Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, October 23rd, 2012 - 61 comments
Categories: open mike -
Tags:
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.co.nz/
Taonga Giovanni Tiso’s latest blog – enjoy.
Thanks, js. Another consquence of the surveillance society. Young conservatives attempts to emmorialise themselves results in lasting images of sychophancy and dubious ambitions. Who amongst them will try to bury the images of themselves with ShonKey in years to come?
Now I know what is meant by a Roman Salute. Fascist-nating.
.
Arsehole/
More sloppy errors on RNZ oz section this morning in a piece on their trillion $ super funds.
Stated it was architected by PM Keating 20 years ago, err no it was Keating as finance minister Hawke was PM and it was 25 years ago in 87.
I noticed on Radionz news a foreign reporter covering the Italian convictions of scientists was saying that they had been charged with not preventing an earthquake. I thought surely this is put wrongly? But this report from The Washington Post details.
The defendants were accused of giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” about whether small tremors felt by L’Aquila residents in the weeks and months before the April 6, 2009, quake should have been grounds for a warning.
The 6.3-magnitude temblor killed 308 people in and around the medieval town and forced survivors to live in tent camps for months….
Prosecutors had sought convictions and four-year sentences during the trial. They argued that the L’Aquila disaster was tantamount to “monumental negligence,” and cited the devastation wrought in 2005 when levees failed to protect New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
It’s hard to believe that in an educated society, a trial was brought at all and then for the courts, where the highest intelligence should be found, to seriously demonstrate their embarrassing ignorance with this decision is unbelievable. It’s only a step away from blaming the scientists for witchcraft. Italy must be the laughing stock of the educated world.
They have been jailed
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/7849949/Scientists-jailed-over-quake-warning-failure
An Italian court has convicted six scientists and a government official of manslaughter and sentenced them to six years in prison for failing to give adequate warning of a deadly quake which destroyed the central city of L’Aquila and killed more than 300 people in 2009.
Ha, how ridiculous.
What would they do with Ken Ring mewonders? Give him a ferrari?
Grounds for a warning. Instead they gave reasssurance that everything was fine. So, no, not as bad as it seems.
I think that the date of 1992 is a fair one.
It was in that year, and with Paul Keating as Prime Minister, that the compulsory scheme was first introduced and every employee and employer had to contribute to such a scheme. (There were exceptions based on age and hours worked but it is reasonable to say it became compulsory then).
Prior to that there was no compulsory system and one’s super money was pretty readily available with no need to preserve it until retirement.
yeah my bad, it’d been around since 87 but Keating made it compulsory in 92 in lieu of unions forgoing a national wage rise so employers had to contribute.
What The Water Takes Away
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/deadly-2011-earthquake-linked-to-groundwater-extraction?
For those who still believe in the impartiality of the BBC. Apart from the Jimmy Savile disgrace,
there’s this report on how the BBC distorted and censored evidence to the contrary, and followed the UK government line on destroying the NHS.
Amazing how good the BBC still is, despite years of chronic underfunding. And great that its own internal mechanisms exposed their own failings in the Savile affair. The second report you link to is pretty weak evidence for ‘impartiality’, Karol, given that its just an opinion piece about a perceived weakness in the (online only) coverage of a hardly gripping debate about the NHS.
Despite all the attacks from the right, either via the privately owned media or via the method of deliberate financial straightjacketing by the last 30 years of UK government, the BBC remains the model for impartial and objective reporting. It’s remarkeable that it is still able to be best practice in the worst decade of media dumbing down the world has ever endured.
Is this what you call “just an opinion piece”, TRP?
An in my experience, BBC radio and TV have similar kinds of pro-government bias.
Yes, that’s an opinion piece, Karol, backed up by what the author indicates, in your quote, is understandably limited reseach. In order to prove that the BBC lacks impartiality, they’d have to find proof positive of partiality toward the other position, not merely a lack of BBC coverage of the NHS debate in a style the author approves of.
