Scumball Key has been up the Kapiti Coast yesterday selling the concept of asset sales to the oldies…..sad and desperate individual. Cannot express enough contempt for this parasite and anybody scuzzy enough to buy into his nasty world view.
Seems like fertile ground for such a campaign – asset sales generate revenue now and a lot of them won’t be around in 20-30 years time when the sale really starts to bite us in the ass.
My town is like a giant old folks home – it’s like the dawn of the living dead, hobbling around on sticks – all these people have lived a good life under the 1935 Labour Party egalitarian philosophy; they will not be affected by the ’67’ change, yet they are against the change. They will all vote NActCon.
Rest home villages are popping up like triffids all over the place, all the same colours – I want to scream “for goodness sake, paint a giant flower on the wall. Show me you have a life going on in there”.
Some of them, and these are the people I know, are full of life and would certainly want their grandchildren to have a lifestyle such as they once had – green, active, pollution-free – but those older people are too few in my town.
Youth is paying for the olds’ gobbling up of resources, cheap house ownership in many cases, the abundance of jobs and the backing of a decent welfare system.
Somewhere along the way, the olds got greedy; credit cards came along and so did the trillion dollar marketing propaganda. Now the olds blame the young for ‘wanting it all now’, but they taught that philosophy to the young by their own greedy and selfish actions.
Labour needs to get back in; it needs to increase the pension age. There is plenty of time to prepare and let’s face it; with at least a minimum wage of $15 everyone will be able to prepare, not just the few.
I particularly like the part where people who have worked in heavy manual jobs will get treated with respect with special dispensation given the heavy duty work they do. You cannot keep doing that sort of work.
I put the man (or woman) with the shovel on top of the heap and the CEO, sitting in the sterile office, acting like a god, ruining people’s lives with a stroke of a pen – like the smiling assassin, Key did moneytrading and still does with bad policy – at the bottom.
How we ever bought into the idea that somehow a person with the ruthlessness to reach CEO level was somehow better than the man with the shovel makes me feel bad. The CEO may have more skills, did the study, took on the responsibility, got more money – I understand all of that.
But, it does not make him or her BETTER than the man or woman with the shovel.
Jum That’s an impassioned comment from the heart and experience. I’m unhappy about people having to deal with WINZ as possibly unemployed, till they are 67. I haven’t been in for a while but I believe it can be really shitty.
I’ve been thinking about the large numbers of people in the older age group and the difficulties they have getting jobs, and that they are competing with younger people for them. It is hard to have reached a senior age and be treated as a dispensable worker of no value which in casual jobs is often the way for older people..
I have suggested that voluntary work in approved positions where the work adds to the community wellbeing as an acceptable alternative to paid work. It is not popular as an idea with old age pensioners who can’t get past the idea of entitlement as if all the tax they have paid over the years has gone into a superannuation savings chest. Not so, until the recent start by a Labour government of payments, but abandoned (for now) by NACT.
And lastly as more people live to older ages, the politicians still refuse to allow euthanasia so that people can make a choice of following a set of legal requirements so they can die when they feel they are ready to go. Alzheimers and other dementias are increasing and no thoughtful person would want their children to go through the increasing care needs and deterioration of the loved one until the brain is annihilated and only the body remains.
The cost of libraries, the cost of ring fencing gas or electricity supply.
The cost of RMA, or a oil cleanup vessel!
WE need cars to be louder damnit, ACT is doing the
businesss allowing refitting of existing older car
fleet vehcicles to allow for excessive noise vandalism
and noise graffii.
And why? because we don’t have a world standard tax system,
we have to have our profits quickly, a high return fast, that
pushes up the demand for borrowing and weights us down
with a risk premium and makes our country a magnet for
speculative currency excess.
So of course when I can’t even buy a burger from burger king
becuse the gas is out, i know Key has our back, he had nine years
in opposition to know how to fix th ecomony, and three years
to do it.
And all without a capital gains tax.
Are you completely blind, the mans a genius. I’m
willing to accept no burgers and the jokes about
Auckland party, power, or the next billion dollar loses.
As long as we keep key
how darn you criticize our shit pm and his shate
party.
I must have missed something when they announced the asset sales. I thought the sale was to pay down debt? Now he says it’s to buy more…what assets are they buying?
There are few depths to which this larcenous crew will not sink to in order to loot the countries assets for the benefit of their mates. There are no investment plans, the only “assets” they wish to buy are loyal votes and funding from the fat cats of this world.
The only reason I can see for Nats selling assets is to ensure they can keep paying for the tax cuts they bribed the electorate with last time. Scumballs.
Without a modern tax system companies and individuals will continue to
reap quick capital gain profits at the expense of economic resilience.
Now its the gas thats fallen over. Labour has accepted the need to
shift our tax system into a high gear, its not too costly, its too
costly if we don’t. Why? Because a company that has to
worry more about the bottomline, in line with comparable
companies abroad, will inevitable play a longer game.
What’s shocking is the world is in crisis economically
because it doesn’t play the long game, and in NZ we play
and even shorter game!!! Carried by farming and farmers.
Bored – “This larcenous crew”.. of NACTS buying “loyal votes and funding” – I don’t know if they even have to do that to draw in loyal supporters. I think there is a snob value that makes some people cling to National no matter what they do. It’s like the Anglicans had their High Church services and the Cathedrals which you would attend if you felt you were rising socially and financially, and Low Church which was for the others. NACT and Labour get similar sentiments I think.
But this is is a generalised statement about the emotional response to NZ political parties! I don’t mean that everybody who votes Labour is a wharfie, and my impression is that the blue collar workers seem to have been replaced by lawyers. I think that those who vote National are often following an upwardly-moving social concept and don’t want to ally themselves with Labour people who they consider as lesser ‘workers’.
The new Waikato expressway avoids the river gorge and goes over the hills through a
valley north to Auckland.
I can’t help think that once oil price double again the road will be a
desert as drivers opt to take the flat route on the old gorge line and send
freight by rail.
We do need the upgrade but its like the referendum, why would anyone
who fought for MMP vote it out and let National decide the committee
overseaing the alternative.
Here’s a thoughtful analysis of the movement itself, rather than of the surrounding political environment that it seeks to offer a counter weight to, that might interest you.
Thanks Bill. Great article and ideas for moving forward.
My reading in the last few days suggests this I beginning to appear in the New York franchise, with people realizing they can participate in the movement without physically being at Zucotti Park.
The Occupy London Times launched today http://theoccupiedtimes.com/ and the Occupy Wall St Journal and twitter and YouTube are showing the beginning of a successful occupation of the Media.
For me, the notion of ‘occupy’ is really about occupying the space within which power concentrates. You don’t achieve that by putting in place a vehicle for the concentration of power.
Having a new, embedded form of interaction between people should be the aim. I say ‘new’, but actually it’s the oldest form of interaction on record.
Despite appearances to the contrary over the past 10,000 years, sustainable hierarchy isn’t in our blood. We are not a hierarchical social species – hence the millenia of bitter conflict and oppression.
The signs have been there from the start but International Socialists seem to be pushing themselves forward more in Occupy Dunedin as internal debate continues over where the “protest” should go from here.
Is this the real problem?
Serious questions should be asked about whether Occupy around the country is just a front for ISO.
What’s really funny about all you in auto-diss mode, the changes I’m proposing in Dunedin North (and have been for months) are very similar to changes to democracy that a number of ex-Occupiers want to see.
you’ve outed yourself as a lowrider for deliberately doing what you falsely accused your political opponents of doing. We need less of your type in parliament and politics.
pete, I thought they were commies – is this your campaign – reds under the bed? so yesterday pete, so last century. I think your pre-emptive attack on your political opponents is low and using Occupy as a weapon to further your personal ambitions, even lower.
So someone or something other than you is considering “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals”?
If you’re not the one considering it, is the considerer Peter Dunne? His hairdo?
you can slide and slither all you like – your tongue is forked.
This is what I said “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals.” Notice the you’s and yours. So some exOccupiers are using YOUR ideas (that you have been wedded to for years) and although you are in discussion with them it is nothing to do with YOU. Pathetic!
I think I’ve read and seen of Pete George and his whiney clinging to the coat tails of the no-percent party to see why Pete George is your classic United Future man.
The Occupy movement in Dunedin has done us all a favour, by exposing this letters-to-the-editor busy body as a charlatan, just like to coiffured has-been that is his inspiration. With his attitude to the Occupiers, we’ve seen his surface of faux-reasonableness is simply the charade of a faker and deceiver. On the first issue that he can be measured on, Pete George is exposed as little more than a narrow minded small town authoritarian, Dunedin’s own pensioner Colonel Blimp.
Here is a bit of advice Pete George: Give up politics. Walmington-on-Sea has a platoon whose requirements closely match your age and talents. I suggest you head there ASAP.
What is the difference between Occupy being potentially co-opted by a parliamentary party or by non-parliamentary groupings from the same ‘representative’ tradition?
