The COC around the place are in fact key players in the theft of assets….since when does the COC get to decide when debate should be held about public governence?
After writing several MSM propaganda posts on why we should attack Syria, why China would be the next empire and a post on Iran were he, while still maintaining that Iran has a repressive regime (most notably for that typical Muslim hatred for women) and we are the good guys, at least comes to the conclusion that attacking them would maybe not be such a good idea (which again is the MSM stance so no surprise there) I would like to present Michael Valley with a challenge!
More and more information comes out of Libya (not in the MSM of course) indicating that very predictably the “liberation” of Libya doesn’t mean the same for all Libyans and that as was predicted by many geopolitical strategists Libya is now being Balkanised (ad in cut up in three states) by flaming inter tribal rivalries with the tribal area from whence the “revolution” started and the most oil rich looking forward to a hansom reward for assisting in throwing out the only man strong enough to resist the US and removing the only viable obstacle towards the re-colonisation of the African continent (Kony anyone?) Colonel Gaddafi (No I’m not saying he was a nice guy)
My challenge to Michael Valley is the following. I would like to see his analysis from his point of view which I suspect is that there was no hidden agenda on the part of the Hillary led war crime syndicate called the US/NATO liberation forces and that Libya is now free to do what it wants even if that means the killing of black people by the thousands. That is what freedom means.
That at least is what the MSM seems to suggest by their dead silence on the developing situation in Libya.
That at least is what the MSM seems to suggest by their dead silence on the developing situation in Libya.
Right. It’s all a conspiracy, nothing to do with the fact that MSM has the attention span of a tweaking flea and is averse to anything that can’t be thoroughly expressed in a 5-second sound bite.
Right. It’s all a conspiracy, nothing to do with the fact that MSM has the attention span of a tweaking flea and is averse to anything that can’t be thoroughly expressed in a 5-second sound bite.
Jeff Robinson interviewed the chairman of ACC on RNZ Morning Report this morning. Jeff Robinson does not appear to know much about the chairman. Robinson asked him a question, “Have any other ministers of ACC written letters while you have been chairman of ACC?”
For your info Jeff, The chairman of ACC was appointed by Nick Smith as part of the preparation for the sale of ACC. The chairman of the ACC is/was a member of the Business Round Table. He probably doesn’t party much with members in Mana, the Labour Party, the Greens, or NZF. Doesn’t leave many other parties that he might share a beer at a barbecue with really and “chat about things…” (Chats like our PM did with Ashcroft when he was here.)
Jeff Robinson has been kept on because he toes Griffins line of don’t ask any tough questions, be nice to govt ministers and cronies alike……who’s a good boy then.
Mercep’s no better, Mary Wilson’s kept her credibility whereas Mora/Ryan etc are about as cutting as a sponge.
Linda Clark was the same, just didn’t know how to ask the next question. Some idiot she’d be interviewing would say something that just begged the most obvious next question that would have had them cornered, and what would Clark do every time: miss the chance by asking the next bloody question on her list. Just hopeless. Ryan’s no better. Contrast them with what Kim Hill used to do. Politicians have it so easy here. The Aussies have got it all over us on this, too.
Jeff Robinson has been kept on because he toes Griffin’s line of don’t ask any tough questions
I think you could be right. Yesterday (Thursday) morning Robinson interviewed Phoebe Greenwood from the Guardian about the Toulouse murders at a Jewish school. Pro-Israeli propagandists have been trying their best (or worst) to use the deaths of the children and their teacher to invoke support not for the victims, but for the state of Israel. To do this, they need useful idiots in the media—people like Geoff Robinson.
His brief interview with Phoebe Greenwood was toe-curlingly, embarrassingly awful….
ROBINSON:[voice croaking with empathy] Israelis are more STOIC about terror attacks, aren’t they.
GREENWOOD: Stoic and accustomed. One rabbi here in France says that this is a turning point for the diaspora. Now Jews must RETURN to Israel, for their own safety.
Pro-Israeli propagandists have been trying their best (or worst) to use the deaths of the children and their teacher to invoke support not for the victims, but for the state of Israel.
What interests me greatly, is how the story has changed! Days ago, it was about three Muslim soldiers murdered by a gunman on a scooter, and the French authorities were not all that fussed. (The lone gunman was assumed to belong to a para-military right wing group..) Then the shooting at the Jewish school happened – sparking the largest manhunt in French history! In about 5 minutes, they found the guy – I mean that – I was listening to the BBC World Service that day – and it took all of 45 minutes from one half hourly news bulletin to the next for them to say ‘the manhunt has begun’ to ‘he’s holed up in an apartment building’… 24 hours later, the perp is dead, he’s said to be an Islamist belonging to Al Quaeda, and Radio NZ describes him as the man who killed “Three Jewish children and four adults’ – giving the impression to anyone who hadn’t been following the story, that all the victims were Jewish! How the gunman’s new backstory fits with his first 3 victims being North African Muslims, doesn’t matter – according to the new story he was just an “Islamist” whatever one of those is – and no explanation is needed…
Read the literature of empire from the Victorian period and the connection is impossible to miss. Why did industrial nations want imperial colonies? The reason given in book after book and speech after speech at the time is that the industrial nations needed markets. Free trade rhetoric, then as now, insisted that all an industrial nation had to do was to build a better mousetrap and the world would beat a path to its door, but then as now, that’s not how things worked; the markets that mattered were the ones where a single industrial nation could exclude competitors and impose the unequal exchange of cheap labor and raw materials for expensive manufactured products that would keep the wealth pump churning away.
A good read I agree. The most salient point for me was Greers contention (with which I also agree) that capital aggregation and the consequent impoverishment of the consumer base never gets talked about.
Greer commented that one of the most incisive commentaries on “capital aggregation” was that of Marx BUT that the Cold War climate limited any institutional interest in what is a very valid criticism. In fact economists and their masters dont actually want capital aggregation examined as it threatens their very assumptions about wealth and distribution there of.
My take is that this lack of focus on how capital (and finance) aggregate is at the centre of todays crisis and is being ignored totally, along with the other great driver of our current crisis: resource diminution. NZs treasury and politicians of all colours here seem totally blind to both.
If schools, as part of a balanced education, examined just the first three chapters of the first part of the first volume of Das Kapital, in the same way they uphold current flawed economic indoctrination in classes, the world would change overnight.
Capital
A Critique of Political Economy
Karl Marx 1867
Volume I
Book One: The Process of Production of Capital
Part 1: Commodities and Money
Chapter 3: Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities
Section 3: Money
“…The continual movement in circuits of the two antithetical metamorphoses of commodities, or the never ceasing alternation of sale and purchase, is reflected in the restless currency of money, or in the function that money performs of a perpetuum mobile of circulation. But so soon as the series of metamorphoses is interrupted, so soon as sales are not supplemented by subsequent purchases, money ceases to be mobilised; it is transformed, as Boisguillebert says, from ―meuble‖ into ―immeuble, from movable into immovable, from coin into money.
With the very earliest development of the circulation of commodities, there is also developed the necessity, and the passionate desire, to hold fast the product of the first metamorphosis. This product is the transformed shape of the commodity, or its gold-chrysalis.[39] Commodities are thus sold not for the purpose of buying others, but in order to replace their commodity-form by their money-form. From being the mere means of effecting the circulation of commodities, this change of form becomes the end and aim. The changed form of the commodity is thus prevented from functioning as its unconditionally alienable form, or as its merely transient money-form. The money becomes petrified into a hoard, and the seller becomes a hoarder of money.
