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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, July 20th, 2016 - 66 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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Yes quite right, there’s more than enough intellectually incompetent self opinionated wankers about already.
[lprent: Opps. Hit send to OpenMike by accident. Need to write a revert function. ]
Unravelling?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/19/philippines-wont-honour-un-paris-climate-deal-president-duterte
That really wasn’t unexpected. A lot of world leaders, especially in the developing nations, still cling to fossil fuels to drive their growth rather than looking to develop far better and sustainable Green Tech. Hell, we’ve still got ‘leaders’ that look to the 19th century model of development rather than accepting that we just can’t do that any more.
although Duterte appears to be a head case, a position like this from the leader of a nation of islands suffering tangible CC impact already is certainly unexpected from my position……kick back may be expected, but from there?
“Climate change needs to be treated with more urgency, says scientist”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11676325
Leading climate scientist James Renwick comments on the failings in latest government paper on the environment that singles out climate change as an environmental research priority for New Zealand..
Nick Smith.
Train wreck interview with Guyon Espiner.
Admits there is no affordable housing.
Admits immigration is a cause of house prices (contradicting Stephen Joyce).
Advice to young families ‘Be patient.’
This mob are a disgrace.
This mob are a bunch of psychopaths whose policies are debilitating the country.
yes and it looks like they want to spread the housing crisis to the rest of New Zealand…as if there are NOT New Zealanders struggling to afford housing there out in the provinces!!!
…personally I am for the idea of bringing the value of all NZ housing down by 40% and stopping overseas investment in NZ housing
….New Zealand housing stock for New Zealanders only!
…as it is all these so called remedies are just making the situation worse for New Zealanders who can least afford a house in their own country!
…it is an utter disgrace!
http://aca.nine.com.au/article/9142606/new-zealand-slice-of-heaven
Ummm…what do you mean by debilitating the country?
The increasing homelessness
The increasing poverty
The decreasing capabilities of the economy as stuff that should be done here is done elsewhere
The over reliance on agriculture
The decreasing health system
The beneficiary bashing
The list goes on and on and on.
…and yet NZ is very desired country to live in. What keeps you in NZ if its all doom and gloom?
We’re still better than many other places but that doesn’t mean that this government isn’t turning us into a facsimile of those hell-holes.
1. This is my home
2. I think we should work to make the place better rather than just giving up and going somewhere else
3. I have no desire to live, or even go, anywhere else.
Desired ? Yeah someone from overseas said that and according to Indiana that negates the realities on the ground here. Immaturity and cheapness of thought there Indiana, as to be sociopathic. Try being the little 12 year old girl TA who was living in a van with about 5 family members. As she told the Weak Man Key, it’s not easy being her. Meanwhile he and McLay are swanning around in Jakarta claiming not to remember what went down in China the week before = covering the lies they told this week and got sprung on. Disgraceful people !
It seems the Reserve Bank caved in to pressure from the government to try and do something about house prices, so it is going to make it even harder for New Zealand first home buyers in order to stifle demand at the same time as overseas buyers can continue to push up the market indefinitely. By next year’s election average Auckland house prices will be well over $1 million while even fewer New Zealanders will be able to buy a house.
+1
Agreed Paul. Smith’s arguments were:
1. Houses are unaffordable in Akl.
2. Be patient.
3. There is no rule 3.
Be patient for how long? And under this government what exactly are you being patient/waiting for? Apart from a few crappy small scale initiatives that don’t work they have shown no inclination to put in place a strategy to make houses affordable to first home buyers.
Key never was a “big picture” PM. He is a fiddler around the edges PM who will soon be spending more time in Hawaii.
Nick Smith to young Auckland families – give up, go somewhere else, we don’t want you here.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/82280935/housing-minister-nick-smith-says-firsthome-buyers-in-auckland-need-to-be-patient
Wow……..Nick Smith’s absolutely amazing……..John Key’s government has fixed this housing “challenge”.
Fuck you’re an arsehole Nick. A dirty reflexive liar. Like it just flows off your tongue. Lies.
