General Debate 2 February 2009

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aardvark

I’m surprised David hasn’t mentioned the fact that The Companies Office is about to invest a fist-full of taxpayers money in setting up a presence on Twitter and Facebook.

I’ve blogged about this today (second half of the page) and believe it’s an utter waste of taxpayers money — driven by a group of “bright young things” who perhaps see the chance to fritter/twitter away their time online at the taxpayers expense.

How many company directors *really* use Twitter and what percentage of new company registrants are part of “the Facebook Generation”?

[DPF: I suggest you send your story to the Minister of Econ Dev who is looking for cost savings :-)]
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February 2, 2009 8:53am
dime

i have to admit, i have no idea what twitter is… but, i am one of the few that doesnt like facebook..

why dont you like facebook Dime?

well, two reasons. Firstly, i’m already in contact with my friends from school. why would i want to hear from the people i never liked?

second – who the hell wants all their worlds coming together in one place? Dime’s life is a house of cards that can come crashing down at any time!
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February 2, 2009 9:26am
GerryandthePM

Paula Bennett has made news headlines twice in recent weeks.
The first for breaking up a brawl, in a public place, involving a large number of intoxicated and disorderly youths.
The second for supervising bail conditions of an out-of-control young man, taking him into her home. Given his relationship with her daughter this was probably not her easiest option, but certainly one that seems to be lacking elsewhere in our least caring communities.
Both involved actions that few of us would be prepared to take.
Both involved a degree of risk and personal discomfort for Paula Bennett herself.
That she has the courage, and the will for a better society than we now have, suggests that on a human level she may be just a little bit better than the rest of us.
Why would we not want someone with those strong human qualities sharing her drive for a better community on our behalf?
The letters she wrote,to a sentencing judge and a parole board, indicate a level of commitment to turning this bad guy around that the politically ambitious would never offer.
To brand this as naivety is to mock the decency that we should be applauding.
If she is unsuited to the political role she has been given, that is not due to her lack of judgement, but to a lack of judgement by those who have given her such a position.
That judgement, which attracted some criticism when she was appointed, assured us that Paula Bennett had a strength of character that would benefit Government’s push for a better society.
If the “chatter” in the news media about Paula Bennett’s unfitness to serve our nation is all it takes to derail the confidence placed in her, then we deserve the consequent maelstrom that will eventually consume us all.
I am starting to admire this woman.
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February 2, 2009 10:09am
dime

The chance she took by offering residence to a piece of garbage with a violent history who beat someone half to death.. yea, great judgement.

i suspect it has more to do with her nutter daughter than anything.
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February 2, 2009 10:21am
CraigM

From the Herald this morning:

“The Labour Party won the 1999 general election and Helen Clark began the first of three terms as Prime Minister of New Zealand. She was the country’s first elected woman Prime Minister and the Labour Party’s longest serving leader. During her time in power she became known for her intimate knowledge of policy and strength of leadership – creating a loyal and obedient executive…..”

Clark was the second women elected Prime Minister. This is not a republic, we do not elect our leaders. The political party’s do that and we vote for the party and the individual MP. The ruling party has the ability to give us a new PM on any given day should they so choose. Why does the Herald deliberately tell a lie?

Creating a loyal and obendiant executive ? you mean apart form all the people she had sacked and the criminal but loyal ones she didn’t! It wasn’t loyalty, it was fear. Fear of losing the baubles if they didn’t tow the line.

“She became known for her “……..fair claim, but they left out arrogance, lies, deceipt and dishonesty. Also her pathological hatred of all things non socialist in nature.

Butt kissing liars.
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February 2, 2009 10:25am
PhilBest

“Beware the Liberal Fascists; the Leaders who Aim to ‘Save’ us by Controlling Everything We Do”

By Jonah Goldberg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1104687/Beware-liberal-fascists–leaders-aim-save-controlling-do.html

“…..Over the course of his presidency, President George W. Bush and his supporters have been called fascists and Nazis thousands of times in books, articles, documentaries and by legions of poster-wielding ‘progressive’ youths with open-toed shoes and closed minds.
Of course, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. For more than 70 years the Left has hurled the F-word at anyone who gets in its way – Stalin invented this tactic to de-legitimise socialist opponents, including Leon Trotsky, assassinated for leading a ‘fascist coup’.

As early as 1946, George Orwell wrote that: ‘The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable”.’
Today, a better working definition of a fascist might simply be a conservative who’s winning an argument. But what if fascism means something more than ‘bad’. What if fascism was not, and is not, a Right-wing phenomenon at all?

