I have vacated, after spending an hour there this morning.
Their Facebook page shows the problems trying to maintain a semblance of decency when you have a bunch of radicals, anarchists and “anything that involves a stir”-ists.
It’s the fucking internet, what more do you want? Crumpets and whipped cream perhaps? A shrubbery with free delivery? The Second Coming of Raptor Jesus?
If you say something utterly stupid and/or factually wrong, expect people to get fucked off with you to various extents. And give thanks to Peter Dunnes hair-piece that not one’s yet rightfully pain-series’d you (or linked you to that page) due to your ever irritating middle class privilege pushing.
What are you on about? I didn’t say anything factually wrong. I’ve been on amicable terms and had interesting discussions with anyone I’ve talked to face to face at the Octagon. I was abused and defamed, it was an embarrassment to Occupy Dunedin so they deleted the abuse and the nong went ape about it – and threatened to go even more ape against them.
Shit you fail at reading comprehension. Re-read this, particularly the bit before the and/or while thinking about “perceptions”:
If you say something utterly stupid and/or factually wrong, expect people to get fucked off with you to various extents.
Go it yet, or do you also fail, at basic theory of mind as well?
And while you may have had polite conversations offline, online provides teh ability for people to be direct and blunt, instead of faking politeness to avoid conflict. And thus creating impressions that they’re on “amicable” terms with you, instead of regarding you as whatever they privately regard you as…
Which is pretty normal human behaviour as I and other members of the evil science brigade may have polite irl convo’s with people we regard as complete idiots (like Rick Giles).
You obviously have no idea what’s going on here. This is bringing out a few who genuinely think they can change the world, and many immature attention seekers.
A new study has investigated the relationships between the top 43,000 transnational corporations. It’s not a perfect investigation, but a good beginning to bringing to light the main networks of wealth and power:
The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318
companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318
had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were
connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of
global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own
through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and
manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60
per cent of global revenues.
When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of
it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit
companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the
super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the
network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able
to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most
were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank,
JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.
It’s not the existence of such networks in themselves that are a threat to global economic stability, but the core of tight interconnections mean that if one company is struggling it has a negative impact on te rest.
The article tends to focus on what this means for the occupy movement, and assumes that all occupiers believe the 1% are part of a deliberate, planned conspiracy. The writers of the article say the study shows that it is more to do with the way self-organising systems can develop.
Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion.
Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on
common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be
one such common interest.
Well that explanation is more in keeping with how I see the wealth-power elite operating, and I suspect many occupiers would think so as well.
The article doesn’t seem to be concerned about the inequalities developed through such financial-wealth-power networks, but only with the stability/instability of the system.
With so many of the players (e.g. former Goldman Sachs execs) moving between private institutions to work in government (and vice versa) and being on many boards the average Joe assumes collusion and a plan.
It’s interesting that these people say it isn’t so. So the trap for the average punter would be when they see the collusion to resist “changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.” and interpret it as a 24/7 state of affairs.
They problem I have with that (and a point raised by OWS) is that in times when the structure is not threatened by change you still see an undue influence by the corporations to buy our democracy, write our legislation and influence our decision makers.
I don’t accept that there is no collusion/conspiracy. As someone once said about the changes in NZ in the 80s – for there to be a conspiracy all it takes is two people reaching an agreement over port and cigars in the Wellington Club.
I think the distinction is that conspiracies are to often seen as sophisticated, all encompassing and all powerful. For such a conspiracy to happen requires a lot of work and no loose ends.
What is often missed is that conspiracies don’t have to be big. As I said above “for there to be a conspiracy all it takes is two people reaching an agreement over port and cigars in the Wellington Club.”
That would make the CTU, OWS and the Business Roundtable conspiracies.
Perhaps the distinction is in the morality / legality of the conspirators’ goals. When charges of conspiracy are laid it is a conspiracy to XYZ. It is the ends and methods of the agreement that determine the pejorative conspiracy.
“The article doesn’t seem to be concerned about the inequalities developed through such financial-wealth-power networks, but only with the stability/instability of the system.”
Inequality being one of the symptoms of instability.
As always, it pays to read the actual paper – which indeed addresses the issues you raise. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf
‘One thing won’t chime with some of the protesters’ claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. “Such structures are common in nature,”‘ Truthers take note.
An online tool where you can map and visualize company board connections.
You can look up specific people or play around and click to see various connections.
I’ve no idea how up-to-date the site is but it’s interesting to play around with
“It may not have been but that doesn’t mean that it’s not being used for that now.”
What makes you think that the desire to “rule the world” equates to the capability? We (humans) have set up very complex structures to “rule the world” and they have a hard enough time of it. I doubt corporations have a magic wand that governments don’t. They are influential players, but the fact that these super entities arise by “natural” means implies that their are natural laws to follow, which may have far more to do with survival as a member of the group, for example.
I think you’ve failed to establish the premise – that “ruling the world” – in the sense you propose – is even possible.
They are influential players, but the fact that these super entities arise by “natural” means implies that their are natural laws to follow, which may have far more to do with survival as a member of the group, for example.
Someone needs to go do (history and) philosophy of science it seems…
Calling it “natural” ends up hiding the social and economic factors over history that created the environmental forces that lead to these companies emerging, but also the ability of social and economic forces to be altered by mass movements to remove these. So that to suppose “natural laws” are responsible treats these concentrations of influence as immutable natural outcomes and thus not to be messed with, when history shows otherwise. Of course, I’m going by laymans definitions here, but then you have failed to show any signs of actually thinking in depth beyond teh surface details here.
Also, in biology, the only hard laws are thermodynamics, everything else is context sensitive in reference to historical (biochem/genetics/population characters)* and ecological factors. Which is what makes ecology and evolutionary biology so wondrously neat and complex, but also means that trying to apply concepts to other areas without sanity checking becomes problematic really quickly.
That’s not to say that human society and all it’s tools aren’t natural though (which is what drives SETI nuts**), it’s just that trying to assign “natural laws” rapidly hits brickwalls with exceptions and the mutability and adaptability of human societies.
______________________________________
*I’m being a bit lazy here, because a full description is a whole fucking textbook on evolutionary biology + a couple of others on biochemistry, population genetics and ecology + key research papers.
**While not a text book, it’s a large essay with extensive referencing in itself on why “artificial” is not as easy to define away from natural phenomena, with humorous references to the failures of Intelligent Design “researchers” myriad failings.
I think you’ve failed to establish the premise – that “ruling the world” – in the sense you propose – is even possible.
And you’ve failed to realise that you don’t need to rule the world, all that’s needed is just enough influence to nudge things (even accidentally) in ways that benefit you that are emergent features of these networks 😛
It might not be world control, and it might be slow, but it does allow for indirect and direct nudging of nations if you can escape teh competition for a moment.
Says you. I hadn’t failed to realise it at all in fact – but if “ruling” is really “having influence” I fail to see what’s startling about it – you might as well get excited about the fact that the sky is blue.
The authors of the study have already made this explicit connection to natural systems, and since they are referring to mathematical similarities, I feel confident in quoting them.
The problem is that you’re not paying attention to teh definition of “natural” the authors use, which unless you’re feeling free to correct me fully, you’re not using in your prior post.
As for it being “surprising”, the novel thing about this research is actually shows the connections companies have than can drive influence on regional or global scales with a bit more rigour than norm. And for those who dislike corporate influence of democracies it provides valuable evidence, but for me, it’s just a massively neat use of network theory. And picking apart you analogy, it’s not that the sky is blue, it’s how it’s blue that’s of surprise here.
I agree with NickS (and thanks for putting the points so clearly, NickS).
This word ‘natural’ is very misleading. It is natural, for example, for humans to have five fingers on each hand. But, of course, (and in a different sense) it is also natural when someone is born with six fingers.
