And another reason I am not a fan.
When it gets to valuing business assets etc, it just becomes God's gift to valuers and creates unnecessary churn on business activity, and is not good for employers or employees.
And if it is limited to houses, but not privately owned ones, it starts looking quite lite-weight in terms of revenue gained. Especially if the housing market is quite flat or declining.
So, you either end up with something that is highly complex in terms of exclusions, or something that is a nightmare in terms of administration for those it is inflicted on.
And yet some well-to-do countries have a CGT – compare NZ and Norway.
Pity those 'poor' Nordmenn inflicted with their highly complex nightmare
Yes they do. But, again it seems very complex.
https://www.tradeclub.standardbank.com/portal/en/market-potential/norway/taxes
We do have, in effect, a very simple CGT on property called the Bright line test.
The question would be whether the marginal gain by widening the net would be worth the effort.
"Very complex" or "very simple" might depend on where you're sitting
Only one way to find out for sure. https://taxworkinggroup.govt.nz/
Once upon a time
The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation was an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, signed in 1997, which fixed the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, and respect for territorial integrity and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other.
Of course after the events of 2014 (Russian support for secession in the Donbass and annexation of Crimea) there came a review.
http://opiniojuris.org/2019/05/01/termination-of-the-treaty-of-friendship-between-ukraine-and-russia-too-little-too-late-%EF%BB%BF/
Ukraine and its history with NATO.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37750.htm#:~:text=A%20few%20years%20later%2C%20in,individual%20partner%20countries%20and%20NATO.
Of course Russian interference in its internal politics has had an impact on Ukraine 's perception of its place as a nation state in the world.
https://afsa.org/did-nato-expansion-really-cause-putins-invasion
That 1997 Friendship Treaty was seen as an extension of the Lisbon Protocol & Budapest Memorandum.
The Friendship Treaty was to provide a foundation stone to Russia Guarantees that it signed. From what I can gather things began to slowly change when Poot's replace Yeltsin as the Russian President.
This was also during a period in Ukraine where corruption was also starting to taking root which allowed the Russian Mafia to move in, which btw are linked to Poot's & slowly the snowball/ avalanche got bigger until the young population of Ukraine realise the old corrupt farts running the show wanted to go back to a backward looking Russia instead of forward looking EU.
Thence the uprising in 2014 where basically Western Ukraine booted out Poot's Toady's. Now when we go back through History from now ie previous National Polling Results & through to Imperial Russia Eastern Ukraine has naturally aligned itself with Russia. But it isn't much in IRT percentage points or population.
One could see similarities to Nth'en Ireland, the former Yugoslavia or the divide between West & East German through the political & religious lenses.
Because it's MLK day.
https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1614654819851010048
In April 1963, King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, after he defied a state court’s injunction and led a march of black protesters without a permit, urging an Easter boycott of white-owned stores. A statement published in The Birmingham News, written by eight moderate white clergymen, criticized the march and other demonstrations.
This prompted King to write a lengthy response, begun in the margins of the newspaper. He smuggled it out with the help of his lawyer, and the nearly 7,000 words were transcribed. The eloquent call for “constructive, nonviolent tension” to force an end to unjust laws became a landmark document of the civil-rights movement. The letter was printed in part or in full by several publications, including the New York Post, Liberation magazine, The New Leader, and The Christian Century.
The Atlantic published it in the August 1963 issue, under the headline “The Negro Is Your Brother.”
https://archive.li/XjXWD
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/552461/
Simon Wilson doing his best to talk up the Labour party, but the NZ Herald has opened the comments……..not too many of them going his way.
Unfortunately it is paywalled so unless you subscribe you cant really get the gist of it.
Simon Wilson: The 2023 election is a choice between the best Government yet, and the worst – NZ Herald
And you posted it because supporters of the government subscribe to RW rags. Right?
/
lots of left wing people here have NZH subs.
Fools and their money…
I don't have a Herald subscription.
1. I don't subscribe to any other news sites either but I do have far too many subscriptions elsewhere. Enough is enough.
2. By subscribing to the NZ Herald you are directly contributing to their overt, overall RW campaign for a change in government. Don't do it!
Cancelled our Herald sub in 2005 after a particularly disgusting front page feature after the Election night that I will not repeat here. I won't have it in the house, and I "return to sender" the 6 monthly exhortations to renew my sub with exactly what I think of them written on the envelope.
I don't even look at them on line.
I actually find the NZ Herald quite left leaning. Other than Steven Joyce a lot of the writers lean to the left. I think Stuff is even more left leaning.
it looks that way because you are so far right wing.
Looks that way. Keep 'em lean and hungry – they're not starving – hur hur hur.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/16-08-2022/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-table
I consider myself centre right.
But The Herald is centre right:
Therefore, by definition, you must be far right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Zealand_Herald
sure. And your 'centre right' position is why you see NZH as a left leaning paper. But what you consider centre right is actually solid right wing. It’s a feature of the Overton Window.
My wife insists on a Herald subscription, even though it is more a newsletter than a paper these days. Its all about the crossword before work. I am horrified, but she makes me breakfast most days so I can live with my compromised principles.
I just discovered Newsroom's crossword (online, so not quite the same, but still).
Crosswords, like many other puzzles, can be bought in book form. Though I must confess the most visited pages of my daily paper, aka 'the two minute silence', are the puzzles. That and the death notices….. The first keeps me alive, the second tells me I am.
It'd be a bit disconcerting if you read your own death notice 😈
Ah, but bloggers and online personas as just constructs and figments of imagination and implication 😉
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/482544/romance-writer-s-fake-death-reminds-us-the-author-is-a-construct
I did do that once.
It was the same name, in full. Then I got to the name of his wife, and kids, and discovered I could start breathing again. And yes, it was disconcerting for a few seconds.