For instance, what were the motivating passions of fascism? For starters, there was the cult of unity. The Nazis mastered the spectacle of the crowd to project an aura of unity, equality and common purpose. Submitting yourself to the movement was sold as a cleansing, redemptive, fundamentally spiritual experience.

Such spectacles were made possible by the cult of personality, the faith that a great leader would rise from among ‘us’ and bring everyone together. Well, where have we recently seen enormous rallies of ecstatic followers?
According to The New York Times, Barack Obama’s own recruiters were trained not to talk about issues, but to ‘testify’ about how they ‘came to Obama’ the way one might normally talk about coming to Jesus.
‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,’ Obama told mesmerised crowds. ‘Unity is the great need of the hour,’ he insisted. We need unity, he explained, ‘not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it’s the only way we can overcome the essential [empathy] deficit that exists in this country’.
Or as his wife, Michelle, put it: ‘We need a leader who’s going to touch our souls because, you see, our souls are broken.’
It’s worth noting that in the Anglo-American tradition, unity is not, in fact, the highest political value. That’s why we have constitutions, separation of powers and independent courts. The hero in the Anglo-American tradition is not the mob, but the man who stands up to it.

And yet the cult of unity remains seductive, particularly in chaotic democracies. One way it manifests itself is in the myth of the Third Way, one of Tony Blair’s enthusiasms.

It’s ironic how the Left is always ready to brand a conservative who steps off the politically correct reservation as a fascist, but sees nothing wrong with embracing concepts that fit neatly within the fascist wheelhouse……

“……The trouble with the Third Way is its core assumption that any hard choice is a ‘false choice’.
Economic growth and environmental regulations, socialised medicine and medical innovation, none of these things is at odds with one another so long as the right enlightened geniuses are in power……”
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February 2, 2009 11:46am
PhilBest

From “Why Be A Nation Of Mortgage Slaves”? by Ramsey Su in the Wall Street Journal

“…..What is the market telling us? Dataquick recently released December sales data for Southern California, once the hotbed of speculative excesses supported by nontraditional financing. Foreclosures now dominate sales. Prices are down. Sales volume is up. New home construction is down. These are beautiful textbook illustrations of supply and demand driving price and market equilibrium.

Toxic financing abruptly stopped during the spring of 2007. By that summer, there were no more 100% financing, negative amortization option ARMs, piggyback seconds, or the now-infamous NINJA (no income no job no assets) loans. Even though real-estate prices have continued to decline, post summer 2007 purchases are by a different class of buyers financed by loans with much tighter underwriting guidelines. We are at a crossroads. The time line of the default and foreclosure cycle is about to hit 2007 vintage loans. If the default rate on them is lower than for loans made from 2004 to early 2007, it would be the confirmation of a turning point.

Foreclosures provide the foundation of recovery, both for Main Street and Wall Street. As properties are foreclosed, they can move from weak hands to strong hands. Households that have been foreclosed upon today are the buyers of tomorrow, when given a chance to recover.

The replacement of credit flow is not all about money. It is about a new system of delivery that will provide clean guidelines, so there will be a reliable source for borrowers based on sound underwriting standards and a product that fixed-income investors have confidence in buying.

With the government in total control of the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this is the perfect opportunity to reform the secondary market.

Finally, loan modification is not only ineffective, it is evil. Coercing borrowers to continue paying a mortgage on a home that is hopelessly overvalued and not informing them of alternatives is predatory lending.

The media should interview those who had been foreclosed upon. Do they feel sorry or relieved? Are they rebuilding their credit, not to mention their lives? Do they miss the pressure of having to make payments they cannot afford on a McMansion that belongs to the lender?

The intent of modification programs to date is to create a generation of mortgage slaves. Fortunately, mortgage slaves can free themselves via foreclosure, and the masses are choosing to do so.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123336541474235541.html?mod=djemEditorialPage#printMode
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February 2, 2009 11:48am
PhilBest

“Bush Hatred and Obama Euphoria Are Two Sides of the Same Coin” by Peter Berkowitz in the Wall Street Journal:

“……Hatred of Mr. Bush went well beyond the partisan broadsides typical of democratic politics. For years it disfigured its victims with open, indeed proud, loathing for the very manner in which Mr. Bush walked and talked. It compelled them to denounce the president and his policies as not merely foolish or wrong or contrary to the national interest, but as anathema to everything that made America great.

