Open mike 26/04/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 26th, 2016 - 23 comments
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23 comments on “Open mike 26/04/2016 ”

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  1. miravox 1
    26 April 2016 at 8:54 am

    Well, the Austrian presidential elections didn’t go too well. In all states except Vienna the vote was for the far right. There is a chance to block the Freedom Party candidate in the run-off on 22 May. The non-endorsed Green candidate, Alexander Van der Bellen, appears to be a personable man, and according to the polls should have won the first round by a couple of percent. The pollsters got that seriously wrong – he received 20 percent, while the Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer got 36 percent.

    Hofer is considered the ‘reasonable face’ of the far right Freedom Party. However, if symbolism sends messages here are a couple: He carries a gun to protect himself in these “uncertain times” of the refugee crisis and the wears the blue cornflower of pan-German nationalism. This symbol was also used in the 1930s when nazi symbols were banned.

    To defeat Hofer, all other parties must come together to support Van der Bellen, but his very strong stance on welcoming migrants will be difficult for parties like the OeVP (the equivalent of NZ’s National party) to support. It would be helpful if messages other than the migrant crisis got a look in, but that seems unlikely.

    Luckily the parliamentary elections are not until 2018 and this social upheaval may have settled down by then. But with the Freedom Party sitting on more than 30 percent in the polls, Hofer has ideas about forcing an early election. This would be unprecedented in the post-war era.

    Centrist politics cannot hold. It’s late in the day for other parties to stand for something and give people who are not comfortable with far right ideology a reason to vote. The clock is ticking.

    • swordfish 1.1
      26 April 2016 at 5:14 pm

      At least good old Red Vienna (still the Social Democrats’ strongest Urban base) bucked the trend and went for the Independent Green.

      Certainly the Freedom Party is riding the wave of discontent over the Refugee Crisis but probably exacerbated by the on-going Grand Coalition of SPO and Peoples Party that forces disgruntled Right-leaning, Centrist (and, indeed, more than a few former SPO) voters off to the Far Right as the only option available.

      • miravox 1.1.1
        27 April 2016 at 7:20 am

        Yeah. That’s a fair assessment.

        Although it is the OeVP and not the SPOe that has produced the foreign and immigration ministers so the anti-immigration rightists do have their voice in government on the issues of concern, so they’re not right-leaning, more being infected by the fear, I think. A lot of centre-right support went to Irmgard Griss (independent, but backed by the new-ish liberal NEOS party), and that unexpectedly cut the Van der Bellen vote.

        It doesn’t help that both main parties put up unappealing candidates.

        I think there are also more than a few SPOe voters in Vienna who are not happy with the pull to the centre-right in National politics and voted for the independent green. Some Vienna left voters understand MMP very well, as the state elections demonstrated with there vote to deny the FPOe seats in the state government.

  2. AsleepWhileWalking 2
    26 April 2016 at 9:16 am

    There go our oceans. According to The Corbett Report’s guest large parts of our oceans will be declared out of bounds as resources are scrounged out of them.

  3. adam 3
    26 April 2016 at 9:46 am

    This is just a bit scary.

    • ianmac 3.1
      26 April 2016 at 10:41 am

      Imagine a country with 3.5 million people having a debt of $70 million! No other small country could cope with that!

    • Sabine 3.2
      26 April 2016 at 10:45 am

      surely this would never happen here….so much debt and no way to pay it back.

    • Colonial Viper 3.3
      26 April 2016 at 10:49 am

      Puerto Rico doesn’t issue its own currency; it is not a currency sovereign. And it is not a big export economy. So it relies entirely on US debt to supply it with money. And so that’s what you get.

      TL/DR: P.R. is totally reliant on a debt based foreign money supply.

      • Draco T Bastard 3.3.1
        26 April 2016 at 1:10 pm

        Which is probably why they’re not allowed to declare bankruptcy.

        • Colonial Viper 3.3.1.1
          26 April 2016 at 1:24 pm

          Usually the US corporate vultures would swoop in to buy every oil and gas field and every bit of productive infrastructure in lieu of debt repayment. (i.e. the classic economic hitmen plan).