Both scenarios introduce secondary agendas which eventually come to dominate proceedings. Both introduce a power imbalance to any meaningful democratic process leading to a disempowerment of the individual citizens involved. Both eventually create and a false or misleading impression of any professed movement.
Pete may be hypocritical. But he does make a valid point nonetheless.
A movement that allows the greater influence of organisations to play a part in its determinations is no movement at all, but rather a coalition with disempowered on-lookers. Or to put it another way. Movements are democratic and individually empowering. Coalitions aren’t.
There was a post concerning all this, written before the Occupations happened.
I don’t know Pete outside this blog, but I too feel the local franchise of #Occupy is currently not as inspiring as it is in the US and the UK and Spain. What is so successful there, the representation so broad and the decision making so horizontal, neither political parties of established movements can successfully co-opt it.
Until the youth in NZ, outside the established organizations and traditional activists start to participate, I’d much rather focus on the progress being made abroad.
Freedom means being able to think critically and act courageously, even when confronted with the limits of one’s knowledge. Without such thinking, critical debate and dialogue degenerates into slogans, while politics, disassociated from the search for justice, becomes a power grab, or simply hackneyed.
And. This very process (of silencing critical thinking) and of disabling the ability to act are present within some Occupy’s.
Organisations imposing or introducing programmes and/or agendas achieves an over all dumbing down or narrowing of dialogue and the marginalisation and eventual disengagement of any non-conformist points of view or people.
And even where organisations are absent, action is stymied through the stultifying application of consensus to every matter or issue. Democracy does not imply, as many in Occupy seem to believe, that every decision must be the subject of consensus.
This very process (of silencing critical thinking)
I thought you were talking about here for a minute. Apart from you Bill all everyone else has tried running inteference.
Regarding Occupy Dunedin I have had the freedom to voice my opinion outside the occupation and also a number of times on site, but I have done nothing to limit anyone else’s freedom to express their views.
I can’t say the same of the attack squads in action here who seem to be intent on smothering alternate views with personal attacks and either lies or deliberate misinformation,.
I was told from the start onsite that there was to be no party politics but individual opinions were welcome. I haven’t promoted party politics at all onsite.
I know Green Party members who were involved who chose not to display party material onsite becasue they thought it was against the spirit of Occupy. They weren’t happy about other obvious influences.
All you have to do is follow the several related FB pages to see the divisions and disagreements due to the influence of factions. As has already been posted here that lead to threats of assault on Tuesday.
But carry on the personal attacks if that’s all you can come up with.
A two week old baby has been found alive in the rubble of Turkey’s earthquake FOUR DAYS after the shake.
Recall rescuers at the Christchurch earthquake found nobody alive from one day after the shake. It was questioned at the time. It seemed odd that no further survivors had been found alive after such a short time.
This fact raised one huge question about the competency of Chch’s rescuers and whether the rescue system meant that survivors died subsequently from factors not directly due to the quake. i.e. the rescue was poorly executed resulting in unnecessary deaths post-shake.
This question remains well alive in the minds of many in Christchurch and it is yet to be answered.
Um, a lot more people were trapped (and killed) by Turkey’s quake than Chch. Simple statistics means there are going to be more people to rescue.
Mortality when trapped in rubble drops off fairly quickly so only 2/100 people might survive 4 days and be found, if you’ve got 1,000 people buried as opposed to 200, that’s 20 people that have the potential to be rescued after 4 days instead of just 4.
What’s better – 200 people being trapped and no one being rescued after day 3, or 1000 people being trapped?
I realise the statistical implications. But my points still stand. The Turkey quake simply highlights this issue once again, and as said, the issue has not been fully answered yet although I understand it is the next part of the inquiry.
Its time we threw Tomorrow’s Schools out, and returned to a more centralised education system, because the system as it stands seems to be principals are out of control loose cannons, and parents arent really having much say about these things. especially in having to buy a very expensive device or risk their child falling behind futher and further.
Yep, Tomorrow’s Schools philosophy has lived up to predictions. Schools run as businesses. Oddly enough, in high decile schools the boards actually have immense power whereas in lower decile schools equally savvy teachers and pressure groups know how to work them as well.
The disastrous government laissez-faire attitude to the development of IT in schools is manifested by the storerooms full of well-intentioned BOT purchases now sitting idle gathering dust. (A member of the BOT might have connections with a city business that is upgrading their systems and get a “super-generous” offer of getting the redundant PC’s for the school. Yep, that’s it, let the kids cut their teeth on yesterday’s low performance hardware.) You could argue that billions have been wasted by schools floundering to introduce IT into their curriculum.
And then there is the issue of “readers.” The publishers must have rubbed their hands with glee when they knew that they were getting an open door to the budget holders for books in schools.
Are you over 30? Know how to use an iPod? An iPad? Windows 7? An Android smartphone?
Tell me, how did the computers you were working with at school 20-25 years ago possibly prepare you to use any of those catastrophically advanced pieces of equipment?
You see, it just doesn’t matter whether the PC a school pupil is using today is brand new and state of the art or 5 years old and used. Both of them will still be pieces of junk 25 years down the track.
Agreed, but you do need some form of direction from a more central source rather than ad hoc development within schools … massive duplication of policies, everyone reinventing the wheel, and no real standard.
I always remember with great fondness the full height one gigabyte SCSI hard drive I brought for my 486 50MHz home computer in ? 1991 ? It served well for until about 1995. After it failed (to the great comfort of my ears that had grown sensitive to the whine), it then spent another 5 years as a door stop that had origionally cost a few thousand dollars. There was so much weight in the damn thing that no door held open by it could do anything except what the slab of metal told it to do.
The Kiwi tradition of listening to the cricket over the summer has the first nail hammered into its coffin. While this may not bother people here, I belive that it is one of the conseqences of privatisation, and how the standard of media has declined over the past 20 years or so. I presume we will have Murray Deaker drone on and on instead.
The only think more boring than watching cricket is listening to long turgid hours of people blathering about nothing much through its many hours of dead time.
It was always rather relaxing to play cricket because of all of that dead time. Nice idle way to expend weekend time (in those faroff days when I had very little to do)……
My 81 year old mother has become a sport junkie since my father died in 2002 and she’s been living on her own.
She has an old transistor radio that she carries everywhere with her around the house and garden of her ownership flat, usually tuned to newstalk in the morning and radio sport at other times.
She often has cricket matches on the radio when I visit during the summer. She’ll be upset by this news.
According to Moody’s senior credit officer,the Treasury’s pre-election economic and fiscal update on Tuesday was largely in line with expectations. “The future path of government deficits and debt is overall not too different from earlier projections. As a result, this document does not change our thinking about New Zealand’s rating…
Now there’s a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the doom-sayers.
[lprent: You don’t think that it is significant that they felt an announcement was required? I think that Anthony was spot on looking at the risk.
However, I think that bringing up something about an author in a comment that is unrelated to either the comment or the post or the discussion falls under the general category of stalking and intimidation of one of my authors. Bad bad bad idea.
And I’m already annoyed with reading your later trolling..
You just lost your right to comment here after the election. Banned until 27th Nov ]
The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control.
Nice post Joe. What really gets stuck in my craw when listening to the media and politicians we have is that the moment you oppose their stance you become painted as taking a “radical and marginal” viewpoint.
Therefore if you oppose financial corruption you become an extreme leftist, if you oppose the corporatisation of democracy you are branded as anti capitalist. Which is why I despise National (and to a lesser extent Labour), they have become subsumed by corporate interests, they are in the pay of the money men as are the media. Their complicity condemns them, and I cannot see any way to reform this than a collapse of the economic status quo. Roosevelt famously referred to this scenario as being fascist. That is the true velvet glove nature of our corporatist state.
I am blocked from several Nat MP’s pages for merely asking their opinion on certain things – e.g. How much of the $38 billion you have borrowed from overseas is for tax cuts? and “Is it really true that John key was in Hamilton putting up billboards when he could have been in Tauranga liaising about the Rena?”
They really don’t like criticism, removed quick as a flash; they probably have Farrar sitting in a cave doing that.
Labour is going to put up the age of retirement albeit gradually. Totally responsible but a big call politically. It will show that Key is being totally irresponsible in gutting the Cullen Fund and Kiwisaver AND refusing to put the age up.
There is no age of retirement. This is about the age you get National Super.
I agree that Key is irresponsible ignoring the issue, I criticised his stand for that in a public meeting in Port Chalmers last night.
But I don’t think Labour have got it right either, unless there are variations in the detail. Simply pushing up the age disadvantages manual workers, it disadvantages ethnic groups (eg Maori) with lower life expectancies, and it disadvantages people with lefe xpectanncy shortening medical conditions like diabeties.
Geez Petey stop being pedantic. “Age of retirement” is shorthand for “age that National Superannuation starts and you can retire if you want”. Use the latter phrase if you want but it looks sort of retentive.
Pete this is one of your trolling habits. Respond to a significant event by deflecting. Do it again and I will follow you around for the rest of the day and call you a troll.