In contrast, the euphoria surrounding Mr. Obama’s run for president conferred upon the candidate immunity from criticism despite his newness to national politics and lack of executive experience, and regardless of how empty his calls for change. At the same time, it inspired those in its grips, repeatedly bringing them tears of joy throughout the long election season. With Mr. Obama’s victory in November and his inauguration last week, it suffused them with a sense that not only had the promise of America at last been redeemed but that the world could now be transfigured.

In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria — which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed — are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish…..

“……Bush hatred and Obama euphoria are particularly toxic because they thrive in and have been promoted by the news media, whose professional responsibility, it has long been thought, is to gather the facts and analyze their significance, and by the academy, whose scholarly training, it is commonly assumed, reflects an aptitude for and dedication to systematic study and impartial inquiry.

From the avalanche of vehement and ignorant attacks on Bush v. Gore and the oft-made and oft-refuted allegation that the Bush administration lied about WMD in Iraq, to the remarkable lack of interest in Mr. Obama’s career in Illinois politics and the determined indifference to his wrongness about the surge, wide swaths of the media and the academy have concentrated on stoking passions rather than appealing to reason.

Some will speculate that the outbreak of hatred and euphoria in our politics is the result of the transformation of left-liberalism into a religion, its promulgation as dogma by our universities, and students’ absorption of their professors’ lesson of immoderation. This is unfair to religion.

At least it’s unfair to those forms of biblical faith that teach that God’s ways are hidden and mysterious, that all human beings are both deserving of respect and inherently flawed, and that it is idolatry to invest things of this world — certainly the goods that can be achieved through politics — with absolute value. Through these teachings, biblical faith encourages skepticism about grand claims to moral and political authority and an appreciation of the limits of one’s knowledge, both of which well serve liberal democracy.

In contrast, by assembling and maintaining faculties that think alike about politics and think alike that the university curriculum must instill correct political opinions, our universities cultivate intellectual conformity and discourage the exercise of reason in public life. It is not that our universities invest the fundamental principles of liberalism with religious meaning — after all the Declaration of Independence identifies a religious root of our freedom and equality. Rather, they infuse a certain progressive interpretation of our freedom and equality with sacred significance, zealously requiring not only outward obedience to its policy dictates but inner persuasion of the heart and mind. This transforms dissenters into apostates or heretics, and leaders into redeemers.

Consequently, though Bush hatred may weaken as the 43rd president minds his business back home in Texas, and while Obama euphoria may fade as the 44th president is compelled to immerse himself in the daunting ambiguities of power, our universities will continue to educate students to believe that hatred and euphoria reflect political wisdom……”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123336391229335459.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
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February 2, 2009 11:53am
PhilBest

Apologies for the pastes, I won’t do any more.

Viking2, I noticed belatedly, your defence of “Smart Growth” in Tauranga the other day. You’re one of the brightest on Kiwiblog; I’d like to give you some more recommendations on this subject. For a start:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/00452-the-housing-bubble-and-boomer-generation

Author Bruegmann describes “The greatest intergenerational wealth transfer in history”; from the young first home buyer to the old home owner. This may well be the prime reason for decreasing social mobility and increasing inequality that the Left makes so much fuss about.

I understand your point and Blue Devil’s too, about places like Tauranga having natural restrictions on development; but this is a chicken or egg argument; why do such places also “need” “Smart Growth” policies if the natural restrictions are already reason for housing unaffordability and supply shortage?

Also, it tends to be a regional or countrywide problem. Places like Tauranga or Los Angeles get away with restrictions on development longer than they might if it wasn’t for the same restrictions having a similar result in all the places that people might live as an alternative. Unfortunately NZ has not one city with “affordable” housing. Neither does California; but then California loses a lot of people every year who are simply priced out of living there.

Some popular acronyms in the USA are:
“ABC”: “Anywhere But California”
“GTT”: “Gone To Texas”

So yes, the existing residents of Tauranga might be happy with their lot; but there is a strong case to be made for central government action to ensure that at least in some parts of NZ there are both jobs and affordable houses for young strugglers to move to. This would actually take the pressure off Tauranga and all the other places that decide to run with “unaffordability”.
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February 2, 2009 12:30pm
PhilBest

Sorry, one more thing from the Wall Street Journal that is too good not to point out:

“Look at the Time” by Peggy Noonan

“……Nine days after inauguration, the new president achieves a major Congressional victory, House passage of an economic stimulus bill by a vote of 244-188. It wasn’t even close. This is major.

