Open Mike 19/10/2017

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 19th, 2017 - 53 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

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

Step up to the mike …

53 comments on “Open Mike 19/10/2017 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. The decrypter 1
    19 October 2017 at 6:33 am

    ! BOO!

  2. Ed 2
    19 October 2017 at 6:59 am

    On Radio New Zealand business just now Ganesh Nana said ‘ neoliberalism has failed.’

    Usually the business section of RNZ is the outpouring of the oracles of the religion of neoliberalism, with bank and finance CEOs proclaiming the glorious mysteries of the market.

    Anyone else hear this heresy on the radio this morning?

    Are we in the end times for the cargo cult of neoliberalism?

    • OncewasTim 2.1
      19 October 2017 at 7:11 am

      It was good to hear him challenge the bs orthodoxy of the past 30 years.

    • cleangreen 2.2
      19 October 2017 at 7:37 am

      Absolute brilliance of that phrase Ed,

      Garesh is a great human.

      “Cult cargo” – I have never heard that before.

      It is such a clear meaning of greed to me.

      Ganesh was hired to produce a report on the viablity of a continuation of rail for the people of Gisborne and his report was highly supportive of reopenning the rail service again but National ignored the $10 000 dollar report and refused to open the rail.

      Mum & Dad always frowned on those whom idolised “possessions”

      I at 73 still do not value possessions.

      So my departed parents taught me very well the values of life and humanity.

      Above all I still care very passionately for the weak, sick, disadvantaged and disowned before all else as everyone deserved a good chance at life.

      • halfcrown 2.2.1
        19 October 2017 at 8:12 am

        “Above all I still care very passionately for the weak, sick, disadvantaged and disowned before all else as everyone deserved a good chance at life.”

        Agree with that

        As my grandpappy used to say “There for the grace of God goes I”

        • cleangreen 2.2.1.1
          19 October 2017 at 1:54 pm

          I do remember that saying half crown back when we used to use a half a crown for a gallon of petrol or a pound of butter. 1960-63.

          “There for the grace of God goes I”

      • ianmac 2.2.2
        19 October 2017 at 8:26 am

        “Mum & Dad always frowned on those whom idolised “possessions”
        I don’t think my Mum and Dad frowned or taught us to but we lived that way and so we 5 kids lived that way too. We are all 77+ so a bit late to get possessive now.

        • Whispering Kate 2.2.2.1
          19 October 2017 at 11:36 am

          Yes Ganesh Nana also said people should be paid a living wage not just the minimum wage – I thought the entire opinion piece was staggering – what a joy to behold, I wondered if I was hearing things.

          Very apt that it comes out today when Winnie makes his decision.

        • cleangreen 2.2.2.2
          19 October 2017 at 1:57 pm

          Yes ianmac we four kids too I was the youngest.

          I went to Port school in Napier for three years in only sandals then.

      • North 2.2.3
        20 October 2017 at 3:26 am

        Same for me too my Standard people. Parents born 90 plus years ago who inculcated in me that kindness and love for your fellows is gold. I am joyfully emotional! Can’t resist this though…..”Zip it Sweaty!”

    • Ant 2.3
      19 October 2017 at 8:55 am

      The new narrative forming in our midst is the vehicle for the re-emergence of kindness and the will-to-fair play. Neoliberalism, long violating basic values and human decency has degraded the human spirit for long enough and is stalling. The step from the competitive consciousness to the cooperative one is not as searing as many would imagine. Many are discovering that individual talent, so richly deployed for progress in the capitalistically driven free market can be inspirationally put to work in cooperative ventures in the best interests of the earth and all its organic forms.

      • greywarshark 2.3.1
        19 October 2017 at 11:56 am

        What Ant says^

        I refer to the audit culture link that I put up. We need what Ant says so we can prevent our society being reduced to pawns under the control of machine algorithms.
        https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18102017/#comment-1401499

        ( a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.
        “a basic algorithm for division” – )

        This can mean that we stop using our brains, lose that ability, and are completely dependent on machines that know more than we are allowed or able to learn. We already are on the way. People fill their head with Hosking and there is no room for doubt or other ideas, and kept busy trying to survive, no time to think.
        PS Replace Hosking with Leighton Smith or other excessively opinionated jock male or female and same result.

        Then look at the way that the election went. With all the information about and time to think because they have their needs well provided for, many chose not to examine political pronouncements for faults. We have had the physical experience of the leaky house phenomenon; now we see it mentally in the irrational voting for National, especially when the rural census below mentions 60,000 people will fill it out. There will be one for each farm, enterprise I suppose. But if there were only an average of 5 others connected, that would mean only 300,00 in a country of 4 million, less children below 18 years. How many rural people could do a devil’s advocate and objectively look at things outside their own desires and frame of reference?