According to the SMH a recent Roy Morgan in Australia showed that although official ‘unemployment’ is 5.8%, 18.8% of the workforce is in fact unemployed. I’m curious what the real unemployment rate is here in John Key’s cruel and stupid neo-liberal nightmare.
Well, we do know that 0.6% of the workforce who are unemployed and looking for work are no longer classed as unemployed because they used that most efficient of vehicles for looking – the internet.
Polls in oz that ask the question ‘Do you have enough work…’ Over the last 5 years have shown rates triple the official unemployment rate.
As the nats have shown official stats are rubbery and easy to manipulate, just ask judith about police stats.
Is anyone thinking that the world is getting far more brittle than it was even last year, and we’re in for some kind of rupture?
A lot of chickens finally coming home to roost.
Maybe but then I’d imagine that people were thinking the same thing during the cold war in the 80s, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, WWII and so on
Eventually though the push back against mass immigration into the West will at some point begin and things will then subside back to normal (or what passes for normal these days) in a couple of years (being one of the drivers though I’m sure there are others)
I also could be completely and utterly wrong and we could be headed for a global breakdown in law and society
Massive economic, resource and political changes are underway. If you don’t like change this era isn’t going to be fun, things aren’t going to be boring either. Lets hope that people’s suffering is at the low end and we do our best to minimise it.
Blair called to account at last…lets hope this is a precedent for other politician warmongers who play with sovereign countries and people’s lives
‘Blair in the dock: Bereaved military families crowdfund nearly £50k to sue former PM over Iraq’
https://www.rt.com/uk/352097-iraq-blair-court-crimes/
Trump the Putin puppet? Does this explain some of our local commenters’ enthusiasm for him?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-trump-russia_us_578e44bae4b0a0ae97c37acd?section=
ha ha…Trump wants detente with Russia(quite sensible) NOT risk a third world war, unlike Killary and friends
Yeah, you have Drump’s word, the US will only indulge in racist pogroms, torture, reprisal killings and indiscriminate bombardment.
/
You’re talking about Obama’s 8 years.
Oh, and Guantanamo Bay is still open after all his promises way back in 2006/2007, and all those known innocent men still blindfolded and kept on their knees in orange jump suits.
Trump might be the closest thing we have to a real-life comments section 🙂
Well, we can be fairly confident he won’t plagiarise anyone. Even if it’s only coz he can’t put together a coherent sentence that’s long enough.
and its not like the president of the USA has that much power anyway
Will the New Zealand Labour Party’s chickens come home to roost?…Maori Party and Mana merge?…in a joint effort to take ALL the Maori Seats off Labour?
(sigh… too bad Labour did not cooperate with Mana/internet over the TTT electorate and not stand Kelvin against Hone…thereby losing the united Left a win in the last Election ….)
‘Deciphering the machinations in Maori Party – and Mana’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201808945/deciphering-the-machinations-in-maori-party-and-mana
“New Maori Party president Tukoroirangi Morgan says talking with Mana Movement leader Hone Harawira is a “no brainer”. RNZ’s Maori issues correspondent Mihingarangi Forbes gives her view.”
‘New Maori Party president offers olive branch to Harawira’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201808934/new-maori-party-president-offers-olive-branch-to-harawira
“The Maori Party’s new president is on a mission to repair one of the most bitter fallouts in Maori politics – the division between the Mana and Maori parties. We talk to Tukoroirangi Morgan about just how he thinks he can make this happen.”
I’ve been contemplating the Maori Party recently, chooky. While they have no hope of getting all 7 seats and realistically they would be thrilled to just retain the one they have, a tie up with what’s left of mana does make sense. There is a slim chance Hone could win back TTT if the MP endorsed him and you’d have to hope that Hone could drag the MP to the left, which might make a Lab/Green government more likely. But, really, the best thing would be for the Maori Party to get no seats at all and be dumped into the dustbin of history. They’ve chosen to be part of a Government that has made life worse for most maori. They deserve to be punished by their voters for that decision.