You two seem to follow each other around already mr savage. Like a couple of people wandering around in their own world bickering away at each other oblivious to everything around them…
The question HS is why would you support raising (or dropping) the age? I get the feeling that nobody here is actually thinking, observing and most importantly projecting. In the near future there will be less work, and more real need.
Here is an alternative: younger people need the income to raise families, build an asset base etc far more than empty nesters should. Younger people generally have more energy for the harder tasks. Maybe we have the wrong people doing the work at different ends of their lives. As a 50 something I have no mortgage, some independent means, and if the income got cut in five who cares? In a sane world I would be pensioned off on the condition I did some needed work that attracted no margin like grandchild care, looking after the real oldies, etc.
I’m not expecting there to be a pension by the time I get there.
But for those who will be affected, I hope provision has been made for full early super for those whose bodies have been munted before retirement age. Lot of people could do with that right now.
For those who cannot work for an extra two years, Labour would create a superannuation transition payment which would be the same rate as normal superannuation.
But there’s no details there about how this would be decided.
Excellent, expose the charlatan Key for what he is – a cheap and nasty populist.
Anyway, raising the age needs to happen (as does means-testing) and I would suggest that most people will see it as ok. Many more people today expect to work a little longer and, further, many of the younger ilk don’t expect that super will be around at all when their time comes. Even some of those on the verge of super will no doubt support it – unless they are greedy buggers of course.
Just like the capital gains tax – solid policy that works to NZ’s longer term benefit.
Labour, though less often a party I support, has traditionally done the big things in NZ. Good to see it continues to lead to way forward for NZ.
Can anybody name something significant that National has done? Something on a par with the creation of the welfare system, nuclear-free, super, etc? Conservative is as conservative does I suppose …..
edit: I imagine also that many older superannuitants who already receive the super will support it too because it doesn’t affect them. It will affect only a minor few.
The meme that retirement is going to cost us too much is part of TINA, which has been repeated so often that even the left now believe it.
Already commented here. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.com/2011/06/on-retirement-pensions-and-age-of.html
“In fact super has been so effective in removing poverty amongst the elderly it should be extended to everyone in the form of a guaranteed minimum income. There is no excuse for having people with inadequate food and housing in a country which is capable of supplying an excess of both internally”.
The idea that we cannot feed and house our elderly in a country that is capable of feeding and housing many times the current population is bullshit.
It does need to be means or work tested. No reason to pay it to someone who is still working and earning $1000/day.
Even since Muldoons election bribes to superannuates i’ve worked on the assumption that there will be no super when I retire, so it will not affect me much.
Not very fair on manual workers whose knees are stuffed by 60, Maori and others who do not live long into retirement now.
A gradual rise will impact most on Gen x and y, not us boomers, so savings will be little.
It is alright for paper shufflers to talk about working until 75. For the rest of us we will often be incapable of working in our jobs well before.
A courageous policy would be extending super to everyone in the form of a GMFI.
Affordability in future depends on how much we invest in a sustainable future economy. Not how much is invested in dodgy offshore markets.
The biggest problem with seeing money as the economy is that you lose sight of the real economy and the true resources that a nation has available to it especially after those resources have been privatised and used to only benefit the few as happens in capitalism.
Maori and others who do not live long into retirement now.
My parents (English and NZ-Scots) were two of those. My father died at 54 and my mother at 62, my brother at 42… I am already older than I ever expected to be. I have been unemployed for the past 2.5 years (and working for the past 4 weeks to my surprised delight) but if the work ends soon, as it’s supposed to, the NS is my only chance of an income higher than UB. Will I make it? 😀
7 years to go, and I feel as if I am sodding 91 like Betty Driver who just croaked…
I’ll pop this comment here too from the other thread greg so you don’t miss it 🙂
What are your views on the inequality facing tangata whenua whilst saving (or trying to) for retirement, and after retirement. Should any political party address this inequality, which is increased when the retirement age is increased because of reduced life expectancy for tangata whenua. How does this fit with the promises in the treaty, or with any political party attempting to govern.
I know you are concerned about the boomer bulge greg but what about the inequality.
mr marty, would that policy also extend to other groups with lower life expectancy such as males? It would be quite nice to pick up the super 6-7 years before others…
The issue is an entirely reasonable one and worthy of examination. Whether it is politically acceptable in our current landscape though I doubt very much. And I imagine that the practicalities and detail would be horrific – everyone would jump up and down who has a lower life expectancy and want it. Because of course it would need to be applied equally and have an absence of any race component, in accordance with good non-racist practice.
Better would be Gareth Morgan’s proposal for a universal living allowance applied throughout a person’s lifetime. Then all of these anomolies would disappear and everyone would be guaranteed of at least some kind of basic living allowance.
p.s. – your mention of indigineouity implies that you still think they should have a special place apart from the rest …. ? Not that we need to rehash that again eh.
I am not sure what you mean about the ‘race’ component – you did get that i’m JUST talking about tangata whenua. The cost, setting up, admin etc are all red herrings that simply distract from the realities of fronting up to the disgrace and shame of the inequality faced by the indigenous people of this country. I’ll say it again so we have no misunderstandings vto – EQUALITY – at the moment we do not have that.
“First, it tries to solve a problem that is not there, and second, if it was there, the solution would not be two decades of timidity,” Mr Dunne said.
“We have the same old parties having the same old debate between 65 and 67, but if you make KiwiSaver compulsory, there will simply be no 65 or 67 issue.
“Make KiwiSaver compulsory and you have a sustainable situation where you can then give New Zealanders full choice on when and how they retire with UnitedFuture’s Flexi-Super policy.
“Flex-Super would then allow people to take their superannuation at a reduced rate from 60, or at an enhanced rate each year they delay taking it up until 70, if they so choose,” Mr Dunne said.
He said that at a time when Labour should be providing innovative alternatives for New Zealanders to consider, they were delivering “doctrinaire, uninspired and ill thought-out dross”.
Pete George. Explain the mechanics of Dunne’s policy. How do you determine the NPV of a person’s entire pension so you know how to spread it out over varying time periods?
Janet Frame was not a recluse, revisionism bollocks.
People who are sensitive make more mistakes and
so withdraw, so invariably some happen to be great
writers and thinkers. Frame was exposed to mad
people and would have spent even more time
absorbing them.
So Janet frame could not have been the writer she
was, the person she was, without being reclusive.
So why this revisionism, reclusive people are still
social animals, they just withdraw, take flight more
easily.
I guess it depends who does the revising and the mood of the buying/reading public and which personality trait is socially ascendent: extroversion or introversion. In a world of big business pop culture, introversion doesn’t sell all that well, but behind every good movie or literary masterpiece, there is a “reclusive” writer doing the chops. At least Janet Frame found a mode of communicating with the world. Many don’t.
Send for Mike Williams – he is neede to go to Melbourne.
And stop those bickering over the Mt Roskill nomination and get back to winning the election now.
[lprent: Again, can’t see how this has anything to do with the post – moved to OpenMike. And if I see another one out of context, then you’re getting the chop for trolling until after the election. ]
hey lprent.
giving the trolls some shit huh!
you need help then call randal for pointless but satisfying abuse.
[lprent: Thanks for your (ummm) generous offer. But I’m steadily increasing my trophy room with scalps, ears and other anatomical specimens. So I won’t be requiring extra help as I cull the sick and the lame out of the herd.
However pointed but satisfying abuse may be indulged in. ]
Who do you call (for pointless and satisfying abuse)? Politicobuster! Pollybuster? When words fail us on some incredible event can any of us call on you randal?
Hmm I see Labour has made Kiwisaver compulsory and plans to increase employer contributions up to 7% eventually. Its a good policy for Labour actually along with raising the retirement age (something National would never be able to even if Key hadn’t promised not to do it).
It makes no sense whatsoever though to increase employer contributions without increasing employee contributions.
In Australia, it’s a flat 9% employer contributions, and employee contributions are completely optional.
Probably in Australia you would find cases where the employer increases their contribution if the employee does also, and that would be part of the salary and benefits package that the employer offers to their employees.
What I want to know, is if Labour will roll back the employer contribution tax that National are putting in next year.
As it stands, I’m on 2%/2%, and when they start taxing employer contributions I’m effectively going to go to 2%/1.34%. Then when they bring the minimum up to 3%/3% I’m effectively going to be on 3%/2%. So next year I’ll get less than I got this year (not even counting the reduced government contributions), and the year after I’ll pay more and only return back to the amount I currently get from my employer.
I would’ve thought they aren’t intending to roll it back. Purely based on the fact that if they were it would’ve been included in the policy today. Could be wrong though.
I just heard Blenglish being interviewed by Mary Wilson. He made the point when discussing the gas pipeline failure that if it was government owned then steps could be taken to monitor it but because its privately owned that’s difficult. And for Vector to put another pipeline in would mean that the price of gas might go up beyond customers’ willingness or capacity to pay.
Arent’t these the points that the thinking left (as opposed to the Roger Douglas/Treasury cohort of the past) have always made and which have been ignored or derided?
In December 1986, all of the 10 largest companies had private sector origins, and most were named after their creators.