The important point is simply that, in a particular set of circumstances certain outcomes are likely (or even inevitable). In different circumstances, different outcomes are likely.
We could say, if you like, that capitalism has a certain internal logic which leads, generally, to particular macrolevel results, such as the concentration of wealth, while also generating more and more of it (i.e., ‘wealth’). Further, legal structures and laws have their own ‘logic’ which enables/encourages certain results in relation to the legal entities we call corporations.
Together, these two ‘logics’ naturally produce the kind of pattern in which 147 companies form a ‘super entity’.
Other circumstances (i.e., structures, systems and laws) may well not lead to such concentration. That is, the concentration is not ‘natural’ in the sense of ‘inevitable’ but ‘natural’ in the sense that it follows from a particular set of arrangements.
On another point, I don’t think that either intentionality or ‘naturalness’ should have anything to do with the question of whether or not such a state of corporate concentration of ownership is desirable.
Anyhow, one of the issues with this is that a lose of one of these nodes can have very large effects on the global economy, and more so, enough of them acting together can have wide-reaching impacts. However, they’re also in competition so any cartels that form are going to be small scale and otherwise narrowly focused, as well as being prone to information leaking.
So the main thing to watch for are mergers that concentrate power further and disrupt them, but also node sensitive legislation that adds social dimensions to the actions of nodes once they’re above a level that can cause significant national and international problems if things go wrong. Probably in the form of completely independent forensic auditors with far reaching powers to dig into any “issues” as they begin happen, rather than after the horse has bolted.
Not that the nodes would go down without a fight and legal action, despite topographical network theory being pretty well advanced (and fun to use in ecosystem foodweb studies) and capable of locating potential failure points.
Edit: Apparently reading it a bit more Obama is just sticking to a deadline which was agreed to by Bush in 2008 anyway (not that I think the Republicans would have stuck to it).
Yeah they won’t want 40,000 guys getting bored in the US.
On that note part of the reason they aren’t extending their stay is apparently the Iraqis wouldn’t agree to keep the US forces immunity from prosecution past that date.
Chris. That immunity was weird given that the USA are very righteous about pursuing every other criminal acts especially if committed by any foreigner. “We stand for freedom, the right to a fair trial, democracy, justice for all etc. Mmmm!
There’s a definite double standard on the part of the US. They want to prosecute and pursue foreigners who commit crime but they will not submit any of their people to the International Criminal Court.
You see this type of ethnocentric thinking when
– Americans are arrested overseas and it is automatically assumed they will not be treated fair in any other foreign jurisdiction
– Americans get sick overseas and it is automatically assumed they will not be treated professionally and with international best practice and have to be rushed back to the States.
Americans are arrested overseas and it is automatically assumed they will not be treated fair in any other foreign jurisdiction
Even if they are convicted, the automatic assumption is that they are sweet innocents, wrongly convicted. If they are later acquitted, they are welcomed home as if they are heroes who suffered torture and injustice in a 3rd world hellhole! Cf the evil Amanda Knox… I remain convinced that there’s something dodgy about this woman’s acquittal. Now, she’s not giving any interviews, as she has a book contract which precludes that. Her brother spoke proudly on the BBC about how the “free Amanda Knox” campaign he started had “brought her back to us”. I am sorry, it just makes me very angry. The African guy (one of the 3 charged) is, by Amanda, the “real” villain… not her sweetness, oh no! 🙁
Former marine pollution response manager Nick Quinn left Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) last year for a job as response manager at the Australian Marine Oil Spill centre.
Ian Niblock, who was national on-scene manager as well as the Northland regional harbour master, also left to take the harbourmaster’s position in Darwin.
Public Service Association acting national secretary Jeff Osborne said he understood MNZ had lost other key players.
It used to have a naval architect, a nautical analyst, an environmental analyst, a human factors analyst and a rules adviser.
“Those jobs are gone we believe, they don’t exist anymore. People have left and not been replaced or they have been laid off.”
Labour strategist Trevor Mallard said it would have been better if the country could have held on to good people without losing them to Australia.
“Then we wouldn’t have been five days behind.”
He pointed to comments by chairman David Ledson in Maritime NZ’s 2010 annual report that “MNZ was not immune from the effects of fiscal pressures … and that retention and recruitment of `the right people with the right skills’ and in the right numbers presented challenges.”
A decade ago, the Oil Pollution Fund contained about $12 million but now totals only $4m after a decision was made by then transport minister Mark Gosche to draw the account down. The purpose of the fund is to have sufficient cash rapidly available in case of an oil spill…….
However, it does make Labour look like absolute hypocrites given some of their attacks on National lately. National made an error of omission in not increasing the maximum liability. However, this was a deliberate, calculated decision on the part of Labour.
From the article:
Auckland University associate professor and maritime law expert Paul Myburgh said New Zealand had never faced such a serious oil pollution incident as the Rena.
“Given the reality of maritime limitation of liability, it is inevitable that governments will always have to cover a portion of the clean-up costs and consequential economic consequences of a spill. That is why we levy the industry in the first place.”
It had been “a foolish and shortsighted decision” to reduce the levy, he said.
Labour foolish and short-sighted? Who would have ever guessed? 🙂
Semantics. Really, it shows Labour as being short sighted some ten years ago but that doesn’t make them “little better than environmental vandals” no matter how much you want to spin it. As I said here, it’s not going to make any difference to the clean up.
The environmental vandals are NAct who are gutting the RMA and who also didn’t increase the resources needed to respond to a maritime accident as required.
Clearly – from that same article – the wound down fund is still sufficient for the Rena. Of course, it would be wise to have a bigger fund given that now we have to hope and pray another one doesn’t happen anytime soon.
So, no tsmithfield, it doesn’t look like Labour are ‘absolute hypocrites’ – since the fund was fine for the Rena – but unwise decision making, nevertheless.
It has been revealed that the Labour Government cut Maritime New Zealand’s oil spill response funding by two thirds.
And? It’s the government, I’m sure that they’ll be able to borrow a few mil extra. They shouldn’t have to but it won’t slow down the clean up.
See there’s a difference between having funds available for the clean up and being properly resourced to respond to an accident. National have held the critical funding (the resources MNZ has to operate) down by the simple expedient of not increasing funding by the rate of inflation and so MNZ was unable to respond. Of course, it’s possible that it wasn’t properly resourced before hand either but the latest report that said that they needed more resource came about under Nationals watch and they didn’t do anything to correct the lack of resources.
The facts are that since the funding cut many of the most experienced oil disaster response professionals at Maritime New Zealand were either made redundant or left.
The question to be answered is this:
Was the manning crisis which sprung from the underfunding of MNZ, one of the reasons that Maritime New Zealand stood around like hand wringing leaderless ninnies for a full four (4) days of fine weather, while a fatally wounded ship lay on a reef with 1700 tonnes of oil left leaking into the environment.
The facts are that since the funding cut many of the most experienced oil disaster response professionals at Maritime New Zealand were either made redundant or left.
When did they leave? Really important point that because the Labour led government were building up the public services. It’s this government that’s been cutting them to shreds (again).
What Labour did wasn’t a funding cut – it was a decrease in a slush fund. And, really, NAct had the report over a year ago saying that more resources were needed and yet they didn’t give those resources but instead mad no increase to the nominal amount.
I have a suggestion for improving the calibre of our MPs:
MP Bootcamp.
Candidates are enrolled as cadets and then sent to areas around NZ which are culturally alternative to that with which they identify. The placement lasts for 3 years before the cadet can stand for office. While on placement their expenses and accomodation are arranged and paid for by their electorate/community.
A candidate from Dunedin, for example, could be sent to Manurewa in Auckland. And a candidate from Auckland Central might be sent to Nightcaps. Perspective and communication skills would improve dramatically, or the MP would likely drop out of the system. This would ensure new faces and a move away from career polticians.