But do you know anyone, Democrat or Republican, dancing in the street over this? You don’t. Because most everyone knows it isn’t a good bill, and knows that its failure to receive a single Republican vote, not one, suggests the old battle lines are hardening. Back to the Crips versus the Bloods. Not very inspiring.

The president will enjoy short-term gain. In the great circle of power, to win you have to look like a winner, and to look like a winner you have to win. He did and does. But for the long term, the president made a mistake by not forcing the creation of a bill Republicans could or should have supported…….

“……..The final bill was privately agreed by most and publicly conceded by many to be a big, messy, largely off-point and philosophically chaotic piece of legislation. The Congressional Budget Office says only 25% of the money will even go out in the first year. This newspaper, in its analysis, argues that only 12 cents of every dollar is for something that could plausibly be called stimulus.

What was needed? Not pork, not payoffs, not eccentric base-pleasing, group-greasing forays into birth control as stimulus, as the speaker of the House dizzily put it before being told to remove it.

“Business as usual.” “That’s Washington.” But in 2008 the public rejected business as usual. That rejection is part of what got Obama elected.

Instead the air of D.C. dithering continues, and this while the Labor Department reported Thursday what everyone knew was coming, increased unemployment. The number of continuing claims for unemployment insurance as of Jan. 17 was 4.78 million, the highest in the 42 years they’ve been keeping records. Starbucks, Time Warner, Home Depot, Pfizer: The AP’s count is 125,000 layoffs since January began…..

“…….I think there is an illness called GoldmanSachs Head. I think it’s in the DSM. When you have GoldmanSachs Head, the party’s never over. You take private planes to ask for bailout money, you entertain customers at high-end spas while your writers prep your testimony, you take and give huge bonuses as the company tanks. When you take the kids camping, you bring a private chef. GoldmanSachs Head is Bernie Madoff complaining he’s feeling cooped up in the penthouse. It is the delusion that the old days continue and the old ways prevail and you, Prince of the Abundance, can just keep rolling along. Here is how you know if someone has GSH: He has everything but a watch. He doesn’t know what time it is.

I remember the father in the movie script of “Dr. Zhivago,” inviting what’s left of his family, huddled in rooms in what had been their mansion, picking up the stump of a stogie and inviting them to watch the lighting of “the last cigar in Moscow.”

When you have GSH, you never think it’s the last cigar.

But you don’t have to be on Wall Street to have GSH. Congress has it too. That’s what the stimulus bill was about—not knowing what time it is, not knowing the old pork-barrel, group-greasing ways are over, done, embarrassing. When you create a bill like that, it doesn’t mean you’re a pro, it doesn’t mean you’re a tough, no-nonsense pol. It means you’re a slob.

That’s how the Democratic establishment in the House looks, not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis. Our hopeful, compelling new president shouldn’t have gone with this bill. He made news this week by going to the House to meet with Republicans. He could have made history by listening to them…..”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123326587231330357.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
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February 2, 2009 1:08pm
beanee

From memory there was a thread on the 14 year old pregnant girl caught drink driving last week.

Well, bugger me – she’s at it again!!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10554739

I’m sure they’ll give her a fmily group conference and send her on her way again.

While only loosely associated with this, what are the rules around 14 year olds being pregnant? Surely someone should be charged with statutory rape or sex with a minor or something??? The same goes for the young chap the police mistakingly shot a couple of weeks back – he was 17 with a 2 year child.
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February 2, 2009 1:18pm
vibenna

I’m calling for a freeze on the minimum wage. If you’re interested, you can see my logic at vibenna.wordpress.com
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February 2, 2009 1:21pm
greenfly

vibenna – that’s small change – Act want the minimum wage to be set at 0%. Does this place them at the outermost edge of New Zealand society, or what!? Having them embedded in the present government is unsettling for all but the most rabid amongst us.

