Spend, baby, spend
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12:02 pm, December 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments
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Retailers are whining and the Herald has taken on the role of nanny-state, telling us it is our social responsibility but more stuff and to take on more consumer debt. It’s called economics, apparently. So, get out there and spend, people.
What are you, socialists?
Anyhoo, that’s pretty much me for the year. We’re going to take turns as duty poster, doing a post every day or two over the holidays. Unless anything huge comes up, I’ll see youse in a few weeks.
Enjoy the holidays, let’s hope the summer weather picks up.
Ignore the exhortations to spend, spend, spend. Life shouldn’t be about trying to own lots of stuff and Christmas shouldn’t be about giving and receiving lots of stuff.
Whether you’re Christian and into the whole redemptive story of Jesus or, like me, welcome the opportunity to spend some time with the family and be nice to each other, Christmas is a chance to remember our better side. We can take the time to be thoughtful and generous to each other. We can take the time to live life in its essential simplicity. It’s not all about getting more more more. It’s about experiencing living while you can and trying to do what you can to improve the lives of others.
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Kua hinga te manawa kairākau o Te Rua Tekau Ma Waru Tiwhatiwha te po! Kakarauru i te po! Ka rapuhia kei hea koe kua riro! Haere e te Ika a Whiro ki o tini hoa kua ngaro atu ki te Pō ...2 weeks ago
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The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principle...
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- NZ must pursue independent foreign policy
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Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Ka mihi ki te mana whenua ko Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. Kia ora and good morning everyone. Thank you Fran and Simon for inviting me here today, and importantly your leadership of this forum over several years now. I want to acknowledge David Gehrenbeck, Deputy ...10 hours ago
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Delivered at Auckland Trade and Economic Policy School Good morning and thank you Deputy Vice Chancellor Lithander for your warm welcome and for inviting me to open Auckland Trade and Economic Policy School today. A Special thanks to the University of Auckland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and ...2 days ago
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Tēnā koutou katoa – it is a pleasure to be here today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the important leadership role you all play in ensuring a quality health system New Zealanders can trust. There is enormous clinical expertise in this room covering a wide range of disciplines. ...3 days ago
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Legislation that will double the financial jurisdiction of the Disputes Tribunal from $30,000 to $60,000 has passed first reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. “We need to improve court timeliness and access to justice so that Kiwis and get on with their lives. Court delays affect everyone, the ...3 days ago
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With the launch of Fraud Awareness Week, the Government is committing to new coordination efforts across industry and government to combat online scams, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Online financial scams are a growing problem for New Zealand. New data released today shows that Kiwis lost nearly ...5 days ago
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A series of frantic text messages from Andrew Bayly to government staffers amid scrutiny over his actions at a winery have been revealed. ...4 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Grantham, Lecturer in Communication, Griffith University Shutterstock The federal government’s proposed social media ban for under-16s has sparked widespread debate, affecting millions of young Australians, their families and educators. But will it actually work? While the aim behind this ban ...7 hours ago - Ant stings can be painful. Here’s how to avoid getting stung this summer (and what to do if you do...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Robinson, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland AG-PHOTOS/Shutterstock With the start of summer just days away, many of us will be looking forward to long sunny days spent at the beach, by the pool, out ...7 hours ago
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The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26) The slight, superb winner of the Booker Prize ...10 hours ago
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The prime minister says it wasn't appropriate behaviour but that Erica Stanford had apologised. ...11 hours ago
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The first arrest was made just three minutes after midnight, with 11 more to come. ...12 hours ago
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The committee plans to hold hearings in the week starting Monday, 27 January and the weeks starting 10, 17 and 24 February 2025. ...13 hours ago