        Note there was a compulsory census for those involved with agriculture, rural etc. from July 2017.
        Why Stats NZ is carrying out this census

        The main purpose of the Agricultural Production Census is to provide up-to-date and reliable statistics on agriculture and forestry. Information ultimately benefits farmers and all New Zealanders. Figures quoted in news media usually come from the census.

        Stats NZ carries out the census, which is fully funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries. Statistics are used to:

        inform trade negotiations on issues such as increased access and lower tariffs
        forecast work for the agriculture sector
        prepare policy advice, including the potential effects of policies on primary producers
        monitor the state of the agriculture sector and its contribution to the New Zealand economy
        inform planning and investment decisions by central and local government and the private sector
        fulfil duties and commitments to various international organisations of which New Zealand is a member.

        Agricultural statistics are used by the farming and industrial sectors, government, researchers, and community groups.
        Who takes part in the census
        This year everyone involved in agriculture, horticulture or forestry takes part. It’s like doing the population census every five years. About 60,000 people will complete the census.
        Census is compulsory
        Your information is so important for New Zealand that you are required by law to complete the census.
        Date of the census
        Agricultural Production Census packs will be posted in early July 2017.
        http://www.stats.govt.nz/survey-participants/a-z-of-our-surveys/agricultural-production-survey.aspx

      • Draco T Bastard 2.3.2
        19 October 2017 at 5:48 pm

        Many are discovering that individual talent, so richly deployed for progress in the capitalistically driven free market can be inspirationally put to work in cooperative ventures in the best interests of the earth and all its organic forms.

        I think many are starting to realise that individual talent achieves nothing without community and cooperation to support it.

        It’s not hard work that produces success but hard work within a cooperative and supportive community that does.

    • Sumsuch 2.4
      23 October 2017 at 12:26 am

      Long live a good NZer.

  3. joe90 3
    19 October 2017 at 8:07 am

    One of the good guys has passed.

    http://news.morningstar.com/all/canada-news-wire/20171018C2244/afn-national-chief-perry-bellegarde-honours-memory-of-gord-downie-wicapi-omani-walks-among-the-stars-offers-condolences-to-family.aspx

    Gord Downie’s The Secret Path and a post-show CBC Arts live panel on the road to reconciliation. Movie length 60 minutes. Panel discussion begins at 59:45.

    On October 22, 1966 near Kenora, Ontario, Chanie Wenjack died when he walking home to the family he was taken from over 400 miles away. Fifty years later, Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie has taken Wenjack’s story and turned it into the Secret Path project, including a solo album, a graphic novel and an animated film.

  4. Voltaire 4
    19 October 2017 at 8:36 am

    Come on Winston,
    don’t be shy !

  5. Penny Bright 5
    19 October 2017 at 10:04 am

    ‪Surely John Key should be investigated over the Panama Papers, (as stated by Chair of Transparency International Jose Ugaz, at Rutherford House, Victoria University Wellington on 1 August 2017), not appointed Chair of the Board of ANZ?‬

    Penny Bright

    ‘Anti-corruption whistle-blower’.

    • cleangreen 5.1
      19 October 2017 at 2:17 pm

      Yes John Key should be arrested for suspected corrupt practices as he has a long history of this kind of activity, beginning with his ‘collussion’ with high powered New York banker and corporate raider Alex Krieger who he met as a financial funds trader at Meryll lynch.

      That was when they combined to undermine the NZ dollar in 1987 to amost bankrupt this country.

      http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2008/11/10/financial-markets/keys-house
      John Key is living proof that not all heads of derivatives operations for large US investment banks end up in the dog house. Some get to run their own country.

      Key was elected prime minister of New Zealand last weekend after his National Party achieved a crushing victory over the incumbent Labour government of Helen Clark.

      The timing of his elevation, in the midst of a financial crisis, may be quite prophetic. After all, Key’s rise to prominence in foreign exchange circles came after he struck a rewarding relationship at Bankers Trust with Andy Krieger, a daring New York-based trader who launched a legendary raid against the NZ dollar in 1987.

      Krieger reportedly bet more than the country’s entire money supply against the currency, forcing it down sharply and taking massive profits in what is still described as one of the finest forex plays ever completed.