“First, their motive for cooperating with F.B.I. investigators was not to clean up corruption but to increase Republican political fortunes by reducing African-American voter turnout. Second, they lack credibility because the record establishes their purposeful, racist intent,” Thompson wrote.
Wow, I didn’t know the Standard was all about trashing religion.. I thought it was all about politics, and now I am feeling as if I am rather naive! Don’t get your knickers in a knot, I am reading your links. But seriously, gentlemen I would go to American atheists or Professor Sir Lord Dawkins’ site if I wanted to read atheism.
Also, please take note. Not all women regard abortion on demand as the freedom they want most! (Or even at all.) For every “pro-choice” woman I have met or seen online there are 20 pro-abortion men. It’s obvious why really, whether the man is straight or gay..
Wow, I didn’t know the Standard was all about trashing religion.. I thought it was all about politics, and now I am feeling as if I am rather naive!
Could you possibly sound any more stupid? If you look at the description for teh open mike, it’s very clearly a free for all.
Don’t get your knickers in a knot, I am reading your links. But seriously, gentlemen I would go to American atheists or Professor Sir Lord Dawkins’ site if I wanted to read atheism.
Awww, snookums, poor you having to put up with others freedom of speech and well founded dislike of undue religious influence on secular society,
Also, please take note. Not all women regard abortion on demand as the freedom they want most! (Or even at all.) For every “pro-choice” woman I have met or seen online there are 20 pro-abortion men. It’s obvious why really, whether the man is straight or gay..
Sampling 101 mega-fail.
Or, there’s this things known as “surveys” which generally try to rigorously sample and so give us statistically sound indicators about what ever they’re sampling for. One of the things that they don’t do is pure convenience sampling via response, let alone use very dodgy human recall like your using. Which is doubly flawed, as female participation in online communities usually isn’t as high as males, and further more, participation is firmly dependent on a persons capability and willingness (aka teaspoons) to respond, thus creating major sampling problems.
In short, your little anecdote is only of use to highlight your own ignorance and biases.
And congrats on including a moronic sexist quip in there too /thumbs up
Could you possibly sound any more stupid? If you look at the description for teh open mike, it’s very clearly a free for all.
Awww, snookums, poor you having to put up with others freedom of speech and well founded dislike of undue religious influence on secular society
Thank you so much for confirming my view that atheists are all about hate. I can feel the loathing coming off you in waves…
Actually, I do have statistics confirming that males support abortion on demand twice as often as women do, but I thought, stupidly, that you’d be more open to my talking about my own observations.
And congrats on including a moronic sexist quip in there too /thumbs up
What sexist quip would that be then? You do have issues don’t you?
Thank you so much for confirming my view that atheists are all about hate. I can feel the loathing coming off you in waves…
Because annoyance at your stupidity and a tendency to bluntness = hate…
Logic, learn to use it.
Actually, I do have statistics confirming that males support abortion on demand twice as often as women do, but I thought, stupidly, that you’d be more open to my talking about my own observations.
lolwut?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#Public_opinion
It’s nearly equal in the USA, assume similar distro in NZ, but more support, also you’ll need to show the question asked + sampling methodologies for those stats you claim to have as these obviously impact on responses received and statistical rigour.
That if you actually have them that is.
What sexist quip would that be then? You do have issues don’t you?
…
It’s obvious why really, whether the man is straight or gay..
Sexist sentence is sexist as it assumes men’s support is down to them being male, reinforced by the “or gay” bit.
Sexist sentence is sexist as it assumes men’s support is down to them being male, reinforced by the “or gay” bit.
Hilarious! My somewhat cynical statement of fact as I have observed it, is sexist? Diddums. Are we anxiously clutching our scrotum are we? As for the “or gay” comment, that’s sexist? Surely the word is “hetero-normative”?
Why do you assume that NZ stats are similar? Because NZ is culturally American? (It is, but so what. There are still differences)
Hey, here’s an idea. If you know a woman, ask her then ask what her friends and family (sisters, aunts. mother, daughters) think.
And yes, I do have those statistics, but they’re from a newspaper article, and not in digital form.. so you’d have to believe me, which I gather you’d rather die than do.
Hi ! Want a break from looking at the printed word, black letters on a white background !
Have a view of this photo essay of the once in a half century floods affecting Thailand.
Thanks johnm. An extraordinary essay. Amazed that there is little evidence of fast flowing water that we associate with flooding; just a mass of waterlogged land and desperate people. (I wish my wife had seen those photos as she was flying into Thailand yesterday. The word reports don’t due justice to seriousness of the flooding.)
And yes climate changes probably account for the succession of changes around the world rather than just a one-off unlucky event.
Analysis: The military strongmen who oversaw Egypt’s political hierarchy for six decades hover ominously over the nation’s new democracy. Nivien Saleh argues the U.S. has the power to pry the generals’ fingers off the levers of power.
My apologies for the length of this post but here is collection of slogans from the Occupy Wall Street protests..
Put Your Money in a Credit Union, Now!
Peace, Love, Fairness, Common Sense.
We are here for our children!
Outflank the Banks.
We will not be LIQUIDATED.
Poverty Is Economic Slavery.
Survival of the richest.
Corporations aren’t people; they’re monsters.
Invest in the middle class-they need it.
Will work for evil corporation?
If you stop people from hearing what I am saying then you are proving what I am saying.
It takes an Occupation to raise a country.
Put an end to the Bankster Fraud.
Render unto Banksters – nothing.
Independent regulating of our finance market, NOW!
People BEFORE profits.
Render Not Unto Banksters!
People are the bottom line.
Harsher penalties for white collar crime!
No More Bailouts – Let Banksters Eat Losses!
Paychecks for the People!
Merrill should have been Lynched.
The Enemy of My Bank Is My Friend!
Where’s my bailout?
Democratize the Banks!
Banks for the 99%!
Banks for People not for Banksters!
Honest Community Banks, Not fraudster Big Banks!
End Welfare for the Rich!
Currency for a common good.
Paychecks not credit card bills.
Stimulus not corporate welfare.
End debt slavery.
Debt forgiveness, not debt peonage.
Those with golden parachutes should jump out of a plane.
Game over, insert coin!
More Anti-Trust Class-action.
The last thing wankers need, is more stimulus!
Global wanking sector is a mess!
My mother was right. Too much banking makes you go blind!
Middle Class – All pain No gain
I didn’t create the Global Financial Crisis.
Goldman Sucks.
Where are the prosecutions of financiers?
End trading on our currency!
Obama sold out to the finance sector.
Stop corporates writing our laws.
Make NZ about people again.
Make NZ green again.
We’re kick screwed more in the boardroom than the bed room.
You know things are messed up when librarians start marching.
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
One day the poor will have nothing left to eat but the poor.
Hungry? Eat a banker.
I am a human being not a commodity.
Tear down this Wall St!
When the rich rob the poor it’s called business. When the poor fight back it’s called violence.
Education in personal finance should be required like math, history & science.
Give a damn.
I can’t afford a lobbyist. I am the 99%.
Fuck trickle down. They’re just pissing on you.
A better world is possible.
Too big to fail is too big to allow.
I won’t believe coporations are people until Texas executes one.
You can’t find a good left-wing military coup when you need one.
It is easier for me to buy a gun than an education.
It’s harder today to make a living, it’s easier to snatch one.
Democracy is hard but we’re doing it.
End corporate personhood.
Bakes sales for banks. Bailout for schools.
Never confuse Friedman for freedom.
Stop fucking up the future.
It’s not a crisis – it’s a scam.
Loan sharks ate my world.
No bulls, no bears, only pigs.
Foreclose on the finance market.
We the people are pissed off.
There’s enough to go around.
The rich get bailed out the poor get sold out.
The CEO’s of Wall St belong behind bars.
Quit struggling and start fighting.
Main St not Wall St.
Can’t bear Wall St bull.
Get the money out of politics.