Snobbery was inherent in the Labour Party attitude to Hone in the 2014 campaign. And a little bit of “Born To Rule TTT”.
+100…yes and they say the Labour Maori MPs who won Maori seats havent been treated that well by the Labour Party either ie they don’t have high rankings or responsibilities…the NZ Labour Party is too complacent and stupid …afterall if you want a working class Party you have to treat with respect and cater for Maori and Polynesians at very least
‘Claire Trevett catches up with TDB – how the MANA movement-Maori Party MOU would work’
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/07/20/claire-trevett-catches-up-with-tdb-how-the-mana-movement-maori-party-mou-would-work/
“…and be dumped into the dustbin of history.”
Key always said that the Maori electorate should be closed down, at least he said so until National became the Government. The loss of the Maori Party would be a big step in that direction.
Gotta catch ’em all? It’s a lot easier if you’re white.
Essentially, a self-reinforcing built in bias.
Six months ago this would have been bizarro fantasy from…say, Douglas Adams. Now it’s all factual truth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-north-patterson/leading-the-lemmings–the_b_10988724.html
thanks andre for the link.
his Superbity,
his Vacancy, brilliant.
reminds me of another leader.. i can’t quite put my finger on…
The only reason that you could have thought it a “bizarro fantasy” is by misunderstanding the real situation on the ground. Trump however, got it.
Dilbert on innovation
Hilarious and scary all at once having seen it in action by many a ‘dropped in’ exec complete with the rest of the slogan kitbag.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11677763
Seems like a fair decision all round
This is thought provoking and a discouragement for indulging in war against other countries…it can come back to bite you
‘France descending into militarized state ruled by fear’
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/352041-france-militarized-dystopia-state/
…”French citizens, as with other Western countries, need to ask themselves: do we really want to live like this? That is, under a permanent siege of fear and arbitrary state power that is also expressing itself in despotism, as seen in the banning of public protest to cuts in workers’ rights and economic austerity policies.
It may not lead to an immediate eradication of terrorism, but the way forward is for citizens to demand accountability of their governments. Washington, London and Paris – the chief NATO powers – must not be allowed to trample on international law by launching wars and covert plots for regime change in sovereign countries.
Western governments and political leaders must be prosecuted for crimes against peace. When have they ever?..
and
‘Britain’s ‘forgotten generation’ of impoverished, mentally damaged military veterans’
https://www.rt.com/uk/352082-veteran-ptsd-poverty-ssafa/
Joe Biden visit to NZ to meet . . .umm, . . . wotzhizname:
THE IDEAL:
‘Look Joe, here in NZ we don’t give a monkey’s about the self-appointed role of the U.S. as the World’s policeman. if China wants its 9-dash line in the South China sea, that’s fine by us. And we don’t want to encourage terrorism in NZ by committing more troops to Afghanistan or IRAQ or anywhere else for that matter. S o o o o o – Sorry!”
THE REAL:
“Yes, Joe, yes, yes, anything you say. Of course we can – and will.
And please give my love to Barack – I’m looking forward to meeting him on the golf course again soon.”
Jim Mora’s crass and ill-informed comments are still stinking up the airwaves
The Panel, RNZ National, Wednesday 20 July 2016
Jim Mora, Brodie Cane, Sue Wells, Caitlin Cherry
4:35 p.m. …
That idiot Jim Mora has just compared Melania Trump’s sub-kindergarten-level plagiarism to Johnny Cash’s rendition of “Folsom Prison Blues”. He wasn’t being ironic or deliberately employing black humour: he was serious.
A little later, he mentioned another infamous example of plagiarism, then made another cretinous statement: “Was it really so bad what Joe Biden did because he was obviously inspired by a great idea from Kinnock?”
Why on earth is Mora still on radio?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/biden.htm
It’s great to have you back dissecting this appalling show.
Did you hear him fawning to the braying Boag yesterday?