Top 10 company founders included Ron Brierley, James Fletcher, James Wattie, Bob Jones and Frank Renouf. Chase and Equiticorp were also dominated by individuals, Colin Reynolds and Allan Hawkins respectively.
Thirteen years later only Carter Holt Harvey and Brierley Investments remained in the top 10, and Brierley’s value is down from $5481 million to $1097 million.
At the end of 1999, three of the top 10 companies – Telecom, Contact Energy and Auckland International Airport – had public sector origins.
The latest top 10 list, based on Wednesday’s closing prices, includes six former publicly-owned companies; Telecom, Contact Energy, Auckland International Airport, Vector, Port of Tauranga and Air New Zealand….
These top 10 sharemarket value figures show that New Zealand businessmen and women have lost the ability to create great companies and the domestic sharemarket is now heavily reliant on former publicly owned organisations.
A study released Tuesday by the [United States of America] Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the richest 1 percent of US households nearly tripled their income between 1979 and 2007 and doubled their share of the national income.
The report also concludes that the top 20 percent of US households increased its share of national income while every other quintile saw its share decline. The top 20 percent received 53 percent of income in 2007—that is, its income surpassed the income of the other 80 percent of Americans.
…
The massive growth of social inequality over the past three decades has been the result of an unrelenting ruling class offensive against the working class.
The mentally challenged commenters were out in force on Stuff today, going off their nut about Labour’s Superann policy (brave, sensible move but foolhardy methinks) and spaffing themselves over the return of the vile bigot Paul Henry to television. Someone get me the f*ck off this ship of fools/bogans. Oh and TV3, you’re banned from my telly. Most of it is crap anyway so no big loss, but Campbell is better than teh Walrus.
Raising the age to 67 is basic sensible, scientific economics, work is good. Here’s another basic of work is good, and a fundamental of future society building, no fucking unemployment, no work ghetto, no bastards and bastards sons to be constantly demonised and whipped. Every wants to spend, (their 80 years here) in N.Z in health and growth.
Sort the country out, it’s 2011 and New Zealand’s ( little islands in the deep ocean) only sustainable future is to be the Glowing light of the area, the holland of the south pacific , the jewel of the oceans, which it is, the last islands (b)reached by man .
Also I would like to point out that I have always considered scientific economics an oxymoron (by always this is actually the first time that I have ever seen it before, but still…).
“John – Your comment hangs together like those odd Google references that have a dictionary of words that will strike a match in any search heading.”
I’m a marketer of ideas, good ideas, not illogical ideas, not bank driven ideas, banking is the industry any sane prime minister would reform quickly, what an unproductive fuckfest that is.
I thought marketers liked short sentences of 12 words or less? Try using full stops as you paddle along the stream of consciousness.
You went from “idea marketing” to “fuckfest” in one sentence, and not in a “please give me a loan so I can start a swingers club/sauna”.
AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
Doesn’t have to be capitalist employment. Beautifying public schools, conservation work, caring for the elderly and the infirm, creating a new work of art for the town centre.
People need to have a role in and a contribution to their communities.
No it doesn’t but that’s what Labour means. I’m with Puddleglum, employment should be seen as the problem.
People need to have a role in and a contribution to their communities.
Yep, but it shouldn’t be forced through a threat of poverty as we have in this psychopathic capitalist system (Especially what we have under a NAct government).
Yes, that was the employment I was signifying with the scare quotes.
The employee-employer relationship lowers a sense of autonomy and self-respect. You are, in effect, selling part of your life to someone else so that it can be used to attain their ends rather than your own (or your community’s).
That shouldn’t be surprising since the greatest stress for a social animal that depends for its emotional wellbeing primarily on the worth accorded to it by others, is to be explicitly marked as being of little value.
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University How do scabs form? — Talila, aged 8 Great question, Talila! Our skin has many different jobs. One is to act as a barrier, protecting us from harmful things in the ...
US President Donald Trump is pardoning former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is accused of fraud in a case involving funds for the border wall. ...
Joel Little with Lorde, Dera Meelan with Church & AP, Josh Fountain with Maala and Randa and Benee – producers make good songs great. Now a new fund from NZ on Air is putting the focus on them.Six months ago it looked like the music industry was on the brink ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denise Buiten, Senior Lecturer in Social Justice and Sociology, University of Notre Dame Australia On average, one child is killed by a parent almost every fortnight in Australia. Last week, three children — Claire, 7, Anna, 5, and Matthew, 3 — were ...
This commendable and realistic decision again underlines that it is the police, not government, who are largely responsible for the reduction in cannabis prosecutions over the past 15 years, writes Russell Brown.The news that New Zealand police have discontinued the annual Helicopter Recovery Operation, which has, each summer for more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington We will not be able to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us until the world’s population is mostly immune through vaccination ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s US inauguration live blog: inauguration news, analysis and reaction, updated throughout Wednesday and Thursday, NZ time. Reach me at catherine@thespinoff.co.nz.4.00pm: What will Trump be doing tomorrow?It’s pretty well known by now that outgoing president Donald Trump intends to throw out the rulebook when it comes to ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is calling out Mayor Phil Goff for his undignified comment that the claim made by Councillor Greg Sayers asking why Auckland Council is funding yoga classes is “bullshit.” Yesterday, Councillor Greg Sayers penned ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At 4am Thursday AEDT, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as president and vice president of the United States, replacing Donald Trump and Mike Pence. What follows is ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission. New Zealanders flocked to beaches and lakes this summer, but it wasn't enough to fill the gap left by international tourists in other regions. The tourism industry is struggling to fill a $6 billion hole left by international tourists ...
Summer reissue: Chef Monique Fiso joins us for a chat about Hiakai – her acclaimed Wellington restaurant, and the title of her stunning new book.First published November 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn ...
A new trough was brought to our attention this morning, although ethnicity will limit the numbers of eligible applicants. If you are non-Maori, it looks like you shouldn’t bother getting into the queue – but who knows?We learned of the trough from the Scoop website, where the Kapiti ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Britta Denise Hardesty, Principal Research Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, CSIRO Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing costs economies up to US$50 billion globally each year, and makes up to one-fifth of the global catch. It’s a huge problem not only for the ...
Police stopping major cannabis eradication operations has given the green light to drug dealers and gangs to expand operations, make more profit, and continue to wreak havoc on the most vulnerable in our society, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. ...
Varieties of merino wool footwear are emerging faster than Netflix series about British aristocracy. Michael Andrew takes a look at the rise of the shoe that almost everyone – including his 95-year-old grandma – is wearing.Some might say it all started with Allbirds. After all, to the average consumer, it ...
A new report from New Zealand’s Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) highlights the realities and challenges disabled people faced during the COVID-19 emergency. The report, Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic, Te Whakatinana i ngā Tika ...
The Maritime Union is questioning the reasons provided for ongoing delays at the Ports of Auckland. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Craig Harrison says there is a need for an honest conversation about what has gone wrong at the ...
As New Zealand faces a dire shortage of veterinarians, a petition has been launched urging the Government to reclassify veterinarians as critical workers so we can Get Vets into NZ. “New Zealand desperately needs veterinarians from overseas to counter ...
New Zealand is fast developing a reputation as a South Pacific vandal, says Greenpeace, as the government continues to fight against increased ocean protection. At the upcoming meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and Netsafe are urging parents and caregivers to be mindful of the online content their tamariki may be consuming in the lead up to the inauguration of president-elect of the United States of America Joe Biden ...
Care is at the centre of Auckland Zoo’s mandate, and it’s clear to see when you witness the staff doing their day-to-day jobs up close. Leonie Hayden went behind the scenes to talk to two people who would do anything for the animals they look after. “We were having this ...
The Game Animal Council (GAC) is applying its expertise in the use of firearms for hunting to work alongside Police, other agencies and stakeholder groups to improve the compliance provisions for hunters and other firearms users. The GAC has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Verica Rupar, Professor, Auckland University of Technology “The lie outlasts the liar,” writes historian Timothy Snyder, referring to outgoing president Donald Trump and his contribution to the “post-truth” era in the US. Indeed, the mass rejection of reason that erupted in a ...
The internet ain’t what it used to be, thanks to privacy issues, data leaks, censorship and hate speech. But a group of New Zealanders are working on a way to give power back to the people. A flood of headlines over the last week made it clear: the internet has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW’s Grand Challenges Program, UNSW The views of women and men can differ on important gendered issues such as abortion, gender equity and government spending priorities. Surprisingly, however, average differences in sex ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer S. Hunt, Lecturer in National Security, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle In Australia and around the world, research is showing changes in body weight, cooking, eating and drinking patterns associated with COVID lockdowns. Some changes have been positive, such as people cooking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hao Tan, Associate professor, University of Newcastle Australian coal exports to China plummeted last year. While this is due in part to recent trade tensions between Australia and China, our research suggests coal plant closures are a bigger threat to Australia’s export ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Head, Skin Health, Telethon Kids Institute A year ago, in late January 2020, Australia reported its first cases of COVID-19. Since then, we have seen almost 29,000 confirmed cases and 909 deaths. As cases climbed in Australian cities in 2020, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Emeritus Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne Political pressure forced the federal government in 2017 – when Scott Morrison was treasurer – to call the royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services sector. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle The Rise and Fall of Saint George is a story about place, belonging and community that taps into universal tensions of identity and faith in multicultural societies. Playing for ...