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It comes as Labour accuses National of not listening to evidence about boot camps. ...13 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matej Lipar, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University Author provided/Google Earth Earlier this year, a caver was poring over satellite images of the Nullarbor Plain when he came across something unexpected: an enormous, mysterious scar etched ...15 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney Once located 250 metres to the east of the Art Gallery of South Australia, the grand beaux-arts style Jubilee Exhibition Building was constructed to house the ...15 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annette Greenhow, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Bond University Linda George/Shutterstock The ten-year anniversary of the death of much-loved Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes falls on November 27. The 25-year-old’s life was tragically cut short in 2014 when a bouncer ...15 hours ago
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Treasury likely to downgrade economic forecast while Chris Bishop says the government won’t be ‘a slave to a surplus’, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Recession will be deeper and last longer — Treasury At a recent Spinoff ...16 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Gomes-Ng, Senior Lecturer of Psychology, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Former New Zealand prime minister John Key has three white rabbits painted on his helicopter, a nod to his “massively superstitious” habit of repeating “white rabbits” three times at ...17 hours ago
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The coalition has "absolutely no intention of listening to the evidence that comes out of their experiment", Labour MP says. ...18 hours ago
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Labour claims Government is ‘cherry-picking’ smoking trends data to hide decade-first increase in daily smokers The post Smoke and mirrors in tobacco debate appeared first on Newsroom. ...18 hours ago - Smoke and mirrors in heated tobacco debate
Labour claims Government is ‘cherry-picking’ smoking trends data to hide decade-first increase in daily smokers The post Smoke and mirrors in heated tobacco debate appeared first on Newsroom. ...18 hours ago
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The Government’s economic adviser is sending a message it doesn’t want to hear – superannuation is increasingly unaffordable The post Treasury bangs the drum on ‘unsustainable’ superannuation appeared first on Newsroom. ...18 hours ago
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A man abused by a former political figure is "immensely relieved" at a government proposal to end secrecy around sex offenders' identities. ...18 hours ago
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There is plenty yet to play out, but the next election is at this rate shaping up as trio versus trio, writes Toby Manhire. A subplot of this week’s historic hīkoi mō te Tiriti has been the sight of the three opposition parties presenting a unified front. Te Pāti Māori ...19 hours ago
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
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Whether you’re Christian and into the whole death, redemption, and resurrection story
…pretty sure that one’s Easter Steve
Yup, Merry Christmas all (from far away).
Yeah, nice thoughts, Steve.
Complaints of the season to you all. (Joking)
Seriously though, I hope all you Standardistas have a great holiday season. Thanks for all your work this year from a newbie who’s really enjoying the environment ’round here.
Cheers
DW
Yes. Ejoy and thanks Steve.
I still want to back my calendar idea where November the 40th goes straight to Jan 1st and just make January a bit longer.
atavism. Yeah, but Christmas is also ultimately about his death because that’s the important part of whole story of Jesus, which when it boils down is ‘we’re bad lots of the time but we can be good, let’s try to be good’
Cheers Steve, enjoy a well earned break. (And all the other standardistas too of course)
Hey Ian I quite like the sound of that. Do you have a pamphlet I could subscribe to perhaps?
Christmas ? Seems like a good time to watch this
http://www.storyofstuff.com
The great thing about being a leftie is you can pick and choose when to support market economies. When there’s not enough jobs or the pay and conditions aren’t good enough, then you without exception expect the market to perform one way or the other.
The point you miss of course is that if people stop buying full stop then the economy will tank and jobs will be lost etc. Not all the economy relies on people buying at Xmas but any jobs lost still hurt.
On the other hand, I can accept what you are saying about rampant consumerism – in principle, spending your money on things you don’t need doesn’t seem like a great idea.
Anyway, I think I;ve agreed with one of your comments all year but that doesn’t mean I haven’t looked forward to your posts which often have well-thought out and reasoned discussion which I normally happen to disagree with.
Enjoy your break – I plan to do just that!
Steve, you old Grinch. You wouldn’t begrudge the captains of industry their bonuses, would you? Like the bank executives who hoovered up $US1.6 billion in bonuses while they took the taxpayers’ money because their banks were insolvent?
$1.6 billion barely buys a superyacht nowadays.
Shame on you, at a time when we should all be giving.
But Merry Christmas nonetheless.
