Posts by DexterX
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Listen Capitalism has been doing some pretty heavy things over the years right, and it has got to start getting beautiful or this planet is headed for oblivion.
Blaming Capitalism is like being afraid of the dark.
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OnPoint: If Wishes Were Horses..., in reply to mattgeeknz,
DexterX: there's no way I'd invest in a KiwiSaver fund that was up to its eyeballs in punts on commercial real estate. If you do your research you don't have to either.
What I am saying is that investment in prime realty is what the coporations do with what they make offf the Flying Monkey Depositors.
I trust a well-regulated KiwiSaver provider that properly discloses its fees and investment strategy to look after my retirement savings than I do the government..
I don't trust either - I have worked in the industry.
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Lets make it compulsory to prop up the Flying Monkey Deposits Industry (Managed Fund Industry) so that when they spank those "Flying Monkey Deposits" in your face and you get to live with that failure - then all the monkey depositors can run to the taxpayer to save them.
What blows about the "Flying Monkey Deposits Industry” is that most of what they make from doing what they do they put into prime commercial real estate ventures - Flying Monkey Depositors may be stupid - but the Flying Monkey Deposits Industry is not.
Like - Wow total wipe-out.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Suppress the Occupy movement and make no meaningful reform and the next response will be a pendulum swing to the Red Army Faction, mark my words.
I hope it doesn't become a bonfire of hate or swing as far as you suggest.
The powers of the police and the state in the USA are pretty scary.
The Bastion Point protestors were forcibly removed - if NZ had the "technology" back then as in pepper spray then yes it would have gone that way rather than just dragging people off.
The difference between the mid 1970s and now is that I don't feel there is the drive in government to provide what I would call social equity or to address a deep injustice by setting the things right. Which is what has largely been attempted with the Waitiangi Tribunal. In saying that I feel the same is true for both major parties - Labour and the foreshore issue – yes lets extinguish a ppty right at law for Maori to win and election that they didn’t win.
The Occupy movement in the states is perhaps in the same place as those wanting to bring an end to entrenched and legislated racism in America in the 1950s and 1960s.
I hope the occupy movement perseveres.
Two things that are nonsense are Bernard Hickey’s list and people saying to the Occupy movement that they don’t speak for 99% of us. This misses the point – I am the 99% - I am part of the group that aren’t the 1% that are the problem.
Since I am talking about social equity I will say that after the 9 years of Labour it is surprising – not – how little the lot of workers has been enhanced or protected at law – it is surprising how little National have to roll back – before they roll out “the big agenda” in their next term.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The Occupy movement will have more influence on the political process in the USA and Europe. The failure of governance to represent the wider public interest is the issue.
Watching this Melbourne Removal reminded me of Bastion Point January 1977 to May 1978 and the Long March in 1975 - the Maori Land March.
Bastion Point is a gift to the nation fgained by protest and occupation and one for which I am grateful. Occupation and protest to get things started and bring them to a head is something I support.
A bit of a background to Bastion Point - which is basically as my father related the situation and treatment of Ngati Whatua to me when I asked what was goin gon at age 16.
Click the "from you tube" link to view.
It is interesting the comment made on title to land - many of the old rice paper titles issued in the estatern susburbs of Auckland had a restiction on them that the title for the Land could not be owned by Non Europeans. -
Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Sacha,
Lack of competence.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to BenWilson,
Why shouldn't we turn our backs on a slide into inequitable poverty and reckless resource depletion, and privatisation of many things we spent my whole life paying for?
What is the “slide into inequitable poverty and reckless resource depletion of which you speak?
Thought the Lange Labour Govt kicked off the process where the best bits got sold for peanuts.
The thing about any debt is what you use it for, what it gives you back and can you pay it back - they are the relevant questions?
If I took a simplistic view of what you are expressing it is that you want to liberate the nation through more taxation.
The Vogel government doubled govt debt to provide for rail, roads, telegraph and other stuff and to do this they doubled public debt. By 1891 37.5% of Public Debt was concerned with rail development.
Without competent management whether an enterprise is publicly or privately owned or funded by public or private debt extreme wastage of resources and time can be the result regardless of the profit the or loss the enterprise delivers.