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Scumball Key has been up the Kapiti Coast yesterday selling the concept of asset sales to the oldies…..sad and desperate individual. Cannot express enough contempt for this parasite and anybody scuzzy enough to buy into his nasty world view.
Seems like fertile ground for such a campaign – asset sales generate revenue now and a lot of them won’t be around in 20-30 years time when the sale really starts to bite us in the ass.
Granny and gramps selling their grandkids down the river of serfdom.
Charming.
Colonial Viper,
My town is like a giant old folks home – it’s like the dawn of the living dead, hobbling around on sticks – all these people have lived a good life under the 1935 Labour Party egalitarian philosophy; they will not be affected by the ’67’ change, yet they are against the change. They will all vote NActCon.
Rest home villages are popping up like triffids all over the place, all the same colours – I want to scream “for goodness sake, paint a giant flower on the wall. Show me you have a life going on in there”.
Some of them, and these are the people I know, are full of life and would certainly want their grandchildren to have a lifestyle such as they once had – green, active, pollution-free – but those older people are too few in my town.
Youth is paying for the olds’ gobbling up of resources, cheap house ownership in many cases, the abundance of jobs and the backing of a decent welfare system.
Somewhere along the way, the olds got greedy; credit cards came along and so did the trillion dollar marketing propaganda. Now the olds blame the young for ‘wanting it all now’, but they taught that philosophy to the young by their own greedy and selfish actions.
Labour needs to get back in; it needs to increase the pension age. There is plenty of time to prepare and let’s face it; with at least a minimum wage of $15 everyone will be able to prepare, not just the few.
I particularly like the part where people who have worked in heavy manual jobs will get treated with respect with special dispensation given the heavy duty work they do. You cannot keep doing that sort of work.
I put the man (or woman) with the shovel on top of the heap and the CEO, sitting in the sterile office, acting like a god, ruining people’s lives with a stroke of a pen – like the smiling assassin, Key did moneytrading and still does with bad policy – at the bottom.
How we ever bought into the idea that somehow a person with the ruthlessness to reach CEO level was somehow better than the man with the shovel makes me feel bad. The CEO may have more skills, did the study, took on the responsibility, got more money – I understand all of that.
But, it does not make him or her BETTER than the man or woman with the shovel.
A few generalisations (speaking as someone approaching ‘olds’ status on a steep incline) but, otherwise, agree.
Well said – and with passion, which is always good to see.
Jum That’s an impassioned comment from the heart and experience. I’m unhappy about people having to deal with WINZ as possibly unemployed, till they are 67. I haven’t been in for a while but I believe it can be really shitty.
I’ve been thinking about the large numbers of people in the older age group and the difficulties they have getting jobs, and that they are competing with younger people for them. It is hard to have reached a senior age and be treated as a dispensable worker of no value which in casual jobs is often the way for older people..
I have suggested that voluntary work in approved positions where the work adds to the community wellbeing as an acceptable alternative to paid work. It is not popular as an idea with old age pensioners who can’t get past the idea of entitlement as if all the tax they have paid over the years has gone into a superannuation savings chest. Not so, until the recent start by a Labour government of payments, but abandoned (for now) by NACT.
And lastly as more people live to older ages, the politicians still refuse to allow euthanasia so that people can make a choice of following a set of legal requirements so they can die when they feel they are ready to go. Alzheimers and other dementias are increasing and no thoughtful person would want their children to go through the increasing care needs and deterioration of the loved one until the brain is annihilated and only the body remains.
We can’t afford it.
The cost of libraries, the cost of ring fencing gas or electricity supply.
The cost of RMA, or a oil cleanup vessel!
WE need cars to be louder damnit, ACT is doing the
businesss allowing refitting of existing older car
fleet vehcicles to allow for excessive noise vandalism
and noise graffii.
And why? because we don’t have a world standard tax system,
we have to have our profits quickly, a high return fast, that
pushes up the demand for borrowing and weights us down
with a risk premium and makes our country a magnet for
speculative currency excess.
So of course when I can’t even buy a burger from burger king
becuse the gas is out, i know Key has our back, he had nine years
in opposition to know how to fix th ecomony, and three years
to do it.
And all without a capital gains tax.
Are you completely blind, the mans a genius. I’m
willing to accept no burgers and the jokes about
Auckland party, power, or the next billion dollar loses.
As long as we keep key
how darn you criticize our shit pm and his shate
party.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/election-2011/5858306/Asset-sales-promoted-to-seniors“National would use the estimated $5 billion to $7b the sales would generate to buy other assets. “At the end of this process we will own more assets, not less, but the mix will be different.””
I must have missed something when they announced the asset sales. I thought the sale was to pay down debt? Now he says it’s to buy more…what assets are they buying?
There are few depths to which this larcenous crew will not sink to in order to loot the countries assets for the benefit of their mates. There are no investment plans, the only “assets” they wish to buy are loyal votes and funding from the fat cats of this world.
The only reason I can see for Nats selling assets is to ensure they can keep paying for the tax cuts they bribed the electorate with last time. Scumballs.
Without a modern tax system companies and individuals will continue to
reap quick capital gain profits at the expense of economic resilience.
Now its the gas thats fallen over. Labour has accepted the need to
shift our tax system into a high gear, its not too costly, its too
costly if we don’t. Why? Because a company that has to
worry more about the bottomline, in line with comparable
companies abroad, will inevitable play a longer game.
What’s shocking is the world is in crisis economically
because it doesn’t play the long game, and in NZ we play
and even shorter game!!! Carried by farming and farmers.
Bored – “This larcenous crew”.. of NACTS buying “loyal votes and funding” – I don’t know if they even have to do that to draw in loyal supporters. I think there is a snob value that makes some people cling to National no matter what they do. It’s like the Anglicans had their High Church services and the Cathedrals which you would attend if you felt you were rising socially and financially, and Low Church which was for the others. NACT and Labour get similar sentiments I think.
But this is is a generalised statement about the emotional response to NZ political parties! I don’t mean that everybody who votes Labour is a wharfie, and my impression is that the blue collar workers seem to have been replaced by lawyers. I think that those who vote National are often following an upwardly-moving social concept and don’t want to ally themselves with Labour people who they consider as lesser ‘workers’.
They’re selling power stations so they can buy some white-elephant Roads of Notional Significance.
The new Waikato expressway avoids the river gorge and goes over the hills through a
valley north to Auckland.
I can’t help think that once oil price double again the road will be a
desert as drivers opt to take the flat route on the old gorge line and send
freight by rail.
We do need the upgrade but its like the referendum, why would anyone
who fought for MMP vote it out and let National decide the committee
overseaing the alternative.
Great discussion of Occupy movement..
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11961
Kicking off on Oakland…
Prof Steve Keen on RT Capital Account
Here’s a thoughtful analysis of the movement itself, rather than of the surrounding political environment that it seeks to offer a counter weight to, that might interest you.
http://www.zcommunications.org/occupy-to-self-manage-by-michael-albert
Thanks Bill. Great article and ideas for moving forward.
My reading in the last few days suggests this I beginning to appear in the New York franchise, with people realizing they can participate in the movement without physically being at Zucotti Park.
The Occupy London Times launched today http://theoccupiedtimes.com/ and the Occupy Wall St Journal and twitter and YouTube are showing the beginning of a successful occupation of the Media.
Yes, a very thoughtful analysis Bill.
For me, the notion of ‘occupy’ is really about occupying the space within which power concentrates. You don’t achieve that by putting in place a vehicle for the concentration of power.
Having a new, embedded form of interaction between people should be the aim. I say ‘new’, but actually it’s the oldest form of interaction on record.
Despite appearances to the contrary over the past 10,000 years, sustainable hierarchy isn’t in our blood. We are not a hierarchical social species – hence the millenia of bitter conflict and oppression.
The signs have been there from the start but International Socialists seem to be pushing themselves forward more in Occupy Dunedin as internal debate continues over where the “protest” should go from here.
Is this the real problem?
Serious questions should be asked about whether Occupy around the country is just a front for ISO.
Wow, socialists are interested in changing the economic system.
Who would have thunk it?
Micky Savage,
And Labour did what they promised they would do; they listened.
The occupy movement must have really struck a nerve with PG.
What is he scared of.
People may actually gain a say in their own Government!
Or is he just supporting his corporate backers???
The most terrifying thing of all – Change.
Funny.
What’s really funny about all you in auto-diss mode, the changes I’m proposing in Dunedin North (and have been for months) are very similar to changes to democracy that a number of ex-Occupiers want to see.
you’ve outed yourself as a lowrider for deliberately doing what you falsely accused your political opponents of doing. We need less of your type in parliament and politics.
