Open mike 18/05/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 18th, 2024 - 25 comments
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25 comments on “Open mike 18/05/2024 ”

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  1. PsyclingLeft.Always 1
    18 May 2024 at 9:09 am

    Cranky Uncle……you might know one? Hopefully you are not one : )

    John Cook from Skeptical Science has..this cool, critical thinking quiz game. For a rainy (or other) day. Maybe get past the "Huffy" or even to…."Incensed !" . Score : )

    https://crankyuncle.com/game/

  2. aj 2
    18 May 2024 at 10:17 am

    I suspect that, just the same as we now have with the three waters debacle, it won’t take long to realise the totally predictable outcome. But by then it will be too late

    Bryan Cadogan speaks for me.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350281426/time-ask-why-are-we-doing

    • Drowsy M. Kram 2.1
      18 May 2024 at 10:42 am

      Thanks aj – what a thoughtful (777 word) opinion by Cadogan, on the importance of looking at the big (and the long) picture, where we are (being) headed, and why.

      Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought – report [17 May 2024]
      Bilal said that purchasing power, which is how much people are able to buy with their money, would already be 37% higher than it is now without global heating seen over the past 50 years. This lost wealth will spiral if the climate crisis deepens, comparable to the sort of economic drain often seen during wartime.

    • Ad 2.2
      18 May 2024 at 1:12 pm

      We will look back on the 2023 election as the most emphatic No Left Turn moments since 1996.

      The country we have and will always be is one with a small American-style minimalist welfare system, punitive corrections and justice system, small and non-directed public sector, retreating local government, and an extreme where very few have anything at all.

      The Opposition that could alter this situation is disorganised, and taking a very long to recuperate from the election.

      • Grey Area 2.2.1
        18 May 2024 at 5:54 pm

        The Opposition that could alter this situation is disorganised, and taking a very long to recuperate from the election.

        Exactly. I hear people (like me) saying what can do about this terrible government and the way it is taking apart the New Zealand we know and love (and rightly criticise at times)?

        There are a few muted responses but almost no loud, clear call to action. Are we just going to just roll over and let this coalition off assholes shaft us so we become a vassal state of neoliberalism and just another source of income for the already criminally wealthy "elite"?

        I'm trying to make connections at my local, rural level, but where is the tipping point we hear about where most of us rise up and fight back?

        • Ad 2.2.1.1
          18 May 2024 at 5:58 pm

          Buckle in it may take over a term.

          My advice is join something small that doesn't need too much central government funding. Anything.

        • Phillip ure 2.2.1.2
          18 May 2024 at 7:46 pm

          To his credit..rnz reported a speech he gave today where he said labour must be open to new ideas/policies/aproaches…it must listen to different voices..and that labour must go into the next election with policies/plans for change the electorate understands…and that everything is on the table…

          And an admission that labour got it wrong last time..

          ..at this stage/time in the electoral cycle…I don't know what more we can ask of him…

          We just have to ensure he follows thru on those promises..

      • Traveller 2.2.2
        18 May 2024 at 8:48 pm

        "The country we have and will always be is one with a small American-style minimalist welfare system…"

        Not so. List of countries by social welfare spending – Wikipedia

        As a % of GDP, we are 19th out of 26 countries in the OECD for spending on social welfare. Per capita, we are 20th, just below the OECD average.

        "…small and non-directed public sector…"

        Small? By what measure? We had a conversation about this on Open Mike on 20th April. I refer to my comment https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-20-04-2024/#comment-1997207:

        Between 2001 and 2017, the number of public sector employees grew by 34%, at a time when NZ’s population grew by 23% (New Zealand Population Growth Rate 1950-2024 | MacroTrends). Between 2017 and 2023, the public sector grew by 20%, when population only grew by 10%.

        In this list NZ has the 40th highest government spending as a % of GDP out of 197 countries. List of countries by government spending as percentage of GDP – Wikipedia.