The Panel – one hour of first world problems enunciated by the privileged class of New Zealand. Today’s inisights: Sue Wells on how she spent $10k on her teeth and Brodie Kane tells us New Zealand is great because her family cares for her.
Neither obviously have a clue of the ravages destroying the fabric of society for the working class.
I understand your concern Morrissey but the truth is as follows – Mora is an affable ‘chatty’ whose reputedly Mensa level intelligence has been subjugated to the overwhelming caution of NEVER being seen as antipathetic to power. He’s a willing cipher in the world of Crosby Textor and ‘John’. Poor man enjoying no respect. Gratitude perhaps from those he so gratutitously serves, but no respect.
Michelle Boag would’ve fixed a few invites to Parnell Xmas BBQs to keep the snob/weakling assured of his (humph) pedigree. Parnell BBQs are very potent for nothing people. Ask Billy Boy Ralston.
Sue Wells savoured every long drawn out syllable in her fascinating account of something or other. At least she seemed to find it entertaining.
Mora’s still on radio because he licks the arse of power. Brilliant dinner guest I’m sure but a nothing fuck nevertheless !
The best 59 minute watch for a long time. George Galloway and others on BBC Question Time – post-Chilcott, post-Brexit.
‘Georgous George’ near his indefatigible best.
His best was this – found it easily by googling “George Galloway Owns US Congress” – was a US Senate committee ackshully where it was sought to project on George the corrupt raison d’etre of prominent US Republican senators.
Finally, there’s this – reputed to be the best George comeback ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHaR3Z8yTAM
Look out for this film he’s made about Blair. Out in the UK at the end of the month.
Yes. So looking forward to that. A very close friend of mine, for years and years and years a UN “international civil servant” as he fashions himself, hardly radical, recently remarked to me that Blair is “the most hated man in Britain”.
The misdeeds, the lies, and the amassing of fabulous wealth post-Iraq, and even post-Chilcott I’ll bet, would explain that assessment.
Yeah……put the bastard on trial ! For the blood his machinations spilt. And the wife. Went to Australia to give an after dinner speech for some charity. Mongrel charged a hundred grand. Her office has never denied it. These are the scum who have control of this world. And the Weak Man Key, the willingly weak man Key, is not a shred different.
Galloway in front of the US House committee was just awesome.
Shit CV……you hoha me sometimes but good to be with you re George. A true person !
The banks are worried.
Bank boss warns of property market mess
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11678081
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11678082
And that’s when we’re gonna get the Herald crying tears on it’s front page for the poor ‘investor’ whose mongrel tenants denied him/her their birthright, viz. to get rich at the expense of poor people who’ve got fuck all.
Well for mine…….good job ! Frankly I don’t even care if those tenants smashed your place over. You invoked “The Market” to rape them, sickening wannabe John Key, well before they hit back. Good job !
Hoo boy. What a portrayal of Donald Trump by his ghost writer partner on his book The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/us/politics/trump-book-tony-schwartz.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
An article in the New York Times in which such gems as “I should have named the book, “The Psychopath”, ” are found. Nothing new, really!
It all seems to have gone quiet on the ‘export a crim Kiwi from the Lucky Country’ front so we’re not hearing enough – or pushing enough – for the other captives on Australia’s ‘offshore islands’.
How do you get through to the like of Peter Dutton?
Our WINZ is Bad. Their immigration is borderline evil.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/20/the-terrible-true-story-of-mr-eaten-fish-manus-island-cartoonist
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11678189
The Weak Man Key is gonna go down in history as just that. An effete showboat, a weak man dependent for backbone on Crosby Textor. Such a terribe shame. New Zealand really was special once. Now we have a ponce to reflect us. Oh God !
The Key Government is desperate to not be blamed for when the bubble bursts. They see it is better to be accused of inaction rather than the unholy mess that will happen when the crash happens.
Labour’s fault. Council’s fault. Bank’s fault. Australia’s fault. But please, please do not blame the Key lot!
they care not about blame…..merely re-election
Yes Pat. But if the blame is directed at Key it will diminish his chance of re-election. So blame someone else.
true enough