The “changes” you’re proposing keep everything the same but have you at the centre instead of no one.
pete, I thought they were commies – is this your campaign – reds under the bed? so yesterday pete, so last century. I think your pre-emptive attack on your political opponents is low and using Occupy as a weapon to further your personal ambitions, even lower.
I’m actually talking to ex Octagon protesters to see how to try and advance Occupy without the hijackers holding it down.
There’s a lot of disillusionment here. Occupy is not supposed to be a front for “the workers party”.
maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals.
That’s being considered.
and how is that not doing what you accuse others of doing? Occupy pete does have a ring to it.
I’m not doing it. I can only support anything positive from the sideline at this stage.
Petey
Make up your mind. At one stage you say you are considering setting up #OccupyPetey and the next stage you say you are not. Which is it?
I haven’t said I’m considering it. I’m not, it’s clear that would be incompatible with the campaign I’m involved in.
I said it is being considered.
What?
Someone else is thinking of setting up #OccupationPetey?
Petey has a fan club?
Say it isn’t so …
So someone or something other than you is considering “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals”?
If you’re not the one considering it, is the considerer Peter Dunne? His hairdo?
you can slide and slither all you like – your tongue is forked.
This is what I said “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals.” Notice the you’s and yours. So some exOccupiers are using YOUR ideas (that you have been wedded to for years) and although you are in discussion with them it is nothing to do with YOU. Pathetic!
‘Tedious Pete’ has more of a ring to it.
I think I’ve read and seen of Pete George and his whiney clinging to the coat tails of the no-percent party to see why Pete George is your classic United Future man.
The Occupy movement in Dunedin has done us all a favour, by exposing this letters-to-the-editor busy body as a charlatan, just like to coiffured has-been that is his inspiration. With his attitude to the Occupiers, we’ve seen his surface of faux-reasonableness is simply the charade of a faker and deceiver. On the first issue that he can be measured on, Pete George is exposed as little more than a narrow minded small town authoritarian, Dunedin’s own pensioner Colonel Blimp.
Here is a bit of advice Pete George: Give up politics. Walmington-on-Sea has a platoon whose requirements closely match your age and talents. I suggest you head there ASAP.
I wonder if Pete has done more to win votes, or lose votes, for UF.
MM
maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals
Petey
That’s being considered
So socialist takeover bad but United Follicle take over good?
All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others, especially when called Pete
What is the difference between Occupy being potentially co-opted by a parliamentary party or by non-parliamentary groupings from the same ‘representative’ tradition?
Both scenarios introduce secondary agendas which eventually come to dominate proceedings. Both introduce a power imbalance to any meaningful democratic process leading to a disempowerment of the individual citizens involved. Both eventually create and a false or misleading impression of any professed movement.
Pete may be hypocritical. But he does make a valid point nonetheless.
A movement that allows the greater influence of organisations to play a part in its determinations is no movement at all, but rather a coalition with disempowered on-lookers. Or to put it another way. Movements are democratic and individually empowering. Coalitions aren’t.
There was a post concerning all this, written before the Occupations happened.
+1
I don’t know Pete outside this blog, but I too feel the local franchise of #Occupy is currently not as inspiring as it is in the US and the UK and Spain. What is so successful there, the representation so broad and the decision making so horizontal, neither political parties of established movements can successfully co-opt it.
Until the youth in NZ, outside the established organizations and traditional activists start to participate, I’d much rather focus on the progress being made abroad.
This is a brilliant article…
http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-wall-streets-battle-against-american-style-authoritarianism/1319570241
I just don’t think that the #Occupy people in NZ have as much to complain about those in the US or EU.
America is the cannery in our mine.
Canned coal? Who’d have thunk it 😉 Only in ‘America’, I guess.
Cannery Row?
Big thumbs, small phone = miscommunication.
From the article …
And. This very process (of silencing critical thinking) and of disabling the ability to act are present within some Occupy’s.
Organisations imposing or introducing programmes and/or agendas achieves an over all dumbing down or narrowing of dialogue and the marginalisation and eventual disengagement of any non-conformist points of view or people.
And even where organisations are absent, action is stymied through the stultifying application of consensus to every matter or issue. Democracy does not imply, as many in Occupy seem to believe, that every decision must be the subject of consensus.
This very process (of silencing critical thinking)
I thought you were talking about here for a minute. Apart from you Bill all everyone else has tried running inteference.
Regarding Occupy Dunedin I have had the freedom to voice my opinion outside the occupation and also a number of times on site, but I have done nothing to limit anyone else’s freedom to express their views.
I can’t say the same of the attack squads in action here who seem to be intent on smothering alternate views with personal attacks and either lies or deliberate misinformation,.
I was told from the start onsite that there was to be no party politics but individual opinions were welcome. I haven’t promoted party politics at all onsite.
I know Green Party members who were involved who chose not to display party material onsite becasue they thought it was against the spirit of Occupy. They weren’t happy about other obvious influences.
All you have to do is follow the several related FB pages to see the divisions and disagreements due to the influence of factions. As has already been posted here that lead to threats of assault on Tuesday.
But carry on the personal attacks if that’s all you can come up with.
Jones was correct then.
“They don’t like it up ’em, Captain Mannering”
A two week old baby has been found alive in the rubble of Turkey’s earthquake FOUR DAYS after the shake.
Recall rescuers at the Christchurch earthquake found nobody alive from one day after the shake. It was questioned at the time. It seemed odd that no further survivors had been found alive after such a short time.
This fact raised one huge question about the competency of Chch’s rescuers and whether the rescue system meant that survivors died subsequently from factors not directly due to the quake. i.e. the rescue was poorly executed resulting in unnecessary deaths post-shake.
This question remains well alive in the minds of many in Christchurch and it is yet to be answered.
Um, a lot more people were trapped (and killed) by Turkey’s quake than Chch. Simple statistics means there are going to be more people to rescue.
Mortality when trapped in rubble drops off fairly quickly so only 2/100 people might survive 4 days and be found, if you’ve got 1,000 people buried as opposed to 200, that’s 20 people that have the potential to be rescued after 4 days instead of just 4.
What’s better – 200 people being trapped and no one being rescued after day 3, or 1000 people being trapped?
I realise the statistical implications. But my points still stand. The Turkey quake simply highlights this issue once again, and as said, the issue has not been fully answered yet although I understand it is the next part of the inquiry.
Yet another school thinks that parents can just shit money out
Its time we threw Tomorrow’s Schools out, and returned to a more centralised education system, because the system as it stands seems to be principals are out of control loose cannons, and parents arent really having much say about these things. especially in having to buy a very expensive device or risk their child falling behind futher and further.
Yep, Tomorrow’s Schools philosophy has lived up to predictions. Schools run as businesses. Oddly enough, in high decile schools the boards actually have immense power whereas in lower decile schools equally savvy teachers and pressure groups know how to work them as well.
The disastrous government laissez-faire attitude to the development of IT in schools is manifested by the storerooms full of well-intentioned BOT purchases now sitting idle gathering dust. (A member of the BOT might have connections with a city business that is upgrading their systems and get a “super-generous” offer of getting the redundant PC’s for the school. Yep, that’s it, let the kids cut their teeth on yesterday’s low performance hardware.) You could argue that billions have been wasted by schools floundering to introduce IT into their curriculum.
And then there is the issue of “readers.” The publishers must have rubbed their hands with glee when they knew that they were getting an open door to the budget holders for books in schools.
You don’t need advanced computers in schools.
Are you over 30? Know how to use an iPod? An iPad? Windows 7? An Android smartphone?
Tell me, how did the computers you were working with at school 20-25 years ago possibly prepare you to use any of those catastrophically advanced pieces of equipment?
You see, it just doesn’t matter whether the PC a school pupil is using today is brand new and state of the art or 5 years old and used. Both of them will still be pieces of junk 25 years down the track.
Agreed, but you do need some form of direction from a more central source rather than ad hoc development within schools … massive duplication of policies, everyone reinventing the wheel, and no real standard.
I always remember with great fondness the full height one gigabyte SCSI hard drive I brought for my 486 50MHz home computer in ? 1991 ? It served well for until about 1995. After it failed (to the great comfort of my ears that had grown sensitive to the whine), it then spent another 5 years as a door stop that had origionally cost a few thousand dollars. There was so much weight in the damn thing that no door held open by it could do anything except what the slab of metal told it to do.
1G back in ’91. I didnt even know that they had that size back then…
Radio sport pulls out of Plunket Shield commentary
The Kiwi tradition of listening to the cricket over the summer has the first nail hammered into its coffin. While this may not bother people here, I belive that it is one of the conseqences of privatisation, and how the standard of media has declined over the past 20 years or so. I presume we will have Murray Deaker drone on and on instead.
Very sad news indeed, no more first class cricket on the radio. 🙁
Ah why do you think that is sad news?
The only think more boring than watching cricket is listening to long turgid hours of people blathering about nothing much through its many hours of dead time.
It was always rather relaxing to play cricket because of all of that dead time. Nice idle way to expend weekend time (in those faroff days when I had very little to do)……
Iprent:
It was more of a memory trigger, you know as a kid out in the back yard, having a bbq, listening to Paul McEwan plodding along to a century.