The BBC is huge, it employs thousands of reporters and researchers and the vast majority do amazing work in line with the BBC’s commitment to journalistic excellence. The occasional awful mistake, such as the Savile case, does not indicate impartiality. Bear in mind that most other British media don’t give a flying one about impartiality and, in fact, are proud of their partizan politics. It’s The Sun Wot Won It!, remember.
TRP, all research of media will have it’s limitations. But the amount of articles looked at, take this beyond and “opinion” piece. In your characterisation there’s very little, including a lot of peer reviewd articles, that would not be “opinion” pieces.
Total objectivity is never achievable – a mirage. And I prefer an author indicates the positions they are coming from. While UK newspapers all do that, the Beeb particularly aims for impartiality. And a lot of people accpet that it s. But, particularly in recent years it has become far more partisan, following the government line. And there is enough evidence in the linked report to show that.
You don’t have to look far through medialens archives to find references and articles on the fall of the BBC’s impartiality going back to the early days of the Iraq war. There is enough evidence on that site alone that should shake the confidence of anyone who thinks they are always impartial. Their part in the NHS situation is pretty well covered over there also.
TRP said:
Hey TRP, can you please give us your defence of the Catholic Church’s treatment and cover up of sexual abuse cases next.
You’re a bit slow replying, CV, I posted that this morning. You been out all day trying to find a job?
TRP
Can’t you just reply to questions without being offensive?
BBC director admits bad culture allowed Savile scandal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/oct/23/jimmy-savile-bbc-director-general-faces-mps-live
Dissapointed you found my reply to CV’s offensive comment offensive, prism. CV knows why it’s not, perhaps he’ll explain it for you.
TRP
You give yourself the right to be superior and sneering too often. I don’t need CV to explain anything to me. It’s perfectly obvious from reading your contributions or rather retributions to any person who doesn’t agree with you. I think you are a model LWNJ with a blinkered approach preventing true discussion but resulting in attacks on those who take you to task. Prove me wrong. Ignore this.
The Jimmy Savile case is an example of how sexual abuse by people who are “popular” is systemically covered up. 200 victims….all unavenged because he is now dead. At least they FINALLY get some acknowledgement and his name is dragged through public mud.
Rapist scum.
Such celebrity rape cases are indeed disturbing. But the Savile case would be par for the course in a country like NZ, where there is an appallingly low conviction rate for sexual crimes generally. As this 2009 article notes:
“Only 13 per cent of sexual violation cases reported to police end in a conviction, the first study of its kind in New Zealand has found…. [while] a separate survey in 2006 found that only 9 per cent of all sexual offences were reported to the police, making the conviction rate even lower.
If there was only a 13% conviction rate with any other category of serious criminal cases, there would a public outcry and commission of inquiry.
Finally.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/9623863/IMFs-epic-plan-to-conjure-away-debt-and-dethrone-bankers.html
it is all most “monomythical”; la la la la
.
WTF. Give the citizens ownership of their own money! Are you crazy?
And a more detailed report on it:
And this:
Yep, even the big guys are starting to realise that the present method is bunk and that we need a new system.
Quoting article:
Bollocks. There’d be an increase in efficiency as the cost of interest (est. at 50% of all costs) would pretty much disappear over night.
Done properly it would increase democracy and thus freedom.
Watch out for the introduction of a new global currency – IMF drawing rights, or a variation thereof. The powers that be are preparing for the possibility that their currently USD denominated wealth might not be worth very much in a few years time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights
Global currency won’t work as the Euro is presently proving.
Sure, but do you see any signs that a small problem like “not working” is stopping them from trying it on anyways? 😈
Yet, that is something my fellows and I were just discussing last night actually, and, I have been reading signs of it today (o.k; it was in the real world media) 🙂
.
First they came for . . .
Now that is Interesting; the thought of greater dissemination had crossed my mind ( maybe u read it)
however,
monastics have always played a role in the preservation of the written thought (The Name of The Rose) and nowadays I prefer that type of cell (gonna be a caravan actual-factual) ala Sister Wendy.
