If people were not rewarded for having the initiative to get off their arses and go do something, then we would still all be sitting around scratching our arses and waiting for someone else to go kill a wildebeest so that the rest of us could continue to sit around and pontificate on the inequity of inequality in material possessions, and rationalise our own shortcomings and envy on the basis that the State should own and control all means of production – including our minds.

Get over the fact that some people are more intelligent, motivated, responsible or possess more capacity to assume responsibility in a business conext than others. And that some people are just plain lucky and happen to be in the right place at the right time.

You seem to ignore the fact that a big chunk of the nasty capitalists that exploit “the workers” and get rich of the burden on their backs and the sweat of their brows, do so by putting themselves and the futures of their families on the line. Some of these people have literally started businesses in their back yards and expanded those businesses to provide employment. Anyone that has a problem with that should just fuck off and start their own business. IE, get off their arse and go find their own wildebeest.

Instead, we have the predictable lowest common denominator response. If there are a couple of arseholes in the barrel, then we should deal with the barrel on the basis that it is topped to the brim with arseholes. Same weary old pinko dogma that pervaded the way that we legislated for everything for the last nine years.

Those who had shares in Air New Zealand will not miss him. The taxpayers who will continue to sink money into KiwiRail will not miss him. Our children who bear the cost of 9 years of missed opportunities while the Government coasted in the good times and claimed credit where none were due, while they pissed away the chance of real productive growth, will not look kindly on him.

Kiwisaver, and the superannuation fund will remain as his best contribution to personal financial security. For those I thank him. But for the missed opportunity for real economic progress, I do not lament his passing.

“as I leave this place”

Good, fuck off, you will not be missed.

He wound up in labour because he is an envious miserable died in the wool commie who can’t get over the abuses of the industrial revolution and despises anyone who has created wealth.

Or he thinks that the people who create wealth are the people who do the work, rather than the people who make the investment.

What do blowflies hang around?

Blowflies aren’t choosy, as we saw with this particular blowfly.

“Is it possible that the real political potential of Micheal Cullen was lost due to his choice of party and those he had to work under?”

No

He wound up in labour because he is an envious miserable died in the wool commie who can’t get over the abuses of the industrial revolution and despises anyone who has created wealth.

Dead bodies, smellie rubbish, shit in general.

Next question; who was he hanging around?
Labour, Clark, Cullen all of whom allowed him to feed of their corpses amid the bad smell of corruption.

Epitaph to the Last Labour Govt.

P.S. The new Labour leader totally despised Peter’s. Told me so himself. So while Goff has struggled at least we have something in common there.

/s

Racer, whats your commenter name on the Stranded?

Go away pig fiddler, and panty sniffer!

They were nice lines, peppered with grace and humility. Is it possible that the real political potential of Micheal Cullen was lost due to his choice of party and those he had to work under? We’ll never know.

Possibly the Francis Urquhart that Garner and co never clicked on to.

I admire his wit and intellect – he is a loss to Parliament. I wish him all the best.

“To the Greens — good luck. But loosen up a bit; saving the planet needs to sound less like punishment for our sins if it is going to succeed.”

It was a long time in the coming, but I completely agreed with Dr. C on this point.

tvb wrote:

He revealed himself as a much bigger man than I expected. Whereas Helen Clark was a much smaller person than I expected or hoped for.

Agreed. I haven’t even bothered to listen to Helen’s valedictory (asides what I heard on the news) because I expected it to be dispassionate. But I’m going to listen to Cullen’s.

My opinion of Cullen is mixed; one day he would be rude and caustic and the next thoughtful and personable.

His performance as Minister of Finance was also mixed. Cullen is a fully signed up socialist yet implemented a pseudo-capitalist programme; when push came to shove he knew socialist policies wouldn’t work yet preached about them anyway. For example the KiwiSaver scheme (probably his biggest achievement) is hardly your topical left wing policy with the ability to choose your provider, opted in or opted out.. etc. He even started to pursue PPPs (private, public, partnerships).

However he did manage to tie thousands to the state through various other schemes which have become ingrained & will cost the country dearly when the chips are down (like now). Cullen also seemed to consider tax dollars ‘his’ money… rather than the tax payers.

Cullen also failed to explain his economic theory to me – the voter. In contrast Dr Brash did this very well by describing all the various cogs (productivity, employment etc) which make-up our economy and how they fit together. I think Cullen failed to do this because of his ideological conflicts. Not to mention he was a bit of an academic “you wouldn’t understand” snob.

All in all, I won’t miss Dr C. Aside from disagreements on economic issues the guy voted not to censure Winston and voted for the EFA. I also suspect he knew the trains were a rip-off but bowed to pressure from H2 – unacceptable!

What sanctimonious deceitful crap. You boast of following an ideology that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. You seek to impose a form of government that depends on thievery and the threat of death and violence to sustain it. You don’t even deserve to live in a democracy when you abuse the freedom of democracy to preach an ideology that seeks to destroy democracy. Don’t come on here with the holier than thou act you disgusting hypocrite. It won’t wash for a millisecond.

That’s why you’re a lefty, Sam. See, we conservatives have no worries about wishing early deaths on anyone. We do it all the time. I did it twice today.

You do the right no justice when you write horrible comments like this, Monty. I’m as red as they come, but there’s no way in a million years that I would wish an early death on, for example, those on the hard right.

“Decade of deficits” ring any bells, jarbury?

Oddly enough, Bill English on December 18th last year thought that the previous Labour government had left the books in pretty good shape.