🙂 Shudder… Yeah I remember it all too well.
Damned if I have the time to do that kind of thing now.
My 81 year old mother has become a sport junkie since my father died in 2002 and she’s been living on her own.
She has an old transistor radio that she carries everywhere with her around the house and garden of her ownership flat, usually tuned to newstalk in the morning and radio sport at other times.
She often has cricket matches on the radio when I visit during the summer. She’ll be upset by this news.
Look’s like the hapless Anthony Robbins should stick to the study of neural networks because he’s crap at economics.
Moody’s have just confirmed New Zealands AAA credit rating.
According to Moody’s senior credit officer,the Treasury’s pre-election economic and fiscal update on Tuesday was largely in line with expectations. “The future path of government deficits and debt is overall not too different from earlier projections. As a result, this document does not change our thinking about New Zealand’s rating…
Now there’s a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the doom-sayers.
[lprent: You don’t think that it is significant that they felt an announcement was required? I think that Anthony was spot on looking at the risk.
However, I think that bringing up something about an author in a comment that is unrelated to either the comment or the post or the discussion falls under the general category of stalking and intimidation of one of my authors. Bad bad bad idea.
And I’m already annoyed with reading your later trolling..
You just lost your right to comment here after the election. Banned until 27th Nov ]
You mean this Moody? The corrupt to the core financed by the banksters Moody?
Didn’t they rate Lehman Bros AAA+ moments before it went bust!?
S&P rated Lehman Bros an investment grade A+ in Mar 2008 but with a negative outlook (i.e. possibility of further downgrade within the next 2 years).
Lehman Bros completely collapsed 6 months later.
The science of September 11. On hour for those who want to educate themselves!
Andrew Sullivan: You Say You Want a Revolution.
The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control.
Nice post Joe. What really gets stuck in my craw when listening to the media and politicians we have is that the moment you oppose their stance you become painted as taking a “radical and marginal” viewpoint.
Therefore if you oppose financial corruption you become an extreme leftist, if you oppose the corporatisation of democracy you are branded as anti capitalist. Which is why I despise National (and to a lesser extent Labour), they have become subsumed by corporate interests, they are in the pay of the money men as are the media. Their complicity condemns them, and I cannot see any way to reform this than a collapse of the economic status quo. Roosevelt famously referred to this scenario as being fascist. That is the true velvet glove nature of our corporatist state.
http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-wall-streets-battle-against-american-style-authoritarianism/1319570241
I, and many of my friends have had posts deleted by facebook.
The posts were of this video from TV3.
http://www.3news.co.nz/PMs-credit-downgrade-claim-under-fire/tabid/370/articleID/228940/Default.aspx
It seems someone is asking facebook to remove them? Whom?
I am blocked from several Nat MP’s pages for merely asking their opinion on certain things – e.g. How much of the $38 billion you have borrowed from overseas is for tax cuts? and “Is it really true that John key was in Hamilton putting up billboards when he could have been in Tauranga liaising about the Rena?”
They really don’t like criticism, removed quick as a flash; they probably have Farrar sitting in a cave doing that.
All I can say is keep up the good work!
Wow big call.
Labour is going to put up the age of retirement albeit gradually. Totally responsible but a big call politically. It will show that Key is being totally irresponsible in gutting the Cullen Fund and Kiwisaver AND refusing to put the age up.
Brave, brave campaigning.
There is no age of retirement. This is about the age you get National Super.
I agree that Key is irresponsible ignoring the issue, I criticised his stand for that in a public meeting in Port Chalmers last night.
But I don’t think Labour have got it right either, unless there are variations in the detail. Simply pushing up the age disadvantages manual workers, it disadvantages ethnic groups (eg Maori) with lower life expectancies, and it disadvantages people with lefe xpectanncy shortening medical conditions like diabeties.
Geez Petey stop being pedantic. “Age of retirement” is shorthand for “age that National Superannuation starts and you can retire if you want”. Use the latter phrase if you want but it looks sort of retentive.
It’s not pedantic, they are two different things. Some people retire before they are eligible for national super, and some after.
Pete this is one of your trolling habits. Respond to a significant event by deflecting. Do it again and I will follow you around for the rest of the day and call you a troll.
You two seem to follow each other around already mr savage. Like a couple of people wandering around in their own world bickering away at each other oblivious to everything around them…
Yeah I should be doing paid work. But it is a bit like sport …
I’d support an increase in the age of entitlement – do you know what it’s going up to and when it would be introduced ?
The question HS is why would you support raising (or dropping) the age? I get the feeling that nobody here is actually thinking, observing and most importantly projecting. In the near future there will be less work, and more real need.
Here is an alternative: younger people need the income to raise families, build an asset base etc far more than empty nesters should. Younger people generally have more energy for the harder tasks. Maybe we have the wrong people doing the work at different ends of their lives. As a 50 something I have no mortgage, some independent means, and if the income got cut in five who cares? In a sane world I would be pensioned off on the condition I did some needed work that attracted no margin like grandchild care, looking after the real oldies, etc.
I’m not expecting there to be a pension by the time I get there.
But for those who will be affected, I hope provision has been made for full early super for those whose bodies have been munted before retirement age. Lot of people could do with that right now.
No one is retiring in the future, no one.
According to TV 3, Labour would:
http://www.3news.co.nz/NZ-Super-is-unaffordable-at-65—Labour/tabid/419/articleID/230923/Default.aspx
But there’s no details there about how this would be decided.
I was thinking more like 55.
Excellent, expose the charlatan Key for what he is – a cheap and nasty populist.
Anyway, raising the age needs to happen (as does means-testing) and I would suggest that most people will see it as ok. Many more people today expect to work a little longer and, further, many of the younger ilk don’t expect that super will be around at all when their time comes. Even some of those on the verge of super will no doubt support it – unless they are greedy buggers of course.
Just like the capital gains tax – solid policy that works to NZ’s longer term benefit.
Labour, though less often a party I support, has traditionally done the big things in NZ. Good to see it continues to lead to way forward for NZ.
Can anybody name something significant that National has done? Something on a par with the creation of the welfare system, nuclear-free, super, etc? Conservative is as conservative does I suppose …..
edit: I imagine also that many older superannuitants who already receive the super will support it too because it doesn’t affect them. It will affect only a minor few.
Raising the age does not need to happen.
The meme that retirement is going to cost us too much is part of TINA, which has been repeated so often that even the left now believe it.
Already commented here. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.com/2011/06/on-retirement-pensions-and-age-of.html
“In fact super has been so effective in removing poverty amongst the elderly it should be extended to everyone in the form of a guaranteed minimum income. There is no excuse for having people with inadequate food and housing in a country which is capable of supplying an excess of both internally”.
The idea that we cannot feed and house our elderly in a country that is capable of feeding and housing many times the current population is bullshit.
It does need to be means or work tested. No reason to pay it to someone who is still working and earning $1000/day.
Even since Muldoons election bribes to superannuates i’ve worked on the assumption that there will be no super when I retire, so it will not affect me much.
Not very fair on manual workers whose knees are stuffed by 60, Maori and others who do not live long into retirement now.
A gradual rise will impact most on Gen x and y, not us boomers, so savings will be little.
It is alright for paper shufflers to talk about working until 75. For the rest of us we will often be incapable of working in our jobs well before.
A courageous policy would be extending super to everyone in the form of a GMFI.
Affordability in future depends on how much we invest in a sustainable future economy. Not how much is invested in dodgy offshore markets.
Don’t panic. Retirement age can always be brought down again if alternative funding or super mechanisms are found 🙂
The biggest problem with seeing money as the economy is that you lose sight of the real economy and the true resources that a nation has available to it especially after those resources have been privatised and used to only benefit the few as happens in capitalism.
My parents (English and NZ-Scots) were two of those. My father died at 54 and my mother at 62, my brother at 42… I am already older than I ever expected to be. I have been unemployed for the past 2.5 years (and working for the past 4 weeks to my surprised delight) but if the work ends soon, as it’s supposed to, the NS is my only chance of an income higher than UB. Will I make it? 😀
7 years to go, and I feel as if I am sodding 91 like Betty Driver who just croaked…
Enjoy your life Vicky32.
Do as much of what gladdens your heart as you can.
NRT has a write-up on it. I tend to agree with him.
I’ll pop this comment here too from the other thread greg so you don’t miss it 🙂
What are your views on the inequality facing tangata whenua whilst saving (or trying to) for retirement, and after retirement. Should any political party address this inequality, which is increased when the retirement age is increased because of reduced life expectancy for tangata whenua. How does this fit with the promises in the treaty, or with any political party attempting to govern.
I know you are concerned about the boomer bulge greg but what about the inequality.
mr marty, would that policy also extend to other groups with lower life expectancy such as males? It would be quite nice to pick up the super 6-7 years before others…
no – I am talking about the inequality facing tangata whenua – you know, the indigenous people of this land.
But i have no problem with advocates for any group laying out their case. What do you think about the issue re tangata whenua vto?