There sure have been some great comments on these threads over the labour weekend.
Bless You All
At the end of Bryan Gould’s piece today was a bit rather interesting to me :
So the superior Economist PM uses this reasoning? Really!!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10842195
ian, the tax (paye) we pay mostly services the foreign (unaudited) debt, so that sucking out Key refers, is in fact true.
Reads like a rare moment of honesty from key!
Interest costs made up $4.3B or 4.6% of total government expenses in the year to 30th June 2012. So the tax we pay does not “mostly service the foreign debt”.
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/financialstatements/yearend/jun12/017.htm
I’ve posted previously comments which prove your comment to be incorrect. Treasury don’t know, or don’t pretend to know squat, and are continually wrong in their forecasting, so the figures produced, are to be considered the same low quality!
Ill put it up again later!
International assets and liabilities New Zealand’s international assets ($m) New Zealand’s international liabilities ($m) New Zealand’s net international investment position ($m)
International equity 65,127 65,072 55
International debt 113,667 253,882 -140,215
Total assets/Total liabilities/Net IIP 178,794 – 318,954 -140,160
Source: Statistics New Zealand, Balance of Payments and International Investment Position: June 2011 quarter
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/ParlSupport/ResearchPapers/3/4/6/00PlibCIP121-New-Zealand-s-International-Investment-Position.htm
“New Zealand government official stats show $318 billion NZ originated private institution credit money. They then treat as assets and deduct what has been invested overseas and come up with what they call Net International Investment Position which appears much less alarming despite that money competting to find profit in an international financial system where the international debt is also unrepayable from the day its born.
Even if the foreign investments from NZ where able to be repatriated in quick time they would come back to only the wealthiest few who control them and not benefit wider society as implied. Just more smoke and mirrors;
$318 billion debt based money supply at annual interest rate of 7% equals $22 odd billion interest repayment that is essentially rent upon a revolving line of credit that circulates as our money supply.
Given most of that interest finds its way back to the same largest owners of larger international banks who own largest stake holdings in Australian banks who own NZ banks, it puts to shame the 1.3 billion they give back in tax and shout from the roof tops as being so beneficial to the prosperity of the nation”
The angle Key is coming from is that the government is, on average, ‘less efficient’ at spending money than private individuals are. For example, the government may give tax money to beneficiaries who don’t need it (eg, rich people scamming the system with trusts), or build white elephant motorways that aren’t needed. Obviously private individuals make bad decisions too, like buying McDonald’s for tea 5 days in a row, but on average, governments are supposed to spend money ‘less efficiently’ than private individuals.
Why there is a limited amount of money? – Because 97% enters the economy as debt controlled by banking cartel, so the more money that comes into the system, the more goes back out in interest payments, mostly to the same players.
Raising taxes which, will end up paying back ever higher amounts of interest (for more monetary supply), sucks money from the economy, and will not come back in by govt spending, because they borrow/tax to cover that spending, which means more/higher interest next year = higher taxes and/or less spending, or yet more borrowing, either way = more money sucked out the economy, one way or another!
The "sovereign" government can produce interest free money to build schools, hospitals etc and fund them, while tweaking the tax system to control inflation – NO need for foreign borrowing, and the taxes including any inefficient spending, can loop right back into NZ inc!
Key was being honest, as under the current borrowing (funding) methods, taxes suck money out!
Govt inefficiency should by your explanation, put more money into the economy, but currently thats not how it works!
Thanks for repeating meaningless neolib bullshit transplanted into NZ from the US elections.
Actually, what sucks money out of the economy is profit. Profit accumulates and, as it accumulates, it attracts interest which exponentially increases the rate of accumulation. The present method of off-setting that accumulation is by the private banks printing ever more debt based money which also bears interest. The natural result of this exponential accumulation is an economy that is frozen by debt and a society with ever increasing amounts of poverty.
Exactly as we seen in every recession throughout all recorded history.
