Open mike 20/01/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 20th, 2011 - 33 comments
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33 comments on “Open mike 20/01/2011 ”

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  1. vto 1
    20 January 2011 at 8:30 am

    I see a great stoush has blown up between Chris Trotter and federated farmers president Don Nicolson.

    It is a classic case of farmer belligerence and arrogance, seen in particular in the pathetic letter in reply in The Press today by Nicolson. It is near identical to my own private stoush with Nicolson over a piece he wrote in The Press last year labelling farmers the Real New Zealanders.

    It is part of the ongoing resistance of the farming sector to face up to new realities in the world. How long until the Federated Farmers take an approach other than thrashing around and crying like children do you think? I suspect perhaps 5 years or so.

    Worth following for the humour of their approach and for the sheer political weight, unfortunately, of their organisation.

    • prism 1.1
      20 January 2011 at 10:36 am

      vto – It is part of the ongoing resistance of the farming sector to face up to new realities in the world. How long until the Federated Farmers take an approach other than thrashing around and crying like children do you think? I suspect perhaps 5 years or so.
      I suspect never will the (dairy) farming bunch alter their basic self-interest approach and will make the least possible concessions on the real environmental problems and worker concerns.

      I still think in terms of cow cockies but in reality (though I haven’t got figures to quote) it seems they are increasingly skyscraper, ‘Queen Street’ owners with managers doing the real work and now migrant workers being exploited to do the shitty work.

      There must be cockies being bought out or being locked out because of farm prices through amalgamation of neighbouring farms and multiple ownership as they are prime high-yielding investment vehicles. On top of that the political and economic powers have gone after assuring entry of dairy and other products and to facilitate this wiped most of our tariffs in the free trade junket, so also wiping job opportunities in industry for thousands of ordinary NZs in town and country.

      • millsy 1.1.1
        20 January 2011 at 11:32 am

        It doesnt matter anyway, in 10 years we will by buying cheaper produce from the Chinese, Indians and the Russians (who will steal our farming methods out from under us).

        The farmers will learn the hard way that free trade is a two way street, and that eventually our farming sector will go the way of our manufacuring sector.

        Farmers boast about how they have abandoned protectionism. Not quite, the delusion that EVERYONE will buy milk and butter because it has ‘NZ Made’ stamped on it is the greatest piece of protectionism in our history.

        • millsy 1.1.1.1
          20 January 2011 at 11:41 am

          And Mr Nicholson is foolish, he forgets about the following examples that have greatly benefited farmers:

          1) NZ Correspondence School
          2) Rural electrification
          3) DSIR
          4) MAF research and developemtn
          5) Flock House, etc
          6) Rural public hospitals

        • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.2
          20 January 2011 at 12:00 pm

          Actually, in 10 years global trade will be diminishing due to Peak Oil and the farmers will be calling for more subsidies. No point in having enough farms to feed 130m people in a country that only has 4m when you can’t export the excess.

          • mcflock 1.1.1.2.1
            20 January 2011 at 2:00 pm

            What I don’t get is why farmers are denying climate change and then requesting drought assistance, when they’d be much better looking at expected climate change and changing land use to suit (the classic example actually being Australian watermelon growers, but northland farming is also a suited to a more temperate climate).

            Personally I’m thinking mediterranean – olives, figs, that sort of thing. Although in this general area I’m definitely talking out of a hole in my —.

            • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.2.1.1
              20 January 2011 at 2:52 pm

              They will change land use to suit – they’ll get the government to put in lots of damns and reservoirs that block and kill our streams so that unsuitable farming practices can be continued at our expense, i.e, ECAN.

        • prism 1.1.1.3
          20 January 2011 at 12:36 pm

          Our farmers, dairy farmers particularly, have been, and are protected, by government. Sir John Marshall went to Britain to make a case for our continued access to Britain when they joined the Eu Common Market. Now our envoys from the mirror city, the children of farmers and land owners?, give away large parts of our national protection for industry through tariffs and supporting local business, so we can get good access and hopefully, prices, for our farmers.

          Dairy farmers have more than assistance when there is drought etc, when they are so public about their reluctance to receive because they take pride in their hardy individualism. They have a nanny government, to use their own slang, holding their hand in their travails with export markets, and taking their pulse daily I would think. I’m not informed about their taxation but they can write off more in personal expenses I am sure than a corner dairy owner, living on the premises for instance.