[DPF: Not that I advocate a zero minimum wage, but one can advocate no minimum wage without this meaning you want people to be paid $1 an hour. Benefit levels already provide a de facto minimum wage, and most wages get set by the market – basically that if you are not paid enough you go elsewhere. Now I know in practice it is not that simple, but neither is simply concluding those against a minimum wage are extremists.]
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February 2, 2009 1:35pm
getstaffed

I know how you feel greenfly. Having a rag-tag bunch of uber-socialists, communists, Trotskyists, anti-business clowns and assorted druggies working the levers of power over the last 9 years has been unsettling.
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February 2, 2009 1:51pm
grumpyoldhori

Jeez, there is one bloody thing that makes me real bloody ratty it is bloody fools who argue for no minimum wage yet they want other tax payers to fund their workers housing bloody costs.
Hell people, good wages are good business, it means other workers can afford to buy your goods and services.
And no, bloody wages do not go up automatically with productivity, that is a myth.
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February 2, 2009 2:23pm
greenfly

getstaffed – I take it you are speaking for ‘the most rabid amongst us’. Keen on 0% are you? Or do you favour a 0% increase? These are exciting times for those on the minimum wage presently – what’ll it be, what’ll it be ??? The ‘minor’ parties, bar Act, were all keen on 15%, but we are expecting a change of tune from Te Pati Maori over this decision. Hope I’m way wrong.
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February 2, 2009 2:24pm
dime

A Kenyan half brother of US President Barack Obama said he was briefly arrested at his home in a slum on suspicion of drugs possession.

“I think it was a misunderstanding. I do not do drugs,” George Hussein Obama, 27, said from Nairobi’s Huruma slum, where he was picked up for a few hours on Saturday.

“They released me with no charge.”

Local media quoted police saying Obama, who works as a mechanic, had been found with two rolls of marijuana.

Kenya’s leading newspaper, the Nation, said he would be charged in court on Monday.

But Obama said that was untrue, and police officials refused to comment.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” area police chief Jasper Ombati said, before hanging up the phone.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

so, your ethe post powerful guy in the world.. youre cashed up… youve got a half brother living in poverty, sure ya hardly know him.. but still.. wouldnt ya set him up? either at home or in the US????

can he even afford a blackberry to chat with his big bro?
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February 2, 2009 2:28pm
vibenna

Well, I argue that the minimum wage is currently rocketing up. It’s purchasing power is increasing hugely with drops in petrol prices, interest rates, and signs of deflationary environment.
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February 2, 2009 2:28pm
wreck1080

I see some former Feltex directors are facing charges.

How did these people ruin a great company like feltex? I wonder if they have been hired as directors to any other companies?
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February 2, 2009 2:31pm
wikiriwhis business

“Well, I argue that the minimum wage is currently rocketing up. It’s purchasing power is increasing hugely with drops in petrol prices, interest rates, and signs of deflationary environment.”

All you gotta do is get a job and you’re laughing.
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February 2, 2009 2:38pm
wikiriwhis business

Have the results from the Iraqi voting come thru yet?
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February 2, 2009 2:45pm
Rex Widerstrom

dime notes:

A Kenyan half brother of US President Barack Obama said he was briefly arrested at his home in a slum on suspicion of drugs possession.

Just in case any of us were actually missing Jimmy and Billy Carter, we now get the African American version, with dope rather than beer. I think that’s meant to be seen as “progress”.
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February 2, 2009 3:09pm
Hagues

dime “so, your ethe post powerful guy in the world.. youre cashed up… youve got a half brother living in poverty, sure ya hardly know him.. but still.. wouldnt ya set him up? either at home or in the US????”

Come on dime socialism is all about giving away other people’s money not your own!
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February 2, 2009 4:13pm
phobius

Just saw this story about Mary Anne Thompson

‘Former immigration boss Thompson in court’

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10554744
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February 2, 2009 4:58pm
wikiriwhis business

wow,,

another socialist in court.

could there be another?

The Labour party pres was looking for a job. Why do they find getting employment so hard?

Socialist policies don’t work in the real world?

Labour: its not the real thing.
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February 2, 2009 5:35pm
OECD rank 22 kiwi

A little chilly in London today.
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February 3, 2009 3:49am
OECD rank 22 kiwi

The thought of Helen Clark being unceremoniously booted out of office on 8 November 2008 warms me up though. 😀

What a day that was!!! 😆
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February 3, 2009 3:57am
OECD rank 22 kiwi

DPF, You forgot to add “WELLINGTON” to your poll of shit cities?
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February 3, 2009 4:38am
wikiriwhis business

“While only loosely associated with this, what are the rules around 14 year olds being pregnant? Surely someone should be charged with statutory rape or sex with a minor or something??? The same goes for the young chap the police mistakingly shot a couple of weeks back – he was 17 with a 2 year child.”

Where are you from?

16 is the age of consent and the police do not follow up cases of teens (under 16’s) having sex.
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February 3, 2009 1:52pm
wikiriwhis business

“A little chilly in London today.”

I was thinking bout the homeless in London

How come the media aren’t?
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February 3, 2009 1:53pm

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