Firstly, as I’m fond of telling people on the left: The left, far more than the right, is a collection of very disparate views, and we’re only unified in any sense because of our agreement that right-wing views tend to damage society more than they help it. You don’t get to make categorical statements about the left, as it’s composed of animal rights activists, environmentalists, socialists, social democrats, feminists, queer rights activists, unions, workers, transnationalists, supporters of free markets, anti-consumerists… and I’m sure there’s far, far more.
The Left in general can’t be inconsistent because it’s not a single person with a single set of principles, nor do we all claim to be. Now, an individual such as Steve can be inconsistent, or an arguement can be inconsistent, or a movement’s principles can be inconsistent. But leftism is nothing more than a catch-all label for people who view society as progressing away from something. We don’t all agree as to what it is, but we know the status quo is not enough.
People won’t stop buying full-stop short of being afraid to leave their homes. I doubt an economic recession would do that. We don’t need the Herald telling us to shop shop shop to stop the recession, in fact, in the long term taking their advice would be bad for our economy as it would increase our foreign creditors. Our problem in New Zealand is not that we don’t spend enough, it’s that half of the stuff we can buy involves sending our money overseas.
This is brilliant.
That’s all I wanted to say, really.
[lprent: It probably would be – but there isn’t a link there 😈 ]
Buggered off work early today and drove out to Riversdale beach. Stunningly beautiful day with no wind and the perfect temperature and only a handful of people about. Stuffed the boot full of big fat bull kelps for the garden and walked a few hours the length of the beach, while my daydreams were walking the length of the PCT. Ah well idle fantasies are free.
Many thanks everyone, especially SP, Tane, IrishBill and Dancer for all the great work. Lots of stuff I’ve really enjoyed reading, but I hold back from saying so at the time, cos it gets naff if you overdo it. In the end though we finish up undercooking the credit that is due… so here is one great big one to make up for all the little ones that got away.
Although I possess a religious bent, oddly enough I’m not a big fan of Christmas. It would be better if the whole commercialised hoha was dropped and the entire thing given back to the Christians to celebrate the actual birth of Christ in both joy and dignity. I tend to go a bit anti-materialism in reaction to it. This year I don’t have a big family thing do (were saving it till later in Jan), so my Christmas lunch will be baked beans on toast in the spirit of pure cussed contrarianism.
In a way I find it a shame that in the southern hemisphere the Dec/Jan period is an overstuffed mish-mash of ‘end of the business/school year’, Christmas, the annual family reunion, the major piss-up at New Year, the long annual leave/school holidays all jammed into one credit card murdering, liver rotting, sanity sapping burst of madness. Each one of these events would be better appreciated if somehow we spread them out over the annual calendar more. Too many families crack up under the stress of it all, and I can’t see the sense in that. It is families that matter the most. Lots of people who cannot make up their minds if they do not see enough of their family, or too much as it is. The presents, the food, the booze and partying is not so important; your attention and love is.
Many thanks for a great year. (Especially to our bastard sysop from hell, without whom none of us would be permitted to exist.) Next year is full of challenging portents. I’ve no idea what the hell is going to happen, but whatever it is, I think it will change us all. And we are all going to need each other to get through it, family, friends, neighbours and community.
I love you all. RedLogix
Marilyn Manson in his awseome comments in Bowling for Columbine puts it well saying something along the lines of “Everyone just tells you to consume, consume and consume”
Respect skyrocketed after listening to that guy chat to michael moore. Not so sure about the music tho :S
Goddamn formatting thingy wouldn’t go away. Damn these unable-to-hand-code wusses that need such toys 😛
Try this.
RedLogix:
You’re a demon occupying the body of a priest with a thing for choirboys?
😀
Yes Rex, and the best thing is that I’ve got the priest believing that I am his only hope for salvation.
And then I see today’s front page is screaming NZ’s current account deficit “soars to dangerous levels” (despite it being higher in March 2006 than it is now).
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10549394
Is the Herald’s mission statement “To confuse and mislead readers at every opportunity”, or is it just that they haven’t got a clue what they’re doing from one day to the next?