If you took the massive dartboard of opportunity or possible outcomes that managing the economy presents and threw the darts Labour or National at it they would land pretty much in the same place.
In my view it is a blind marriage to the Party Political viewpoint and ideology that perpetuates the incompetence that stuffs things up. It is tiresome living in the land of the perpetual infrastructure failure – and I note that now hte gas supply North of New Plymouth is failing/has failed.
It is a shame with the vote we have coming up that neither of the main choices have delivered much in the way of competence (in government or opposition).
To answer my earlier question, “What actually drives the economy?” the answer is people and the choices they make.
I could say that people leaning Labour want to make the choices for you and people leaning National want to take the choice away from you – but I won’t because it is to general. They are visionless lot of self serving clods.
As regards the sun as a driver of the economy – it was a great day yesterday I spent the evening at the beach.
Face it the only really solution you have is to put me in charge – I think that deep down inside you know this to be true and you are wrestling with the internal turmoil this realisation creates for you. Such is life.
Be you own Sun King – that is what I say - you don't have to worship me as you oft are inclinded.
It is most excellent that our votes if cast will cancel each other out and account for nothing.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to BenWilson,
What do you see as the downside of a Financial Transactions Tax?
That it is wishful thinking and won't happen as well as it is just plain bullshit which is why Social credit aren't around.
to even think that strikes me as a perfect statement of what is wrong with our political economic discourse. To make a binary out of socialism vs capitalism, when it's actually just a matter of broken or working capitalism, is precisely the kind of foolishness that put us where we are now.
What put us where we are now and where in fact are we - please tell?
Believe me when I say you don't know what I think and you don't get where I am coming from.
Looking back from that point - the point of where we are now - It is interseting that :
"as a direct result of privatisin public companies through out NZ, the countries debt was reduced from 67% of GDP in 1984 to 60% of GDP in 1994..(Fisher 199)
So what happened to public debt, during the 9 years of Labour, as a % of GDP and why?
Does any of the tinkering suggested in the wish list actually do much of anyhting?
What really drives the economy?
Consider these questions and you might make more sense of things.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to BenWilson,
Bernard's suggestions are very reasonable.
I don't feel there is much of any worth in Bernard's list.
The list if executed creates, to my mind, a super socialist state that rewards the failure of governance with a larger tax take and thus a greater buffer for bureaucratic incompetence and wastage.
If taxing land is an aswer then tax the air people breath as well and introduce a poll tax so that you get everyone that draw breath at least once.
The only item I would support is item 2.
Item 3 made me fall of my chair - join the European Push - yes that are so united at present - I hope I live long enough to have the Europeans actually meet a decision deadline - I would live long life and hopefully eventually prosper.
IItem 7 makes me laugh - so the USA is politcally Bankrupt and China is all "Honky Dory" so to speak.
Although I don't support the Bernard Hickey wish list - it is like an essay on what I did with my holiday - I do find merit in this clip.
It would be good to see Obama get another term and bring in some major reforms to the operation of Financial Markets and Institutions, I hope they are working on this in ernest right now, and that any such reforms if they prove worthy are taken on by Europe and the so called West.
The American people and the unreast in Europe will hopefully drive a "change" of sorts.
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On the game itself - although I am glad we won, it did not feel like we were watching a victory. When the French rampaged in the second half I was stunned and sat down and hand beat the cream for the pavlova.
I watch all the Super 15 and AB games I can with a mate Bryon, a Waikato stalwart, who when Colin Slade was selected for the ABs made the comment at the time that “Slade won’t last, Carter will get injured, and Stephen Donald will come on and kick the winning goal in the RWC Final, just you wait and see.” How right he turned out to be.
How lucky we were, the French played very well, and the last few minutes were an outstanding slugfest played very fairly by both teams.
Stephen Donald kicking well for field possession took heat out of the French rampage and he made a telling tackle late in the second half that SBW missed.
I loved Ma’a Nonu’s comments on Stephen Donald at the end of the coverage.
I am still in a state of shock when I think about it - that was a close run thing as one would ever want to see – two great teams.