    • Eco maori 5.2
      19 October 2017 at 4:50 pm

      We should boycott that new job Key has got if all the left voters left that organization he won’t be there long we don’t want him swimming in our money

    • Stuart Munro 5.3
      19 October 2017 at 5:23 pm

      A medium term goal – in the short term the Maltese owned NZ trust linked to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia should be the subject of a public inquiry.

  6. roy cartland 6
    19 October 2017 at 10:06 am

    Time to ditch that idiot Garner:

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/98033157/taika-waititi-labelled-treasonous-for-saying-he-isnt-proud-of-new-zealand

    “Treasonous” because he’s rightly pissed off about our awful water status, suicide rate and housing? I think Garner is treasonous for only having a pittance of fucks to give.

    • Johan 6.1
      19 October 2017 at 11:02 am

      The fat, impulsive, boy employed by TV3 consistently tows the National/ACT Party line, to avoid getting the disapproving nod from his hierarchy.
      About time the people dismantle the blatant bias on MSM.

      • tc 6.1.1
        19 October 2017 at 11:35 am

        Never going to happen, public broadcasting is required.

        What passes for media currently will always carry on and deliver for its owners not every day punters.

        Garner’s just smart enough to dog whistle so he keeps his gig.

      • james 6.1.2
        19 October 2017 at 3:02 pm

        Whats his weight got to do with it.

        Body shaming should not be tolerated.

        • McFlock 6.1.2.1
          19 October 2017 at 3:40 pm

          Agreed. We all need to remember that the longer one stares into the abyss, the more the abyss stares back.

          Kudos to you for becoming one of the “snowflake” caring society, though 🙂

  7. greywarshark 7
    19 October 2017 at 10:19 am

    After the coalition results, even before, what about the elephants.
    Avaaz are on to it and what they are onto is trying to crack the ivory trade that if continued is predicted to finish elephants in 10 years. So donate to an Oxford University led checking of ivory that will help to find areas under predation and then the traders behind it. So that some action can be taken to disrupt this.

    Some more info links at bottom.
    Here is their bulletin:

    Dear friends,

    African elephants have just over 10 years left before they’re poached to extinction. 10 years!!! We’re wiping them out. Just to trade in stupid trinkets!

    But right now we have a chance to shut down a major ivory market — in Europe. After experts found Europe’s ‘antique’ trade is driving the slaughter of elephants by giving cover for illegal ivory, the EU launched a public consultation, asking for proof. If they get it a total ban is possible.

    So the Avaaz team found a way to prove it.

    Our community is teaming up with Oxford University and top wildlife investigators to source ivory across Europe, and then radiocarbon test it to tell its age. This could provide the sure-fire evidence to get the ban we need!

    The consultation ends in weeks. If 50,000 of us donate now, we can get started today. Chip in what you can — let’s make sure this is not the elephants’ last decade.

    I’LL DONATE $3
    I’LL DONATE $6
    I’LL DONATE $12
    I’LL DONATE $24
    I’LL DONATE $48
    OTHER AMOUNT

    Poachers are killing 100 elephants a day — shooting them from helicopters, or hacking their faces off while they’re still alive. It’s unbearably cruel. And the worst is the elephants understand what’s happening to them. They spend hours crying over dead family members.

    The only way to save them is a global ban on this bloody business — and momentum has never been so strong. The US and China passed ivory bans. Hong Kong looks set to phase-out trade by 2021. And the EU just suspended exports of raw tusks. Now, they’re considering further restrictions.

    Our evidence could be the trump card!

    But it won’t be cheap. Avaaz may be the only crowdsourced funding model in the world able to raise enough, fast enough to get a massive, grassroots-supported, scientific study ready to lobby the EU just as it is considering a ban.

    This is ground-breaking work — and the EU is asking for it right now, but no one else is ready to hit go on a project this ambitious. Chip in what you can:

    I’LL DONATE $3
    I’LL DONATE $6
    I’LL DONATE $12
    I’LL DONATE $24
    I’LL DONATE $48
    OTHER AMOUNT

    Once there were 25 million elephants roaming Africa. Now we could wipe out the entire species in a decade! It’s a terrible sign of how disconnected we are. Let’s turn this around, and bring elephants back from the brink.

    With hope,
    Alice, Danny, Oli, Spyro, Marigona, Allison and the whole Avaaz team.