  2. Sanctuary 2
    20 January 2011 at 8:45 am

    Nicholson is climate change denier, an extremist Rogernome and in general an all round loony tune. The most astonishing mystery is how he came to run Federated Farmers in his own peculiarly destructive way. What the police association’s Greg O’Conner is to genuine quiet reflection, Don Nicholson is to humble commonsense.

  3. Sanctuary 3
    20 January 2011 at 9:01 am

    A glimpse into the lifestyles of our latifunda elite – http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4559555/MasterChef-star-did-a-Gordon-Ramsay

    There is plenty of money in New Zealand, but only a vanishingly small elite has it. Consuming $45,000 of champagne on one day for a birthday party is obscene in a country where almost 70,000 New Zealanders eek out an existance on the dole.

    We need to tax Mark Fraundorfer and his mates a LOT more.

    • Bright Red 3.1
      20 January 2011 at 9:15 am

      time was you had luxury taxes – higher sales tax on luxury items – but that went out the window with the introduction of GST. the idea being GST would be simplier to administer and not place value judgements on consumption choices but, of course, it was also a tax cut for the rich.

  4. Pascal's bookie 4
    20 January 2011 at 9:52 am

    Chart of the day: Obama is a socialist who hatez the poor business menz on Wall st who just can’t catch a break edition.

    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/1-14-11-Market-Cap.gif

    market cap as % of GDP

    • Colonial Viper 4.1
      20 January 2011 at 10:04 am

      You know how all the Wall St spinners and investment ‘experts’ said that investing your retirement savings was volatile, but over the long term you would come out way ahead?

      Well if you invested 12 years ago in a broad range of stocks across the NYSE and the NASDAQ – you would still be 1/3 in the hole. 12 years is a pretty long investment time frame. To even get an annualised gain of 5% p.a. over that time by next year, the stock market has to triple in one year.

      Yeah sorry, not happening.

      All they ever wanted was our capital to play their fiscalised games with. They tricked us all, good and proper.

      • ZeeBop 4.1.1
        20 January 2011 at 3:25 pm

        The illusion of control that globalisation produces. Farmers have got it heavy. Farmers are deluded if they think just because people need to eat their production that they will have the money to buy it, that there will always be a trade route to them, and that their soils will never give out for lack of cheap oil fertilizer. Is modern farmer is misled? some weird village idiot? Or too desperate to pay bills, pay off debt, and locked into a short-term system that given them no room to move. Or is it come pschyobabble that they are ‘carrying’ NZ and so they matter the rest of the economy does not.

        Personally I think most farmers get it, they get capital farming, they know that its stupid but they are too busy playing in the system, too invested in the whole corrupt delusion, that they think if it collapses they’d still walk away. That some part of the notion of being at the end of the world, with little chance of invasion, and enough spare stuff to eat up on the hills, in the rivers, etc, that stupid is pretty much guarenteed to be safe. I just wish farmers would wake up a little more, their relatives (and others) in the city will pounce on them once a collapse sends a million people out of Auckland looking for food. But more, farmers need the rest of the economy to consume so they can bring their profits back to NZ, the world has to be selling us stuff! Selling NZ dollars to tourists and migrants can only cover so much of it, eventually demand for the NZ dollars softens, and the price collapses leaving farmers with an uphill battle.

        Yeah, why is the NZ dollar so high it the bottom of the retail sectors has been hit? Chch earthquake? Re-insurers buying NZ dollars? If National don’t get their finger out and start creating jobs farmers are going to feel it in the pocket when the NZ dollar crashes – high global commodity price might soften it for a while but China is not as safe as houses ;-).

  5. M 5
    20 January 2011 at 11:37 am

    Who will China choose? Europe or the US?

    Peter Schiff’s predictions for 2011 – one of the “interviewers” starts going ape at around 1.40 – definitely in need of some medication, dare I say it, sedation.

    • Rusty Shackleford 5.1
      20 January 2011 at 4:11 pm

      Haha, he tends to have that effect on statists.

      Schiff is one of the Austrian economists who predicted the crash.