As the production of commodities further develops, every producer of commodities is compelled to make sure of the nexus rerum or the social pledge.[41] His wants are constantly making themselves felt, and necessitate the continual purchase of other people‘s commodities, while the production and sale of his own goods require time, and depend upon circumstances. In order then to be able to buy without selling, he must have sold previously without buying. This operation, conducted on a general scale, appears to imply a contradiction. But the precious metals at the sources of their production are directly exchanged for other commodities. And here we have sales (by the owners of commodities) without purchases (by the owners of gold or silver). [42] And subsequent sales, by other producers, unfollowed by purchases, merely bring about the distribution of the newly produced precious metals among all the owners of commodities. In this way, all along the line of exchange, hoards of gold and silver of varied extent are accumulated. With the possibility of holding and storing up exchange-value in the shape of a particular commodity, arises also the greed for gold. Along with the extension of circulation, increases the power of money, that absolutely social form of wealth ever ready for use. ―Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever possesses it is lord of all he wants. By means of gold one can even get souls into Paradise.‖ (Columbus in his letter from Jamaica, 1503.) Since gold does not disclose what has been transformed into it, everything, commodity or not, is convertible into gold. Everything becomes saleable and buyable. The circulation becomes the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as a gold-crystal. Not even are the bones of saints, and still less are more delicate res sacrosanctae, extra commercium hominum able to withstand this alchemy.[43] Just as every qualitative difference between commodities is extinguished in money, so money, on its side, like the radical leveller that it is, does away with all distinctions.[43a] But money itself is a commodity, an external object, capable of becoming the private property of any individual. Thus social power becomes the private power of private persons. The ancients therefore denounced money as subversive of the economic and moral order of things.[43b] Modern society, which, soon after its birth, pulled Plutus by the hair of his head from the bowels of the earth,[44] greets gold as its Holy Grail, as the glittering incarnation of the very principle of its own life.
In the early stages of the circulation of commodities, it is the surplus use-values alone that are converted into money. Gold and silver thus become of themselves social expressions for superfluity or wealth. This naive form of hoarding becomes perpetuated in those communities in which the traditional mode of production is carried on for the supply of a fixed and limited circle of home wants. It is thus with the people of Asia, and particularly of the East Indies. Vanderlint, who fancies that the prices of commodities in a country are determined by the quantity of gold and silver to be found in it, asks himself why Indian commodities are so cheap. Answer: Because the Hindus bury their money. From 1602 to 1734, he remarks, they buried 150 millions of pounds sterling of silver, which originally came from America to Europe.[40] In the 10 years from 1856 to 1866, England exported to India and China £120,000,000 in silver, which had been received in exchange for Australian gold. Most of the silver exported to China makes its way to India.
A commodity, in its capacity of a use-value, satisfies a particular want, and is a particular element of material wealth. But the value of a commodity measures the degree of its attraction for all other elements of material wealth, and therefore measures the social wealth of its owner. To a barbarian owner of commodities, and even to a West-European peasant, value is the same as value-form, and therefore, to him the increase in his hoard of gold and silver is an increase in value. It is true that the value of money varies, at one time in consequence of a variation in its own value, at another, in consequence of a change in the values of commodities. But this, on the one hand, does not prevent 200 ounces of gold from still containing more value than 100 ounces, nor, on the other hand, does it hinder the actual metallic form of this article from continuing to be the universal equivalent form of all other commodities, and the immediate social incarnation of all human labour. The desire after hoarding is in its very nature unsatiable. In its qualitative aspect, or formally considered, money has no bounds to its efficacy, i.e., it is the universal representative of material wealth, because it is directly convertible into any other commodity. But, at the same time, every actual sum of money is limited in amount, and, therefore, as a means of purchasing, has only a limited efficacy. This antagonism between the quantitative limits of money and its qualitative boundlessness, continually acts as a spur to the hoarder in his Sisyphus-like labour of accumulating. It is with him as it is with a conqueror who sees in every new country annexed, only a new boundary…”
What a splendid passage, thoroughly enjoyed reading about about the ancients finding money was “subversive”….
In business I find very few employees actually understand how we employers make money…margin…profit. I have always found Marx’s analysis of relation to production and surplus value as the simplest explanation to the uninformed. You can get a straight explanation out of the likes of Freidman, they all try and hide the reality from the “workers”.
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Your right, how the banking system works and how the capitalists actually becomes rich really is hidden from the people. I had my opened when I was in Amway when one of the Diamond level people told a conference that you don’t get rich by working but by having a lot of people work for you. It’s why capitalism is hierarchical and why the books are hidden from the workers. Basically, you have a lot of people below you that do the work but, instead of them being paid directly, you get paid and then you pay the workers. The hidden aspect of the accounts means that the workers don’t know how much you’ve just clipped the ticket and have no say in it.
@Bored
I am reading Bruce Jessons Fragments of Labour. He might explain the background to the magnificent and determined lack of thought and wide, wise understanding by our politicians and their Sir Humphreys. On p12 he says
New Zealand’s lack of intellectual vitality has always been related to its background of colonialism: lacking ideas of their own, New Zealanders have imported them wholesale and uncritically from overseas. In the 1980s, the New Zealand Treasury has been thoroughly colonised by the libertarian ideas of the Chicago school of economics, and has tried to reconstruct New Zealand society in that image.
He refers to some in Labour having “ideas, less well developed, of social liberalism”….as in the Report of the Royal Commission. “It was only a matter of time before the different sets of ideas clashed”
To right Prism, we frown on intellectuals here in NZ, only do “faux” intellectual stuff like film criticism etc etc (all good valid things but never too close to the real meat on socio economic reality).
Thanks for the tip, will have a read of Jesson. On that note I grabbed a copy of Sutch “The Quest for Security in NZ” at a garage sale recently…well worth a read. NZ prior to the First Labour Government was a very insecure place, we are headed rapidly back to that era courtesy of a millionaire who just does not have a clue (or care I suspect).
One outcome of globalisation and consumersim where profit is god and must increase year on year is you end up with few players controlling everything as M&A’s are eventually always approved by weakened anti-monopoly agencies/laws.
Brands have been used to mask this making people feel like they’re making a choice when the only choice is which marketing/advertising/packaging/presentation won the decision to purchase.
When you are planning to produce your own NZ based dairy factories, i guess pricing out the competition is to be expected. Is the PM relaxed that this also spits in the face of TPP discussions and exposes the endgame of excessive foreign ownership of our farms ?
I believe it spits in the face of the FTA we have with China as well and certainly makes it look as if the Crafar purchase actually was part of Chinese government action.
I just read that and nearly spewed tea all over the laptop screen. The world is full of crazies but it did brighten the first few minutes of my days off
It’s funny in some respects, but it does have the rather more serious effect of nurturing a racist narrative, not to mention the mental illness of the true believers.
Hi Grumpy, it is safe to assume that there is much about history, ours and abroad which we have been fed, is little more than self interest!
I recall a few years back listening to a historian/anthropologist on national radio, while I was home from abroad, saying he was aware of large swaths of NZ historical records and the like being destroyed. I am unable to recall his name, nor provide any links, so was not able to check into his background. He also made reference to some sort of ancient boat!
Clever bastard eh? There is another story about a stone village in a Northland forest. The story is that the archeological report is embargoed to 2060’s. Anyone know anything about that?
You mean this? http://www.kaimaiview.co.nz/an_unpalitable_truth
Funnily enough featuring the very same Noel Hilliam also seen here
//readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2010/03/why-is-kiwibank-honouring-grave-robbing
Take his tales with several handfuls of salt, me thinks
Seven or eight feet eh! That ties in with Northern Hemisphere legends about all the “Tall Bastards” that were driven out by their angrier neighbours.
The ancient volume (kept under lock and key in the British Museum) “The Righteous Rage of Shorty the Red”, details how Shorty drove them from their homes with the following warning :
“Yer Talle Bastardds, wu knew nott ur oun Godds, yer’ll niver retoorn hier! If yer doos yer’ll bee bluddy!”
This and other “Tall Tales” have long been suppressed all over the world.
I don’t believe any of it to be true. There are a number of quasi anthropologist / archaeologist crackpots out there who have had a lot of publicity making claims that have been easily refuted on closer examination of the so called evidence.
