Open mike 28/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 28th, 2010 - 35 comments
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35 comments on “Open mike 28/08/2010 ”

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  1. The Chairman 1
    28 August 2010 at 6:34 am

    Crafar player linked to new political party

    A fledgling political party associated with the businessman behind a Chinese bid for the Crafar farms plans to field candidates in next year’s election.

    Auckland businessman Paul Young and former Labour Party list candidate Stephen Ching yesterday confirmed the New Citizens Party had lodged an application for registration with the Electoral Commission.

    Businessman Jack Chen, the self-described driving force behind the bid by Hong Kong company Natural Dairy NZ for the Crafar dairy empire, has been associated with the party, but Mr Young and Mr Ching downplayed his involvement.

    More here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10669157

  2. Jenny 2
    28 August 2010 at 9:46 am

    .
    Kia Ora Gaza Media release, Friday, 27 August, 2010

    Makers of TV3’s The Nation refuse
    right of reply.

    George Galloway:

    “I’m stunned that such a collection of inaccuracies and downright lies, larded by overt bias, can be broadcast in New Zealand,” responded Mr Galloway in a Kia Ora Gaza media release two days ago. “Instead of defaming me behind my back Plunket could have put these wild allegations to my face. I invite him to do that now in a TV interview if he has the stomach for it.”

    But Mr Galloway’s request for a right of reply has fallen on deaf ears at The Nation programme.

    Can the ‘The Nation'(al) still claim to be a reputable news show, when it allows only one side of a story to be heard?

    capcha – ‘responses’

    • Bill 2.1
      28 August 2010 at 11:32 am

      I suspect Galloway making mincemeat of Plunket would make for some damned fine TV. But then, Plunket is meant to be the hard man, so can’t have him shown up as a hard on. Pity.

      If you about half way down the page through the link, Galloway’s full response can be read.

    • Vicky32 2.2
      29 August 2010 at 5:20 pm

      It’s sad that I expect that kind of thing from TV3… The CEO is, AFAIK an American, anyway!
      Deb

  3. The Chairman 3
    28 August 2010 at 10:26 am

    Opinion: Gareth Morgan argues the ‘Baptists’ and ‘Bootleggers’ in favour of compulsory savings are just plain wrong

    http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/opinion-gareth-morgan-argues-baptists-and-bootleggers-favour-compulsory-savings-are-just-plain-wrong

    Note: There’s an interesting comment by Doctor 2 below

  4. logie97 4
    28 August 2010 at 10:34 am

    Do New Zealand corporates or individuals have to declare trusts in places like Bermuda, British Virgin Islands BVI, Cyprus, Labuan, Dubai, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Singapore.

    If a New Zealander working overseas was away for long enough and had the where-with-all, could they set up trusts in these havens?

    Could these trusts trade in New Zealand assets?

    • logie97 4.1
      28 August 2010 at 2:33 pm

      Have there been any incidents recently of a trust in a haven country buying shares from an influential New Zealander’s blind trust?

  5. john 5
    28 August 2010 at 11:19 am

    Hi Paula is off soon to learn corporate responsibility at the Eisenhower Foundation, really its just a demo that we’re an obedient ideological vassal to the US way (now failing big time) and could you please reward us with that free trade agreement? However corporate responsibility is an alien concept to the American Way, rather Profit is the God. View this link for an example of US corporate responsibility:
    http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august222010/walking-dead-ta.php

  6. joe90 6
    28 August 2010 at 3:14 pm

    John Stewart skewers Beck, again.

  7. john gilmartin 7
    28 August 2010 at 6:07 pm

    HI! I think Paula is quite sexy. It’d be a drag having to give her fingerprints when she enters Dead Uncle Sam. I’d snog her. I think she’s quite sexy. A bit of snogging would cure her of the NACT rubbish she’s exposed to!!! I am here to snog you Paula! You are sexy. signed hopeless bene.

    [lprent: definitely hopeless. ]

    • the pink postman 7.1
      29 August 2010 at 3:39 pm

      I know that looks are not supposed to be used to judge and I honestly try to live by that creed. However this women gives me the creeps . She a sly supercilious blob. She should go on a diet before she has to help clog up the health system with an avoidable heart trouble. If you find her sexy JG you must be bloody hard up or desperate .

  8. Draco T Bastard 8
    28 August 2010 at 7:46 pm

    Cutting income security programs, especially for working age adults. There is no more hated form of government spending, from an employers’ perspective, than income security programs. They give working-age people a degree of independence from having to offer their labour for hire in the labour market. And across the capitalist world, income security programs for working-age adults – unemployment insurance, welfare benefits, even disability benefits – have borne the deepest proportionate spending cuts. The goal is to once again firmly compel people to work, and work hard.

    Jim Stanford, Economics for Everyone, page 250 (Emphasis mine)

    So the next time you see a RWNJ rabbiting on about peoples dependence upon the state remember that what they want isn’t independence for the people but enforced dependence of the people to the capitalists. This makes it even more profitable to exploit them.