This from yesterday’s Open Mike. Good questions. Can we expect answers?
” Are all police allowed to lie under oath in any hearing?
And are they allowed indemnity from investigation and prosecution if they are caught out?
Or is the power to lie under oath with indemnity only permitted for senior police in exceptional, or politically charged cases?
In a thinly veiled threat, the Police Association have backed Chief Inspector Grant Wormald, demanding that he must not be investigated for committing perjury in the Kim Dotcom hearing.
With this sort of open (and secret) support, it is little wonder that Chief Inspector Grant Wormald has now been proven to be no stranger to giving false testimony under oath in another hearing.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/7845990/Dotcom-raid-officer-headed-bike-gang-probe
It does appear RR that “they think” that the means is justified if it does good. But what a slippery slope that is! Perhaps CI Wormald will retire and therefore be beyond reach, but then will reappear in some well paid sinecure.
A well considered forensic question to the Minister of Police would seem to be overdue on this one.
Well it just proves what most people already know – in these sorts of circumstances (being in the target range of the police) you just cannot trust them. They will lie and cheat to get what they want.
What does under oath, actually mean in legal speak, that will assist in understanding selective consequence such as possible “purgery charges”
Whats a courtroom represent anyway, and why would being under oath, carry any more or less of a difference for someone to lie, than outside a court room….someone, anyone, as it should be pretty straight forward to explain, but its not is it!
Activist Russell Means has died.
Syria rebels pessimistic on ceasefire plan
Notice how the article title ensures that anyone who only reads headlines, or the first paragraph, gets the impression that the rebels are the “trusted entity”, because they get to cast the judgement, as they are “righteous”
Then a little further down you get the above, which tell the reader neither side are “easing off”
Yet more propaganda from Reuters, who are owned by AP – Never an explantion in the NZ press on who the rebels really are, even though, abroad in the UK, and even US media articles attempt to clarify some of the complexities..
No such effort in NZ though, keep em nice and dumb, eh bro!
Maybe Jenny can shed some light on all the different countries that the Syrian rebel fighters and assorted anti-Assad jihadists come from.
into Jordan and Lebanon now
Notice how the article title ensures that anyone who only reads headlines, or the first paragraph, gets the impression that the rebels are the “trusted entity”, because they get to cast the judgement, as they are “righteous”
Didn’t notice that at all. Didn’t get that impression either, frankly, it’s a fucking stretch muzz.
That is straight reporting. There was a proposed ceasefire. One of the parties to the conflict (the rebels) said they can’t see how it would work. That statement by the rebels casts doubt on the prospects for the ceasefire.
It sure as shit doesn’t give the rebels a righteous tinge, they are saying a ceasefire can fuck right off, that’s not normally the way you propagandise in favour of someone. And it’s just a falt out fact that the rebels get to cast judgement on the ceasefire. They are a party to the conflict, ffs. their judgement on it, stands. the media, you, the UN, nor anybody else gets to gainsay a party to a cinflict on whether or not they are going to keep fighting.
That passage is just straight reporting, every word of it justifiable. The piece is not a feature, which is why it doesn;t give you a whole bunch of background on who the players are. That is not what it is for. Reuters is a wire service, they report updates to ongoing stories for dailies.
And the theory is usually that they are owned by the Rothschilds, not AP. Is this AP idea new less jewy meme the shadow people have come up with, or is it just something your gut told you?
This looks like a worthwhile meeting to attend in the Auckland area:
Tonight 7pm – interesting line-up.
Headline of the Day: Whale makes human-like sounds.
Now, if only they could teach him to stop making shit up…
+5
To The powers that be,
a psalm ( cameron has proverbs, Now Thats Ironic ! )
“God presides in the great assembly;
he gives judgement among the “gods”:
How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
They know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I said, You are “gods”
you are all sons of the Most High.
But you will die like mere men;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
Rise up O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are your inheritance.
# 82
on a lighter note,
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But,
their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Cor 3: 12-
God Bless The Unions and their Members