I have very good personal reasons for being sceptical about this stuff, none of it attributable to Treaty of Waitangi settlement debates
Why would archeologists want to shut down such a ground breaking , and career making discovery? It would be a greater find than Troy, or the opening of the pyramids.
Why would the state want to hide something that would attract tourists by the plane load and raise huge awareness of NZ. Think of the publicity this would bring, if true.
Seems to me the threorists here want it to be true for some reason. What is that reason?
Please tell me it isn’t anything to do with the Treaty. But from reading various pushers of the idea, it seems to be that they have the idea that if someone else got here first, then the Treaty would be null and void. that belief would account for their passion I suppose, if they don’t like the Treaty.
Perhaps someone could explain to me why the Trety would be null and void though. It’s not a long document.
If Greeks or celts or egyptions got here first, why would that mean Maori weren’t soveriegn when Pakeha arrived?
And even if, somehow, it did, we are left with the problem of the Crown covering up something that would get them off the hook for treaty settlements. Why would they do that?
It’s just a big old pile of pudding son.
Best left to the lizard brains squeeking away over at farrers place I reckon.
It wouldn’t matter if 30 different groups had arrived here at different times from different places. If they were alive to intermarry with Māori, by the time Te Tiriti was signed they would have been well and truly intergrated and therefore part of the various iwi.
The trouble is, given that iwi were an oral culture, there would have been waiata and kōrero purākau about there presence. Given the lack of that, it would seem to be unlikely that, should they have ever been here, they were living during the migration period.
As well as that, there would be middens, at the very least.
Hogwash I say but I am just another layperson. What would I know
Yes that was my concern to Kotahi. While it made me laugh out loud initially, I groaned inwards at the fuel it gives the racists. I am just waiting for my redneck, racist uncle to post the link on Facebook….shouldn’t take him long.
Show me the midden pits and other signs of people living here Grumpy and I might open my fixed mind a little. Till then, this sounds like more Muriel Newman-promulgated “stop the uppity Maoris and their uppity claims” bullshit
I don’t know… I just try to keep an open mind. It is entirely conceiveable that NZ was visited/settled by other cultures pre-Maori. My point was there is a lot of money being made by individuals out of the grievance process which will ensure a vested interest in maintaining a narrative that Maori were the first to NZ, irrespective of any evidence to the contrary.
1) Lot’s of things are concievable. It’s concievable that NZ was discovered by a reverse engineered invisible spacecat from the far distant future who zipped back in time, snooped about, spotted the place, picked up a few humans and plopped them down with his plopper ray before popping back to his sparkly litterbox in the future. I just concieved it, but it doesn’t count for shit.
2) “a narrative that Maori were the first to NZ” has no bearing at all on the Treaty of Waitangi. None. Not even a little bit.
“Lot’s of things are concievable. It’s concievable that NZ was discovered by a reverse engineered invisible spacecat from the far distant future who zipped back in time, snooped about, spotted the place, picked up a few humans and plopped them down with his plopper ray before popping back to his sparkly litterbox in the future. I just concieved it, but it doesn’t count for sht”
What is even more conceiveable than your example, is the level of control and manipulation from monetary flows into almost any industry you could name. There are the known interational infrastructure networks, and there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.
Controlling money and finance can give almost endless ability to manipulate….
If AML means “anti-money-laundering”, first you say it’s not being monitored, now you say there’s a whole “space” devoted to it. I wish you’d make your “mind” up.
You are absolutely right – I do not know the details of that particular business. I was merely pointing out the self-contradictory nature of your argument.
To recap:
1. “…there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.”
2. “The AML space”
Which is it – is there no monitoring measurement or reporting, or is there in fact an entire network that is dedicated to them?
Or do you need me to make you a tin-foil hat before you can work it out?
Still not quite getting it because you have assumed the word “space” incorrectly from the context I meant it.
I will explain this very slowly for you…
1. “…there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.” – Thats right, there are monitored networks, gateways etc, and there are those which are not reported on, which could be referred to as back doors, and if you had worked in the “AML Space”, you would know what I am talking about, but you dont, so you can’t!
2 – AML Space – What I meant here was the the part of the business that AML operates inside of, and also the space that as a contractor, I operated in – AML Space.
Maybe not jumpt to conclusions to support your ignorance, but it does amuse me!
No need to mention the tin foil hat , because you have made yourself look ignorant enough by now!
And these money laundering channels (which are monitored measured and reported on by law-enforcement agencies), your thesis is they they “give almost endless ability to manipulate” information, which in this case is being used to suppress archaeological data, for unknown reasons.
Except of course that doesn’t work on you, because you know the truth.
I’ll tell you what happened to all those 7-8′ tall fair-skinned types that used to live here: they moved on, and their descendants formed the HAARP Cabal. I learned this from Buzz Aldrin in a dream, but don’t worry, he’s going to bust them wide open.
“And these money laundering channels (which are monitored measured and reported on by law-enforcement agencies” – You seem to believe you know alot about it, have you worked in AML? Oh no thats right, we have established by now that you have not! – It’s ok though Bloke, you dont’t have to know everything, its not a competition, but it is good sense to pull back when you have no idea what you are talking about!
“your thesis is they they “give almost endless ability to manipulate” – Correct, imagine the level of what is possible when you can control, and hide money flows, into almost any industry. After this you tried to tell me about AML, which we have already established you know nothing about, yet you then decided to try and tell me about my job – Schoolboy!
“information, which in this case is being used to suppress archaeological data, for unknown reasons.” – Your words Nostradamus, not mine. I only offered the line that “Controlling money and finance can give almost endless ability to manipulate”, and you then tried to debate the in’s and out’s of my experience of the AML Space – Schoolboy!
In brief, I think the flaw in your argument is that attempts to manipulate are not always successful. You overestimate the power of money.
Certainly an individual can probably control aspects of debate – look at the small number of people who currently distort Climatology, for example. But these influences are only ever pertinent within lifetimes. The campaign to distort information about tobacco, for example, successfully fended off the medical profession et al for decades, but no-one seriously questions the fact that smoking is bad for you any more.
Things that happened in the distant past, though – who cares enough to spend money to intentionally suppress them? Make no mistake – if there were lots of DNA evidence of European rats (Rattus Rattus, Rattus Norvegicus, whatever) that was carbon dated to pre-Maori times that would be a very big deal. Historians, anthropologists etc. would be all over that like a rash.
However, Kiore DNA matches the human DNA chain in exactly the same way – and funnily enough, they match the oral history too – that of the South Pacific being gradually inhabited by the same group of people – a story of deliberate exploration.
The “evidence” advanced for counter-claims is based almost universally on cherry-picked information or simple misunderstanding.
The “evidence” advanced for counter-claims is based almost universally on cherry-picked information or simple misunderstanding.
If your follow Reading the Maps you’ll see that it’s primarily driven by racist ideologues, with intersections from New Age mysticism bullshit and a hefty helping of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, when it comes to recruitment to and persistence of these meme sets.
So yeah, more wilful cherry picking and complete failure to understand the basics of archaeology, especially when it clashes with a priori beliefs…
Read, think, even look up fallacies on wikipedia, then come back and try and argue your line of pure bullshit.
Because we teh science, teh archaeological evidence, and teh genetics analyses that show Polynesians were first in New Zealand.
Sheesh, next you’ll be telling us there’s a lot of money invested in evolution, therefore it’s wrongzors, or worse yet, HIV…
And muzza, I’ll cluebat you on vaccines when I can, Nick be depressed at present and thus all out of teaspoons for trudging through stuff that’s easily found via googling science-based medicine sites.
“Nick be depressed at present ” – Maybe get yourself a vaccination to fix that then eh, or some big pharma pills! As long as they are getting paid, all is good!