    • ZB 8.1
      28 August 2010 at 9:52 pm

      I disagree strongly. You can never leave the gripe of capitalism, because we all are capitalists.
      The black market, barter, thrived under the USSR. The wealthy aren’t a uniform mob. There
      are those in power now, in the press, with larges wads of cash, who have made a bet that’s
      gone horribly bad. Its was called no greed is too much greed. Sensible people are ready for
      the storm, pretty much know how it will play out. A long depression is ahead. As the
      brainless tweeps of far right glee find even if they have the money they can’t do much to
      insulate themselves againsts the coming economic stagnation.

      Here’s a hint. Private cars are going to be the luxuries of the next few decades
      (maybe for a long time). Broadband and cheap public transportation are going
      to replace the private auto as the cornerstone of how individuals see themselves.
      The virtual networking is now leading to a physical networking where we
      share not only the wire but the bus, trams, trains in a network fashion.
      Anyway that’s my guess. Capitalist will need, like Ford to pay their workers
      more so they can buy their new cars, to kick start the auto revolution and
      the now network society.

      • Bill 8.1.1
        28 August 2010 at 10:09 pm

        ZB, trade isn’t capitalism. Trade has happened for thousands of years. Hell, Neanderthals probably traded.

        The production and distribution of goods and services according to market principles is what marks out Capitalism; not production and distribution in and of itself.

        • Draco T Bastard 8.1.1.1
          28 August 2010 at 11:42 pm

          The production and distribution of goods and services according to market principles is what marks out Capitalism; not production and distribution in and of itself.

          That’s incorrect. What marks out capitalism is the ownership and control of resources and means of production by the few.

          • Bill 8.1.1.1.1
            29 August 2010 at 2:28 pm

            I think it’s kind of the same thing innit?

            The market says there must be owners/controllers/ winners in the competitive environment for control of resources and their use.

            • Draco T Bastard 8.1.1.1.1.1
              29 August 2010 at 5:00 pm

              Not really, the “market” (Considering that the market is a social construct) would work better if everyone was equal – equal say in resource use, equal rights to the resources etc. The problem comes in the form of ownership and control which is taken from the people and given to a few who then use that dictatorial control to enrich themselves at everyone else’s expense.

              • Bill …
                29 August 2010 at 6:08 pm

                You can’t have equality in the market.

                Even if there was somehow, miraculously absolute equality in the areas you mention, market dynamics would soon recreate and enforce the inequalities we have today.

                If we want equity/equality etc, then we need to create/develop systems of production and distribution/consumption that create those things.

                Ownership becomes irrelevant without a means of control. And the dictatorial control you speak of requires (in the first instance) mass participation or acquiescence. ie there can be no armies making demands of populaces…forcing acquiescence at the point of a gun …without the participation of soldiers in the mechanisms of oppression in the first place.

                And the structures which allow the ability of a few to command and order the many are hierarchical structures.

                And where they came from and why they gained acceptance or legitimacy is, I’d hazard a guess, down at least in part to the Roman Empire and latterly and persistently, the Holy Roman Empire with their ideas of Emperors and Popes as Gods or God.

                Not to say there weren’t other sources, but the most obvious patriarchy employing and imposing hierarchical order on the world in Western thought or history would be Rome.

                So from religiously sanctioned patriarchy and hierarchy we got the ability to command armies and empires which led to the ability to control the commons and later force enclosure. A direct transfer of power through the different stratified social possibilities was made possible because the same basic hierarchical structures were maintained and recreated throughout the piece, until today we have a global homogenisation of oppression courtesy of colonisation and maintained by force where necessary, but mostly asserted by the basic competitive nature of the market.

                Or something like that.

      • Draco T Bastard 8.1.2
        28 August 2010 at 11:39 pm

        No, we’re not all capitalists. That’s part of the delusion that’s been sold to the public. The capitalists make up less than 3% of the population and they need people to work for them to keep them rich. If everyone was financially independent then no one would do so as there would be nothing that the capitalists could offer to make people work for them. To overcome this the capitalists ensure, through the control of government (Left and Right), that the majority of people are poor and living at subsistence level or below.

  9. felix 9
    29 August 2010 at 1:38 pm

    So long The Standard, it’s been fun.

    • BLiP 9.1
      29 August 2010 at 1:58 pm

      Sssup mate? Not rage quit, I hope.

    • r0b 9.2
      29 August 2010 at 6:15 pm

      Huh? Where you off to felix?

    • Loota 9.3
      29 August 2010 at 6:22 pm

      You OK dude? Lets not do anything hasty there, mate, we still have a bunch of Tories to throw out.

    • Bill 9.4
      29 August 2010 at 6:32 pm

      I guess being told to put up with comments being arbitrarily and ‘invisibly’ edited or deleted was, as felix had indicated just prior to requesting that all altered comments be completely deleted and unaltered comments within the same thread be likewise deleted, just a step too draconian.

      I guess.

      Hope (he?) reconsiders and merely banishes her? self from said author’s posts.

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