The issue is an entirely reasonable one and worthy of examination. Whether it is politically acceptable in our current landscape though I doubt very much. And I imagine that the practicalities and detail would be horrific – everyone would jump up and down who has a lower life expectancy and want it. Because of course it would need to be applied equally and have an absence of any race component, in accordance with good non-racist practice.
Better would be Gareth Morgan’s proposal for a universal living allowance applied throughout a person’s lifetime. Then all of these anomolies would disappear and everyone would be guaranteed of at least some kind of basic living allowance.
p.s. – your mention of indigineouity implies that you still think they should have a special place apart from the rest …. ? Not that we need to rehash that again eh.
I have talked about this here http://mars2earth.blogspot.com/2011/10/lower-maori-retirement-age.html
I am not sure what you mean about the ‘race’ component – you did get that i’m JUST talking about tangata whenua. The cost, setting up, admin etc are all red herrings that simply distract from the realities of fronting up to the disgrace and shame of the inequality faced by the indigenous people of this country. I’ll say it again so we have no misunderstandings vto – EQUALITY – at the moment we do not have that.
MM
My father is a boilermaker and the only one of his age who survived into his 70s so I hear what you say.
If a worker has flogged themselves out they deserve to be able to retire early on an invalid’s benefit.
Tangata whenua’s life expectancy is so poor because so many of them work in similar jobs.
I even think (gasp) that Petey’s suggestion about allowing people to opt to retire early should be given further consideration.
But at least for me I think I should work a bit longer rather than expect my kids to have to work harder to support me.
Super is more money than the IB. Do you think that would be fair?
Yep. I did not know about the policy to allow those who are worked out to retire early and I think it is a very good idea.
eter Dunne comments on Labour’s lame rush job to be diferent to National, and suggests how it should be done.
Pete George. Explain the mechanics of Dunne’s policy. How do you determine the NPV of a person’s entire pension so you know how to spread it out over varying time periods?
Labour is making KiwiSaver compulsory, AND ensuring that it is not used as an excuse to do away with NZ Super.
Janet Frame was not a recluse, revisionism bollocks.
People who are sensitive make more mistakes and
so withdraw, so invariably some happen to be great
writers and thinkers. Frame was exposed to mad
people and would have spent even more time
absorbing them.
So Janet frame could not have been the writer she
was, the person she was, without being reclusive.
So why this revisionism, reclusive people are still
social animals, they just withdraw, take flight more
easily.
I guess it depends who does the revising and the mood of the buying/reading public and which personality trait is socially ascendent: extroversion or introversion. In a world of big business pop culture, introversion doesn’t sell all that well, but behind every good movie or literary masterpiece, there is a “reclusive” writer doing the chops. At least Janet Frame found a mode of communicating with the world. Many don’t.
Who are the people currently “negotiating” for the Mt Roskill nomination, rather than concentrating on the current election ?
[lprent: Can’t see how this has anything to do with the post – moved to OpenMike ]
Send for Mike Williams – he is neede to go to Melbourne.
And stop those bickering over the Mt Roskill nomination and get back to winning the election now.
[lprent: Again, can’t see how this has anything to do with the post – moved to OpenMike. And if I see another one out of context, then you’re getting the chop for trolling until after the election. ]
About to kick off in the states, NY straight onto street, not footpath. Which caused arrests last time.
Marching in Oakland and NYC in unison to city hall to protest use of force in Oakland last night.
Live tweeting at
@RDevro
@ChristRobbins
@allisonkilkenny
hey lprent.
giving the trolls some shit huh!
you need help then call randal for pointless but satisfying abuse.
[lprent: Thanks for your (ummm) generous offer. But I’m steadily increasing my trophy room with scalps, ears and other anatomical specimens. So I won’t be requiring extra help as I cull the sick and the lame out of the herd.
However pointed but satisfying abuse may be indulged in. ]
Do you charge or do you offer your services for free?
Who do you call (for pointless and satisfying abuse)? Politicobuster! Pollybuster? When words fail us on some incredible event can any of us call on you randal?
Hmm I see Labour has made Kiwisaver compulsory and plans to increase employer contributions up to 7% eventually. Its a good policy for Labour actually along with raising the retirement age (something National would never be able to even if Key hadn’t promised not to do it).
It makes no sense whatsoever though to increase employer contributions without increasing employee contributions.
In Australia, it’s a flat 9% employer contributions, and employee contributions are completely optional.
Probably in Australia you would find cases where the employer increases their contribution if the employee does also, and that would be part of the salary and benefits package that the employer offers to their employees.
What I want to know, is if Labour will roll back the employer contribution tax that National are putting in next year.
As it stands, I’m on 2%/2%, and when they start taxing employer contributions I’m effectively going to go to 2%/1.34%. Then when they bring the minimum up to 3%/3% I’m effectively going to be on 3%/2%. So next year I’ll get less than I got this year (not even counting the reduced government contributions), and the year after I’ll pay more and only return back to the amount I currently get from my employer.
good question, worth checking out.
I would’ve thought they aren’t intending to roll it back. Purely based on the fact that if they were it would’ve been included in the policy today. Could be wrong though.
I just heard Blenglish being interviewed by Mary Wilson. He made the point when discussing the gas pipeline failure that if it was government owned then steps could be taken to monitor it but because its privately owned that’s difficult. And for Vector to put another pipeline in would mean that the price of gas might go up beyond customers’ willingness or capacity to pay.
Arent’t these the points that the thinking left (as opposed to the Roger Douglas/Treasury cohort of the past) have always made and which have been ignored or derided?
Some pertinent comments in GrabOne from Brian Gaynor 27/8/2011 quoted in NZHerald 27/10/2011 – Brian Gaynor: Decline and fall of Kiwi private enterprise
Yep but, hey, can’t go round having reality mentioned as it may knock the delusion that the free-market and privatisation works from peoples head.
Government report says richest 1 percent doubled their share of US national income
The mentally challenged commenters were out in force on Stuff today, going off their nut about Labour’s Superann policy (brave, sensible move but foolhardy methinks) and spaffing themselves over the return of the vile bigot Paul Henry to television. Someone get me the f*ck off this ship of fools/bogans. Oh and TV3, you’re banned from my telly. Most of it is crap anyway so no big loss, but Campbell is better than teh Walrus.
Raising the age to 67 is basic sensible, scientific economics, work is good. Here’s another basic of work is good, and a fundamental of future society building, no fucking unemployment, no work ghetto, no bastards and bastards sons to be constantly demonised and whipped. Every wants to spend, (their 80 years here) in N.Z in health and growth.
Sort the country out, it’s 2011 and New Zealand’s ( little islands in the deep ocean) only sustainable future is to be the Glowing light of the area, the holland of the south pacific , the jewel of the oceans, which it is, the last islands (b)reached by man .
John – Your comment hangs together like those odd Google references that have a dictionary of words that will strike a match in any search heading.
Haha when you say that it really does.
Also I would like to point out that I have always considered scientific economics an oxymoron (by always this is actually the first time that I have ever seen it before, but still…).
Has there always been the authorization down the bottom? Or has that just gone up recently?
It’s hilarious anyways.
Got pissed off by a dickhead the other day. We don’t need it. But I figured that I should give fair warning before I chew people’s heads off….
Yeah I kind of want someone to complain to you now just to see the response…
“John – Your comment hangs together like those odd Google references that have a dictionary of words that will strike a match in any search heading.”
I’m a marketer of ideas, good ideas, not illogical ideas, not bank driven ideas, banking is the industry any sane prime minister would reform quickly, what an unproductive fuckfest that is.
I thought marketers liked short sentences of 12 words or less? Try using full stops as you paddle along the stream of consciousness.
You went from “idea marketing” to “fuckfest” in one sentence, and not in a “please give me a loan so I can start a swingers club/sauna”.
I am always available for a fee.
heres a sample: ***NEWSFLASH***, john keys declared inane!
randal 😀
Science dissects the invisible hand.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed–the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html
The self-organising economy, (A.K.A. The Invisible Hand) made more visible.
Work till you drop. Vote Labour.
In a better world, ’employment’ would be seen as the problem, not the solution.
Doesn’t have to be capitalist employment. Beautifying public schools, conservation work, caring for the elderly and the infirm, creating a new work of art for the town centre.
People need to have a role in and a contribution to their communities.
No it doesn’t but that’s what Labour means. I’m with Puddleglum, employment should be seen as the problem.
Yep, but it shouldn’t be forced through a threat of poverty as we have in this psychopathic capitalist system (Especially what we have under a NAct government).
Yes, that was the employment I was signifying with the scare quotes.
The employee-employer relationship lowers a sense of autonomy and self-respect. You are, in effect, selling part of your life to someone else so that it can be used to attain their ends rather than your own (or your community’s).
It isn’t called ‘wage slavery’ for nothing.
The greatest stress is experienced by low-status individuals in our society.
That shouldn’t be surprising since the greatest stress for a social animal that depends for its emotional wellbeing primarily on the worth accorded to it by others, is to be explicitly marked as being of little value.