Posts by BenWilson
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Paul I don't agree. I think the reason it's not done is because it sounds so lame and petty.
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International, you do have a point that everyone's allowed their spiel. The Herald does regularly publish Coddington, so I guess even Moore's troll isn't dropping the standard. I guess it's just that people don't expect ex-leaders of the country to make such a mockery of the position either by what they say, or how badly they say it.
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Che, I think he's lining up for his run at the leadership of ACT. As self-appointed 3rd fiddle to Douglas and Prebble, he is hampered only by having once been the leader of the Labour Party. But he can believably claim to have been a sleeper, having done more damage to Labour than good.
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I think Moore sees himself as the after-dinner raconteur, when he's actually more like the embarrassing uncle at the wedding.
Nice one. Kiwibloggers appear to be rushing to claim him as one of their own, suggesting to me that he's finally found his constituency.
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Stephen Judd is likely to be right. The billions against the market tanking are probably offset by billions against it rising, so they are simply covered against both eventualities, which makes it simply an interest rate trade.
Still interesting though, that such colossal amounts are even put into options deals. And needing to create such a spread is an indication that this investor thinks the market is very volatile.
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But Moore was a lawful and legitimate Prime Minister, and I don't see how the length of his residency atop the greasy poll, or the way he got there, bears any relationship to the quality (or otherwise) of his piece in Wednesday's Herald.
It's his biggest claim to any credibility, so contextualizing it is worthwhile. If he'd just been that guy who was once on the WTO, he might have thought it worthwhile to put a bit more effort into what he wrote, or the Herald might have taken more care about publishing it. But no, he trades on the former glory of having once been the PM. Putting exactly what kind of PM he was in context is not irrelevant. The shortest reigning one in NZ history, and particularly hypocritical in his little rag on HC over rolling Labour leaders due to the fact that was the only way he ever had a sniff at power.
So yeah, what he wrote was crap regardless. But it was also hypocritical crap from someone whose true place in the momentous events that he shits on from some non-existent moral highground is worth remembering. He's like a bitter old Muldoon himself, but nowhere near as witty or noteworthy. At least when Muldoon made snide comments in his failing years you would think "yup, at least he really knew about what went on in there". With Moore it's more like "riiight, the guy who realized his only shot at being the PM was doomed to last 3 months, but he took it anyway. He probably knows a lot about rolling predecessors, and not much else".
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Our shrine is that sacred place where we tick a box of our choosing with a sacred pen, thus discharging in full any responsibility we could possibly have about how our society is to be run. It's a cathartic moment for many. Others, like myself, see it as a symbolic act with little significance other than to ourselves.
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Say, Red, Blue, Green, Black and Purple? If the dancing involves body-slamming your partner on national TV, I think we're already there!
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All PM's are 'unelected' by the public, even HC. The only people to elect PMs are party caucuses.
True, but the common usage is to say that the PM was 'elected' if they were the leader of the party at the time of the election. So it's not really snide - it's a distinction that's not less important because it is less formal. Voting for the Prime Minister is actually one of the few things we feel like we're doing during our tri-annual "act like we're a democracy" festivities.
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Ideally ministers should know enough to be able to exercise some independent judgment on the technical issues that arise within their portfolio.
It also seems like a lot to ask, that a minister would have any level of detail about the technical issues of an entire ministry. The fact that who the ministers are can chop and change from year to year suggests what a 'management level' the ministers come in at. Police minister one year, telecommunications the next - I find it pretty hard to believe there are any people who are experts in both fields, least of all professional politicians.
The best they could really hope for is to have a team of people who have similar ideology, who actually are technically competent. I'm sure that's how most well run ministries work, and the really bad calls mostly happen when the minister actually thinks they are an expert in the field. Muldoon as Finance Minister is a good example, made especially bad by also being probably the most important portfolio, and also the Prime Minister, with the numerous other duties attached to that, and the hubris of power.
That's why I'm very wary of claims that John Key will run the economy better because of his background. Unless his background is managing a team of economists, it's probably just dangerous to think he has expertise that is relevant. Just because he has mastered surfing the money markets, doesn't mean he knows how to control the winds and the tides that make surf, or anything about the most ideal condition, flat water.
I'm personally a computer programmer, but can I run a large software company? That's unknown...
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