        And in this data (Government spending, percent of GDP by country, around the world | TheGlobalEconomy.com) NZ is 27th out of 143 countries.

        Hardly small.

        • Ad 2.2.2.1
          18 May 2024 at 9:11 pm

          Using % of GDP isn't a useful measure of social welfare. It's just focusing on spending rather than effect. It doesn't admit of a growing underclass, growing long term unemployment strata, growing gang strata, and massively growing average wealth disparity – which is what we have now.

          Using % of public expenditure on number of public sector employees is not a measure of welfare. It's measure of whether public expenditure is keeping up with the complexity of the economy, the state, and of society itself. A state can singe off all the minor PC departments it likes, but still require massive increases in elderly care costs, intelligence and defence security, biosecurity, and ageing infrastructure.

          A useful welfare system would not look like massively growing food banks, increasing labour under-utilisation, a massively expanding homelessness rate, and a labour system that is highly subsidised and needs very high injections of cheap poor foreign labour. We have a hidden depression from the late 1980s and 1990s that never went away but was just disguised by high employment rates and see-saw immigration. Drive outside any North Island region beyond SH1 and have a look: it's a cemetery of small dead wooden houses.

          • Traveller 2.2.2.1.1
            18 May 2024 at 9:33 pm

            "Using % of GDP isn't a useful measure of social welfare. It's just focusing on spending rather than effect."

            I disagree about it not being a useful measure. I'll circle back to the second half of that comment shortly.

            "Using % of public expenditure on number of public sector employees is not a measure of welfare. "

            I didn't post that about welfare – it was in response to your claim about the public sector being 'small'. The growth number for public servants, and comparative levels of government expenditure are valid measures of whether or not we have a 'small public sector'.

            With regards to your comments about the quality of spending – that concern is valid, and the last government gave us plenty of examples from the TNZ/TVNZ merger, mental health, Te Pukenga, MHA, and 3Waters.

            • Ad 2.2.2.1.1.1
              18 May 2024 at 9:49 pm

              It's small on two counts, even if we agree that there's been an increase between 2017 and 2022 in the size of the core public service and also in the proportion of the workforce who are public servants.

              Neither in 2017 nor in 2022 did we have enough police, NZDF, medical staff, teachers, childcare, eldercare, professors, specialist infrastructure staff, mental health staff, or public sector researchers. We had too few.

              We are still paying for that deficit, in all those areas.

              Neither in 2017 nor in 2022 did we have enough public servants at local, regional or national level to deal with the succession of crises we have had – or indeed will have.

              We are a small, narrow, high-risk country with a weak economy and brittle society and the state is getting higher and higher demands placed on it which it still doesn't have the capacity to deal with.

              Levels of government expenditure are so raw they are unhelpfully bandied about by politicians to play with and fool the gullible. Hipkins and Seymour were some of the more recent at it.

              https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/the-whole-truth/131057183/the-whole-truth-has-the-proportion-of-public-servants-grown

              • Traveller …
                18 May 2024 at 10:18 pm

                As I said above

                Between 2001 and 2017, the number of public sector employees grew by 34%, at a time when NZ’s population grew by 23%

                The number of public sector employees was growing faster than our population before 2017.

  3. Subliminal 3
    18 May 2024 at 1:06 pm

    More on the idiotic Gaza pier:

    Instead of U.S. President Joe Biden marking a red line in the Israel/Gaza/Egypt sand demanding that Israel allow into Gaza the miles of tractor-trailer loads of food and medicine that have been stalled for months at the Rafah border crossing, Biden’s inept diplomatic team sent out a plea for help to the U.S. military….