It would be your choice to take the vaccination/pills of course, which was only ever my point. That topic was over weeks ago, but by all means add to your low by wasting your time…
It would have to be a solution diluted thousands of times more to cure the abysmal cash-control, idiotic math, and an overwhelming sense of entitlement held for the 40 years since they were in the school first fifteen that those tossers are afflicted by.
Why the pricks couldn’t have gone under before we built them a $300mil stadium I don’t know. Oh, wait – it was the idiotic excess of the stadium that got their 3 biggest supporters kicked from local council, so then the council stopped permanently rolling over loans and writing off debts. I think that counts as “irony”.
“After the shocking figures were revealed last month, Prime Minister John Key agreed the health gap was a wider social issue that needed to be addressed.”
Cue a move to outsource, sorry “bestsource”, healthcare to Serco. They’re got their fingers in everything else.
Roughly 30 years ago NZ radically updated its fiscal laws, but crucially it failed to reward good endeavors and punish bad. Property speculation took off and the wealth of NZ, in a world awash with cheap oil and easy credit, funneled growth in the wrong areas of the economy. And now the economy is suffering, since we need a deeper and wider economy to draw upon, yet we built crap leaky homes,and hire shrill poor managers in the private and public sectors.
Wakeup NZ, it was easy to grow, now its going to be tough, and no its not the workers fault. In fact we need a German like outlook to employer-employee relationships.
Death by a 1000 cuts – Just another cut to households. Just been sent from Mercury gas charges going up. Currently paying 7.98/kWh price to go up to 8.99 (increase by 12.6%) but if I fix for 3 years it will be 9.17 (and only an increase of 14.9%). Add on rate increases and other non tradables how can households survive in NZ? Just waiting for interest rates to start increasing.
The price could “shoot up” just with the continued threat of conflict. If the insurers up premiums for transport/cargo on perceived risk, that will push prices up also.
Violent conflict will send the price right up – As SpaceMonkey says, thats the purpose of it!
Insurance company goes bust, govt bails them out eating all the shit and leaving the above water parts of the business intact, govt builds a temporary stadium, insurance company sponsors stadium.
It’s the barefaced ‘F You’ that grates the most…..bet they’re busy cooking up a way to bail out that RU that went bust or have I missed a few meetings …..
“The terms of the bailout will see AMI’s earthquake liabilities transferred to a Crown-owned company, leaving IAG free to pick up the good assets.” Like rugby stadia?
Just as well we do not take baseball seriously. I just love the way Amercian communism system works or was that private enterprise !! 😉 http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/a-closer-look-at-stadium-subsidies
And no longer does the public sector determine the appropriate price to charge private enterprise for use of this publicly supplied resource. Today, sports stadiums are largely the private domain of for-profit businesses that the public sector subsidizes, often with special taxes. http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2009/01/3496_nyc_baseball_st.html
Of that, the public – city, state, and federal taxpayers – are now covering just shy of $1.2 billion, by far the largest stadium subsidy ever. In fact, even discounting the $417 million in property-tax breaks (if you’re inclined to agree with Lieber), it’s still the largest stadium subsidy ever. The Yankees, meanwhile, would be on the hook for just $670 million, after counting property-tax breaks.
Sharopetrosian is a member of the Armenian Power organized crime group hmmm, there is anopther organised criminal group working the other side of the States, they are known collectively as Goldman Sachs. We have are own GS operative here in NZ.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 17
Sometimes, the most resource-intensive people are the ones who kind’ve stay just sane enough to keep out of the health system, but in one or two precise areas they are still very irrational, obsessive, and create detailed fantasies over months or years.
Sucks for everyone involved. And the paperwork is a bitch.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 17.1.1
I enrolled in a maori language course at southland Polytech in 1993 and the teacher took us through how to introduce youreself, referring to your ancestor and your mountain or lake or whatever. He said his ancestor was Tutankhamen and that was why his surname began with Tut. I got put off by this. Was the guy serious ? I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I never asked.
I like the truth of people searching the greatest ocean and finding the land of birds. The Egyptians and Phoenicians would never have bothered to voyage son far, even had they been able to. So many resources precious to them much closer to home.
All humans came from Africa, but this was long before Tutankhamen and the thousands of ancient egyptian years, and the phoenicians.
Florida House, Senate Pass Troubling Resolutions Regarding Israel
March 12, 2012 at 10:16 pm
J Street is concerned about nearly identical resolutions regarding Israel that were passed by the Florida House and Senate last week.
Those who voted for the resolutions thinking they were simply expressing straightforward support for Israel probably had little clue that the language they endorsed contains the seeds of Israel’s destruction as a democratic state and Jewish homeland. Keeping “the entirety of the land” under Israeli control and granting all those who live there democratic rights (“one law for all people”) is actually the agenda of those who seek a “one-state solution” – a binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, better thought of as the end of Israel as we know it.
With the demographic data clearly telling us that the number of non-Jews will exceed the number of Jews over time, the formula passed by the Florida legislature leads inexorably to the eradication of Israel as a democratic national home for the Jewish people.
These Florida resolutions are good examples of what it looks like to hug a friend so tightly that you unintentionally suffocate him.
We urge both chambers of the Florida Legislature to revoke these egregiously-misguided resolutions and to support the only route to Israel being both Jewish and democratic – a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Research finds that forgiving home loans will save money – the problem?
But this solution has raised passionate opposition: Many borrowers who are paying their mortgages every month feel it is unfair. Why, they ask, should they have to keep paying the full amount while others who took a loan they ultimately couldn’t afford or saw their house plummet in value get a break? Some economists and policy makers argue that borrowers might intentionally stop paying their mortgages to score a reduction. Indeed, the prospect that the government would help troubled homeowners was a spark that created the Tea Party movement.
Too many US citizens don’t give a fuck about anyone else in their communities now. If they can’t clamber off in a lifeboat themselves, they’ll make sure no one else does either.
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
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David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
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Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
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Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
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 The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
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You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/6616197/Chamber-in-super-council-push
The COC around the place are in fact key players in the theft of assets….since when does the COC get to decide when debate should be held about public governence?
Alamgamate, bankrupt, sell off….
After writing several MSM propaganda posts on why we should attack Syria, why China would be the next empire and a post on Iran were he, while still maintaining that Iran has a repressive regime (most notably for that typical Muslim hatred for women) and we are the good guys, at least comes to the conclusion that attacking them would maybe not be such a good idea (which again is the MSM stance so no surprise there) I would like to present Michael Valley with a challenge!
More and more information comes out of Libya (not in the MSM of course) indicating that very predictably the “liberation” of Libya doesn’t mean the same for all Libyans and that as was predicted by many geopolitical strategists Libya is now being Balkanised (ad in cut up in three states) by flaming inter tribal rivalries with the tribal area from whence the “revolution” started and the most oil rich looking forward to a hansom reward for assisting in throwing out the only man strong enough to resist the US and removing the only viable obstacle towards the re-colonisation of the African continent (Kony anyone?) Colonel Gaddafi (No I’m not saying he was a nice guy)
My challenge to Michael Valley is the following. I would like to see his analysis from his point of view which I suspect is that there was no hidden agenda on the part of the Hillary led war crime syndicate called the US/NATO liberation forces and that Libya is now free to do what it wants even if that means the killing of black people by the thousands. That is what freedom means.
That at least is what the MSM seems to suggest by their dead silence on the developing situation in Libya.
Right. It’s all a conspiracy, nothing to do with the fact that MSM has the attention span of a tweaking flea and is averse to anything that can’t be thoroughly expressed in a 5-second sound bite.
Er, how about both?
Ty, V
To have both would require simultaneous competence and incompetence. A contradiction.
Jeff Robinson interviewed the chairman of ACC on RNZ Morning Report this morning. Jeff Robinson does not appear to know much about the chairman. Robinson asked him a question, “Have any other ministers of ACC written letters while you have been chairman of ACC?”