Fox News – rich people telling rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people.
The only just war is class war.
They poison our air, water, land, bodies, mind.
I asked this on another, dying, thread, so I thought I’d repeat it here:
“Yes. I’ve been thinking Key’s (publicly known and undisputed) past should be an election issue, and should have been last time. The timing might be better now MSM is being forced to give at least some coverage to the issues behind OWS.
In the interests of being well-informed in my bad-mouthing him in the run-up to the election: I remember hearing about his involvement in betting against the NZ dollar and costing this country millions (quite legally) in a previous life. True?, partly true?, false?”
Justsaying you might want to read this. There is plenty more on my blog.
John Key is a bankster scumbag with a huge conflict of interest and should not be the PM of this country.
Actually this one is the one on his dealings with Andrew Krieger the guy attacking the NZ dollar in 1987. there might be a couple of dead links to the unauthorised biography because when I confronted Eugene Bingham the writer with his obviously fraudulent piece they removed five pages of the article. Funnily enough those were the ones with reference to his banking career. The pdf of the article I made of the original will be available in the next couple of days. I’ve had a massive crash of my computer and need to rebuild it from scratch. Thank God for back up files.
You’ve got to hand it to Key, he has to be the luckiest guy in the world.
By his testimony all the nefarious shit happened either before or after he left the various companies. Either he is the luckiest guy in the world or he is as guilty as sin. Trouble is, nobody with inside info is saying a thing.
We are reduced to calculating dates and speculating. I personally have no doubt that he was up to his lying lips in CDOs and in getting rich off speculating on the NZ dollar. The problem is proving it.
You’re right, it’s a good time to kick start this issue as he was definitely involved (even if he wasn’t there when the fit hit the shan) and doesn’t deserve the reputation of being a responsible money man and is therefore qualified to be our PM.
shady financier + economic failure in government = epic fail
Hi W,
I’ve had a massive crash on my computer and have lost my ability to convert the flyers pdf’s to a word file for the time being. If you download them from my blog they can be converted for editing and you have my permission to do so. I would really appreciate you helping me with the flyers because it is my impression people are more open to reading them than they were three years ago.
In an article called the unauthorised biography published in the NZ herald he says: “and than all hell broke loose and I said I’m out of here”
That was when the Bankers trust bank collapsed as a result of a derivatives scandal. John Key was then headhunted by Merrill Lynch to help them build up their Derivatives trade which made them one of the biggest banks by the end of 2000 when John Key left.
John Key was on an advisory committee to the Federal Reserve in New York when the Glass Steagall act was repealed (something every investment bankster dreamed off) and he said in another interview of Andrew Krieger’s attack on the NZ dollar in which he was the party in NZ that Andrew Krieger was the first to really understand the power of Options (one form of gambling with derivatives) which had been illegal from 1916 until 1982 and should never have been legalised in the first place as they also caused the “Great” depression.
John Key was there when it happened and knew all about it. He is quilty as sin.
There’s a world of difference between bad decisions on the maritime fund and deliberately increasing your personal fortune buy selling shit and speculating on your own country’s currency knowing you are getting rich and causing people to lose jobs, businesses, houses etc.
One is a moment of poor judgement and the other is an immoral position based on a lack of good character and if you support the later (as you appear to) then you obviously share the same failure of character.
Because that’s just soo much smarter and cheaper than actually doing network security properly and hiring a small army of grey and white hat hackers (complete with research botnets) to hunt for any holes + “deal with” any dumbass employees who violate basic security protocols. Basically, unless the new ‘net is utterly isolated from the rest of the net, and heavily encrypted, it’s going to be penetrated very quickly as it’ll be hacker catnip.
And so, you can’t escape the Red Queen by jumping on to a different track, because they’ll just follow you…
As a vegetarian for over 30 years I hope this story isn’t true, and it may not be, as there are no sources but…
“Meatless days in France are a thing of the past for 6 million children after the French government announced children will be forced to eat meat if they want lunch at school. The new move has left vegetarians crying foul and demand a change to the policy, but Paris seems unwilling to budge after the law was passed by decree by the country’s parliament this month.
It forbids serving vegetarian meals to school children and goes on to say that fish, dairy, meat or offal, “must be used in every meal.” Even bringing lunch to school is not an alternative as the government has also banned packed lunches. The ban will be implemented across kindergartens, hospitals, prisons, colleges and old people’s homes.”
I don’t care too much what people choose to do and if they choose to partake of flesh, that is their choice – for me the disgusting practices we use to ‘farm’ animals was more than I could tolerate and I couldn’t get out of my head – “If we don’t need to treat animals like this to live – why do it? Why put the animals through untold suffering? I couldn’t, I won’t.
I had a quick hunt online and it looks like the report you quote is a tad exaggerated, MM. The government agency responsible has banned dishes that are associated with obesity such as hot chips and fatty meats, but they have only made some brief suggestions about what the alternatives should be. Their list of alternatives does not include vegetarian options, but does not preclude them either. And it does suggest more vegetables be included in the meals.
Fox News has also gone off the deep end, reporting the change as being a ban on ketchup, implying that it’s anti-Americanism gone mad!
Your website hurts my eyes, and whatever message there is in dog-eat-dog politics is lost on me – just like I suspect it will be on 95% of people who see it.
Hey Ev I didnt know that John Keys was working at Bankers Trust when they wen tbust. They went bust because they were selling derivatives to Proctor and Gamble and the Orange County Pension Fund and then changing the rules so that those mentioned above lost colossal amounts of money and had to sue to get it back.
Hmmm. thats what New Zealand will have to do after John Keys slopes off.
Hi R,
Here is the timeline for the Bankers trust career of John Key. He claims he did not start at the Bankers trust until August 1988 but he also tells us that he did trade with Andrew Krieger and what’s more he and his than boss tell us that he was the trader appointed to deal with Andrew Krieger solely while he was trading many millions. That could only have happened on the Thursday after the 1987 black Monday as Krieger reckoned the NZ dollar was overrated and that is the only spike recorded in the Reserve bank annals.
Andrew Krieger left the Bankers trust in January 1988 and forex trading altogether in June of that year making it utterly impossible for John Key to have worked with him in August of 1988.
The Proctor and Gamble scandal broke in 1995 but this is what was the norm in 1993: ROF in Bankers trust lingo meant Rip off factor. John does not say:”the Bankers trust was a big disappoint because they turned out to be a fraudulent lot.”
Instead he takes a position with Merrill Lynch selling the same derivatives that collapsed the Bankers trust in the first place.
Thanks for the info on the Orange County Pension Fund!
This is the cost of destroying welfare systems, this is the “choice” the little L libertards want people to have and this is what could happen here if the right wing nutjobs in National ever get their way, cheered on by the likes of ACT supporters and that arsehat Lindsay Mitchell who declares welfare to be teh evils.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
I’m asking Occupy Dunedin to Please vacate the Octagon.
I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you vacate the Octagon?
I have vacated, after spending an hour there this morning.
Their Facebook page shows the problems trying to maintain a semblance of decency when you have a bunch of radicals, anarchists and “anything that involves a stir”-ists.
It’s the fucking internet, what more do you want? Crumpets and whipped cream perhaps? A shrubbery with free delivery? The Second Coming of Raptor Jesus?
If you say something utterly stupid and/or factually wrong, expect people to get fucked off with you to various extents. And give thanks to Peter Dunnes hair-piece that not one’s yet rightfully pain-series’d you (or linked you to that page) due to your ever irritating middle class privilege pushing.
What are you on about? I didn’t say anything factually wrong. I’ve been on amicable terms and had interesting discussions with anyone I’ve talked to face to face at the Octagon. I was abused and defamed, it was an embarrassment to Occupy Dunedin so they deleted the abuse and the nong went ape about it – and threatened to go even more ape against them.
lolwut?