    While Thousands of Truck Loads of Cargo Wait at the Rafah Border Crossing, It Will Take 2,000 Truck Loads to Empty Each 5,000 Ton Cargo Ship…

    Two-thousand trucks to offload ONE ship driving 1,800 feet on a causeway that will be dangerously affected by tides, winds, and waves is a recipe for disaster…

    The long causeway should be a cause of alarm for drivers, as the winds and waves so dramatically affected the construction of the causeway that most of the causeway was put together in the calm waters of Ashdod, an Israeli harbor, after winds and waves made construction of the causeway in place off Gaza impossible. Parts of the causeway are now being towed 20 miles from Ashdod harbor to northern Gaza to be linked into place…

    The World Will Not Forget

    Palestinians in Gaza and citizens around the world will not forget that miles of supplies are just feet away from Gaza at the Rafah crossing and the U.S. will not use its pressure on Israel to open the gates at Rafah, instead offering an expensive, idiotic solution to an easily solvable problem.

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/05/why-did-the-us-spend-320-million-on-a-rube-goldberg-pier-for-gaza.html

    • Ad 3.1
      18 May 2024 at 1:18 pm

      It's going to be the main source of aid into Gaza. Maybe before you write it off, check how it's working in a couple of weeks.

      https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/17/what-is-the-us-floating-pier-off-gaza-will-it-work

      Israel is responding to arm-twisting from no-one. Military or otherwise. Nor is Hamas. Military or otherwise.

      Don't for a moment think it's better to do nothing. Only the US has come up with an aide delivery solution in the meantime.

      • Subliminal 3.1.1
        18 May 2024 at 2:49 pm

        The IDF have reoccupied Gaza and cut a huge swathe by bulldozer to cut off the north from the south. Into this zone they bring tanks and armoured vehicles. There is zero chance that Hamas will let the IDF settle into this area and it is already under constant attack. A demonstartion of the cynicism of the IDF and their inability to deal honestly with the civilian population (all Palestinians are Hamas fighters) is that they have engineered to land aid from the most flimsy of possible platforms into what is patently a contested area. They have banned the US military from setting foot on Gazan soil so are not even able to drive the trucks the last section of two lane highly unstable floating road.

        The US is completely on board with nixing UNRWA by letting the IDF be fully in charge of aid distribution. It is impossible any longer to believe that the US is this pathetically stupid so the only and simplist answer is that Israel is doing exactly what the US wants it do by creating chaos once again in the middle East to thwart any kind of independent national unity with the ability to take control of the hugely valuable resources in their own interests. These scenarios with their concomitant death and destruction occur with such regularity that it would be idiocy to attribute any goodwill on the part of the US towards Palestinians.

        • Ad 3.1.1.1
          18 May 2024 at 5:34 pm

          You already know who the main donors for the UNRWA are.

          There's no point calculating what is and isn't cynical in Gaza, no any reason to presume the US is 'in control'.

          Forget any political calculus. Just come back in a few weeks and see if this port is delivering aid.

    • aj 3.2
      18 May 2024 at 2:07 pm

      Meanwhile the real solution to this problem is light years away. A peaceful solution. A ceasefire would be the first step and the USA isn't interested.

    • Barfly 3.3
      18 May 2024 at 4:19 pm

      "Two-thousand trucks to offload ONE ship driving 1,800 feet on a causeway "

      NO not at all it's 2 thousand truckloads not trucks that's 50 trucks x forty loads or some similar number – very achievable imo

  4. adam 4
    18 May 2024 at 1:44 pm

    Good to see the Aussies have the same problems with justice for people who hold the state to account. Like our government they turn into thugs.

  5. joe90 5
    18 May 2024 at 7:18 pm

    There, all fixed now.

    /

    Ron DeSantis signs bill scrubbing ‘climate change’ from Florida state laws

    State, which just had its hottest year since 1895, will ban offshore wind power, boost natural gas and reduce gas pipeline rules

    […]

    Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed on Wednesday by the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, in a move which experts say ignores the reality of Florida’s climate threats.

    The legislation, which comes after Florida had its hottest year on record since 1895, also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state’s lengthy coastline.

    Florida is facing rising seas, extreme heat, flooding and increasingly severe storms.

    The legislation takes effect on 1 July and also boosts expansion of natural gas, reduces regulations on gas pipelines in the state, and increases protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/16/desantis-climate-change-energy-bill