For your info Jeff, The chairman of ACC was appointed by Nick Smith as part of the preparation for the sale of ACC. The chairman of the ACC is/was a member of the Business Round Table. He probably doesn’t party much with members in Mana, the Labour Party, the Greens, or NZF. Doesn’t leave many other parties that he might share a beer at a barbecue with really and “chat about things…” (Chats like our PM did with Ashcroft when he was here.)
Jeff Robinson has been kept on because he toes Griffins line of don’t ask any tough questions, be nice to govt ministers and cronies alike……who’s a good boy then.
Mercep’s no better, Mary Wilson’s kept her credibility whereas Mora/Ryan etc are about as cutting as a sponge.
Linda Clark was the same, just didn’t know how to ask the next question. Some idiot she’d be interviewing would say something that just begged the most obvious next question that would have had them cornered, and what would Clark do every time: miss the chance by asking the next bloody question on her list. Just hopeless. Ryan’s no better. Contrast them with what Kim Hill used to do. Politicians have it so easy here. The Aussies have got it all over us on this, too.
Jeff Robinson has been kept on because he toes Griffin’s line of don’t ask any tough questions
I think you could be right. Yesterday (Thursday) morning Robinson interviewed Phoebe Greenwood from the Guardian about the Toulouse murders at a Jewish school. Pro-Israeli propagandists have been trying their best (or worst) to use the deaths of the children and their teacher to invoke support not for the victims, but for the state of Israel. To do this, they need useful idiots in the media—people like Geoff Robinson.
His brief interview with Phoebe Greenwood was toe-curlingly, embarrassingly awful….
ROBINSON: [voice croaking with empathy] Israelis are more STOIC about terror attacks, aren’t they.
GREENWOOD: Stoic and accustomed. One rabbi here in France says that this is a turning point for the diaspora. Now Jews must RETURN to Israel, for their own safety.
ROBINSON: [thoughtfully] Mmmmm….
What interests me greatly, is how the story has changed! Days ago, it was about three Muslim soldiers murdered by a gunman on a scooter, and the French authorities were not all that fussed. (The lone gunman was assumed to belong to a para-military right wing group..) Then the shooting at the Jewish school happened – sparking the largest manhunt in French history! In about 5 minutes, they found the guy – I mean that – I was listening to the BBC World Service that day – and it took all of 45 minutes from one half hourly news bulletin to the next for them to say ‘the manhunt has begun’ to ‘he’s holed up in an apartment building’… 24 hours later, the perp is dead, he’s said to be an Islamist belonging to Al Quaeda, and Radio NZ describes him as the man who killed “Three Jewish children and four adults’ – giving the impression to anyone who hadn’t been following the story, that all the victims were Jewish! How the gunman’s new backstory fits with his first 3 victims being North African Muslims, doesn’t matter – according to the new story he was just an “Islamist” whatever one of those is – and no explanation is needed…
Another good JMG read on the American Empire and Capitalism.
A good read I agree. The most salient point for me was Greers contention (with which I also agree) that capital aggregation and the consequent impoverishment of the consumer base never gets talked about.
Greer commented that one of the most incisive commentaries on “capital aggregation” was that of Marx BUT that the Cold War climate limited any institutional interest in what is a very valid criticism. In fact economists and their masters dont actually want capital aggregation examined as it threatens their very assumptions about wealth and distribution there of.
My take is that this lack of focus on how capital (and finance) aggregate is at the centre of todays crisis and is being ignored totally, along with the other great driver of our current crisis: resource diminution. NZs treasury and politicians of all colours here seem totally blind to both.
If schools, as part of a balanced education, examined just the first three chapters of the first part of the first volume of Das Kapital, in the same way they uphold current flawed economic indoctrination in classes, the world would change overnight.
Capital
A Critique of Political Economy
Karl Marx 1867
Volume I
Book One: The Process of Production of Capital
Part 1: Commodities and Money
Chapter 3: Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities
Section 3: Money
“…The continual movement in circuits of the two antithetical metamorphoses of commodities, or the never ceasing alternation of sale and purchase, is reflected in the restless currency of money, or in the function that money performs of a perpetuum mobile of circulation. But so soon as the series of metamorphoses is interrupted, so soon as sales are not supplemented by subsequent purchases, money ceases to be mobilised; it is transformed, as Boisguillebert says, from ―meuble‖ into ―immeuble, from movable into immovable, from coin into money.
With the very earliest development of the circulation of commodities, there is also developed the necessity, and the passionate desire, to hold fast the product of the first metamorphosis. This product is the transformed shape of the commodity, or its gold-chrysalis.[39] Commodities are thus sold not for the purpose of buying others, but in order to replace their commodity-form by their money-form. From being the mere means of effecting the circulation of commodities, this change of form becomes the end and aim. The changed form of the commodity is thus prevented from functioning as its unconditionally alienable form, or as its merely transient money-form. The money becomes petrified into a hoard, and the seller becomes a hoarder of money.
As the production of commodities further develops, every producer of commodities is compelled to make sure of the nexus rerum or the social pledge.[41] His wants are constantly making themselves felt, and necessitate the continual purchase of other people‘s commodities, while the production and sale of his own goods require time, and depend upon circumstances. In order then to be able to buy without selling, he must have sold previously without buying. This operation, conducted on a general scale, appears to imply a contradiction. But the precious metals at the sources of their production are directly exchanged for other commodities. And here we have sales (by the owners of commodities) without purchases (by the owners of gold or silver). [42] And subsequent sales, by other producers, unfollowed by purchases, merely bring about the distribution of the newly produced precious metals among all the owners of commodities. In this way, all along the line of exchange, hoards of gold and silver of varied extent are accumulated. With the possibility of holding and storing up exchange-value in the shape of a particular commodity, arises also the greed for gold. Along with the extension of circulation, increases the power of money, that absolutely social form of wealth ever ready for use. ―Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever possesses it is lord of all he wants. By means of gold one can even get souls into Paradise.‖ (Columbus in his letter from Jamaica, 1503.) Since gold does not disclose what has been transformed into it, everything, commodity or not, is convertible into gold. Everything becomes saleable and buyable. The circulation becomes the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as a gold-crystal. Not even are the bones of saints, and still less are more delicate res sacrosanctae, extra commercium hominum able to withstand this alchemy.[43] Just as every qualitative difference between commodities is extinguished in money, so money, on its side, like the radical leveller that it is, does away with all distinctions.[43a] But money itself is a commodity, an external object, capable of becoming the private property of any individual. Thus social power becomes the private power of private persons. The ancients therefore denounced money as subversive of the economic and moral order of things.[43b] Modern society, which, soon after its birth, pulled Plutus by the hair of his head from the bowels of the earth,[44] greets gold as its Holy Grail, as the glittering incarnation of the very principle of its own life.
In the early stages of the circulation of commodities, it is the surplus use-values alone that are converted into money. Gold and silver thus become of themselves social expressions for superfluity or wealth. This naive form of hoarding becomes perpetuated in those communities in which the traditional mode of production is carried on for the supply of a fixed and limited circle of home wants. It is thus with the people of Asia, and particularly of the East Indies. Vanderlint, who fancies that the prices of commodities in a country are determined by the quantity of gold and silver to be found in it, asks himself why Indian commodities are so cheap. Answer: Because the Hindus bury their money. From 1602 to 1734, he remarks, they buried 150 millions of pounds sterling of silver, which originally came from America to Europe.[40] In the 10 years from 1856 to 1866, England exported to India and China £120,000,000 in silver, which had been received in exchange for Australian gold. Most of the silver exported to China makes its way to India.