Shit you fail at reading comprehension. Re-read this, particularly the bit before the and/or while thinking about “perceptions”:
Go it yet, or do you also fail, at basic theory of mind as well?
And while you may have had polite conversations offline, online provides teh ability for people to be direct and blunt, instead of faking politeness to avoid conflict. And thus creating impressions that they’re on “amicable” terms with you, instead of regarding you as whatever they privately regard you as…
Which is pretty normal human behaviour as I and other members of the evil science brigade may have polite irl convo’s with people we regard as complete idiots (like Rick Giles).
it’s personal then pete – the nong went ape – says it all really
What a complete and utter tool.
And so very sad, I almost feel sorry for you.
Do you almost feel sorry for all the others in Dunedin who have just about had enough of their Octagon being taken over?
Yeah sure. Those damn, dirty, directionless, dole-bludging dikes and do littles are spoiling their mid-afternoon lattes. Poor wee things.
Busy-bodies like you have often played a very different, and quite horrific, role throughout history. Once again, sorry if you fail to see this.
You obviously have no idea what’s going on here. This is bringing out a few who genuinely think they can change the world, and many immature attention seekers.
Pete G ’tis the derpist derp to have ever derped.
He’s the very living image of derp.
Sealed by his facebook page and actions on top of historical derp-ness on here.
A new study has investigated the relationships between the top 43,000 transnational corporations. It’s not a perfect investigation, but a good beginning to bringing to light the main networks of wealth and power:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed–the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html
It’s not the existence of such networks in themselves that are a threat to global economic stability, but the core of tight interconnections mean that if one company is struggling it has a negative impact on te rest.
The article tends to focus on what this means for the occupy movement, and assumes that all occupiers believe the 1% are part of a deliberate, planned conspiracy. The writers of the article say the study shows that it is more to do with the way self-organising systems can develop.
Well that explanation is more in keeping with how I see the wealth-power elite operating, and I suspect many occupiers would think so as well.
The article doesn’t seem to be concerned about the inequalities developed through such financial-wealth-power networks, but only with the stability/instability of the system.
With so many of the players (e.g. former Goldman Sachs execs) moving between private institutions to work in government (and vice versa) and being on many boards the average Joe assumes collusion and a plan.
It’s interesting that these people say it isn’t so. So the trap for the average punter would be when they see the collusion to resist “changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.” and interpret it as a 24/7 state of affairs.
They problem I have with that (and a point raised by OWS) is that in times when the structure is not threatened by change you still see an undue influence by the corporations to buy our democracy, write our legislation and influence our decision makers.
I don’t accept that there is no collusion/conspiracy. As someone once said about the changes in NZ in the 80s – for there to be a conspiracy all it takes is two people reaching an agreement over port and cigars in the Wellington Club.
I do not believe in a conspiracy. These people are not that competent.
Just a constant natural push by the greedy to take more from society..
The ones with the most money have the most influence in our system. A natural spiral. More money = more power = more self serving facilitators..
The only way to take back the power, is real Government by the people.
Giving a small group power always leads to an authoritarian Government to benefit politicians and their cronies.
I think the distinction is that conspiracies are to often seen as sophisticated, all encompassing and all powerful. For such a conspiracy to happen requires a lot of work and no loose ends.
What is often missed is that conspiracies don’t have to be big. As I said above “for there to be a conspiracy all it takes is two people reaching an agreement over port and cigars in the Wellington Club.”
That would make the CTU, OWS and the Business Roundtable conspiracies.
Perhaps the distinction is in the morality / legality of the conspirators’ goals. When charges of conspiracy are laid it is a conspiracy to XYZ. It is the ends and methods of the agreement that determine the pejorative conspiracy.
“The article doesn’t seem to be concerned about the inequalities developed through such financial-wealth-power networks, but only with the stability/instability of the system.”
Inequality being one of the symptoms of instability.
As always, it pays to read the actual paper – which indeed addresses the issues you raise.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf
‘One thing won’t chime with some of the protesters’ claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. “Such structures are common in nature,”‘ Truthers take note.
theyrule.net
An online tool where you can map and visualize company board connections.
You can look up specific people or play around and click to see various connections.
I’ve no idea how up-to-date the site is but it’s interesting to play around with
This too.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
It may not have been but that doesn’t mean that it’s not being used for that now.
“It may not have been but that doesn’t mean that it’s not being used for that now.”
What makes you think that the desire to “rule the world” equates to the capability? We (humans) have set up very complex structures to “rule the world” and they have a hard enough time of it. I doubt corporations have a magic wand that governments don’t. They are influential players, but the fact that these super entities arise by “natural” means implies that their are natural laws to follow, which may have far more to do with survival as a member of the group, for example.
I think you’ve failed to establish the premise – that “ruling the world” – in the sense you propose – is even possible.
Someone needs to go do (history and) philosophy of science it seems…
Calling it “natural” ends up hiding the social and economic factors over history that created the environmental forces that lead to these companies emerging, but also the ability of social and economic forces to be altered by mass movements to remove these. So that to suppose “natural laws” are responsible treats these concentrations of influence as immutable natural outcomes and thus not to be messed with, when history shows otherwise. Of course, I’m going by laymans definitions here, but then you have failed to show any signs of actually thinking in depth beyond teh surface details here.
Also, in biology, the only hard laws are thermodynamics, everything else is context sensitive in reference to historical (biochem/genetics/population characters)* and ecological factors. Which is what makes ecology and evolutionary biology so wondrously neat and complex, but also means that trying to apply concepts to other areas without sanity checking becomes problematic really quickly.
That’s not to say that human society and all it’s tools aren’t natural though (which is what drives SETI nuts**), it’s just that trying to assign “natural laws” rapidly hits brickwalls with exceptions and the mutability and adaptability of human societies.
______________________________________
*I’m being a bit lazy here, because a full description is a whole fucking textbook on evolutionary biology + a couple of others on biochemistry, population genetics and ecology + key research papers.
**While not a text book, it’s a large essay with extensive referencing in itself on why “artificial” is not as easy to define away from natural phenomena, with humorous references to the failures of Intelligent Design “researchers” myriad failings.
And you’ve failed to realise that you don’t need to rule the world, all that’s needed is just enough influence to nudge things (even accidentally) in ways that benefit you that are emergent features of these networks 😛
It might not be world control, and it might be slow, but it does allow for indirect and direct nudging of nations if you can escape teh competition for a moment.
Says you. I hadn’t failed to realise it at all in fact – but if “ruling” is really “having influence” I fail to see what’s startling about it – you might as well get excited about the fact that the sky is blue.
The authors of the study have already made this explicit connection to natural systems, and since they are referring to mathematical similarities, I feel confident in quoting them.
lolwut?
The problem is that you’re not paying attention to teh definition of “natural” the authors use, which unless you’re feeling free to correct me fully, you’re not using in your prior post.
As for it being “surprising”, the novel thing about this research is actually shows the connections companies have than can drive influence on regional or global scales with a bit more rigour than norm. And for those who dislike corporate influence of democracies it provides valuable evidence, but for me, it’s just a massively neat use of network theory. And picking apart you analogy, it’s not that the sky is blue, it’s how it’s blue that’s of surprise here.
Hi One Anonymous Bloke,
I agree with NickS (and thanks for putting the points so clearly, NickS).
This word ‘natural’ is very misleading. It is natural, for example, for humans to have five fingers on each hand. But, of course, (and in a different sense) it is also natural when someone is born with six fingers.
The important point is simply that, in a particular set of circumstances certain outcomes are likely (or even inevitable). In different circumstances, different outcomes are likely.
We could say, if you like, that capitalism has a certain internal logic which leads, generally, to particular macrolevel results, such as the concentration of wealth, while also generating more and more of it (i.e., ‘wealth’). Further, legal structures and laws have their own ‘logic’ which enables/encourages certain results in relation to the legal entities we call corporations.