      • Colonial Viper 5.1.1
        20 January 2011 at 4:57 pm

        Schiff is one of the Austrian economists who predicted the crash.

        Reference please. Because both Chicago School and Austrian school economic philosophies helped provide the theoretical excuse for the hands off approaches which *caused* the crash.

        We had a generation of regulators who didn’t feel that their job was to regulate. Result: a few people made a tonne of money gaming the system, and now us poor saps have to pay off their winnings.

        • mcflock 5.1.1.1
          20 January 2011 at 5:48 pm

          Not to mention the old query as to whether the economic prediction was by brains or by luck.

          The few economists who “predicted” a problem before anyone else might be using an accurate predictive model, or they might be lucky. At any one time a few economists are predicting collapse, a few predict a boom, and the rest muddle between the two.

          • Pascal's bookie 5.1.1.1.1
            20 January 2011 at 6:07 pm

            At any one time the Austrians are predicting imminent collapse, as far as I can tell.

        • prism 5.1.1.2
          20 January 2011 at 7:01 pm

          CV – Roll up to the Blue Ball Casino for really big winnings and – you never have to say you’re sorry.

          Brit news about greed unfettered and unchanging. – A taste of Stuff article from google. Link below
          “UK bank bonus row reignites | Stuff.co.nz13 Jan 2011 … The UK’s bank bonuses row flared into new life Wednesday as a report the … The average wage in Britain was £25879 ast year and many families are … He can receive up to 225 percent of his base salary in annual bonus …”
          http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/business/4536514/UK-bank-bonus-row-reignites

          Dompost business C1 Mon. 17 Jan has item about three former bosses of Britain’s biggest banks securing lucrative agreements to take millions of pounds in pay and benefits MONTHS AFTER they step down. – figures like 3m pounds, 500,000 pounds are sprinkled through the article.

          Perhaps the really clever ones get agreements for largesse after they die. They might have a clause where they store their ashes at their previous workplace so that they have a notional presence to satisfy the terms. Now that would be a good wheeze wouldn’t it! I wish I was as rich as I’m clever, or twisted, bent perhaps.

  6. joe90 6
    20 January 2011 at 11:56 am

    Study claims 100 percent renewable energy possible by 2030 but the numbers are stunning.

    .Achieving 100 percent renewable energy would mean the building of about four million 5 MW wind turbines, 1.7 billion 3 kW roof-mounted solar photovoltaic systems, and around 90,000 300 MW solar power plants.

    • Colonial Viper 6.1
      20 January 2011 at 12:30 pm

      China aims to own the majority of this huge market. Now you know why they have invested so heavily in green energy as part of their stimulus package.

  7. randal 7
    20 January 2011 at 1:32 pm

    who listens to summer noel?
    five gets you ten she’s a fox stooge and she will be on that network next year.

  8. ZeeBop 8
    20 January 2011 at 3:56 pm

    On entering NZ you should be aware. That driving up behind a cyclist quietly and beeping the horn is not dangerous use of a motor vehicle. That driving in anyway such that excessive noise is produce is not dangerous, even as modern medicine states otherwise. That driving a car that is out of WoF that is excessively noisy is not dangerous because I don’t know maybe because no car has ever caused a heart attack, caused hearing damage or pushed a suicidal person over the edge from repeative traffic of a out of warrented vehicle that produces too much noise. Go figure? If prolonged exposure to 90Db can cause hearing damage, then lucky you live in NZ where a 95Db car can drive into an amphitheatre caused by over council consent building, daily repeatively, without any effect on the human ear. No damage whatsoever. Its something in NZ air that protects people hearing in NZ! Police do not need to worry since noisy cars are legal for the road, councils don’t need to worry because building consent was given years ago before the stupid National allowed numerous cars to upgrade their noise to 95Db! Because in NZ there is no way a car could enter residential areas daily repeatively, between walls and fences and amplify the level of the noise to a level that would be dangerous to the mental, physical and spiritual being of those residents. No, Way! Hearing loss in NZ due to cars does not happen!