A commodity, in its capacity of a use-value, satisfies a particular want, and is a particular element of material wealth. But the value of a commodity measures the degree of its attraction for all other elements of material wealth, and therefore measures the social wealth of its owner. To a barbarian owner of commodities, and even to a West-European peasant, value is the same as value-form, and therefore, to him the increase in his hoard of gold and silver is an increase in value. It is true that the value of money varies, at one time in consequence of a variation in its own value, at another, in consequence of a change in the values of commodities. But this, on the one hand, does not prevent 200 ounces of gold from still containing more value than 100 ounces, nor, on the other hand, does it hinder the actual metallic form of this article from continuing to be the universal equivalent form of all other commodities, and the immediate social incarnation of all human labour. The desire after hoarding is in its very nature unsatiable. In its qualitative aspect, or formally considered, money has no bounds to its efficacy, i.e., it is the universal representative of material wealth, because it is directly convertible into any other commodity. But, at the same time, every actual sum of money is limited in amount, and, therefore, as a means of purchasing, has only a limited efficacy. This antagonism between the quantitative limits of money and its qualitative boundlessness, continually acts as a spur to the hoarder in his Sisyphus-like labour of accumulating. It is with him as it is with a conqueror who sees in every new country annexed, only a new boundary…”
What a splendid passage, thoroughly enjoyed reading about about the ancients finding money was “subversive”….
In business I find very few employees actually understand how we employers make money…margin…profit. I have always found Marx’s analysis of relation to production and surplus value as the simplest explanation to the uninformed. You can get a straight explanation out of the likes of Freidman, they all try and hide the reality from the “workers”.
Henry Ford
Your right, how the banking system works and how the capitalists actually becomes rich really is hidden from the people. I had my opened when I was in Amway when one of the Diamond level people told a conference that you don’t get rich by working but by having a lot of people work for you. It’s why capitalism is hierarchical and why the books are hidden from the workers. Basically, you have a lot of people below you that do the work but, instead of them being paid directly, you get paid and then you pay the workers. The hidden aspect of the accounts means that the workers don’t know how much you’ve just clipped the ticket and have no say in it.
@Bored
I am reading Bruce Jessons Fragments of Labour. He might explain the background to the magnificent and determined lack of thought and wide, wise understanding by our politicians and their Sir Humphreys. On p12 he says
He refers to some in Labour having “ideas, less well developed, of social liberalism”….as in the Report of the Royal Commission. “It was only a matter of time before the different sets of ideas clashed”
To right Prism, we frown on intellectuals here in NZ, only do “faux” intellectual stuff like film criticism etc etc (all good valid things but never too close to the real meat on socio economic reality).
Thanks for the tip, will have a read of Jesson. On that note I grabbed a copy of Sutch “The Quest for Security in NZ” at a garage sale recently…well worth a read. NZ prior to the First Labour Government was a very insecure place, we are headed rapidly back to that era courtesy of a millionaire who just does not have a clue (or care I suspect).
He has a good clue himself to care for himself?
One outcome of globalisation and consumersim where profit is god and must increase year on year is you end up with few players controlling everything as M&A’s are eventually always approved by weakened anti-monopoly agencies/laws.
Brands have been used to mask this making people feel like they’re making a choice when the only choice is which marketing/advertising/packaging/presentation won the decision to purchase.
That’s similar to what I’ve been saying for the last few years about the impossibility of exporting our way to wealth.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/market-data/currencies/6617519/Kiwi-nosedives-on-China-news
When you are planning to produce your own NZ based dairy factories, i guess pricing out the competition is to be expected. Is the PM relaxed that this also spits in the face of TPP discussions and exposes the endgame of excessive foreign ownership of our farms ?
I believe it spits in the face of the FTA we have with China as well and certainly makes it look as if the Crafar purchase actually was part of Chinese government action.
Looks like Fairfax media has finally lost the plot. They faked the moon landings too you know!
I just read that and nearly spewed tea all over the laptop screen. The world is full of crazies but it did brighten the first few minutes of my days off
It’s funny in some respects, but it does have the rather more serious effect of nurturing a racist narrative, not to mention the mental illness of the true believers.
Would it upset your views on feeling like you are in control of your thoughts bloke?
Mental illness, true believers…
Just is not possible that some things can’t be as they seem is it!
Nah its all black and white!
….maybe Egypt and Greece could put a claim into the Waitangi Tribunal?
I seem to remember someone claiming years ago that an ancient boat had been dug out of a seaside cliff near Timaru?????
Hi Grumpy, it is safe to assume that there is much about history, ours and abroad which we have been fed, is little more than self interest!
I recall a few years back listening to a historian/anthropologist on national radio, while I was home from abroad, saying he was aware of large swaths of NZ historical records and the like being destroyed. I am unable to recall his name, nor provide any links, so was not able to check into his background. He also made reference to some sort of ancient boat!
Bugger me muzzy, I agree with you.
Just off to the doctor for a checkup……….
Try the Moeraki Boulders near Oamaru.
You may be thinking of this. It is all utter bunkum, of course. You will note that there has been no update with the ‘concrete’ analysis promised
http://www.gavinmenzies.net/Evidence/15-chinese-ship-construction/
No-one seems to know who coined the phrase:
“Keep an open mind – but not so open that your brain falls out.”
Nostradamus predicted that Woolworths would stay open late on a Thursday.
Clever bastard eh? There is another story about a stone village in a Northland forest. The story is that the archeological report is embargoed to 2060’s. Anyone know anything about that?
You mean this?
http://www.kaimaiview.co.nz/an_unpalitable_truth
Funnily enough featuring the very same Noel Hilliam also seen here
//readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2010/03/why-is-kiwibank-honouring-grave-robbing
Take his tales with several handfuls of salt, me thinks
It also has a potentially serious effect on the industry that has grown around the grievances.
OK, since you seem to be serious about this, I have some conundra for you. In the words of Michael Shermer:
“Where are the rest of the artifacts of those people? Where are their works of art, their weapons, their clothing, their tools, their trash?”
Where are the bones of the rats they brought with them?
One Anonymous Bloke predicts that sooner or later, archaeologists will start receiving death threats over this crap.
Have you looked a hateatea’s link?
Interesting stuff, I can see why, if true, some people would want it shut down. A conspiracy here for travellrev?
Seven or eight feet eh! That ties in with Northern Hemisphere legends about all the “Tall Bastards” that were driven out by their angrier neighbours.
The ancient volume (kept under lock and key in the British Museum) “The Righteous Rage of Shorty the Red”, details how Shorty drove them from their homes with the following warning :
“Yer Talle Bastardds, wu knew nott ur oun Godds, yer’ll niver retoorn hier! If yer doos yer’ll bee bluddy!”
This and other “Tall Tales” have long been suppressed all over the world.
KTH
Golly I didn’t know that. How amazing.
I don’t believe any of it to be true. There are a number of quasi anthropologist / archaeologist crackpots out there who have had a lot of publicity making claims that have been easily refuted on closer examination of the so called evidence.
I have very good personal reasons for being sceptical about this stuff, none of it attributable to Treaty of Waitangi settlement debates
Why would *they* want it shut down grumps?
Let’s think about it.
Why would archeologists want to shut down such a ground breaking , and career making discovery? It would be a greater find than Troy, or the opening of the pyramids.
Why would the state want to hide something that would attract tourists by the plane load and raise huge awareness of NZ. Think of the publicity this would bring, if true.
Seems to me the threorists here want it to be true for some reason. What is that reason?
Please tell me it isn’t anything to do with the Treaty. But from reading various pushers of the idea, it seems to be that they have the idea that if someone else got here first, then the Treaty would be null and void. that belief would account for their passion I suppose, if they don’t like the Treaty.
Perhaps someone could explain to me why the Trety would be null and void though. It’s not a long document.
If Greeks or celts or egyptions got here first, why would that mean Maori weren’t soveriegn when Pakeha arrived?
And even if, somehow, it did, we are left with the problem of the Crown covering up something that would get them off the hook for treaty settlements. Why would they do that?
It’s just a big old pile of pudding son.