Together, these two ‘logics’ naturally produce the kind of pattern in which 147 companies form a ‘super entity’.
Other circumstances (i.e., structures, systems and laws) may well not lead to such concentration. That is, the concentration is not ‘natural’ in the sense of ‘inevitable’ but ‘natural’ in the sense that it follows from a particular set of arrangements.
On another point, I don’t think that either intentionality or ‘naturalness’ should have anything to do with the question of whether or not such a state of corporate concentration of ownership is desirable.
Heh, that pretty much made my day, as my brain’s felt fogged up for the last couple of months thanks to a depressive episode.
“that pretty much made my day”
Then it was worth my getting up this morning.
😀
Beat me to it I see 😛
Anyhow, one of the issues with this is that a lose of one of these nodes can have very large effects on the global economy, and more so, enough of them acting together can have wide-reaching impacts. However, they’re also in competition so any cartels that form are going to be small scale and otherwise narrowly focused, as well as being prone to information leaking.
So the main thing to watch for are mergers that concentrate power further and disrupt them, but also node sensitive legislation that adds social dimensions to the actions of nodes once they’re above a level that can cause significant national and international problems if things go wrong. Probably in the form of completely independent forensic auditors with far reaching powers to dig into any “issues” as they begin happen, rather than after the horse has bolted.
Not that the nodes would go down without a fight and legal action, despite topographical network theory being pretty well advanced (and fun to use in ecosystem foodweb studies) and capable of locating potential failure points.
National billboard 2005 and 2008
“Brashional will stem the flow of our youngest and brightest to Aussie.”
Yeah Right!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/5832586/Big-jump-in-migration-to-Australia-reported
Pretty good news:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10760919
Although I’ll believe it when I see it.
Edit: Apparently reading it a bit more Obama is just sticking to a deadline which was agreed to by Bush in 2008 anyway (not that I think the Republicans would have stuck to it).
Amazing if it happens. The immense size of the USA fortress in Iraq will now be used as umm ….
Yeah they won’t want 40,000 guys getting bored in the US.
On that note part of the reason they aren’t extending their stay is apparently the Iraqis wouldn’t agree to keep the US forces immunity from prosecution past that date.
Chris. That immunity was weird given that the USA are very righteous about pursuing every other criminal acts especially if committed by any foreigner. “We stand for freedom, the right to a fair trial, democracy, justice for all etc. Mmmm!
There’s a definite double standard on the part of the US. They want to prosecute and pursue foreigners who commit crime but they will not submit any of their people to the International Criminal Court.
You see this type of ethnocentric thinking when
– Americans are arrested overseas and it is automatically assumed they will not be treated fair in any other foreign jurisdiction
– Americans get sick overseas and it is automatically assumed they will not be treated professionally and with international best practice and have to be rushed back to the States.
Even if they are convicted, the automatic assumption is that they are sweet innocents, wrongly convicted. If they are later acquitted, they are welcomed home as if they are heroes who suffered torture and injustice in a 3rd world hellhole! Cf the evil Amanda Knox… I remain convinced that there’s something dodgy about this woman’s acquittal. Now, she’s not giving any interviews, as she has a book contract which precludes that. Her brother spoke proudly on the BBC about how the “free Amanda Knox” campaign he started had “brought her back to us”. I am sorry, it just makes me very angry. The African guy (one of the 3 charged) is, by Amanda, the “real” villain… not her sweetness, oh no! 🙁
It has been revealed that the Labour Government cut Maritime New Zealand’s oil spill response funding by two thirds.
Could this be one of the reasons Maritime New Zealand was so slow to react to the Rena grounding?
“MNZ was not immune from the effects of fiscal pressure”
Maritime New Zealand oil response “fund” gutted by Labour
‘Labour’ Government cut?
Would’ve thought National have had enough time to reinstate that funding if they wanted to.
I mean I generally support National but please at some point they need to stop blaming the prior government.
However, it does make Labour look like absolute hypocrites given some of their attacks on National lately. National made an error of omission in not increasing the maximum liability. However, this was a deliberate, calculated decision on the part of Labour.
From the article:
Labour foolish and short-sighted? Who would have ever guessed? 🙂
Great Tsmith, let’s talk leaky building regulation shall we…
I am sure you would love to divert attention from the facts in this article that prove Labour to have been little better than environmental vandals.
But it doesn’t prove that does it? Short sighted? Yes. Environmental vandals? No.
I didn’t say they were environmental vandals. Just that they were little better than environmental vandals.
Semantics. Really, it shows Labour as being short sighted some ten years ago but that doesn’t make them “little better than environmental vandals” no matter how much you want to spin it. As I said here, it’s not going to make any difference to the clean up.
The environmental vandals are NAct who are gutting the RMA and who also didn’t increase the resources needed to respond to a maritime accident as required.
I thought right wingers were all for lowering taxes?
I can only repeat what I said here.
Clearly – from that same article – the wound down fund is still sufficient for the Rena. Of course, it would be wise to have a bigger fund given that now we have to hope and pray another one doesn’t happen anytime soon.
So, no tsmithfield, it doesn’t look like Labour are ‘absolute hypocrites’ – since the fund was fine for the Rena – but unwise decision making, nevertheless.
And? It’s the government, I’m sure that they’ll be able to borrow a few mil extra. They shouldn’t have to but it won’t slow down the clean up.
See there’s a difference between having funds available for the clean up and being properly resourced to respond to an accident. National have held the critical funding (the resources MNZ has to operate) down by the simple expedient of not increasing funding by the rate of inflation and so MNZ was unable to respond. Of course, it’s possible that it wasn’t properly resourced before hand either but the latest report that said that they needed more resource came about under Nationals watch and they didn’t do anything to correct the lack of resources.
The facts are that since the funding cut many of the most experienced oil disaster response professionals at Maritime New Zealand were either made redundant or left.
The question to be answered is this:
Was the manning crisis which sprung from the underfunding of MNZ, one of the reasons that Maritime New Zealand stood around like hand wringing leaderless ninnies for a full four (4) days of fine weather, while a fatally wounded ship lay on a reef with 1700 tonnes of oil left leaking into the environment.
When did they leave? Really important point that because the Labour led government were building up the public services. It’s this government that’s been cutting them to shreds (again).
What Labour did wasn’t a funding cut – it was a decrease in a slush fund. And, really, NAct had the report over a year ago saying that more resources were needed and yet they didn’t give those resources but instead mad no increase to the nominal amount.
I have a suggestion for improving the calibre of our MPs:
MP Bootcamp.
Candidates are enrolled as cadets and then sent to areas around NZ which are culturally alternative to that with which they identify. The placement lasts for 3 years before the cadet can stand for office. While on placement their expenses and accomodation are arranged and paid for by their electorate/community.
A candidate from Dunedin, for example, could be sent to Manurewa in Auckland. And a candidate from Auckland Central might be sent to Nightcaps. Perspective and communication skills would improve dramatically, or the MP would likely drop out of the system. This would ensure new faces and a move away from career polticians.
Mother Jones: Climate Skeptics Take Another Hit
More efforts to disenfranchise the poor.
“First, their motive for cooperating with F.B.I. investigators was not to clean up corruption but to increase Republican political fortunes by reducing African-American voter turnout. Second, they lack credibility because the record establishes their purposeful, racist intent,” Thompson wrote.
Two more reasons to despise religion.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/5035/the_other%2C_forgotten_apocalypse_of_2011/
http://domemagazine.com/features/cov101711
And to add to that on the colonising other people’s bodies front:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/10/21/santorum-goes-after-contraception/
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/10/19/347993/jim-demint-prohibit-internet-abortion-discussion/ (via Little Green Footballs)
Wow, I didn’t know the Standard was all about trashing religion.. I thought it was all about politics, and now I am feeling as if I am rather naive! Don’t get your knickers in a knot, I am reading your links. But seriously, gentlemen I would go to American atheists or Professor Sir Lord Dawkins’ site if I wanted to read atheism.