  9. Vicky32 9
    20 January 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Summer Noelle, she annoys me to the max!
    “Gotten” I ask you – just the first bit of evidenceof the extent to which she is thoroughly Americanised.
    Her political interviews bear that out…
    I never thought I’d say this, but I shall be glad to hear Kathryn Ryan return!
    Noelle needs to learn that she’s in New Zealand not New York..
    Deb

    • Pascal's bookie 9.1
      20 January 2011 at 6:20 pm

      Oh come on vicky. 🙂

      I’m no great fan of the whole summer NatRad aural wallpaper thing, but I am a fan of much of American english. It’s a living language, most alive and dynamic in the US IMHO.

      One thing they (USians) do that doesn’t work at all well however is their down right ornery refusal to understand that their phrasing:

      I could care less / I could give a damn

      does not mean what they adamantly claim to believe it means.

      That pisses me off.

      • Colonial Viper 9.1.1
        20 January 2011 at 6:49 pm

        That may explain some problems I had with an American woman when I was younger 😎

      • M 9.1.2
        20 January 2011 at 8:00 pm

        Pascal, like your sentiments. Yes the ‘I could care less’ is perplexing to the uninitiated but as you say American English is alive and growing. Many of the terms like self-made man, flipped out, flake and those adopted from the Jewish popluation and now very much part of the American vernacular like putz, shill, and meshuganah all serve to ginger up language and give it some savour. I particularly like how the non-gender specific pronouns one and one’s are used frequently in the US and the use of these does not attract charges of snobbery like they would in Britain or her outposts.

        Just like jolie-laide is perfect from French to describe someone’s looks like Steven Tyler from Aerosmith or the fabulous NZ phrase ‘stunned mullet’ proves that the ways to express yourself are infinite and ever-changing.

      • Vicky32 9.1.3
        23 January 2011 at 4:05 pm

        As an ESOL teacher, I spend my working life trying to sort out confusion caused by the fact that as some twit wrote in the Listener in the 1980s “Your kids speak American, get over it, churls!”
        The fact is that anyone under 50 in NZ speaks a horrible mix of NZ English and American. I wince everytime I hear some 20-50-something say ‘sked-yool’ or talk about the ‘bathroom’ when they mean the toilet, ‘pants’ instead of trousers, or my un-favourite ‘He/she ‘went away/passed/passed away’ instead of died…
        Euphemism is the American way! Great offence can be and has been caused by my naively assuming that “he/she’s gone” means “he/she moved from Auckland to another city” when the dumbass 20 something blonde means “my grandmother just died”..
        Great embarassment and confusion can ensue when the aforementioned dumb blonde doesn’t know what I mean by “can you tell me how to find the loo/toilet or even lift!”
        American English is an appalling travesty, invented for the stupids and I teach my students English. They’re here not in the USA, they presumably don’t want to learn AmE. Someone of them (especially those from the Middle East) ask me if I am teaching British English, because that’s what they want! My Italian students, here and online have chosen me for the same reason, they want to learn English *not* American!
        Why does Noelle live here, for goodness’ sake? Is it the same reason Leighton Smith decided not to use his Green Card but stay here.
        Here they’re big frogs in little ponds, and in the USA they’d sink without trace.
        I listen to Nat Rad and the BBC WS in order to avoid American cultural hegemony. I am loud and proud – I hate the USA and all who sail in her. My kids don’t speak American, I brought them up better than that – one speaks NZ English, and the other speaks the mix of BE and NZE that’s appropriate to his parents/grandparents.
        Don’t you get that that ornery refusal regarding those phrases is the same ornery refusal they apply to everything?
        Deb

    • Alexandra 9.2
      20 January 2011 at 7:45 pm

      When I’m most reliant on radio for holiday entertainment and keeping up to date with life outside of my caravan, the bliss is wrecked by Summer Noelle. I find her shallow, cutesy persona, for so many weeks, hard to bare. I’m looking forward to Kathryn Ryan’s return next week.

  10. ianmac 10
    20 January 2011 at 9:55 pm

    I thought Noelle was Irish? And irritating.

    • Bob 10.1
      20 January 2011 at 11:59 pm

      Geeze init grate to hair somin witha deefrint excent ? OOpps all down hill from here . Kathryn Ryan and Big Jim Mora , good job i can receive BFM . Bye the way , when is Big Jim going to make his move for the Nacts ? maybe he will stand in the Coro seat now that Sandra is leaving ? I hear hes pretty good on a long board over at Whangamata