Best left to the lizard brains squeeking away over at farrers place I reckon.
It wouldn’t matter if 30 different groups had arrived here at different times from different places. If they were alive to intermarry with Māori, by the time Te Tiriti was signed they would have been well and truly intergrated and therefore part of the various iwi.
The trouble is, given that iwi were an oral culture, there would have been waiata and kōrero purākau about there presence. Given the lack of that, it would seem to be unlikely that, should they have ever been here, they were living during the migration period.
As well as that, there would be middens, at the very least.
Hogwash I say but I am just another layperson. What would I know
😉
Pascal’s bookie, I like your style
Dunno if they lost the plot…we all read the headline because even if its bunk it grabs our attention and sells papers……
Yes that was my concern to Kotahi. While it made me laugh out loud initially, I groaned inwards at the fuel it gives the racists. I am just waiting for my redneck, racist uncle to post the link on Facebook….shouldn’t take him long.
So sick of Fairfax.
Don’t worry about it upsetting your fixed views and just labeling it “racist”. You should keep an open mind, like me………
Truthers unite, you have nothing to lose but your credibility.
Show me the midden pits and other signs of people living here Grumpy and I might open my fixed mind a little. Till then, this sounds like more Muriel Newman-promulgated “stop the uppity Maoris and their uppity claims” bullshit
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6625136/Search-and-Surveillance-Bill-passes
Should be good for filling up those new private prisons I would imagine!
I don’t know… I just try to keep an open mind. It is entirely conceiveable that NZ was visited/settled by other cultures pre-Maori. My point was there is a lot of money being made by individuals out of the grievance process which will ensure a vested interest in maintaining a narrative that Maori were the first to NZ, irrespective of any evidence to the contrary.
Spacemonkey.
1) Lot’s of things are concievable. It’s concievable that NZ was discovered by a reverse engineered invisible spacecat from the far distant future who zipped back in time, snooped about, spotted the place, picked up a few humans and plopped them down with his plopper ray before popping back to his sparkly litterbox in the future. I just concieved it, but it doesn’t count for shit.
2) “a narrative that Maori were the first to NZ” has no bearing at all on the Treaty of Waitangi. None. Not even a little bit.
No 1 – Roflmao
Lol re 1… and 2 good point.
“Lot’s of things are concievable. It’s concievable that NZ was discovered by a reverse engineered invisible spacecat from the far distant future who zipped back in time, snooped about, spotted the place, picked up a few humans and plopped them down with his plopper ray before popping back to his sparkly litterbox in the future. I just concieved it, but it doesn’t count for sht”
What is even more conceiveable than your example, is the level of control and manipulation from monetary flows into almost any industry you could name. There are the known interational infrastructure networks, and there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.
Controlling money and finance can give almost endless ability to manipulate….
That’s how you can tell something definitely exists: when it is not “monitored, measured or reported on.” Nice of you to clear that up.
All the time you have spent working in the AML space Bloke, I thought you would have have had some idea what I was talking about. Oh wait on…
Can you clear something up for me – Did Nostradamus also say that Woolworths was going to be consigned to the dustbin of NZ supermarket chain history?
If AML means “anti-money-laundering”, first you say it’s not being monitored, now you say there’s a whole “space” devoted to it. I wish you’d make your “mind” up.
Well done, that is what the acronym stood for – Gold Star
In reality though you have no idea how AML functions or fits inside the world of banking & your silly responses only serve to highlight that fact!
Maybe you can ask Nostradamus to enlighten you!
You are absolutely right – I do not know the details of that particular business. I was merely pointing out the self-contradictory nature of your argument.
To recap:
1. “…there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.”
2. “The AML space”
Which is it – is there no monitoring measurement or reporting, or is there in fact an entire network that is dedicated to them?
Or do you need me to make you a tin-foil hat before you can work it out?
Still not quite getting it because you have assumed the word “space” incorrectly from the context I meant it.
I will explain this very slowly for you…
1. “…there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.” – Thats right, there are monitored networks, gateways etc, and there are those which are not reported on, which could be referred to as back doors, and if you had worked in the “AML Space”, you would know what I am talking about, but you dont, so you can’t!
2 – AML Space – What I meant here was the the part of the business that AML operates inside of, and also the space that as a contractor, I operated in – AML Space.
Maybe not jumpt to conclusions to support your ignorance, but it does amuse me!
No need to mention the tin foil hat , because you have made yourself look ignorant enough by now!
And these money laundering channels (which are monitored measured and reported on by law-enforcement agencies), your thesis is they they “give almost endless ability to manipulate” information, which in this case is being used to suppress archaeological data, for unknown reasons.
Except of course that doesn’t work on you, because you know the truth.
I’ll tell you what happened to all those 7-8′ tall fair-skinned types that used to live here: they moved on, and their descendants formed the HAARP Cabal. I learned this from Buzz Aldrin in a dream, but don’t worry, he’s going to bust them wide open.
“And these money laundering channels (which are monitored measured and reported on by law-enforcement agencies” – You seem to believe you know alot about it, have you worked in AML? Oh no thats right, we have established by now that you have not! – It’s ok though Bloke, you dont’t have to know everything, its not a competition, but it is good sense to pull back when you have no idea what you are talking about!
“your thesis is they they “give almost endless ability to manipulate” – Correct, imagine the level of what is possible when you can control, and hide money flows, into almost any industry. After this you tried to tell me about AML, which we have already established you know nothing about, yet you then decided to try and tell me about my job – Schoolboy!
“information, which in this case is being used to suppress archaeological data, for unknown reasons.” – Your words Nostradamus, not mine. I only offered the line that “Controlling money and finance can give almost endless ability to manipulate”, and you then tried to debate the in’s and out’s of my experience of the AML Space – Schoolboy!
Time to let you run along now!
In brief, I think the flaw in your argument is that attempts to manipulate are not always successful. You overestimate the power of money.
Certainly an individual can probably control aspects of debate – look at the small number of people who currently distort Climatology, for example. But these influences are only ever pertinent within lifetimes. The campaign to distort information about tobacco, for example, successfully fended off the medical profession et al for decades, but no-one seriously questions the fact that smoking is bad for you any more.
Things that happened in the distant past, though – who cares enough to spend money to intentionally suppress them? Make no mistake – if there were lots of DNA evidence of European rats (Rattus Rattus, Rattus Norvegicus, whatever) that was carbon dated to pre-Maori times that would be a very big deal. Historians, anthropologists etc. would be all over that like a rash.
However, Kiore DNA matches the human DNA chain in exactly the same way – and funnily enough, they match the oral history too – that of the South Pacific being gradually inhabited by the same group of people – a story of deliberate exploration.
The “evidence” advanced for counter-claims is based almost universally on cherry-picked information or simple misunderstanding.
If your follow Reading the Maps you’ll see that it’s primarily driven by racist ideologues, with intersections from New Age mysticism bullshit and a hefty helping of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, when it comes to recruitment to and persistence of these meme sets.
So yeah, more wilful cherry picking and complete failure to understand the basics of archaeology, especially when it clashes with a priori beliefs…
A lot like young earth creationists really.
http://archaeologyaotearoa.blogspot.co.nz/
Read, think, even look up fallacies on wikipedia, then come back and try and argue your line of pure bullshit.
Because we teh science, teh archaeological evidence, and teh genetics analyses that show Polynesians were first in New Zealand.
Sheesh, next you’ll be telling us there’s a lot of money invested in evolution, therefore it’s wrongzors, or worse yet, HIV…
And muzza, I’ll cluebat you on vaccines when I can, Nick be depressed at present and thus all out of teaspoons for trudging through stuff that’s easily found via googling science-based medicine sites.
“Nick be depressed at present ” – Maybe get yourself a vaccination to fix that then eh, or some big pharma pills! As long as they are getting paid, all is good!