Also, please take note. Not all women regard abortion on demand as the freedom they want most! (Or even at all.) For every “pro-choice” woman I have met or seen online there are 20 pro-abortion men. It’s obvious why really, whether the man is straight or gay..
Bait taken.
Could you possibly sound any more stupid? If you look at the description for teh open mike, it’s very clearly a free for all.
Awww, snookums, poor you having to put up with others freedom of speech and well founded dislike of undue religious influence on secular society,
Sampling 101 mega-fail.
Or, there’s this things known as “surveys” which generally try to rigorously sample and so give us statistically sound indicators about what ever they’re sampling for. One of the things that they don’t do is pure convenience sampling via response, let alone use very dodgy human recall like your using. Which is doubly flawed, as female participation in online communities usually isn’t as high as males, and further more, participation is firmly dependent on a persons capability and willingness (aka teaspoons) to respond, thus creating major sampling problems.
In short, your little anecdote is only of use to highlight your own ignorance and biases.
And congrats on including a moronic sexist quip in there too /thumbs up
Thank you so much for confirming my view that atheists are all about hate. I can feel the loathing coming off you in waves…
Actually, I do have statistics confirming that males support abortion on demand twice as often as women do, but I thought, stupidly, that you’d be more open to my talking about my own observations.
What sexist quip would that be then? You do have issues don’t you?
/facepalm
Because annoyance at your stupidity and a tendency to bluntness = hate…
Logic, learn to use it.
lolwut?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#Public_opinion
It’s nearly equal in the USA, assume similar distro in NZ, but more support, also you’ll need to show the question asked + sampling methodologies for those stats you claim to have as these obviously impact on responses received and statistical rigour.
That if you actually have them that is.
Hilarious! My somewhat cynical statement of fact as I have observed it, is sexist? Diddums. Are we anxiously clutching our scrotum are we? As for the “or gay” comment, that’s sexist? Surely the word is “hetero-normative”?
Why do you assume that NZ stats are similar? Because NZ is culturally American? (It is, but so what. There are still differences)
Hey, here’s an idea. If you know a woman, ask her then ask what her friends and family (sisters, aunts. mother, daughters) think.
And yes, I do have those statistics, but they’re from a newspaper article, and not in digital form.. so you’d have to believe me, which I gather you’d rather die than do.
So your reply is word salad that’s up there with RWNJ word salad, and instead of citing any stats you tell me to look at anecdotal evidence…
Yay.
It’s like dealing with braindead young earth creationists all over again.
Obama’s the man!
Dirty Environmentalist
The study also found that the main source of micro-plastic appears to be through sewage contaminated by fibres from washing clothes…
Hi ! Want a break from looking at the printed word, black letters on a white background !
Have a view of this photo essay of the once in a half century floods affecting Thailand.
Link: http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/10/14/worst-floods-in-a-half-century-in-thailand/5029/
The serious point of course is climate change has made the monsoon heavier, disastrously so. Remember the incredible flooding in Pakistan.
Thanks johnm. An extraordinary essay. Amazed that there is little evidence of fast flowing water that we associate with flooding; just a mass of waterlogged land and desperate people. (I wish my wife had seen those photos as she was flying into Thailand yesterday. The word reports don’t due justice to seriousness of the flooding.)
And yes climate changes probably account for the succession of changes around the world rather than just a one-off unlucky event.
The New Egypt: A Return to Dictatorship?
Analysis: The military strongmen who oversaw Egypt’s political hierarchy for six decades hover ominously over the nation’s new democracy. Nivien Saleh argues the U.S. has the power to pry the generals’ fingers off the levers of power.
Meet the new boss,
Same as the old boss.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10760816
What an amazing write up. If only he was leading WW1 instead of Haig how many lives would have been saved, and all we have is a little world finance issue for him to manage !!!
My apologies for the length of this post but here is collection of slogans from the Occupy Wall Street protests..
Put Your Money in a Credit Union, Now!
Peace, Love, Fairness, Common Sense.
We are here for our children!
Outflank the Banks.
We will not be LIQUIDATED.
Poverty Is Economic Slavery.
Survival of the richest.
Corporations aren’t people; they’re monsters.
Invest in the middle class-they need it.
Will work for evil corporation?
If you stop people from hearing what I am saying then you are proving what I am saying.
It takes an Occupation to raise a country.
Put an end to the Bankster Fraud.
Render unto Banksters – nothing.
Independent regulating of our finance market, NOW!
People BEFORE profits.
Render Not Unto Banksters!
People are the bottom line.
Harsher penalties for white collar crime!
No More Bailouts – Let Banksters Eat Losses!
Paychecks for the People!
Merrill should have been Lynched.
The Enemy of My Bank Is My Friend!
Where’s my bailout?
Democratize the Banks!
Banks for the 99%!
Banks for People not for Banksters!
Honest Community Banks, Not fraudster Big Banks!
End Welfare for the Rich!
Currency for a common good.
Paychecks not credit card bills.
Stimulus not corporate welfare.
End debt slavery.
Debt forgiveness, not debt peonage.
Those with golden parachutes should jump out of a plane.
Game over, insert coin!
More Anti-Trust Class-action.
The last thing wankers need, is more stimulus!
Global wanking sector is a mess!
My mother was right. Too much banking makes you go blind!
Middle Class – All pain No gain
I didn’t create the Global Financial Crisis.
Goldman Sucks.
Where are the prosecutions of financiers?
End trading on our currency!
Obama sold out to the finance sector.
Stop corporates writing our laws.
Make NZ about people again.
Make NZ green again.
We’re kick screwed more in the boardroom than the bed room.
You know things are messed up when librarians start marching.
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
One day the poor will have nothing left to eat but the poor.
Hungry? Eat a banker.
I am a human being not a commodity.
Tear down this Wall St!
When the rich rob the poor it’s called business. When the poor fight back it’s called violence.
Education in personal finance should be required like math, history & science.
Give a damn.
I can’t afford a lobbyist. I am the 99%.
Fuck trickle down. They’re just pissing on you.
A better world is possible.
Too big to fail is too big to allow.
I won’t believe coporations are people until Texas executes one.
You can’t find a good left-wing military coup when you need one.
It is easier for me to buy a gun than an education.
It’s harder today to make a living, it’s easier to snatch one.
Democracy is hard but we’re doing it.
End corporate personhood.
Bakes sales for banks. Bailout for schools.
Never confuse Friedman for freedom.
Stop fucking up the future.
It’s not a crisis – it’s a scam.
Loan sharks ate my world.
No bulls, no bears, only pigs.
Foreclose on the finance market.
We the people are pissed off.
There’s enough to go around.
The rich get bailed out the poor get sold out.
The CEO’s of Wall St belong behind bars.
Quit struggling and start fighting.
Main St not Wall St.
Can’t bear Wall St bull.
Get the money out of politics.
Fox News – rich people telling rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people.
The only just war is class war.
They poison our air, water, land, bodies, mind.
Looks like some worthwhile Wikipedia entries to me 🙂
I asked this on another, dying, thread, so I thought I’d repeat it here:
“Yes. I’ve been thinking Key’s (publicly known and undisputed) past should be an election issue, and should have been last time. The timing might be better now MSM is being forced to give at least some coverage to the issues behind OWS.
In the interests of being well-informed in my bad-mouthing him in the run-up to the election: I remember hearing about his involvement in betting against the NZ dollar and costing this country millions (quite legally) in a previous life. True?, partly true?, false?”
Anybody??
You want Travellerev’s site.
Thanks DTB,
Justsaying you might want to read this. There is plenty more on my blog.
John Key is a bankster scumbag with a huge conflict of interest and should not be the PM of this country.