          Unfortunately P.R. hasn’t really got any of the above…

    • Murray Simmonds 3.4
      27 April 2016 at 9:51 am

      There, but for the grace of the left wing opposition, go us.

      Just substitute “Islands” for “Island” in the above.

  4. Draco T Bastard 4
    26 April 2016 at 10:02 am

    How do you know that the banks need an inquiry and better regulation? When those same banks say that such an inquiry would be bad for the economy:

    A ROYAL commission into banks would damage the economy, undermine confidence in the nation and potentially hit living standards, the boss of Australia’s biggest bank says.

    Wonder who’s living standards he’s concerned with.

  5. Draco T Bastard 5
    26 April 2016 at 1:17 pm

    Canada and New Zealand performed a form of QE for people

    NEF (2013) further suggests that the RBNZ also created credit to help finance a number of other public work projects. From 1936-1939, the RBNZ created roughly NZ £30 million (equivalent to around 5-7% of New Zealand’s GDP). According to NEF (2012) over this 4-year time frame, real GDP grew by 30%.

    Time to get rid of the private banks creating money that then just goes into propping up housing bubbles and get into some Real Monetary Reform. Make a monetary system that’s based upon reality rather than how much house prices can go up if the private banks just keep creating money to loan to buy houses.

  6. Reddelusion 6
    26 April 2016 at 2:58 pm

    Can labour declare a crisis over the Warriors, a quick fix is needed 😀

    • maui 6.1
      26 April 2016 at 5:42 pm

      They need National then if it its to be a quick fix. They’ll sell off their best players and still blow the salary cap and probably be thrown out of the competition before too long. Adding more reasons for National MPs to be booed off a league field.

  7. aerobubble 7
    26 April 2016 at 3:22 pm

    But you cant buy meat in hamilton, its all water, tasteless from oxygen and co2 gasing, or worse freezed thawed refrozen. Chicken, pork, beef, bacon, its old tasteless water junk.

  8. Penny Bright 8
    26 April 2016 at 4:45 pm

    In the battle for ‘freedom of expression’ regarding Auckland Transport’s 2013 Election Signage bylaw – there have been some developments….

    In what I consider to be another attack on ‘freedom of expression’ – I have been denied 5 minutes in ‘Public Forum’ at the upcoming Auckland Council Governing Body meeting (to be held on Thursday 28 April 2016) at the Auckland Town Hall.

    Here are the ‘reasons’ :

    “Your public input request to speak at the 28 April 2016 Governing Body meeting regarding the Auckland Transport Election Signs Bylaw 2013 has been declined for the following reasons:

    · The bylaw involved a hearings process and public input is not to be used to speak about a matter that has a separate public hearings or consultation process attached to it – SO 7.7.4 b)

    · The making of the bylaw is an Auckland Transport responsibility. Auckland Council has a formal delegation from Auckland Transport to enforce the bylaw and has to apply the bylaw as it is

    · It is not considered appropriate for a potential mayoral candidate to speak at a Governing Body meeting regarding electoral issues.

    Regards
    ….. | Democracy Advisor |
    Governance Support I Democracy ”

    How many ‘legal holes’ can YOU see in these ‘reasons’ to decline my speaking rights?

    The first one, in my view, is that NOBODY is yet a candidate for any position at Auckland Council.

    Nominations have not yet opened …..

    There are other reasons, but here’s an invitation folks, to add to the list?

    Upon what basis do YOU think that I have been (unlawfully) denied speaking rights?

    It is my intention to ask for the declining of my request for speaking rights to be reconsidered.

    (I’d like to send that email tomorrow 🙂

    Kind regards

    Penny Bright
    2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.

  9. stunnedmullet 9
    26 April 2016 at 5:06 pm

    “Upon what basis do YOU think that I have been denied speaking rights?”

    On the basis that everyone’s sick of hearing you ?

  10. whispering kate 10
    26 April 2016 at 9:02 pm

    Are others on this site experiencing extremely slow downloading of content. Taking an age to bring up comments, I am wondering if I need my computer swept for bugs. Bomber’s site is fine and getting other stuff up no problems either, it has been happening for a few days now. Weka said on one open blog that she was having the same problems.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.