It would be your choice to take the vaccination/pills of course, which was only ever my point. That topic was over weeks ago, but by all means add to your low by wasting your time…
Rip into it!
I caught autism from my flu jab this year, but a statistically-insignificant solution of henbane cleared it right up.
Should have given it to the ORU then mate, sounds like they could have used a dose!
It would have to be a solution diluted thousands of times more to cure the abysmal cash-control, idiotic math, and an overwhelming sense of entitlement held for the 40 years since they were in the school first fifteen that those tossers are afflicted by.
Why the pricks couldn’t have gone under before we built them a $300mil stadium I don’t know. Oh, wait – it was the idiotic excess of the stadium that got their 3 biggest supporters kicked from local council, so then the council stopped permanently rolling over loans and writing off debts. I think that counts as “irony”.
More positive effects of the neo-con model in NZ
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794083
“After the shocking figures were revealed last month, Prime Minister John Key agreed the health gap was a wider social issue that needed to be addressed.”
Cue a move to outsource, sorry “bestsource”, healthcare to Serco. They’re got their fingers in everything else.
Roughly 30 years ago NZ radically updated its fiscal laws, but crucially it failed to reward good endeavors and punish bad. Property speculation took off and the wealth of NZ, in a world awash with cheap oil and easy credit, funneled growth in the wrong areas of the economy. And now the economy is suffering, since we need a deeper and wider economy to draw upon, yet we built crap leaky homes,and hire shrill poor managers in the private and public sectors.
Wakeup NZ, it was easy to grow, now its going to be tough, and no its not the workers fault. In fact we need a German like outlook to employer-employee relationships.
It’s Peters vs Hide. Grudge match.
Radio Live right now, streaming here: http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Portals/0/popup/Listen.htm
Winston is entertaining and credible. A good advocate Felix.
bloody entertaining radio, peters:”rodney hyde thinks manual labour is the president of mexico”
Damn is there a podcast of this anywhere?
Yep, everything broadcast on radiolive is archived here: http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Audio.aspx
Think it ran from 2pm to 3pm.
Chur Felix.
Just listened to it. Notice how everyone who wanted to talk to Winston sounded like he had a brain injury?
I particularly liked Sarah.
Sarah: Ooh, Can I speak to Winston, please ?
Winston: Go ahead.
Sarah: This is the first time I ever got to spoke to you. I will say, you are a very lovely man.
Sounds like she had her finger on the dial while she was talking to him haha.
radio live.
Death by a 1000 cuts – Just another cut to households. Just been sent from Mercury gas charges going up. Currently paying 7.98/kWh price to go up to 8.99 (increase by 12.6%) but if I fix for 3 years it will be 9.17 (and only an increase of 14.9%). Add on rate increases and other non tradables how can households survive in NZ? Just waiting for interest rates to start increasing.
Expect petrol to go up rapidly if a shooting war starts in the Straits of Hormuz.
That’s the purpose of the conflict.
The price could “shoot up” just with the continued threat of conflict. If the insurers up premiums for transport/cargo on perceived risk, that will push prices up also.
Violent conflict will send the price right up – As SpaceMonkey says, thats the purpose of it!
It just gets worse and worse, I seriously dont know how much more I can take. More corporate welfare?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794106
What a farce.
Insurance company goes bust, govt bails them out eating all the shit and leaving the above water parts of the business intact, govt builds a temporary stadium, insurance company sponsors stadium.
Just fuck off.
Clashman, thats hilarious, you have to laugh, just like dan “can you believe they got away with this shit” carters smile …
Depends what the liabilities are – but I’m picking they’re going to be more than the $380m we got for the assets.
No, wait, who got the $380m?
It’s the barefaced ‘F You’ that grates the most…..bet they’re busy cooking up a way to bail out that RU that went bust or have I missed a few meetings …..
“The terms of the bailout will see AMI’s earthquake liabilities transferred to a Crown-owned company, leaving IAG free to pick up the good assets.” Like rugby stadia?
Rugby stadia are a useless money losing waste of time. Which is why they always get public money to fund them.
Just as well we do not take baseball seriously. I just love the way Amercian communism system works or was that private enterprise !! 😉
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/a-closer-look-at-stadium-subsidies
And no longer does the public sector determine the appropriate price to charge private enterprise for use of this publicly supplied resource. Today, sports stadiums are largely the private domain of for-profit businesses that the public sector subsidizes, often with special taxes.
http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2009/01/3496_nyc_baseball_st.html
Of that, the public – city, state, and federal taxpayers – are now covering just shy of $1.2 billion, by far the largest stadium subsidy ever. In fact, even discounting the $417 million in property-tax breaks (if you’re inclined to agree with Lieber), it’s still the largest stadium subsidy ever. The Yankees, meanwhile, would be on the hook for just $670 million, after counting property-tax breaks.
But what about the banks, bankers Fraud , Doesn’t count I guess!
Sharopetrosian is a member of the Armenian Power organized crime group hmmm, there is anopther organised criminal group working the other side of the States, they are known collectively as Goldman Sachs. We have are own GS operative here in NZ.
Has anyone else been following this:
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/13244696/man-harassed-woman-over-olivia-case/
I am not sure the criminal justice system needed to be called in for this one. I would have gone with the Mental Health system.
Sometimes, the most resource-intensive people are the ones who kind’ve stay just sane enough to keep out of the health system, but in one or two precise areas they are still very irrational, obsessive, and create detailed fantasies over months or years.
Sucks for everyone involved. And the paperwork is a bitch.
Still. I am grateful. Fucking hilarious.
I enrolled in a maori language course at southland Polytech in 1993 and the teacher took us through how to introduce youreself, referring to your ancestor and your mountain or lake or whatever. He said his ancestor was Tutankhamen and that was why his surname began with Tut. I got put off by this. Was the guy serious ? I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I never asked.
I like the truth of people searching the greatest ocean and finding the land of birds. The Egyptians and Phoenicians would never have bothered to voyage son far, even had they been able to. So many resources precious to them much closer to home.
All humans came from Africa, but this was long before Tutankhamen and the thousands of ancient egyptian years, and the phoenicians.
http://jstreet.org/blog/florida-house-senate-pass-troubling-resolutions-regarding-israel/
Florida House, Senate Pass Troubling Resolutions Regarding Israel
March 12, 2012 at 10:16 pm
J Street is concerned about nearly identical resolutions regarding Israel that were passed by the Florida House and Senate last week.
Those who voted for the resolutions thinking they were simply expressing straightforward support for Israel probably had little clue that the language they endorsed contains the seeds of Israel’s destruction as a democratic state and Jewish homeland. Keeping “the entirety of the land” under Israeli control and granting all those who live there democratic rights (“one law for all people”) is actually the agenda of those who seek a “one-state solution” – a binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, better thought of as the end of Israel as we know it.
With the demographic data clearly telling us that the number of non-Jews will exceed the number of Jews over time, the formula passed by the Florida legislature leads inexorably to the eradication of Israel as a democratic national home for the Jewish people.
These Florida resolutions are good examples of what it looks like to hug a friend so tightly that you unintentionally suffocate him.
We urge both chambers of the Florida Legislature to revoke these egregiously-misguided resolutions and to support the only route to Israel being both Jewish and democratic – a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
http://jstreet.org/blog/florida-house-senate-pass-troubling-resolutions-regarding-israel/
UK Conservatives pass “Fiscally Neutral” Budget giving tax cuts to millionaires
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEu5uFDlQvg&context=C4cf22e2ADvjVQa1PpcFPzEQVXUK23JLMVr5jqR-JhctteyyNzscM=
The neolibs must share an international dictionary of bullshit.
Birds of a feather flock together
Research finds that forgiving home loans will save money – the problem?
The Tea Partiers and other selfish pricks.
Too many US citizens don’t give a fuck about anyone else in their communities now. If they can’t clamber off in a lifeboat themselves, they’ll make sure no one else does either.