Actually this one is the one on his dealings with Andrew Krieger the guy attacking the NZ dollar in 1987. there might be a couple of dead links to the unauthorised biography because when I confronted Eugene Bingham the writer with his obviously fraudulent piece they removed five pages of the article. Funnily enough those were the ones with reference to his banking career. The pdf of the article I made of the original will be available in the next couple of days. I’ve had a massive crash of my computer and need to rebuild it from scratch. Thank God for back up files.
what about its the rich whats get the prunes but its the poor thats get the shits!
if the shits land on your head it’s called the trickle down
Like this:
http://www.golfrepublic.org/t2285-organisation-chart
In all likelihood this could be an old picture everyone has seen but I only just saw it recently and thought it was apt.
You’ve got to hand it to Key, he has to be the luckiest guy in the world.
By his testimony all the nefarious shit happened either before or after he left the various companies. Either he is the luckiest guy in the world or he is as guilty as sin. Trouble is, nobody with inside info is saying a thing.
We are reduced to calculating dates and speculating. I personally have no doubt that he was up to his lying lips in CDOs and in getting rich off speculating on the NZ dollar. The problem is proving it.
You’re right, it’s a good time to kick start this issue as he was definitely involved (even if he wasn’t there when the fit hit the shan) and doesn’t deserve the reputation of being a responsible money man and is therefore qualified to be our PM.
shady financier + economic failure in government = epic fail
“it’s a good time to kick start this issue”
because that worked so well at the last election.
Truth can always be hidden by a good PR campaign.
Hi W,
I’ve had a massive crash on my computer and have lost my ability to convert the flyers pdf’s to a word file for the time being. If you download them from my blog they can be converted for editing and you have my permission to do so. I would really appreciate you helping me with the flyers because it is my impression people are more open to reading them than they were three years ago.
Will do, thanks.
In an article called the unauthorised biography published in the NZ herald he says: “and than all hell broke loose and I said I’m out of here”
That was when the Bankers trust bank collapsed as a result of a derivatives scandal. John Key was then headhunted by Merrill Lynch to help them build up their Derivatives trade which made them one of the biggest banks by the end of 2000 when John Key left.
John Key was on an advisory committee to the Federal Reserve in New York when the Glass Steagall act was repealed (something every investment bankster dreamed off) and he said in another interview of Andrew Krieger’s attack on the NZ dollar in which he was the party in NZ that Andrew Krieger was the first to really understand the power of Options (one form of gambling with derivatives) which had been illegal from 1916 until 1982 and should never have been legalised in the first place as they also caused the “Great” depression.
John Key was there when it happened and knew all about it. He is quilty as sin.
Options trading, which according to you was illegal from 1916, caused the great depression of 1929?
Did the evil options have access to a time machine?
Do you even understand what an option is, Eve?
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/derivs.htm
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/the-financial-tsunami-the-preeminent-role-of-new-york-banks-and-wall-street-investment-banks/
And here is a very interesting 4 part series called “the meltdown” by a Canadian company.
1936
William Joyce
Timing is everything in life. Even when you draw down the Government’s Maritime disaster fund, and shut up about it until you are outed – bad timing ?
There’s a world of difference between bad decisions on the maritime fund and deliberately increasing your personal fortune buy selling shit and speculating on your own country’s currency knowing you are getting rich and causing people to lose jobs, businesses, houses etc.
One is a moment of poor judgement and the other is an immoral position based on a lack of good character and if you support the later (as you appear to) then you obviously share the same failure of character.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/5832353/FBI-wants-new-secure-internet
/facepalm
Because that’s just soo much smarter and cheaper than actually doing network security properly and hiring a small army of grey and white hat hackers (complete with research botnets) to hunt for any holes + “deal with” any dumbass employees who violate basic security protocols. Basically, unless the new ‘net is utterly isolated from the rest of the net, and heavily encrypted, it’s going to be penetrated very quickly as it’ll be hacker catnip.
And so, you can’t escape the Red Queen by jumping on to a different track, because they’ll just follow you…
As a vegetarian for over 30 years I hope this story isn’t true, and it may not be, as there are no sources but…
“Meatless days in France are a thing of the past for 6 million children after the French government announced children will be forced to eat meat if they want lunch at school. The new move has left vegetarians crying foul and demand a change to the policy, but Paris seems unwilling to budge after the law was passed by decree by the country’s parliament this month.
It forbids serving vegetarian meals to school children and goes on to say that fish, dairy, meat or offal, “must be used in every meal.” Even bringing lunch to school is not an alternative as the government has also banned packed lunches. The ban will be implemented across kindergartens, hospitals, prisons, colleges and old people’s homes.”
http://bikyamasr.com/46124/first-france-bans-niqab-now-veggies/
I don’t care too much what people choose to do and if they choose to partake of flesh, that is their choice – for me the disgusting practices we use to ‘farm’ animals was more than I could tolerate and I couldn’t get out of my head – “If we don’t need to treat animals like this to live – why do it? Why put the animals through untold suffering? I couldn’t, I won’t.
I had a quick hunt online and it looks like the report you quote is a tad exaggerated, MM. The government agency responsible has banned dishes that are associated with obesity such as hot chips and fatty meats, but they have only made some brief suggestions about what the alternatives should be. Their list of alternatives does not include vegetarian options, but does not preclude them either. And it does suggest more vegetables be included in the meals.
Fox News has also gone off the deep end, reporting the change as being a ban on ketchup, implying that it’s anti-Americanism gone mad!
thanks VoR
Dog eat dog politics
Your website hurts my eyes, and whatever message there is in dog-eat-dog politics is lost on me – just like I suspect it will be on 95% of people who see it.
Fail E – must try harder.
Hey Ev I didnt know that John Keys was working at Bankers Trust when they wen tbust. They went bust because they were selling derivatives to Proctor and Gamble and the Orange County Pension Fund and then changing the rules so that those mentioned above lost colossal amounts of money and had to sue to get it back.
Hmmm. thats what New Zealand will have to do after John Keys slopes off.
Hi R,
Here is the timeline for the Bankers trust career of John Key. He claims he did not start at the Bankers trust until August 1988 but he also tells us that he did trade with Andrew Krieger and what’s more he and his than boss tell us that he was the trader appointed to deal with Andrew Krieger solely while he was trading many millions. That could only have happened on the Thursday after the 1987 black Monday as Krieger reckoned the NZ dollar was overrated and that is the only spike recorded in the Reserve bank annals.
Andrew Krieger left the Bankers trust in January 1988 and forex trading altogether in June of that year making it utterly impossible for John Key to have worked with him in August of 1988.
The Proctor and Gamble scandal broke in 1995 but this is what was the norm in 1993: ROF in Bankers trust lingo meant Rip off factor. John does not say:”the Bankers trust was a big disappoint because they turned out to be a fraudulent lot.”
Instead he takes a position with Merrill Lynch selling the same derivatives that collapsed the Bankers trust in the first place.
Thanks for the info on the Orange County Pension Fund!
Some useful research for the paranoid: http://berkeley.intel-research.net/arahimi/helmet/
America’s child death shame
…
This is the cost of destroying welfare systems, this is the “choice” the little L libertards want people to have and this is what could happen here if the right wing nutjobs in National ever get their way, cheered on by the likes of ACT supporters and that arsehat Lindsay Mitchell who declares welfare to be teh evils.
Fuck. This. Shit.
Hey this is nice and keep it up
/sniff
It’s spam, pointless comment used to post in order to put in a name with a link to pseudoscience weight-loss bullshit.
Kill it with FIRE please.
allright then.
fire at will.
up against the wall muthaf*ckah!
(lprent is gunna kcik my ass for this but hey I just couldn’t resist)
The latest Horizon Poll.
Many thanks Travellerev (and others)
Much material there. Will pass it on.
edit: This was meant to be a reply to Travellerev above.