🙂
I once played the banjo, yes shock horror, in a show, "Spamalot", for a song called 'I am not dead yet."
Here's a video from "The Holy Grail"of the original scene.
And the song.from Spamalot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTg0WpJLyhA
it's the pattern of a new crossword every day that's attractive I think. Different than getting a book all at once.
I bought The Listener a few weeks ago and did the cryptic crossword, really enjoyed it. It used to be a regular weekly staple.
RWH. A regular treat.
Indeed. Not such a fan of Mr Tossman.
Just about every person I know has been dumping their herald subscriptions – online or paper – mostly because the news that they provide is either just a repeat from offshore, or it is what I'd class as unsupported opinions sourced off of the net.
As far as I can tell, you now have to be way older than me and operating a sub by rote, or you'd class twitter as being a legitimate well researched news source to still be on the site.
Even their business news was total drivel last time I looked at it. These days I have a subscription to and read BusinessDesk instead. There is a pile of hard information in what is in BD with a lot less of the bullshit spin that seems to be in all parts of the NZH these days.
Ummm.. nonpaywalled article at BD to give non-readers an idea of the relative quality. "Hotel bill for MIQ surpassed $1 billion"
Almost worth taking the time to write a opinion post on.
Please do.
Lots of access via a local library subscription but not the easiest format for reading.
Another pointless comment from you. When will you start contributing to debate?
So why don't you do a cut and paste, or if that offends then cut & paste the gist from your issue and put it on here with the link.
I am not surprised that the NZH subscribers have pushed back but good on him for writing such an article.
a full cut and paste will get the ire of the mods, but certainly a selection of quotes would work.
Can't read the Herald comments – but if anyone wants to see a range of (probably) similar ones – the article has also been opened for comments on the Herald's facebook page (I've converted to a tinyurl – since the actual FB link was 5 lines long!)
https://tinyurl.com/ymaxe3x6
Well done.
If anybody deserves to drown in their own bodily fluids. Fuckers.
//
In November, 80 smiling faces appeared on the front page of a fringe Canadian newspaper called Druthers. The headline read: “80 Canadian MDs VAXXED and Dead.”
Underneath each photograph: the doctor’s name, age, hometown, date of death, occupation and a few words about how they died. Many simply say “died unexpectedly.”
In many cases, this is true. But not in the way it is implied.
[…]
Social media was awash with dire warnings of the fourth booster, and the three doctors’ names were jotted down alongside an expanding group of Canadian physicians whose deaths were falsely linked to the vaccine, without cause or explanation.
The burgeoning conspiracy theory was soon picked up by tech-millionaire turned anti-vaccination advocate Steve Kirsch, who in August wrote about “14 young Canadian docs” who died after getting a shot of COVID vaccine.
In November, U.S. conservative radio show host Stew Peters, who also produced Died Suddenly, claimed in a Facebook video that “hundreds” of Canadian doctors had died. The video has reached countries as far away as New Zealand, spawning other country-specific, dead-doctor theories.
https://globalnews.ca/news/9405373/covid-conspiracy-theory-doctors-canada/
people were moaning on twitter yesterday about the full lockdowns and how people weren't allowed to go for a run out in the fresh air. As always, I can't tell if the moaners are really fucking stupid (as if everyone can be trusted to go on a run and not congregate), or disingenuous.
I don’t know what they think is going on with the pandemic. I guess in five years when we can more easily see the burden of repeated infections they’ll have a deeper kind of denial.
The finding out stage will be along soon enough.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1613944007138189313
I don't get how people cannot see this nor the cumulative effect. The cognitive dissonance is astoundingly strong.
Yep.
I don't think that's cognitive dissonance. Not entirely sure what it is tbh, other than it's batshit. Cognitive dissonance seems to me that people know something is real but they dissociate from it. Brad is on another planet altogether.
And when the penny drops that infection, and especially multiple infections, likely knocks holes in acquired immunity..hooboy..
If you have a kid at home, there’s a good chance they spent the last couple of months snotty, feverish, barfy or worse. Young people in particular have been pummelled by the tridemic of RSV, influenza and Covid-19—and you’ve probably heard that “immunity debt” is to blame. Even Justin Trudeau has parroted this popular theory that our immune systems have gotten weak after two years of coddling behind masks and under lockdowns. There’s just one problem: “It is totally, totally wrong,” says Colin Furness, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information who believes that Covid infections, not public health measures, are to blame for weakened immunity. Here, he explains why.
https://torontolife.com/city/i-was-appalled-to-see-the-prime-minister-making-those-comments-a-u-of-t-epidemiologist-on-the-myth-of-immunity-debt-and-the-real-reason-everyones-getting-sick/
China just shrank.
I remember back in the day China was just a source of perpetual youth and drive.
Looks like their population growth just peaked a decade earlier than expected.
China records first population decline in 60 years | CNN Business
"China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in more than 60 years, a new milestone in the country’s deepening demographic crisis with significant implications for its slowing economy.
The population declined in 2022 to 1.411 billion, down some 850,000 people from the previous year, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced during a Tuesday briefing on annual data."
(641) China Population Pyramid 1950-2100 – YouTube
"Since sampling is not perfectly uniform, it is not possible to pinpoint the number of people in each age group nationwide; but the overall pattern of the age distribution is consistent with past censuses. It suggests that post-1990 births continued to decline faster than I had predicted, and in fact did not peak in 2004 or 2011. That means China’s real population is not 1.41 billion (the official figure) and could be even smaller than my own estimate of 1.28 billion. It also means that China’s economic, social, foreign, and defense policies – as well as those of the United States and other countries toward China – are based on erroneous demographic data."
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/chinese-population-smaller-than-stated-and-shrinking-fast-by-yi-fuxian-2022-07