    More information:

    In Fighting Illegal Ivory, EU Lags Behind (National Geographic)
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/ivory-trafficking-european-union-china-hong-kong-elephants-poaching/

    Elephants on the path to extinction – the facts (The Guardian)
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/12/elephants-on-the-path-to-extinction-the-facts/

    Elephant poachers are hard at work in Africa, and carbon dating proves it (LA Times)
    http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-elephant-ivory-poaching-20161107-story.html

    100,000 Elephants Killed by Poachers in Just Three Years, Landmark Analysis Finds (National Geographic)
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140818-elephants-africa-poaching-cites-census/

  8. greywarshark 8
    19 October 2017 at 10:51 am

    Thinking about GST in NZ. It’s actually trickle down, for them, the better-orf. They pick us up, turn us upside down, shake us and the coins trickle out of our pockets. They laugh derisively because they no longer deal in ‘real’ money, which are just tokens based on a set value, now they have plastic with an electronic communication or use electricity and a magic code to produce numbers on virtual pages.

    So they are out in space as far as bothering with real money is concerned. But at the base of their pyramid the common people bustle round with their tokens of exchange which the elite take a percentage off from each transaction. Sort of like the mafia!

    And we ask for a transaction tax on financial dealings. Seeing that with GST we already have one for us of 15% the money changers can pay say 1 or .5%
    when it flows between the portals of the wealthy and the aspiring.

    And Alex Peattie & Taylor cartoons from The Telegraph are therapeutic to view because they expose the mindset of the finance market, always with a twist in every event so ‘they’ come out on top. And it is wryly funny to see how the cartoonists are au fait with the market-minded.

    and
    http://www.alexcartoon.co.uk/thecrashof87.html

    Also
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/cartoons/

  9. Adrian 9
    19 October 2017 at 11:39 am

    I hope I’m the worlds worst body language reader because that interview with English doesnt look good for our side.

    • Agora 9.1
      19 October 2017 at 11:48 am

      .. unless Winston is playing him.

    • veutoviper 9.2
      19 October 2017 at 11:56 am

      Felt a bit the same – but OTOH there has been a lot of criticism of English over the last few days in terms of his media absence as both Caretaker PM and leader of National – a lot of this criticism from Nat supporters such as Hosking.

      And as Agora has said, perhaps Peters is playing him: and/or he just cannot suppress the inbuilt arrogance and belief that they are born to rule of the current Nats.

    • David Mac 9.3
      19 October 2017 at 1:27 pm

      The message I got from English was that he has presented National’s “We’ve considered your points of view Winston and this is the deal we’d like to offer you.”

      Was Winston ever going to say “Sweet Bill, I’ll take it.” Nahhhhhhhhh.

      He would of said, “Thanks Bill, I’ll get back to you.” Stupid not to. He has never had more leverage re: Jacinda and co meeting his wishes.

    • mauī 9.4
      19 October 2017 at 3:12 pm

      I don’t know, but more importantly does anyone care what he says right now. It’s not exactly bringing the country together by saying “na-na-na, we’re going to win”

  10. Ad 10
    19 October 2017 at 12:10 pm

    MFE and Stats New Zealand have just released a report on the already-observed changes to our climate:

    http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/environmental-reporting/our-atmosphere-and-climate-2017

  11. Penny Bright 11
    19 October 2017 at 12:29 pm

    ANZ leading Australian bank in the Panama Papers:

    http://www.fijileaks.com/home/the-panama-papers-anz-bank-was-the-leading-australian-bank-in-the-world-of-offshore-accounts-samoan-diplomat-was-used-to-help-create-shell-companies-samoas-high-commission-in-australia-couriered-papers

    (4/4/2016)

    “By Neil Chenoweth
    Financial Review

    The Mossack Fonseca files show the critical importance that banks hold in the offshore world – and ANZ is the most visible of the Australian banks in the offshore space.

    ANZ appears in 7548 of the Mossack documents, reflecting the bank’s extensive work in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Samoa and Jersey.
    …”

  12. Herodotus 12
    19 October 2017 at 4:00 pm

    Why don’t we get any supporting commentary of what these numbers tell us ?
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1710/S00575/household-income-up-over-40-in-last-10-years.htm
    https://www.odt.co.nz/business/rising-cost-housing-outpaces-income-gains
    Can it be healthy when the gap between average and median household income is $21,371 or varies by 26.7%. Does that not tell the story that many have comment on, regarding the widening gap within our society ?
    Average HH income up 42% to $98,621
    Median HH income up 34% to $77,250

  13. mary_a 13
    19 October 2017 at 6:20 pm

    6.20 pm and still waiting! Yawn.

  14. weston 14
    19 October 2017 at 7:19 pm

    maybe u dont have to worry about that now barfly …winstons given us some hope for the future !!!

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.